Joona leaves the living room and peeks into the bathroom, now in the process of being photographed in minute detail. He continues along the hallway and out the door of the apartment. He stops in front of the tight grillwork that covers the elevator shaft.
There’s a nameplate on the apartment door next to the elevator. Nilsson. Joona knocks and waits. Finally, he hears footsteps from inside. A plump woman of around sixty opens the door a crack and looks out.
“Well?”
“Hello, I’m Joona Linna, a detective inspector, and I-”
“But I told you before, I didn’t see his face.”
“Have the police already visited you? I didn’t know that.”
She opens the door wider and two cats hop down from the telephone table to disappear deeper in the apartment.
“He was wearing a Dracula mask,” the woman says impatiently, as if she’s said this a number of times before.
“Who?”
“Who?” the woman repeats, muttering, and goes inside her apartment.
After some time she returns with a yellowed newspaper clipping.
Joona takes a look at the twenty-year-old article describing a flasher who wore a Dracula mask and who groped women living in the Sodermalm district.
“He wasn’t wearing a stitch down there-”
“But this is not-”
“Not that I was looking, of course,” she continued. “But I’ve already talked to you about this over and over again.”
Joona looks at her and smiles. “I actually intended to ask you about something completely different.”
The woman’s eyes widen. “Well, why didn’t you say so?”
“I was wondering if you know your neighbor, Penelope Fernandez, who-”
“She’s like a grandchild to me,” the woman says. “So sweet, so kind, so pleasant-”
She stops herself short. “Is she dead?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Because the police only come over to ask unpleasant questions,” she replies.
“Did you notice any unusual visitors during the past couple of days?”
“Just because I’m old, doesn’t mean I pry into other people’s business.”
“No, I mean, perhaps you might have noticed something.”
“I have not.”
“Has anything else unusual happened lately?”
“Absolutely not. That girl is hardworking and dutiful.”
Joona thanks her for her time saying he might come back with a question some other time. Then he moves aside so the woman can shut the door.
There are not many more apartments on the fourth floor. He begins to climb the stairs. Halfway up, he finds a child sitting on the steps. It looks like a boy approximately eight years old. His hair is short and he’s wearing jeans and a worn Helly Hansen sweater. He has a bag with a bottle of Ramlosa mineral water. Its label is almost worn completely away. He also has half of a French roll.
Joona pauses in front of the child, who is looking at him in a shy way.
“Hello there,” Joona says. “What’s your name?”
“Mia.”
“My name’s Joona.”
Mia is a girl. Joona notices she has dirt on her chin and around her tiny neck.
“Do you carry a gun?” she asks. “Why do you ask?”
“You told Ella that you were from the police.”
“That’s right. I’m a detective inspector.”
“So you have a gun?”
“Yes, I do,” Joona says. “Would you like to shoot it off?”
The girl looks at him astonished.
“You’re joking.”
“Yes, I’m joking,” Joona says with a smile. The child laughs.
“Why are you sitting on the staircase?” he asks.
“I like it. You can hear stuff.”
Joona sits down next to the child.
“What kind of stuff have you heard?” he asks calmly.
“Right now I just heard you were from the police and I heard Ella lying to you.”
“What was she lying about?”
“That she likes Penelope,” Mia says.
“She doesn’t like Penelope?”
“She sticks cat poop through Penelope’s mail slot.”
“Why would she do something like that?”
“I dunno.” The girl shrugs her shoulders and fiddles with the bag on her lap.
“Do you like Penelope?”
“She says hi to me.”
“But you don’t know her?”
“Not really.”
Joona looks around. “Do you live in the stairwell?”
The girl gives a slight smile back. “No, I live on the second floor with my mom.”
“But you like to hang out on the stairs.”
Mia shrugs. “Most of the time.”
“Do you sleep here sometimes?”
The girl picks at the label on the bottle. “Sometimes.”
“Last Friday,” Joona says slowly. “Early in the morning, Penelope left home. She took a taxi.”
“No luck,” the girl says quickly. “She missed Bjorn by, like, a second. He got here right after she left. I told him that she just left.”
“What did he say?”
“No big deal, he said. He was just going to pick something up.”
“Pick something up?” Mia nods.
“Sometimes he lets me borrow his phone so I can play games on it. But he was in a hurry. He just went inside and came right back out. Then he locked the door and ran down the stairs.”
“Did you see what he picked up?”
“No.”
“What happened after that?”
“Nothing. I went to school. Quarter to nine.”
“And after school, in the evening. Did anything happen then?”
Mia shrugged. “Mom was gone so I was inside and I ate some macaroni and cheese and watched TV.”
“What about yesterday?”
“Mom was gone again so I was home.”
“So you didn’t see anyone coming or going?”
“No.”
Joona takes out one of his business cards and writes a telephone number.
“Look at this,” he tells Mia. “Here are two good telephone numbers. One is my own number.”
He points at the number on the card, which is also imprinted with the police insignia.
“Call me if you need help or if someone is doing something mean to you. And the other number is the Child
