Читать книгу The Fire Witness - Ларс Кеплер - Страница 14

The emergency call centre in Sundsvall is located in a three-storey brick building on Björneborgsgatan, next to Bäckparken. Jasmin doesn’t usually have any trouble with the night-shift, but she’s feeling unusually tired now. It’s four o’clock in the morning, and the worst part of the night has passed. She’s sitting in front of the computer with her headset on, and blows on the mug of black coffee. In the staffroom they’re still laughing and joking. The day before, the tabloids ran a story about one of the police’s emergency operators earning a bit extra on the side, from telephone sex. It turned out that she just had an administrative job with a company that ran sex chat-lines, but the tabloids made it sound like she was dealing with both types of call in the emergency call centre.

Jasmin looks past the screen and out through the window. It hasn’t started to get light yet. An articulated lorry rumbles past. There’s a streetlamp further along the road. Its weak light illuminates a tree, a grey electricity box, and a stretch of empty pavement.

Jasmin puts her coffee cup down and takes an incoming call.

‘SOS 112 … What’s the nature of the emergency?’

‘My name is Daniel Grim, I’m a counsellor at the Birgitta Home. One of the residents has just called me. It sounded extremely serious, you have to get out there.’

‘Can you tell me what’s happened?’ Jasmin asks as she searches for the Birgitta Home on the computer.

‘I don’t know, one of the girls called. I didn’t really understand what she was saying, there was a lot of shouting in the background, and she was crying and saying there was blood all over the room.’

Jasmin gestures to her colleague Ingrid Sandén that they need more operators.

‘And are you at the scene yourself?’ Jasmin says through the headset.

‘No, I’m at home, I was asleep, but one of the girls called …’

‘You’re talking about the Birgitta Home, north of Sunnås?’ Jasmin asks calmly.

‘Please, hurry up,’ he says in a shaky voice.

‘We’re sending police and an ambulance to the Birgitta Home, north of Sunnås,’ Jasmin repeats, just to be sure.

She transfers the call to Ingrid, who goes on talking to Daniel while Jasmin alerts the police and paramedics.

‘The Birgitta Home is a children’s home, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, a secure children’s home,’ he replies.

‘Shouldn’t there be some staff there?’

‘Yes, my wife Elisabet is on duty, I’m about to call her … I don’t know what’s happened, I don’t know anything.’

‘The police are on their way,’ Ingrid says calmly, and from the corner of her eye sees the flashing blue lights of the first emergency vehicle sweep across the deserted street.