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“What the hell are you doing in my room?” asks Caroline as she sits up in bed. “What time is it anyway?”

“There’s blood all over the floor!” Nina is screaming.

“Calm down!”

NINA CAN HARDLY BREATHE AS SHE LOOKS into Caroline’s eyes, needing to make Caroline understand, but she’s also surprised to find that she’s screaming at the top of her lungs in the middle of the night.

“There’s blood everywhere!”

“Shut up!” Caroline hisses as she gets out of bed.

Nina’s screams have woken the other girls. They can hear alarmed voices from the other rooms.

“Come and see for yourself,” Nina says as she begins to anxiously scratch her arms. “Miranda looks weird. You’ve got to take a look at her! You’ve got to!”

“Can you please calm down? I’ll look, but I’m sure…”

Another scream sounds in the hallway. It’s tiny Tuula. Caroline scrambles out of her bedroom. Tuula is staring into the isolation room and her eyes are as wide as saucers.

Indie walks out of her room, too, scratching her armpit.

Caroline pulls Tuula away, but in doing so catches sight of the blood on the walls and Miranda’s pale body. She blocks Indie, thinking that no one should have to see another suicide.

“There’s been an accident,” she explains quickly. “Can you ask everyone to come to the dining room, Indie?”

“What’s wrong with Miranda?” Indie asks.

“We have to wake up Elisabet.”

Lu Chu and Almira come out of their double room. Lu Chu is wearing only pyjama bottoms and Almira has wrapped herself into a blanket.

“Go to the dining room,” Indie orders.

“Don’t I have time to wash my face first?” Lu Chu pouts.

“Take Tuula with you.”

“What the fuck is going on?” asks Almira.

“We don’t know,” Caroline answers shortly.

While Indie tries to gather everyone together in the dining room, Caroline rushes to the on-call room. She knows that Elisabet takes sleeping pills and never hears when the girls get up and wander around at night.

Caroline bangs on the door as loud as she can.

“Elisabet, you have to wake up!” she yells.

Nothing happens. Caroline can’t hear a sound.

Caroline hurries past the registration room and over to the nurse’s office. The door is open and she runs right over to the telephone and calls Daniel.

There’s static on the line.

Indie and Nina crowd in together through the office door. Nina’s face is totally white and she’s shaking all over.

“Go and wait in the dining room!” Caroline snaps.

“But the blood! Did you see all that blood?” Nina says and scratches her arm so furiously that a red patch appears.

“Daniel Grim,” a sleepy voice says on the other end of the line.

“It’s me, Caroline. There’s been an accident here and Elisabet is not waking up, so I called you because I don’t know what else to do.”

“There’s blood all over my feet!” screams Nina. “I have blood all over my feet!”

“Take it easy,” Indie screams back as she tries to pull Nina back out of the office.

“What’s going on?” Daniel asks. His voice is sharper now and in control.

“Miranda’s in the cell, but it’s full of blood,” Caroline replies and swallows. “I don’t know what we should…”

“Is she seriously hurt?” asks Daniel.

“Yes, I believe…or I…”

“Caroline,” Daniel says. “I’m going to call for an ambulance. And then…”

“What should I do? What should I…”

“See if Miranda needs help and then try and wake Elisabet,” Daniel commands.

THE EMERGENCY CENTRE in Sundsvall is located in a three storey, red brick building on Björneborgsgatan next to Bäck Park. Jasmin usually has no problems with night shifts but at the moment, she’s feeling unusually tired. It’s four in the morning and the hour of the wolf has passed. She’s sitting with her headset in front of the computer and blowing on the black coffee in her mug. She can hear conversation and laughter from the break room. Yesterday’s evening newspaper had reported that one of the police officers at the emergency centre earned extra cash as a telephone sex worker. It turned out that she only had an administrative job at a company that provided phone sex, but the newspapers made it seem as if she’d taken more than one type of call while on duty.

Jasmin looks over her screen and out the window. There is no light in the sky yet. A truck thunders past. Further up the road, a street lamp shines on the leaves of a tree and a grey electric box as well as a small part of the pavement.

Jasmin puts down her coffee mug to answer an incoming call.

“SOS 112…What’s going on?”

“My name is Daniel Grim and I’m the head social worker at Birgittagården. One of the girls has just called me and it sounds like an emergency. You have to send someone right away.”

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

“I don’t have more information. One of the girls called, but I couldn’t understand what she was saying. Everybody was screaming in the background and the girl was crying and said there was blood all over the room.”

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

“Are you at the home now?” Ingrid asks through her headset.

“No, I was at home asleep, but one of the girls called…”

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

“Please hurry!” The man’s voice is shaking.

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

Then she turns away for a moment to issue the alarm to the police and the ambulance.

Ingrid continues to ask Daniel questions.

“Isn’t Birgittagården a youth home?”

“Yes, for girls,” he replies.

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

“Yes, my wife Elisabet is on duty tonight. I’ll call her now…I have no idea what’s going on over there.”

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

***

About the Author

A No. 1 bestselling international sensation, Lars Kepler has sold in excess of 1.5 million copies of the Joona Linna series in Sweden alone. Their first thriller,
The Hypnotist
has just been released as a major motion picture directed by Lasse Hallström.
The Nightmare
is the second Joona Linna thriller with
The Fire Witness
publishing in the UK in Spring 2013.

Lars Kepler is the pseudonym for writing duo, Alexander and Alexandra Ahndoril. Authors in their own right, they joined forces to create one of the most thrilling crime series of recent years. They live with their family in Sweden.

Copyright

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Blue Door

An imprint of HarperCollins
Publishers

77–85 Fulham Palace Road,

Hammersmith
London W6 8JB

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published by HarperCollins
Publishers
2012

Lars Kepler asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Version 1

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