The Fire Witness: A Novel Read online

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  All liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone …

  —REVELATION 21:8

  A medium is someone who claims to have paranormal talent: the ability to interpret circumstances that lie beyond the limits of science.

  Some mediums act as intermediaries to the dead at séances, while others offer guidance based on, for example, the reading of tarot cards.

  Humans have tried to contact the dead through mediums since the beginning of history. One thousand years before the birth of Christ, King Saul of Israel sought advice from the spirit of the recently deceased prophet Samuel.

  All over the world, the police accept the help of psychics and mediums when they are baffled by a case. This happens several times a year, even though there is not a single documented instance where a medium has actually solved a crime.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Epigraph

  Note about Mediums

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  Chapter 105

  Chapter 106

  Chapter 107

  Chapter 108

  Chapter 109

  Chapter 110

  Chapter 111

  Chapter 112

  Chapter 113

  Chapter 114

  Chapter 115

  Chapter 116

  Chapter 117

  Chapter 118

  Chapter 119

  Chapter 120

  Chapter 121

  Chapter 122

  Chapter 123

  Chapter 124

  Chapter 125

  Chapter 126

  Chapter 127

  Chapter 128

  Chapter 129

  Chapter 130

  Chapter 131

  Chapter 132

  Chapter 133

  Chapter 134

  Chapter 135

  Chapter 136

  Chapter 137

  Chapter 138

  Chapter 139

  Chapter 140

  Chapter 141

  Chapter 142

  Chapter 143

  Chapter 144

  Chapter 145

  Chapter 146

  Chapter 147

  Chapter 148

  Chapter 149

  Chapter 150

  Chapter 151

  Chapter 152

  Chapter 153

  Chapter 154

  Chapter 155

  Chapter 156

  Chapter 157

  Chapter 158

  Chapter 159

  Chapter 160

  Chapter 161

  Chapter 162

  Chapter 163

  Chapter 164

  Chapter 165

  Chapter 166

  Chapter 167

  Chapter 168

  Chapter 169

  Chapter 170

  Chapter 171

  Chapter 172

  Chapter 173

  Chapter 174

  Chapter 175

  Chapter 176

  Chapter 177

  Chapter 178

  Chapter 179

  Chapter 180

  Chapter 181

  Chapter 182

  Chapter 183

  Chapter 184

  Chapter 185

  Chapter 186

  Chapter 187

  Chapter 188

  Chapter 189

  Chapter 190

  Chapter 191

  Chapter 192

  Chapter 193

  Chapter 194

  Chapter 195

  Also by Lars Kepler

  A Note About the Author

  Copyright

  1

  Elisabet Grim is fifty-three years old. Her hair is streaked with gray, but her eyes are bright and happy, and when she smiles, one of her front teeth juts out impishly.

  She is a nurse at Birgittagården, a state-approved home for especially troubled girls north of Sundsvall. It’s a small, privately owned residence. Rarely are there more than eight girls there at a time. They range from twelve to seventeen in age. Many are drug addicts when they arrive. Almost all have a history of self-injury—eating disorders, for instance. Some can be violent. For these girls, there is no alternative to Birgittagården, with its alarms and double-locked doors. The next step would be prison or forced confinement in a psychiatric unit. This home, by comparison, is a hopeful place, with the expectation that the girls can make it back someday to open care.

  As Elisabet often says, “It’s the nice girls who end up here.”

  Right now, Elisabet is savoring the last bite of a bittersweet bar of chocolate. She can feel her shoulders begin to relax.

  The day started wel
l but the evening was hard. There were classes in the morning, and in the afternoon, the girls spent time at the lake. After the evening meal, the housemother went home, leaving Elisabet in charge on her own. The night staff was recently let go when the company changed hands. Elisabet had sat in the nurse’s office, catching up with reports, while the girls watched television, which they were allowed to do until ten.

  And then she’d heard the yelling. It was loud, very loud. She’d hurried to the television room, where Miranda was beating up tiny Tuula. Miranda was screaming that Tuula was a slut and a whore. She’d yanked the little girl off the sofa and was kicking her in the back.

