Читать книгу The Fire Witness - Ларс Кеплер - Страница 37

The two-star Hotel Ibis is located on Trädgårdsgatan, not far from the police station in Sundsvall. It’s the sort of hotel that smells of vacuum cleaners, rugs, and ingrained cigarette smoke. The façade is covered with cream-coloured cladding. There’s a bowl of sweets on the reception desk. The police have put the girls from the Birgitta Home in five adjacent rooms, and have placed two uniformed officers in the corridor.

Joona walks purposefully across the worn floor.

The psychologist, Lisa Jern, is waiting for Joona outside one of the doors. Her dark hair is streaked with grey at the front, and her mouth is thin and nervous.

‘Is Tuula already here?’ Joona asks.

‘Yes, she is … wait a moment, though,’ the psychologist says when he reaches for the door handle. ‘As I understand it, you’re here as an observer from the National Crime Unit, and—’

‘A boy’s life is in danger,’ Joona interrupts.

‘Tuula is barely speaking, and … I’m afraid my recommendation as a child psychologist is to wait until she takes the initiative herself and starts to talk about what’s happened.’

‘There isn’t time for that,’ Joona says, taking hold of the handle.

‘Wait, I … It’s extremely important to be on the same wavelength as the children, they absolutely mustn’t feel that they’re being regarded as unwell or …’

Joona opens the door and walks into the room. Tuula Lehti is sitting on a chair with her back to the row of windows. A little girl, just twelve years old, in a tracksuit and trainers.

The street outside, lined with parked cars, is visible between the wooden slats of the blind. All the tables are covered with beech veneer, and there’s a fitted green carpet on the floor.

At the end of the room a man in a chequered blue flannel shirt with neatly combed hair is sitting looking at his phone. Joona realises that he’s the girls’ legally responsible adult.

Joona sits down in front of Tuula and looks at her. Her eyebrows are fair, her red hair straight and greasy.

‘We met very briefly this morning,’ he says.

She folds her freckled arms over her stomach. Her lips are thin and almost colourless.

‘Fuck the police,’ she mutters.

Lisa Jern walks around the table and sits down beside the hunched frame of the little girl.

‘Tuula,’ she says gently. ‘Do you remember me saying that I sometimes used to feel like Thumbelina? There’s nothing odd about that, because even as an adult you can feel really small sometimes.’

‘Why is everyone talking such fucking shit?’ Tuula asks, looking Joona in the eye. ‘Is it because you’re all thick, or because you think I’m thick?’

‘Well, we probably think you’re a bit thick,’ Joona replies.

Tuula smiles in surprise, and is about to say something, when Lisa Jern assures her that it isn’t true, that the superintendent was just joking.

Tuula folds her arms even tighter, stares at the table, and blows out her cheeks.

‘You’re definitely not thick,’ Lisa Jern repeats after a while.

‘Yes I am,’ Tuula whispers.

She spits a gob of saliva onto the table, then sits there silently poking at it and making it into a star shape.

‘Don’t you want to talk?’ Lisa whispers.

‘Only to the Finn,’ Tuula says almost inaudibly.

‘What did you just say?’ she asks with a smile.

‘I’ll only talk to the Finn,’ Tuula says, raising her chin.

‘How lovely,’ the psychologist replies stiffly.

Joona starts the recording, then calmly goes through the formalities, time and location, the names of those present, and the purpose of the conversation.

‘How did you end up at the Birgitta Home, Tuula?’ he asks.

‘I was at Lövsta … A few things happened that weren’t that fucking great,’ she says, and lowers her gaze. ‘I got caught up with some kids who got locked up, even though I’m really too young … I kept my cool, watched television, and one year and four months later I got moved to the Birgitta Home.’

‘What’s the difference … compared with Lövsta?’

‘It’s … the Birgitta Home feels like a proper home … Rugs on the floor, the furniture’s not screwed down … And there aren’t locks and alarms everywhere … And you get left to sleep in peace, and have home-cooked food.’

Joona nods, and sees from the corner of his eye that the responsible adult is still fiddling with his phone. The psychologist, Lisa Jern, is breathing through her nose as she listens to them.

‘What did you have to eat yesterday?’

‘Tacos,’ Tuula replies.

‘Was everyone there for dinner?’

She shrugs.

‘I think so.’

‘Miranda too? She had tacos yesterday evening as well?’

‘Can’t you just cut her stomach open and check? Haven’t you done that yet?’

‘No, we haven’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘We haven’t had time.’

Tuula smiles, and starts to pull at a loose thread on her trousers. Her nails have been bitten ragged, and her cuticles are torn.

‘I looked in the isolation room – it was pretty full-on,’ Tuula says, and starts to rock backwards and forwards.

‘Did you see the way Miranda was lying?’ Joona asks after a while.

‘Yes, like this,’ Tuula says quickly, and puts her hands in front of her face.

‘Why do you think she was doing that?’

Tuula kicks up the edge of the rug, then flattens it again.

‘Maybe she was frightened.’

‘Have you seen anyone else do that?’ Joona asks lightly.

‘No,’ Tuula says, and scratches her neck.

‘You don’t get locked in your rooms, then?’

‘It’s kind of like an open prison,’ Tuula smiles.

‘Do people often sneak out at night?’

‘I don’t.’

Tuula’s mouth becomes small and hard, and she pretends to fire her forefinger at the psychologist.

‘Why not?’ Joona asks.

She looks him in the eye and says quietly: ‘I’m scared of the dark.’

‘What about the others?’

Joona sees Lisa Jern standing there listening to them with an irritable frown between her eyebrows.

‘Yes,’ Tuula whispers.

‘What do they do when they sneak out?’

The girl looks down and smiles to herself.

‘They’re older than you, aren’t they?’ Joona goes on.

‘Yes,’ she replies, and blushes.

‘Do they meet boys?’

She nods.

‘Does Vicky do that too?’

‘Yes, she sneaks out at night,’ Tuula says, and leans closer to Joona.

‘Do you know who she goes to see?’

‘Dennis.’

‘Who’s that?’

‘I don’t know,’ she whispers, and licks her lips.

‘But his name is Dennis? Do you know his surname?’

‘No.’

‘How long is she usually gone?’

Tuula shrugs her shoulders and picks at a piece of tape that’s hanging from the seat of her chair.