The Joona Linna Thrillers 3-Book Bundle

  A powerfully built woman wearing a bright red angora sweater and a tight black skirt comes out of an office to wait for Elin.

  “I’m Anja Larsson,” the woman says.

  Elin tries to say that she wants to speak to Joona Linna, but her voice won’t come out. The large woman smiles at her and offers to show Elin to the detective’s office.

  “I’m sorry,” Elin whispers.

  “Not to worry,” Anja says. She leads Elin to Joona’s door, knocks, and opens it. Anja and Joona exchange a glance, and Joona gently pulls out a chair for Elin.

  “I’ll bring you some water,” says Anja, and closes the door behind her.

  The room is silent. Elin tries to calm down enough to be able to speak. She has to wait for a long time. Finally she says, “I know it’s too late. I know I wasn’t helpful when you came to see me a few days ago. I can just imagine what you think of me.”

  She can’t go on. Tears start streaming down her face from behind her sunglasses. Anja comes in with a glass of water and a bunch of grapes on a tray and leaves again.

  Elin collects her thoughts. “I would like to talk about Vicky Bennet now.”

  “Then I will listen,” Joona says in a friendly way.

  “She was just six years old when she first came to me and I had her … I had her for only nine months.”

  “I know that.”

  “What you don’t know is that I … I let her down. No one should disappoint another human being the way that I disappointed her.”

  “Sometimes people do that,” Joona says.

  She takes off her sunglasses and studies the detective sitting across from her: his tousled blond hair, his serious face, and his eyes that mysteriously shift color.

  “I can’t excuse my own behavior,” she says. “But I have an offer for you. I am ready to pay all the costs for finding the bodies … so that the investigation can continue and not be shut down.”

  “Why would you want to do that?”

  “Even if things can’t be made right, I can … I mean … What if she’s not guilty?”

  “There’s no evidence pointing that way at the moment.”

  “No, but I just can’t believe that …”

  Elin’s eyes fill until it seems that the whole world is swimming in water.

  “Because she was a sweet and good child?”

  “She was hardly sweet and good.” Elin smiles faintly.

  “So I gather.”

  “Would you be able to continue the investigation if I pay you?”

  “We can’t take your money.”

  “I’ll find a way to solve the legal issues.”

  “Maybe so, but that won’t change a thing,” Joona explains softly. “The prosecutor is ending the investigation.”

  “What can I do?” asks Elin.

  “I am not supposed to say anything, but I will continue the investigation myself because I am absolutely sure that Vicky is still alive.”

  “But the news on television said—” Elin’s hand flies to her mouth.

  “I know for a fact that they did not drown in the river,” Joona replies.

  “Good Lord,” whispers Elin.

  83

  Elin is crying with her face turned away. Joona gives her time. He walks to the window and looks out. A misty rain is falling and the trees are swaying in the afternoon wind.

  “Do you have any idea where they could be hiding?” Joona asks after a few minutes have passed.

  “Her mother used to sleep in various garages. I did meet Susie once when she was going to try to take care of Vicky one weekend. She’d gotten a place to live in Hallonbergen, but it didn’t work out. Vicky was found in the subway tunnel all by herself between the Slussen and Mariatorget stations.”

  “It could be hard to find her,” Joona says.

  “I haven’t seen Vicky in nine years, but the staff at Birgittagården, they must have talked to her. They have to know something,” Elin says.

  “I agree,” Joona says.

  “So what’s wrong?”

  Joona looks her in the eye. “The only people Vicky talked to were the nurse who was murdered and her husband, who was the therapist. He should know a great deal—or at least something—but mentally he’s not well at all and his doctors think that a police interrogation will worsen his condition. We can’t do anything.”

  “But I am not a police officer,” Elin says. “I could speak to him.”

  She keeps looking him in the eye and realizes that this is exactly what he’s been hoping she’d say.

  Going down in the elevator, Elin feels the heavy exhaustion that comes after prolonged crying. She remembers the detective’s voice and his soft Finnish accent. He had unusual eyes, gray and oddly sharp.

  His colleague in the red sweater had called the provincial hospital in Sundsvall and found out that Daniel Grim had been moved to the psychiatric ward and that his doctor was still forbidding the police to interview him.

  Elin crosses the street and gets into her BMW. She calls the number for the hospital that she’s been given and finds out that Daniel Grim is in Ward 52A but that he’s not allowed to receive phone calls in his room. However, he can receive visitors daily until six p.m.

  She puts the address into her car’s GPS, which calculates that it is 407 kilometers from here to Sundsvall. If she starts driving right now, she’ll get there at a quarter to seven. She turns around at Polhemsgatan, her tires mounting the sidewalk, and drives down Fleminggatan.

  When she reaches the first traffic light, Robert calls her to remind her that she has a meeting with Kinnevik and Sven Warg in thirty minutes at the Waterfront Expo.

  “I won’t be able to make it.”

  “Shall I tell them to start without you?”

  “Robert, I don’t know when I will be back, but it won’t be today,” Elin says.

  When she reaches the E4, she sets the cruise control to precisely twenty-nine kilometers over the speed limit. She doesn’t mind paying a fine, but it would be ridiculous to lose her driver’s license.

