The Fire Witness

157

Joona is sitting in his office with a complete set of the documents presented at the arraignment hearing spread before him. He thinks there’s enough evidence here for a conviction.

The telephone rings, and Joona would not have picked it up if he’d looked at the display.

“I know you think I’m a liar,” Flora says breathlessly. “But please don’t hang up! You have to listen to me. I’m begging you. I’ll do anything if you just listen-”

“Calm down and tell me about it.”

“There’s a witness to the murders,” she says. “A real witness. Not a ghost. I’m telling you there’s a real witness who is hiding-”

Her voice is thin from hysteria and he tries to calm her down.

“That’s good,” he says. “However, the preliminary investigation shows-”

“You have to go there!” she interrupts him.

Joona doesn’t know why he’s even listening to this person. But she seems so desperate that he doesn’t hang up.

“Where is the witness, exactly?” he asks.

“In a bell tower. The black bell tower at Delsbo Church.”

“Who told you-”

“Please, that’s where she is! She’s afraid and she’s hiding.”

“Flora, the prosecutors are supposed to-”

“No one is listening to me!”

Joona hears a man’s voice in the background yelling at Flora to leave the telephone alone. Then there’s a rustling sound.

“Time for your little chat to end!” the man says, and then the phone call is over.

Joona sighs as he puts his cell phone down. He can’t understand why Flora keeps on lying.

Once Vicky was arrested, the preliminary investigation came to an end and Joona had finally been sent all the paperwork. But now the case was out of the hands of the police. It was the prosecutor’s job to prepare the evidence for the trial.

I missed something in this case, Joona thinks. He feels oddly desolate.

Something is troubling him about the rock. He doesn’t know what.

The Needle mentions in his report that a rock was used as a murder weapon, but no one has followed this up since it doesn’t fit with the other evidence.

Joona decides he’s not going to leave this case alone. Out of sheer stubbornness he flips through the National Laboratory test results. Then he reads the autopsy report. Joona had left before The Needle and Frippe cut open the body and did the internal autopsy, so their findings are news to him.

He stops at the description of Elisabet Grim’s defensive wounds. He rereads the description of the wounds on her hands. Then he reads on.

The light from the window slowly moves over Joona’s bulletin board. It has the notification of the internal investigation and the latest postcard from Disa pinned to it. The postcard shows a chimpanzee wearing lipstick and heart-shaped glasses.

There is nothing unusual in Miranda’s stomach contents. The tissue was shiny and smooth. Same thing for the lungs and the heart. Tissue shiny and smooth.

84. Heart is normal configuration and weighs 198 grams. Pericardium shiny and smooth. Ventricles and atria normal. No plaque in the aorta. In the walls of the coronary artery no plaque layer. Heart muscles are gray-red and structure normal.

Joona holds a finger in the autopsy report and flips to the National Forensic Laboratory test results. Miranda’s blood was type A. It had traces of venlafaxine, an ingredient in many antidepressants. Otherwise normal.

104. Ureters appear normal.

105. In bladder 100 ml. light yellow, clear urine. Mucosa pale.

Joona flips back to the test results and finds the urine test. There are traces of the sleeping substance nitrazepam and the hCG level is unusually high.

Joona gets up quickly and grabs his phone to call The Needle.

“I’m looking at the test results from the National Forensic Lab and I notice that Miranda has a high hCG level in her urine,” he says.

“Of course,” The Needle replies. “The cysts on her ovaries were-”

“Wait a minute,” Joona says. “Isn’t a high hCG level a sign of pregnancy as well?”

“That’s right, but as I said-”

“But if Miranda did an over-the-counter pregnancy test, she might think she was pregnant.”

“Yes,” The Needle says. “She would have had a positive reading.”

“So Miranda could well have believed she was pregnant.”

Joona dashes out of his office and calls Flora while he rushes along the hall. He hears Anja calling him, but he ignores her and runs down the stairs. No one is answering the phone. He keeps repeating to himself that Flora had changed her story.

“I meant to say she thought she was pregnant,” Flora had said. “She wasn’t pregnant, but she thought she was.”

Joona dials her number again. The phone keeps ringing as he races through the lobby. He’s already out the revolving door when a man answers. He’s breathing heavily.

“Hans-Gunnar Hansen.”

“My name is Joona Linna and I’m from the National Police.”

“You found my car?”

“I need to talk to Flora.”

“What the hell!” the man yells. “I wouldn’t have asked if you’d found my car if Flora was here! She’s the one who stole it! You policemen can’t do your fucking job-”

Joona ends the call and sprints to his black Volvo.