The Fire Witness. Ларс Кеплер

with blood.

      ‘But there was no blood on her,’ he whispers.

      ‘What are you saying now?’ the prosecutor whispers.

      ‘I just need to check something,’ Joona says as the door to the main building opens and a small man in tight protective clothing comes out.

      He’s Holger Jalmert, a professor of forensic science at Umeå University. He slowly removes his mask, to reveal a very sweaty face.

      ‘I’ll arrange an interview with the girls at the hotel in an hour,’ Susanne says.

      ‘Thanks,’ Joona says, walking across the yard.

      The professor is standing beside his van as he removes the protective clothing, places it in a rubbish bag and seals it carefully.

      ‘The duvet’s missing,’ Joona says.

      ‘So I finally get to meet Joona Linna,’ the professor says, opening a fresh set of disposable overalls.

      ‘Have you been in Miranda’s room?’

      ‘Yes, I’m finished in there.’

      ‘There was no duvet.’

      Holger stops with a frown.

      ‘No, you’re right about that.’

      ‘Vicky must have hidden Miranda’s duvet in the wardrobe or under the bed in her own room,’ Joona says.

      ‘I’m just about to start in there,’ but Joona is already on his way towards the building.

      The professor watches him go, and can’t help thinking about what he’s heard about Joona Linna: that he’s so determined that he can stand and stare at a crime scene until it opens up like a book.

      He puts the bag down, then hurries after the detective superintendent, clutching the overalls.

      They put the protective outfits on, the shoe covers and latex gloves, before they open the door to Vicky’s bedroom.

      ‘There’s something under the bed,’ Joona confirms.

      ‘One thing at a time,’ Holger murmurs, and puts a mask on.

      Joona waits in the doorway while the professor photographs and measures the room with a laser so that he can locate anything he finds using a three-dimensional set of coordinates.

      On the wall above the ornate Bible passages there’s a poster of Robert Pattinson, with his pale face and dark eyeshadow, and there’s a large bowl full of white plastic security tags from H&M on a shelf.

      Joona watches Holger as he systematically covers the floor with foil, presses it down with a roller, then lifts it gently before photographing and packing it away. He moves slowly from the door to the bed, then across towards the window. As he lifts the foil from the floor, the imprint of a trainer is clearly visible on the layer of yellow gelatine.

      ‘I need to go soon,’ Joona says.

      ‘But you’d like me to look under the bed first?’

      Holger shakes his head at Joona’s impatience, but carefully spreads a layer of plastic on the floor beside the bed. He kneels down and reaches one hand beneath the bed and takes hold of the object under there.

      ‘It feels like a duvet,’ he says, concentrating.

      He carefully pulls the heavy duvet out onto the plastic. It’s been twisted up, and is drenched in blood.

      ‘I think Miranda had it around her shoulders when she was murdered,’ Joona says in a low voice.

      Harry folds the plastic over, then pulls a large sack over the wrapped duvet. Joona looks at his watch. He can stay another ten minutes. Holger goes on taking more samples. He uses moist cotton-buds on the dried blood, then lets them dry out before packing them.

      ‘If you find anything that relates to either a person or a location, you must call me at once,’ Joona says.

      ‘Understood.’

      For the hammer under the pillow the professor uses one hundred and twenty cotton-buds, which he wraps and labels individually. He collects strands of hair and textile fibres on adhesive plastic, wraps loose hairs in paper, and puts tissue samples and fragments of bone in test tubes so they can be chilled to prevent the growth of bacteria.

       38

      The conference room at the Hotel Ibis is busy, and Joona waits in the breakfast room while the prosecutor talks to the anxious staff about another room for the interviews. A television screen is shimmering from a metal frame near the ceiling.

      Joona calls Anja and reaches her voicemail. He asks her to find out if there’s a pathologist in Sundsvall.

      The television news is starting to cover the murders at the Birgitta Home and the latest dramatic developments. They show pictures of the police cordon, the red buildings and the sign to the home. The perpetrator’s suspected escape route is shown on a map, and a reporter stands in the middle of Highway 86 talking about the abduction and the police’s unsuccessful roadblocks.

      Joona gets to his feet and is walking towards the television as the voiceover reports that the mother of the missing boy has chosen to give the kidnapper a message in a live broadcast.

      Pia Abrahamsson appears on the screen. Her face looks drawn as she sits at a kitchen table with a sheet of prompts in her hand.

      ‘If you’re hearing this,’ she begins, ‘I understand that you have been the victim of injustice, but Dante has nothing to do with that …’

      Pia looks directly at the camera.

      ‘You have to give him back,’ she whispers, her chin trembling. ‘I’m sure you’re kind, but Dante is only four years old, and I know how frightened he is … he’s so …’

      She looks at the sheet of paper as tears run down her cheeks.

      ‘You mustn’t be mean to him, you mustn’t hit my little …’

      She bursts into racking sobs and turns her face away before they cut back to the studio in Stockholm.

      A forensic psychiatrist from Säter Hospital is perched at a tall table, and explains just how serious the situation is to the newsreader: ‘I haven’t had access to the girl’s medical records, of course, and I don’t want to speculate as to whether she may have committed the two murders, but the fact that she’s been living in this particular care home means that it’s very possible that she’s seriously mentally unstable, and even if—’

      ‘What are the dangers?’ the newsreader asks.

      ‘It’s possible that she doesn’t care about the boy at all,’ the psychiatrist explains. ‘She might forget about him altogether at times … but he’s only four years old, and if he suddenly starts to cry or call for his mother she could get angry and dangerous …’

      Susanne Öst comes into the breakfast room to fetch Joona. With a small smile she offers him a cup of coffee and some cake. He thanks her and follows her to the lift, and they head up to the top floor. They walk into an uninspiring bridal suite, with a locked minibar and a Jacuzzi perched on battered gold paws.

      Tuula Lehti is lying on the wide bed watching the Disney Channel. The responsible adult from the Victim Support Service nods to them. Susanne closes the door, and Joona pulls out a chair with a pink velvet seat and sits down.

      ‘Why did you tell me that Vicky goes to see someone called Dennis?’ Joona asks.

      Tuula sits up and clutches a heart-shaped cushion to her stomach.

      ‘I thought that’s what she does,’ she says simply.

      ‘What made you think that?’

      Tuula