The Fire Witness - Ларс Кеплер

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Joona says seriously, ‘would you mind contacting me?’

      ‘That does actually happen occasionally,’ the woman nods.

      ‘Call me at once,’ he says, handing her his card.

      ‘Detective Superintendent?’ she says in surprise, and pins the card to the noticeboard behind the desk in the office.

       12

      When Joona emerges into the fresh air he breathes in deeply, as if he’s been holding his breath. Perhaps Rosa Bergman had had something important to tell him, he thinks. It’s possible that someone asked her to pass on a message. But she succumbed to dementia before she managed to tell him.

      He’s never going to know what it was.

      Twelve years have passed since he lost Summa and Lumi.

      The last traces of them have been erased along with Rosa Bergman’s lost memories.

      It’s over now.

      Joona sits in his car, wipes the tears from his cheeks, closes his eyes for a while, then turns the key in the ignition to drive back home to Stockholm.

      He’s driven thirty kilometres south along the E45 towards Mora when the head of the National Crime Unit, Carlos Eliasson, calls him.

      ‘We’ve got a murder at a children’s home up in Sundsvall,’ Carlos says in a tense voice. ‘The emergency call centre was alerted just after four this morning.’

      ‘I’m on leave,’ Joona says, almost inaudibly.

      ‘You could still have come to the karaoke evening.’

      ‘Another time,’ Joona says, almost to himself.

      The road runs straight through the forest. Far off between the trees a silvery lake is glinting.

      ‘Joona? What’s happened?’

      ‘Nothing.’

      Someone calls for Carlos in the background.

      ‘I’ve got a meeting now, but I want … I just spoke to Susanne Öst, and she says the Västernorrland Police aren’t going to make a formal request for help from National Crime.’

      ‘So why are you calling me?’

      ‘I said we’d send an observer.’

      ‘We never send observers, do we?’

      ‘We do now,’ Carlos says, lowering his voice. ‘I’m afraid this one’s rather sensitive. You remember Janne Svensson, the captain of the national hockey team? The press never stopped talking about how incompetent the police were.’

      ‘Because they never found …’

      ‘Don’t start … that was Susanne Öst’s first big case as a prosecutor,’ Carlos goes on. ‘I don’t want to say that the press were right, but the Västernorrland Police could have done with you on that occasion. They were too slow, they went by the book, and time passed … nothing unusual, of course, but sometimes the press picks up on it.’

      ‘I can’t talk any more,’ Joona says by way of conclusion.

      ‘You know I wouldn’t ask you if it was just a straightforward murder,’ Carlos says, and takes a deep breath. ‘But there’s going to be a lot of coverage, Joona … this one’s very, very brutal, very bloody … and the girl’s body has been arranged.’

      ‘How? How has it been arranged?’ Joona asks.

      ‘Apparently she’s lying on her bed with her hands over her face.’

      Joona drives on in silence, his left hand on the wheel. The trees flit past on both sides of the car. He can hear Carlos breathing over the phone. There are other voices in the background. Without saying anything, Joona turns off the E45 towards Los, onto a road that will take him to the coast, and then up to Sundsvall.

      ‘Please, Joona, just go up there … help them solve the case themselves, preferably before the press gets hold of it.’

      ‘So now I’m not just an observer?’

      ‘Yes, you are … just hang around, observe the investigation, make suggestions … As long as you realise that you have no official authority.’

      ‘Because I’m the subject of an internal investigation?’

      ‘It’s important that you keep a low profile,’ Carlos says.

       13

      North of Sundsvall Joona leaves the coast road and turns onto Highway 86, which heads up inland along the valley of Indalsälven.

      After two hours of driving he’s approaching the isolated children’s home.

      He slows down and turns onto a narrow gravel track. Sunlight filters through the tall pine trees.

      A dead girl, Joona thinks.

      While everyone was asleep, a girl was murdered and positioned on her bed. The violence was extreme and very aggressive, according to the local police. They have no immediate suspect, it’s too late for roadblocks, but everyone in the local force has been informed, and Superintendent Olle Gunnarsson is leading the preliminary investigation.

      It’s just before ten o’clock by the time Joona parks and leaves the car beyond the police’s outer cordon. The ditch is swarming with insects. The forest has opened up into a large clearing. Damp trees are sparkling in the sunlight on the slope down towards the lake, Himmelsjön. By the side of the road is a metal sign saying The Birgitta Home, Specialist Children’s Home.

      Joona walks towards the cluster of rust-red buildings, gathered around the central yard like a traditional farm. An ambulance, three police cars, a white Mercedes, and three other cars are parked in front of the buildings.

      A dog is barking nonstop as it runs along a line between two trees to which it’s tethered.

      An older man with a walrus moustache, a pot-belly, and a crumpled linen suit is standing in front of the main building. He’s spotted Joona, but shows no sign of saying hello. Instead he finishes rolling his cigarette and licks the paper. Joona steps over another cordon, and the man tucks the cigarette behind his ear.

      ‘I’m the National Police observer,’ Joona says.

      ‘Gunnarsson,’ the man says. ‘Superintendent.’

      ‘I’m supposed to follow your work here.’

      ‘Yes, as long as you don’t get in the way,’ the man says, looking at him coolly.

      Joona looks up at the main building. The forensics team is already at work. The rooms are illuminated by arc lights, lending all the windows an unnatural glow.

      A police officer emerges from the door, his face almost white. He claps one hand to his mouth, stumbles down the steps, then leans against the wall, bends forward, and throws up onto the nettles beside the water butt.

      ‘You’ll do the same once you’ve been inside,’ Gunnarsson says to Joona with a smile.

      ‘What do you know so far?’

      ‘Not a damn thing … We got the call in the middle of the night, from a counsellor at the home … Daniel Grim’s his name. That was at four o’clock. He was at his home on Bruksgatan in Sundsvall, and had just received a call from here … he didn’t know much when he called the emergency call centre, just that the girls were yelling about lots of blood.’

      ‘So it was the girls themselves who made the call?’ Joona asks.

      ‘Yes.’

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