The Fire Witness. Ларс Кеплер

off,’ Gunnarsson says, sounding stressed. ‘I want everyone to calm down, and—’

      ‘Stop shouting!’ Tuula shouts, and turns the volume up.

      Joona crouches down in front of Caroline, looks into her eyes, and holds her gaze with calm intensity.

      ‘Which is Vicky’s room?’

      ‘The last one, at the end of the corridor,’ Caroline replies.

       19

      Joona leaves the small house and hurries across the yard, passing the counsellor with the vacuum cleaner and saying hello to the forensics officers before running up the steps and going back into the main building. It’s gloomy now, the lamps are switched off, but the mats on the floor stand out like stepping stones.

      One girl is missing, Joona thinks. No one has seen her. Maybe she ran away in the chaos, maybe the others are trying to help her by withholding what they know.

      The crime scene investigation has only just begun, and the rooms haven’t been searched yet. The entire Birgitta Home should have been examined with a toothcomb, but there hasn’t been time, too much has been happening all at once.

      The girls are anxious and scared.

      The victim support team should be here.

      The police need reinforcements, more forensics officers, more resources.

      Joona shudders at the thought that the missing girl might be hiding in her room. She could have seen something, and is now so terrified that she daren’t come out.

      He hurries into the corridor containing the girls’ rooms.

      The walls and timbers are creaking slightly, but otherwise the building is quiet. In the alcove the door with no handle is standing ajar. The dead girl is lying on the bed in there with her hands over her eyes.

      Joona suddenly remembers that he saw three horizontal marks in the blood on the edge of the alcove. Blood from three fingers, but not fingerprints. Joona noticed the marks, but was so absorbed in structuring his impressions of the crime scene that only now does he realise that they were on the wrong side. The marks didn’t lead away from the murder, but the other way, further along the corridor. There are faint prints from boots, shoes, and bare feet leading in all directions, but the three streaks of blood lead deeper into the building.

      Whoever left the marks was planning to do something in one of the other girls’ rooms.

      No more dead bodies, Joona whispers to himself.

      He pulls on a pair of latex gloves and walks to the last room. When he opens the door he hears a rustling sound, and stops abruptly, trying to see. The sound disappears. Joona carefully reaches in for the light switch with his hand.

      He hears the noise again, it’s an odd, metallic sound.

      ‘Vicky?’

      He feels across the wall, finds the switch, and turns the light on. Yellow light immediately fills the barely furnished room. There’s a creak as the window swings open towards the forest and lake. A sudden noise in the corner draws Joona’s attention, and he sees a birdcage lying on the floor. A yellow budgie is flapping its wings and climbing the roof of the cage.

      The smell of blood is unmistakeable. A mixture of iron and something else, something cloying and rancid.

      Joona lays out some plastic mats and walks slowly into the room.

      There’s blood around the window catch. Clear handprints show how someone climbed up onto the windowsill, took hold of the window frame, and then presumably jumped out onto the lawn below.

      He goes over to the bed. An icy shiver runs down his neck when he pulls the covers back. The sheet is covered with dried blood. But whoever was lying in the bed hadn’t been injured.

      The blood has been wiped off onto the sheet, smeared across it.

      Someone covered in blood has slept in these sheets.

      Joona stands still for a while, trying to read the movements.

      She really did sleep, he thinks.

      When he tries to pick up the pillow he discovers that it’s stuck to the bottom sheet and mattress. Joona pulls it free, to find a bloodstained hammer with congealed brown matter and strands of hair stuck to it. Most of the blood has been absorbed by the sheet, but it’s still glinting wetly around the head of the hammer.

       20

      The Birgitta Home is bathed in soft, beautiful light, and Himmelsjön is glinting magically between the tall old trees. But just a few hours ago Nina Mollander got up to go to the toilet and found Miranda dead on her bed. She woke the others, panic broke out, and they called counsellor Daniel Grim, who immediately alerted the police.

      Nina Molander was so shocked that she’d had to be taken by ambulance to the regional hospital in Sundsvall.

      Gunnarsson is standing in the yard with the counsellor, Daniel Grim, and Sonja Rask. Gunnarsson has opened the boot of his white Mercedes and has laid out the forensics officers’ sketches of the crime scene in the back.

      The dog is still barking excitedly, tugging at its leash.

      When Joona stops behind the car and runs his hand through his tousled hair the other three have already turned to face him.

      ‘The girl’s escaped through her window,’ he says.

      ‘Escaped?’ Daniel says in astonishment. ‘Vicky’s escaped? Why would—’

      ‘There’s blood on the window frame, there’s blood in her bed, and—’

      ‘Surely that doesn’t necessarily mean—’

      ‘There’s a bloody hammer under her pillow,’ Joona concludes.

      ‘This doesn’t make sense,’ Gunnarsson says irritably. ‘It’s can’t be right, because the level of violence was so damn extreme.’

      Joona turns back to the counsellor, Daniel Grim. His face looks fragile and naked in the sunlight.

      ‘What do you say?’ Joona asks him.

      ‘What? About the idea that Vicky might … It’s insane,’ Daniel replies.

      ‘Why?’

      ‘Just now,’ the counsellor says, and smiles involuntarily, ‘just now you were convinced this was the work of a grown man – Vicky’s small, weighs less than fifty kilos, and her wrists are as thin as—’

      ‘Is she violent?’ Joona asks.

      ‘Vicky didn’t do this,’ Daniel replies calmly. ‘I’ve spent two months working with her, and I can tell you that she isn’t.’

      ‘Was she violent before she came here?’

      ‘I have to obey the oath of confidentiality,’ Daniel replies.

      ‘And surely you can see that your bloody oath of confidentiality is costing us time,’ Gunnarsson says.

      ‘What I can say is that I coach some residents to adopt alternatives to aggressive responses … so that they don’t react angrily when they feel disappointed or frightened, for instance,’ Daniel says mildly.

      ‘But not Vicky?’ Joona says.

      ‘No.’

      ‘So why isn’t she here?’ Sonja asks.

      ‘I can’t discuss individual residents.’

      ‘But you don’t consider her violent?’

      ‘She’s