The Hummingbird (41 page)

The old lady looked at Anna without saying anything. The nurse began to speak as she counted pills into a glass.

‘Kaarina tends to visit in the evenings. She gives her mother her evening pills, a bite of supper, and puts her to bed. She has a night off a couple of times a week, and we come round on those evenings too. Believe me when I say it’s rare to have your own child take care of you. Elderly people are left to struggle by themselves, and nobody cares. Home-helpers from the council come round and change their diapers, cook some food, feed them, make sure they take their medication. We haven’t got room to house them all. Here we are, Kerttu. Here are your afternoon pills. There’s a good girl.’

The nurse stood next to the bed, so close that Anna could smell her breath. And something else, too. Sweat, perhaps. Apparently home-helpers picked up the cumulative staleness of all the elderly folk in the city. Kerttu Viitala groaned as she sat up in bed and raised a quivering hand, blue veins criss-crossing beneath her wafer-thin, wrinkled skin. She took the glass of pills, and with a surprisingly nimble flick of the wrist knocked the entire cocktail into her mouth and swallowed.

‘Gosh,’ Anna said almost involuntarily.

The nurse was standing by with a glass of water. She raised it to Kerttu’s lips and tilted it, a trickle of water running down the front of her threadbare nightgown.

‘Good girl,’ said the nurse, affected and jaunty, and energetically wiped the old lady’s mouth with a sheet of kitchen roll.

Anna watched as the water soaked into the fibres of the cotton nightgown, forming a dark blotch. I want to die suddenly before I turn 70, she thought as she stood up and opened a window. She
looked down into the street that bisected the city centre at its busiest point. A constant bustle of people flowed into cafés and shops. Café Penguin, a pleasant and popular place where Anna often stopped for an espresso, could be seen right below. Its terrace had been dismantled and its tethered deckchairs moved to the basement to wait until summer. On the windowsill was a pair of binoculars. When the nurse saw Anna staring at them, she snatched them up and put them in a cupboard in the far corner of the living room.

‘Mrs Viitala likes to sit by the window and watch the people walking around outside, whenever she’s up to it. That’s pretty rare nowadays,’ the nurse explained. Her voice was brusque and she stared back at Anna without blinking. The woman’s eyes were astonishingly blue. We’re disturbing her work, Anna thought. We’re disturbing her.

Anna looked down on to the street. The view that opened up from the window was meant for young people, full of energy, people who lived life to the full and had no need whatsoever for Social Services. A view like this wasn’t supposed to be looked at from above, through a pair of binoculars, body and soul wasting away, worrying about the missed opportunities of the past. The view invited you to dive in head first and let yourself be carried away by the flow. If you couldn’t do that, you belonged elsewhere. In an institution, perhaps, or at the very least further from the city centre.

Anna asked Esko and the nurse into the kitchen. Though Kerttu seemed quite deaf, it didn’t feel right talking about her in the same room.

‘Have you been looking after Mrs Viitala for long?’ Anna asked the nurse.

‘Me personally or the nurses in general?’

‘Both.’

‘Kerttu has been on our books for about a year. At first we only visited every other day to bring her some food. Since last winter the nurses have been coming too. Kerttu’s condition went rapidly downhill at around that time, and she couldn’t get by with only Kaarina’s help. Personally I’ve been coming here since the winter.’

‘Do the same nurses visit every day?’

‘No. We have a rotating system, so you might visit the same customer anything from three to five times a week. It depends.’

‘Where can we get hold of your rota? We may need to establish which nurses visited on certain dates.’

‘Ah yes, of course. You’ll have to ask our supervisor at the home-help department. I can give you her contact details.’

‘Thank you, that would be great,’ said Anna and took the calling card the nurse pulled out of her bag.

‘What condition is Mrs Viitala in?’ Esko asked.

‘Well, you can see for yourself,’ the nurse scoffed. ‘She’s had Alzheimer’s for years, and now it’s reached the point where Kaarina has to explain who she is. Isn’t it terrible? You forget your own child…’

‘Kaarina told us that Mrs Viitala has moments of lucidity,’ said Anna.

‘Did she now? Not that I’ve ever seen. Of course, Kaarina is here more often than I am. And naturally she knows her mother far better.’

‘In your opinion, could Mrs Viitala confirm that her daughter visited her on certain specific dates?’

Again the nurse laughed.

‘Absolutely not,’ she said. ‘Why should she? Has Kaarina done something?’

‘We’re looking into a case.’

‘I have to leave, I’m afraid. We’re on a very tight schedule. Please remember to close the window; old people are very sensitive to draughts. And make sure that the door is securely shut when you leave.’

The nurse went back into the living room. Anna and Esko followed her.

‘Bye for now, Kerttu. See you the day after tomorrow,’ the nurse shouted, holding Mrs Viitala’s hand and stroking its wrinkled surface for a moment. The old lady moaned with happiness.

Then she left. The jangle of her extensive collection of keys could be heard from the corridor.

How many lonely old people must there be in this city, Anna wondered, people waiting for the jangle of a set of keys, the sound of the door opening, waiting for someone, anyone, to come and pay a visit? Anna’s own grandmother, her father’s mother, was 90 years old and still in incredibly good condition. She went to the pensioners’ dance evenings, and visited friends and relatives almost every day. The thought flashed across Anna’s mind that there weren’t any lonely old people back home. Why not?

‘She’s a good girl, she is, my daughter, to look after me like this,’ Kerttu said unexpectedly from the bed.

Anna and Esko took a step closer to the elderly lady.

‘Hello, Mrs Viitala,’ said Esko, again raising his voice.

