Читать книгу The Fire Witness - Ларс Кеплер - Страница 8

Elisabet Grim is fifty-one years old and her hair is peppered with grey. She has cheerful eyes, and when she smiles you can see that one of her front teeth sticks out a bit further than the other.

Elisabet works as a nurse at the Birgitta Home, a children’s care home north of Sundsvall. It’s a privately-run home, and takes girls aged between twelve and seventeen who have been placed in care.

Many of the girls have problems with drugs when they arrive, almost all have a history of self-harm and eating disorders, and several of them are very violent.

There aren’t really any alternatives to secure children’s homes with alarmed doors, barred windows, and airlocks. The next step is usually adult prison and compulsory psychiatric care, but the Birgitta Home is one of the few exceptions, offering girls a path back to open care homes.

Elisabet likes to say that the Birgitta Home is where the good girls end up.

She picks up the last piece of dark chocolate, puts it in her mouth and feels its blend of sweetness and bitterness tingle on her tongue.

Slowly her shoulders start to relax. It’s been a difficult evening, even though the day started so well: lessons in the morning, and swimming in the lake after lunch.

After supper the housekeeper went home, leaving her on her own at the home.

The number of night staff was cut four months after the Blancheford holding company bought the care business of which the Birgitta Home forms a part.

The residents were allowed to watch television until ten. She spent the evening in the nurses’ office, and was trying to catch up with her journal entries when she heard angry shouting. She hurried to the TV room where she found Miranda attacking little Tuula. She was yelling that Tuula was a cunt and a whore, and dragged her off the sofa to kick her in the back.

Elisabet is starting to get used to Miranda’s violent outbursts. She rushed in and pulled her away from Tuula, earning herself a blow on the cheek, and she had to shout at Miranda about this being clearly unacceptable behaviour. Without any discussion she led Miranda away to the isolation room along the corridor.

Elisabet said goodnight, but Miranda didn’t answer. She just sat on the bed staring at the floor, and smiled to herself when Elisabet closed and locked the door.

The new girl, Vicky Bennet, was booked for an evening conversation, but there was no time because of the trouble with Miranda and Tuula. Vicky tentatively pointed out that it was her turn, and got upset when she was told it would have to be postponed, smashed a cup, then slashed her stomach and wrists with one of the fragments.

When Elisabet came in, Vicky was sitting with her hands in front of her face and blood running down her arms.

Elisabet bathed the cuts, which turned out to be superficial, put a plaster on her stomach, and bandaged her wrists, then sat and comforted her until she saw a little smile. For the third night in a row she gave the girl ten milligrams of Sonata so that she’d get some sleep.