The Fire Witness (23 page)

“You’re saying you saw Vicky Bennet and Dante Abrahamsson on Sunday?”

“That’s right.”

“Why didn’t you call right away?”

“I
did
call, and I talked to a police officer.”

Ari had listened to Radio Gold on Saturday evening. The general bulletin hadn’t gone out yet, and the local news was asking the public to keep their eyes open for a girl and a little boy.

At eleven p.m., a long-haul truck parked in the lot behind the diesel pumps. The truck driver napped for three hours.

He saw them in the middle of the night, around two a.m.

Ari was looking at the monitor, which showed everything the security cameras were picking up outside. The picture changed and showed the long-haul truck from another angle. The gas station appeared deserted as the driver started the engine and the truck began to pull away. Then Ari noticed a figure at the back of the building, close to the car wash. He was surprised to see anyone, then realized that there were actually two figures. He stared at the screen. The truck was backing up and turning around. The truck’s headlights shone into the window as it turned. Ari left his position behind the counter and ran around the building. The truck was on the exit ramp and the parking lot was empty. The girl and the little boy were gone.

78

Joona parks his car outside the Statoil gas station in Dingersjö, 360 kilometers north of Stockholm. It’s a sunny day and the breeze is brisk. Ragged advertising flags are flapping in the wind.

Joona and Disa had been having lunch at Villa Källhagen when Joona received a call from a nervous Sonja Rask, the policewoman.

Now Joona is walking into the shop. A hollow-eyed man with a Statoil cap is placing paperback books in a rack. Joona looks at the menu over the counter and then at the hot dogs rotating on the grill.

“What would you like?” asks the man.

“
Makkarakeitto
,” Joona answers in Finnish.

“
Suomalainen makkarakeitto
,” Ari Määtilainen says with a smile. “My grandmother used to make sausage soup when I was a boy.”

“With rye bread on the side?” asks Joona.

“Yes indeed. But here there’s only Swedish food,” he says, gesturing to the hot dogs and hamburgers.

“Well, I’m not really here to eat. I’m from the police,” Joona says.

“I realized that. I talked to one of your colleagues the night I saw them,” Ari says and points at the monitor for the security cameras.

“What did you see that made you call?”

“A girl and a little boy at the back of the building.”

“You saw them on the screen?”

“Right.”

“Clearly?”

“Well, I’m used to keeping an eye open.”

“Did the police come here that night?”

“This guy Gunnarsson stopped by the next morning and didn’t think there was much to the video. He told me I could erase it.”

“But you didn’t.”

“What do you think?”

“I imagine you’ve kept a copy on an external hard drive.”

Ari Määtilainen smiles and shows Joona to the minuscule office beside the storage area. A sofa bed is open and some empty cans of Red Bull are lying on the floor. A carton of milk is standing in the frosty window. On a school desk, there’s a laptop computer connected to an external hard drive. Ari Määtilainen sits down on a plastic chair and quickly goes through the files.

“I’d heard on the radio that everyone was looking for a girl and a little boy, and this is what I saw in the middle of the night,” he says as he opens a file.

Joona leans forward to get a better look. There are four small squares showing the inside and outside of the gas station. A counter in the corner of each square ticks away the time. The gray pictures don’t move. Ari is sitting behind the counter. Every once in a while, he turns the page of a newspaper and eats an onion ring.

“This long-haul truck was there for three hours,” Ari tells Joona. He points at one of the pictures. “Now it’s about to move.”

They see a dark shadow in the driver’s seat.

“Can you enlarge the picture?” asks Joona.

“Just a moment.”

A grove of trees is suddenly lit up by the headlights of the truck. Sensors outside detect motion and banks of lights go on.

Ari points at the second exterior picture and changes it to full screen.

“You can see them here,” he whispers.

The long-haul truck is starting to roll forward. Ari points at the back of the gas station with the garbage bins and the recycling boxes. There are many shadows and it’s still. Then there’s movement next to the black glass of the entrance to the car wash. A small figure appears—a thin being pressed against the wall.

