Читать книгу The Fire Witness - Ларс Кеплер - Страница 20

North of Sundsvall Joona leaves the coast road and turns onto Highway 86, which heads up inland along the valley of Indalsälven.

After two hours of driving he’s approaching the isolated children’s home.

He slows down and turns onto a narrow gravel track. Sunlight filters through the tall pine trees.

A dead girl, Joona thinks.

While everyone was asleep, a girl was murdered and positioned on her bed. The violence was extreme and very aggressive, according to the local police. They have no immediate suspect, it’s too late for roadblocks, but everyone in the local force has been informed, and Superintendent Olle Gunnarsson is leading the preliminary investigation.

It’s just before ten o’clock by the time Joona parks and leaves the car beyond the police’s outer cordon. The ditch is swarming with insects. The forest has opened up into a large clearing. Damp trees are sparkling in the sunlight on the slope down towards the lake, Himmelsjön. By the side of the road is a metal sign saying The Birgitta Home, Specialist Children’s Home.

Joona walks towards the cluster of rust-red buildings, gathered around the central yard like a traditional farm. An ambulance, three police cars, a white Mercedes, and three other cars are parked in front of the buildings.

A dog is barking nonstop as it runs along a line between two trees to which it’s tethered.

An older man with a walrus moustache, a pot-belly, and a crumpled linen suit is standing in front of the main building. He’s spotted Joona, but shows no sign of saying hello. Instead he finishes rolling his cigarette and licks the paper. Joona steps over another cordon, and the man tucks the cigarette behind his ear.

‘I’m the National Police observer,’ Joona says.

‘Gunnarsson,’ the man says. ‘Superintendent.’

‘I’m supposed to follow your work here.’

‘Yes, as long as you don’t get in the way,’ the man says, looking at him coolly.

Joona looks up at the main building. The forensics team is already at work. The rooms are illuminated by arc lights, lending all the windows an unnatural glow.

A police officer emerges from the door, his face almost white. He claps one hand to his mouth, stumbles down the steps, then leans against the wall, bends forward, and throws up onto the nettles beside the water butt.

‘You’ll do the same once you’ve been inside,’ Gunnarsson says to Joona with a smile.

‘What do you know so far?’

‘Not a damn thing … We got the call in the middle of the night, from a counsellor at the home … Daniel Grim’s his name. That was at four o’clock. He was at his home on Bruksgatan in Sundsvall, and had just received a call from here … he didn’t know much when he called the emergency call centre, just that the girls were yelling about lots of blood.’

‘So it was the girls themselves who made the call?’ Joona asks.

‘Yes.’

‘But they called the counsellor in Sundsvall rather than the police?’ Joona says.

‘Exactly.’

‘There must have been night staff here?’

‘No.’

‘Shouldn’t there have been?’

‘Presumably,’ Gunnarsson says in a tired voice.

‘Which one of the girls called the counsellor?’ Joona asks.

‘One of the older residents,’ Gunnarsson says, looking in his notebook. ‘A Caroline Forsgren … But as I understand it, she wasn’t the one who found the body. That was … it’s a hell of a mess, several of the girls have looked in the room. It’s bloody nasty, I don’t mind saying. We’ve taken one of them off to hospital. She was hysterical, and the paramedics thought that was the safest thing to do.’

‘Who was first on the scene?’ Joona asks.

‘Two colleagues, Rolf Wikner and Sonja Rask,’ Gunnarsson replies. ‘I got here at around a quarter to six and called the prosecutor … and then she evidently wet herself and contacted Stockholm … so now we’re lumbered with you.’

He smiles at Joona without any warmth.

‘Do you have a suspect?’ Joona asks.

Gunnarsson takes a deep breath and says in a didactic tone: ‘Years of experience have taught me to let an investigation unfold at its own pace … we need to get people out here, start to interview the witnesses, secure the evidence …’

‘Is it OK to go in and take a look?’ Joona asks, looking up at the door.

‘I wouldn’t recommend it … we’ll soon have pictures.’

‘I need to look at the girl before she’s moved,’ Joona says.

‘We’re dealing with an attack with a blunt instrument, very brutal, very aggressive,’ he says. ‘The perpetrator’s a strong guy. After her death the victim was laid out on her bed. No one noticed anything until one of the girls was going to the toilet and trod in the blood that was seeping under the door.’

‘Was it still warm?’

‘Look … these girls are pretty tricky to deal with,’ Gunnarsson explains. ‘They’re frightened, and they’re very angry, they object to everything we say, they don’t listen, they scream at us, and … Earlier on they were determined to get through the cordon to fetch things from their rooms – iPods, Lypsyl, coats, and so on – and when we were going to move them to the other building, two of them escaped into the forest.’

‘Escaped?’

‘We’ve just managed to catch up with them … now we just need to get them to return voluntarily. They’re lying on the ground demanding to be allowed to ride on Rolf’s shoulders.’