The Fire Witness

184

One hour and twenty minutes later, the scheduled flight from Stockholm lands at Sveg Airport in Härjedalen. Joona takes a taxi to Blåvingen, the assisted-living home where Maja Stefansson lives. He’s been here before, when he traced Rosa Bergman, the woman who had followed him from Adolf Fredrik Church and asked him why he was pretending his daughter was dead.

Rosa Bergman had changed her name to Maja Stefansson. She’d used her middle name and her maiden name instead of the name she’d had most of her adult life.

Joona gets out of the taxi and heads straight to Maja’s ward. The nurse he’d met the last time he was here waves from behind the reception desk. The light from the window makes her hair shine like copper.

“That was fast,” she says cheerfully. “I was thinking of you and we have your card here behind the desk so I called-”

“Can I speak with her?” Joona says.

The woman is surprised by his serious tone. She runs her hands over her light blue skirt.

“We have a new doctor. She’s young. I think she comes from Algeria. Anyway, she changed Maja’s medicine and, well, I’ve heard people tell me about cases like this, but I haven’t seen it before… Maja woke up this morning and told us quite clearly that she needed to talk to you.”

“Where is she?”

The nurse leads Joona to a narrow room with closed curtains, and then she leaves him alone with the elderly woman. Over a tiny desk, there’s a photograph of a young woman sitting next to her son. The mother is holding the boy’s shoulders protectively.

A few pieces of her furniture have been moved here. A dark desk, a vanity, and two golden pedestals. Rosa Bergman is sitting on a daybed, dressed neatly in a blouse and skirt, with a knitted afghan around her shoulders. Her face is swollen and covered in wrinkles, but Joona can see that she’s fully aware and calm.

“My name is Joona Linna,” he says. “You have something to tell me.”

The woman nods and gets up with difficulty. She opens a drawer in her nightstand and takes out a Gideon Bible. She holds the book by its covers over the bed. A small piece of folded paper falls out.

“Joona Linna,” she says as she picks up the piece of paper. “So you are Joona Linna.”

He says nothing, but feels the burning intensity of a migraine coming on. It’s like a glowing needle pressed through his temples.

“How can you pretend your daughter is dead?” Rosa Bergman says. She glances at the photograph on the wall. “If my boy was still alive… If you knew what it was like to see your child die… Nothing would ever make me abandon him.”

“I did not abandon my family,” Joona says. “I saved their lives.”

“When Summa came to me, she said nothing about you, but she was broken,” Rosa continues. “Your daughter had it much worse. She stopped talking and didn’t start again for two years.”

Joona feels a shiver go down his spine.

“How did you contact them?” he asks. “You were not supposed to be in contact with them.”

“I could not let them disappear completely,” she said. “I felt extremely sorry for them.”

Joona knows that Summa would not have mentioned his name unless something had gone terribly wrong. There was not supposed to be a single thread connecting them-not one. That was the only chance they had of surviving.

He has to lean on the desk. He swallows hard and looks at the old woman.

“How are they doing?” he asks.

“It’s very serious, Joona Linna,” Rosa says. “I used to go see Lumi once a year. But these days… somehow I’ve gotten very forgetful and confused.”

“What’s happened?”

“Your wife has cancer,” Rosa says. “She was going to have surgery, but might not survive. She wanted you to know that Lumi was going to be handed to the authorities if she-”

“When did you hear this?” Joona’s jaw is clenched. His lips have turned white. “When did she call you?”

“I’m afraid it might be too late,” Rosa whispers. “I’ve been so forgetful lately.”

She hands him the wrinkled sheet of paper. It has an address on it. She lowers her head and stares at her arthritic hands.