The Fire Witness

110

The sun is fairly high in the sky by the time Elin Frank pulls away from the hotel. A few minutes later, she drives along Bruksgatan, past its neat single-family homes, and parks beside a thick hedge. She leaves the car and walks up to the low gate.

Daniel Grim’s house is well cared for. Its black gabled roof appears new and the gingerbread trim on the veranda is covered in bright, fresh paint. This was the home Daniel and Elisabet Grim shared until just over a week ago. Elin shivers as she rings the doorbell. She waits for a long time, listening to the wind moving through the leaves of the birch trees.

A motorized lawn mower on one of the lawns nearby shuts off.

Elin rings the bell a second time. She waits a bit more, then decides to walk around the house.

Sparrows take flight from the lawn. A dark blue settee sways gently beside two large lilac bushes. Daniel is lying there, asleep. His face is pale and he’s curled up as if he’s freezing.

Elin keeps walking toward him and he wakes with a jerk. He sits up and looks at her with a question in his eyes.

“It’s too cold to be sleeping outside,” Elin says as she sits down on the settee beside him.

“I couldn’t go inside the house,” he says, and shifts so she has more room.

“The police called me this morning,” she says.

“What did they want?”

“Did Vicky ever mention someone named Tobias?”

Daniel wrinkles his forehead and Elin is about to ask his forgiveness for her intrusion when he stops her.

“Wait,” he says quickly. “He must be the guy with the loft apartment in Stockholm. Vicky lived with him for a while.” His tired face breaks into a large, warm smile. “Wollmar Yxkullsgatan 9.”

Elin is surprised. She takes her cell phone out of her purse as Daniel shakes his head.

“How the hell did I remember the address like that?” he asks. “I forget everything these days. I can’t even remember my parents’ middle names.”

Elin gets up from the settee and steps into the sunshine. She calls Joona to tell him what she found out. While she’s speaking to him she can hear him start to run, and before she says goodbye, she hears a car door slam.