The Lavender Ladies Detective Agency: Death in Sunset Grove

by Minna Lindgren

  ‘Before its time? Anna-Liisa, I’m ninety-four years old. And my heart hasn’t given out.’

  ‘But you’ve been lying in bed for almost a week. I think we have to get to work if we’re going to get Irma home from wherever she happens to be at the moment.’ Anna-Liisa was right again. But for now she cut short her flood of talk, gathered up her things, and dutifully set off downstairs for the singalong, although she’d always got low marks for singing in school and considered singing a primitive behaviour.

  Left alone, Siiri got out of bed and got properly dressed for the first time in a long time. She went to the kitchen to look for something to eat and found the pill counter full of tablets. She looked at it, perplexed, and turned the box over in her hands. This is what Virpi was talking about when she’d told her to take her medicine. But she’d never had a pill counter, she was sure she hadn’t. She got such a frightened feeling that her hands started to shake and she dropped the pills on the work surface with a clunk. What if she were the next resident lined up for transfer to the dementia ward?

  Chapter 35

  Irma’s doctor daughter was suddenly standing in the hallway on the top floor of A wing, looking lost. Siiri didn’t recognize her at first because the last time they’d seen each other was years ago. Tuula had greyed and plumped up quite a bit. She still had a few flaming red streaks in her hair and heavy, plastic-rimmed glasses with frames the same colour as the strands in her hair.

  ‘Siiri darling! How nice to see you! Am I in the right place?’

  Tuula squeezed Siiri so hard that for a moment she thought the woman really missed her mother. But that was probably wishful thinking.

  ‘I don’t really remember where Mother’s apartment is. But hey, have you heard what happened to her after that horrible fire?’

  Siiri hadn’t heard. She’d thought about Irma every day and had been more worried about her friend than she had ever been about anyone. All kinds of things had happened in Siiri’s life, but never anything as difficult to comprehend as this.

  ‘You have to hear about it!’

  Irma’s daughter stood uncomfortably close to her as she spoke. Siiri tried to move aside, but Tuula moved along with her until she had her against the wall. ‘The patients from the Group Home were first taken to Haartman for treatment, and most of them were supposed to come back the next day, but since the Group Home was badly damaged and there was no other space at Sunset Grove, they had to find them work-around accommodation,’ Tuula began, as if she were reading a report she’d written. ‘Work-around’ accommodation was what they called various short-term lodgings, dorm rooms and other places to house students or patients until their building could be repaired to a usable state.

  ‘The problem is complicated by the fact that these severe-dementia sufferers aren’t Sunset Grove’s concern in the first place. They’re actually the responsibility of medical services. Director Sundström was quite relieved when she realized that.’

  ‘If you ask me, she’s seemed anything but relieved lately.’

  ‘Yes, well, she told me that she lay awake for two nights before she realized a crucial aspect of her job description – the fact that it’s not hers but the city’s responsibility to find a place to put these fourteen dementia patients for the next few months. Her responsibility is to take care of insurance matters, and, of course, to get the Group Home repaired as soon as possible. Has the work started yet?’

  Siiri didn’t know. She hadn’t been downstairs for several days. She couldn’t stop staring at a large mole under Tuula’s right eye with a black hair growing from it.

  ‘But what happened to the flock of dementia patients from Sunset Grove is that they were swept out of the Haartman acute care and into Suursuo Hospital, except for one woman who died at Meilahti Hospital from injuries she suffered in the fire. She was quite a young person, too. My age. They didn’t mention any of that in the newspaper article. So now there are thirteen left to place.’

  ‘She died?’

  Siiri slid onto the chair next to the lift. She felt like she was in a play. Irma’s daughter had surprisingly similar intonations and high notes to her mother and she waved her hands around as she spoke, too. And yet she was a very different person, a complete stranger.

  ‘This is such an unbelievable story, you can’t imagine.’ Tuula paused dramatically and sat down in the chair next to Siiri’s. ‘Well, Suursuo Hospital is where they usually keep patients suffering from self-inflicted dementia – you know, homeless alcoholics who you can’t just leave out on the street, because they have severe memory and behavioural problems. I happen to know this very well, although I’ve never been there, at least not for work. Being an ear specialist, I’m safe from all that, thank goodness!’

