The Fire Witness (14 page)

Nathan shakes his head slowly. “I had a real fight with Carlos over it. They were clearly making an example of you, and I said so.”

“Is that how you broke your leg?”

“No, this came from an angry mamma bear that rushed into our yard.” Nathan grins so that his gold tooth shows.

“Or perhaps the truth of the matter is that he fell off the ladder when he was picking apples,” a bright voice says behind them.

“Hello, Mathilda,” Joona says.

He gets up from his chair to give the freckled woman with thick reddish-brown hair a big hug.

“Hello, Detective Inspector,” Mathilda says as she sits down beside Nathan. “I hope that you have some work for my beloved husband to do for you. Otherwise he’s going to have to learn how to do sudoku.”

“Yes, I might have something,” Joona says. “The murders at Birgittagården.”

“Really?” Nathan looks up from scratching beneath his cast.

“I’ve gone to the crime scenes and I’ve examined the bodies, but they won’t let me look at the reports or the results from the tests.”

“Because of this internal investigation business?”

“It’s not my preliminary investigation,” Joona says. “But I would like to hear your thoughts.”

“You’ve made my Nathan a happy man,” says Mathilda as she leans over to pat her husband on the cheek.

“Nice that you’re thinking of little old me,” Pollock says.

“You’re the best investigator I know,” Joona says.

Nathan is particularly good at psychological profiling—extrapolating from the evidence what kind of person most likely committed the crime. So far, he’s been right every time.

Joona sits back down and begins to report everything he knows about the case. After a while, Mathilda heads indoors, but Pollock listens intently, occasionally interrupting with a question. A gray tabby cat winds itself around Nathan’s legs, and warblers sing in the apple tree while Joona describes the position of the bodies, the pattern of the blood spatter, where the blood pooled, where it dripped, where it was smeared, the tracks of bloody footprints, where there were traces of liquid and crusted blood. Nathan closes his eyes and listens as Joona tells him about the hammer beneath the pillow, the blood-soaked blanket, and the open window.

“Let’s see,” Nathan starts. “The killer was extremely violent, but there are no bites, no hacking or dismembering…”

Joona says nothing and watches Nathan’s lips move as he thinks things through. At times, he whispers something to himself or he pulls his ponytail absentmindedly. After a few minutes, he starts to talk.

“All right, I can see the bodies in my mind and I see how the blood spattered as it did. You already know this, of course, but most murders are committed in a moment of frenzy. Then the killer is panicked by all the blood and chaos. That’s when they’ll grab a sander and a garbage bag or skid around in the blood with a scrub brush and leave evidence everywhere.”

“Not here.”

“This killer did not attempt to hide a thing.”

“I agree.”

“The violence was severe and methodical. It’s not punishment that’s gone too far. In both cases, the intent was to kill and nothing more. Both victims were in small rooms. They couldn’t escape. The violence is not passionate. It’s more like an execution or a slaughter.”

“We think the murderer is a girl,” Joona says.

“A girl?”

Joona meets Nathan’s surprised look and hands him a photograph of Vicky Bennet.

Nathan laughs. “Sorry, but, really, I don’t buy it.”

Mathilda reappears with a tea service and jam cookies on a tray. She sits down at the table and Nathan pours the tea into three cups.

“So you don’t believe a girl is capable of this?” Joona asks.

“Never had a case like that,” Nathan says.

“Not all girls are nice girls,” Mathilda points out.

Nathan jabs a finger at the photograph. “Is she known to be violent?”

“No, the opposite.”

“Then you’re looking for the wrong person.”

“We’re certain she kidnapped a child yesterday.”

“But she hasn’t beaten the child to death?”

“Not as far as we know,” Joona says as he helps himself to a cookie.

Nathan leans back in his chair.

“If the girl is not known for violence, if she hasn’t been punished for being violent, if she hasn’t ever been suspected of a similar kind of violence, she’s not the one you’re looking for,” Nathan says, and looks at Joona sharply.

“What if it is her in spite of that?” Joona asks.

Nathan shakes his head and blows on his tea.

