The Fire Witness: A Novel Read online

Nina stops whispering. “There’s blood all over the floor!”

  6

  Nina can hardly breathe as she looks into Caroline’s eyes. She needs to make her understand, and she’s surprised when she realizes that she’s screaming at the top of her lungs.

  “Shut up!” Caroline hisses as she gets out of bed. “Calm down!”

  Nina’s screams have woken the other girls. Alarmed voices ring out from the other rooms.

  “Come and see for yourself,” Nina says, and she begins to scratch her arms. “Miranda looks weird. You’ve got to take a look at her! You’ve got to!”

  “Can you please cool it? I’ll look, but I’m sure—”

  Another scream erupts in the hallway. Caroline scrambles out of her bedroom. Tuula is staring into the isolation room and her eyes are as wide as saucers.

  Indie walks out of her room, too, scratching her armpit.

  Caroline pulls Tuula away and catches sight of the blood on the walls and Miranda’s pale body. She blocks Indie, thinking that no one should have to see another suicide.

  “There’s been an accident,” she explains quickly. “Can you ask everyone to go to the dining room, Indie?”

  “What’s wrong with Miranda?” Indie asks.

  “We have to wake up Elisabet.”

  Lu Chu and Almira come out of their double room. Lu Chu is wearing only pajama bottoms and Almira is wrapped in a blanket.

  “Go to the dining room,” Indie orders.

  “Don’t I have time to wash my face first?” Lu Chu pouts.

  “Take Tuula with you.”

  “What the fuck is going on?” asks Almira.

  “We don’t know,” Caroline says.

  While Indie tries to gather everyone in the dining room, Caroline rushes to the staff room. She knows that Elisabet takes sleeping pills and never hears when the girls get up and wander around at night. Caroline bangs on the door as loud as she can.

  “Elisabet, you have to wake up!” she yells.

  Nothing happens.

  Caroline hurries past the registration room and over to the nurse’s office. The door is open and she runs to the telephone and calls Daniel.

  There’s static on the line.

  Indie and Nina press in at the office door. Nina is shaking and her lips are white.

  “Go wait in the dining room!” Caroline snaps.

  “But the blood! Did you see all that blood?” Nina says and scratches her arm furiously.

  “Daniel Grim,” a sleepy voice says on the other end of the line.

  “It’s me, Caroline. There’s been an accident and I can’t wake Elisabet. I called you because I don’t know what else to do.”

  “There’s blood all over my feet!” screams Nina. “I have blood all over my feet!”

  “Calm down!” Indie shouts at her as she tries to pull Nina out of the office.

  “What’s going on?” Daniel asks. His voice is sharper now and in control.

  “Miranda’s in the cell, but it’s all full of blood,” Caroline says. She swallows. “I don’t know what we should—”

  “Is she seriously hurt?” asks Daniel.

  “Yes, I think so … or I—”

  “Caroline,” Daniel says. “I’m going to call for an ambulance. And then—”

  “What should I do? What should I—”

  “Go wake Elisabet.”

  7

  The emergency center in Sundsvall is in a three-story redbrick building on Björneborgsgatan, next to Bäckgatan. Jasmin usually has no problem working nights, but at the moment she’s having trouble staying awake. It’s four in the morning and the witching hour has passed. She sits at her computer with her headset on, blowing on her coffee. Laughter pours out from the cafeteria. The evening newspaper reported that one of the center’s police officers might have earned extra cash as a phone sex worker. The reality is likely more complicated than that, but at this hour, nothing could be funnier than the idea that two very different kinds of calls have been coming into the emergency center.

  Jasmin stares out the window. There is no light in the sky yet. A truck thunders past.

  She puts down her mug to answer an incoming call.

  “SOS 112. What’s going on?”

  “My name is Daniel Grim and I’m a therapist at Birgittagården. One of the girls has just called me … You have to send someone to the home right away.”

