The Fire Witness: A Novel Page 30

  “She swam like all the old ladies do.”

  “And you? What did you do?”

  “I was bored so I went back.”

  “How did you feel that evening?”

  “Fine.”

  “Were you really feeling fine? Why did you cut yourself, then? You cut yourself on your arms and stomach, right?”

  137

  Saga is watching Vicky’s response to that last question. Her face is darkening and her expression hardening. The edges of her mouth turn down.

  Saga explains, “There’s a note in the log about you cutting your arms.”

  “Yes, but it wasn’t a big deal. We were watching TV and I was feeling a little bit sorry for myself, so I cut myself. I went to Elisabet and she patched me up. I like it when she takes care of me. She is calm and she knows I need a lot of bandages around my wrists … because it always turns my stomach later when I think about my veins being open.”

  “Why were you feeling sorry for yourself?”

  “It was my turn to talk to Elisabet, but she said she didn’t have time.”

  “What did you want to talk to her about?”

  “I don’t know. Nothing big. It was just my turn to have private time with her, but I couldn’t because Miranda and Tuula had a fight.”

  “That doesn’t sound fair,” Saga says.

  “So I was feeling sorry for myself. So I cut myself and then Elisabet patched me up.”

  “You had your time with Elisabet after all, it seems.”

  “Yeah.” Vicky smiles.

  “Are you Elisabet’s favorite?”

  “No.”

  “Who is?”

  All of a sudden, Vicky lashes her good hand at Saga’s face, but Saga rolls her head away in time. The rest of her body doesn’t move. Vicky doesn’t know how she missed and why Saga is now gently stroking her cheek.

  “Are you tired?” asks Saga.

  Vicky looks at her and reaches to stop Saga from taking her hand away. Then she turns her back to her.

  “You usually take thirty milligrams of Eutrexa before you go to sleep,” Saga says after a moment has passed.

  “That’s right.” The girl sounds irritated.

  “What time?”

  “Ten.”

  “Were you able to sleep then?”

  “No.”

  “You couldn’t sleep all night, I understand.”

  “I don’t want to talk anymore,” Vicky says, and she closes her eyes.

  “That’s enough for today,” the lawyer says.

  “We have twenty more minutes,” Susanne protests.

  “My client needs to rest,” Signe Ridelman says as she walks up to Vicky’s bed. “You’re tired, aren’t you? Do you want something to eat?”

  While Signe talks to her client softly, Susanne listens to her voice mail. She looks out the window, her face expressionless.

  Saga is just about to turn off the recorder on her cell phone when she catches sight of Joona and stops.

  He is looking at her with eyes the color of ice. Then he abruptly leaves the room. Saga asks Signe to wait a moment and then follows him. He walks past the officers on guard and waits for her at the door to the stairwell.

  “Have I missed something?” she asks.

  “Vicky slept that night. In her own bed. The clothes she was wearing were covered in blood,” Joona says quietly.

  “What are you telling me?”

  “It’s not in the report.”

  “But you noticed it at the crime scene?”

  “Yes.”

  “So she fell asleep after the murders?”

  “I don’t have access to the lab reports, but one thought I’ve had is that she may have overdosed on her medicine, since she was not feeling well. You’d think the medicine would help, but it doesn’t—you just get more and more restless, and finally you become enraged. I don’t know for sure, but it could be that she was angry at Miranda for robbing her of her private time with Elisabet, or maybe she was angry with Elisabet because she let Miranda do so, or perhaps it is something else entirely.”

  “You think that it’s possible she murdered Elisabet, took the keys, went into the isolation room, killed Miranda—and then went to sleep?”

  “Yes. The evidence in the isolation room shows two sides to the killer: uncontrolled violence and then tenderness.”

  Joona is trying to read Saga’s eyes, but they give nothing away.

