The Fire Witness (19 page)

“What did you say?”

“I envy your girlfriend.”

She can smell his breath: mint and whiskey. Like herbs, she thinks. She has the sudden urge to kiss him but thinks this will frighten him.

She remembers when Jack stopped sleeping with her. It was after Vicky had left their lives. She realized she no longer excited him. She had thought that it was just stress; they’d had too little time together; they were too tired. So she started to make an effort. She always dressed well, arranged romantic dinners, planned excursions. But he just didn’t react to her any longer.

One night he came to her when she was in bed wearing a delicately laced negligee and he told her that he was not in love with her any longer. He’d met another woman. He wanted a divorce.

“Watch out!” Nassim says. “You’re spilling your drink.”

“Oh God,” she whispers as she looks at the drips in her lap.

“Not to worry.”

He takes a cloth napkin and kneels in front of her. As he carefully wipes the spill his other hand touches her waist.

“I have to change,” she says, and she gets up and tries to stand upright. Her head is spinning.

He supports her and they walk single file through her apartment. She feels weak and leans back to kiss him on the throat.

The bedroom is cool and shadowy. A single lamp beside the bed casts a soft light.

“I have to lie down,” she says.

She says nothing more as he lays her on the bed and slowly pulls off her shoes.

“Let me help you,” he says softly.

She’s acting more intoxicated than she actually is and lies still as if she’s not even noticing how he’s unbuttoning her dress. She listens to his heavy breathing and wonders if he will dare touch her.

She’s lying still in her golden panties and is looking at him as through pulsing fog. Then she shuts her eyes. His fingers are ice-cold as he pulls off her panties.

She opens her eyes slightly to look at him as he gets undressed. His body is thin and tanned, and he has a gray Horus-eye tattoo on his shoulder.

Her heart begins to race as he lies down beside her. She thinks of stopping him, but she’s flattered by his desire. She thinks that she shouldn’t let him come inside her and instead let him look at her and masturbate as if he were a boy.

She tries to concentrate on what is happening and let herself enjoy the moment. He’s breathing quickly as he parts her legs. She’s wet and slippery, but her desire is fading. He is now over her and she feels him, warm and hard, against her soft folds. She slowly writhes away and presses her thighs together.

She opens her eyes and meets his puzzled look and then closes her eyes again.

Carefully, as if he does not want to wake her, he opens her legs again. She smiles and lets him look. She feels him over her and then he slides inside.

She moans softly. She wants to respond to his desire, but he’s in too much of a hurry. He’s thrusting too quickly and too hard. Loneliness catches up to her and what little lust she was feeling dies. She lies still until he’s finished and pulls out.

“Sorry, sorry,” Nassim whispers as he gathers his things. “I thought you wanted it.”

I thought so, too
, she thinks, but she’s unable to speak. He quickly gets dressed and all she wants is for him to leave. Then she’ll get up and wash and spend the rest of the evening praying to God that Vicky is alive.

65

Joona is back at the dam, looking down the high concrete wall where water is gushing from three openings sixty feet beneath him. Below the sluice gates, the concrete wall bends like a massive slide.

Joona’s arm is still in a sling and his jacket is hanging over his injured shoulder. He looks back along the river and thinks about the car with the two children inside. It’s pouring rain. The car skids into the traffic light in Indal and the windows are knocked out. Vicky’s wearing her seat belt but hits her head against the side window. The car is filled immediately with crumbs of glass and the cold rain starts pouring inside.

All is silent.

Then the child begins to scream. Vicky gets shakily out of the car, brushes off the glass, and opens the back door. She unbuckles the boy and looks to see if he is all right. She tries to get him to be quiet and then she drives on.

Perhaps she intends to drive over the bridge until she sees the blue lights of the police car blocking the road on the other side. She swings off the road in panic, brakes hard, but can’t stop the car as it drives into the river. Vicky hits her head again, perhaps on the steering wheel, and loses consciousness.

As the car plows through the water, they are probably both already unconscious. The current drags them through the window, softly and quietly, and pulls them along the rocky bottom of the river.

Joona picks up his cell phone to call Carlos Eliasson.

