The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo / Девочка с Татуировкой Дракона (by Stieg Larsson, 2005) - аудиокнига на английском

Stieg Larsson The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Originally published in Sweden as M?n Som Hatar Kvinnor, 2005 Translation copyright © 2008 by Reg Keeland PROLOGUE A Friday in November It happened every year, was almost a ritual. And this was his eighty-second birthday. When, as usual, the flower was delivered, he took off the wrapping paper and then picked up the telephone to call Detective Superintendent Morell who, when he retired, had moved to Lake Siljan in Dalarna. They were not only the same age, they had been born on the same day-which was something of an irony under the circumstances. The old policeman was sitting with his coffee, waiting, expecting the call. “It arrived.” “What is it this year?” “I don’t know what kind it is. I’ll have to get someone to tell me what it is. It’s white.” “No letter, I suppose.” “Just the flower. The frame is the same kind as last year. One of those do-it-yourself ones.” “Postmark?” “ Stockholm.” “Handwriting?” “Same as always, all in capitals. Upright, neat lettering.” With that, the subject was exhausted, and not another word was exchanged for almost a minute. The retired policeman leaned back in his kitchen chair and drew on his pipe. He knew he was no longer expected to come up with a pithy comment or any sharp question which would shed a new light on the case. Those days had long since passed, and the exchange between the two men seemed like a ritual attaching to a mystery which no-one else in the whole world had the least interest in unravelling. The Latin name was Leptospermum (Myrtaceae) rubinette. It was a plant about four inches high with small, heather-like foliage and a white flower with five petals about one inch across. The plant was native to the Australian bush and uplands, where it was to be found among tussocks of grass. There it was called Desert Snow. Someone at the botanical gardens in Uppsala would later confirm that it was a plant seldom cultivated in Sweden. The botanist wrote in her report that it was related to the tea tree and that it was sometimes confused with its more common cousin Leptospermum scoparium, which grew in abundance in New Zealand. What distinguished them, she pointed out, was that rubinette had a small number of microscopic pink dots at the tips of the petals, giving the flower a faint pinkish tinge. Rubinette was altogether an unpretentious flower. It had no known medicinal properties, and it could not induce hallucinatory experiences. It was neither edible, nor had a use in the manufacture of plant dyes. On the other hand, the aboriginal people of Australia regarded as sacred the region and the flora around Ayers Rock. The botanist said that she herself had never seen one before, but after consulting her colleagues she was to report that attempts had been made to introduce the plant at a nursery in G?teborg, and that it might, of course, be cultivated by amateur botanists. It was difficult to grow in Sweden because it thrived in a dry climate and had to remain indoors half of the year. It would not thrive in calcareous soil and it had to be watered from below. It needed pampering. The fact of its being so rare a flower ought to have made it easier to trace the source of this particular specimen, but in practice it was an impossible task. There was no registry to look it up in, no licences to explore. Anywhere from a handful to a few hundred enthusiasts could have had access to seeds or plants. And those could have changed hands between friends or been bought by mail order from anywhere in Europe, anywhere in the Antipodes. But it was only one in the series of mystifying flowers that each year arrived by post on the first day of November. They were always beautiful and for the most part rare flowers, always pressed, mounted on water-colour paper in a simple frame measuring six inches by eleven inches. The strange story of the flowers had never been reported in the press; only a very few people knew of it. Thirty years ago the regular arrival of the flower was the object of much scrutiny-at the National Forensic Laboratory, among fingerprint experts, graphologists, criminal investigators, and one or two relatives and friends of the recipient. Now the actors in the drama were but three: the elderly birthday boy, the retired police detective, and the person who had posted the flower. The first two at least had reached such an age that the group of interested parties would soon be further diminished. The policeman was a hardened veteran. He would never forget his first case, in which he had had to take into custody a violent and appallingly drunk worker at an electrical substation before he caused others harm. During his career he had brought in poachers, wife beaters, con men, car thieves, and drunk drivers. He had dealt with burglars, drug dealers, rapists, and one deranged bomber. He had been involved in nine murder or manslaughter cases. In