The picture is grainy and flickers. It’s hard to make out the face or other details. However, it’s obviously a girl. And now there’s something else.

“Can you make the picture clearer?” asks Joona.

“Just wait,” Ari whispers.

The long-haul truck is turning toward the exit ramp. Light floods the door beside the figures and the glass turns blinding white for a second. Then the entire back of the gas station building is bathed in light.

Joona can see that it definitely is a thin girl standing there with a child. They’re looking at the long-haul truck. Then they turn black again.

Ari points at the screen as both figures run along the dark gray wall and disappear from the picture.

“You saw them?” Ari asks.

“Can you show it to me again?”

Ari moves the cursor back to where the two figures are briefly lit up. He plays the video extremely slowly.

It appears that the long-haul truck is barely moving. In jerks, the light goes from the grove of trees, over the back wall of the station, and starts to fill the windows with white light.

The smaller child is looking down and its face is in shadow. The thin girl is barefoot and it looks like she is carrying plastic bags in both hands. The headlights reach them and the girl starts to lift her hand.

Joona sees that she’s not carrying plastic bags. Her wrists are wrapped in bandages that have partially come undone and are hanging loosely and swaying in the light. Vicky Bennet and Dante Abrahamsson did not drown in the river.

The digital clock says 2:14 a.m.

Somehow, the two children managed to get out of the car and cross the river. They reached the other shore and traveled seventy-two kilometers farther south.

Hair hangs in tangled strands over the girl’s face. Her dark eyes shine and then the two figures move out of the frame.

They’re alive
, Joona thinks.
They’re both still alive.

79

The head of the National Criminal Investigation Department, Carlos Eliasson, is standing with his back to the door on purpose as Joona walks into his office.

“Sit down,” Carlos says with odd expectation in his voice.

“I’ve just driven here from Sundsvall and—”

“Just a moment,” Carlos interrupts.

Joona looks at his back, wondering what’s up with Carlos, and then sits down in the leather chair. He lets his eyes wander over the polished desktop, where reflections from the aquarium are shining.

Carlos takes a deep breath and turns around. He looks different. He’s unshaven. There’s gray-speckled stubble on his upper lip and jaws.

“So, what do you say?”

“You’re growing a beard.”

“A full beard,” Carlos says contentedly. “Well, I think it will thicken up soon. I’m never going to shave again. I’ve tossed my razor in the trash.”

“Nice.”

“But I gather you’re not here to talk about my beard,” Carlos says. “The diver did not find any bodies in the river.”

“No,” Joona says. He pulls out the print of the security camera picture. “We didn’t find the bodies—”

“Here it comes,” Carlos mumbles to himself.

“—because there were no bodies in the river.”

“And you’re sure about that?”

“Vicky Bennet and Dante Abrahamsson are still alive.”

“Gunnarsson has already called me about the security film from the gas station and I—”

“Put out a new general bulletin.”

“Are you shitting me? You just can’t turn a general bulletin on and off like a light switch!”

“Vicky Bennet and Dante Abrahamsson are clearly the children in this picture,” Joona says. He points at the printout. “This was taken several hours after the car accident. They are alive and we have to send out another general bulletin!”

Carlos sticks out one of his legs. “Put the Spanish boot on me if you have to,” he says, “but there is no way in hell I’m issuing another general bulletin.”

“Look at the picture,” Joona says.

“The Västernorrland police department went to the gas station today, too,” Carlos says. He folds the picture until it is a small, tight square. “They sent a copy of the hard disk to the National Forensic Lab and two of their best people have taken a look and are in agreement. They say it is impossible to definitively identify the people outside the gas station.”

“But you know I’m right.”

“Okay,” Carlos says. “Let’s say you’re right. You turn out to be right in the end, but I am not going to make a fool of myself and put out another general bulletin for people the police believe are dead.”

“I’m not going to give up—”

“Wait a second, just wait a second,” Carlos says. He takes a deep breath. “Joona, the internal investigation against you has gone higher up the chain. The head prosecutor has it on his desk.”

