The Fire Witness: A Novel

  After a while, it’s quiet again. The mountainous landscape looms outside the enormous windows. The security light has switched off and there are small glimmers of light from houses in the distance.

  “Wow,” Vicky says as she looks out.

  “Do you remember my ex-husband, Jack?” Elin asks Vicky. “He built this mountain hideaway. Well, he didn’t build it himself, he had other people build it. He just told them he wanted a bunker with a view.”

  An older woman wearing a green apron comes down the stairs from the upper floor.

  “Hello, Bella,” Elin says. “I’m sorry we were so late.” She hugs the woman.

  “Better late than never,” Bella smiles, and explains that she’s made up the beds in all the rooms.

  “Thanks,” Elin says.

  “I didn’t know whether or not you would do any grocery shopping on the way up, so I just bought a little bit of everything. There’ll be enough for a few days.”

  Bella starts a fire in the huge fireplace. Afterward, Elin follows her to the garage and says good night. When she returns, she finds Daniel in the kitchen, making supper. Vicky is sitting on the sofa, crying. Elin hurries over and kneels in front of the girl.

  “Vicky, what’s wrong? Why are you crying?”

  The girl gets up and locks herself in the guest bathroom, off the living room. Elin rushes back to the kitchen.

  “Vicky has locked herself in the bathroom!”

  “Would you like me to talk to her?”

  “Hurry!”

  Daniel follows Elin to the bathroom door. He knocks and tells Vicky to open the door.

  “No locked doors,” he says. “You remember the rules, don’t you?”

  A few seconds later, Vicky comes out of the bathroom. Her eyes are damp. She heads back to the sofa. Daniel exchanges a look with Elin and then sits down next to the girl.

  “Do you remember how you were sad when you came to Birgittagården?” he says after a while.

  “I know. I should have been happy,” she replies without looking at him.

  “Coming to a place is always the first step toward leaving it,” he says.

  Vicky swallows hard and tears spring back into her eyes. She lowers her voice so that Elin can’t hear what she says.

  “I’m a murderer.”

  “Don’t say that unless you are absolutely sure that it’s true,” Daniel says calmly. “I can tell by your voice that you don’t believe it is.”

  156

  Flora pours steaming hot water into the bucket and, although she hates the smell of the rubber gloves, she puts them on. The scent of lemon cleanser spreads through the small apartment. Cool air pours in the open windows. The sun is shining and birds are singing.

  When the detective left her standing on the sidewalk, she had stayed right there. She should have started preparing for the séance, but she didn’t dare go downstairs by herself. Instead, she waited for the first participants to arrive. Dina and Asker Sibelius came at their usual early time, fifteen minutes before the séance. Flora pretended that she’d arrived late. They came downstairs with her and helped her set up the chairs. By five after seven, nineteen participants had arrived.

  The séance lasted much longer than usual. Flora gave each of them her time and pretended to see friendly old ghosts, happy children, and forgiving parents.

  She had been able to figure out why Dina and Asker kept coming.

  Their grown son was left in a coma after a car accident, and they had reluctantly agreed with the doctor to turn off life support and to donate his organs.

  “What if he can’t get to God?” Dina had whispered.

  This evening, Flora talked to their son and was able to reassure them that he was in the light. He was happy that they’d donated his heart, lungs, corneas, and kidneys, which were now living on.

  After the séance, Dina kissed Flora’s hands. She was weeping and kept saying that she was now the happiest woman on earth.

  Now Flora is scrubbing the floor of the apartment. Ewa is at a sewing circle with a few friends. Hans-Gunnar is in the living room, watching a soccer match against Italy. He has the volume turned up high.

  Flora rinses the mop and squeezes out the water while she stretches her aching back. Then she gets back to work.

  She knows that Ewa is going to open the envelope and pay the bills on Monday.

  “Pass, Zlatan, pass for God’s sake!” yells Hans-Gunnar from the living room.

