“Yes, that’s what you were supposed to do.”
“But you know I couldn’t do that.”
The sirens abruptly stop wailing as the ambulance turns into the entrance of the Söder Hospital emergency receiving area.
“The prosecutor and her people are going to be the ones to question the witness. You are now on sick leave and cut off from everything.”
Joona takes this to mean that the internal investigation is not going his way, and it crosses his mind that he may even be charged with dereliction of duty. Nevertheless, the only emotion he feels is relief. Vicky Bennet has been found and the little boy ripped from the jaws of wolves.
Joona climbs out of the ambulance unassisted, but he heeds the paramedics’ request to lie down on a stretcher. They lift the rails and roll him away.
Instead of waiting in line for an X-ray after he’s been examined and his wounds dressed, he heads out to find the doctor in charge of Vicky’s care.
A nurse points to where a short woman is studying the automatic coffee machine.
Joona explains that he has to know whether Vicky can be questioned today.
The short woman listens to him without looking up. She presses the button for mocha and waits for her cup to be filled. Then she says that she’s done a CT scan of Vicky’s brain in order to determine whether there has been intracranial bleeding. Vicky has received a severe concussion, but luckily there has been no cerebral hemorrhage.
“We must keep her here for observation, but there’s nothing to indicate she can’t be questioned tomorrow morning if it’s important,” the doctor says. She walks away with her coffee cup in her hand.
The prosecutor Susanne Öst is on her way from Sundsvall to Stockholm. Tomorrow morning at eight o’clock sharp, she intends to start her initial interrogation of Vicky Bennet, the fifteen-year-old girl who has just been arrested and charged with two murders and one count of kidnapping.
130
Vicky is sitting up in bed, the curtains drawn around her, when Joona Linna shows his ID to the young policeman guarding the door and walks in. Her head is bandaged; her face is covered in bruises and grazes; her broken thumb is in a cast. Susanne Öst is also there. With her is a younger woman. Joona does not greet them but pulls up a chair beside the girl.
“How are you feeling?” he asks.
She gives him a muddled look and asks, “Is Dante with his mother now?”
“He’s here at the hospital and his mother is sitting next to him.”
“Was he hurt?”
“No, he’s fine.”
Vicky nods and then stares into space.
“And you? How are you feeling?” Joona asks again.
She looks at him but is not able to answer before the prosecutor clears her throat.
“I would like Joona Linna to leave this room right now,” Susanne says.
“Now you’ve done it,” Joona says, and doesn’t look away from Vicky.
“You are not part of this initial investigation.” Susanne raises her voice.
“They’re going to ask you a ton of questions,” Joona says to Vicky.
“I want you to stay here,” she says in a quiet voice.
“Honestly, I can’t,” Joona says.
Vicky whispers something to herself and then she looks at the prosecutor.
“I’m not saying anything unless Joona stays.”
Susanne says, “He can stay if he keeps quiet.”
Joona is watching Vicky and thinking about how to get through to her.
Two murders are a heavy burden to bear. Most girls her age would have already broken down and confessed, but Vicky is calm and expressionless. She won’t let anyone inside her mind. She creates quick alliances, he thinks, but hides her true motives to keep as much control as she can over her situation.
“Vicky Bennet,” the prosecutor starts with a smile, “my name is Susanne and I’m going to be asking you questions, but before we begin, I have to let you know that we are recording everything so that we can listen to it later. This means I don’t have to write much down, which is nice … I’m lazy that way.”
Vicky is not looking at her and doesn’t react. Susanne waits a moment and keeps wearing her smile. Then she rattles off the time, date, and the names of the people in the room.
“We usually do this before we get started,” she explains.
“Do you understand who we are?” asks the second woman. “My name is Signe Ridelman and I’ve been appointed as your lawyer.”
“Signe is here to help you,” the prosecutor says.
“Do you know what a lawyer is?” asks Signe.
Vicky gives a slight nod.
“I need an answer,” Signe says patiently.
“I understand,” Vicky says, and then she smiles broadly.
“What’s so funny?” asks the prosecutor.
“All of this,” Vicky says. Then she lifts her arm and pulls out the narrow tube from the inside of her forearm and watches her blood trickle down.
131
The room is silent except for a scraping noise from outside. A bird has landed on the windowsill. The fluorescent light hums overhead. A nurse has been summoned and Vicky’s IV is fastened once more to the catheter in her arm. The nurse pulled open the curtain around the bed before leaving the room, the better to keep an eye on this patient.
Susanne Öst drags a chair back to the side of the bed.
“I will be asking you about some things that you’ve done,” she says. “I want you to tell us the truth.”
“And nothing but the truth,” Vicky says, looking down.
“Eleven days ago you left your bedroom at Birgittagården in the middle of the night. Do you remember this?”
“I haven’t been counting the days,” Vicky says. There’s no emotion in her voice.
“But you remember leaving Birgittagården in the middle of the night?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you leave?” Susanne Öst asks.
Vicky pulls at a loose thread on the bandage around her hand.
