The Fire Witness Page 3

  “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.

  “Yes,” she says, shyly holding out her hand.

  “You had a message for me,” he says softly.

  “Oh my goodness … I don’t remember,” she says, and sits down on her sofa.

  Joona swallows hard and steps closer.

  “You asked me why I’m pretending my daughter is dead.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t do that,” she reprimands him. “It’s not a nice thing to do at all.”

  “What do you know about my daughter?” Joona asks gently, taking another step. “Have you heard anything at all?”

  She smiles absently and Joona has to look away. He tries to think clearly. His hands are shaking. He goes to her tiny kitchenette to steady them and makes two cups of coffee.

  “Rosa, this is very important,” he says slowly as he sets the cups down on her coffee table. “It’s extremely important to me.”

  Rosa blinks a few times. It is clear she’s grown suddenly frightened. “Who are you? Has something happened to Mother?”

  “Rosa, do you remember a little girl named Lumi? Her mother’s name is Summa and you helped them to …”

  Joona falls silent as he sees her wandering, lost gaze.

  “Why did you come to Stockholm to find me?” he asks, although he knows his question won’t be answered.

  Rosa Bergman begins to cry. A nurse comes in and comforts her in a practiced manner.

  She says quietly to Joona, “Come with me. I’ll show you out.”

  They walk along the wide hall, designed for wheelchairs.

  “How long has she been suffering from dementia?” Joona asks.

  “Things went quickly for Maja. We started to see the first signs last summer, so, for about a year. In the old days, they used to call it a second childhood, which is not so far from the truth.”

  “If she … if she’s able to think clearly at all …” Joona says seriously.

  “It’s unlikely,” the nurse says, but you never know. “I can call you.”

  “My card,” Joona says, and hands it to her.

  She looks impressed. “Detective Inspector?” She tacks it to the bulletin board behind her desk.

  12

  Joona steps into the fresh air and takes a deep breath. Perhaps Rosa Bergman did have something important to tell me, he thinks. Maybe someone sent her, but she began to suffer from dementia before she could do anything about it.

  Perhaps he’ll never know what the message was.

  It has been twelve years since he lost Summa and Lumi, and the last trace of them has disappeared with Rosa Bergman’s memory.

  Joona climbs into his car and wipes the tears from his cheeks. He closes his eyes for a moment, then starts the drive back to Stockholm. He’s barely gone thirty kilometers along the E45 when he gets a call from Carlos Eliasson, chief of the National Police.

  “There’s been a murder in Sundsvall. A girl,” Carlos says. “The call came in just after four this morning.”

  “I’m on leave,” Joona says. His voice is barely audible. He’s driving through a forest that offers glimpses of a distant silvery lake between the trees.

  “Joona? What’s going on?”

  “Nothing.”

  In the background, someone yells for Carlos.

  “There’s a damned board meeting I’ve got to go to, but I would like … You see, I just talked with Prosecutor Susanne Öst and she thinks that the police in Västernorrland do not intend to request our help in the case.”

  “So why call me?”

  “I told them we would send an observer anyway.”

  “Since when do we send observers?”

  “As of now,” says Carlos. He lowers his voice. “Things are kind of touchy around here these days. Remember the mess with the captain of the hockey league, Janne Svensson? The press had a field day with the police department’s incompetence.”

  “Because they didn’t find—”

  “Let’s not discuss it. That was Susanne Öst’s first big prosecution. I don’t want to say the press had it right, but the Västernorrland police could certainly have used you that time. They were just too slow and kept going by the book. Time ran out. Not unusual, perhaps, but it can lead to media unpleasantness.”

  “I can’t talk anymore,” Joona says, trying to cut short the conversation.

  “You know I wouldn’t trouble you if this was just an average murder case,” Carlos says. Joona can hear him breathing deeply over the phone. “The press is going to be all over this one, Joona. It’s extremely violent, extremely bloody. And there’s one especially nasty thing: the girl’s body has been arranged.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “She’s lying in bed with her hands over her face.”

  Joona says nothing. His left hand is on the wheel. The trees flash past as he drives, and Joona can hear a babble of voices in the background. Carlos waits patiently, and Joona turns off the E45 and onto the E14, leading east to Sundsvall, on the coast.

  “Just go there, Joona,” Carlos says. “Be nice and let them solve the case themselves, preferably before the press gets to town.”

  “So now I’m more than just an observer?”

  “No, no. That’s what you are, but stick around and keep an eye on the investigation. Make a few suggestions. Just keep in mind that you have no authority in the case.”

  “Because I’m under internal investigation?”

  “It’s important you keep a low profile.”

  13

  North of Sundsvall, Joona leaves the coast and turns onto Highway 86, which heads inland toward Indalsälven. After two hours, he’s close to where the home for troubled girls should be. He slows down and eventually turns onto a gravel road. Rays of sunshine stream past the dark trunks of the tall pines.

  A dead girl, thinks Joona.