  Flora’s shoulders have started to ache by the time she carries the bucket to Ewa’s bedroom. She closes the door behind her and places the bucket in the way. She takes the key hidden behind the wedding photograph and unlocks the desk.

  A crash makes Flora jump.

  It was just the mop falling over.

  Flora listens for a moment before she lifts the heavy desk lid. She tries to pull open the tiny drawer inside, but her hands are trembling. The drawer is stuck. She pokes among the pencils and erasers and finds a letter opener. She carefully inserts it into the spring above the drawer and gives it a gentle tug. The drawer slides open an inch.

  She can hear a scraping sound close-by, but sees it’s just a pigeon on the windowsill.

  Flora gets her fingers into the drawer and manages to pull it all the way open, but the postcard from Copenhagen gets bent. She takes out the envelope for the bills and replaces the exact amount she took.

  She puts everything back in its proper place. She tries to straighten the postcard, pushes the drawer back in, and makes sure the pencils, pens, and letter opener are arranged as she found them. She closes the lid and locks it.

  She goes over to the nightstand and has just lifted the wedding picture when the door to Ewa’s room crashes open. The bucket tips over and the water spills out.

  “You goddamn thief!” Hans-Gunnar yells as he storms inside. He’s not wearing a shirt.

  She turns toward him. His eyes are wide open and he’s punching wildly. The first blow hits her shoulder and she doesn’t feel it. Then he grabs her hair and beats her with his other fist. The third blow lands under her chin. The next on her cheek. She falls and feels her hair rip out. The wedding picture falls to the floor and the glass breaks into pieces. She lies on her side in the spilled water. She can hardly breathe from the pain in her eye.

  Flora feels nauseated and rolls onto her stomach. She tries to keep herself from vomiting. Spots appear before her eyes. She tries to focus and sees that the photograph has fallen from the frame and is leaning against the nightstand. On the back someone has written: Ewa and Hans-Gunnar, Delsbo Church.

  Flora remembers what the ghost has whispered to her. This wasn’t the last time, right before the séance, but earlier, here at home. She doesn’t remember exactly. Miranda had whispered about a church bell tower. The girl was holding the wedding photo and pointing at the bell tower in the background as she whispered: She’s hiding there. She saw everything and she’s hiding in the tower.

  Hans-Gunnar is standing over her, breathing heavily, when Ewa comes in, still wearing her coat.

  “What is going on here?” she demands in a frightened voice.

  “She’s been stealing! I knew it!”

  He spits on Flora, picks up the bronze key, and goes to the desk.

  157

  Joona is sitting in his office with a complete set of the documents presented at the arraignment hearing spread before him. He thinks there’s enough evidence here for a conviction.

  The telephone rings, and Joona would not have picked it up if he’d looked at the display.

  “I know you think I’m a liar,” Flora says breathlessly. “But please don’t hang up! You have to listen to me. I’m begging you. I’ll do anything if you just listen—”

  “Calm down and tell me about it.”

  “There’s a witness to the murders,” she says. “A real witness. Not a ghost. I’m telling you there’s a real witness who is hiding—”

  Her voice is thin from hysteria and he tries to calm her down.

/>   “That’s good,” he says. “However, the preliminary investigation shows—”

  “You have to go there!” she interrupts him.

  Joona doesn’t know why he’s even listening to this person. But she seems so desperate that he doesn’t hang up.

  “Where is the witness, exactly?” he asks.

  “In a bell tower. The black bell tower at Delsbo Church.”

  “Who told you—”

  “Please, that’s where she is! She’s afraid and she’s hiding.”

  “Flora, the prosecutors are supposed to—”

  “No one is listening to me!”

  Joona hears a man’s voice in the background yelling at Flora to leave the telephone alone. Then there’s a rustling sound.

  “Time for your little chat to end!” the man says, and then the phone call is over.

  Joona sighs as he puts his cell phone down. He can’t understand why Flora keeps on lying.