“Can’t be,” he says. “I’ve just been reading a paper by David Canter. He says what I’ve always thought, that during the commission of the crime, the suspect assigns the victim the role of an opposing player in an interior drama.”

“Yes, that makes sense,” Joona says.

“According to his hypothesis, a covered face means that the killer wants to remove the victim’s face and make her into nothing more than an object. Men in this category often use exaggerated violence.”

“What if they were just playing hide-and-seek?” Joona asks.

“Where are you going with that?”

“The victim covers her eyes and counts to one hundred while the killer hides.”

Nathan lets this thought sink in.

“Then I believe the killer intends for
you
to do the seeking.”

“But where?”

“All I can tell you is to go back and seek the answer in the old places,” Pollock says. “The past always reveals the future.”

48

Carlos Eliasson, the National Police chief, is standing by his office window on the eighth floor. He’s looking out at the steep hillsides of Kronoberg Park. He has no idea that Joona Linna is walking through the park after a brief visit to the old Jewish cemetery.

Carlos goes back to sit at his desk and doesn’t see the detective with the disheveled hair cross Polhemsgatan and head for the main entrance of the police station.

Joona walks past a banner proclaiming the role of modern police in a changing world. He passes Benny Rubin, who is sitting hunched in front of his computer, and Magdalena Ronander’s office, where she’s on the phone, saying something about cooperation with Europol.

Joona is back in Stockholm because he’s been summoned to a meeting with both of the internal investigators later this afternoon. He takes his mail from his box, goes to sit at his desk, and then flips through the messages and envelopes while thinking about what Nathan said. He agrees with Nathan. Vicky Bennet’s profile doesn’t fit these two murders.

In the admittedly incomplete psychological documentation the police have on Vicky Bennet, there’s nothing to indicate that she could be dangerous. She is not on the police register. The people who have met her find her shy and withdrawn but nice.

But all the technical evidence points to her. Everything indicates that she took the little boy. Maybe the boy is already lying in a ditch with a broken skull. If the boy is still alive, they must find him quickly. Maybe he’s with Vicky in some dark garage. Maybe she’s in a rage at him right now.

Go seek the past.
Nathan Pollock’s usual advice.

It’s as simple as it is clear. The past always indicates the future.

In her short life, Vicky has moved many times. She’d moved around with her homeless mother, then from foster home to foster home, into an urgent-care facility, then a youth home, and finally to Birgittagården. But where is she now?

Maybe the answer is hidden in one of her conversations with her counselors, social workers, or temporary foster parents. There must be someone whom she trusted and confided in.

Joona is about to look for Anja to ask if she’s found any new names or addresses, when he sees her standing in the doorway. Her hefty body is squeezed into a tight black skirt and one of several angora sweaters she owns. Her blond hair is artfully pinned up and her lipstick is bright red.

“Before I tell you what I’ve found, let me just say that fifteen thousand children are placed in foster homes every year,” Anja starts. “And let me remind you that it was called health reform when politicians opened the door of health care to the private sector. Now venture capitalists own the youth homes. It’s like the olden days when they used to auction off orphans. They save money on staff, on education, on therapy, and even on dentists, all to stoke their coffers.”

“I know,” Joona says. “Just tell me about Vicky Bennet—”

“I thought I would start by finding out who was responsible for her last placement.”

“And?” asks Joona.

She smiles and leans her head to the side. “Mission accomplished, Joona Linna.”

“Fantastic.”

“I do whatever I can for you.”

“I don’t deserve it,” Joona says.

“I know,” she says, and leaves the room.

He waits in his chair for a few minutes, then he goes to Anja’s office and knocks on the door.

As he enters, she says, “The addresses are there,” and nods at the printer.

“Thanks.”

“When the last person responsible for Vicky’s placement heard my name, he said that Sweden once had a famous butterfly swimmer by the same name,” she says, and blushes.

“So you told him you were that famous swimmer?”

“No, I didn’t. But he told me that Vicky Bennet doesn’t appear in any records before the age of six. Her mother, Susie, was homeless and appears to have given birth alone and kept Vicky out of the health system. When Susie was committed to a mental hospital, Vicky was placed with foster parents here in Stockholm.”

