The Fire Witness

60

The air is cool inside the police garage, and Joona is thankful for it as he walks down the stairs, his arm in a dark blue sling.

A large plastic tent covers the car Vicky Bennet stole. Police used a four-point suspension crane to salvage it from the Indal River, then wrapped it in plastic and transported it here. All the seats have been removed and set aside. Plastic bags containing everything found inside the car have been marked and placed on a long bench. Joona takes a look at the secured evidence. There are fingerprints from Pia, Vicky, and Dante. There are bags of glass splinters, hairs, and fibers, an empty water bottle, a tennis shoe, which most likely belonged to Vicky, and the boy’s tiny pair of glasses.

The door to the garage office opens and Holger Jalmert comes out holding a folder.

“You wanted to point out something to me,” Joona says.

“Yes, it’s just as well,” Holger says and sighs. He gestures toward the car. “The entire windshield is gone. You saw that yourself when you dove down into the water. It was knocked out when the car collided with the traffic light. Unfortunately, I’ve found a few strands of hair from the boy in the windshield frame.”

“That’s sad to hear,” Joona says. A wave of loneliness washes over him.

“Well, it’s what everyone suspected.”

Joona takes a look at the photograph of the strands of hair on the right side of the jagged windshield frame and at an enlargement showing that the hairs were pulled out by their roots. The only way hair could have been ripped from Dante’s head was if he’d been thrown from the child seat, over the front seat, through the windshield frame, and into the river. Joona imagines the child hurtling through the car and being carried off by the strong current.

Vicky Bennet hadn’t killed the boy, he realizes. She’d kept him with her in the car.

“Is it your opinion that the boy was alive when the car hit the water?” he asks.

“Yes. Probably he was knocked out and drowned, but we’ll have to wait until the bodies appear at the dam to know for sure.”

Holger shows Joona a plastic bag containing a red water pistol. “I have a little boy, too…” He stops speaking and sits down in an office chair.

Joona rests his good hand on Holger’s shoulder.

“We’ll have to tell the mother that we’re going to stop the search and wait and see,” Holger says, and he turns away.

It’s unusually quiet at the small police station. A few men in uniform are standing around talking near the coffee machine. A woman is typing on her computer. The twilight outside is heavy and gray, like an endless dreary day at school.

When the front door opens and Pia Abrahamsson enters, the men stop talking. She is wearing jeans and a tight denim jacket. Her nut-brown hair hanging from beneath her black beret is unwashed. She’s not wearing makeup and her eyes look exhausted, terrified.

Mirja Zlatnek gets up quickly and pulls up a chair.

“I don’t want to sit down,” Pia says weakly.

“We asked you to come here because we fear that…”

Pia steadies herself with a hand on the back of the chair but stays standing.

“What I’m trying to say,” Mirja says, “what I’m trying to say is that…”

“Yes?”

“No one believes that they can still be alive.”

Pia doesn’t react. She doesn’t break into sobs. She just nods slightly and licks her lips.

“Why do you believe that?” she asks, softly and strangely.

“We have found your car,” Mirja says. “She drove it off the road and it landed in the river. The car was at a depth of twelve feet. It was heavily damaged and…”

Mirja’s voice fades away.

“I want to see my son,” Pia says with the same disturbing calm. “Where is his body?”

“It is… We haven’t found it yet, but-this is difficult-the decision was made to stop the search. The divers haven’t found anything.”

“But…”

Pia Abrahamsson’s hand reaches for the silver cross she’s wearing underneath her shirt, but stops over her heart.

“Dante is just four years old,” she says. “He can’t swim.”

“I understand,” Mirja says, looking stricken.

“But he… he does like playing in the water,” Pia whispers.

Her chin begins to tremble. She moves slowly, like an old and broken woman, as she finally sits down.