The Fire Witness: A Novel Page 39

  Perhaps he’d already gotten rid of the rock. Perhaps he’d thrown it far into the forest.

  Daniel hunted Elisabet down, grabbing a hammer from somewhere, following her into the brewery, and ordering her to cover her face before he hit her.

  When Elisabet was dead, he decided to place the blame on the new girl, Vicky Bennet. He knew that she took strong sleeping pills, which meant she’d slept through the events of that evening.

  Daniel had to hurry. Any minute someone could wake up. He took Elisabet’s key to the isolation room from her ring of keys, returned to the main building, put the key in the isolation room lock, scooped up Miranda’s blood, went to Vicky’s room, placed the hammer under her pillow, and smeared the blood on her sleeping body. Then he left the grounds.

  He’d probably used garbage bags or some newspapers to protect his car while he drove back to his house. He probably burned them along with his clothes in the cast-iron stove.

  Afterward, he had to stay nearby to see if anyone was figuring out what had happened. He played the role of helpful director as well as victim.

  Joona is nearing Stockholm. The Radio Book Club is almost over. They’d been discussing Gösta Berling’s Saga by Selma Lagerlöf.

  Joona turns off the radio and puzzles through the rest of the case.

  When Vicky was arrested and Daniel heard that Miranda had told her about the face-covering game, he realized he was vulnerable. His secret would be revealed if Vicky had the chance to tell her story to a competent psychologist, and one would have been assigned to her in jail. That’s why Daniel did everything he could to make sure that Vicky was released—so he could arrange her suicide.

  For most of his career, Daniel had worked with troubled girls who had neither parents who cared nor any sense of security. Whether he was acting on a conscious or unconscious level, he sought out those jobs and kept falling in love with little girls who reminded him of his first crush. Daniel used the girls and once they moved away, he made sure that they would never tell anyone about what he’d done.

  Joona slows down for a red light and shudders. He thinks of the hours Daniel spent with these girls as their psychotherapist, twisting their minds; of all the reports he wrote detailing their insecurities, their hatred of themselves. He has met a number of killers in his work as a police officer, but Daniel’s careful preparations for these girls’ deaths—preparations he started long before he killed them, and probably shortly after he fell for them—makes him almost the worst killer Joona has ever dealt with. Only one other murderer was worse.

  181

  There is a light fog in the air as Joona parks his car and walks across Karlaplan to Disa’s apartment.

  “Joona?” Disa says as she opens the door. “I almost thought that you weren’t coming. I have the TV on and they’re talking about what happened at Delsbo.”

  Joona nods.

  “So, you caught the killer,” Disa says with a slight smile.

  “Or however you want to put it,” Joona says, thinking of the father’s fiery embrace.

  “What happened to that poor woman who was always calling you? They said she’d been shot.”

  “Flora Hansen,” Joona says.

  He bumps his head on the light in the hallway. Light flashes back and forth over the walls. Joona is barely aware of it. He’s thinking now about the young girls whose photographs were in Daniel Grim’s shoe box.

  “You’re tired,” Disa says, pulling him by the hand.

  “Flora was shot in the leg by her brother and…”

  She doesn’t notice that he’s stopped in the middle of a sentence. He’s tried to clean up at a gas station on the way back, but his clothes are still covered in Flora’s blood.

  “Go take a bath. I’ll pick up some food at the corner shop,” Disa says.

  “Thanks.” Joona smiles.

  In the living room, the news is showing a photo of Elin. They stop to look at it. A young journalist is reporting that Elin Frank has undergone an operation during the night and that her doctors are very optimistic. The picture switches to footage of Elin’s assistant, Robert Bianchi. He looks exhausted, but he smiles tentatively and tears leak from his eyes as he tells the reporters that Elin is going to live.

  “What happened?” Disa asks.

  “She fought this killer all on her own. She saved the girl’s life, the one—”

  “My God,” Disa whispers.