five of these the murderer had called the police himself and, full of remorse, confessed to having killed his wife or brother or some other relative. Two others were solved within a few days. Another required the assistance of the National Criminal Police and took two years. The ninth case was solved to the police’s satisfaction, which is to say that they knew who the murderer was, but because the evidence was so insubstantial the public prosecutor decided not to proceed with the case. To the detective superintendent’s dismay, the statute of limitations eventually put an end to the matter. But all in all he could look back on an impressive career. He was anything but pleased. For the detective, the “Case of the Pressed Flowers” had been nagging at him for years-his last, unsolved, and frustrating case. The situation was doubly absurd because after spending literally thousands of hours brooding, on duty and off, he could not say beyond doubt that a crime had indeed been committed. The two men knew that whoever had mounted the flowers would have worn gloves, that there would be no fingerprints on the frame or the glass. The frame could have been bought in camera shops or stationery stores the world over. There was, quite simply, no lead to follow. Most often the parcel was posted in Stockholm, but three times from London, twice from Paris, twice from Copenhagen, once from Madrid, once from Bonn, and once from Pensacola, Florida. The detective superintendent had had to look it up in an atlas. After putting down the telephone the eighty-two-year-old birthday boy sat for a long time looking at the pretty but meaningless flower whose name he did not yet know. Then he looked up at the wall above his desk. There hung forty-three pressed flowers in their frames. Four rows of ten, and one at the bottom with four. In the top row one was missing from the ninth slot. Desert Snow would be number forty-four. Without warning he began to weep. He surprised himself with this sudden burst of emotion after almost forty years. PART 1. Incentive DECEMBER 20-JANUARY 3 Eighteen percent of the women in Sweden have at one time been threatened by a man. CHAPTER 1. Friday, December 20 The trial was irretrievably over; everything that could be said had been said, but he had never doubted that he would lose. The written verdict was handed down at 10:00 on Friday morning, and all that remained was a summing up from the reporters waiting in the corridor outside the district court. “Carl” Mikael Blomkvist saw them through the doorway and slowed his step. He had no wish to discuss the verdict, but questions were unavoidable, and he-of all people-knew that they had to be asked and answered. This is how it is to be a criminal, he thought. On the other side of the microphone. He straightened up and tried to smile. The reporters gave him friendly, almost embarrassed greetings. “Let’s see…Aftonbladet, Expressen, TT wire service, TV4, and…where are you from?…ah yes, Dagens Nyheter. I must be a celebrity,” Blomkvist said. “Give us a sound bite, Kalle Blomkvist.” It was a reporter from one of the evening papers. Blomkvist, hearing the nickname, forced himself as always not to roll his eyes. Once, when he was twenty-three and had just started his first summer job as a journalist, Blomkvist had chanced upon a gang which had pulled off five bank robberies over the past two years. There was no doubt that it was the same gang in every instance. Their trademark was to hold up two banks at a time with military precision. They wore masks from Disney World, so inevitably police logic dubbed them the Donald Duck Gang. The newspapers renamed them the Bear Gang, which sounded more sinister, more appropriate to the fact that on two occasions they had recklessly fired warning shots and threatened curious passersby. Their sixth outing was at a bank in ?sterg?tland at the height of the holiday season. A reporter from the local radio station happened to be in the bank at the time. As soon as the robbers were gone he went to a public telephone and dictated his story for live broadcast. Blomkvist was spending several days with a girlfriend at her parents’ summer cabin near Katrineholm. Exactly why he made the connection he could not explain, even to the police, but as he was listening to the news report he remembered a group of four men in a summer cabin a few hundred feet down the road. He had seen them playing badminton out in the yard: four blond, athletic types in shorts with their shirts off. They were obviously bodybuilders, and there had been something about them that had made him look twice-maybe it was because the game was being played in blazing sunshine with what he recognised as intensely focused energy. There had been no good reason to suspect them of being the bank robbers, but nevertheless he had gone to a hill overlooking their cabin. It seemed empty. It was about forty minutes before a Volvo drove up and parked in the yard. The young men got out, in a hurry, and were each carrying a sports bag, so they might have been doing nothing