“You’re not an idiot at all,” Lisa Jern keeps repeating.
“Yes, I am,” Tuula whispers.
She spits, and a long string of saliva hits the table. She says nothing but begins to draw with the saliva on the table. She draws a star.
“Do you want to talk?” Lisa says quietly.
“Only with the Finn,” Tuula replies, her voice so low as to be almost inaudible.
“What did you say?” asks Lisa Jern with a smile.
“I only want to talk to the Finn!” Tuula lifts her chin, pointing at Joona Linna.
“How nice,” the psychologist says stiffly.
Joona turns on the recorder and quietly states the formalities: time, place, people present, and the reason for the conversation.
“Why are you at Birgittagården?” he asks.
“I was at Lövsta, and some things happened that weren’t so good,” Tuula says. “So they put me with the girls who are locked in, even though I’m too young. I kept my nose clean, just watched TV, and one year and four months later they moved me to Birgittagården.”
“What’s the difference between Lövsta and Birgittagården?”
“Well, Birgittagården is more like a real home, at least as far as I’m concerned. They have rugs on the floors, and they haven’t bolted down the furniture, except in the isolation room, and they don’t have alarms connected to everything, and you can sleep in peace and quiet, and they give you homemade food.”
Joona nods and notices that the support person is still flipping through pages on his cell phone. The psychologist Lisa Jern is breathing heavily as she listens to them.
“What food did they make for you yesterday?” Joona asks.
“Tacos.”
“Was everyone at dinner?”
Tuula shrugs. “I guess so.”
“Miranda, too? Did she eat tacos with you?”
“Cut open her stomach and you’ll find out. Haven’t you done that yet?”
“No, we haven’t.”
“Why not?”
“We haven’t had time yet.”
Tuula semi-smiles and starts pulling at a loose thread on her shorts. Her nails have been bitten to the quick and the cuticles are raw.
“I looked into the isolation room,” Tuula says, and she starts to rock. “It was pretty cool.”
“Did you see how Miranda was lying there?” asks Joona.
“Yeah, like this,” Tuula says and puts her hands over her face.
“Why do you think she was doing that?”
Tuula starts kicking at the carpet. “Maybe she was scared.”
“Did you ever see anyone else do that?”
“No,” Tuula says, scratching her neck.
“So you’re not locked into your rooms,” Joona says.
“No, it’s almost like open wards,” Tuula says and smiles.
“Do you often sneak out at night?”
“Not me.” Tuula’s mouth becomes tight and hard as she pretends to shoot the psychologist with her index finger.
“Why not?” asks Joona.
She looks back at Joona and says in a small voice, “I’m afraid of the dark.”
“What about the others?”
Lisa Jern stands up and frowns as she continues to listen.
“Yes,” Tuula whispers.
“What do they do when they sneak out?” asks Joona.
The girl looks down and smiles to herself.
“Of course, those girls are older than you are,” Joona says.
“Right,” Tuula says. She is blushing.
“Do they meet boys?”
She nods.
“Does Vicky meet boys, too?”
“Yes, she sneaks out at night,” Tuula says. She leans on the table in Joona’s direction.
“Do you know who she goes to see?”
“Dennis.”
“Who is Dennis?”
“I don’t know,” she whispers. She wets her lips with her tongue.
“But his name is Dennis? Do you know his last name?”
“No.”
“How long is she gone?”
Tuula shrugs and pulls at a bit of tape stuck to the underside of the chair cushion.
31
The prosecutor Susanne Öst is waiting outside the Hotel Ibis. She’s leaning against a Ford Fairlane. There’s not a trace of makeup on her round face, and her blond hair is gathered up in a messy ponytail. Her shirt collar sticks straight up out of her gray suit jacket.
“Do you mind if I play police officer with you?” she asks, blushing.
“Not at all,” Joona says, shaking hands with her.
“We’re supposed to go knocking on all the doors, looking into each and every garage, shed, and parking lot, et cetera, et cetera,” she says. “We’ll close the net. There aren’t many places where you can hide a car.”
“Right,” says Joona.
“It’ll go faster now that we have a name,” she says, smiling, as she opens the door to the Ford Fairlane. “There are only four people with the first name of Dennis in the area.”
“I’ll follow you,” Joona says, and walks over to his Volvo.
The American car sways as it turns onto the road and starts toward Indal. Joona follows it and thinks about what he knows so far about Vicky Bennet.
Her mother, Susie Bennet, was a drug addict and homeless at the time of her death last winter. Vicky had lived with various foster parents and institutions from the age of six and had probably learned to create and let go of relationships quickly.
If Vicky goes out at night to meet a boy, she must meet him close-by. Perhaps he waits for her in the forest or on the gravel road. Perhaps she walks along Highway 86 until she reaches his house in Baggböle or Västloning.
The asphalt is starting to dry. The rainwater is pooling in the ditches. The skies are brightening although raindrops still drip from the trees.
The prosecutor calls Joona and he can see her glancing at him in her rearview mirror as she talks.
“We’ve only found one Dennis in Indal,” she says. “He’s seven years old. The second Dennis lives in Stige, but he’s working in Leeds in England right now.”
“So that leaves only two,” Joona says.
“Right. Dennis and Lovisa Karmstedt live in a house on the outskirts of Tomming. We haven’t got to them yet. And then there’s Dennis Rolando. He lives with his parents just south of Indal. We’ve just visited the house and there’s no one there at the moment. This Dennis owns a large industrial building in Sundsvall, on Kvarnvägen, which we haven’t entered yet. There’s probably nothing there. At the moment, this Dennis is in his car on the road to Sollefteå.”
“Break down the door,” says Joona.
“Okay,” she says and ends the call.
The landscape opens up and fields line both sides of the highway. Red farm buildings press against the edge of the forest and, behind them, the forest stretches endlessly. Everything is shimmering after the rain.
As Joona passes through the sleepy village of Östanskär, two uniformed police officers in Sundsvall are sawing through the massive iron rail across the steel door of the industrial building with an angle grinder. A cascade of sparks flashes around the walls. Then the bar separates and the officers lever the door with a hefty crowbar. The door bends open and they walk inside. In the beams of their flashlights they can see dark heaps on the floor. They find about fifty ancient video games-Space Invaders, Asteroids, and Street Fighter-beneath dusty plastic sheets.
Meanwhile, Joona observes Susanne Öst speak on the cell phone and then cast him a glance via her rearview mirror. A second later, his cell phone rings. Susanne tells him they now only have one address left to check. It’s not far from where they are, and it should take ten minutes to get there.
Finally she slows down and Joona follows her as she turns onto a road between two waterlogged fields and drives up to a yellow wooden house. Its blinds are drawn. Apple trees are growing in a well-tended yard and a blue-and-white-striped hammock hangs between two of them. They park their cars and walk toward two police offers standing by a squad car.
Joona greets the officers and then studies the house. He says, “We don’t know if Vicky took the car in order to steal the child, or if she just wanted a car and the child happened to be in the backseat. At the moment, we must think of the child as a hostage.”