“Had you ever done it before?”
“Done what?”
“Left Birgittagården in the middle of the night?”
“No,” says Vicky. She sounds bored.
“Why did you do it this time?”
When the prosecutor doesn’t get an answer, she smiles and asks in a milder tone, “Why were you awake in the middle of the night?”
“Don’t remember.”
“And so let’s move back a few hours. Do you remember what was going on then? Everyone went to bed and you were awake. What did you do?”
“Nothing.”
“You didn’t do anything until you left Birgittagården in the middle of the night. Don’t you think that’s strange?”
“No.”
Vicky is staring out the window. The sun is playing hide-and-seek in the clouds crossing the skies.
“I want you to tell me why you left Birgittagården,” Susanne says. Her tone turns serious. “I won’t stop asking until you tell me what happened. Do you understand?”
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Vicky replies quietly.
“I know it’s difficult but I want you to tell me anyway.”
The girl looks up at the ceiling and her mouth moves as if she’s searching for words. Then she says in amazement, “I killed …”
She stops and pulls at the IV tube.
“Keep going.” Susanne is tense.
Vicky shakes her head and moistens her lips.
“You might as well tell me,” Susanne said. “You just said you killed—”
“Right … There was an irritating fly in the room and I killed it and I—”
“What the hell? Excuse me, I’m sorry, but isn’t it strange that you remember killing a fly but not why you left Birgittagården in the middle of the night?”
132
Susanne Öst and Signe Ridelman have requested a break and have left the room for a moment. The gray morning lig
ht is reflected in the IV pole and the chrome bed railings. Vicky Bennet is sitting up in bed and cursing to herself.
“Isn’t that the truth,” Joona says. He has taken Susanne’s place on the chair beside the bed.
“All I can think about is Dante,” she says.
“Dante is going to be just fine.”
Vicky is going to say something else, but the two women return. Joona gets up and walks over to the window.
“So,” Susanne says, full of energy. “You have admitted that you left Birgittagården in the middle of the night and went straight into the forest. This is not something that people do for no reason. You did have a reason to run away, didn’t you?”
Vicky looks away, runs her tongue over her lips, and says nothing.
“Answer me,” says the prosecutor.
“Yes.”
“Why did you go on the run?”
The girl shrugs.
“You did something that’s hard to talk about, right?”
Vicky rubs her face.
“I have to ask you these questions,” Susanne says. “You think I’m being difficult, but I know that you’ll feel much better after you confess.”
“Will I?”
“You will.”
Vicky shrugs her shoulders and meets the prosecutor’s eyes.
“So what do you want me to confess?”
“Just tell me what you did that night.”
“I killed a fly.”
The prosecutor leaves the room abruptly without saying another word.
133
It’s eight fifteen in the morning as Saga Bauer opens the door to the appeals room at the offices for the Public Prosecutor for Police Cases. Mikael Båge, who’s responsible for internal investigations, rises from his armchair.
Saga is still damp from her shower and her long blond hair with its colorful bands winds over her narrow shoulders and down her back. She has a bandage on the bridge of her nose, but she’s still beautiful in a way that makes an observer feel unhappily in love.
Saga has run six kilometers this morning and, as usual, she’s wearing a hoodie from Narva Boxing Club, faded jeans, and sneakers.
“Are you Saga Bauer?” Mikael asks with an unusually large smile.
“That’s right,” Saga replies.
He wipes his hand on his jacket before he takes Saga’s.
“I’m sorry. Don’t mind me … It’s just … If only I were twenty years younger! You must have heard this before.”
Mikael Båge is blushing as he sits back down and loosens his tie. He can’t take his eyes off Saga.
The door opens and Sven Wiklund comes in. He greets them both and then stands in front of Saga at a loss for what to say. Finally he just nods then places a carafe of water and three glasses on the small table before he sits down.
“Saga Bauer is an inspector with Säpo,” Mikael Båge begins. Then he smiles that uncontrolled smile.
“I have to say this before I can continue. You look like one of those princesses in a John Bauer painting.” He waits a beat and then pours himself a glass of water.
“You have been called here as a witness,” Mikael continues, now in his role of internal investigator. He taps a folder. “You were present at the action in question.”
“What would you like to know?” Saga asks.
“The petition against Joona Linna … He is suspected of warning—”
“Göran Stone is my colleague, but he is a complete idiot,” she says. “He’s nothing but a climber.”
“You don’t have to get angry,” Mikael Båge says.
Saga Bauer remembers very well the time she and Joona had entered the secret headquarters of the Brigade, a far-left group. Daniel Marklund, the Brigade’s expert on hacking and eavesdropping, had given them the information they’d needed to save the life of Penelope Fernandez.
“So you don’t believe that the operation was unsuccessful?”
“Of course it was. I was the one who warned the Brigade.”
“The petition says—”
“Joona is the best officer in the country!”
“It’s always good to be loyal, but we are going to prosecute—”
“Then go to hell!”