  “Yes, well, Elin Frank, she’s … she’s actually quite exceptional,” Joona says as he rubs Disa’s narrow shoulders.

  182

  Joona is sitting at Disa’s kitchen table wrapped in a bathrobe. They’re eating chicken vindaloo and lamb tikka masala.

  “Good…”

  “Mamma’s Homemade Finnish recipes, and I won’t reveal what they are!” Disa is laughing.

  She tears a naan in half and hands one piece to Joona. He’s looking at her with smiling eyes. He drains his wineglass, and then picks up his story about the case.

  He’s started at the beginning and told Disa about Flora and Daniel, the siblings who were placed in an orphanage at a young age.

  “Were they really siblings?” she asks as she refills their wineglasses.

  “Yes, and it was a big deal when the rich couple, the Rånnes, adopted them.”

  “I can see that.”

  They were small children who played with the foreman’s daughter on the grounds of the estate, in the fields, and around the churchyard and its bell tower. Daniel had a crush on Ylva, who was still a little girl herself. Joona tells her what Flora, wide-eyed, had said about Daniel kissing Ylva when they were playing the close-your-eyes game.

  “The little girl laughed and said she was now with child,” Joona says. “Daniel was six years old and he panicked for some reason.”

  “So what did he do?” whispers Disa.

  “He ordered both girls to close their eyes and then he picked up a heavy rock and hit Ylva so hard in the head that she died.”

  Disa stops eating and listens intently as Joona describes how Flora fled and told her father what happened.

  “But her father loved Daniel and defended him,” Joona says. “He demanded that Flora take back her accusation. He threatened her by telling her that all liars end up in a lake of fire.”

  “So she took it all back?”

  “She said she lied, and because she’d lied so terribly, they banished her from their home forever.”

  “So Flora took back what she’d said. She lied about lying,” Disa says thoughtfully.

  “Yes,” Joona says, and he reaches across the table for her hand.

  He is thinking about Flora and how, even as a little girl, she managed to bury her memories of what happened at Delsbo so deeply she also soon forgot all about her earlier life, her adoptive parents, her own brother.

  He realizes Flora had little choice but to create a whole life based on lies. She lied for others to make them happy. Her memories began to return only after she heard about the girl with her hands over her face who’d been murdered at Birgittagården. It cracked open the vault of her memories, and the past started to catch up to her.

  “How could she forget such things?” Disa asks, gesturing to Joona to help himself to more.

  “I called Britt-Marie on the way here,” Joona says.

  “The Needle’s wife?”

  “Exactly. She told me how they have a number of theories concerning repressed memories after traumatic events. It’s a form of PTSD. Apparently the huge amounts of adrenaline and stress hormones released at the time of the trauma affect long-term memory. Seriously traumatic events are stored deep within the brain and are hidden. They are not dealt with on an emotional level. However, the right stimulus can trigger the memory to surface in physical responses and pictures. Flora was first just shaken up by what she’d heard on the radio and didn’t know why. She thought she might earn some money by leaving a tip with the police. But when the real memories began to appear, she thought they were ghosts.�
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  “Perhaps they were ghosts,” Disa says.

  “Well, perhaps. In any case, she started to tell the truth and she became the witness who solved the case.”

  Joona stands up and blows out the candles on the table. Disa joins him and snuggles beneath his robe. They stand holding each other for a long time. He breathes in her scent and feels the pulse of her heart.

  “I’m so afraid something could happen to you. This is why our relationship has been so rocky. I get afraid and I withdraw,” he says.

  “What could ever happen to me?” she asks, smiling.

  “You can disappear off the face of the earth.”

  “Joona, I’m not going to disappear.”

  “I once had a friend named Samuel Mendel,” he says, and then he falls silent.

  183

  Joona leaves the police station and as he’s done many times before walks up the steep path and over to the ancient Jewish burial ground. With practiced hands, he loosens the bar inside the gate, opens it, and walks inside.

