The Lavender Ladies Detective Agency: Death in Sunset Grove by Minna Lindgren Page A

included a safety system – if a resident needed help, all they had to do was leave their phone receiver on the table and a member of staff would quickly
appear. Of course anything they did when they arrived would be added to your bill, as would the call, but the system itself was part of the basic service. Irma picked up the receiver, laid it on
the table, and listened for a while. Then she swore to herself, slammed down the receiver and went downstairs to find some help.
    Siiri fell asleep. When she woke up, the room was full of people. Irma was talking with three or four strangers, young people, only one of whom seemed to understand Finnish. Irma tried Swedish,
French and a little Russian, with no results. Luckily, the boy who spoke Finnish was calm and pleasant.
    ‘Siiri Kettunen,’ Siiri said by way of introduction, offering him her hand.
    ‘Seems alert,’ the medic said, wrapping a cuff around her outstretched arm and reading her blood pressure. ‘Readings are fine. No need for an ambulance. If another attack
occurs, call a taxi to take her to the hospital. No need to call us again.’
    He packed up his first-aid kit and the foreign women followed him out of the door. Irma sank exhausted into the old armchair and told her that Virpi had called an ambulance because she
didn’t know what else to do.
    The pleasant man was from the ambulance, as was the girl in the white uniform. The other two girls were Sunset Grove’s new Indonesian interns. Irma didn’t remember where Indonesia
was, and Siiri couldn’t understand why the interns had come to peer at her in her bed.
    ‘They were sent to spy on you,’ Irma said. She thought that everything that happened at Sunset Grove was connected. ‘Tero’s death, too.
Döden, döden,
döden
,’ she whispered before she left.
    Three days later Siiri Kettunen received a bill for nineteen euros from a firm called Emergencion, for ‘Non-urgent ambulance visit, no immediate care. Code X5.’

Chapter 9
    On her way back from a visit to the hairdresser Siiri Kettunen met a man at the lift who looked like someone she knew, though he wasn’t. Because it was so embarrassing to
not be able to place someone who looked familiar, Siiri did as she always did in these situations and greeted the man, introducing herself, just to be on the safe side.
    ‘Antti Raudanheimo,’ the slightly greying, upright man said by way of introduction. He must be Olavi Raudanheimo’s son. He had the same narrow face and straight nose.
    He was an intelligent fellow and told her he’d rescued Olavi from Sunset Grove and taken him to the hospital, where he still was at the moment. He spoke of the ‘terrible
incident’, and Siiri knew he meant the assault in the shower, although he didn’t use those words. But something very distressing had happened and Olavi’s son intended to file a
criminal report. He had tried to discuss the matter with Sinikka Sundström, but the director wouldn’t believe that anything so awful could happen in her retirement home.
    ‘She’s very sweet, but perhaps not informed about everything that goes on here,’ he said.
    They stood for such a long time in the foyer talking about Olavi that Siiri started to feel uneasy. She couldn’t concentrate on what the man was saying, but instead kept glancing towards
the office and looking behind her, although there didn’t seem to be anyone about. Then she remembered that even the walls had ears at Sunset Grove, and she grabbed Olavi’s son by the
arm and pulled him closer.
    ‘I don’t think it’s a good idea to talk about these matters here,’ she whispered.
    The man looked at her in bewilderment. ‘Has anything else happened here besides my father’s terrible incident?’
    Siiri asked him to come to her apartment, although she didn’t really know him and couldn’t remember ever inviting a strange man into her home before. But he seemed trustworthy and
direct; he looked her in the eye and spoke in a strong