The Fire Witness

30

The two-star Hotel Ibis is on Trädgårdsgatan not far from the police station in Sundsvall. When Joona pulls the front door open, he is greeted by the smell of vacuum cleaners, musty carpets, and cigarette smoke. There’s a dish at the reception desk filled with stale candies. The police have assigned the students from Birgittagården to five adjacent rooms and placed two uniformed officers in the hallway. Joona strides over the worn wooden flooring.

The psychologist, Lisa Jern, is waiting for Joona outside one of the bedrooms. Her dark hair is streaked with gray. Her mouth is narrow and nervous.

“Is Tuula here already?” asks Joona.

“Yes, but wait,” she says as Joona lays his hand on the door handle. “From what I understand, you are an observer from the National Police-”

“A little boy’s in danger,” Joona says.

“Tuula is hardly speaking, and my recommendation as a child psychologist is that you wait until she starts speaking about it on her own initiative.”

“No time for that.” Joona pushes down the handle.

“Wait. It’s really important that you keep yourself on the same level as the children. They must not feel as if they’re sick or-”

Joona is already in the room. All the furniture has beech-wood veneer and the floor is covered in green wall-to-wall carpet. Tuula Lehti is sitting with her back to a row of windows. She’s a tiny girl, just twelve years old, and she’s still dressed in her pink shorts and tennis shoes.

Between the slats of the venetian blinds, Joona can see the parked cars in the street. Standing in the farthest corner of the room, there’s a man wearing a blue flannel shirt, with his hair combed back. He’s tapping the screen on his cell phone. Joona assumes he is the support person for the students.

Joona sits directly across from Tuula and studies her. She has light blond eyebrows and her red hair is straight and needs washing.

“We met briefly this morning,” Joona says.

Tuula crosses her freckled arms over her chest. Her lips are narrow and almost colorless.

“Pop a cop,” she says.

Lisa Jern has followed Joona into the room and now sits down next to the tiny girl.

“Tuula,” she says in a mild voice. “Remember how I told you that I sometimes feel like Thumbelina? It’s not strange to feel little, just like Thumbelina, even when you’re grown up.”

“Why do people always talk like idiots?” Tuula asks, looking Joona directly in the eye. “Is it because you grown-ups are idiots, or because you think we’re idiots?”

“We grown-ups probably think you’re a bit idiotic,” Joona says.

Tuula smiles, surprised. She is about to say something when Lisa Jern breaks in and tries to reassure her that Joona wasn’t telling the truth. The officer was just making a joke.

Tuula hugs her arms closer to her chest, stares at the table, and puffs out her cheeks.

“You’re not an idiot at all,” Lisa Jern keeps repeating.

“Yes, I am,” Tuula whispers.

She spits, and a long string of saliva hits the table. She says nothing but begins to draw with the saliva on the table. She draws a star.

“Do you want to talk?” Lisa says quietly.

“Only with the Finn,” Tuula replies, her voice so low as to be almost inaudible.

“What did you say?” asks Lisa Jern with a smile.

“I only want to talk to the Finn!” Tuula lifts her chin, pointing at Joona Linna.

“How nice,” the psychologist says stiffly.

Joona turns on the recorder and quietly states the formalities: time, place, people present, and the reason for the conversation.

“Why are you at Birgittagården?” he asks.

“I was at Lövsta, and some things happened that weren’t so good,” Tuula says. “So they put me with the girls who are locked in, even though I’m too young. I kept my nose clean, just watched TV, and one year and four months later they moved me to Birgittagården.”

“What’s the difference between Lövsta and Birgittagården?”

“Well, Birgittagården is more like a real home, at least as far as I’m concerned. They have rugs on the floors, and they haven’t bolted down the furniture, except in the isolation room, and they don’t have alarms connected to everything, and you can sleep in peace and quiet, and they give you homemade food.”

Joona nods and notices that the support person is still flipping through pages on his cell phone. The psychologist Lisa Jern is breathing heavily as she listens to them.

“What food did they make for you yesterday?” Joona asks.

“Tacos.”

“Was everyone at dinner?”

Tuula shrugs. “I guess so.”

“Miranda, too? Did she eat tacos with you?”

“Cut open her stomach and you’ll find out. Haven’t you done that yet?”

“No, we haven’t.”

“Why not?”

“We haven’t had time yet.”

Tuula semi-smiles and starts pulling at a loose thread on her shorts. Her nails have been bitten to the quick and the cuticles are raw.

“I looked into the isolation room,” Tuula says, and she starts to rock. “It was pretty cool.”

“Did you see how Miranda was lying there?” asks Joona.

“Yeah, like this,” Tuula says and puts her hands over her face.

“Why do you think she was doing that?”

Tuula starts kicking at the carpet. “Maybe she was scared.”

“Did you ever see anyone else do that?”

“No,” Tuula says, scratching her neck.

“So you’re not locked into your rooms,” Joona says.

“No, it’s almost like open wards,” Tuula says and smiles.

“Do you often sneak out at night?”

“Not me.” Tuula’s mouth becomes tight and hard as she pretends to shoot the psychologist with her index finger.

“Why not?” asks Joona.

She looks back at Joona and says in a small voice, “I’m afraid of the dark.”

“What about the others?”

Lisa Jern stands up and frowns as she continues to listen.

“Yes,” Tuula whispers.

“What do they do when they sneak out?” asks Joona.

The girl looks down and smiles to herself.

“Of course, those girls are older than you are,” Joona says.

“Right,” Tuula says. She is blushing.

“Do they meet boys?”

She nods.

“Does Vicky meet boys, too?”

“Yes, she sneaks out at night,” Tuula says. She leans on the table in Joona’s direction.

“Do you know who she goes to see?”

“Dennis.”

“Who is Dennis?”

“I don’t know,” she whispers. She wets her lips with her tongue.

“But his name is Dennis? Do you know his last name?”

“No.”

“How long is she gone?”

Tuula shrugs and pulls at a bit of tape stuck to the underside of the chair cushion.