The Fire Witness. Ларс Кеплер

      A few short years ago she was just a child, but a chain of events has led her to this room, to this secure children’s home. Maybe she was just unlucky with her parents and foster parents. Maybe she thought she’d be safe here.

      Joona studies every terrible detail until it feels as if he can longer bear it. Then he shuts his eyes for a few moments and thinks about his daughter’s face and the gravestone that isn’t hers, before opening his eyes again and carrying on with the examination.

      The evidence suggests that the victim was sitting on the chair at the little table when the attacker struck.

      Joona tries to identify the movements that led to this spatter pattern.

      Every drop of blood falling through the air naturally assumes a round shape, and has a diameter of five millimetres. If the drop is smaller, that means that the blood has been subjected to external force that’s broken it into smaller drops.

      And that’s when spatter pattern analysis comes in.

      Joona is now standing on two protective mats in front of the small table, probably exactly where the murderer stood a few hours before. The girl was sitting on the chair on the other side of the table. Joona looks at the spatter pattern, turns around, and sees blood sprayed high up the wall. The implement has been swung backwards several times to gain momentum, and every time it changed direction for another blow, blood sprayed back from it.

      Joona has already stayed longer at this crime scene than any other superintendent would have. But he isn’t finished yet. He goes back to the girl on the bed, stands in front of her, sees the stud in her navel, the lip-print on the glass of water, sees that she has had a birthmark removed below her right breast, sees the fine hairs on her shins, and a yellowed bruise on her thigh.

      He leans cautiously over her. Her bare skin is emitting very faint heat now. He looks at the hands covering her face, and sees that she didn’t manage to scratch the perpetrator, there’s no skin under her fingernails.

      He takes a few steps back, and then looks at her again. Her white skin. The hands over her face. There’s hardly any blood on her body. Only the pillow is bloody.

      Apart from that she’s clean.

      Joona looks around the room. Behind the door there’s a small shelf with two hooks for clothes beneath it. On the floor beneath the shelf are a pair of trainers with white socks tucked inside them, and a pair of washed-out jeans is hanging from one of the hooks, along with a black college sweater and a denim jacket. There’s a small white bra on the shelf.

      Joona doesn’t touch the clothes, but they don’t appear to be bloody.

      Presumably she got undressed and hung her clothes up before she was murdered.

      So why isn’t her whole body covered with blood? Something must have protected her. But what? There’s nothing else here.

       16

      Joona is walking in the sunshine in the yard, thinking about the extreme level of violence that the girl was subjected to, and the fact that her body was as clean and white as a pebble in the sea.

      Gunnarsson had said that violence inflicted on her had been aggressive.

      Joona is thinking that it clearly required a lot of force, almost desperate force, but it wasn’t aggressive in the sense of being uncontrolled. The blows were focused, the intention was to kill, but apart from that the body had been treated with care.

      Gunnarsson is sitting on the bonnet of his Mercedes talking on his phone.

      Unlike most other things, murder investigations don’t tend to become chaotic if they’re left without direction. They mostly sort themselves out, that’s the usual way of things. But Joona has never waited, has never trusted that order would be restored by itself.

      Of course he knows that the murderer is almost always someone close to the victim, and that they usually make contact with the police shortly afterwards to confess, but he’s not counting on it.

      She’s lying on the bed now, he thinks. But was sitting at the table in just her underpants when she was murdered.

      It’s hard to believe that could have happened in complete silence.

      There must be a witness in a place like this.

      One of the girls has seen or heard something, Joona thinks, as he heads towards the smaller building. Someone probably had an idea of what was coming, identified some sort of threat or conflict.

      The dog is whining under the tree, then bites at the leash tying it to the line, before starting to bark again.

      Joona walks over to the two men standing talking outside the smaller building. He understands that one of them is the crime-scene coordinator, a man in his fifties with a side parting and a dark blue police sweater. The other one doesn’t seem to be a police officer. He’s unshaven, and has friendly, if tired, eyes.

      ‘Joona Linna, observer from National Crime,’ he says, shaking hands with them both.

      ‘Åke,’ the coordinator says.

      ‘My name is Daniel,’ the man with the tired eyes says. ‘I work as a counsellor here at the home … I came as soon as I heard what had happened.’

      ‘Have you got a minute?’ Joona asks. ‘I’d like to meet the girls, and it would probably be a good idea if you were there.’

      ‘Now?’ Daniel asks.

      ‘If that’s OK,’ Joona replies.

      The man blinks behind his glasses and says worriedly: ‘It’s just that two of the residents managed to run off into the forest …’

      ‘They’ve been found,’ Joona explains.

      ‘Yes, I know, but I probably need to talk to them,’ Daniel says, then suddenly gives an involuntary smile. ‘They’re saying they won’t come back unless they’re allowed to ride on one of the police officer’s shoulders.’

      ‘Gunnarsson would probably volunteer,’ Joona replies, and walks on towards the small red cottage.

      He’s thinking that this first meeting will be his chance to try to study the girls, see how they interact, what sort of things are going on under the surface.

      If anyone has seen something, the other members of a group tend to indicate it unconsciously, acting as compass needles.

      Joona knows he doesn’t have the authority to hold interviews, but he needs to know if there’s a witness, he thinks, as he bends down to go through the low door.

       17

      The floor creaks as Joona walks into the small house, stepping over the threshold. There are three girls in the cramped room. The youngest of them can’t be more than twelve years old. Her skin is pink, and her hair coppery red. She’s sitting on the floor, leaning back against the wall watching television. She whispers to herself, then hits the back of her head against the wall several times, closes her eyes for a few seconds, then goes on watching the television.

      The other two don’t even seem to notice her. They’re just sitting back on an old corduroy sofa leafing through old fashion magazines.

      A psychologist from the regional hospital in Sundsvall is sitting on the floor next to the red-haired girl.

      ‘My name is Lisa,’ she says tentatively, in a warm voice. ‘What’s your name?’

      The girl doesn’t take her eyes off the television. It’s a repeat of the series Blue Water High. The volume is turned up loud, and the screen is casting a chilly glow across the room.

      ‘Have