The diver from the rescue service is already standing in his blue wet suit on the dock at the power station. He’s checking the fasteners on his regulator.

“Carlos here,” Joona hears his boss say.

“Susanne Öst wants to end the preliminary investigation,” Joona says. “But I’m not done.”

“It’s always sad, but the killer is most likely dead, and so, unfortunately, we can’t justify the expense of continuing the investigation.”

“We haven’t found any bodies.”

Joona hears Carlos mutter something, then break into a coughing fit. He waits while Carlos takes a drink of water.

“It can take weeks for bodies to appear,” Carlos whispers, and clears his throat again.

“But I’m not done,” Joona says.

“Now you’re being stubborn.”

“I have to—”

“This isn’t even your case,” Carlos interrupts.

Joona is looking at a black log, which is speeding with the current. It hits the edge of the dam with a dull thud.

“Yes, it is,” Joona says.

“Joona.” Carlos sighs.

“The technical evidence points to Vicky, but there are no witnesses and she hasn’t been accused.”

“You can’t accuse the dead,” Carlos says.

Joona thinks about the girl, the lack of motive, the fact that she’d slept in her bed after those violent murders. He thinks about the fact The Needle mentioned: that Elisabet was killed with a hammer but Miranda with a rock.

“Just give me a week, Carlos,” Joona says. “I need a few answers before I come back.”

Carlos mumbles something.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you,” Joona says.

“This is not formal,” Carlos repeats more loudly. “But as long as the internal investigation is under way, you can do what you want.”

“What are my resources?”

“What resources? You’re still just an observer and—”

“I’ve hired a diver.”

“A diver?” Carlos says agitatedly. “Do you know how much a diver costs? You can’t just—”

“And a dog.”

Joona hears the sound of a motor, turns, and watches a small gray car with a rattling engine park beside his. It’s a Messerschmitt Kabinenroller from the early sixties, with two wheels in the front and one in back. Joona rings off as the car door flies open and Gunnarsson, a cigarette dangling from his mouth, climbs out.

“I’m the one who decides whether or not to call in a diver!” roars Gunnarsson. He’s sprinting toward Joona. “You’re not supposed to have anything to do with this case!”

“I’m just observing,” Joona says calmly, and heads for the dock.

66

The diver is a man in his fifties. He’s starting to put on a bit of weight, but he has wide shoulders and strong upper arms.

“The name’s Hasse Boman,” he says.

“We can’t close the sluice gates as there’s a flood risk,” Joona says.

“I understand the situation,” Hasse says, while he contemplates the unsettled, swirling water.

“There’s going to be a strong current,” Joona says.

“I know,” the diver says, and looks at Joona calmly.

“Can you handle it?” Joona asks.

“I was in mine removal in the KA1 unit … Can’t be worse than that,” Hasse says, and there’s a hint of a smile.

“Do you have nitrox in your cylinders?” asks Joona.

“Yes, indeed.”

“What the hell is that?” Gunnarsson asks, catching up to them.

“It’s air with extra oxygen,” Hasse says as he struggles into his vest.

“How long can you be down there?”

“Maybe two hours. Don’t worry.”

“I’m grateful you could come,” Joona says.

The diver shrugs. “My boy is at soccer camp in Denmark. I promised to go with him, but you know how it is. It’s just me and the boy, and I need the extra money.”

He shakes his head. Then he points at his diving mask and its digital camera. A cable runs from it along the lifeline and into a laptop.

“I always record my dives. You’ll see everything I’m seeing. We can even talk while I’m underwater.”

Another log thuds into the dam.

“Why are there logs in the water?” asks Joona.

Hasse is putting on his cylinders. “Who knows? Somebody probably dumped timber destroyed by bark beetles.”

A woman is heading toward them. Her face is worn and she’s wearing blue jeans, rubber boots, and an open down-filled coat. She is leaving the parking lot with a russet-colored German shepherd on a leash.

“And here’s a goddamn bloodhound,” Gunnarsson says, and shudders.

The dog handler, Sara Bengtsson, unclips the leash and says something in a low voice. The dog immediately sits down. She doesn’t look at it as she walks toward them. She knows it will do what she says.