  “Can you give me more details?” Jasmin searches for Birgittagården on her computer.

  “I don’t know anything. One of the girls called, but I didn’t really understand what she was saying. She was crying … Everybody was screaming in the background … The girl said there was blood everywhere.”

  Jasmin signals to her colleague, Ingrid Sandén, that more operators are needed on this call.

  “Are you at the scene now?” Ingrid asks as Jasmin tries to refine her search.

  “I was home asleep when they called—”

  “You are talking about Birgittagården north of Sunnås?” asks Jasmin.

  “Hurry, please!” The man’s voice is shaking.

  “We’re sending police and an ambulance to Birgittagården, north of Sunnås,” Jasmin says clearly to give the man time to correct her if she’s wrong.

  She turns away for a moment to issue the alarm, and Ingrid picks up the questioning.

  “Isn’t Birgittagården a youth home?”

  “Yes, for girls.”

  “Shouldn’t there be staff on the premises?”

  “Yes, my wife, Elisabet, is on duty tonight. I’m going to call her now … I don’t know what’s happening … I know nothing…”

  Ingrid can see blue lights flash across the deserted street as the first car pulls out of the garage. “The police are on their way,” she says in a calming voice.

  8

  The turnoff from Highway 86 leads directly into the dark forest and toward Lake Himmelsjö and Birgittagården. The car’s headlights play between the tall trunks of the pine trees. “Have you been there before?” asks Rolf Wikner as he shifts into fourth gear.

  “Yes, a few years ago when a girl tried to set fire to one of the buildings,” Sonja Rask says.

  “Why the hell can’t anyone reach the person on duty?” Rolf mutters.

  “They’re probably too busy, no matter what’s going on.”

  “I wish we knew more.”

  “So do I.”

  The officers fall silent so they can hear the voices coming over the police radio. An ambulance is on its way and another police car has been dispatched.

  The gravel road runs completely straight. It’s in need of grading, and their tires thunder across the potholes. Little missiles of gravel strike their fender as tree trunks flicker past and flashes of blue light stab far into the forest. As soon as they reach the yard between Birgittagården’s dark red buildings, Sonja reports in.

  A girl wearing nothing but a nightgown is standing on the front steps. Her eyes are wide open but her face is pale. Rolf and Sonja get out of the car and hurry toward her. The pulsing blue light swirls all around them. The girl doesn’t appear to notice.

  A dog is barking excitedly.

  “Is someone hurt?” asks Rolf in a loud voice. “Is there someone who needs help?”

  The girl waves vaguely toward the edge of the forest, sways, and then, when she tries to walk toward them, her legs give way.

  Sonja has reached the girl. “Are you all right?” she asks.

  The girl lies absolutely still on the steps, staring up at the sky, breathing shallowly. Sonja notices that she has fresh scratches all over her arms and neck.

  “I’ll go inside,” Rolf says.

  Sonja stays by the girl, who has gone into shock, while Rolf enters the main building. Bloody prints, marks from both shoes and bare feet, seem to fly in all directions. One set, going up and down the hall, belongs to someone with long strides. Rolf moves swiftly, while being careful not to mess the prints.

  In a brightly lit room, four girls are hu
ddled on a sofa.

  “Is anyone hurt here?” he asks.

  “Maybe. Miranda—a little,” says a tiny girl with red hair.

  “Where is she?”

  “Miranda’s in bed,” says an older girl with straight black hair.

  “This way?” He points down the hall.

  The older girl nods and Rolf follows the bloody footprints past a dining room with a large wooden table and tile stove, and comes to the dark hall leading to the girls’ private rooms. He shines his flashlight along the Bible quotes on the walls and then aims at the floor again. Blood has seeped out from under a door at the back of the alcove. The door is shut and the key is in the lock. He walks over, shifting the flashlight from one hand to the other. He presses down on the tip of the door handle. There’s a click and the door swings open.

