Lars Kepler: The Fire Witness

Jasmin stares out the window. There is no light in the sky yet. A truck thunders past.

She puts down her mug to answer an incoming call.

“SOS 112. What’s going on?”

“My name is Daniel Grim and I’m a therapist at Birgittagården. One of the girls has just called me... You have to send someone to the home right away.”

“Can you give me more details?” Jasmin searches for Birgittagården on her computer.

“I don’t know anything. One of the girls called, but I didn’t really understand what she was saying. She was crying... Everybody was screaming in the background... The girl said there was blood everywhere.”

Jasmin signals to her colleague, Ingrid Sandén, that more operators are needed on this call.

“Are you at the scene now?” Ingrid asks as Jasmin tries to refine her search.

“I was home asleep when they called—”

“You are talking about Birgittagården north of Sunnås?” asks Jasmin.

“Hurry, please!” The man’s voice is shaking.

“We’re sending police and an ambulance to Birgittagården, north of Sunnås,” Jasmin says clearly to give the man time to correct her if she’s wrong.

She turns away for a moment to issue the alarm, and Ingrid picks up the questioning.

“Isn’t Birgittagården a youth home?”

“Yes, for girls.”

“Shouldn’t there be staff on the premises?”

“Yes, my wife, Elisabet, is on duty tonight. I’m going to call her now... I don’t know what’s happening... I know nothing...”

Ingrid can see blue lights flash across the deserted street as the first car pulls out of the garage. “The police are on their way,” she says in a calming voice.

The turnoff from Highway 86 leads directly into the dark forest and toward Lake Himmelsjö and Birgittagården. The car’s headlights play between the tall trunks of the pine trees. “Have you been there before?” asks Rolf Wikner as he shifts into fourth gear.

“Yes, a few years ago when a girl tried to set fire to one of the buildings,” Sonja Rask says.

“Why the hell can’t anyone reach the person on duty?” Rolf mutters.

“They’re probably too busy, no matter what’s going on.”

“I wish we knew more.”

“So do I.”

The officers fall silent so they can hear the voices coming over the police radio. An ambulance is on its way and another police car has been dispatched.

The gravel road runs completely straight. It’s in need of grading, and their tires thunder across the potholes. Little missiles of gravel strike their fender as tree trunks flicker past and flashes of blue light stab far into the forest. As soon as they reach the yard between Birgittagården’s dark red buildings, Sonja reports in.

A girl wearing nothing but a nightgown is standing on the front steps. Her eyes are wide open but her face is pale. Rolf and Sonja get out of the car and hurry toward her. The pulsing blue light swirls all around them. The girl doesn’t appear to notice.

A dog is barking excitedly.

“Is someone hurt?” asks Rolf in a loud voice. “Is there someone who needs help?”

The girl waves vaguely toward the edge of the forest, sways, and then, when she tries to walk toward them, her legs give way.

Sonja has reached the girl. “Are you all right?” she asks.

The girl lies absolutely still on the steps, staring up at the sky, breathing shallowly. Sonja notices that she has fresh scratches all over her arms and neck.

“I’ll go inside,” Rolf says.

Sonja stays by the girl, who has gone into shock, while Rolf enters the main building. Bloody prints, marks from both shoes and bare feet, seem to fly in all directions. One set, going up and down the hall, belongs to someone with long strides. Rolf moves swiftly, while being careful not to mess the prints.

In a brightly lit room, four girls are huddled on a sofa.

“Is anyone hurt here?” he asks.

“Maybe. Miranda — a little,” says a tiny girl with red hair.

“Where is she?”

“Miranda’s in bed,” says an older girl with straight black hair.

“This way?” He points down the hall.

The older girl nods and Rolf follows the bloody footprints past a dining room with a large wooden table and tile stove, and comes to the dark hall leading to the girls’ private rooms. He shines his flashlight along the Bible quotes on the walls and then aims at the floor again. Blood has seeped out from under a door at the back of the alcove. The door is shut and the key is in the lock. He walks over, shifting the flashlight from one hand to the other. He presses down on the tip of the door handle. There’s a click and the door swings open.

“Hello. Miranda? My name’s Rolf and I’m a police officer,” he says into the silence. “I’m coming inside now.”

The only thing he can hear is his own breathing. He pulls the door all the way open, but the violence of the sight inside stops him short and he slumps against the doorjamb. Instinctively he looks away, but his eyes have already registered what he wishes he’d never seen.

A young woman is lying on the bed. A great part of her head seems to be missing. Blood has spattered the walls; it drips from a lampshade.

The door behind Rolf slams shut and he’s so startled that he drops his flashlight. Now there’s nothing but darkness. He turns around and fumbles for the door handle. He can hear the sound of hands on the outside of the door.

“Now she can see you!” shrieks a young voice. “Now she’s looking right at you!”

He presses down on the door handle, but the door is blocked. There is only a glimmer of light through the peephole. He presses down again and throws his shoulder against the door. It flies open and Rolf stumbles into the hallway. The little red-haired girl is standing there, staring at him with her wide eyes.

Detective Inspector Joona Linna stands at the window of his hotel room in the town of Sveg, 440 kilometers north of Stockholm. The dawn light is cool and misty blue. The streetlights along Älvgatan have already switched off, but it will be many more hours before he knows whether he’s found Rosa Bergman.

His shirt hangs loose and unbuttoned over black suit pants. His blond hair is, as usual, disheveled. His service pistol lies on the bed, still in its shoulder holster.

The last few months have been unsettled ones for Joona Linna. Last summer, he was accused of alerting an extremist left-wing group to a sweep by Säpo, the security police. The matter is now in the hands of the National Police’s Internal Review Board. While it investigates, Joona has been removed from many duties though not formally barred from the force. But the head of the investigation has made it clear that he intends to forward Joona’s file to the Swedish Prosecution Authority if he finds the slightest cause for an indictment.

It is a serious charge, but this is not the first time Joona has run up against the authorities. It seems to be his nature. He works as a lone wolf, and that can be irritating, especially to a team organization like the National Police. But what they can’t ignore is that in the almost fifteen years Joona’s been on the job, he’s solved more challenging cases than any other Scandinavian police officer. And while he may be independent to a fault, he is also loyal. Despite repeated offers from other organizations, Joona’s allegiance is to the force.

But right now Joona isn’t worrying about the outcome of the investigation. His mind is not on the future, but on the recent past. It’s on the old woman who followed him outside the Adolf Fredrik Church in Stockholm and delivered a message from Rosa Bergman.

Her thin hands had held up two tarot cards.