The Fire Witness

74

Elin Frank got back to her apartment an hour ago after a long committee meeting at the Kingston Corporation to discuss two holding companies in Great Britain.

She’s feeling anxious about having slept with the Vogue photographer, but she keeps reminding herself that it was just a small adventure and she needed one after so long without sex. Still, she finds herself sweating from embarrassment.

She has changed into her old, faded red sports shorts and an equally worn ABBA T-shirt, and she’s nursing a bottle of Perrier she picked up in the kitchen. As she gets to her bedroom, she switches on the TV, but pays little attention to it.

Later this afternoon, she is supposed to have a telephone conference with the CEO of her subdivision in Chicago while she has a paraffin bath and a manicure. At eight, she’s expected at a charity dinner, where she’ll sit at the head table. The chairman of Volvo has been assigned the chair beside hers. The crown princess is awarding a prize from the General Inheritance Fund, and Roxette is providing the evening’s entertainment.

From her walk-in closet she can still hear the television, but she’s still not actively listening, and she doesn’t yet notice the news is now on. She opens one of the wardrobes and looks through her clothes. She selects a metallic-green dress the designer Alexander McQueen made just for her not long before he died.

“… Vicky Bennet…” She hears the name mentioned on the broadcast, and she rushes back into the bedroom. On-screen, a detective by the name of Olle Gunnarsson is being interviewed in front of a dreary police station. He’s trying to smile patiently, but his eyes are narrowed. He’s stroking his mustache as he nods.

“I cannot comment on an ongoing investigation,” he says, and clears his throat.

“But you’ve concluded the underwater search?”

“That is correct.”

“Does this mean that you’ve found the bodies?”

“I can’t answer that.”

The image changes, and Elin is staring at footage of the salvage of the wrecked car. The crane is lifting it straight up and it breaks the surface of the water and starts to sway. Water pours from the car as a voice says that the vehicle that Vicky Bennet stole was found submerged in the Indal River earlier that day and that both the murder suspect, Vicky Bennet, and four-year-old Dante Abrahamsson were feared dead.

“The police are not talking about what they’ve found, but we’ve learned that the underwater search has been suspended and the search for survivors called off…”

Elin has stopped listening to the news anchor. All she can do is stare at the picture of Vicky they are now showing. The girl looks older and skinnier, but she hasn’t changed. Elin feels as if her heart has stopped. She remembers what it felt like to carry the sleeping child.

“No,” Elin whispers. “No.”

She’s staring at the girl’s narrow, pale face. Her hair is falling every which way, uncombed and tangled. Just as difficult to care for as always.

She’s still a child, and now they’re saying she’s dead.

Vicky’s gaze is defiant, as if she’s being forced to look at the camera.

Elin wheels away from the television and steadies herself on the wall, not noticing that she’s knocked an oil painting by Erland Cullberg. It falls to the floor.

“No, no, no,” she moans. “Not like this. No… no…”

The last thing she’d heard of Vicky was her crying in the stairwell, and now she is dead.

“I don’t want this!” she screams.

She walks over to the china cabinet with the heirloom Seder plate she inherited from her father. She grabs the upper edge of the cabinet and hurls it over with all her strength. Its glass front splinters and shards whirl over the parquet. The beautifully detailed Seder plate breaks into five pieces.

Elin doubles over and drops to the floor as a single thought churns in her mind. I had a daughter. I had a daughter. I had a daughter.

She sits up, takes a slice of the Seder plate, and drags its point across her wrist. Blood starts to run out, dripping down onto her knees. Elin makes a second cut, inhaling sharply from the pain. A key rattles in the front-door lock. Someone opens the door and comes in.