  84

  Joona feels deep down that Vicky Bennet and the little boy are still alive. He can’t give up on them now.

  A girl who once slashed two people in the face with a broken bottle has taken a tiny boy from his mother and is hiding somewhere with him. The police have concluded that they are dead. No one is looking for them.

  Joona thinks about where he is in the investigation now he’s seen Vicky and the boy on the security camera video. He knows that Vicky has taken Eutrexa, and he’s checked on the side effects of this medicine with The Needle’s wife, who works as a psychiatrist.

  There’s too much that’s still not known, Joona thinks. It is possible that Vicky was suffering from an overdose of Eutrexa. Caroline had told him that the medicine starts to work when a person still has the pill in his or her mouth, inducing restlessness and anger.

  Joona closes his eyes and tries to imagine Vicky demanding the keys from Elisabet. She threatens Elisabet with a hammer. Elisabet flees across the yard to the old brewery. Vicky follows and flies into a rage and hits Elisabet again and again. Then she takes the keys from the dead woman, crosses the yard still carrying the hammer, picks up a rock, and opens the door to the isolation room. Miranda is sitting on a chair with a blanket around her. Vicky smashes her head repeatedly with the rock. She carries Miranda’s body to her bed and puts her hands over her face. Then her rage dies down.

  Vicky must have become confused, Joona thinks. She took the bloody blanket with her and hid it beneath her bed as the drug’s calming effect began to work. She probably felt unbelievably tired. All she did after that was kick off the boots into the closet, put the hammer under her pillow, and fall sleep. She woke up a few hours later, realized what she’d done, and became frightened. She fled through the window and headed straight into the forest.

  The side effects of the medicine could explain her rage as well as the bloody sheets.

  But what did she do with the rock?
Had there really been a rock?

  Joona feels the tug of doubt—for the second time in his life, he wonders if The Needle could be wrong.

  85

  At five minutes to six, Elin walks through the door to Ward 52A. She greets a nursing assistant and says that she’s here to see Daniel Grim.

  “Visiting hours are over,” the woman says, and walks away.

  “I’ve driven the whole way from Stockholm,” Elin pleads.

  The nurse turns and looks at her. “If we make an exception for everyone, we’ll be running around twenty-four hours a day,” she says.

  “Please, just let me—”

  “You won’t even have time to drink a cup of coffee.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Elin insists.

  The nurse looks at Elin doubtfully, but then nods to Elin to follow her. She goes down the hall and knocks on the door of a patient’s room to the right.

  “Thanks,” Elin says, and waits until the nurse leaves before she walks in.

  Standing by the window is a man with an ashen face. He hasn’t shaved this morning and perhaps not the day before, either. He’s wearing jeans and a wrinkled shirt. He looks at her with a slight frown and runs his hand through his thin hair.

  “My name is Elin Frank,” Elin says softly. “I know I’m disturbing you and I apologize in advance.”

  “No, it’s … it’s …”

  He appears to have been crying, crying for many days. In a different context, Elin might have thought he was handsome. He has a friendly face and intelligent eyes.

  “I need to talk to you, but I understand if you’re not up to it,” she says.

  “It’s all right,” he says in a voice that sounds as if it will break at any moment. “The reporters kept coming by the first days, but I couldn’t speak … I couldn’t handle talking to them. There was nothing I could say. I mean, I wanted to help the police, but I couldn’t make it work. I couldn’t get my thoughts together …”

  Elin tries to think of a way to bring up the subject of Vicky. She understands that Vicky is a monster as far as he is concerned. She’s ruined his life. It won’t be easy to make him want to help out.

  “Do you mind if I ask you a few things?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know.” Daniel rubs his face.

  “Daniel, I’m very sorry about what happened to you.”

  He whispers a thank-you. Then he looks up and says, “I just said thank you for your sympathy, but I really don’t understand what happened. I was worried about Elisabet’s heart … and …”

  The light leaves his face, which turns inward and ashen again.

  “I truly can’t comprehend what happened to you,” Elin says quietly.

  “I have my own psychologist now,” he says. He tries to smile but can’t. “I never thought I’d need my own psychologist. He listens to me. He listens and waits while I cry like a baby. I feel … You know, he won’t let the police talk to me. I would have made the same decision if I were in his place. At the same time, I know myself … It wouldn’t hurt me to talk. I should tell him I can talk to them … not that I know if I’d be of any real help.”

  “It’s probably good to listen to your psychologist,” she says.

  “Do I sound that confused?” he asks.

  “No, but …”

  “Sometimes I remember something that I think I should tell the police, but I immediately forget what it is. It’s strange. I can’t keep my thoughts straight. It’s as if I am absolutely exhausted.”

  “I’m sure things will get better again.”

  He rubs his finger under his nose. Then he looks at her.

  “Did you tell me which newspaper you’re working for?”

  She shakes her head and says, “I’m here because Vicky Bennet lived with me when she was six years old.”

  86

  The room in the psychiatric ward is quiet. Elin can hear steps in the hallway. Daniel is blinking behind his glasses as if he is trying to take in what Elin has just said.