  “Hello. Miranda? My name’s Rolf and I’m a police officer,” he says into the silence. “I’m coming inside now.”

  The only thing he can hear is his own breathing. He pulls the door all the way open, but the violence of the sight inside stops him short and he slumps against the doorjamb. Instinctively he looks away, but his eyes have already registered what he wishes he’d never seen.

  A young woman is lying on the bed. A great part of her head seems to be missing. Blood has spattered the walls; it drips from a lampshade.

  The door behind Rolf slams shut and he’s so startled that he drops his flashlight. Now there’s nothing but darkness. He turns around and fumbles for the door handle. He can hear the sound of hands on the outside of the door.

  “Now she can see you!” shrieks a young voice. “Now she’s looking right at you!”

  He presses down on the door handle, but the door is blocked. There is only a glimmer of light through the peephole. He presses down again and throws his shoulder against the door. It flies open and Rolf stumbles into the hallway. The little red-haired girl is standing there, staring at him with her wide eyes.

  9

  Detective Inspector Joona Linna stands at the window of his hotel room in the town of Sveg, 440 kilometers north of Stockholm. The dawn light is cool and misty blue. The streetlights along Älvgatan have already switched off, but it will be many more hours before he knows whether he’s found Rosa Bergman.

  His shirt hangs loose and unbuttoned over black suit pants. His blond hair is, as usual, disheveled. His service pistol lies on the bed, still in its shoulder holster.

  The last few months have been unsettled ones for Joona Linna. Last summer, he was accused of alerting an extremist left-wing group to a sweep by Säpo, the security police. The matter is now in the hands of the National Police’s Internal Review Board. While it investigates, Joona has been removed from many duties though not formally barred from the force. But the head of the investigation has made it clear that he intends to forward Joona’s file to the Swedish Prosecution Authority if he finds the slightest cause for an indictment.

  It is a serious charge, but this is not the first time Joona has run up against the authorities. It seems to be his nature. He works as a lone wolf, and that can be irritating, especially to a team organization like the National Police. But what they can’t ignore is that in the almost fifteen years Joona’s been on the job, he’s solved more challenging cases than any other Scandinavian police officer. And while he may be independent to a fault, he is also loyal. Despite repeated offers from other organizations, Joona’s allegiance is to the force.

  But right now Joona isn’t worrying about the outcome of the investigation. His mind is not on the future, but on the recent past. It’s on the old woman who followed him outside the Adolf Fredrik Church in Stockholm and delivered a message from Rosa Bergman.

  Her thin hands had held up two tarot cards.

  “This is you, isn’t it?” she’d asked. “And here is the crown, the bridal crown.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I don’t want anything,” the old woman had said. “But I have a message for you from Rosa Bergman.”

  Joona’s heart had begun to pound, but he’d forced himself to shrug and say nonchalantly that there had to be some kind of mistake “because I don’t know anyone by that name.”

  “She wants to know why you pretend your daughter is dead.”

  “I’m very sorry, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Joona had forced himself to smile as he answered. His voice had sounded odd in his own ears, foreign and cold, as if it came from underneath a large stone, and he’d been tempted to grab her skinny arms and demand to know what was going on. But he didn’t. He managed to stay calm.

  “I have to go,” he had said, and was about to turn away when a migraine had shot through his brain like a knife stabbing his left eye. His vision disintegrated into a shimmering, pulsating halo.

  When he was able to see again, a circle of people had gathered around him, a circle that broke only for the paramedics. And the old woman had disappeared.

  He’d lied when he’d told her he didn’t know Rosa Bergman.

  Of course he knows who Rosa Bergman is. She’s in his thoughts every day. Rosa Bergman is the only person who knows where his wife and daughter are. But she should not know about him. If she knows who he is, then something has gone terribly wrong.

  Joona left the hospital a few hours after the migraine attack, and immediately began his search for Rosa Bergman. He requested and was granted a leave of absence. He soon learned that no such person was listed in any of Sweden’s public registers, but there are at least two thousand people with the last name Bergman in Scandinavia.