  She laughed musically, like her mother, and when she slapped Siiri on the thigh, Siiri noticed that she was wearing Irma’s gold bracelets. She was sure she ‘d seen the very same bracelets still on Irma’s arm in the closed unit.

  ‘I hope you don’t take everything I say too seriously? This is so absurd! So listen, there they were, lying in Suursuo Hospital, my mother and the rest of them waiting there among the winos for the city to find them a permanent place to stay. At that point I was in shock, because I’d heard that the waits in a place like that can take years.’

  ‘So is Irma still—?’

  ‘No, no! The farce didn’t end there. I’m just getting started. So then they noticed that all those Sunset Grove dementia patients couldn’t fit in Suursuo, even with some of them in the hallways and linen cupboards and one in the body-washing room in the morgue – a real last resort – sheesh – but, anyway, I made sure that my mother got a proper room, and then they were all hauled over to rehabilitation so that they wouldn’t end up in public care. You probably don’t know but there’s a point system and you only end up in public care if you’re over a certain number, so it’s all a question of money. So, naturally, when they performed the tests, eight out of thirteen of those dementia patients were pronounced fit enough to be sent to retirement homes, in four different places all over Helsinki. Can you imagine? Anything to save public health money! And one of them was sent all the way to Turku because she’d moved to Sunset Grove from a place near there, so that way they could get her out of Helsinki and make her the Turku district’s responsibility!’

  Tuula burst into laughter and wiped her eyes. Siiri looked at her nervously, because it seemed to her that under the hard shell she might have strong feelings after all. She didn’t dare try to comfort her, since she was on a roll. People let out their anxieties in different ways.

  ‘One old woman apparently still owned an apartment so they sent her back there! Then I told my brother that we were smart to have sold mother’s apartment, even though she didn’t want us to. Otherwise, they might just have tossed her there to muddle through alone. And we saved on inheritance taxes, too, because we had her give us the money for the apartment a little bit at a time. Oh, Siiri, it’s all so crazy, even for a professional like me who’s used to the ins and outs of health care, let alone for you ordinary people.’

  ‘You’re right about that. But does that mean that Irma—’

  ‘Now don’t get ahead of yourself! Shush. So, at that point, there were five patients left with no place to go, Mother among them, because she had a fractured hip that needed treatment, which was a good thing because that got her a place in Töölö Hospital, in line for orthopaedics. They probably found a diagnosis for all the ones who were left so that they could be transferred out of sight to other hospitals or chronic-care centres. Clever, is it not?’

  ‘A broken hip? When did that happen?’ Siiri couldn’t believe that Irma’s hip could have been broken in the fire. She had seen her walk to the ambulance on her own two feet.

  ‘Oh, that’s an old story; it happens to dementia patients all the time, we doctors know all about it. The patient slides out of bed onto the floor, or the nurse’s grip slips in the shower and that’s all it takes, an old lady wi
th brittle bones, so one of them breaks, osteoporosis, that sort of thing, and since you’re not all there, nobody knows whether you’re in pain or not. Or, if you are in pain, exactly where. But my mother had good luck because they found it in an X-ray, on the right side, right here – two fractures, actually’

  ‘Oh. Irma’s good luck strikes again. That’s what she always says whenever something happens.’

  ‘I guess Director Sundström will be able to collect money for the Indian orphans in peace now!’

  Siiri was starting to feel a little unwell. She hadn’t known that Tuula was such a keen talker. Tuula looked at her with concern, took her hand, and began trying to calm her down just as Siiri was about to do the same to her.

  ‘I hope you understand that I’m just kidding? I don’t really think that the director isn’t doing her job. I really don’t envy the woman. Just think what it’s like for her, spending all her days here with a lot of senile old people, and then somebody sets the place on fire!’

  Siiri felt dizzy. Her heart was pounding so hard and fast that she could feel it all the way to her throat. She couldn’t look at the black hair on Tuula’s mole any more because it made her feel ill. She struggled mightily to put her thoughts onto an even track.