  “I heard about her on the news … the car and the boy,” he whispers.

  “I know,” she says, keeping her voice low. “But if she is still alive, where would she be hiding?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I want to know the people that she trusted.”

  He studies her for a second and then says, “You don’t believe she’s dead, do you?”

  “No, I don’t,” she says quietly.

  “You don’t believe it because you don’t want to believe it,” he says. “Do you have any proof that she didn’t drown in the river?”

  “Please don’t be afraid,” Elin says. “But we are fairly sure that she and the boy escaped from the car.”

  “We?”

  “A detective inspector and me.”

  “I don’t understand. Why do they say she drowned, if she—”

  “Most of the police involved in the case do think that they drowned, and they’ve stopped looking for her and for the boy.”

  “But not you?”

  “Maybe I’m the only person in the world who cares about Vicky right now just because she’s Vicky,” Elin says. She can’t manage to smile at him and she can’t keep her voice gentle any longer.

  “And now you want my help to find her?”

  “Maybe she will hurt the boy,” Elin says. “Maybe she will hurt other people.”

  “Well, I don’t believe that,” Daniel says. For the first time, he looks at Elin with an open face. “In the beginning, I said I doubted that she’d killed Miranda. I still can’t believe that she would …” Daniel mumbles something.

  “What did you just say?” Elin asks.

  “What?”

  “You just whispered something to yourself.”

  “I don’t believe Vicky killed Elisabet.”

  “You don’t?”

  “I’ve worked with troubled girls for many years and I, well, it doesn’t fit.”

  “But—”

  “During my time as a therapist, I’ve met many girls who have dark souls, girls who could kill, who—”

  “But not Vicky.”

  “No, not Vicky.”

  Elin smiles widely and feels her eyes filling with tears. She struggles to bring her emotions back under control.

  “You’ve got to explain this to the police,” she says.

  “I already did. They know that, in my opinion, Vicky is not violent. Of course, I could be wrong,” Daniel says, rubbing his eyes.

  “Can you help me?”

  “Did you say Vicky lived with you for six years?”

  “No, I said she was six years old when she lived with me,” she replies.

  “What would you like me to do?”

  “I have to find her, Daniel. You spoke to her for hours. You must know about her friends, boyfriends, anyone.”

  “Maybe … We talked about group dynamics for the most part and … I’m sorry, I’m having difficulty keeping my train of thought.”

  “Please try.”

  “I met her at least once a day … I don’t know for sure, perhaps twenty-five conversations. Vicky, she is … The danger with Vicky is that she drifts away in her thoughts. What I would be worrying about is that she might just leave the boy somewhere. In the middle of the road, perhaps.”

  “Where would she be hiding? Did she have any family? I mean, anyone she particularly liked?”

  87

  The door to Daniel’s room swings open and the assistant nurse enters with his medication for the evening. She stops abruptly when she sees Elin.

  “What is this?” she says. “You were only supposed to be here for five minutes.”

  “I know,” Elin says. “But there was something important we had to—”

  “It is six thirty,” she interrupts.

  “I’m sorry,” Elin says, and she turns to Daniel. “Where should I start my search?”

  “Get out,” the nurse orders.

  “Please,” Elin says, and folds her hand
s as if in prayer. “I do need to talk to Daniel.”

  “Are you deaf?” the nurse says. “I told you to get out!”

  The nurse swears and leaves the room. Elin touches Daniel’s arm.

  “Vicky must have talked about places or friends.”

  “Yes, that’s true. I can’t think of anything, however. I’m really having trouble—”

  “Please try.”

  “I know I’m completely useless, but …” He rubs his forehead hard.

  “The other girls, they must know something about Vicky.”

  “Yes, they should. Caroline maybe.”

  A man in a white shirt and pants strides into the room. The nurse is right behind him.

  “Please follow me,” the man says.

  “One more minute,” Elin pleads.

  “Right now,” he barks.

  “Please,” Elin says, her eyes pleading. “It’s about my daughter.”

  “Come with me now,” he says, but his tone is milder.

  Elin’s mouth is trembling as she sinks to her knees in front of them.

  “Just a few more minutes,” she begs.

  “If we have to, we’ll drag you out.”

  “Now that’s enough of this,” Daniel says, and he helps Elin up from the floor.

  The nurse protests. “She is not supposed to be here after six o’clock!”

  “Shut up!” Daniel roars. He takes Elin by the arm and leads her from the room. “We’ll talk in the foyer or the parking lot.”

  They walk down the hallway and keep going even as they hear steps behind them.

  “I plan to go to Birgittagården to talk to the girls,” Elin says.

  “They’re not there. They’ve been evacuated.”

  “Where to?”

  He holds the glass door for her and follows her to the landing by the elevator.

  “To an old fishing village north of Hudiksvall.”

  Elin presses the elevator call button. “Will they let me in?”

  “If I go there with you, they will,” he says.

  88

  Elin and Daniel drive away from the hospital, neither one of them saying a word. As she pulls onto the E4, she gets out her cell phone and calls Joona Linna.