Saga gets up and knocks Mikael Båge’s folder out of his hands, setting his papers flying. As she leaves, she stomps on them, then slams the door behind her so hard the window shade snaps up.
Saga Bauer may indeed look like a fairy-tale princess, but she feels like what she is: a detective with the security police. She is one of the best sharpshooters in the corps, and she’s a boxer at the highest level of the sport.
134
Saga is still swearing as she storms outside onto Kungsbro Bridge. She has to force herself to walk more slowly while she tries to calm down. Her cell phone in the pocket of her hoodie rings. She pulls it out and looks at the display. It’s her boss at Säpo.
“We have an inquiry from the National Police,” says Verner, his deep voice rumbling in her ear. “I’ve checked on Jimmy and Jan Petersson, but they can’t do it, and I’m not sure Göran Stone is up to it.”
“What’s it about?”
“The interrogation of a minor, a girl. She’s psychologically unstable, and the head of the preliminary investigation needs someone trained in questioning techniques and who also has some experience—”
“So that’s why you went to Jimmy first,” Saga says, not hiding her irritation. “But why Jan Petersson? Why would you ask him before you’d ask me? And why in the world would you ever think that Göran Stone …”
Saga forces herself to shut up.
“You want a fight?” asks Verner with a sigh.
“Who the hell went to Pullach and did the German National Defense training and—”
“Please—”
“I’m not finished! You know I was there when Muhammed al-Abdaly was interrogated.”
“But you weren’t the head of the investigation.”
“No, but I was the one who made him spill. Whatever.”
She ends the call. She thinks she’ll resign tomorrow.
The cell phone rings again.
“Okay, Saga, we’ll put you on it.”
“Just shut up!” she yells, and turns off the phone.
Carlos spills fish food on his jacket when Anja flings his office door open. He starts to scrape the flakes into his palm but then his desk phone rings.
“Can you please put it on speaker?” he asks Anja.
“It’s Verner,” Anja says as she presses the button.
“What a surprise,” Carlos says cheerfully as he brushes his hands over the aquarium.
“It’s Verner here again. Sorry it took me a while to get back to you.”
“Not to worry.”
“Well, I’ve looked high and low but all my best guys are already on loan to Alex Allan at the Joint Intelligence Committee,” says the head of Säpo. He clears his throat. “We have one woman, though. You might have met her. Saga Bauer. She might be able to sit in.”
Anja leans toward the telephone and barks, “So, sit in and look pretty, is that what you mean?”
“Hello? Who’s that?” asks Verner.
“Shut up!” Anja hisses. “I know Saga Bauer and I can tell you that Säpo doesn’t deserve such a hardworking, diligent—”
“Anja,” Carlos says, wiping his hands on his trousers and placing himself between her and the phone on his desk.
“Sit down!” Anja roars.
Carlos sits down at the same time as Verner’s voice says, “I am sitting down.”
“You call Saga right up and beg her pardon,” Anja says to the speaker.
135
The policeman on duty blushes as he looks at Saga Bauer’s ID. He opens the door to room 703 for her and tells her that the patient will be back soon.
Saga walks inside and finds two women in an almost empty room. The bed is gone but the IV is still there, along with two chairs.
“Excuse me?” asks the woman in a
gray dress suit.
“Yes?” asks Saga.
“Are you one of Vicky’s friends?”
Before Saga is able to answer, Joona Linna walks in.
“Joona,” she says in surprise. She smiles and shakes his hand. “I thought they’d cut you off from everything.”
“I am cut off,” he says.
“How wonderful for you,” she says.
“The internal investigation folks are doing a great job,” he says, smiling so broadly that dimples appear in his cheeks.
Susanne Öst looks more closely at Saga.
“Säpo?” she asks. “I thought … I mean … Excuse me for—”
“Where’s Vicky Bennet?” Saga asks Joona.
“The doctor is doing a new CT scan,” Joona says, and walks over to the window. He looks out.
“This morning I decided to take Vicky Bennet into custody,” the prosecutor says. “It would be nice if we had a confession before I do so.”
“You’re going to prosecute her?” asks Saga.
“You weren’t there,” Susanne says. “I was. I saw the bodies. And it does mean that she will go to jail. She’s fifteen years old and is beyond juvenile closed care.”
Saga smiles although she’s skeptical. “But to send her to prison—”
“Don’t get me wrong,” the prosecutor says. “But I was expecting a more experienced interrogator.”
“I understand,” Saga says.
“Still, you should have a try. You really should.”
“Thanks,” Saga says.
“I’ve already spent half a day here and I can tell you, this is not your average interrogation,” Susanne Öst says, taking a deep breath.
“How so?”
“Vicky Bennet is not afraid. She seems to enjoy the power struggle.”
“And you?” Saga asks. “Do you enjoy the power struggle?”
“I don’t have time for her games and not for yours, either. Tomorrow I will be in court to request an arrest order.”
“I listened to the recording of this morning’s questioning. I don’t believe that Vicky is playing a game with you,” Saga says.
“I am absolutely sure that she is,” the prosecutor says.