Joona is holding the list in his hand. It’s still warm from the printer. He glances down the list of dates and placements. He sees that Vicky’s first foster parents were Jack and Elin Frank, who lived at Strandvägen 47. Among numerous other placements, there are two youth homes on the list: Ljungbacken in Uddevalla and Birgittagården in Sundsvall township. Against several names on the list there’s a note saying that the child asked to be returned to her first foster family. Each one says the same thing: “The child requests to be returned to the Frank family, but the family declines.” The sentence is dry and clinical.

The two youth homes are at the end of the list after other foster families, emergency placements, and treatment homes.

Joona thinks about the bloody hammer underneath the pillow and the blood on the windowsill. He thinks about the glum, thin face in the photograph. Her hair in tangled curls.

“Can you find out if Jack and Elin Frank are still living at this address?” Joona asks.

Anja’s plump face shows her amusement. “You should read
See & Hear
. You’d learn a thing or two.”

“What are you saying?”

“Elin and Jack are divorced, but she kept the apartment because, well, it’s all her money.”

“So they’re celebrities?”

“You know Albert Frank, don’t you?”

“Sure.”

“Elin inherited the entire mining operation when she was just eighteen years old. These days she’s often in the media for her charitable works. She and her former husband have given quite a bit of money to orphanages and foundations.”

“There was a time when Vicky lived with them?”

“It probably didn’t work out so well,” Anja replies.

Joona heads to the door, holding the printout. He turns to look at Anja.

“What can I do to thank you?”

“I’ve registered us both in a class,” she said. “Promise you’ll go with me.”

“What kind of class?”

“Relaxation. Kama Sutra something.”

49

Strandvägen 47 is right across the street from Djurgård Bridge. It is a luxury five-story limestone apartment building with an elegant entrance and a dark, attractive stairwell. The name “Frank” is engraved on a shiny black plaque beside a door on the second floor, which opens almost as soon as Joona rings the bell. A man with gelled short hair and an even tan looks at him questioningly.

“I’m looking for Elin Frank.”

“I’m Robert Bianchi, Elin’s personal assistant,” the man says as he holds out his hand.

“Joona Linna, the National Police.”

A slight smile passes over the man’s lips. “Sounds exciting, but—”

“I need to speak with her.”

“May I ask what it concerns? She is not to be disturbed unnecessarily…” The man stops speaking as Joona’s gaze turns cold.

“Please wait in the foyer while I ask her if she is able to receive visitors,” Bianchi says, and disappears behind a door.

The foyer is white and empty. There is no furniture, no coats, no shoes. Just smooth white walls and a single enormous mirror in a white frame.

Joona tries to imagine Vicky Bennet in this environment. A nervous, chaotic girl who did not appear in the Swedish register until she was six years old. A child who had lived only in garages or tunnels or stairwells, and probably a different one each night.

Bianchi returns, smiling calmly, and asks Joona to follow him. They walk past a large lounge with several sofa arrangements and a tile stove, elegantly decorated. Thick rugs muffle the sound of their footsteps as they walk past the various rooms until they reach a closed door.

“You can knock,” Robert says to Joona. His smile has become uncertain.

Joona knocks and hears someone in high-heeled shoes walk across a wooden floor. A thin middle-aged woman opens the door. She has dark blond hair and large blue eyes. She’s wearing a close-fitting red dress and three strands of snow-white pearls. Her makeup is sparse. She looks beautiful.

“Come in, Joona Linna,” she says. Her voice is low and well modulated.

The light-filled room has a desk, a group of sofas in white leather, and built-in bookcases painted white.

“I was just about to have some chai. Is it too early for you?” she asks.

“No, that sounds fine,” Joona says.

Robert leaves the room and Elin gestures toward the sofas.

“Let’s sit down.”

She sits across from him and crosses her legs.

“Now, what do you want to ask me about?” she says.

“A number of years ago, you and your former husband, Jack, were the foster parents of a young girl—”

“We’ve helped many children over the years—”