“But it is—”

“I am your boss. I am taking this report against you extremely seriously, and I want to hear from you that you understand that you are not leading the preliminary investigation in Sundsvall.”

“I am not leading the preliminary investigation.”

“And what does an observer do if the head prosecutor in Sundsvall chooses to end the investigation?”

“Nothing.”

“Then we’re agreed.” Carlos smiles.

“Not at all,” Joona says as he gets up and walks out.

80

Flora lies in her bed and stares at the ceiling. Her heart is thumping. She woke up dreaming that she was in a small room with a girl who did not want to show her face. The girl was hiding behind a wooden ladder. Something was wrong with her. She was wearing only white cotton panties and Flora could see her little breasts. She waited for Flora to come nearer and then she turned away, giggling and hiding her face in her hands.

That evening, Flora had read about the murders of Miranda Eriksdotter and Elisabet Grim in the newspaper. Now she can’t stop thinking about the ghost who visited her. It already feels like a dream, although she knows she saw the dead girl in the hallway. She didn’t seem to be more than five years old, but in this dream, the girl was the same age as Miranda.

Flora lies quietly and listens. Every creak in the apartment makes her heart beat harder. People who are scared of the dark are not in charge of their own homes. Fear sneaks through and alerts them to the slightest movement. Flora doesn’t know where she is supposed to go. It’s quarter to eight. She gets up and opens her bedroom door and listens to the sounds of the apartment. No one else is awake yet.

She sneaks to the kitchen to start the coffee for Hans-Gunnar. The rising sun is casting a few rays on the scratched countertop. Flora takes out an unbleached filter and puts it into the basket. When she hears footsteps behind her, she is terrified.

She turns and sees Ewa standing in the doorway to her bedroom. She’s only wearing a blue T-shirt and panties. She catches sight of Flora and comes down the hall.

“What’s going on?” Ewa asks when she sees Flora’s face. “Have you been crying?”

“I … I have to know. I think I’ve seen a ghost,” Flora says. “Have you seen her? A little girl here at home?”

“What is wrong with you, Flora?”

Ewa turns to go into the living room, but Flora places a hand on her strong arm to stop her.

“But it’s true … I’m telling you the truth. Someone had hit her with a rock on the back of her head—”

“You’re telling the truth?” Ewa interrupts sharply.

“I was just … Perhaps there really are ghosts?”

Ewa grabs one of Flora’s ears and drags her around.

“I can’t understand why you insist on lying, but you do,” Ewa says. “You always have and you always will.”

“But I saw—”

“Shut up!” Ewa says and twists Flora’s ear.

“Ow!”

“We don’t tolerate lying in this household!”

“Let go! Ow!”

Ewa gives Flora’s ear one more twist and then releases her grip. Flora stands there a few moments with tears in her eyes and one hand on her burning ear. Then she starts the coffee machine and returns to her room. She shuts the door behind her, turns on the bedside light, and sits on her bed for a good cry.

She’s always thought that mediums just pretended that they saw spirits.

“I don’t understand anything,” she whispers.

What if she’s really called out the spirits by doing séances? Maybe it didn’t matter whether she believes in them or not. When she called them and built a circle of participants to welcome them, perhaps the door to the other side did open and the ones waiting could just come in.

Because I really saw a ghost
.

I saw the dead girl as a child.

Miranda wanted to show me something.

It’s not impossible. It must happen sometimes. She’s read that the body’s energy does not completely disappear on death. Many people believe in ghosts without being considered mentally ill. Flora tries to collect her thoughts and go through what happened the past few days.

The girl came to me in a dream
.
I know I’ve dreamed about her, but when I saw her in the hall, I was awake. That was real. I saw her in front of me and she was speaking. She was actually there.

Flora lies down, closes her eyes, and thinks that maybe she passed out when she tripped and hit her head on the floor.

There was a pair of jeans on the floor between the tub and the toilet.

I was afraid, I was startled, and I fell.

She must have been unconscious and dreamed of the girl in the hallway.