The Fire Witness

by Lars Kepler

  “I have to talk to Daniel.”

  “We can go inside together and hide.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “Go inside the room,” Tuula says, licking her lips.

  “Is there something you’d like to show me?”

  “Yes.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a game. Vicky and Miranda played it last week,” Tuula says. She raises her hands in front of her face.

  “I have to go,” Elin says.

  “I’ll show you how it’s done,” Tuula whispers.

  Elin hears other footsteps in the hallway and catches sight of Daniel carrying a first-aid kit. Lu Chu and Almira are coming from the direction of the kitchen. Tuula runs her fingers through her hair, and they come away coated with fresh blood.

  “Tuula, you were supposed to stay in the dining room,” Daniel says. He takes her other hand and leads her away. “We have to wash your wound and see if it needs stitches.”

  Elin stays still and waits until her heart calms down. Reaching into her pocket, she fingers the key ring Vicky got from her mother.

  A few minutes later, the door to the kitchen opens again. Tuula walks out, trailing her hand along the wooden paneling. Daniel is beside her, saying something in a serious but calm tone. Tuula nods and then goes inside her room and shuts the door. Elin waits until Daniel turns to her before she asks what happened.

  “She’s all right. She banged her head on the window a few times until she broke the glass.”

  “Has Vicky ever mentioned someone named Dennis?” asks Elin. She keeps her voice low as she gives Daniel the key ring.

  He looks at it and turns it over in his hand. He whispers the name Dennis to himself.

  “Well,” he says at last. “I think I’ve heard the name, but I … Elin, I’m embarrassed. I feel totally worthless, because—”

  “You’re trying—”

  “Yes, but I’m not at all sure that Vicky has told me anything that could help the police. She didn’t really tell me all that much, and …”

  He stops talking as they hear the sound of footsteps coming up the steps outside and the front door opening. A massive woman in her fifties enters and she’s about to lock the door from the inside when she catches sight of them.

  “You’re not supposed to be here,” she says as she heads toward them.

  “My name is Daniel Grim and I’m—”

  “The girls cannot receive visitors at this time of night,” the woman interrupts him.

  “We’re just about to leave,” Daniel says. “We just need to ask Caroline about—”

  “You’re not going to ask anyone about anything.”

  97

  Joona is in the police station, riding up the elevator. He’s holding a small plastic bag containing the key ring. The fob looks like a large coin, a silver dollar. “Dennis” is engraved on one side and a light blue flower with seven petals is embossed on the other. The coin is linked to a large, empty key ring.

  Late last night, Elin called Joona. She was in her car driving Daniel back to the hospital and was planning to stay in a hotel in Sundsvall for the night. She told Joona that Tuula had stolen this key ring from Vicky’s purse early on Friday.

  “It was important to Vicky. Her mother gave it to her,” Elin said. She promised to courier it to him as soon as she’d checked in.

  Now Joona is turning the plastic bag over and over in the fluorescent light of the elevator. Then he stuffs it in his pocket and gets off at the fifth floor.

  He wonders why Vicky’s mother would give her a key ring with the name Dennis on it.

  Vicky Bennet’s father is unknown. Her mother gave birth outside the health-care system. The child did not enter state registers until she was six. Perhaps the mother knew the name of the father the entire time. Was this a way to let Vicky know?

  Anja is at her desk and, before he can ask her if she’s learned anything about who Dennis is, she says, “There is no person by the name of Dennis in Vicky Bennet’s life. Not at Birgittagården, not at Ljungbacken, and not with any of the foster families.”

  “Strange,” says Joona.

  “I even called Saga Bauer from Säpo,” Anja tells him, and smiles. “They have their own records, of course.”

  “Someone must know who Dennis is,” he says as he sits on the edge of her desk.

  “Nope,” she sighs, and drums her fingers on her desk. Her nails are long and red.

  Joona looks out of the window. Clouds are chasing each other in the strong wind.

  “I’m stuck,” he says. “I can’t look at the reports from the National Forensic Laboratory, I can’t ask questions, and I have nothing more to go on.”

  “Perhaps you should recognize that this is not your case,” Anja says quietly.

  “I can’t let it go,” he whispers.

  Anja smiles, pleased, and her plump cheeks turn red.

  “Since you’ve nothing better to do at the moment, I’d like you to listen to something,” she says. “And it’s not Finnish tango, for a change.”

  “I didn’t think it was,” he says as he pulls up a chair.

  “Of course you did,” she mutters, typing on her computer. “This is a telephone call I answered earlier today.”

  “Do you record your calls?”

  “As a rule, yes,” she replies in a neutral voice.

  A woman’s thin voice starts speaking.

  “I’m sorry that I keep calling,” the woman says. Her voice is almost breathless. “I talked to a policewoman in Sundsvall and she said that a detective by the name of Joona Linna might be interested.”

  “Talk to me,” Anja’s voice says.

  “If you’ll listen to me, only listen, there’s something important I have to tell you about the murders at Birgittagården.”

  “The police have a tip line,” Anja’s voice explains.

  “I know,” the woman says quickly.

  There’s a waving Japanese cat on top of Anja’s computer. Each time it waves, it clicks.

