The Fire Witness

‘The isolation room,’ Daniel replies.

‘Why would someone end up there?’ Joona asks.

‘Because …’ Daniel tails off and looks thoughtful.

‘What are you thinking?’

‘The door should have been locked,’ he says.

‘There’s a key in the lock.’

‘What key?’ Daniel asks, raising his voice. ‘Elisabet’s the only person who’s got a key to the isolation room.’

‘Who’s Elisabet?’ Gunnarsson asks.

‘My wife,’ Daniel replies. ‘She was on duty last night …’

‘So where is she now?’ Sonja asks.

‘What?’ Daniel says, looking at her in confusion.

‘Is she at home?’ she asks.

Daniel looks surprised and uncertain.

‘I assumed Elisabet had gone with Nina in the ambulance,’ he says slowly.

‘No, Nina Molander went on her own,’ Sonja replies.

‘Of course Elisabet went with her to the hospital, she’d never let one of the—’

‘I was the first officer on the scene,’ Sonja interrupts.

Exhaustion is making her voice sound brusque and hoarse.

‘There was no member of staff here,’ she goes on. ‘Just a load of frightened girls.’

‘But my wife was—’

‘Call her,’ Sonja says.

‘I’ve tried, her phone’s switched off,’ Daniel says quietly. ‘I thought … I assumed …’

‘God, this is a mess,’ Gunnarsson says.

‘My wife, Elisabet,’ Daniel goes on in a voice that’s getting increasingly unsteady. ‘She’s got a heart condition, it might, she might …’

‘Try to talk calmly,’ Joona says.

‘My wife has an enlarged heart and … she was working last night, she should be here … her phone is switched off and …’

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Daniel looks at them desperately, fumbles with the zipper on his jacket, and repeats that his wife has a heart condition. The dog is barking and pulling so hard at its leash that it’s almost strangling itself. It coughs, then goes on barking.

Joona goes over to the barking dog beneath the tree. He tries to calm it down as he loosens the leash attached to its collar. As soon as Joona lets go, the dog runs across the yard to a small building. Joona hurries after it. The dog is scratching at the door, whimpering and panting.

Daniel Grim stares at Joona and the dog, and starts to walk towards them. Gunnarsson calls to him to stop, but he keeps moving. His body is stiff and his face full of despair. The gravel crunches beneath his feet. Joona tries to calm the dog, and grabs hold of its collar to pull it back, away from the door.

Gunnarsson runs across the yard and gets hold of Daniel’s jacket, but he pulls free and falls to the ground, scrapes his hand, but gets back up again.

The dog is barking, tensing its body and pulling at its collar.

The uniformed police officer stops in front of the door. Daniel tries to push past, and calls out with a sob in his voice: ‘Elisabet? Elisabet! I have to …’

The police officer tries to lead him aside while Gunnarsson hurries over to Joona and helps him with the dog.

‘My wife,’ Daniel whimpers. ‘My wife could be …’

Gunnarsson pulls the dog back towards the tree again.

The dog is panting hard, kicking up grit with its paws and barking at the door.

Joona feels a sting of pain at the back of his eyes as he pulls on a latex glove.

A carved wooden sign beneath the low eaves of the building says ‘Brew-house’.

Joona opens the door carefully and looks into the dimly-lit room. A small window is open, and hundreds of flies are buzzing about. There are bloody paw prints from the dog all over the worn floor tiles. Without going inside, Joona moves sideways to see around the brick fireplace.

He can see the back panel of a mobile phone next to a patch of blood.

As Joona leans forward through the door the buzzing of the flies gets louder. A woman in her fifties is lying in a pool of blood with her mouth open. She’s dressed in jeans, pink socks and a grey cardigan. The woman evidently tried to shuffle away, but the upper part of her face and head have been caved in.

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Pia Abrahamsson realises that she’s driving a bit too fast.

She’d counted on getting away earlier, but the diocesan meeting in Östersund dragged on longer than expected.

Pia looks at her son in the mirror. His head is lolling against the edge of his child’s seat. His eyes are closed behind his glasses. The morning sunlight flashes between the trees and across his calm little face.

She slows down to eighty kilometres an hour even though the road stretches out perfectly straight ahead of her through the forest.

The roads are eerily empty.

Twenty minutes ago she passed a truck loaded with logs, but since then she hasn’t seen another vehicle.

She screws up her eyes to see better.