more than coming back from a swim. But one of them returned to the car and took out from the boot something which he hurriedly covered with his jacket. Even from Blomkvist’s relatively distant observation post he could tell that it was a good old AK4, the rifle that had been his constant companion for the year of his military service. He called the police and that was the start of a three-day siege of the cabin, blanket coverage by the media, with Blomkvist in a front-row seat and collecting a gratifyingly large fee from an evening paper. The police set up their headquarters in a caravan in the garden of the cabin where Blomkvist was staying. The fall of the Bear Gang gave him the star billing that launched him as a young journalist. The downside of his celebrity was that the other evening newspaper could not resist using the headline “Kalle Blomkvist solves the case.” The tongue-in-cheek story was written by an older female columnist and contained references to the young detective in Astrid Lindgren’s books for children. To make matters worse, the paper had run the story with a grainy photograph of Blomkvist with his mouth half open even as he raised an index finger to point. It made no difference that Blomkvist had never in life used the name Carl. From that moment on, to his dismay, he was nicknamed Kalle Blomkvist by his peers-an epithet employed with taunting provocation, not unfriendly but not really friendly either. In spite of his respect for Astrid Lindgren-whose books he loved-he detested the nickname. It took him several years and far weightier journalistic successes before the nickname began to fade, but he still cringed if ever the name was used in his hearing. Right now he achieved a placid smile and said to the reporter from the evening paper: “Oh come on, think of something yourself. You usually do.” His tone was not unpleasant. They all knew each other, more or less, and Blomkvist’s most vicious critics had not come that morning. One of the journalists there had at one time worked with him. And at a party some years ago he had nearly succeeded in picking up one of the reporters-the woman from She on TV4. “You took a real hit in there today,” said the one from Dagens Nyheter, clearly a young part-timer. “How does it feel?” Despite the seriousness of the situation, neither Blomkvist nor the older journalists could help smiling. He exchanged glances with TV4. How does it feel? The half-witted sports reporter shoves his microphone in the face of the Breathless Athlete on the finishing line. “I can only regret that the court did not come to a different conclusion,” he said a bit stuffily. “Three months in gaol and 150,000 kronor damages. That’s pretty severe,” said She from TV4. “I’ll survive.” “Are you going to apologise to Wennerstr?m? Shake his hand?” “I think not.” “So you still would say that he’s a crook?” Dagens Nyheter. The court had just ruled that Blomkvist had libelled and defamed the financier Hans-Erik Wennerstr?m. The trial was over and he had no plans to appeal. So what would happen if he repeated his claim on the courthouse steps? Blomkvist decided that he did not want to find out. “I thought I had good reason to publish the information that was in my possession. The court has ruled otherwise, and I must accept that the judicial process has taken its course. Those of us on the editorial staff will have to discuss the judgement before we decide what we’re going to do. I have no more to add.” “But how did you come to forget that journalists actually have to back up their assertions?” She from TV4. Her expression was neutral, but Blomkvist thought he saw a hint of disappointed repudiation in her eyes. The reporters on site, apart from the boy from Dagens Nyheter, were all veterans in the business. For them the answer to that question was beyond the conceivable. “I have nothing to add,” he repeated, but when the others had accepted this TV4 stood him against the doors to the courthouse and asked her questions in front of the camera. She was kinder than he deserved, and there were enough clear answers to satisfy all the reporters still standing behind her. The story would be in the headlines but he reminded himself that they were not dealing with the media event of the year here. The reporters had what they needed and headed back to their respective newsrooms. He considered walking, but it was a blustery December day and he was already cold after the interview. As he walked down the courtroom steps, he saw William Borg getting out of his car. He must have been sitting there during the interview. Their eyes met, and then Borg smiled. “It was worth coming down here just to see you with that paper in your hand.” Blomkvist said nothing. Borg and Blomkvist had known each other for fifteen years. They had worked together as cub reporters for the financial section of a morning paper. Maybe it was a question of chemistry, but the foundation had been laid there for a lifelong enmity. In Blomkvist’s eyes, Borg had been a third-rate reporter and a troublesome person who