  “Once Miranda is dead, her rage dissipates,” he says. “She lifts her body onto the bed and she places her hands over her face. After that, she returns to her own room as the medicine is starting to take effect—it’s strong—and she feels overwhelmingly tired.”

  138

  When Saga returns to Vicky’s room, the prosecutor says that the remaining fifteen minutes they have are too few to get anything of value. Saga nods as if she agrees and walks over to the end of the bed. Signe looks at her in surprise. Saga waits with her hands on the rails until Vicky turns her battered face toward her.

  “I thought you’d been awake the entire night,” Saga begins, very slowly. “However, Joona says that you slept in your bed before you ran away from Birgittagården.”

  Vicky shakes her head and Signe tries to get between them.

  “Any questioning is over for today and—”

  Vicky whispers something and scratches next to one of the cuts on her cheek. Saga wants to get the girl to tell her something more, not much, just a few honest words about her flight through the forest and why she kidnapped the boy. She knows that the more the interrogator gets the suspect to say about the events leading up to the crime, the more probable it is that the suspect will tell them everything.

  “Joona is never wrong,” Saga says, with a smile.

  “It was dark and I was in bed while everyone was screaming and slamming doors.” Vicky’s voice is barely above a whisper.

  “So you’re lying in bed and everyone is screaming,” Saga says. “What are you thinking? What do you do next?”

  “I’m scared and I’m lying under the blanket and trying not to move,” Vicky says, not looking at anyone. “It’s totally dark. I’m soaking. I think I pissed on myself, or maybe my period was starting. Buster is barking and Nina is screaming about Miranda. I turn on the light and see that I’m covered in blood.”

  Saga decides not to ask about the blood or the murders. She does not want to force a confession but to allow Vicky’s story to unfold as it will.

  “Were you also screaming?” asks Saga.

  “I don’t think so. I doubt it. I wasn’t able to think,” Vicky says. “I just wanted to get away … get out of there. I usually go to sleep in my clothes. I always sleep in my clothes. So I put on my shoes and grabbed my purse. I got out the window and ran into the forest. I’m scared and I walk as fast as I can. I walk for ages and it gets light and I just keep going. Then I see a car—it’s almost new—just left out there in the middle of nowhere with the keys in the ignition. Even the door is open. I know how to drive because I drove a lot last summer, so I just get into the car and start to drive. I want to go to Stockholm and get some money so I can go see my friend in Chile. Then there’s a bang and the car turns around. Bang! Just like that. And I wake up, my ear is bleeding, and I look up and see I’ve driven right into a fucking traffic light and I don’t know how I did that. All the windows are gone and it’s raining right into the car. The engine’s still running and I’m alive so I keep driving. Then I hear someone crying and I turn around and I see a little boy in a car seat—a little boy. It’s totally crazy. I don’t know where he came from. I yell at him to shut up. The rain’s just pouring down. I can hardly see but right when I turn to go over the bridge I see blue lights on the other side of the river. I reckon it’s the cops and I get a little panicked and I turn the wheel and we drive off the road. It goes fast, we go right down the side and into the water and I hit my face on the steering wheel. The water is over the hood and we’re just sliding into the river like crazy. We’r
e sinking, but I know enough to take deep breaths from the air right under the roof and I go back to the boy and get the car seat unbuckled, and hold him up so he can breathe but the seat’s too heavy with him still in it, so I get the seat belt off him but the car seat floats up too so I grab it and push it out the window and I hold on to it and I hold on to the boy and we go up. I’m pulling the car seat toward the shore. The other side of the river. But the river is too strong and I have to let go of the car seat and I swim as best I can. And we get to the shore. My shoes and purse are gone, but the boy is all right and in a bit we start to walk.”

  Vicky stops for a moment and takes a deep breath.

  Saga notices the prosecutor shift slightly but her eyes are fixed on Vicky.

