The Fire Dance

by Helene Tursten

  Irene: Did Sophie often take drugs?

  Frej: No, she didn’t do drugs. Just some pot…not too often…but it made her weird. Still, she liked to use it…

  Irene: Okay, go on.

  Frej: I went into the house and got the spare bed and two mattresses. I took them to the office. Also sheets…everything we needed was in the house. Ingrid doesn’t throw anything away. So, we just slept in the office. In the morning, I wanted to go home, but Sophie refused. She wanted to stay hidden. She thought that if she were gone, Marcelo would start to miss her. So I made some food for us, and then I went home and acted like nothing happened. On Saturday, my mom said Sophie was missing…and then things just kept going on from there. Sophie didn’t want to come out. She thought it was exciting that people were out looking for her, and no one knew where she was. The police were involved…Mom was out of her mind with worry, and Sophie still thought that Marcelo would be missing her.

  Irene remembered that Frej stopped at this point to give her a meaningful, crooked smile. They both knew that Marcelo would never miss any woman.

  Frej: But Sophie hurt her arm when she was running to the car. It really started to hurt and a few days later it was swollen like you wouldn’t believe. She asked me to get some pills that were in her father’s bathroom cabinet back home. You know, he had these painkillers before he kicked the bucket. Really strong, because he had cancer. I took the whole carton so she could decide how many to take.

  Frej was silent for a moment. When he started to speak again, it was apparent that he was trying to keep from crying.

  Frej: I thought she took too much. She was really in pain, and I wanted to take her to the emergency room. I promise…I wanted to get her to come out of hiding, but she refused. She kept saying the police were after her. I began to think that she was starting to lose it…I wanted to talk with my mom about it…but when I came back to the stable that last night, she was lying dead on the bed.

  At this point, Frej began to cry. A few minutes later, he was able to calm down enough to continue his story.

  Frej: I tried to wake her up, but I couldn’t. She was dead! I swear! I wanted to call my mom…or an ambulance…but then I started to think that the whole thing looked really sick. It didn’t sound right that Sophie wanted to stay in hiding. No one would believe me! I mean…people would think I killed her!

  His blue eyes looked pleadingly into Irene’s.

  Irene: Why did you bring her to the shed at Högsbo and then set fire to it?

  A long silence with muffled weeping.

  Frej: I didn’t know what I was supposed to do…I wrapped her in a blanket and brought her to the car. I threw a rug over her so no one could see her…I put the mattress into the trunk, and all the sheets and stuff…they were disgusting. She’d vomited and…before she died…

  Again, a long silence.

  Frej: Sophie and I talked about it a lot. When a person dies, he should be burned…because fire purifies…she repeated that all the time. I knew that she wanted to disappear in a fire…so I drove to that shed and put her on the mattress, and I put the rug over her…like a cover…and then I set her on fire. She would have wanted that.

  He was still crying.

  Irene: How did you know about the old shed?

  Frej: We saw it last summer. There was another building that burned down in the area. I saw it then.

  Irene: Were you and Sophie the people who set fire to the other building?

  Frej did not answer, and pressed his lips closed.

  Irene: There were many old buildings, which were set on fire in that area. All of them were scheduled to be demolished. And there were some container fires, too. Were you and Sophie the people who started those fires?

  Frej said nothing for a while, but finally said something that sounded like a maybe.

  Irene: Could you speak louder so it can be heard on the recording?

  He shook his head and refused to answer.

  Irene: It is now 15:32, and this interrogation is finished for the day.

  Irene took the tape out of the recorder. She contemplated putting in the recording from the interrogation session regarding the Björkil fire, but then decided not to listen to it. It was not all that informative. Frej had insisted that he did not remember anything because he was so young.

  He had been shocked by the death of his father and probably repressed everything that had happened. Irene had the feeling that he remembered more than he let on. The only breakthrough was that he did not deny that he’d sneaked home when his aunt had fallen asleep after dinner.

  The forensic psychologist was going to talk to Frej later that day. He would then make a determination if Frej was capable of standing trial.

  They had checked into Frej’s story about the arson at the old shed in Skrabo. The incident had been reported to the police. The old man backed up Frej’s story, and even admitted to firing his rifle. He said that he didn’t aim for the young people, but shot the rifle straight into the air. No, he hadn’t put in the police report that he’d fired his rifle. He’d forgotten to mention it.

  The forensic psychologist, Torgny Wallén, peered at Sven Andersson and Irene from over his reading glasses. He was the same age as the Superintendent and the two of them knew each other well after the twenty years they’d both spent on the force. Torgny Wallén folded his sausage-like fingers over his round stomach and then sat back in his chair. It was right after lunch, and he needed to make room for his Thursday pea soup and pancakes. He began the conversation in his pleasant Scanian accent.

  “I’ve ordered a more extensive psychological evaluation for Frej. It’s going to take longer than a week. As far as I can determine so far, he seems to be telling the truth about his sister’s last weeks of life. She appears to have been psychologically damaged, but that’s another story. It could be that both of them were part of a folie à deux, where one psychologically damaged person has such a strong influence over the other that they both fall ill. As far as Sophie is concerned, her pot smoking could have contributed to a psychosis, especially when combined with the trauma around the unsuccessful arson attempt. She seems to have had a neuropsychological handicap as well.”

  “So, do you believe she became mentally ill shortly before her death?” asked Irene.