  During the night while everyone slept, a girl was murdered and then set up, “arranged,” in her bed. According to the local police, the crime was brutal. They have no suspect and now it’s too late to close off the roads, but all officers in the area are on alert. Commissioner Olle Gunnarsson is leading the preliminary investigation but, Carlos tells Joona, the situation has been so chaotic, the girls have been so agitated, so uncontrollable, that the investigation has not yet begun.

  It’s ten by the time Joona reaches the home. He parks outside the line of police tape and gets out. The only sound he can hear is the buzz of insects in the ditch beside the road. Here the forest has opened into an enormous glade. Tree trunks, still damp with dew, shimmer in the sunshine. A hill slopes down to Lake Himmelsjö, and a metal sign beside the road reads BRIGITTAGÅRDEN, HVB: A HOME FOR YOUTH WITH SPECIAL NEEDS.

  Joona heads toward the group of red buildings, which form a square around a gravel yard. An ambulance, three police cars, a white Mercedes, and three other cars are parked near the buildings.

  A dog is barking. His leash is attached to a line running between two trees.

  An older man with a walrus mustache and a beer belly, wearing a wrinkled linen suit, is standing by the main building. He’s noticed Joona but does not acknowledge him. Instead, he taps a cigarette out of a full packet and starts to light it.

  Joona swings his legs over a second ring of police tape while the man reconsiders and puts the cigarette behind his ear.

  “Joona Linna from the National Police.”


  “Gunnarsson,” the man replies. “Detective Gunnarsson.”

  “I’m supposed to observe your work.”

  “As long as you don’t get in the way,” Gunnarsson says coldly, looking Joona over.

  Joona glances at the big house. The technicians are already busy. Floodlights are blazing in all the rooms, making the windows shine with an unnatural light.

  A white-faced officer comes out of the house. He’s holding his hand over his mouth and wobbles down the steps, then, leaning on the wall for support, he bends forward and throws up into the nettles by the rain barrel.

  “You’ll do the same once you’ve been inside,” Gunnarsson says, grinning at Joona.

  “What do we know so far?”

  “We don’t know a damn thing. The alarm came early this morning. The therapist in charge here called. His name’s Daniel Grim. It was four o’clock. He was at home on Bruksgatan in Sundsvall. He’d just got a phone call from the place. He didn’t know what was going on when he called us, but said the girls were screaming about a lot of blood.”

  “So it was the girls themselves who called him?” Joona asks.

  “That’s right.”

  “They didn’t call emergency? They called the therapist in Sundsvall?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Shouldn’t there be staff on-site?”

  “Apparently there’s not.”

  “But some adult?”

  “We don’t know. It’s impossible to talk to the girls,” Gunnarsson says. He sounds weary.

  “Which one of them made the call?”

  “One of the older ones”—Gunnarsson glances at his notebook—“by the name of Caroline Forsman. From what I understand, she was not the one who found the body, but the crime scene’s a mess, several of the girls have looked into the room. One of them got so hysterical they had to take her to the hospital. Let me tell you, it’s a gruesome sight.”

  “Who were the first officers on the scene?” Joona asks.

  “There were two, Rolf Wikner and Sonja Rask. And I got here around a quarter to six. I called the prosecutor. She must have shit her pants over it, since she called you guys in Stockholm. And now I have you hanging around my neck.”

  Gunnarsson smiles again at Joona. It’s not a friendly smile.

  “Any suspects yet?”

  Gunnarsson sighs and then says, as if he’s giving a lecture, “I’ve been at this sort of thing for a long time and my experience tells me to let the investigation take its course. Start from the beginning, find witnesses, secure evidence—”

  “May I go inside and take a look?” Joona asks, glancing at the front door.

  “I wouldn’t recommend it. We’ll soon have photos for you.”

  “I need to take a look at her body before it’s moved,” Joona says.

  “It’s blunt trauma,” Gunnarsson says. “The perpetrator is tall. After she died, the victim was placed on her bed and no one noticed anything until one of the girls had to go to the bathroom and stepped into blood that had come out from under the door.”

  “Was it still warm?”

  “You know, these aren’t the easiest girls in the world to work with,” Gunnarsson says. “They’re frightened and angry all the time and they’ve been arguing about everything we say and not listening at all. They’ve been screaming at us. Earlier this morning they tried to cross the police tape to fetch things from their rooms, iPods and jackets and so on, and when we tried to move them out to the smaller building, two ran off into the woods.”

  “Ran off?”

  “Oh, we caught up with them, and we’re trying to get them to return on their own. Right now they’re lying on the ground and demanding that Rolf give them a piggyback ride.”

  14

  Joona puts on his protective gear and walks up the steps into the big house. Inside the entrance, he can hear floodlight fans humming, and the air is already too warm. Dust motes float through the air.

  He walks across the protective mats that have been placed on the tiled floor. A picture has fallen from the wall and the broken glass glitters in the bright light. There are bloody footprints in all directions, to and from the front door.

  The home has retained some details from when it was a wealthy farmhouse. The colors of stenciled patterns on the walls are a bit faded, but fanciful vegetables and vines, painted by itinerant painters from Dalarna two hundred years ago, still meander along the walls and around the chimneys.

