Читать книгу The Fire Witness - Ларс Кеплер - Страница 46

Caroline, the slightly older girl, comes into the room with the man from Victim Support. She’s wearing a long, baggy T-shirt with a kitten on it. She has a runic tattoo, and the scars of old injections glint white in the crook of her arm.

She smiles shyly when she says hello to Joona. Then she sits down carefully on the armchair by the brown desk.

‘Tuula says Vicky creeps out at nights to meet a boy,’ Joona says.

‘No,’ Caroline laughs.

‘What makes you say that?’

‘She doesn’t do that,’ Caroline smiles.

‘You sound very sure.’

‘Tuula thinks everyone’s a total whore,’ she explains.

‘So Vicky doesn’t creep out?’

‘Oh, she does that,’ Caroline says, looking serious.

‘What does she do when she gets out?’ Joona asks, trying to hide his eagerness.

Caroline looks him in the eye briefly, then turns to gaze at the window.

‘She sits behind the brew-house and phones her mother.’

Joona knows that Vicky’s mother died before Vicky arrived at the Birgitta Home, but instead of confronting Caroline with this he asks calmly: ‘What do they talk about?’

‘Well … Vicky just leaves little messages on her mother’s voicemail, but I think … if I’ve got this right, her mum never calls back.’

Joona nods, thinking that no one seems to have told Vicky that her mother is dead.

‘Have you ever heard of someone called Dennis?’ he asks.

‘No,’ Caroline says instantly.

‘Think carefully.’

She looks him calmly in the eye, then jumps when Susanne Öst’s phone buzzes as a text message arrives.

‘Who would Vicky turn to?’ Joona goes on, even though the energy has gone out of the conversation.

‘Her mum – that’s the only person I can think of.’

‘Friends, boys?’

‘No,’ Caroline replies. ‘But I don’t know her … look, we’re both doing ADL, so we see each other quite a bit, but she never talks about herself.’

‘ADL?’

‘Sounds like a condition, doesn’t it?’ Caroline laughs. ‘It stands for All Day Lifestyle. Only for people who are really good. You get to try going out, you tag along to Sundsvall to get the groceries, exciting stuff like that …’

‘You must have talked to each other when you were doing that?’ Joona prompts.

‘A bit, but not much.’

‘So who else would she talk to, then?’

‘No one,’ she replies. ‘Except Daniel, of course.’

‘The counsellor?’