The Fire Witness

43

Joona stayed in the autopsy room until he saw Miranda’s face. He felt uneasy as the doctors forced her hands away. His earlier thought that she didn’t want her face to be seen rang in his brain.

Now he’s sitting at Gunnarsson’s desk in the Sundsvall police station. He’s reading through the early technical reports. A woman is sitting a few feet away in front of a computer. Her telephone rings and she mumbles something as she checks the number display.

One wall is covered with maps and pictures of the little boy, Dante Abrahamsson. There are binders and heaps of paper in the bookshelves lining the other walls. A copier rumbles ceaselessly. A radio is playing in the lunch room and when the pop music stops, Joona is able to hear the police alert for the third time.

“We have a missing person alert,” the radio host says. “The police are searching for a fifteen-year-old girl and a four-year-old boy, probably together. The girl has long blond hair and the boy is wearing a dark blue sweater and corduroy pants. They were last seen in a red Toyota Auris on Highway 86 heading toward Sundsvall. Please contact the police at 114 14 if you have any information regarding these missing children.”

Joona gets up, goes to the empty lunch room, and changes the channel to P2. He pours himself a cup of coffee. The radio plays a scratched recording of an unusually clear soprano voice. It is Birgit Nilsson singing the role of Brünnhilde in Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung.

Joona sits back down at the desk and it occurs to him that the girl who took the little boy is probably psychotic. He pictures them hiding in a garage. Perhaps the boy has been forced to lie beneath a blanket with tape over his mouth. Perhaps he’s tied up.

If he is still alive, he must be terribly frightened.

Joona continues to read the technical report. It confirms that it was Elisabet’s key in the lock to the isolation room at Birgittagården and that the boots that had left bloody footprints in the main house were the same ones found in Vicky Bennet’s closet.

We have two murders, Joona thinks. One is primary and the other is secondary. Miranda is the primary victim, but to get to her, the suspect had to take Elisabet’s key.

The technicians’ reconstructed chain of events suggest that an argument could have been the triggering factor, even if there had been rivalry for some time. According to the report Vicky Bennet had gotten the hammer and the boots before lights-out and waited in her room. Once the other girls had gone to sleep, she’d approached Elisabet and demanded the key. Elisabet refused and fled through the hallway, out the door, and into the brewery. Vicky had followed her, killed her with the hammer, and taken the key. She’d returned to the main building, unlocked the isolation room, and killed Miranda. For some reason, she’d lifted Miranda onto the bed and placed Miranda’s hands over her face and crossed her legs at the ankles. She then returned to her room, hid the hammer, the blanket, and the boots, climbed out the window, and fled into the forest.

Joona puts the report down on the desk. He knows that it will be several weeks before the lab has the test results. Without that information, the crime scene investigators have assumed that both Elisabet and Miranda were killed with the hammer.

But Miranda was killed by a rock.

Why was she killed by a rock when Vicky had a hammer?

Joona looks carefully at every photograph sent with the report. There is Miranda, lying on the bed, her skin as pale as porcelain, her ankles crossed, a small bruise on her leg, a tiny jewel in her belly button, her hands over her face.

He puts himself in the mind of the killer, as he usually does, and forces himself to see each action, each frightening choice, as absolutely necessary: the simplest or the best solution right that minute.

It’s unlikely that the killer thought this murder bestial or appalling. It could have been rational or even enticing.

Sometimes the killer can’t see beyond one blow at a time. He needs to strike just this one blow-he justifies just this one blow-and there is no thought of the next until the need for it comes over him like a wave. Time is warped, and the murder can seem epic, starting with the first blow and ending years later with the last, although in reality it might take no more than thirty seconds.

The evidence points to Vicky Bennet. Everyone believes she killed both Elisabet and Miranda, and yet no one believes that she is capable, physically or mentally, of murder.

Every human being is capable of murder, Joona thinks. He puts the report back in Gunnarsson’s folder. We see this in our dreams and our fantasies. Everyone is violent inside, but most people have tamed and caged their inner beast.

Joona gets up from the desk just seconds before Gunnarsson arrives. He hangs up his wrinkled coat and goes into the cafeteria. When he comes out with a cup of coffee in his hand and sees Joona, he breaks into a grin.

“Aren’t they missing you in Stockholm yet?”

“Not yet,” Joona says.

Gunnarsson searches his jacket for his cigarettes and turns to the woman at the computer.

“All reports go directly to me.”

“Yes,” she says, but she doesn’t look up.

Gunnarsson mumbles to himself and fishes out a cigarette and lighter.

“How did the interview with Daniel Grim go?” asks Joona.

“Fine, not that it’s any of your business. But I had to be damned careful.”

“What did he know about Vicky?”

“Nothing the police can use.”

“Did you ask about Dennis?”

“That doctor was on my ass like the man’s mother and cut off questioning.”

Gunnarsson pats his pockets, not noticing he’s holding a cigarette.

“I want the report from Holger Jalmert as soon as it comes in,” Joona says. “I also want the forensic examination results and-”

“Get the fuck out of my sandbox,” says Gunnarsson. He smiles widely at the woman, but falters when he sees Joona’s serious, steely gaze.

“You have no idea how to find Vicky Bennet and the boy,” Joona says. “And you have no idea how to proceed with the investigation.”

“I’m waiting for tips from the public,” Gunnarsson says. “There’s always someone who’s seen something.”