  “Her actions just before her death indicate some kind of paranoia.”

  “Could Frej have become infected as well?”

  “No, that’s not how it works. It’s a complicated process. Frej seems to have had a strong dependent relationship with his sister. Perhaps he has some kind of guilt complex because his sister had to bear the suspicion for the arson he’d started. He also had guilt feelings concerning his father’s death. These are heavy things to deal with at such a young age. The boy should have had help fifteen years ago.”

  “Do you think he will be sent to a mental health institution instead of jail?” asked Andersson.

  “I can’t say right now. Perhaps he’ll serve time in jail for arson or manslaughter or both. That will be judicial hairsplitting. His sister died from the fire. The autopsy showed she was still breathing when it started, even if she was unconscious from an extreme overdose of opiates, including both the pills and the suppositories.”

  “What’s a suppository?” asked the Superintendent.

  “It’s medicine that is inserted into the anal cavity. The medicine is absorbed more quickly that way. She’d taken the last of the pills and the suppository at the same time, and she took too much. A serious and often fatal side effect of an overdose is that breathing is suppressed. The part of the brain that regulates breathing is paralyzed. The person, quite simply, stops breathing. Before death arrives, the breathing is so shallow that even a doctor can have difficulty determining if the patient is still alive. Sophie had a high concentration of opiates in her body, and she would have probably died of the overdose before the fire took her life.”

  Andersson sat quietly for a long time. Finally, he gave a heavy sigh and s
aid, “So, we’ve spent a great deal of time and resources investigating what we thought was premeditated murder, and it’s really accidental manslaughter we’re dealing with.”

  “So it seems,” the psychiatrist agreed. After a moment, he added, “Unfortunate circumstances. Unhappy people in an unhappy family.”

  Silence hovered over the room again. The forensic psychiatrist took off his reading glasses, and said, “Well, what do you say we go get a cup of coffee?”

  Epilogue

  “The doctor says I shouldn’t start working again until after Christmas,” Krister sighed as he sank into the sofa.

  “You should listen to the doctor’s orders,” Irene replied.

  “How can I? Last weekend we had the first Christmas smorgasbord! It’ll be fully packed between now and New Year’s Eve! I have to be at my station!”

  “You often tell me that no one is irreplaceable.”

  As she said that, she realized it was the wrong thing to say. Krister’s face darkened as if he were angry enough to hit her.

  “You’re one to talk! You’re never home!” He jumped up from the sofa and headed to the bedroom, slamming the door behind him.

  Irene sat helplessly on the sofa. What had happened to her kind husband who was almost never angry? He’d rarely raised his voice and hardly complained at all—what happened to the man who loved his family and his job?

  Krister decided to go ahead and take the medicine the doctor had prescribed. He didn’t like it. He finally began to realize that he really did need to rest. He’d been working much too hard all through the fall. To tell the truth, he’d been working much too much for the past few years. He’d been under too much stress. He still did not remember what had happened during the hours he’d suffered amnesia.

  On New Year’s Day, he and Irene were sitting and drinking coffee. Krister was dipping the last saffron bun of the season into his coffee and eating it with great enjoyment.

  Irene had already been outside with Sammie and was warming her hands over her coffee cup. Both jumped when the phone rang, disturbing their holiday peace.

  Krister said, “Don’t get up. I’ll get it.”

  He walked into the hallway. After a few minutes, Irene realized he was talking to his cousin Inga-Maja from Arvika.

  They talked for a long time. Irene could hear Krister say the words “burned out” over and over.

  When Krister returned to the kitchen, he was chuckling to himself. “That was Inga-Maja. She was telling me about two of her colleagues from work, who had been hospitalized because they were burned out from working too much. Apparently, I’m not the only person who suffers from it. But you know what the people from Arvika call it? They don’t say ‘burned out.’ Do you know what they say?”

  He started to chortle again and looked teasingly at Irene.

  She shook her head.

  “No, what do they say in Arvika?” Krister spoke in a broad Värmland accent as he said, “There are many folks these days who have all burned up!”

  Irene smiled, although she realized that she and her husband were thinking of different things. In her mind, she saw the heart-shaped face of a young girl, whose deep brown eyes were looking right into hers. Around the girl’s serious mouth, a smile began to play, and her eyes began to shine.

  Then the picture began to fade. Irene understood that it would be the last time she saw it.

  “All burned up,” she said.

  Acknowledgments

  My thanks to:

  Florian Montoyo, the Head of Instruction at the Ballet Academy of Gothenburg, who guided me around the institution and informed me of the latest trends in the instruction of dance.

  Tuula Dajén, my friend of many years. She is also a teacher as well as a trained dancer and choreographer. For the past few years, she has directed many cultural events and is now a cultural administrator. She founded the Ballet School of Sunne in 1980, which has graduated a number of professional dancers over the years. Her abilities and enthusiasm inspired my daughter’s interest in dance. During the decade when my daughter studied it, I also learned a great deal about the world of dance.

  Maina Sahlman, Detective Inspector in Göteborg, who has given me a great deal of valuable assistance, both with this book and with The Glass Devil (2002). I often say she is the template for Irene Huss, though we didn’t actually meet until I was researching the fourth book in the series…As usual, I have used a great deal of artistic license when describing the geography of Göteborg. I don’t make my stories fit the real environment, but the environment must fit my story. None of the characters in this book are knowingly drawn from real life.