“You’re a funny old man and properly drunk, but I couldn’t agree more. What happened in Ryväskylä last week was so weird. I left your place to sort out what I already knew: I want to find out what really happened to my father – nothing else matters now. I owe it to my mother and to myself.”

Pekka looked at Mikael and waited.

“I couldn’t listen to your stories, knowing that the journal was gone and that I might never find out the truth. I was about to call you and come back to plan with you how to find out. Or at least learn more about my father from you.”

“Can I offer you a drink?” asked Pekka, now regarding Mikael with eyes that were suddenly very sober.

“Nope, but you can offer me a bed.”

“I thought that the fuck was not on the menu.”

“Dead right, but I need to sleep.”

“What about your Airbnb?”

“Short story: double booking, and the other bloke, from Russia, didn’t look like someone I’d like to be with – on the same bed.”

“Ok. Bed it is.”

“Unfortunately we are fully booked, Mr Wall,” said the polite guy at the counter. “We have a corporate event, and all our rooms are booked; you got the last one – the Bridal Suite.”

“That’s cute. How about I share your room? I can be a perfect bride,” suggested Mikael, adopting a demure and bashful demeanour reminiscent of a shy virgin. They could see a sharp look in the hotel concierge’s eyes. With only his backpack, Mikael looked very much like a hustler – but an irresistible one.

“It’s our Romance Package; I’ll send the chilled Prosecco to your room,” said the concierge, realising that Mikael was pulling his leg. “And the breakfast will be served to your bed in the morning”.

Pekka tried to clarify the situation, but with a wink to the concierge Mikael put his hand around Pekka’s waist, walking him to the bar like a puppet.

“The police found the journal?” asked Mikael when he got a beer and Pekka a Pellegrino.

Pekka took the thick journal from his shoulder bag and sat beside Mikael. They started to browse it.

“I want to know as much as possible before we arrive in Ryväskylä. By the way, you must make some good dough to book this kind of hotel – Bridal or not. In New Zealand, this would cost a fortune. What made you change your mind and rush to London?”

After a short version of the conversation with Tuomas, Mikael grinned. “He's a bit sneaky,” he said, “but he will go places.”

“Not to my places, if you ask me,” said Pekka, sipping the sparkling Pellegrino.

“So you got the flights for free because you are some sort of celebrity in sci-fi circles?”

“You might say so. I'll give a keynote at the Finncon Sci-fi and Fantasy Convention on Sunday and then get some awards or something. It’s part of the Summer Conference shit. But I don't have a clue what I should say. This Tuomas told me there’s some gala, and my keynote is the main event attraction. I would never in a million years have accepted this invitation if you hadn’t destroyed my summer plans.”

Pekka told him how he had developed some cult following after successfully editing and translating the whole Exoskeletal Affair sci-fi series during the 1990s. “Some say that it’s even better than the original,” said Pekka, thinking immediately, Why did you say that, you drunken old bat?

“Wow, I’ve read it. It’s brilliant. This Trampolino guy really knows how to put together a story,” said Mikael. “But the movie of the first novel was shite.”

“Well, Trampolino agrees. I've been working with him for years – way before he had his breakthrough. I met him at the movie’s premiere in LA, and he was gritting his teeth so much I thought he’d soon need dentures to replace the ones he broke.”

“You know Christian Trampolino!” said Mikael with genuine admiration while browsing the journal.

“That’s the burden of being an editor. You often have to meet these larger-than-life novelists – some of them are great, some are just a pain in the arse. Trampolino can be either, depending on what kind of phase he’s in.”

But Mikael wasn’t listening anymore. He was fixed on the journal as if a venomous snake was staring at him.

In front of him was an illustration of his father being hanged by the tentacles of a dark, multi-headed monster. The same page featured several smaller drawings: each depicted a theatre stage with headstones on it, and every headstone bore his father’s name.

“Look,” said Mikael, “what does it say?”

“I didn’t see this when I was reading it yesterday. There are so many of these drawings,” said Pekka, translating the neat writing that followed the tentacles and slithered from stage to stage.

"Six sins but one monster. What the fuck is going on? Every job app is murdered, but who's killing me – and not so softly? PANICKING. The show's fully booked, but my life?? Fully emptied – like my damn wallet – no future in this play, I don't know who's conducting the band, but the music is HORRIBLE. Death is a Cabaret, old chum, come to the Cabaret."

“And there’s more of this kind of stuff,” said Mikael, turning pages as Pekka translated ever more disturbing sentences of despair, near paranoia, and frustration, anger and hatred. Mikael’s father was sure that somebody wanted, if not to kill him, then at least destroy his reputation and career.

“Your father was really in a tight corner,” said Pekka. “He had nothing left because he put everything on this one card, Cabaret. He was so sure that it would be his ticket to fame and fortune that he almost lost his mind when the reality dawned on him.”

Karl Pihtari, Kamilla Kuristaja–Kannel and Chirpy Hipponen appeared frequently, always drawn in rather unflattering ways.

“The holy trinity of triviality has ascended to heaven. They don’t realise that it’s just the arsehole of the devil and gateway to hell,” said one of the pages, with these three recognisable people looking to their perceived pearly gate. “But the gate was just a huge collection of bulging haemorrhoids. And they've already killed two.” Next to the notes was another little puzzle image, with a poison bottle half drawn on it.