  ‘And what about Irma? What will happen to her? Will she finally get to come home?’

  ‘Home? You mean the Group Home? She can’t, Siiri, dear, not until the building’s repaired. Do you remember the little accident that happened there? You do, good. And it could take months for the repairs. Do you understand? Yes, you do. But Mother was transferred to Töölö Hospital and she’ll have surgery as soon as a slot is available. Do you understand? As soon as a slot is available?’

  Tuula’s voice sounded loud and echoing. Siiri had to concentrate with all her strength to keep up with her. When Tuula started wondering aloud whether her mother really needed to walk again, Siiri remembered Olavi Raudanheimo’s miraculous recovery at the Hilton and she understood that their Plan had, in fact, progressed remarkably swiftly while she had been in bed recuperating from the fire. Because the doctors were hardly likely to operate on Irma until they’d evaluated her prescriptions and discontinued her unnecessary medications.

  ‘Unnecessary medications? What do you mean? There was a temp doctor there from some company, a Russian, who went through all of mother’s papers and made it clear that he thought I’d neglected her treatment, as if I were responsible for the whole thing. Supposedly, there were incorrect dosages and some odd prescriptions, but this sort of quibbling between colleagues is nothing new. I didn’t take it personally. But of course I’m glad that this Russian fellow is not working there permanently.’

  Siiri could breathe again, and her heart was beating more regularly. She was grateful to Irma’s daughter for this information. She complained of tiredness, said she was going to go and rest, let Tuula give her a rather unpleasantly tight hug goodbye, and went back to her apartment. She didn’t even remember why she’d gone out in the first place, but it didn’t matter. She found some red wine in the cupboard, drank a glass, and lay down on the bed without taking off her shoes. And then she folded her hands and prayed. She hadn’t prayed since her childhood, if then, but now was a time to use every tool at her disposal.

  ‘Dear God, if you’re there somewhere, help us, and let the Russian doctor take care of Irma Lännenleimu and make her well as soon as possible. She, at least, believes in you. Amen.’

  Chapter 36

  Siiri looked through her magnifying glass at the pile of pills in the porridge bowl. She thought it was odd that the tablets didn’t have anything written on them – no manufacturer, amount, nothing. She didn’t see any pills that looked like Amarilly pillies, the only one she was supposed to take every day. And it was interesting that the pills were so varied – round ones, small ones, longish ones, thick, thin, blue, red, pale orange, and, of course, white ones too.

  She had moved the tablets from the pill counter to the porridge bowl every day so that it would look like she was popping them obediently. Once a week the pill counter replenished itself, as if a ghost were waiting in a corner to dash out and refill it. The nurses always just happened to come to refill them when she was asleep or out – that had to be it.

  Someone she had never met must have prescribed tranquillizers and stimulants, pills to go to sleep and pills to wake up, although Siiri was healthy and slept well at night. There might be some medicine in there for her heart troubles, too – they had tried to press those on her. She was sure that the pill counter was part of some sort of plot by the Sunset Grove staff. If she took the pills, she would turn senile. If she returned them and reported the matter, her medical file would accrue dubious notes that proved she was senile: ‘Doesn’t recognize her own possessions. Forgets to take her medication. Refuses treatment. Uncooperative.’

  Siiri took three pills out of that day’s morning slot and three out of the midday slot, put them in the porridge bowl, then put the bowl in the cupboard behind the rice and buckwheat. She put the magnifying glass back in its place on the bookshelf – or maybe she should put it in the drawer of her bedside table, where she could get to it easily. Was she sure she would remember she’d put it there? Today was an important and slightly nerve-wracking day because she and Anna-Liisa had decided to go and visit Irma at Töölö Hospital.

  They were so excited about seeing Irma that they rode to Ruoholahti and Jätkäsaari on the new number 8 route to gather strength from the novelty of seeing a new neighbourhood. Ruoholahti seemed pleasant. There were a lot of people there, a large shopping centre, massive buildings, the old cable factory renovated into an arts centre, and exciting places like a Nepalese restaurant, the Helsinki Aquarium, and an eyelash-extension salon. And, of course, the Baltic Sea.

