The Fire Witness

117

Vicky Bennet is panting through her half-open mouth and staring at him with her dark eyes. There are patches of dried blood and mud on her face and she seems exhausted.

“If you are a police officer, you have to stop Tobias,” she says hoarsely.

“I just talked to him,” Joona says. “He was on his way to sell some tablets which he-”

“That son of a bitch!” she says, still panting.

“Vicky, you realize I have to take you to the police station.”

“Yeah, whatever, I don’t give a fuck.”

“First, please, tell me where the boy is.”

“Tobias took him. I trusted Tobias,” Vicky says, and looks away. Her body starts to shake. “I shouldn’t have trusted him again.”

“What are you telling me?”

“You’re not going to listen,” she says as she looks at Joona with tears in her eyes.

“I’m listening.”

“Tobias promised to take Dante back to his mother.”

“He hasn’t done that,” Joona says.

“I know. I trusted him. I’m such an idiot… I…” Her voice breaks and panic glitters in her dark eyes. “Don’t you get it? He’s going to sell the boy! He’s going to sell him!”

“What are you-”

“Don’t you get it? You let him go!” she screams.

“But what do you mean by ‘sell him’?”

“Tobbe’s selling the boy to someone who will sell him again, and you will never be able to find him!”

Now they’re both running through the bicycle-storage area and up the steep stairs. Joona is holding one hand around Vicky’s thin lower arm while he takes out his cell phone and starts calling the county communications center.

“Send a car to Wollmar Yxkullsgatan 9 to pick up a murder suspect,” he says quickly. “I need help to catch a kidnapping suspect…”

They head through the entrance and out onto the sidewalk. Joona points out the direction toward his car and says to the duty officer who answered the phone, “The kidnapping suspect is Tobias Lundhagen and… wait-” Joona turns to Vicky. “What kind of a car does he have?”

“A big black one. I’d recognize it if I saw it.”

“What make?”

“No idea.”

“Do you know if it’s-”

“What the hell!” Vicky screams. “Sorry.”

Joona ends the call and takes both of Vicky’s shoulders. “Who is he planning to sell Dante to?”

“I don’t know. God, I don’t know.”

“How do you know that they’re planning to sell him? Did he say so?” Joona looks into her frightened eyes.

“I know him. I…”

“What is it?”

Vicky’s voice is weak as she says, “The slaughterhouse area. That’s where we need to go. The slaughterhouse area.”

They run to his car. He opens the door to the front passenger seat and she gets in, her handcuffed arms behind her. Joona slams the door and sprints to the driver’s side, throws himself in, and hits the gas. Gravel spews from the spinning tires. Vicky falls sideways as Joona turns sharply onto Timmermansgatan.

In one fluid movement, Vicky pulls her handcuffed hands beneath her bottom and feet and rests them in her lap.

“Put on your seat belt,” Joona says.

They’re doing one hundred kilometers an hour when Joona touches the brakes. The car’s tires squeal as it swings into Hornsgatan. A woman is standing in the middle of the street looking at her cell phone.

“Idiot!” Vicky screeches.

Joona passes the woman on the wrong side of the median and almost collides with a bus head-on but manages to swing back into his lane. He drives past Maria Square and speeds up. Near Maria Church, a homeless man is digging through a garbage can and then walks into the street without looking, his sack thrown across his back.

Vicky holds her breath and shrinks down. Joona steers up the curb into the bike lane and down again. An oncoming car honks, but Joona increases his speed after he’s passed the long wall across from the church and ignores the traffic lights as he turns right into the Söder Tunnel.

Lights along the walls pulse monotonously into the car as they race through the tunnel. Vicky’s dirty face is frozen. Her lips are cracked.

“Why the slaughterhouse area?” asks Joona.

“That’s where Tobias sold me.”