The Fire Witness: A Novel

  Vicky was her unique self, just as a child should be.

  In the beginning, she would run into Elin’s bedroom at night and stare at her before turning away. Perhaps she hoped to find her real mother there; perhaps she regretted that she’d come in at all or couldn’t risk being turned away. Elin still remembers the patter of her small feet running over the parquet floor as she disappeared back to her room.

  Sometimes Vicky would sit in Jack’s lap while watching TV, but she never wanted to sit in Elin’s lap. Vicky didn’t trust her, didn’t dare trust her, but Elin noticed that she often glanced at her furtively.

  Little Vicky, the silent girl who would play only if she was sure no one was watching her. Little Vicky, who didn’t dare open her Christmas presents because she thought that such beautiful packages couldn’t be hers. Little Vicky, who shrank from every hug.

  Elin bought her a little white hamster and a large cage with ladders and tunnels of red plastic. Vicky took care of the hamster during Christmas vacation, but when school started, the hamster vanished. Eventually they found out that she’d let it go in a park on the way to school. When Jack explained to her that it might not survive the cold, Vicky ran to her room and slammed the door maybe ten times. Then she downed a bottle of burgundy during the night and threw up all over the sauna. Later that week, she stole two rings that Elin had inherited from her grandmother and refused to say what she’d done with them. Elin never got the rings back.

  Jack was beginning to reach his limit. He started saying that their lives were too complicated to give a child security, especially one who needed as much as this one did. He spent less time at home and stopped engaging with the girl.

  Elin realized she was going to lose him.

  When the social workers said they wanted to try placing Vicky temporarily back with her real mother, Elin welcomed the news. She felt that both she and Jack needed the break to find their way back to each other. Vicky refused to take the cell phone Elin offered her so they could keep in touch.

  The day Vicky left, Elin and Jack had a late dinner at the Operakällaren restaurant, went home and made love, and then slept through the night undisturbed for the first time in months. In the morning Jack said he’d leave if Vicky came back. Elin let him call Vicky’s case manager to explain that they couldn’t cope with the child and were not able to take her back.

  She learned later that Vicky and her mother ran away from their placement at an open care facility in Västerås and were later found hiding in a small playhouse at a playground. The mother started leaving Vicky alone at night, and, after she’d been gone for two days, Vicky walked the 110 kilometers back to Stockholm.

  Jack was not home the night Vicky rang their doorbell. Elin had no idea what to do. She pressed her body against the wall by the door, listening to the girl ring the bell and call her name over and over. Finally Vicky started to cry. She opened the mail slot and called, “Please? Can I come back? I want to stay with you. Please, Elin, open the door. I’ll be a good girl. Please … please…”

  When Jack and Elin had met with Vicky’s case manager after they told her they were dropping out of the program, she’d said, “Do not explain to Vicky why you can’t take her in any longer.”

  “Why not?” Elin had asked.

  “Because,” the case manager had said, “the child will blame herself. She’ll assume it’s her fault.”

  So Elin had stood silently in the hallway and after what seemed like an eternity, she’d heard Vicky’s footsteps fade away.

  63

  Elin is looking in the huge bathroom mirror and watching her eyes sparkle in the indirect light. She’s taken two Valium and has had a glass of Alsatian Riesling. Out on her large terrace, Nassim DuBois, the young photographer from French Vogue, is setting up. The interview was done last week, when Elin was in Provence for a charity auction. She auctioned off not only her collection of contemporary French art, but also her Jean Nouvel–designed house in Nice. She’s donating the proceeds to a guaranteed fund for microloans to women in North Africa.

  She moves away from the mirror and picks up the phone to call Jack. Even though Jack’s lawyer has told her that any contact regarding Vicky Bennet should go through his office, she wants to tell Jack that the car Vicky stole has been found in the Indal River. She won’t care if he seems tired or irritated. She’s no longer in love with him, but at times she feels the need to hear his voice. Before he can answer, she changes her mind and ends the call.

  She steadies herself, resting her hand against the wall as she leaves the bathroom. She walks through the living room, to the glass doors leading to the terrace.

  She steps languidly outside. Nassim whistles.

  “You look absolutely wonderful,” he says with a smile.

  She knows she looks good in her copper-colored dress with its thin shoulder straps, and her necklace of hammered white gold. Her gold earrings—a gold so deep it’s almost bronze—cast reflections over her bare skin.

  Nassim wants her to stand with her back to the terrace wall and drape herself in a flowing white Ralph Lauren shawl. She lets it billow in a beautiful curve behind her body.

  The photographer moves a silver reflecting screen so that her face is filled with light and photographs her from a distance with a telephoto lens. Then he comes closer. He sinks down on his knees. He’s wearing tight-fitting jeans. He takes a series of shots with an old-fashioned Polaroid.

  She notices the sweat breaking out on his forehead, but he never stops praising her. Still, she knows his concentration is elsewhere: on composition and light.

  “You’re dangerous, you’re sexy,” he mumbles.

  “You really think so?” she answers with a smile.

  He gets to his feet, nods, and then breaks into a wide, self-conscious smile. “Though more sexy than dangerous.”

  “You’re sweet,” she says.

