The Fire Witness

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.

It was about Vicky, her mother, and the key ring. Was it something he saw?

He puts on his jacket and looks out the window at Karlaplan Circle again. A bus is driving around it. It stops and lets on passengers. Farther down the street, an elderly man with a walker is smiling at a dog sniffing around a garbage can.

A woman in a leather jacket is running toward the subway. She scares a flock of pigeons on the square. They take off and fly in a semicircle before they land again.

The subway.

There’s something about the subway.

Joona picks up his cell phone. He thinks he’s right about his intuition, but he wants to check some facts first. While he waits for the signal to go through, he walks into the hallway and puts on his shoes.

“Holger here.”

“Joona Linna here,” Joona says. He opens the front door.

“And a very good morning to you! I have-”

“There’s something I have to ask first,” Joona interrupts as he locks the door behind him. “You went through the purse we found at the dam, right?”

Joona is starting to run down the stairs.

“I had already taken pictures and listed the contents when the prosecutor told me they were shutting down the investigation.”

“I am not allowed to read your report,” Joona says.

“There wasn’t much to it,” Holger says. Joona can hear him shuffle papers. “I mentioned the knife-”

“You mentioned some sort of bicycle tool. Did you find out what it was?”

Joona is rushing down Lützengatan to his car.

“Yes, I did,” Holger says. “It took a little time, since I’m from Västernorrland. It wasn’t a bike tool at all. It was a key to the driver’s cab in a subway car.”

“Has this key been on a key ring recently?”

“How the hell should I know!” Holger is quiet for a moment and Joona assumes he’s looking at the photograph in his report. “You’re right! It’s shiny around the eye.”

Joona thanks him for his time and runs the last few yards to his car. Elin told him that Tuula steals pretty things from everyone around her: earrings, shiny pens, coins, and lipsticks. Tuula had taken the beautiful key ring with its light blue flower and left the ugly key in Vicky’s purse. He taps in Anja’s number as he opens the car door.

“Hello, Ghostbusters,” Anja says.

“Anja, can you help me? I need to talk to whoever is responsible for Stockholm’s subway system.” By now Joona is in his car and has started to drive.

“Let me connect with the spirits instead.”

“Anja, I’m in a hurry!”

“Well, who got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?” Anja mutters.

Joona is driving toward the stadium. “Did you know that all the subway cars in Stockholm have their own names as well as numbers?” he asks.

“Of course. I rode in Rebecka this morning and what a fine car she is, too.”

“I just figured out that Dennis isn’t a person. It’s the name of a subway car, and I need to find out where it is right now.”