The Fire Witness

146

Vicky turns her face away when Saga enters the room. White straps around her ankles and wrists and a belt across her chest tie the girl to the bed.

“Take away the straps,” Saga says.

“I can’t do that,” the nurse says.

“It’s a good thing that they’re scared of me,” Vicky says.

“Have you been kept like this all night?” asks Saga as she sits down on the chair beside the bed.

“Yeah.”

Vicky is lying with her face turned away.

“I’m going to meet your new lawyer,” Saga says. “There’s going to be an arraignment later today and he needs the transcript of the interrogation.”

“I just get so angry sometimes.”

“The interrogation is over, Vicky.”

“Can’t I talk?” She turns her head to look at Saga.

“It would be best if you asked your lawyer for his advice first before you-”

“But if I want to,” she says.

“You can talk, but it won’t be recorded,” Saga says calmly.

“It’s like a strong wind,” Vicky tells her. “Everything just… It thunders in my ears and I go along so I don’t fall over.”

Saga looks at the girl’s bitten fingernails and then repeats in a calm, almost indifferent voice, “Like a strong wind.”

“I can’t explain. It’s like one time… They hurt Simon really bad. He was a little boy. We were in the same foster home,” Vicky says. Her mouth is trembling. “The big boy in the family, he was their real son, he was mean to Simon. He’d torture him. Everybody knew. I even talked to the social worker about it, but nobody cared.”

“What happened?”

“I came into the kitchen. The big boy had forced Simon’s hands into a pot of boiling water and the mom was there and she wasn’t doing anything. She looked totally afraid. I was seeing all of it and I got really strange and suddenly I found myself hitting them and cutting them up with a piece of glass.”

Vicky pulls at the straps. Her body is tense, but she calms down when there’s a knock at the door.

A gray-haired man wearing a dark blue suit enters the room.

“I’m Johannes Grünewald,” he says as he shakes hands with Saga.

“Here’s the latest transcript,” Saga says, and hands him a folder.

“Thanks,” Johannes says. “I don’t have to read it right away. I managed to get the arraignment moved to tomorrow morning.”

“I don’t want to wait,” says Vicky.

“I understand, but I still have some work to do on your case,” he says, smiling. “And there’s someone I want you to meet before we start going through all sorts of questions.”

Vicky looks up and her eyes grow wide as she sees the woman who heads straight for her without stopping to greet the police officers. Elin Frank’s eyes are shimmering and nervous. Her lips tremble as she realizes the girl is strapped to the bed.

“Hello,” Elin says.

Vicky looks away as Elin gently unfastens the straps.

“May I sit down?” she asks. Her voice is thick with emotion.

Vicky’s gaze becomes hard and she does not say anything.

“Do you remember me?” asks Elin.

Elin’s throat hurts from the words she can’t force out and the sobs she can barely control.

A church bell starts ringing somewhere in the city.

Vicky touches Elin’s wrist and then withdraws her finger.

“We have the same bandages.” Elin smiles. “You and me.”

Vicky turns her face away.

“I don’t know whether you remember me,” Elin says. “You stayed with me when you were a little girl. I was just a temporary foster mother, but I’ve never stopped thinking about you.”

She takes a deep breath. Then her voice breaks: “I know I betrayed you, Vicky. I wasn’t up to taking care of you.”

Elin is studying the girl in the bed: her messy hair, her worried forehead, the dark rings around her eyes, the wounds on her face.

“I know that to you I’m nothing. Just another person in a long line of people who’ve let you down.” Elin has to stop speaking and swallow hard before she can continue.

“The prosecutor wants you in jail, but I don’t think that jail is the right place for you. It’s not good for anyone to be locked up.”

Vicky shakes her head. The gesture is barely noticeable, but Elin sees it and her voice is intense as she says, “It’s really important that you listen to what Johannes and I have to tell you.”