Lars Kepler - The Fire Witness

“The car drove off a bridge,” The Needle said. “The reason she has so many injuries is that she’d unbuckled herself. Perhaps she was picking up the pacifier for the little one. I’ve seen it before.”

He reached for the second stretcher and pulled it out of the car.

Joona contemplated the woman. He could see no fear or pain in her face. Nothing in her expression revealed the injuries done to her body.

The Needle unzipped the small bag. When Joona saw the little girl inside, tears filled his eyes.

The Needle mumbled something to himself and then zipped the body bags up again.

“Well, then,” he said. “No one will ever find Catharina and Mimmi. No one will ever identify their bodies.”

His emotions overwhelmed him for a moment, and then he continued, almost angry.

“The little girl’s father has been going from hospital to hospital looking for them. He’s even called my department. I had to talk to him.”

The Needle’s mouth twisted.

“They’re going to be buried as Summa and Lumi. I’ve already arranged false dental records for them.”

He gave Joona one last questioning look.

Joona said nothing.

Then they put the bodies in Joona’s car.

It felt strange to be driving with a dead woman and child as passengers. The roads were dark. Roadkill hedgehogs were lying beside ditches. A badger stood on the narrow shoulder, hypnotized by Joona’s headlights.

When he arrived at the hill he’d chosen weeks earlier, he dislodged the airbag fuse. Then he placed the woman in the driver’s seat and loosely strapped the little girl into Lumi’s child seat. The only sounds were his breathing, the rustle of cloth against cloth, and the thud of lifeless arms and legs.

He leaned into the car and released the emergency brake. He gave the car a shove from behind and it started to roll down the hill. He walked beside it and reached in to give the wheel a tug in the right direction. The car picked up speed and he ran to keep up. The car hurtled away from him, then it left the road and crashed into a massive Scotch pine. The woman’s body smashed into the steering wheel. The little girl’s body jerked violently in the car seat.

Joona took a gasoline can out of the trunk and began to splash it inside the car. He poured gasoline over the little girl’s legs and the woman’s heavily damaged body.

It was getting hard for him to breathe. He had to stop.

He leaned over, holding his knees, and tried to calm himself down. His heart was breaking.

Joona couldn’t bear it. He pulled the little girl’s body from the car and walked with it back and forth, cradling it and singing lullabies and whispering in her ear and crying. Then he placed her on her mother’s lap in the front seat.

He closed the car door in silence. He poured the rest of the gasoline over the car. Then he threw a lit match through the open window into the backseat. Flames leaped up and raced through the car.

He stared at the woman’s unnaturally calm face while her hair caught fire.

The fire was voracious. To Joona it looked as if a blue-tinged angel of death was claiming its own. The flames began to roar and they seemed to contain the sound of weeping.

Joona suddenly snapped awake. He wanted to get the bodies out. He burned his hands on the car door, but he was able to get it open. The fire in the car burned higher once the door let in more oxygen. He tried to grab the woman’s jacket, which was already on fire. Her slim legs were already smoking and licked by flames.

Pappa, Pappa, help me, Pappa!

Joona knew that it couldn’t be real. He knew they were already dead. He still couldn’t bear it. He reached into the fire again and grabbed the girl’s hand.

Then the gas tank exploded. Joona heard the bang just as his eardrums burst. He fell backward and felt the blow as his head hit the ground. His hands were empty. Blood trickled from his ears.

His heart was screaming and burning.

Before he lost consciousness, he watched the blazing pine needles come swirling down.

Joona is staring out the window and doesn’t hear the announcement that the plane has started its descent into Helsinki International Airport.

Twelve years ago, he’d cut off the finger of the Devil himself, and his punishment had been loneliness. It was a high price, yet he felt that it was still too mild. The Devil was waiting to take more from him. The Devil was waiting for him to imagine that everything was forgotten or forgiven.

Joona bends over in his seat and waits, trying to slow his breathing. The man sitting next to him looks at him nervously.

It’s not the migraine, it’s that other thing, the immense darkness behind everything.

He had stopped the serial killer Jurek Walter. That can’t be written off or forgotten.

He had no choice, but the price was too high, much too high. It hadn’t been worth it.

His skin is covered with goose bumps. He pulls at his hair with one hand. He presses his feet against the floor with all his strength.

He is going to see Summa and Lumi. He is going to do the most unforgivable thing. Only as long as Jurek Walter believes they are dead are they safe.

Perhaps he’s already leading the serial killer to his family.

Joona has left his cell phone in Stockholm. He’s using a forged passport and is paying for everything in cash. When he gets out of the taxi, he walks two blocks to the door of the apartment.

He waits for a moment and then goes to a café down the street. He pays ten euros to borrow a phone and calls Saga Bauer.

“I need help,” he says in a voice thick with emotion.

“Don’t you know everyone is looking for you? Things have gone completely haywire here.”

“I need help with one thing.”

“Yes,” she says without hesitation.

“When you’ve given me the information I need, erase the search history,” Joona says.

“All right.”

Joona swallows hard and looks at the slip of paper Rosa Bergman gave him. Then he asks Saga to search the Finnish health records for a woman named Laura Sandin who lives at Liisankatu 16 in Helsinki.

“Let me call you back in a minute,” she says.

“No, I’ll hang on while you search,” he says.

Those minutes are the longest of his entire life. He stares at the glittering dust on the countertop. He looks at the espresso machine and the marks on the floor where chairs have been pushed in.

“Joona?” Saga says at last.

“I’m here,” Joona whispers.

“Laura Sandin was diagnosed with liver cancer two years ago.”

“Go on,” Joona says.

“Well, she had surgery last year, a partial hepatectomy. And she... well...” Saga Bauer is whispering something to herself.

“What is it?” Joona asks.

Saga clears her throat and says, “She just had surgery again last week.”

“Is she still alive?”

“Apparently so. She’s still in the hospital.”

As Joona walks down the hospital corridor, it seems as if everything is sinking. His steps are heavy and the distant murmur of voices and televisions seems to get slower and slower.

He opens the door to Summa’s room and walks in.

A thin woman is in the bed, her back to the door.

A light cotton curtain is drawn across the window. Her thin arms lie on top of the covers. Her hair is sweaty and dull.

He doesn’t know if she’s sleeping or not. He must see her face. He walks up to her. The room is completely silent.

The woman who had been Summa Linna in another life is extremely tired. Her daughter sat up with her most of the night. Now Lumi is sleeping next door in the room reserved for relatives.