  There’s a relatively new family grave among the older stones: Samuel Mendel; his wife, Rebecka; and sons, Joshua and Reuben.

  Joona places a small pebble on the top of the gravestone and stands there with his eyes closed for a moment. He inhales the smell of damp earth and listens to the breeze soughing in the treetops.

  Samuel Mendel was a direct descendant of Koppel Mendel, who opposed Aaron Isaac, the founder of Sweden’s Jewish community, and bought this land for use as a cemetery in 1787. Although the cemetery has not been actively used since 1857, the descendants of Koppel Mendel are still buried there.

  Detective Inspector Samuel Mendel and Joona were partners at the National Police, and they became very good friends.

  Samuel Mendel was forty-six years old when he died. Joona knows that he is alone in his grave, although the gravestone says something else.

  Joona and Samuel’s first case together was also their last.

  * * *

  One hour later, Joona is back in the appeals office of the Public Prosecutor for Police Cases. Mikael Båge, the head of the internal investigation, is there, along with Helene Fiorine, the department secretary, and the prosecutor, Sven Wiklund.

  “I will now be deciding whether to start prosecuting your case,” Wiklund says. He runs his hands over a pile of paperwork and adds, “In these documents, there is nothing favorable.”

  His chair creaks as he leans back and meets Joona’s eyes. The only sound in the room is the scratch of Helene Fiorine’s pen and her shallow breathing. The yellow light from outside plays over the polished furniture and the glass doors protecting the many leather-bound volumes of law, police regulations, and the writings and binding judgments of the Swedish Supreme Court.

  “As I see this,” Wiklund continues drily, “the only way you can avoid prosecution is by giving me a really good explanation.”

  “I bet Joona has an ace up his sleeve,” whispers Mikael Båge.

  The contrail of an airplane dissipates in the light sky. The chairs creak. Helene Fiorine swallows and puts down her pen.

  “Just tell us what happened,” she says. “Perhaps you had a very good reason for warning them of Säpo’s intended action.”

  “Yes, I did,” Joona says.

  “We know that you’re a good police officer.” Mikael Båge smiles, embarrassed.

  “I, on the other hand, must go by the letter of the law,” Wiklund says. “My job is to break people to pieces when they break the rules. Don’t make me break you here and now.”

  It’s as close to a plea as Helene Fiorine has ever heard her boss make.

  “Your entire future is up in the air, Joona,” Mikael whispers.

  “You understand that the decision was entirely my own,” Joona says. “I do have an answer for you, which perhaps…”

  Joona’s cell phone rings. He gives it an automatic glance, and his eyes darken.

  “Please excuse me,” he says. “I must take this call.”

  The three others look at him as Joona listens to the voice on the other end.

  “Yes … yes, I know,” he says. “I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

  Joona ends the call and looks at Wiklund as if he’s forgotten why he’s here.

  “I have to go,” he says, and leaves the room without saying another word.

  184

  One hour and twenty minutes later, the scheduled flight from Stockholm lands at Sveg Airport in Härjedalen. Joona takes a taxi to Blåvingen, the assisted-living home where Maja Stefansson lives. He’s been here before, when he traced Rosa Bergman, the woman who had followed him from Adolf Fredrik Church and asked him why he was pretending his daughter was dead.

  Rosa Bergman had changed her name to Maja Stefansson. She’d used her middle name and her maiden name instead of the name she’d had most of her adult life.

  Joona gets out of the taxi and heads straight to Maja’s ward. The nurse he’d met the last time he was here waves from behind the reception desk. The light from the window makes her hair shine like copper.

  “That was fast,” she says cheerfully. “I was thinking of you and we have your card here behind the desk so I called—”

  “Can I speak with her?” Joona says.

  The woman is surprised by his serious tone. She runs her hands over her light blue skirt.