“This is heavy,” said Mikael.

“It’s time to close the bar,” said the friendly bartender, taking their empty glasses. “Tomorrow is a new day.”

The men were silent as they approached the room. Pekka showed no sign of intoxication anymore, and Mikael held the journal like a bomb that could go off at any minute. It was a slow march, and every step made Pekka grimace.

In the room, Pekka threw his shoes away with a groan and plunged into the chair. It was almost 1 a.m. Mikael took his clothes off, leaving only underpants on. Both men avoided looking at each other and making any sound that could be interpreted as the start of a conversation.

Pekka took his pyjamas and went to the bathroom. From its door he saw Mikael leaning his forehead against the window as if trying to push himself through the glass to a nicer reality. For a moment, Pekka thought he was back in 1990. Mikael would turn around wind back the clock, and all would be beautiful, young and promising again.

The bed was wide and comfortable. 

The men glided under the duvet, carefully avoiding touching each other. Pekka switched the light off, and only a narrow stream of light through the gap in the curtains made it into the room. It felt darker than it really was.

“Pekka, tell me about him. Tell me about my father. Tell me about this Cabaret that filled his life and obviously took it from him, too,” asked Mikael in the voice of a 12-year-old boy missing his father. His hand slid under the duvet and found Pekka’s old, dry hand. Their hands were enveloped in a soft but secure grasp.

“Your father was a hero of mine. I met him for the first time when he was just 16 or 17. He directed his first play, Sweet Dreams Baby, and I was the intern at the local newspaper who wrote the review. It was funny, quirky and witty – way better than most so-called professional directors would have done. It had all the hallmarks of your father’s style which was so brilliantly displayed in the Cabaret musical.

“Your father wanted to meet me after reading the critique. He was a bit cocky, but I could sense that there was gratitude below the surface. We became friends.

“I was seven years older than him, and he looked up to me because I knew so much about theatre – in theory. Soon, the tables turned. He became hungry, angry and ambitious. He went to the theatre high school but dropped out because it was too snobby for him. He started to freelance around Finland.

“I followed him and wrote reviews. Play after play steadily built his reputation, and then he had the opportunity to direct Cabaret. He was possessed. Helen always told him that she forced the board to take the risk with this young, eccentric director. But the real supporter was the chair, Matthew Rantala, in his silent and diplomatic determination to give Spiral a chance.

“I remember the opening night like yesterday. It was something else. Your father had changed the whole theatre into a KitKat Club. I walked with the other audience through a narrow alleyway past the dancers’ dressing rooms. They were on display behind almost transparent curtains. We could see glimpses of breasts, tight bums and all. Then, at the end of the alleyway was the neon sign blinking, KitKat Club, and we went into the theatre.

“Every time somebody stepped through that door, you could hear them gasping. It was like stepping into Berlin in 1929.

“I became addicted to Cabaret. I saw it at least ten times. One of those times, I sat with your father at his table. The audience was sitting in the cramped club at round tables covered with red tablecloths.

“When the show is about to end, Clifford Bradshaw is sitting on a train escaping Berlin and says, ‘There was a cabaret, and there was a master of ceremonies, and there was a city called Berlin, in a country called Germany… and it was the end of the world.’ From the table behind us I heard an old lady whispering in a raspy voice, ‘Yes, it was.’ My hair stood on end, and your father squeezed my hand under the table.

"When the show was over, and the standing ovation had died down, we followed the three old ladies who'd been sitting behind us. They were in their mid-80s, and one used an elaborate cane for support. As they walked slowly, they spoke in low, husky voices tinged with strong German accents.

“We walked just behind them and overheard one say, ‘I don’t understand how they did it. That atmosphere and all. It was like a time machine. We didn’t know what would happen; we were just young Jewish girls having fun. And it was the end of the world.’

“We had to stop. These old ladies had been in Berlin; they had escaped the Holocaust, and now they lived those moments of their youth in Berlin again.

“That evening, your father changed. He lost his passion for theatre. He knew that to earn money he had to continue, but I could see that his heart wasn’t in it anymore. His heart was with your mother. He sent applications to theatres, but I knew that his heart was far away. Once, when again we’d had a few too many, he said that he could never direct another theatre production because Cabaret was all he had.

"I knew that it wasn’t entirely true. He was more talented than anybody I knew, but also in love. When the adrenaline rush of making the Cabaret was over, your mother became his saviour.

“‘You know, Pekka, there’s always this cosmic loneliness after the opening night,' he said. ‘You've given your all to the ensemble, and then it’s all theirs, and nothing stays with you anymore.’ But he was changed in another way, too.

“After the Cabaret was over, he realised that he didn’t have anyone to share his life with or love him back in his art circles. He realised how rare it had been to meet your mother, and now he bent all the energy of his super-passionate soul to start looking for her no matter what.”

Pekka paused and turned his head; the narrow strip of light from the window revealed Mikael breathing slowly in a deep sleep. 

Pekka smiled, released Mikael’s hand, and rolled onto his side. Bathed in the yellow glow of the streetlamp, Mikael’s serene profile captivated Pekka for a long time before he finally succumbed to sleep.

He was sure he needed to solve this mystery he’d embarked on with Mikael if he was ever  going to reach a proper closure.