Lars Kepler - The Fire Witness

The first thing Joona sees when he lifts the lid of the shoe box is a photograph of a girl with reddish-blond hair. It’s not Miranda. This girl appears to be twelve years old.

She is holding her hands in front of her face.

It seems to be just a game — she’s smiling and her glittering eyes show through her spread fingers.

Joona lifts out the photograph and finds a dried rose and another photograph. This one shows a girl curled up on a brown sofa and eating some chips. She’s looking at the photographer with curiosity.

Next there’s a paper bookmark in the shape of an angel. Joona turns it over and sees someone has written “Linda S” in gold ink.

There’s a lock of light brown hair, a hair band with a rosette, and a cheap plastic ring sitting on a pile of photographs held together by a rubber band.

Joona flips through the photographs. None of them is pornographic, but they are all of young girls. They all resemble Miranda in some way, but most of the girls are much younger. In some of the pictures, they’re covering their faces with their hands or they have their eyes shut.

There’s a very little girl in a pink tutu and pink leg warmers. She’s standing with her hands over her face.

Joona turns over the photograph and reads “Dearest Sandy.” A mass of hearts has been drawn around the words in red and blue ink.

A girl with short hair is grimacing at the camera. Someone has drawn a heart and written the name “Euterpe” next to her.

At the bottom of the box, there is a polished amethyst, a few dried petals from what looks like a tulip, some old candy, and a piece of paper on which a child has written: Daniel + Emilia.

Joona picks up his cell phone, holds it in his hand for a while, looks at the box of photographs again, and finally calls Anja.

“I don’t have anything,” Anja tells him. “I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be looking for.”

“Deaths,” Joona says. He’s looking at a photograph of a girl with her hands in front of her face.

“Well, sorry, but Daniel Grim has worked at seven different institutions for troubled girls throughout Västernorrland, Gävleborg, and Jämtland. He has no record and he has never been a suspect in any crime. There are no internal investigations against him. There’s not even a reprimand.”

“I understand,” Joona says.

“Are you sure you have the right person? I’ve been comparing, and during the time he was at each institution, there was a lower than average death rate.”

Joona is still looking at the photographs and all the flowers and hearts. It would seem sweet if it had been a young boy who’d hidden the box.

“Anything unusual or unexpected?”

“At least two hundred and fifty girls passed through those institutions while he was working there.”

Joona takes a deep breath.

“I have seven first names,” he says. “The most unusual name is Euterpe. Was one of the girls Euterpe?”

“Euterpe Papadias,” Anja says after searching the database for the name. “She committed suicide while in emergency care in Norrköping. Daniel Grim wasn’t at that institution.”

“Are you sure?”

“She arrived at Fyrbylund emergency care with a history of bipolar depression, self-injury, and two serious suicide attempts.”

“Was she moved there from Birgittagården?” Joona asks.

“Yes, she was moved in June 2009. On July second, that is, two weeks later, she was found in the shower with her wrists slit.”

“But Daniel wasn’t working there.”

“No,” Anja replies.

“Were any of the girls named Sandy?”

“Yes, two. One of them is dead. She overdosed on pills at a home in Uppsala.”

“I found the name Linda S on a bookmark.”

“Linda Svensson. Reported missing seven years ago after she returned to a comprehensive school in Sollefteå.”

“So they all die somewhere else,” Joona says.

“Oh my dear Lord.”

“Is there a girl named Emilia?”

“Yes, Emilia Larsson left Birgittagården. There’s supposed to be a photo of her body in her file. Wait one sec... Yes, here it is. Good Lord. Her arms are cut open from the wrist to the elbow. He must have cut them himself and prevented her from calling for help. He probably just watched as she bled to death.”

Joona leaves the house and sits in his car, shaken by what Anja has told him. Sorrow for those girls blows through him like an icy wind. He looks through the windshield without seeing the glory of the trees around him and takes a deep breath. The police will hunt down Daniel Grim until he is found. He’s sure of that. He starts the car.

As soon as he’s on the E4, he calls the coordinator in Duved, who tells him that the operational leader no longer expects that they’ll catch Daniel Grim at any of the roadblocks.

Joona can’t stop thinking about the shoe box with the photographs of the girls Daniel chose. All the hearts, flowers, and small notes show that his love for them was clearly childish. The whole collection was pink and lighthearted — a candy coating over a vile reality.

The girls had all been locked up in institutions and youth homes. They may even have been tied down or heavily medicated when he forced himself on them.

He was the only person they could talk to. No one else listened to them. No one would miss them. He’d chosen girls who were self-destructive and had a history of suicide attempts. Their relatives may have given up on them long ago. Miranda was an exception. She was killed while still at the home where he was working. Had he killed her because she’d told him she was pregnant?

The box is evidence of the connections between Daniel Grim and all these girls. It’s enough for the police to arrest him for a number of murders. They can look into these other deaths and give these girls some justice at last.

Torkel Ekholm’s late wife’s embroidery still adorns the well-worn kitchen tablecloth, but her crocheted curtains have turned yellow with age and Torkel’s trousers are worn at the knees.

The old policeman has taken his pills from his dose box and then shuffled to the kitchen bench, using his walker.

On the kitchen table in front of Flora are all the notes concerning the accident, the newspaper clippings, and the tiny death announcement.

The old man has told Flora everything he knows about the lumber baron Rånne and his wife: the family manor house, their forests and fields, their childlessness, and their adoption of Flora and her older brother, Daniel. He’s told her about the field foreman’s daughter, Ylva, who was found dead beneath the bell tower and how the people of Delsbo kept quiet about it afterward.

“I was so little,” Flora says. “I didn’t realize they were actual memories. I thought the children were fantasies.”

She remembers how she thought she was starting to go crazy after she’d heard about the murders at Birgittagården. She’s been thinking about what happened there all the time, especially the girl with her hands over her face. She’s dreamed about her and has seen her everywhere.

“You were there,” Torkel says.

“I tried to tell people about what Daniel had done, but everyone just got angry with me. When I told him what had happened at the bell tower, my father took me into a big office and told me that all liars will burn up in a lake of fire.”

“So I have my witness at last,” the old man says quietly.

Flora remembers that as a child she’d been terrified about burning up. Just the thought of her hair and clothes catching fire tormented her. She believed she would turn as black as coal if she ever talked about what Daniel had done.

“What happened to the little girl?” Torkel asks.