  Once Vicky was arrested, the preliminary investigation came to an end and Joona had finally been sent all the paperwork. But now the case was out of the hands of the police. It was the prosecutor’s job to prepare the evidence for the trial.

  I missed something in this case, Joona thinks. He feels oddly desolate.

  Something is troubling him about the rock. He doesn’t know what.

  The Needle mentions in his report that a rock was used as a murder weapon, but no one has followed this up since it doesn’t fit with the other evidence.

  Joona decides he’s not going to leave this case alone. Out of sheer stubbornness he flips through the National Laboratory test results. Then he reads the autopsy report. Joona had left before The Needle and Frippe cut open the body and did the internal autopsy, so their findings are news to him.

  He stops at the description of Elisabet Grim’s defensive wounds. He rereads the description of the wounds on her hands. Then he reads on.

  The light from the window slowly moves over Joona’s bulletin board. It has the notification of the internal investigation and the latest postcard from Disa pinned to it. The postcard shows a chimpanzee wearing lipstick and heart-shaped glasses.

  There is nothing unusual in Miranda’s stomach contents. The tissue was shiny and smooth. Same thing for the lungs and the heart. Tissue shiny and smooth.

  84. Heart is normal configuration and weighs 198 grams. Pericardium shiny and smooth. Ventricles and atria normal. No plaque in the aorta. In the walls of the coronary artery no plaque layer. Heart muscles are gray-red and structure normal.

  Joona holds a finger in the autopsy report and flips to the National Forensic Laboratory test results. Miranda’s blood was type A. It had traces of venlafaxine, an ingredient in many antidepressants. Otherwise normal.

  104. Ureters appear normal.

  105. In bladder 100 ml. light yellow, clear urine. Mucosa pale.

  Joona flips back to the test results and finds the urine test. There are traces of the sleeping substance nitrazepam and the hCG level is unusually high.

  Joona gets up quickly and grabs his phone to call The Needle.

  “I’m looking at the test results from the National Forensic Lab and I notice that Miranda has a high hCG level in her urine,” he says.

  “Of course,” The Needle replies. “The cysts on her ovaries were—”

  “Wait a minute,” Joona says. “Isn’t a high hCG level a sign of pregnancy as well?”

  “That’s right, but as I said—”

  “But if Miranda did an over-the-counter pregnancy test, she might think she was pregnant.”

  “Yes,” The Needle says. “She would have had a positive reading.”

  “So Miranda could well have believed she was pregnant.”

  * * *

  Joona dashes out of his office and calls Flora while he rushes along the hall. He hears Anja calling him, but he ignores her and runs down the stairs. No one is answering the phone. He keeps repeating to himself that Flora had changed her story.

  “I meant to say she thought she was pregnant,” Flora had said. “She wasn’t pregnant, but she thought she was.”

  Joona dials her number again. The phone keeps ringing as he races through the lobby. He’s already out the revolving door when a man answers. He’s breathing heavily.

  “Hans-Gunnar Hansen.”

  “My name is Joona Linna and I’m from the National Police.”

  “You found my car?”

  “I need to talk to Flora.”

  “What the hell!” the man yells. “I wouldn’t have asked if you’d found my car if Flora was here! She’s the one who stole it! You policemen can’t do your fucking job—”

  Joona ends the call and sprints to his black Volvo.

  158

  Elin sleeps in the room next to Vicky’s, keeping the doors to both rooms open. She wakes several times in the night to the slightest noise. Each time, she listens and then gets up and looks into Vicky’s room. When morning comes, she stands for a while at the door, watching the girl sleep, before she goes downstairs to the kitchen.

  Daniel is standing at the stove, making creamy scrambled eggs. The kitchen smells like coffee and freshly baked bread. The view from the open windows is almost frightening in its immensity: mountaintops and pools of water with mirror surfaces; valleys covered in trees shimmering red and yellow.

  “It’s almost impossible to look outside,” Daniel says. “It’s like it hurts my heart.”