  It was not unusual for Miranda to explode violently. Elisabet was used to her outbursts. She pulled her away from Tuula, and Miranda slapped Elisabet in the face. Elisabet was used to that, too. Without further discussion she led Miranda down the hall to the isolation room. Elisabet wished Miranda a good night, but Miranda didn’t answer. She just sat on the bed and studied the floor with a secretive smile as the nurse shut and locked the door behind her.

  Elisabet was scheduled to have a private talk with the new girl, Vicky Bennet, but after the conflict, she found she was exhausted and couldn’t face it. When Vicky came by and timidly mentioned that it was her turn for a chat, Elisabet put her off. This made Vicky so unhappy, she broke a teacup and slashed her stomach and wrists with the sharpest piece.

  When Elisabet checked on her a while later, Vicky was sitting in her room with her hands in front of her face and blood running down her arms.

  The wounds were superficial. Elisabet washed the blood off, wrapped gauze around the girl’s wrists, and put a Band-Aid on her stomach. And Elisabet comforted her, soothing her with sweet names, telling her not to worry, coaxing her until a tiny smile crossed the troubled girl’s face. For the third night in a row, Elisabet gave the girl ten milligrams of Sonata so she could sleep.

  2

  All the girls are finally asleep and Birgittagården is quiet. Outside the office window, the September darkness has settled on the forest, but Himmelsjö Lake’s smooth surface shines like mother-of-pearl. Elisabet sits in front of her computer entering the evening’s events into the log.

  It’s almost midnight and she realizes she hasn’t taken her sleeping pill yet. My own little drug, she calls it. Difficult days followed by nights on call are interfering with her sleep. She needs a few hours of rest; ten milligrams of Stilnoct by ten and she’s asleep by eleven. She pulls her shawl tight and thinks that a glass of red wine would hit the spot right now. She longs for her own bed, where she can curl up with a book, or with her husband, Daniel. But not tonight; she’s on call and has to stay here.

  In the yard outside, Buster begins to bark. Insistently, stridently.

  It’s very late. She’s usually asleep by now. She takes her pill, shuts down her computer. She grows aware of the sounds she’s making: the hiss of her chair’s hydraulic lift as she stands; the creak of the tiles beneath her feet as she moves to the window. She tries to look out, but all she can see is the reflection of her face. And of the door gliding open behind her.

  Must be the draft, she thinks. The tile stove in the dining room draws such a great deal of air.

  She shakes off the disquiet she feels and switches off the lamp before she turns around.

  Now the door is wide open. She shudders faintly, and steps through it. The lights are on in the hallway between the dining room and the girls’ bedrooms. I should check the tile stove, she thinks; make sure the lids are shut. But there is whispering coming from one of the bedrooms.

  3

  At first all Elisabet hears is a delicate hiss. The whisper is hardly perceptible. Then she hears words.

  “It’s your turn to close your eyes,” someone murmurs.

  Elisabet keeps still, staring so hard down the hall her eyes are frozen open. It must be one of the girls talking in her sleep, she thinks. Then there’s a noise, like an overripe peach dropping on the floor. Then another, heavy and wet. A table leg scrapes the floor and there’s the sound of two more peaches falling.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Elisabet catches a movement, a shadow gliding past. She turns around and sees the door to the dining room slowly close.

  “Wait!” she calls out, even while trying to convince herself it’s nothing; it must be the draft.

  She grabs the doorknob to the dining room, but something stops the door from opening and she has to yank it before it finally gives way. Stepping inside, she can see herself in the dull reflection from the scratched dining-room table, and again in the brass fire doors of the tile stove. She checks it: the lids are all shut. The stove suddenly knocks, and Elisabet takes a quick step back, tilting over a chair. It’s nothing. Just the slipping of a log.

  She heads to her room, pausing outside the girls’ bedrooms. She detects a sour, slightly metallic aroma. She searches for movement in the hallway, but all is still. To the right are the bathrooms and the alcove leading to the isolation room. Miranda should be fast asleep in there. The peephole in the door glimmers weakly.

  Now, again, there’s that light voice, whispering.

  “It’s time to be quiet,” Elisabet calls out.

  A series of quick thuds. It’s hard to locate the noise, but it sounds as if Miranda is lying in bed and kicking her bare feet against the wall. Elisabet decides to check on her through the peephole. It is then that she sees a shadowy figure in the alcove. With a gasp, she backs away. She knows how dangerous the situation is, but fear makes her slow; her body feels as if it’s moving in the heavy water of a dream. But the creaking of the floor startles her awake, and she whirls around and starts to run.