  Elin is not wearing a bra and she feels her nipples harden in the cool breeze. She’s hoping he’s noticing and realizes she’s tipsy.

  Now he’s lying down beneath her with an old Hasselblad camera and he’s asking her to lean forward and pucker her mouth as if she wants to be kissed. “Une petite pomme,” he says.

  They smile at each other and Elin feels happy all of a sudden, almost giddy from the flirtation. His thin, tight T-shirt has come untucked and she can see how firm his body is.

  She pouts a little and he keeps taking her photograph, keeps mumbling that she’s the best, she’s just like a top model, then finally he lowers his camera and looks at her.

  “I can keep going all night,” he says. “But I can see that you’re freezing.”

  Elin nods. “Let’s go inside and have a glass of whiskey.”

  64

  The salon feels warm when they get inside; Elin’s housekeeper has lit a fire in the tile stove. They sit side by side on the couch with their malt whiskeys and talk about the importance of microloans to women in the third world. The Valium and alcohol still have a spell over Elin. She feels relaxed, becalmed.

  Nassim is saying that the journalist from Vogue is very happy with the interview. Then he tells Elin that his mother is from Morocco.

  “What you’ve done is incredible,” he says with a smile. “If my grandmother had been able to have a microloan, perhaps my mother’s life would not have been so hard.”

  “I do what I can, but…”

  She falls silent and looks into his serious eyes.

  “No one is perfect,” he says and slides closer.

  “Once I let a little girl down. A girl I never should have abandoned. A girl who…”

  He touches her comfortingly on the cheek and whispers something in French. She smiles at him, tipsy and tingling. “If you weren’t so young, I might fall in love with you,” she says in Swedish.

  “What did you say?”

  “I envy your girlfriend.”

  She can smell his breath: mint and whiskey. Like herbs, she thinks. She has the sudden urge to kiss him but thinks
this will frighten him.

  She remembers when Jack stopped sleeping with her. It was after Vicky had left their lives. She realized she no longer excited him. She had thought that it was just stress; they’d had too little time together; they were too tired. So she started to make an effort. She always dressed well, arranged romantic dinners, planned excursions. But he just didn’t react to her any longer.

  One night he came to her when she was in bed wearing a delicately laced negligee and he told her that he was not in love with her any longer. He’d met another woman. He wanted a divorce.

  “Watch out!” Nassim says. “You’re spilling your drink.”

  “Oh God,” she whispers as she looks at the drips in her lap.

  “Not to worry.”

  He takes a cloth napkin and kneels in front of her. As he carefully wipes the spill his other hand touches her waist.

  “I have to change,” she says, and she gets up and tries to stand upright. Her head is spinning.

  He supports her and they walk single file through her apartment. She feels weak and leans back to kiss him on the throat.

  The bedroom is cool and shadowy. A single lamp beside the bed casts a soft light.

  “I have to lie down,” she says.

  She says nothing more as he lays her on the bed and slowly pulls off her shoes.

  “Let me help you,” he says softly.

  She’s acting more intoxicated than she actually is and lies still as if she’s not even noticing how he’s unbuttoning her dress. She listens to his heavy breathing and wonders if he will dare touch her.

  She’s lying still in her golden panties and is looking at him as through pulsing fog. Then she shuts her eyes. His fingers are ice-cold as he pulls off her panties.

  She opens her eyes slightly to look at him as he gets undressed. His body is thin and tanned, and he has a gray Horus-eye tattoo on his shoulder.

  Her heart begins to race as he lies down beside her. She thinks of stopping him, but she’s flattered by his desire. She thinks that she shouldn’t let him come inside her and instead let him look at her and masturbate as if he were a boy.

  She tries to concentrate on what is happening and let herself enjoy the moment. He’s breathing quickly as he parts her legs. She’s wet and slippery, but her desire is fading. He is now over her and she feels him, warm and hard, against her soft folds. She slowly writhes away and presses her thighs together.

  She opens her eyes and meets his puzzled look and then closes her eyes again.

  Carefully, as if he does not want to wake her, he opens her legs again. She smiles and lets him look. She feels him over her and then he slides inside.

  She moans softly. She wants to respond to his desire, but he’s in too much of a hurry. He’s thrusting too quickly and too hard. Loneliness catches up to her and what little lust she was feeling dies. She lies still until he’s finished and pulls out.

  “Sorry, sorry,” Nassim whispers as he gathers his things. “I thought you wanted it.”

  I thought so, too, she thinks, but she’s unable to speak. He quickly gets dressed and all she wants is for him to leave. Then she’ll get up and wash and spend the rest of the evening praying to God that Vicky is alive.

  65

  Joona is back at the dam, looking down the high concrete wall where water is gushing from three openings sixty feet beneath him. Below the sluice gates, the concrete wall bends like a massive slide.

  Joona’s arm is still in a sling and his jacket is hanging over his injured shoulder. He looks back along the river and thinks about the car with the two children inside. It’s pouring rain. The car skids into the traffic light in Indal and the windows are knocked out. Vicky’s wearing her seat belt but hits her head against the side window. The car is filled immediately with crumbs of glass and the cold rain starts pouring inside.