  “I saw the girl. She didn’t want to show her face,” she says. “There was a large rock. A bloody rock. You have to look for it.”

  “Are you saying you witnessed the murders?”

  They can hear the woman breathing before she answers.

  “I don’t know why I’ve seen this,” she says. “I’m frightened and I’m very tired, but I am not crazy.”

  “Are you telling me you saw the murder?”

  “Or maybe I’m going crazy,” the woman says, as if she didn’t hear Anja’s question.

  The telephone call ends abruptly.

  “This woman’s name is Flora Hansen. She has a report made against her.”

  “Why?”

  “Brittis at the tip line got tired of her calls. Flora has called in a number of false tips and wanted to be paid for further information.”

  “Does she call the tip line often?”

  “No, she’s never called before. It’s just the murders at Birgittagården. I thought you should hear this before she calls back. She’ll certainly phone you. She keeps calling even though the police have reported her. And now she has my telephone number.”

  “What do you know about her?”

  “Brittis says that Flora has an alibi for the evening of the murder. She held a séance for nine people at Upplandsgatan 40 here in Stockholm,” Anja says, amused. “She calls herself a medium. She says she can get answers from the dead if she gets paid for it.”

  “I’m going to go see her,” Joona says, getting up from the chair.

  “Joona, people know about this case,” Anja says. Her smile is uncertain. “And before too long, someone else will have a tip. If Vicky Bennet is alive, someone will see her sometime.”

  “Right,” he says as he buttons his jacket.

  Anja is about to start laughing but catches Joona’s gaze and suddenly realizes what he knows.

  “It’s the rock,” she says. “So it’s true there was a rock.”

&nbs
p; “Right,” he says. “But only The Needle, Frippe, and I know that the killer used a rock.”

  98

  Joona knows that in rare, difficult cases the police turn to mediums and psychics for help. He remembers the murder of Engla Höglund. The police consulted a medium who described two killers—both descriptions turned out to be completely wrong. The true killer was caught because someone trying out a new camera just happened to take a photograph of the girl and the killer’s car.

  Joona had read an independent study done in the United States about a medium the police turned to more often than any other. Although the woman had been used in one hundred and fifteen investigations, the study concluded that she’d never contributed any valuable information in any case.

  Joona shivers in the chilly afternoon air as he gets out of his car and walks toward a gray apartment building with satellite dishes on every balcony. The door to the entrance has a broken lock and someone has sprayed graffiti in pink all over the entrance hallway. Joona takes the stairs to the second floor and rings the bell at a door with the name Hansen on the mail slot.

  A pale woman in gray clothes opens the door. She looks at Joona shyly.

  “My name is Joona Linna,” he says. He shows his police ID. “You’ve called the police a number of times.”

  “I’m sorry,” she says, and looks at the ground.

  “People are not supposed to call the police unless they have something to say.”

  “But I called because I saw the dead girl,” she says. She looks up into his eyes.

  “May I come inside for a minute?” Joona asks.

  She nods and leads him through a dark hall with worn-out vinyl flooring to a small, clean kitchen. Flora sits in one of the four chairs and wraps her arms around her body. Joona walks to the window and looks out. The façade of the building across the street is covered in plastic sheeting. The thermometer fastened to the outside window frame rocks slightly in the wind.

  “I believe that Miranda is coming to me because I let her in accidentally when I was doing a séance,” Flora starts. “But I don’t know what she wants.”

  “When do you hold your séances?”

  “Every week. I earn my living by speaking with the dead,” she says, and a muscle twitches near her left eye.

  “In a manner of speaking, so do I,” says Joona quietly.

  He sits down across the table from her.

  “I’ve run out of coffee,” she says apologetically.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he says. “You said something about a rock when you called.”

  “I didn’t know what to do. Miranda keeps appearing and showing me a bloody stone.” She indicates how large it is with her hands.

  “So you held a séance,” Joona prompts her. “A girl comes and tells you—”

  “No, it was later,” she interrupts. “It was after the séance, when I got back home.”

  “And what did this girl say to you?”

  Flora looks at him directly, her eyes dark with the memory. “She shows me the rock and tells me to close my eyes.”

  Joona looks back steadily with his gray fathomless gaze. He has only one thing to say.

  “If Miranda comes back, I would like you to ask her where the killer is hiding.”

  99

  Joona takes the plastic bag out of his pocket and dumps the key ring on the table in front of Flora.

  “This belongs to the murder suspect,” he says.

  Flora looks at it without picking it up.

  “Dennis?” she asks.

  “We don’t know who Dennis is, but perhaps … perhaps you can feel something from it,” Joona says.

  “Maybe, but this is my job.” She smiles, embarrassed, and hides her smile with her hand.

  “Of course,” he says. “How much?”

  She looks down at the table as she tells him the price for a half-hour sitting. Joona opens his wallet and pays for one hour. Flora thanks him and gets her purse. Then she turns off the ceiling lamp. There’s still some light outside, but inside the kitchen it’s fairly dark. Flora takes out a tea light and a silk cloth with golden edges. She lights the candle and places it in front of Joona. Then she places the cloth over the key ring.