  “I ask Dante his name and tell him that we’re going to find his mother,” Vicky says, and her voice has started to shake. “I hold his hand and we walk and walk and we sing a song he learned in preschool—an old man who wore out his shoes—and we go down a big road with posts along the sides, and a car stops and we get in the backseat. This guy asks us if we want to go to his house and get some new clothes and some food…” Vicky falters and blinks hard, then carries on in a whisper.

  “We might have gone with him except he said we’d get some money too, and when he stopped to fill up his tank we snuck out and kept walking. I don’t know how far we walked but there was a rest area by a lake. And there was a truck from IKEA parked there and we found a heap of sausage sandwiches in plastic bags and a thermos on one of the picnic tables, but before we can swipe the food, this man comes up to us and asks if we’re hungry. He says he’s from Poland and we can ride with him all the way to Uppsala. I borrow his phone and call my mom, and I keep thinking if he touches the boy I’ll kill him, but he lets us just sit there and we fall asleep. He doesn’t want anything from us. He just lets us off and we take the train the last bit in to Stockholm and we hide among the suitcases. I don’t have the key to the subway car, and I don’t know anyone, it’s been too long. I lived with a couple at Midsommarkransen for a while but I didn’t remember their names but I remembered Tobias, of course I remembered Tobias, and also he lives on Wollmar Yxkullsgatan, and you take the subway to Mariatorget and I’m such a fucking idiot I really don’t deserve to live.”

  She falls silent and turns her face away.

  139

  Saga is still standing at the end of the bed and looking at Vicky, who is lying on her side, motionless. Only her index finger moves along the rail of the bed.

  “I’m thinking about what you told me about the man in the car,” Saga says. “The man who wanted you to come home with him. I think your feeling that he was dangerous was absolutely correct.”

  Vicky slowly sits up and looks into Saga’s cornflower-blue eyes.

  “Do you think you could help me trace him down once all this is over?” asks Saga.

  Vicky nods and swallows hard. Then she wraps her arms tightly around her knees. It’s difficult for Saga to see how this thin, delicate girl could have broken the skulls of two human beings.

  “Before we go any further, let me just tell you that people always feel better when they tell the truth,” Saga says.

  Saga feels the tingling calm she gets when she enters a boxing ring. She knows that she is close to a truthful confession. She can feel the change in the room: it’s in the tone of voice, the warmth, the level of moisture in the eyes. Saga pretends to write something in her notebook and waits for a few moments before she looks at Vicky as if the girl has already confessed to the killings.

  “So you were sleeping in bloody sheets,” Saga begins, softly.

  “I killed Miranda, didn’t I?” Vicky whispers.

  “Tell me about it.”

  Vicky’s mouth trembles and her face darkens into a blush.

  “There are times I get really, really mad,” she whispers as she covers her face.

  “Were you angry at Miranda?”

  “I was.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Signe walks over to Vicky and says, “You know that you don’t have to say a word, don’t you?”

  “I don’t have to tell you anything,” Vicky says to Saga.

  “The interrogation is over,” Susanne Öst says.

  “Thanks,” whispers Vicky.

  “She needs time to remember what happened,” says Saga.

  “We have a confession,” says Susanne.

  “I don’t know if I—”

  “You just confessed to killing Miranda Eriksdotter,” Susanne says in a louder voice.

  “Don’t yell at me!”

  “You hit her, didn’t you? You hit her in the head.”

  “I don’t want to say anything else.”

  “This interrogation is over,” Signe says sharply.

  “How did you hit Miranda?” Susanne asks.

  “It doesn’t matter.” Vicky’s voice breaks and she starts to cry.

  “Your fingerprints were on a bloody hammer, which—”

  “I can’t talk about it! What the hell do you want from me?”

  “You don’t have to say anything,” Saga says. “You have the right to remain silent.”

  “Why did you get angry at Miranda?” Susanne asks. “So angry that you—”

  “I’m making a note of this,” the lawyer says.

  “How did you get into Miranda’s room?”

  “I unlocked the door,” Vicky says, and tries to get out of bed. “I really can’t talk about this anymore.”