annoyed everyone around him with crass jokes and made disparaging remarks about the more experienced, older reporters. He seemed to dislike the older female reporters in particular. They had their first quarrel, then others, and anon the antagonism turned personal. Over the years, they had run into each other regularly, but it was not until the late nineties that they became serious enemies. Blomkvist had published a book about financial journalism and quoted extensively a number of idiotic articles written by Borg. Borg came across as a pompous ass who got many of his facts upside down and wrote homages to dot-com companies that were on the brink of going under. When thereafter they met by chance in a bar in S?der they had all but come to blows. Borg left journalism, and now he worked in PR-for a considerably higher salary-at a firm that, to make things worse, was part of industrialist Hans-Erik Wennerstr?m’s sphere of influence. They looked at each other for a long moment before Blomkvist turned on his heel and walked away. It was typical of Borg to drive to the courthouse simply to sit there and laugh at him. The number 40 bus braked to a stop in front of Borg’s car and Blomkvist hopped on to make his escape. He got off at Fridhemsplan, undecided what to do. He was still holding the judgement document in his hand. Finally he walked over to Kaf? Anna, next to the garage entrance leading underneath the police station. Half a minute after he had ordered a caffe latte and a sandwich, the lunchtime news came on the radio. The story followed that of a suicide bombing in Jerusalem and the news that the government had appointed a commission to investigate the alleged formation of a new cartel within the construction industry. Journalist Mikael Blomkvist of the magazine Millennium was sentenced this morning to 90 days in gaol for aggravated libel of industrialist Hans-Erik Wennerstr?m. In an article earlier this year that drew attention to the so-called Minos affair, Blomkvist claimed that Wennerstr?m had used state funds intended for industrial investment in Poland for arms deals. Blomkvist was also sentenced to pay 150,000 SEK in damages. In a statement, Wennerstr?m’s lawyer Bertil Camnermarker said that his client was satisfied with the judgement. It was an exceptionally outrageous case of libel, he said. The judgement was twenty-six pages long. It set out the reasons for finding Blomkvist guilty on fifteen counts of aggravated libel of the businessman Hans-Erik Wennerstr?m. So each count cost him ten thousand kronor and six days in gaol. And then there were the court costs and his own lawyer’s fee. He could not bring himself to think about all the expenses, but he calculated too that it might have been worse; the court had acquitted him on seven other counts. As he read the judgement, he felt a growing heaviness and discomfort in his stomach. This surprised him. As the trial began he knew that it would take a miracle for him to escape conviction, and he had become reconciled to the outcome. He sat through the two days of the trial surprisingly calm, and for eleven more days he waited, without feeling anything in particular, for the court to finish deliberating and to come up with the document he now held in his hand. It was only now that a physical unease washed over him. When he took a bite of his sandwich, the bread seemed to swell up in his mouth. He could hardly swallow it and pushed his plate aside. This was the first time that Blomkvist had faced any charge. The judgement was a trifle, relatively speaking. A lightweight crime. Not armed robbery, murder, or rape after all. From a financial point of view, however, it was serious-Millennium was not a flagship of the media world with unlimited resources, the magazine barely broke even-but the judgement did not spell catastrophe. The problem was that Blomkvist was one of Millennium’s part owners, and at the same time, idiotically enough, he was both a writer and the magazine’s publisher. The damages of 150,000 kronor he would pay himself, although that would just about wipe out his savings. The magazine would take care of the court costs. With prudent budgeting it would work out. He pondered the wisdom of selling his apartment, though it would break his heart. At the end of the go-go eighties, during a period when he had a steady job and a pretty good salary, he had looked around for a permanent place to live. He ran from one apartment showing to another before he stumbled on an attic flat of 700 square feet right at the end of Bellmansgatan. The previous owner was in the middle of making it liveable but suddenly got a job at a dot-com company abroad, and Blomkvist was able to buy it inexpensively. He rejected the original interior designer’s sketches and finished the work himself. He put money into fixing up the bathroom and the kitchen area, but instead of putting in a parquet floor and interior walls to make it into the planned two-room apartment, he sanded the floor-boards, whitewashed the rough walls, and hid the worst patches behind