  A technician, who introduces himself as Jimi Sjöberg, is aiming a green light beam at a black chair he’s sprayed with Hungarian Red.

  “Any blood?” asks Joona.

  “Not on this one,” answers Jimi, continuing to look for traces of blood.

  “Found anything unusual?”

  “The Head of Crime Scene Investigation in Stockholm told us not to move even a single piece of fly shit until Joona Linna gives us permission,” Jimi replies, smiling.

  “And I’m very grateful.”

  “So, the thing is, we haven’t really started yet,” Jimi says. “We’ve put down these damned mats and we’ve taken photos and filmed everything, and I’ve taken the liberty of swabbing a blood sample from the hallway so we could send it to the lab.”

  “Good.”

  “And Siri lifted prints in the hallway before they could be ruined.”

  A second technician, Siri Karlsson, has just removed the brass handle from one of the doors. She puts it in a paper bag and comes over.

  “This guy needs a look at the crime scene,” Jimi says.

  “Not a pretty sight,” Siri says through the dust mask covering her mouth and nose. Her eyes look strained and tired.

  “So I understand,” Joona says.

  “You can take a look at the photos instead if you’d like,” Siri says.

  “This is Joona Linna,” Jimi says.

  “Sorry, I didn’t recognize you.”

  “I’m here only as an observer,” Joona says.

  Siri looks away and the mask can’t hide her flushed cheeks when she looks back at him. “Sorry. Everyone’s talking about what’s happening to you. And I … that is … I don’t care about the internal investigation. I think it’ll be great to work together.”

  “I think so, too,” Joona replies.

  He stands for a moment longer, listening to the hum of the floodlights. He’s searching for that mental stillness that will allow him to observe and not give in to the impulse to look away.

  15

  Joona goes down the hall to the door from which Siri removed the handle. The key is still in the lock. He closes his eyes a moment and then walks into the room. It’s completely silent and fully lit, and the heated air is filled with the smell of blood and urine. Joona concentrates on breathing and in a moment he begins to distinguish other smells: damp wood, sweaty sheets, deodorant. The hot metal of the floodlights makes a pinging sound.

  Joona does not move. He takes a long look at the body on the bed and lets each detail sink in, even though he’d much rather turn around and head for the fresh air of the forest.

  Blood is all over the floor and splashed on the bolted-down furniture and the faded pictures of Bible scenes on the walls. It has spattered the ceiling and all the way to the toilet in the washroom, which has no door. A skinny girl, barely into puberty, is lying on the bed. She’s on her back wearing only a pair of white cotton panties. Her hands are over her face. Her elbows protect her breasts, her legs are straight, and her feet are crossed at the ankles.

  Joona can feel his heart beating and the pulse throbbing in his temples.

  He forces himself to look, register, and think.

  The girl’s face is hidden as if she were afraid, as if she did not want to see her killer.

  Before the girl was arranged on the bed, she had been hit repeatedly on her head and forehead by a blunt object. Her skull is smashed in.

  Such a young girl; she must have been terrified. What chain of events had brought her to this home for troubled girls, to
this room? Perhaps her parents or her foster parents couldn’t cope anymore. Perhaps they’d needed help and brought her here to be safe.

  Joona takes in every grisly detail until he can absorb no more. He closes his eyes and thinks about his daughter’s face and the stone set over a grave that’s not hers. Then he opens his eyes and continues his investigation.

  Everything indicates the victim was sitting on the chair next to the small table when the suspect attacked her. Joona tries to figure out the sequence of events that caused the blood to spatter in this pattern. He knows that each drop of blood, flying through the air, forms a sphere with a diameter of about five millimeters. If the drop is smaller, it means that the blood was traveling at such high speed it split into smaller drops.

  He stands on two protective mats in front of the table; most likely the spot where the killer stood just a few hours earlier. The girl would have been sitting on the chair on the other side of the table. Joona follows the spatter pattern with his eyes. He leans back to trace a high arc on the walls. The weapon must have been swung back to gain momentum, and each time, as its direction changed slightly for the next blow, blood was flung off in a backward trail.

  Joona has already spent more time on this crime scene than most inspectors would, yet he knows he’s not through yet. He steps over again to the girl on the bed. He notes her pierced navel, the lipstick stain on the glass by her bed, the scar, possibly from the removal of a birthmark, under her right breast. He sees the hair on her shins and a yellowed bruise on her thigh.

  Joona leans over her and feels slight warmth still rising from her naked skin. He takes a closer look at her hands. There’s nothing under her nails. She didn’t scratch her assailant.

  He steps to one side and examines her body once more: her white skin, her hands over her face, her crossed ankles. There is almost no blood on her body at all. Only her pillow is drenched. Her panties are white. Her skin is clean.

  Joona looks around the room. Behind the door is a small shelf with two hooks. On the floor beneath the shelf is a pair of sports shoes with white socks balled inside. A faded pair of jeans, a black sweatshirt, and a denim jacket hang from one of the hooks. On the shelf, there’s a small white bra.