  He began to systematically work his way through register after register. Two weeks ago, he began digging through archived church records. For hundreds of years, the Church of Sweden was responsible for keeping population registers, until 1991, when the responsibility was shifted to the Tax Office, where these records are now kept in digital form.

  He started in the south of Sweden at the archives in Lund, where he pored through drawers of index cards, searching for any Rosa Bergman whose birth date might be right. He then traveled to Visby on the island of Gotland, and then to Vadstena, and after that to Gothenburg. Then he headed north to Uppsala and on to the massive archive in Härnösand. He searched through hundreds of thousands of files that recorded birth dates, places of birth, and parentages.

  It was late in the afternoon yesterday, sitting in the Östersund archive, surrounded by the sweet scent of aged, stained paper and loose-leaf binders, that Joona found the record of a girl born eighty-four years ago. She was baptized Rosa Maja in the parish of Sveg, municipality of Härjedalen, Jämtland Province. Her parents were Kristina and Evert Bergman. He was unable to find any record of their marriage, but the mother had been born nineteen years earlier in the same parish. Her maiden name was Stefansson.

  It took Joona three more hours to locate the name of Maja Stefansson, born the same year as Rosa Bergman, whose address was listed as a home for assisted living in Sveg. It was already seven in the evening by then, but Joona decided to drive there immediately. When he arrived, the residents were already in bed so he was denied entry.

  Joona checked into the Lilla Hotellet. He went to bed early and woke at four. Since then, he’s been standing at the window, waiting for dawn to break.

  10

  Sunlight slowly marches around the high walls of the room, dancing briefly in the glass panel of a grandfather clock. Joona’s fairly sure he’s found the right Rosa Bergman. She’s changed her last name to her mother’s maiden name and used her original middle name as her first name. Joona glances at his watch and decides it’s time to go. Buttoning his jacket, he leaves the room, walks through the lobby, and heads out the door into the tiny town of Sveg.

  The nursing home is called Blåvingen. It occupies a group of buildings, all of them faced in yellow stucco, surrounding a well-groomed lawn. There are paths and benches for resting.

  Joona opens the door to the main entrance and steps inside. Now that he’s this close to meeting her, h
e’s suddenly apprehensive and has to force himself to walk down the hall, past the closed office doors, under the harsh fluorescent lights.

  She was not supposed to find me, he thinks. She wasn’t even supposed to know of my existence. Something has gone very wrong.

  Joona never talks about what led him to be such a loner. Still, the reasons are with him every waking moment. His life had burned like magnesium, flaring and then out. From bright white to smoking ruin in an instant.

  A thin, bent old man watches television in the activity room, staring intently as a chef heats up oil in a sauté pan while describing a new recipe for the traditional crayfish festival. He peers at Joona.

  “Anders? Is that you?” he asks.

  Gently, Joona replies, “My name is Joona,” his soft Finnish accent coming through. “I’m looking for Maja Stefansson.”

  The old man stares at him, with eyes that are damp and red.

  “Anders, my boy, please listen to me. You have to get me out of here. There are only old people in this place.” The man slams his bony fist onto the armrest of the sofa but freezes the moment he sees a nurse enter the room.

  “Good morning,” Joona says to the nurse. “I’m here to visit Maja Stefansson.”

  “How nice,” she replies. “But I must warn you Maja has started to suffer from dementia. She tries to run away at every opportunity.”

  “I understand.”

  “Last summer she managed to get all the way to Stockholm.”

  The nurse leads Joona through a freshly scrubbed but dimly lit hallway and opens a door.

  “Maja?” she says. “There’s someone here to see you.”

  11

  An old woman is making her bed. She looks up and Joona recognizes her at once. It is the woman who approached him outside Adolf Fredrik Church and who showed him the tarot cards.

  “Are you Rosa Bergman?” Joona asks.