‘Who is that?’ Kerttu asked with a note of concern.

‘Esko Niemi and Anna Fekete from the police, ma’am,’ he replied.

‘The police? Goodness me, has something happened?’ Kerttu said in a panic.

‘We just have a few questions to ask you.’

‘I see. What’s the matter?’

Anna again sat down beside her. It felt almost cruel to stand beside the bed, looking down on her, when the person she was talking to was lying there fragile and helpless.

‘Could you tell us whether your daughter Kaarina was here the night before last?’

‘She’s asleep over there in the bedroom.’ Kerttu raised a trembling hand and weakly pointed towards the corner of the room.

‘Did Kaarina sleep there the night before last?’ Esko repeated the question.

‘What day was that?’

‘The third of October. A Monday.’

‘What day is it today?’

‘Wednesday.’

‘I’m sorry, I would have offered you some coffee.’

‘That’s fine, we’ve already had some.’

‘Who are you again?’

‘We’re from the police.’

‘Goodness gracious! Has something happened?’

Anna and Esko looked at one another. This was pointless, they both thought. The nurse was right: Mrs Viitala wouldn’t make a credible witness.

Esko asked her the same questions once again. And once again the old lady apologised that she couldn’t offer them any coffee.

Then Kerttu Viitala felt silent. Her empty eyes fixed on a point somewhere behind Anna and her hand began to fumble for the remote control on the bedside table. The shopping channel flooded back into the room.

Anna tried to clarify a few final points, but Kerttu lay there silently staring at the television. After a moment Anna noticed that the old lady’s eyes had pressed shut. Had it not been for the faint sound of snoring emanating from between her furrowed lips, you could have thought she was dead. Anna turned the volume down and closed the window. She and Esko left the apartment. Outside the sun had stopped shining.

At Anna’s suggestion they stopped into Café Penguin for a coffee. The warm light shining from the café’s windows seemed to invite them to step inside, where numerous gold-framed mirrors reflected and multiplied the light. Anna was reminded of the grand cafés of Budapest. Perhaps she should visit places like this more often, she thought. For a few moments she could imagine she was somewhere else, almost somewhere back home.

Anna couldn’t decide whether to have a sandwich or some cake. Tiredness whirled behind her eyes, pressed down on her shoulders and made her feel faint. She really should call the health officer. Otherwise nothing will ever come of this job, she thought, nothing at all.

Esko tapped on her shoulder, and for a moment Anna thought she must have been holding up the queue, but it was because of Virve, who was sitting in the café with another girl. Virve’s fair hair was tied in a long plait running down the back of her hemp-green
Indian-cotton tunic towards the floor. Virve gave her an awkward wave, then called over the waiter and asked for the bill.

And at that moment Anna remembered!

She remembered what she knew she had known all along, what she knew she had seen. A shiver ran between her shoulder blades and her pulse quickened.

‘When are we scheduled to interview Virve and Jere again?’ she asked.

‘Tomorrow.’

‘Good. I just remembered something. It could be important.’

‘Well?’

‘Virve visited Mexico back in the spring. I saw a photograph on her Facebook page.’

Esko gave a quiet whistle. Virve glanced up at them and nervously fiddled with the sleeve of her tunic. The familiar jangle of her bracelets carried faintly across the café.

‘What did I say all along? There was something fishy about that girl.’

‘Don’t stare,’ Anna whispered. ‘What are you having?’

The girls put on their jackets and left the café without looking behind them.

‘Coffee.’

‘Just a normal coffee? They do really good espresso here, con panna or double, macchiato, cappu—’

‘Normal coffee. Burned, bitter, brown liquid poured through a bleached filter, thank you very much, cheap and nasty. I don’t touch any of that black muck.’

‘This wouldn’t have anything to do with your general xenophobia, would it?’

‘Say what? You know what you can do with your fancy words. This has nothing to do with anything. I can buy my own coffee, if it’s too much to order a normal one. Round here we’re not used to treating each other like this.’

Anna paid for Esko’s coffee and ordered herself a hot chocolate with whipped cream and a ham sandwich. She seemed instantly more
alert. Virve’s trip to Mexico couldn’t just be a coincidence. Here she was, sitting in Esko’s company, in a public café, almost communicating normally with him, though outside the autumn was doing its best to crush those who dared venture into its embrace. She couldn’t have imagined doing this a few weeks ago. Esko had certainly undergone something of a change. Anna didn’t quite know what had caused it.

But she wanted to find out.

‘Why don’t you hate me so much any more?’

Esko looked up at her, so taken aback that he seemed almost pleasant. He’s not used to people speaking their minds, thought Anna. He’s happy to sound off himself without giving his words a second thought, but it catches him off guard when other people do the same. For once I’ve made him speechless, she thought with a sense of satisfaction when Esko didn’t answer straight away but calmly stirred his coffee, considering how to reply.

‘Let’s say that I still despise everything you stand for, but I don’t hate you personally. Not any more,’ he said eventually. He looked away; he was blushing.

‘You didn’t answer the question. Why not?’

‘You can be downright bloody infuriating, you know that? I don’t know. I suppose I’m starting to get used to you. You’re different.’

‘Different from who?’

‘Different from most immigrants.’

‘How many do you know? Personally?’

‘Listen, I was a police officer before you lot started turning up here. I’ve seen the enormous change that’s taken place in our society. It started with the Somalis, then a while later came the Yugos and the Kurds and the Afghans and the Africans, and before you know it people are coming in from all directions and we’re supposed to pick up the bill for the lot of you. Well, people have had enough. I’ll never accept it. Sorry.’

‘You still haven’t answered the question. How many immigrants do you actually know?’