The Fire Witness - Ларс Кеплер

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doesn’t seem to have a coherent picture of events,’ Mirja replies, and breathes through her nose. ‘She’s badly shaken, and keeps talking about a skeleton with wiry hands that came out of the forest. A girl with blood on her face, a girl with twig-like arms …’

      ‘But she’s talking about a girl?’

      ‘I recorded her statement, but she says lots of weird stuff, she needs to calm down before we can question her properly …’

      ‘But she keeps coming back to the idea that it was a girl?’ Gunnarsson says slowly.

      ‘Yes … several times.’

       29

      Joona stops the car at the roadblock on Highway 330, says hello to one of the police officers stationed there, shows his ID, then carries on along the road beside the river.

      He’s been told that the girls from the Birgitta Home are being temporarily housed in the Hotel Ibis. The counsellor, Daniel Grim, has been admitted to the acute psychiatric ward of the district hospital, the housekeeper, Margot Lundin, is at home in Timrå, and Faduumo Axmed, who works part-time as a care assistant, is off duty according to the rota, and down with her parents in Vänersborg.

      When Police Constable Mirja Zlatnek said that Pia Abrahamsson kept coming back to the idea that it was a thin girl with bandages around her wrists, everyone realised that it was Vicky Bennet who had taken the car containing the little boy.

      ‘It’s a mystery that she hasn’t been caught in the roadblocks,’ Bosse Norling had said.

      A helicopter was deployed, but there’s no trace of the car, not in the small town, and not along any of the logging tracks.

      It isn’t really a mystery, Joona thinks. The most plausible explanation is that she managed to find somewhere to hide before she reached any of the roadblocks.

      But where?

      She must know someone who lives in Indal, someone who has a garage.

      Joona has asked to speak to the girls in the company of a youth psychologist and a legally responsible adult from Victim Support, and is trying to remember the details of his first encounter with them in the small cottage at the home, when Gunnarsson came back with the two who had run off into the forest. The red-haired little girl had been watching television and banging her head against the wall. The girl called Indie had associated hands covering a face with Vicky, and then they had all started shouting and yelling at each other when they realised that she was missing. One of the girls claimed she was asleep, having taken Stesolid. Almira spat on the floor, and Indie rubbed her face and ended up with blue eyeshadow on her hand.

      Joona can’t help thinking that there’s something about Tuula, the red-haired girl with white eyelashes and bright pink jogging bottoms. At first she yelled at them all to be quiet, but she had also said something when everyone was talking at the same time.

      Tuula had said that Vicky had sneaked off to see her fuck-buddy.

       30

      The two-star Hotel Ibis is located on Trädgårdsgatan, not far from the police station in Sundsvall. It’s the sort of hotel that smells of vacuum cleaners, rugs, and ingrained cigarette smoke. The façade is covered with cream-coloured cladding. There’s a bowl of sweets on the reception desk. The police have put the girls from the Birgitta Home in five adjacent rooms, and have placed two uniformed officers in the corridor.

      Joona walks purposefully across the worn floor.

      The psychologist, Lisa Jern, is waiting for Joona outside one of the doors. Her dark hair is streaked with grey at the front, and her mouth is thin and nervous.

      ‘Is Tuula already here?’ Joona asks.

      ‘Yes, she is … wait a moment, though,’ the psychologist says when he reaches for the door handle. ‘As I understand it, you’re here as an observer from the National Crime Unit, and—’

      ‘A boy’s life is in danger,’ Joona interrupts.

      ‘Tuula is barely speaking, and … I’m afraid my recommendation as a child psychologist is to wait until she takes the initiative herself and starts to talk about what’s happened.’

      ‘There isn’t time for that,’ Joona says, taking hold of the handle.

      ‘Wait, I … It’s extremely important to be on the same wavelength as the children, they absolutely mustn’t feel that they’re being regarded as unwell or …’

      Joona opens the door and walks into the room. Tuula Lehti is sitting on a chair with her back to the row of windows. A little girl, just twelve years old, in a tracksuit and trainers.

      The street outside, lined with parked cars, is visible between the wooden slats of the blind. All the tables are covered with beech veneer, and there’s a fitted green carpet on the floor.

      At the end of the room a man in a chequered blue flannel shirt with neatly combed hair is sitting looking at his phone. Joona realises that he’s the girls’ legally responsible adult.

      Joona sits down in front of Tuula and looks at her. Her eyebrows are fair, her red hair straight and greasy.

      ‘We met very briefly this morning,’ he says.

      She folds her freckled arms over her stomach. Her lips are thin and almost colourless.

      ‘Fuck the police,’ she mutters.

      Lisa Jern walks around the table and sits down beside the hunched frame of the little girl.

      ‘Tuula,’ she says gently. ‘Do you remember me saying that I sometimes used to feel like Thumbelina? There’s nothing odd about that, because even as an adult you can feel really small sometimes.’

      ‘Why is everyone talking such fucking shit?’ Tuula asks, looking Joona in the eye. ‘Is it because you’re all thick, or because you think I’m thick?’

      ‘Well, we probably think you’re a bit thick,’ Joona replies.

      Tuula smiles in surprise, and is about to say something, when Lisa Jern assures her that it isn’t true, that the superintendent was just joking.

      Tuula folds her arms even tighter, stares at the table, and blows out her cheeks.

      ‘You’re definitely not thick,’ Lisa Jern repeats after a while.

      ‘Yes I am,’ Tuula whispers.

      She spits a gob of saliva onto the table, then sits there silently poking at it and making it into a star shape.

      ‘Don’t you want to talk?’ Lisa whispers.

      ‘Only to the Finn,’ Tuula says almost inaudibly.

      ‘What did you just say?’ she asks with a smile.

      ‘I’ll only talk to the Finn,’ Tuula says, raising her chin.

      ‘How lovely,’ the psychologist replies stiffly.

      Joona starts the recording, then calmly goes through the formalities, time and location, the names of those present, and the purpose of the conversation.

      ‘How did you end up at the Birgitta Home, Tuula?’ he asks.

      ‘I was at Lövsta … A few things happened that weren’t that fucking great,’ she says, and lowers her gaze. ‘I got caught up with some kids who got locked up, even though I’m really too young … I kept my cool, watched television, and one year and four months later I got moved to the Birgitta Home.’

      ‘What’s the difference … compared with Lövsta?’

      ‘It’s

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