  Joona watches her without presuppositions.

  Flora places her left hand beneath the cloth. She sits still and then her body begins to shake. She takes a deep breath. “Dennis, Dennis,” she mutters.

  She touches the metal tag beneath the black cloth. They can hear voices from the neighbor’s television through the walls. Suddenly a car alarm goes off on the street below.

  “I’m getting strange pictures. Nothing I can make out yet.”

  “Keep going,” Joona says.

  Flora’s light, curly hair touches her cheeks. Her skin turns bright red and her eyes dart under her eyelids.

  “There’s power in this object. There’s loneliness and rage. I feel like I’m burning when I touch it,” she whispers. She pulls the key ring from beneath the cloth and holds it in her palm. She opens her eyes to stare at it. “Miranda tells me there’s a thread of death. They were both in love with Dennis. I can feel jealousy burning in the medallion.”

  Flora falls silent, then she mumbles that the contact has been broken and pushes the key ring at Joona.

  Joona gets up. He was wasting his time coming here. He thought that she might know something real for reasons that she did not want to mention. It’s obvious that Flora Hansen is only telling him what she thinks he wants to hear.

  “I’m sorry that you feel you have to lie,” Joona says. He takes the key ring from the table.

  “May I keep the money?” she asks. “I can’t manage. I collect bottles and newspapers from the subway and from all the garbage cans …”

  Joona stuffs the key ring back into his pocket. Flora picks up a piece of paper and follows him into the hallway.

  “I really did see a ghost,” she says. “I’ve drawn a picture of her.”

  She shows Joona a childish drawing of a girl and a heart. She practically holds it in front of his face. Joona pushes her hand away. She drops the paper and it sails to the floor. Joona steps over it, opens the door, and leaves.

  100

  Joona is still feeling irritated when he parks his car outside Disa’s apartment building on Lützengatan near Karlaplan Circle. Vicky Bennet and Dante Abrahamsson are alive and hiding somewhere, and he’s lost an hour of valuable time speaking with a disturbed woman who lies for money.

  Disa is sitting on her bed with her computer on her lap. She’s wearing a white robe and she’s pulled her brown hair back into a ponytail.

  Joona takes a shower in the hottest water he can stand. Then he lies down beside her. As he leans his face next to her body, he can smell her perfume.

  “Have you been to Sundsvall again today?” Disa asks distractedly as he runs his hand down her arm.

  “Not today,” Joona answers. He remembers Flora’s pale, lean face.

  “I was there last year on an archaeological dig,” Disa tells him. “I dug around the Högum Women’s House.”

  “The Women’s House?”

  “In Selånger, on the outskirts of Sundsvall.”

  She looks up from her computer and smiles. “If you have a chance between murders, you should go there,” she says.

  Joona smiles as he runs his hand over her hip. He follows her thigh to her knee. He doesn’t want Disa to stop talking so he asks, “Why do they call it the Women’s House?”

  “It’s an Iron Age grave mound, but it was built over a burned-down house. We don’t know what happened there.”

  “Were there any human bones inside?”

  “Yes, the remains of two women,” she says as she puts away the computer. “I brushed the dirt away from their combs and jewelry.”

  Joona rests his head on her knee and asks, “Where did the fire start?”

  “We don’t know, but there was an arrowhead in the wall.”

  “So they were attacked from out
side?”

  “Perhaps the villagers set fire to the house and let it burn,” she says. She runs her fingers through his thick, damp hair.

  “Tell me more about the graves,” Joona says.

  “We don’t know much,” she says, wrapping a strand of his hair around her finger. “The women were inside weaving. Bits of their looms were scattered throughout the site. Isn’t it strange that it’s the small things, like nails and combs, that survive the ages?”

  Joona resolves to visit the Sami bridal crown of braided birch root and then go to Kronoberg Park and its old Jewish cemetery, where his colleague Samuel Mendel lies all alone in his family grave.

  101

  A soft kiss on his mouth awakens Joona. Disa is already dressed. She’s brought him a cup of coffee on a breakfast tray.

  “I fell asleep,” he said.

  “You slept like a rock.” She smiles as she heads toward the hall.

  Joona hears her close the door after her. Then he gets up and puts on his pants. While he’s standing next to the bed, he realizes that he’d visited Flora Hansen because she happened to guess right about the rock. It’s called confirmation bias. Unconsciously, all people tend to heed results that confirm their theories rather than those that don’t. Flora called the police many times mentioning different murder weapons, but it was only when she mentioned a bloody rock that he paid any attention to her.

  Now that Flora is off his list, there are no other clues for him to follow.

  Joona walks to the window and opens the thin white drapes. The gray light of dawn still holds some of the previous evening’s gloom. Even the splashing he can hear from the fountain at Karlaplan Circle seems melancholy. Pigeons strut around the closed entrance to the shopping center. A few people are already on their way to work.

  There was something desperate in Flora Hansen’s voice and eyes as she told him how she collected bottles and newspapers in the subway.

  Absentmindedly, he puts on his shirt and stares at nothing as he buttons it. He had just made a logical connection, but he lost it immediately. He tries to go back in his thoughts and remember what it was, but it glides away again.