Lars Kepler - The Fire Witness

There are only two destinations from Sveg Airport. Joona chooses to fly back to Arlanda Airport and then change planes to Helsinki. He feels as if he’s in the middle of a dream. He’s looking out the window at the veils of clouds over the Baltic Sea. A flight attendant offers to serve him something, but he can’t make himself answer.

His memories are drowning him in their deep ocean.

Twelve years ago, Joona cut off the finger of the Devil himself.

Nineteen different people had disappeared — from their cars, their bicycles, their mopeds. At first it seemed like a coincidence. When none of the disappeared showed up anywhere, the case was given highest priority.

Joona was the one who insisted that they had a serial killer on their hands.

Working with Samuel Mendel, Joona was able to trace the whereabouts of their prime suspect, a man named Jurek Walter, and catch him in the middle of committing a crime. They found him in Lill-Jans Forest, forcing a fifty-year-old woman into a coffin. The coffin was a few feet underground, and he’d been keeping her there for two years. They were able to rescue her.

When the woman was examined at the hospital, the enormity of what she’d undergone was revealed. Her muscles had atrophied and bedsores had deformed her. Her hands and feet were frostbitten. She was not only psychologically traumatized but had also suffered brain damage.

The way Joona sees it, the Devil resides in the worst cruelty of humankind. It is impossible to kill the Devil, but twelve years ago, he and Samuel Mendel cut off one of his fingers when they caught the serial killer Jurek Walter.

Later, Joona was at the Swedish Supreme Court in Wrangelska Palace on the island of Riddarholm in Stockholm. The case had gone through the system. Now Jurek Walter was being sentenced to a life in a closed insane asylum with special requirements for parole. He was moved to a high security institution twenty-one kilometers north of Stockholm.

Joona will never forget Jurek Walter’s wrinkled face as he turned to face Joona.

“Both of Samuel Mendel’s sons are going to disappear,” Jurek said in a tired voice as his defense lawyer collected his paperwork. “Samuel’s wife, Rebecka, will also disappear, but... No, listen to me, Joona Linna. The police will never find them, and once they call off the search, Samuel will keep looking. When he realizes that they will never be found and he will never see them again, he will kill himself.”

Joona got up to leave.

“And as for your little daughter—” Jurek Walter continued.

“Watch out,” Joona said, though there was no rage in his voice.

“Lumi will disappear, then Summa, and when you realize you will never see them again, it will be your turn to commit suicide. You will hang yourself.”

One Friday afternoon, a few months later, Samuel’s wife drove from their apartment in Liljeholmen to their summer house on Dalarö Island. Their sons, Joshua and Reuben, were with her in the car. When Samuel arrived at their summer house a few hours later, no one was there. The car was found abandoned on a nearby logging road. Samuel never saw his family again.

One chilly morning in the beginning of March, he went down to the beach where his boys used to play. The police had ended the search for them eight months earlier. He’d now given up himself. He took his service pistol from its holster and shot himself in the head.

Joona watches the shadow of the plane move over the waters of the Baltic Sea and thinks back to the day his life shattered. There was no sound in his car. The world seemed to be bathed in an odd light. The sun shone red behind veils of clouds. It had rained and the rays of the setting sun made the puddles shimmer as if they were burning underground.

Joona and Summa had planned the road trip together. They took it in stages: first up to Umeå, past Storuman, over the mountains to Mo i Rana in Norway, and then back down the west coast. They were now driving to a hotel in the middle of the Dalälven area and they’d promised Lumi they’d visit a zoo the next day.

Summa changed the channel on the radio to some dreamy piano music. The notes wove in and out like a tapestry. Joona reached back to check that Lumi was fastened properly in her car seat. He wanted to make sure her arms weren’t caught at an odd angle.

“Pappa,” Lumi said sleepily.

Joona felt her small fingers on his hand. She held on tightly, but released her grip when he pulled his hand back.

They drove past the exit to Älvkarleby.

“Lumi’s going to love the zoo,” Summa said quietly. “The chimpanzees and the rhinos.”

“I already have my own monkey!” exclaimed Lumi.

“What?”

“I’m her monkey,” Joona said.

“That suits you.”

“Lumi takes good care of me. She’s a nice vet.”

Summa’s sandy brown hair was hanging in her face, partially covering her deep, dark eyes, but Joona could see the dimples appear in her cheeks.

“Why would you need a vet? Is there something wrong with you?”

“I need glasses.”

“Is that what she said?” Summa laughed. She was flipping through a magazine and didn’t notice that he’d missed the turnoff and was now heading in the wrong direction entirely. They were already north of the Dalälven.

Lumi had fallen asleep with her doll resting against her cheek.

“Are you sure that we don’t have to book a table?” Summa asked. “I want to sit outside on the veranda this evening so we have that great view of the river below us.”

Joona took the exit toward Mora, and that’s when Summa realized that something was wrong.

“Joona, we missed the exit to Älvkarleby, didn’t we? Aren’t we staying in Älvkarleby? That’s what we were planning, weren’t we?”

“Yes, that’s what we planned.”

“What are you doing?”

He didn’t reply, but kept staring at the road. The afternoon sun made the puddles shimmer. A long-distance truck ahead of them swung into the middle lane without signaling.

“We said that we’d—”

Summa stopped and took a deep breath. Then her voice changed and fear was in it.

“Joona? Have you lied to me? Tell me you didn’t lie to me.”

“I had to,” he whispered.

Summa stared at him. He knew how upset she was. She struggled to keep her voice low so that Lumi would not wake up.

“You can’t be serious,” she said. “You can’t do this. You told me we weren’t in danger any longer. You said it was all over and I believed you! I believed you’d changed your mind, I believed that—” Her voice broke and she turned away and looked out the window.

“I lied,” Joona confessed.

“You are not supposed to lie to me. You must never lie to me.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“We can leave the country, the three of us together. It’ll all work out. You’ll see.”

“You have to understand, Summa. You must understand. If I thought it was at all possible... if I had any other choice—”

“Stop this nonsense right now,” she says. “This threat can’t be real. It can’t be. You’re seeing a connection that doesn’t exist. Samuel Mendel and his family have nothing to do with ours. Do you hear me? We’re not under any real threat.”

“I’ve tried to tell you how serious this is, but you won’t listen.”

“I don’t want to listen. Why would I want to?”

“Summa, I have to... I’ve arranged everything. There’s a woman named Rosa Bergman waiting for you in Malmberget. She’ll give you new identity cards. You will be fine.”

His hands have started to shake.

“You really are serious,” Summa whispers.

“I’m more serious than I’ve ever been,” he says. “We are going to Mora, and you and Lumi will take the train to Gällivare.”