Lars Kepler - The Fire Witness

“I knew Daniel liked Ylva. He was always holding her hand. He gave her raspberries...”

She sees the golden-tinged memories in her mind. They shimmer as if they are about to catch fire.

“We were playing that game where you cover your eyes and the other person does something to you. When Ylva covered her eyes, he kissed her on the mouth. She opened her eyes and laughed and said that he’d just given her a baby. I laughed too, but Daniel... he said that we weren’t supposed to look. His voice sounded strange. I peeked through my fingers as I always did. Ylva looked happy as she covered her face again. I saw Daniel pick up a rock and hit her and hit her...”

Torkel sighs and then lies down on the large kitchen bench.

“I see Daniel sometimes. He often comes back to visit the Rånnes.”

The old policeman is soon asleep.

Flora quietly stands up and takes the moose rifle down off the wall. She checks that it’s loaded, then leaves Torkel Ekholm’s house.

Flora is walking up the narrow tree-lined driveway to the Rånnes’ manor house. She’s carrying the heavy moose rifle in both arms. Blackbirds observe her from their perches in the yellowing trees.

She feels as if Ylva is walking beside her. She is remembering playing here with her and Daniel.

Flora thought it had all been a dream: the fine house they’d come to, her own bedroom with its floral wallpaper. Images she’d buried and forgotten keep swelling up from the depths of her memory.

The old cobbled courtyard hasn’t changed a bit. A few shiny cars are standing at the entrance to the garage. She walks up the wide, shallow steps to the house, opens the door, and goes inside. She remembers this hall, with its dark paneling and huge oil paintings.

She feels odd being inside a familiar place while carrying a loaded weapon.

Massive chandeliers light her way as she walks silently across dark Persian rugs.

She hears voices coming from the dining room, but no one has seen her yet.

She walks through the four salons one by one until she can see into the dining room. There are fresh-cut flowers in the vases standing in the window niches. Her former family is seated at the table, eating and conversing. None of them is looking in her direction.

She shifts the moose rifle so that it is resting in the crook of her arm, holds it under the barrel, and puts her finger on the trigger.

She sees a movement from the corner of her eye and whirls around with her weapon raised. It’s just her own reflection in a mirror that goes from floor to ceiling. She’s aiming at herself. Her face is gray and her expression wild.

Still aiming the moose rifle, she walks into the dining room.

The table is decorated with tokens of the harvest: small sheaves of wheat, bunches of grapes, and clusters of plums and apples.

Flora remembers it is the day of thanksgiving.

The woman who was once her mother looks thin, fragile. She’s eating slowly with trembling hands. A napkin is spread over her lap.

A man is sitting between her parents. He’s just a bit older than she is. She does not recognize him, but she knows who he is.

Flora stops and the floor creaks beneath her feet.

Her father sees her first.

When the old man looks at her, he lowers his knife and fork and straightens his back. He says nothing. He just stares at her.

Her mother follows her father’s gaze and blinks several times as she sees the middle-aged woman with the rifle.

“Flora?” the old woman says, dropping her knife. “Flora, is that you?”

Flora stands in front of their well-set table. She can’t speak. She swallows and gives her mother a quick glance. Then she turns to her father.

“Why are you carrying a gun into this house?” he asks.

“You made me out to be a liar,” she says, finding her voice.

Her father smiles shortly, but without joy. The wrinkles on his face show him to be a bitter and lonely man.

He says tiredly, “The liars are cast into the lake of fire.”

She nods and has a moment of doubt before she asks her question.

“You knew that Daniel killed Ylva, didn’t you?”

Her father dries his mouth on a white linen napkin.

“We had to send you away because of all your terrible lies,” he says. “And here you are, coming back and telling those lies again.”

“I was not lying.”

“You told me you were, Flora. You confessed that you’d made it all up,” he says.

“I was just five years old. You were telling me that my hair would catch on fire and that I would burn right up if I didn’t say that I was lying. You were yelling at me that my face would melt and my blood would boil. And so I said I’d lied and then you sent me away.”

Flora peers at her brother, who is sitting in front of the window, his face in shadow. She can’t tell if he is looking at her or not.

“Time for you to leave,” her father says, and he picks up his knife and fork.

“Not without Daniel,” she says. She points at him with the rifle.

“It wasn’t his fault,” her mother says weakly. “I was the one who—”

“Daniel is a good son,” her father interrupts.

“I’m not saying he isn’t,” her mother says. “But he... You don’t remember. We were watching television — theater — the night before it happened. We were watching Strindberg’s Miss Julie and she’s pining after the servant so badly, and I said... I said it would be better for her—”

“What kind of stupidity is this?”

“I keep thinking about it. Every day,” the old woman continues. “It was my fault. I said that it would be better for the girl to die than to be with child.”

“Stop this nonsense!”

“And just when I said this, I saw that little Daniel had come up behind me. He was staring at me...” She is trying to explain with tears in her eyes. “I was only talking about Strindberg’s play.”

She brings her napkin up. Her hands are shaking.

“After what happened to Ylva... a whole week after the accident. It was evening. I was praying with Daniel when he told me that Ylva was with child. He was just six years old. He didn’t understand a thing.”

Flora is looking at her brother. He pushes his glasses up his nose and stares at his mother. It is impossible to tell what he is thinking.

“You are coming with me and telling the truth to the police,” Flora says to Daniel. She aims right at his chest.

“What would be the good of that?” asks her mother. “It was an accident.”

“We were playing,” Flora says without looking at her. “But it was not an accident.”

“He was just a child!” roars her father.

“Yes, but now he’s killed other people. Two people at Birgittagården. One was a girl who was just fourteen and she had her hands over her face just like—”

“Stop your lying!” her father shouts. He hits the table with his fist.

“You are the ones who are lying,” Flora whispers.

Daniel gets up. His expression starts to shift. Perhaps it is cruelty, perhaps it is disgust or fear. Flora can’t tell. Perhaps his feelings are mixed.

A knife has two sides but only one edge.

His mother is pleading with him and holding on to his arm. He takes her hands and says something Flora can’t hear. But it sounds as if he’s swearing.

“We’re going now,” Flora says to Daniel.

Her father and mother stare at her. They have nothing to say.

She leaves the dining room with her brother.

Flora keeps the rifle pointed at Daniel’s back as they leave the manor house and walk down the wide stone staircase, over the courtyard, and onto the gravel road. They walk past an annex to the manor house and down a slope past some sheds. The weight of the rifle is making her arms ache, but she doesn’t notice.