  “How did you get the keys?”

  “I don’t know, I—”

  “Elisabet had them, am I right?”

  “I borrowed them,” Vicky says as she stands up.

  “Did she want to give them to you?”

  “I smashed her skull in! That’s what you want to hear, isn’t it?” Vicky screams. She throws her food tray at the prosecutor and orange juice and yogurt with cornflakes spatter the wall.

  “Go to hell!” she screams at Signe, who is so startled she falls backward into one of the chairs.

  Before Saga and Joona can reach her, Vicky rips out her IV and seizes the pole. She hits Susanne as hard as she can. The bag flies off and bursts against the wall.

  140

  Afterward, Joona remembers how he and Saga leaped between Vicky and the two women. They tried to calm her. IV liquid ran down the wall. Vicky was panting and looking at them with wild eyes. She’d hurt herself and blood dribbled from one of her eyebrows. The policemen on guard outside and the two nursing assistants rushed in and forced Vicky to the ground. Four people in all. Vicky fought, screaming and kicking to get free. She managed to kick over the patient cart.

  Vicky was forced onto her stomach and injected with a tranquilizer. She screamed hoarsely for a while longer and then went quiet.

  A few minutes later, they were able to lift her into bed. She started crying and tried to speak, but her speech was slurred. The nursing assistants tied her hands and feet to the bed rails and then her legs and, finally, they fastened a large star-shaped belt over her chest. Vicky’s blood had stained the sheets as well as their white clothes. There was liquid and food all over the floor.

  Half an hour later, Vicky lay completely still, her eyes shut. Her face was gray and closed off, and the cracks in her lips had widened. Her eyebrow had been stitched and a new IV was in place. The two police officers were back in position outside the door and a cleaning woman had just finished mopping the floor.

  * * *

  Joona knows that the prosecutor, Susanne Öst, is suspicious of him and that he is not supposed to get involved, but he doesn’t like what is going on. Susanne has decided that there will be no more interrogations before the hearing. It would have been better to wait until all questioning had been concluded and all test results had been returned from the lab before starting the legal process, but Susanne intends to take the girl into custody tomorrow.

  He’s certain that if Saga Bauer ha
d been given just a bit more time, Vicky would have told her everything. Now they had a confession that could be considered forced.

  As long as the technical evidence holds up, it won’t matter anyway, Joona thinks as he leaves the room once the girl is fast asleep.

  He walks along the hallway, only subconsciously aware of the strong odor of disinfectant escaping from an open door.

  There’s something bothering him about this case. If he ignores the rock, the course of events is fairly clear. It would hold up but it’s not fixed. It’s like a pulsing shadow world—it’s still changeable.

  He wants to look through all the evidence: the autopsy report, the technical reports, and the lab reports. But he’s not allowed access.

  Why were Miranda’s hands over her eyes?

  He remembers how the bloodied room looked, but he needs to read the reports from the crime scene to go deeper into the course of events.

  Susanne is standing at the elevator, holding the door for him. They nod. The prosecutor seems untroubled.

  “Everybody hates me because I was too tough,” she says as they get into the elevator. She presses the button. “Still, a confession is hard to ignore, even if the defense wants to protest it.”

  “How does the technical evidence look?” asks Joona.

  “It’s pretty good. I’m going with the highest level of suspicion.”

  The elevator stops at the ground floor.

  “Will I see the reports?” Joona asks.

  Susanne Öst looks surprised. She hesitates a moment before she says, “It’s not really necessary.”

  “Good,” Joona says, and starts to walk away.

  “Do you think there’s a hole in my case?” the prosecutor asks. She trots to keep up with his pace.

  “No,” Joona says brusquely.

  “I have the reports right here,” she says, and stops to open her briefcase.

  Joona keeps walking to the exit. He can hear her behind him, shuffling through her papers, then she runs to catch up to him. He’s already reached his car when she gets to him.