  They embrace and he kisses her on the top of her head. She stands still, breathing in his scent and feeling a little dizzy with unexpected happiness.

  A timer beeps on the countertop. Daniel loosens himself from their embrace to get the bread out of the oven.

  They sit down at the large dining table, and as they eat breakfast, they touch each other’s hands. They drink coffee and look out the window, and the beauty of the view takes away their words.

  Finally Elin says in a low voice, “I’m so worried about Vicky.”

  “It will all work out just fine.”

  She puts down her coffee cup.

  “Promise?”

  “All I have to do is get her to talk about what happened,” he says. “I’m afraid that her feelings of guilt are making her more and more self-destructive. We really need to keep our eye on her.”

  “The nurse from Åre is coming in an hour. I’ll drive down and pick her up at the bus station,” Elin says. “Should I ask Vicky to come with me? What do you think?”

  “I don’t know,” he says. “It might be better for her to stay here.”

  “That’s right. We’ve just gotten here,” Elin agrees. “Still, I can’t help worrying. Promise me you’ll keep her in sight the whole time.”

  “She knows she can’t even lock the bathroom door,” Daniel says.

  At that moment, Elin glimpses Vicky through the window. She is on the lawn, kicking through the colorful leaves. Her long hair is still tangled down her back. She looks cold. Elin takes her sweater from the back of her chair and goes outside to hand it to Vicky.

  “Thanks,” the girl whispers.

  “I will never ever let you down again,” Elin says.

  Without saying another word, she takes Vicky’s hand and squeezes it. A moment later, Vicky returns the gesture. Elin’s heart is so filled with joy that she can’t speak.

  159

  The sky is getting dark as Joona leaves the E4 and turns onto Route 84 toward Delsbo. His guess is that Flora has taken the car to drive to Delsbo Church.

  He can still hear her agitated voice telling him about a witness hiding in the bell tower there.

  Joona can’t figure her out. It’s as if she’s mixing lies and truth without being aware of it herself. Even so, he can’t let go of the feeling that she knows more about the murders at Birgittagården than anyone else.

  This story about a witness could be another one of her lies, but on the off chance it’s true he can’t ignore it.

  Low-hanging clouds make the fields appear gray and the evergreens b
lue. Falling leaves dance over the road. It’s difficult to keep up his speed, as the road is winding and filled with potholes.

  A few kilometers farther on, he turns onto a wide boulevard lined with trees, which leads to Delsbo Church. Beyond the trees is wide-open farmland. In the distance, a lone harvester is driving through a field, its blades whirling over the ground like scythes. Birds rise and sink in the swirling air.

  He’s almost at the church when he sees a car crashed into one of the trees. The hood is smashed, a fender is lying in the grass, and one of the windows has shattered. The engine is still running and the driver’s door is wide open. The rear lights stain the grass in the ditch red.

  Joona slows down, but when he sees the car is empty, he keeps driving. Flora must have gotten out and run toward the tower.

  Joona parks and races over the raked gravel to the pitch-covered bell tower, which is standing on a hill not far from the church. He can see the church bell hanging beneath the onion dome behind a railing. Beyond the bell tower, there’s a rushing river, its waters black and foamy. The sky is dark and it looks like it will start raining at any moment.

  The door to the tower is slightly ajar.

  Joona walks the last few feet. He can smell the pitch.

  The wide ground-floor section is paneled in dark wood. There’s a steep wooden staircase leading to a platform below the bell.

  Joona calls out, “Flora?”

  160

  Flora appears at the top of the stairs. She looks very sad and there are dark rings around her eyes. Her face is bruised.

  “There’s no one here,” she says. She bites her lip.

  “Are you sure?”

  She starts to cry and her voice breaks. “I’m sorry. I was so sure.”

  She climbs down the stairs all the while apologizing, but without looking at him. She starts to walk back toward the ruined car.

  Joona follows her. “How did you find your way here?” he asks. “Why did you think that the witness would be hiding here?”