The Fire Witness

48

Carlos Eliasson, the National Police chief, is standing by his office window on the eighth floor. He’s looking out at the steep hillsides of Kronoberg Park. He has no idea that Joona Linna is walking through the park after a brief visit to the old Jewish cemetery.

Carlos goes back to sit at his desk and doesn’t see the detective with the disheveled hair cross Polhemsgatan and head for the main entrance of the police station.

Joona walks past a banner proclaiming the role of modern police in a changing world. He passes Benny Rubin, who is sitting hunched in front of his computer, and Magdalena Ronander’s office, where she’s on the phone, saying something about cooperation with Europol.

Joona is back in Stockholm because he’s been summoned to a meeting with both of the internal investigators later this afternoon. He takes his mail from his box, goes to sit at his desk, and then flips through the messages and envelopes while thinking about what Nathan said. He agrees with Nathan. Vicky Bennet’s profile doesn’t fit these two murders.

In the admittedly incomplete psychological documentation the police have on Vicky Bennet, there’s nothing to indicate that she could be dangerous. She is not on the police register. The people who have met her find her shy and withdrawn but nice.

But all the technical evidence points to her. Everything indicates that she took the little boy. Maybe the boy is already lying in a ditch with a broken skull. If the boy is still alive, they must find him quickly. Maybe he’s with Vicky in some dark garage. Maybe she’s in a rage at him right now.

Go seek the past. Nathan Pollock’s usual advice.

It’s as simple as it is clear. The past always indicates the future.

In her short life, Vicky has moved many times. She’d moved around with her homeless mother, then from foster home to foster home, into an urgent-care facility, then a youth home, and finally to Birgittagården. But where is she now?

Maybe the answer is hidden in one of her conversations with her counselors, social workers, or temporary foster parents. There must be someone whom she trusted and confided in.

Joona is about to look for Anja to ask if she’s found any new names or addresses, when he sees her standing in the doorway. Her hefty body is squeezed into a tight black skirt and one of several angora sweaters she owns. Her blond hair is artfully pinned up and her lipstick is bright red.

“Before I tell you what I’ve found, let me just say that fifteen thousand children are placed in foster homes every year,” Anja starts. “And let me remind you that it was called health reform when politicians opened the door of health care to the private sector. Now venture capitalists own the youth homes. It’s like the olden days when they used to auction off orphans. They save money on staff, on education, on therapy, and even on dentists, all to stoke their coffers.”

“I know,” Joona says. “Just tell me about Vicky Bennet-”

“I thought I would start by finding out who was responsible for her last placement.”

“And?” asks Joona.

She smiles and leans her head to the side. “Mission accomplished, Joona Linna.”

“Fantastic.”

“I do whatever I can for you.”

“I don’t deserve it,” Joona says.

“I know,” she says, and leaves the room.

He waits in his chair for a few minutes, then he goes to Anja’s office and knocks on the door.

As he enters, she says, “The addresses are there,” and nods at the printer.

“Thanks.”

“When the last person responsible for Vicky’s placement heard my name, he said that Sweden once had a famous butterfly swimmer by the same name,” she says, and blushes.

“So you told him you were that famous swimmer?”

“No, I didn’t. But he told me that Vicky Bennet doesn’t appear in any records before the age of six. Her mother, Susie, was homeless and appears to have given birth alone and kept Vicky out of the health system. When Susie was committed to a mental hospital, Vicky was placed with foster parents here in Stockholm.”

Joona is holding the list in his hand. It’s still warm from the printer. He glances down the list of dates and placements. He sees that Vicky’s first foster parents were Jack and Elin Frank, who lived at Strandvägen 47. Among numerous other placements, there are two youth homes on the list: Ljungbacken in Uddevalla and Birgittagården in Sundsvall township. Against several names on the list there’s a note saying that the child asked to be returned to her first foster family. Each one says the same thing: “The child requests to be returned to the Frank family, but the family declines.” The sentence is dry and clinical.

The two youth homes are at the end of the list after other foster families, emergency placements, and treatment homes.

Joona thinks about the bloody hammer underneath the pillow and the blood on the windowsill. He thinks about the glum, thin face in the photograph. Her hair in tangled curls.

“Can you find out if Jack and Elin Frank are still living at this address?” Joona asks.

Anja’s plump face shows her amusement. “You should read See & Hear. You’d learn a thing or two.”

“What are you saying?”

“Elin and Jack are divorced, but she kept the apartment because, well, it’s all her money.”

“So they’re celebrities?”

“You know Albert Frank, don’t you?”

“Sure.”

“Elin inherited the entire mining operation when she was just eighteen years old. These days she’s often in the media for her charitable works. She and her former husband have given quite a bit of money to orphanages and foundations.”

“There was a time when Vicky lived with them?”

“It probably didn’t work out so well,” Anja replies.

Joona heads to the door, holding the printout. He turns to look at Anja.

“What can I do to thank you?”

“I’ve registered us both in a class,” she said. “Promise you’ll go with me.”

“What kind of class?”

“Relaxation. Kama Sutra something.”