“Good that you could come,” Joona says as he shakes her hand.

Sara Bengtsson briefly glances at him as she pulls her hand back. Then she feels for something in one of her pockets.

“I’m in charge here,” says Gunnarsson. “And I’m not fond of dogs—just so you know.”

“Well, I’m here now,” Sara says. She looks back at the dog.

“What’s its name?” Joona asks.

“Jackie.” Sara smiles.

“We’re going to send a diver down in a minute,” Joona says. “But it would be helpful if Jackie could mark the spot. Do you think she can?”

“Oh, yes,” Sara says, and kicks a stone into the water.

“There’s a lot of water and a strong current,” Gunnarsson warns.

“Last spring, she found a body at a depth of a hundred and eighty feet,” Sara replies, and turns red.

“Well, what the fuck are we waiting for then?” asks Gunnarsson, lighting a cigarette.

Sara Bengtsson ignores him. She looks over the black, glittering water. She stuffs her hands into her pockets before she says, in a soft voice, “Jackie.”

The dog leaves her spot immediately and walks up to her. Sara squats down and pats the dog on her neck and behind her ears. She talks encouragingly to the dog and tells her what they are looking for and then they start walking along the edge of the dam.

The dog is trained to recognize the smells of blood and the lungs of the recently dead. The search dogs are trained by rewarding correct identifications, but Sara knows that Jackie gets nervous and needs to be comforted afterward.

They walk past the place where Dante’s car seat was found. Sara steers the dog’s nose toward the water.

“I don’t believe in this crap.” Gunnarsson smiles. He throws the butt of his cigarette into the water.

Sara stops and gestures for them to halt as Jackie catches a scent. The dog stretches her nose out over the edge of the dam.

“What did you find?” asks Sara.

The dog sniffs, moves to the side, and then loses the scent and keeps walking.

“A bunch of hocus-pocus,” the diver mutters, and adjusts his vest.

Joona watches the dog trainer and her unusual red German shepherd. They are moving slowly along the railing over the open sluice gates where the current is strongest. Hair has loosened from Sara’s ponytail and is blowing in her face. The dog stops and whines, leans out, licks her nose, becomes agitated, and walks in a tight circle.

“Is there someone down there?” asks Sara quietly as she looks into the black water.

The dog does not want to stay there. She walks farther, to the electricity box, and sniffs there, then returns to the first spot and whines again.

“What is it?” Joona asks.

“I honestly don’t know,” the dog handler says. “She hasn’t marked a corpse, but she’s acting as if she’s found something.”

The dog barks and the woman squats next to her.

“What is it, Jackie?” she asks tenderly. “What is so strange?”

The dog wags her tail as Sara hugs her and tells her that she’s a good girl. Jackie whimpers again and then lies down, scratches behind her ear, and licks her nose.

“What are you doing, you little rascal?” Sara asks with a surprised smile.

67

There’s a vibration at the dam. Watertight body bags are folded neatly on top of a plastic tub with attached signal buoys to mark the position of any discoveries.

“I’ll start by the power station and take the area in squares,” Hasse says.

“No, let’s start where the dog reacted,” Joona says.

“Are we going to let the ladies tell us what to do now?” Hasse complains.

Deep below the turbulent surface of the water are the openings of the gates, with heavy grates to catch everything brought downstream by the river. The diver checks his air hose, connects the cable from the camera to the laptop, and then puts on his mask. Joona can see himself on the computer screen.

“Wave to the camera,” Hasse says, and then he puts in his mouthpiece and slides into the water.

“If the current is too strong, we’ll call it off,” Joona says.

“Be careful,” says Gunnarsson.

“I’m used to diving in heavy current,” Hasse says. “But if I don’t come up again, tell my boy that I should have gone with him instead.”

“Let’s have a beer at Hotel Laxen when you’re through,” Gunnarsson says, and waves.

Hasse Boman disappears beneath the surface, which bubbles, then grows calm again. Gunnarsson smiles and flicks his cigarette into the water. The only thing they can see on the computer screen is the rough surface of the concrete as it slips past the camera. They can hear Hasse’s deep breathing in the speaker. On the river, bubbles from his exhalation break the surface.