  “We have a new doctor. She’s young. I think she comes from Algeria. Anyway, she changed Maja’s medicine and, well, I’ve heard people tell me about cases like this, but I haven’t seen it before … Maja woke up this morning and told us quite clearly that she needed to talk to you.”

  “Where is she?”

  The nurse leads Joona to a narrow room with closed curtains, and then she leaves him alone with the elderly woman. Over a tiny desk, there’s a photograph of a young woman sitting next to her son. The mother is holding the boy’s shoulders protectively.

  A few pieces of her furniture have been moved here. A dark desk, a vanity, and two golden pedestals. Rosa Bergman is sitting on a daybed, dressed neatly in a blouse and skirt, with a knitted afghan around her shoulders. Her face is swollen and covered in wrinkles, but Joona can see that she’s fully aware and calm.

  “My name is Joona Linna,” he says. “You have something to tell me.”

  The woman nods and gets up with difficulty. She opens a drawer in her nightstand and takes out a Gideon Bible. She holds the book by its covers over the bed. A small piece of folded paper falls out.

  “Joona Linna,” she says as she picks up the piece of paper. “So you are Joona Linna.”

  He says nothing, but feels the burning intensity of a migraine coming on. It’s like a glowing needle pressed through his temples.

  “How can you pretend your daughter is dead?” Rosa Bergman says. She glances at the photograph on the wall. “If my boy was still alive … If you knew what it was like to see your child die … Nothing would ever make me abandon him.”

  “I did not abandon my family,” Joona says. “I saved their lives.”

  “When Summa came to me, she said nothing about you, but she was broken,” Rosa continues. “Your daughter had it much worse. She stopped talking and didn’t start again for two years.”

  Joona feels a shiver go down his spine.

  “How did you contact them?” he asks. “You were not supposed to be in contact with them.”

  “I could not let them disappear completely,” she said. “I felt extremely sorry for them.”

  Joona knows that Summa would not have mentioned his name unless something had gone terribly wrong. There was not supposed to be a single thread connecting them—not one. That was the only chance they had of surviving.

  He has to lean on the desk. He swallows hard and looks at the old woman.

  “How are they doing?” he asks.

  “It’s very serious, Joona Linna,” Rosa says. “I used to go see Lumi once a year. But these days … somehow I’ve gotten very forgetful and confused.”

  “Wha
t’s happened?”

  “Your wife has cancer,” Rosa says. “She was going to have surgery, but might not survive. She wanted you to know that Lumi was going to be handed to the authorities if she—”

  “When did you hear this?” Joona’s jaw is clenched. His lips have turned white. “When did she call you?”

  “I’m afraid it might be too late,” Rosa whispers. “I’ve been so forgetful lately.”

  She hands him the wrinkled sheet of paper. It has an address on it. She lowers her head and stares at her arthritic hands.

  185

  There are only two destinations from Sveg Airport. Joona chooses to fly back to Arlanda Airport and then change planes to Helsinki. He feels as if he’s in the middle of a dream. He’s looking out the window at the veils of clouds over the Baltic Sea. A flight attendant offers to serve him something, but he can’t make himself answer.

  His memories are drowning him in their deep ocean.

  Twelve years ago, Joona cut off the finger of the Devil himself.

  Nineteen different people had disappeared—from their cars, their bicycles, their mopeds. At first it seemed like a coincidence. When none of the disappeared showed up anywhere, the case was given highest priority.

  Joona was the one who insisted that they had a serial killer on their hands.

  Working with Samuel Mendel, Joona was able to trace the whereabouts of their prime suspect, a man named Jurek Walter, and catch him in the middle of committing a crime. They found him in Lill-Jans Forest, forcing a fifty-year-old woman into a coffin. The coffin was a few feet underground, and he’d been keeping her there for two years. They were able to rescue her.

  When the woman was examined at the hospital, the enormity of what she’d undergone was revealed. Her muscles had atrophied and bedsores had deformed her. Her hands and feet were frostbitten. She was not only psychologically traumatized but had also suffered brain damage.