The Fire Witness

71

Joona is standing by the locked gates to the parking lot behind the police station in Bergsgatan, the industrial area of Sundsvall. The technicians there have the purse and he wants to talk to them, but no one is answering the intercom at the gate. The parking lot is empty and all the station’s doors are closed.

Joona gets back in his car and drives to the station at Storgatan. Gunnarsson should be there. In the stairwell, he runs into Sonja Rask. She’s in civilian clothes and her hair is still damp from the shower. She’s put on a bit of makeup and seems happy.

“Hello,” Joona says. “Is Gunnarsson upstairs?”

“He can go to hell,” Sonja says. “He feels threatened. He thinks that you’re after his job.”

“I’m just an observer,” Joona says.

Sonja’s dark eyes shine. “I heard you dove right into the water and swam to the car.”

“I just wanted to look at it,” Joona says.

She laughs and pats his arm, but then turns shy and hurries off down the stairs.

Joona keeps going up. In the police station, the radio in the lunch room is on, as usual, and through a glass door, he can see several people sitting around a conference table. Gunnarsson is at one of its ends. A woman sitting at the table catches Joona’s eye and shakes her head, but he still opens the door and walks inside.

“What the hell!” Gunnarsson says when he sees Joona.

“I need to look at Vicky Bennet’s purse,” Joona says tersely.

“We’re in a meeting,” Gunnarsson says, cutting him off. He looks back at his paperwork.

“Everything is with the technicians at the Bergsgatan station,” Rolf says, looking embarrassed.

“There’s no one there,” Joona says.

“Give it up, for fuck’s sake,” Gunnarsson growls. “The preliminary investigation has come to an end and as far as I’m concerned, the internal investigators can eat you for breakfast.”

Joona nods and leaves the room. He goes back to his car and sits there for a while, then starts driving to the provincial hospital in Sundsvall. Something is still bothering him about the murders at Birgittagården.

Vicky Bennet, he thinks. The nice girl who isn’t always nice. Vicky Bennet, who slashed the faces of a mother and son with a broken bottle. They were seriously injured, but they didn’t go to a doctor. They also did not report the incident to the police.

Before Vicky drowned, she was a suspect for two violent murders.

Everything indicates that she prepared her killings in advance. She waited for nightfall, killed Elisabet with a hammer, returned to the house, unlocked the door to the isolation room, and then killed Miranda.

The Needle says that Miranda was killed by a rock.

Why would Vicky leave the hammer in her room and then go find a stone?

There are times when Joona thinks his old friend must be wrong. It’s why he has not yet said anything about his suspicions to anyone. The Needle will have to present his theory in his report.

Vicky went to bed after killing these two women.

Joona saw the blood on her sheets and how it had been smeared by Vicky’s arm as she changed positions in her sleep. Holger Jalmert said that this observation was interesting but impossible to prove.

Without witnesses, he would never get an answer to this case.

Joona has read Elisabet Grim’s final note in the Birgittagården logbook, but nothing in it indicates the violence that erupted later that night.

The girls did not see a thing.

No one knew Vicky Bennet.

Joona has already decided he needs to talk to Daniel Grim, the therapist. It’s worth a try, even though it’s difficult to question someone in mourning. Daniel was the person the girls trusted the most. If anyone understands what happened, he’s probably the one.

His shoulder is hurting, so Joona pulls out his cell phone slowly. He remembers that Daniel Grim kept himself together in front of the girls when he first got to Birgittagården, but his face had contorted in pain when he found out Elisabet had been killed.

The doctor had called his acute shock “arousal,” a consequence of traumatic stress, which might prevent Daniel from remembering much for some time.

“Psychiatric clinic, Rebecka Stenbeck speaking,” a woman says after five rings.

“I would like to speak with one of your patients, Daniel Grim.”

“One moment.”

He can hear the woman typing on a keyboard.

“I’m sorry, but the patient is not allowed to receive phone calls,” she says.

“Who made that decision?”

“His doctor.”

“Would you connect me to him, please?”

There’s a series of clicks and then the phone rings.

“Carl Rimmer here.”

“I’m Joona Linna, a detective with the National Police,” Joona says. “It’s very important that I speak with a patient by the name of Daniel Grim.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t allow that,” Rimmer says immediately.

“We are investigating a double murder and-”

“Nothing will change my decision. The patient needs to recover.”

“I understand that Daniel Grim is suffering, but I promise-”

“My decision stands,” Carl Rimmer says, but his tone is friendly. “In my opinion, the patient will recover and then the police can talk to him.”

“When will that be?”

“I’d guess in a few months.”

“I need to talk to him for just a little while, but I need to talk to him now.”

“As his doctor, again I must say no.” Rimmer is adamant. “He was extremely upset after your colleague questioned him earlier.”