The Fire Witness

54

It takes Joona three hours to drive west to Bengtsfors. By the time he gets there, the tears on his notebook where the woman wrote the address have long since dried. He had to pry it gently from her hand, and when he tried to get her to say something, she just shook her head. Then she hurried from the kitchen and locked herself in the bathroom.

Joona drives slowly along Skrakegatan. Number 35 is the last house on the street. The front yard is overgrown and white plastic furniture is lying in the tall grass. The mailbox by the gate is stuffed with flyers, and black garbage bags have been taped to the inside of the front window.

Climbing out of his car, Joona walks through the weeds to the front door. A doormat has been printed with the reminder: keys, wallet, cell phone. When he rings the doorbell, a dog barks and after a while, an eye looks through the peephole. He can hear two locks being unlatched and then the door is opened as far as the security chain allows. He can’t see the person in the dark hallway, but he can smell red wine.

“May I come in?” Joona asks.

“She doesn’t want to see you.” It’s a boy’s voice, husky and hoarse.

The dog is panting and Joona can hear the links of a choke collar click.

“I need to talk to her.”

“We’re not buying anything!” a woman shouts.

“I’m from the police,” Joona says.

Joona hears steps inside the house.

“Is he by himself?” asks the woman.

“Yes, I think so.”

“Hold on to Zombie.”

“Mamma? Are you really going to open the door?”

Joona hears the woman approach.

“What do you want?” she says.

“Do you know anything about a girl named Vicky Bennet?”

Joona hears the dog’s nails scratch against the floor. The woman yells at the boy then closes the door and takes off the security chain. The door opens a crack. Joona pushes it wider and steps inside. The woman is standing with her back to him. She’s wearing flesh-colored leggings and a white T-shirt. Her blond hair hangs over her shoulders. As Joona shuts the door behind him, it’s so dark he has to stop.

By the time his eyes adjust, the woman is at the far end of the hall. He walks past the kitchen, where a vague gray light shows a box of wine on the table and a pool of wine on the brown linoleum underneath. He goes into the television room, where the woman is already sitting on a denim sofa. Dark purple curtains reach the floor on either side of a window covered in more garbage bags. The door to the veranda lets in a ray of light, which lands on the woman’s hand. Her nails are well cared for and painted red.

“Go ahead and sit down,” she says.

“Thank you.”

Joona sits across from her on a footstool and immediately notices that there’s something wrong with the woman’s face.

“What do you want to know?” she says.

“You visited the Arnander-Johansson family,” Joona says.

“That’s right.”

“Why did you need to go see them?”

“I had to warn them.”

“What did you need to warn them about?”

“Tompa!” the woman yells. “Tompa!”

A door opens and slow footsteps head toward them. A shadow comes in.

“Turn on the light.”

“But, Mamma-”

“Do as you’re told!”

The boy hits the light switch and a large globe of rice paper lights up the entire room. The tall, thin boy is standing with his head bowed. His face looks like it had been savaged by a dog and never healed properly. His lower lip is missing so that his teeth are showing. His chin and his right cheek are bright red like fresh beef and a deep red gash goes diagonally from his hairline through one eyebrow.

When Joona turns toward the woman, he sees that her face is even more ruined. Still, she’s smiling at him. She’s missing her right eye and there are several deep gashes in her face and neck-at least ten. Her eyebrow droops over her remaining eye and her lips have been slashed into sections.

“Vicky got angry at us,” the woman says. Her smile disappears.

“What happened?”

“She cut us with a broken bottle. I never thought a human being could get so angry. I passed out and when I woke up, I could feel the gashes from the broken glass, all the wounds, and the bits of broken glass inside my body. I realized I had no face left.”