  There was a new bridge from Ruoholahti to Jätkäsaari, and Siiri and Anna-Liisa couldn’t figure out why it was named after the composer Bernhard Henrik Crusell. He probably didn’t get to Helsinki much, and if he did, he certainly wouldn’t have come to Jätkäsaari.

  ‘Better that than the Bell Bridge in Itä-Pasila. It sounds like Venice and looks like East Germany,’ Anna-Liisa said, and admired the canal that led from under the tram bridge into the bay.

  Jätkäsaari looked rather depressing, though in a different way to how Siiri had imagined it. Maybe it would become a real neighbourhood some day. Now it was just muck, piles of gravel, pieces of cable and chunks of concrete. But they had built a new tram platform there, which was a promising beginning.

  ‘We’ve never been here before. What business would we have had here, even in our youth?’ Anna-Liisa mused. ‘Especially since we didn’t have a youth.’

  Youth was only invented later, when they were already in the middle of work and family chores and building a new society after the war. When the war ended, Siiri was a mother of three and wouldn’t have known how to yearn after her lost youth.

  ‘And I was a twenty-five-year-old widow and divorcee,’ said Anna-Liisa. ‘Every small-town wife’s nightmare.’

  They watched as a grey-haired man stepped onto the tram wearing a long ponytail and blue jeans, though he had to be at least sixty-five. He was one of those people who’d had such a wonderful youth that he couldn’t bear to give it up. They talked about things like that, about whatever came to mind, because they were trying to calm themselves down. They hoped, of course, that Irma had undergone the same miraculous recovery as Olavi Raudanheimo had when he’d got out of the closed unit and been transferred to the hospital, but then they remembered what had become of Olavi in the end, and they felt uneasy again.

  ‘This hasn’t gone exactly according to the Plan,’ Anna-Liisa said, and Siiri wasn’t sure if she’d caught a reproachful tone in her voice. ‘We just have to hope that you don’t end up in jail. Otherwise the Lavender Ladies Detective Agency really will be doomed.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘You must understand that Virpi Hiukkanen wants you to be blamed for the fire.
That’s what the pill counter is about. If you had taken all the pills like you were told, you would quickly have gone so senile that no one would have listened to your testimony and everything could have been spun as your fault. But luckily, because of the fire, we don’t have to steal Irma and take her back to her apartment. That was actually a pretty daft idea.’

  Siiri tried to think what it would be like to spend the rest of her life in jail. She imagined talking about it with Irma, as they’d talked about so many difficult situations. She used to have conversations in her head with her late husband, but lately Irma had taken his place as her imaginary confidante. Irma would almost certainly say that prison might not be any worse than Sunset Grove, and the idea wouldn’t seem so bad once she’d made fun of it.

  They had left Jätkäsaari and Ruoholahti, ridden safely down Mechelininkatu and into Töölö, and were just passing the Reitz Foundation. It had a museum on the top floor that no one ever went to, and on the ground floor was Restaurant Elite, which was always full. When Siiri was a child, there had been a large boulder where the building stood and she used to play on it in the winter. When the building was constructed later, it had an amazing outdoor terrace with seats that stretched along the length of the park and was quite a sight.

  They got off at Töölö market and Siiri stopped to admire the Sandels building, which Anna-Liisa had never paid much attention to.

  ‘An ordinary, modern structure.’

  ‘No, it’s not. It’s unusually beautiful. It has a strange way of bringing light in and out. Look at those windows!’

  Anna-Liisa wasn’t listening; she just hurried single-mindedly down the street.

  Töölö Hospital was in an unkempt condition. From the outside it looked badly weathered, and once they were inside it was messy, dirty and unpleasant. Sedated patients and rubbish bags were wheeled up and down the hallways. The paint was peeling from the walls and the corridors were full of old computers, tables, chairs and beds, as if the place were a warehouse instead of a university hospital. One doctor had to work among the junk, so passers-by could see that she was examining a femur on her computer screen.