The Fire Witness. Ларс Кеплер

nods, and sees from the corner of his eye that the responsible adult is still fiddling with his phone. The psychologist, Lisa Jern, is breathing through her nose as she listens to them.

      ‘What did you have to eat yesterday?’

      ‘Tacos,’ Tuula replies.

      ‘Was everyone there for dinner?’

      She shrugs.

      ‘I think so.’

      ‘Miranda too? She had tacos yesterday evening as well?’

      ‘Can’t you just cut her stomach open and check? Haven’t you done that yet?’

      ‘No, we haven’t.’

      ‘Why not?’

      ‘We haven’t had time.’

      Tuula smiles, and starts to pull at a loose thread on her trousers. Her nails have been bitten ragged, and her cuticles are torn.

      ‘I looked in the isolation room – it was pretty full-on,’ Tuula says, and starts to rock backwards and forwards.

      ‘Did you see the way Miranda was lying?’ Joona asks after a while.

      ‘Yes, like this,’ Tuula says quickly, and puts her hands in front of her face.

      ‘Why do you think she was doing that?’

      Tuula kicks up the edge of the rug, then flattens it again.

      ‘Maybe she was frightened.’

      ‘Have you seen anyone else do that?’ Joona asks lightly.

      ‘No,’ Tuula says, and scratches her neck.

      ‘You don’t get locked in your rooms, then?’

      ‘It’s kind of like an open prison,’ Tuula smiles.

      ‘Do people often sneak out at night?’

      ‘I don’t.’

      Tuula’s mouth becomes small and hard, and she pretends to fire her forefinger at the psychologist.

      ‘Why not?’ Joona asks.

      She looks him in the eye and says quietly: ‘I’m scared of the dark.’

      ‘What about the others?’

      Joona sees Lisa Jern standing there listening to them with an irritable frown between her eyebrows.

      ‘Yes,’ Tuula whispers.

      ‘What do they do when they sneak out?’

      The girl looks down and smiles to herself.

      ‘They’re older than you, aren’t they?’ Joona goes on.

      ‘Yes,’ she replies, and blushes.

      ‘Do they meet boys?’

      She nods.

      ‘Does Vicky do that too?’

      ‘Yes, she sneaks out at night,’ Tuula says, and leans closer to Joona.

      ‘Do you know who she goes to see?’

      ‘Dennis.’

      ‘Who’s that?’

      ‘I don’t know,’ she whispers, and licks her lips.

      ‘But his name is Dennis? Do you know his surname?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘How long is she usually gone?’

      Tuula shrugs her shoulders and picks at a piece of tape that’s hanging from the seat of her chair.

       31

      The prosecutor, Susanne Öst, is waiting outside the Hotel Ibis beside a large Ford Fairlane. Her face is round and free from make-up. She’s got her blonde hair in a ponytail, and is dressed in long grey trousers and a smart grey jacket. It looks as if she’s been scratching her neck hard, and one wing of her shirt collar is sticking up.

      ‘Do you have any objections to me pretending to be a police officer for a while?’ she asks, and blushes.

      ‘On the contrary,’ Joona says, shaking her hand.

      ‘We’re busy knocking on doors, looking in garages, barns, car parks and so on,’ she says seriously. ‘We’re closing the net, there aren’t that many places you can hide a car …’

      ‘No.’

      ‘But obviously it’ll go a bit quicker now we’ve got a name,’ she smiles, and opens the front door of the big Ford. ‘There are four men called Dennis in the area.’

      ‘I’ll follow you,’ he says, and gets in his Volvo.

      The American car sways as it pulls out and sets off towards Indal. Joona follows, thinking about Vicky.

      Her mother, Susie Bennet, was an addict, and was homeless before her death last winter. Vicky has lived in various foster families and institutions from the age of six, and presumably quickly learned how to let old relationships go and how to make new ones.

      If Vicky has been sneaking out to meet someone at night, he must live fairly close. Perhaps he waits for her in the forest or on the logging track. Perhaps she heads down Highway 86 to his home in Baggböle or Västloning.

      The tarmac is drying now, the rainwater is settling in the ditches and shallow puddles. The sky is brighter now, but the forest is still dripping.

      The prosecutor phones Joona, and he can see her looking in her rear-view mirror as she talks.

      ‘We’ve just found one Dennis in Indal,’ she says. ‘He’s seven years old. There’s another one who lives out at Stige, but he’s currently working in Leeds.’

      ‘Which leaves two others,’ Joona says.

      ‘Yes. Dennis and Lovisa Karmstedt live in a house outside Tomming. We haven’t been there yet. And there’s a Dennis Rolando who lives with his parents just south of Indal. We’ve paid a visit to the parents, and there’s nothing there. But he owns a large workshop on Kvarnåvägen that we can’t get into … It’s probably nothing, because they’ve spoken to him, and apparently he’s in his car on the way to Sollefteå.’

      ‘Break the door open.’

      ‘OK,’ she says, and ends the call.

      The landscape opens up and the road is lined by fields on both sides, sparkling from the recent rain. Red-painted farms press up against the forest, which stretches off into the distance behind them.

      As Joona is passing through the peaceful hamlet of Östanskär, two uniformed police officers are cutting through the heavy hinges of the workshop’s steel door with an angle-grinder. A cascade of sparks sprays across the wall. The officers insert sturdy crowbars, break the door open, and go inside. The beams of their torches seek their way into the shadows. The workshop contains about fifty old-fashioned arcade games, Space Invaders, Asteroids, Street Fighter, all covered with dirty plastic sheeting.

      Joona sees Susanne Öst talking on her phone, then she glances at him in the rear-view mirror. His phone rings. Susanne tells him quickly that there’s only one address left. It’s not far away. They ought to be there in ten minutes.

      He slows down and follows her as she turns right onto a road between two waterlogged meadows, then on into the forest. They approach a yellow wooden house with closed blinds in all the windows. There are apple trees growing in the well-tended garden, and a blue-and-white-striped swing seat in the middle of the plot.

      They pull up and walk together towards a parked police car.

      Joona says hello to the two officers, then looks up at the house with the closed