The Fire Witness

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.”