The Fire Witness

28

A large white command bus is parked in the middle of the yard between the buildings at Birgittagården. Command Central is inside. A group of men and women sit around a table covered in maps and laptops, analyzing the investigation, until a bulletin comes in about a kidnapped boy and they stop.

Roadblocks have been thrown up on Highway 330 and Highway 86 going north, as well as at the bridge south of Indal. It should be doable, their colleagues say, to stop the kidnapper-but they hear nothing more for the next ten minutes at least. Then the radio breaks in again.

“It’s gone!” a policewoman reports breathlessly. “The car should have been here, but it hasn’t shown up. We’ve closed each and every damned road. It’s just gone. I don’t know what to do.” Mirja sounds exhausted. “The mother is sitting in my car. I’m going to try to talk to her.”

The police in the bus listen silently; then they all turn to the map spread out on the table. Bosse Norling traces the route of Highway 86 with his finger.

“If they’ve blocked here and here, then the car can’t just disappear,” he says. “Obviously, the kidnapper could have driven it into a garage in Bäck or Bjällsta, or onto a logging road, but that would be a damned strange thing to do.”

“And there’s nowhere to go,” Sonja Rask says.

“Am I the only one who’s thinking that Vicky Bennet could have taken this car?” asks Bosse.

The rain is starting to ease up, but water is still washing down the bus’s windows.

Sonja turns back to her computer and starts to go through lists of pedophiles and custody disputes via the police intranet.

“Nine times out of ten,” Gunnarsson begins as he leans back and starts peeling a banana, “these kinds of events solve themselves. I think she had a guy with her in the car. They fought and he took off, leaving her at the side of the road.”

“She’s not married,” says Sonja.

“According to our statistics,” Gunnarsson says, keeping his pedagogic tone of voice, “most of the children born in Sweden are born outside marriage and-”

“Here we go,” said Sonja. “Pia Abrahamsson requested sole custody of her son, Dante, and the father tried to contest it.”

“So we’re going to drop the possible connection to Vicky Bennet?” asks Bosse.

“Look for the father first,” says Joona.

“On it,” says Sonja. She heads to the back of the bus.

“What did you find beneath Vicky Bennet’s window?” Joona asks one of the technicians.

“There wasn’t anything on the ground. We found prints and some coagulation traces on the windowsill.”

“And what did you find near the edge of the forest?”

“Nothing, and then it started to rain.”

“But apparently Vicky Bennet headed directly into the forest,” Joona says thoughtfully. He watches Bosse Norling, who is leaning over the map, place a pin on Birgittagården and then draw a circle around it with a compass.

“Vicky didn’t take the car,” says Gunnarsson. “It doesn’t take three whole damn hours to get from the forest to Highway 86 and then go-”

“On the other hand, she was running at night. It’s not easy to find your way in the dark. She could have walked all the way there,” Bosse says. He jabs the map to the east of a forested area and then traces a line going north.

“The timing would work,” Joona says.

“Dante’s father is in the Canary Islands right now,” Sonja calls from the back of the bus.

Olle Gunnarsson swears, then picks up the radio to call Mirja Zlatnek.

“Gunnarsson here,” he says. “Has the mother given us her statement?”

“Yes, and I-”

“Can she describe the suspect?”

“It wasn’t easy. The mother is emotional and the picture of the suspect is somewhat unclear,” Mirja says. “The mother is obviously in shock. She’s talking about a skeleton with rags hanging down coming out of the forest. A girl with a bloody face and twigs instead of arms.”

“But she says it’s a girl?”

“I’ve recorded her testimony, but it’s really odd. She keeps saying the strangest things. She’ll have to calm down before we can get a decent-”

“But she says it’s a girl?”

“Yes. Over and over.”