  A soft voice behind her urges her to stop, but she knows she mustn’t.

  Elisabet makes it to the front door. Throwing the lock, she races out into the cool air of the night. She slips on the front steps, smacking her hip and twisting a leg beneath her. Her ankle hurts so badly she cries out, and she crawls for a stretch, losing her slippers. Then she forces herself to her feet.

  4

  The dog is barking at her. He runs circles around her as she limps away across the gravel driveway. She knows there is no escape in the forest, and it’s several hours’ walk to the closest farm, so she drags herself behind the drying shed, toward the former brewery. Hands shaking, she opens the door, slips inside, and pulls the door tight.

  “Oh God! Oh God!”

  She searches her pockets for her cell, but her hands jerk so badly she drops the phone. The back bursts off and the battery flies out. She scrambles to pick up the pieces as she listens to the footsteps crunch the gravel.

  She crawls to the low window and peers out. Buster, who has followed her, scratches frantically at the door. Elisabet creeps over to the masonry fireplace and crouches behind the woodpile, where with uncooperative hands she tries to shove the battery back into place.

  The door flies open. There’s nowhere to go.

  She can see the boots, the twisted face, the raised hammer, its heft and shine. She listens to the voice, nods, and then covers her face with her hands.

  The shadowy figure pauses a moment before knocking her flat on the ground, holding her down, and smashing her hard. Along the hairline, her forehead burns. Her sight is gone, and she’s in agony, but the warm blood running over her ears and down the sides of her throat feels like a caress.

  The next blow lands in the same spot. Her head is knocked askew and now the only thing she knows is how to breathe. She thinks how wonderfully sweet oxygen is.

  She cannot feel her body jerk from the next round of blows. She cannot tell when the keys to the office and the isolation room are taken from her pocket. She cannot see her body lying on the floor or the dog sneaking in and tentatively lapping the blood leaking from her crushed head. She cannot sense her life ebb away.

  5

  Someone has left a large red apple on the table. It gleams and looks wonderfully tasty. Perhaps she’ll just eat the whole thing and then pret
end she knows nothing about it. She’ll sit there looking glum, ignore the harangues, and refuse to answer their questions.

  She reaches for the apple, but her fingers sink into cold, mushy flesh. It’s completely rotten.

  Nina Molander wakes up as she jerks her hand away. It’s the middle of the night. She’s lying in her bed. The only thing she hears is the dog barking in the yard. This new drug makes her wake at night. She has to get up and go to the bathroom. She needs to take the drug, even though it makes her feet and calves swell. Without it, dark thoughts consume her to the point where she no longer cares about anything and can’t get out of bed. She knows she needs something to look forward to instead of thoughts about death.

  Nina throws off her blanket and sets her feet on the warm wooden floor. She’s fifteen years old, with straight blond hair, wide hips, and large breasts. Her white flannel nightgown is tight around her belly.

  In the hallway, the only light on is the green emergency exit sign. She hears whispers behind one of the doors. Nina thinks the other girls are having a party and didn’t invite her. As if I’d ever want to go.

  She can smell cinders, an old fire that has gone out. The dog starts barking again. Nina doesn’t worry about whether she’s quiet or not. She feels like slamming the door over and over. She doesn’t give a damn that Almira will get angry and throw things at her.

  The floor is colder out in the hall. The old tiles creak. She heads toward the bathroom, but stops when she steps in a wet patch. A dark pool is spreading from beneath the door of the isolation room where Miranda is sleeping. Nina doesn’t know what to do at first, but then she sees that the key to the room has been left in the lock.

  That’s weird.

  She opens the door, walks inside, and flips on the light. There’s blood everywhere; it runs down the walls. Miranda is lying on the bed.

  Nina takes a few steps backward and sees bloody shoe prints on the floor. She thinks she’s going to faint. She doesn’t notice that she’s peeing herself.

  Back in the hall, she opens the door to the next room, and crouches down to shake Caroline’s shoulder.

  “Miranda’s hurt,” she whispers. “I think Miranda’s hurt.”

  “What the hell are you doing in my room?” Caroline asks as she sits up. “What time is it, anyway?”