  All is silent.

  Then the child begins to scream. Vicky gets shakily out of the car, brushes off the glass, and opens the back door. She unbuckles the boy and looks to see if he is all right. She tries to get him to be quiet and then she drives on.

  Perhaps she intends to drive over the bridge until she sees the blue lights of the police car blocking the road on the other side. She swings off the road in panic, brakes hard, but can’t stop the car as it drives into the river. Vicky hits her head again, perhaps on the steering wheel, and loses consciousness.

  As the car plows through the water, they are probably both already unconscious. The current drags them through the window, softly and quietly, and pulls them along the rocky bottom of the river.

  Joona picks up his cell phone to call Carlos Eliasson.

  The diver from the rescue service is already standing in his blue wet suit on the dock at the power station. He’s checking the fasteners on his regulator.

  “Carlos here,” Joona hears his boss say.

  “Susanne Öst wants to end the preliminary investigation,” Joona says. “But I’m not done.”

  “It’s always sad, but the killer is most likely dead, and so, unfortunately, we can’t justify the expense of continuing the investigation.”

  “We haven’t found any bodies.”

  Joona hears Carlos mutter something, then break into a coughing fit. He waits while Carlos takes a drink of water.

  “It can take weeks for bodies to appear,” Carlos whispers, and clears his throat again.

  “But I’m not done,” Joona says.

  “Now you’re being stubborn.”

  “I have to—”

  “This isn’t even your case,” Carlos interrupts.

  Joona is looking at a black log, which is speeding with the current. It hits the edge of the dam with a dull thud.

  “Yes, it is,” Joona says.

  “Joona.” Carlos sighs.

  “The technical evidence points to Vicky, but there are no witnesses and she hasn’t been accused.”

  “You can’t accuse the dead,” Carlos says.

  Joona thinks about the girl, the lack of motive, the fact that she’d slept in her bed after those violent murders. He thinks about the fact The Needle mentioned: that Elisabet was killed with a hammer but Miranda with a rock.

  “Just give me a week, Carlos,” Joona says. “I need a few answers before I come back.”

  Carlos mumbles something.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you,” Joona says.

  “This is not formal,” Carlos repeats more loudly. “But as long as the internal investigation is under way, you can do what you want.”

  “What are my resources?”

  “What resources? You’re still just an observer and—”

  “I’ve hired a diver.”

  “A diver?” Carlos says agitatedly. “Do you know how much a diver costs? You can’t just—”

  “And a dog.”

  Joona hears the sound of a motor, turns, and watches a small gray car with a rattling engine park beside his. It’s a Messerschmitt Kabinenroller from the early sixties, with two wheels in the front and one in back. Joona rings off as the car door flies open and Gunnarsson, a cigarette dangling from his mouth, climbs out.

  “I’m the one who decides whether or not to call in a diver!” roars Gunnarsson. He’s sprinting toward Joona. “You’re not supposed to have anything to do with this case!”

  “I’m just observing,” Joona says calmly, and heads for the dock.

  66

  The diver is a man in his fifties. He’s starting to put on a bit of weight, but he has wide shoulders and strong upper arms.

  “The name’s Hasse Boman,” he says.

  “We can’t close the sluice gates as there’s a flood risk,” Joona says.

  “I understand the situation,” Hasse says, while he contemplates the unsettled, swirling water.

  “There’s going to be a strong current,” Joona says.

  “I know,” the diver says, and looks at Joona calmly.

  “Can you handle it?” Joona asks.

  “I was in mine removal in
the KA1 unit … Can’t be worse than that,” Hasse says, and there’s a hint of a smile.

  “Do you have nitrox in your cylinders?” asks Joona.

  “Yes, indeed.”

  “What the hell is that?” Gunnarsson asks, catching up to them.

  “It’s air with extra oxygen,” Hasse says as he struggles into his vest.

  “How long can you be down there?”

  “Maybe two hours. Don’t worry.”

  “I’m grateful you could come,” Joona says.

  The diver shrugs. “My boy is at soccer camp in Denmark. I promised to go with him, but you know how it is. It’s just me and the boy, and I need the extra money.”

  He shakes his head. Then he points at his diving mask and its digital camera. A cable runs from it along the lifeline and into a laptop.

  “I always record my dives. You’ll see everything I’m seeing. We can even talk while I’m underwater.”

  Another log thuds into the dam.

  “Why are there logs in the water?” asks Joona.

  Hasse is putting on his cylinders. “Who knows? Somebody probably dumped timber destroyed by bark beetles.”

  A woman is heading toward them. Her face is worn and she’s wearing blue jeans, rubber boots, and an open down-filled coat. She is leaving the parking lot with a russet-colored German shepherd on a leash.

  “And here’s a goddamn bloodhound,” Gunnarsson says, and shudders.

  The dog handler, Sara Bengtsson, unclips the leash and says something in a low voice. The dog immediately sits down. She doesn’t look at it as she walks toward them. She knows it will do what she says.

  “Good that you could come,” Joona says as he shakes her hand.

  Sara Bengtsson briefly glances at him as she pulls her hand back. Then she feels for something in one of her pockets.