two watercolours by Emanuel Bernstone. The result was an open living space, with the bedroom area behind a bookshelf, and the dining area and the living room next to the small kitchen behind a counter. The apartment had two dormer windows and a gable window with a view of the rooftops towards Gamla Stan, Stockholm ’s oldest section, and the water of Riddarfj?rden. He had a glimpse of water by the Slussen locks and a view of City Hall. Today he would never be able to afford such an apartment, and he badly wanted to hold on to it. But that he might lose the apartment was nothing beside the fact that professionally he had received a real smack in the nose. It would take a long time to repair the damage-if indeed it could ever be repaired. It was a matter of trust. For the foreseeable future, editors would hesitate to publish a story under his byline. He still had plenty of friends in the business who would accept that he had fallen victim to bad luck and unusual circumstances, but he was never again going to be able to make the slightest mistake. What hurt most was the humiliation. He had held all the trumps and yet he had lost to a semi-gangster in an Armani suit. A despicable stock-market speculator. A yuppie with a celebrity lawyer who sneered his way through the whole trial. How in God’s name had things gone so wrong? The Wennerstr?m affair had started out with such promise in the cockpit of a thirty-seven-foot M?lar-30 on Midsummer Eve a year and a half earlier. It began by chance, all because a former journalist colleague, now a PR flunky at the county council, wanted to impress his new girlfriend. He had rashly hired a Scampi for a few days of romantic sailing in the Stockholm archipelago. The girlfriend, just arrived from Hallstahammar to study in Stockholm, had agreed to the outing after putting up token resistance, but only if her sister and her sister’s boyfriend could come too. None of the trio from Hallstahammar had any sailing experience, and unfortunately Blomkvist’s old colleague had more enthusiasm than experience. Three days before they set off he had called in desperation and persuaded him to come as a fifth crew member, one who knew navigation. Blomkvist had not thought much of the proposal, but he came around when promised a few days of relaxation in the archipelago with good food and pleasant company. These promises came to naught, and the expedition turned into more of a disaster than he could have imagined. They had sailed the beautiful but not very dramatic route from Bulland? up through Furusund Strait at barely 9 knots, but the new girlfriend was instantly seasick. Her sister started arguing with her boyfriend, and none of them showed the slightest interest in learning the least little thing about sailing. It quickly became clear that Blomkvist was expected to take charge of the boat while the others gave him well-intentioned but basically meaningless advice. After the first night in a bay on ?ngs? he was ready to dock the boat at Furusund and take the bus home. Only their desperate appeals persuaded him to stay. At noon the next day, early enough that there were still a few spaces available, they tied up at the visitors’ wharf on the picturesque island of Arholma. They had thrown some lunch together and had just finished when Blomkvist noticed a yellow fibreglass M-30 gliding into the bay using only its mainsail. The boat made a graceful tack while the helmsman looked for a spot at the wharf. Blomkvist too scanned the space around and saw that the gap between their Scampi and an H-boat on the starboard side was the only slot left. The narrow M-30 would just fit. He stood up in the stern and pointed; the man in the M-30 raised a hand in thanks and steered towards the wharf. A lone sailor who was not going to bother starting up the engine, Blomkvist noticed. He heard the rattle of the anchor chain and seconds later the main came down, while the skipper moved like a scalded cat to guide the rudder straight for the slot and at the same time ready the line from the bow. Blomkvist climbed up on the railing and held out a hand for the painter. The new arrival made one last course correction and glided perfectly up to the stern of the Scampi, by now moving very slowly. It was only as the man tossed the painter to Blomkvist that they recognised each other and smiled in delight. “Hi, Robban. Why don’t you use your engine so you don’t scrape the paint off all the boats in the harbour?” “Hi, Micke. I thought there was something familiar about you. I’d love to use the engine if I could only get the piece of crap started. It died two days ago out by R?dl?ga.” They shook hands across the railings. An eternity before, at Kungsholmen school in the seventies, Blomkvist and Robert Lindberg had been friends, even very good friends. As so often happens with school buddies, the friendship faded after they had gone their separate ways. They had met maybe half a dozen times in the past twenty years, the last one seven or eight years ago. Now they studied each other with interest. Lindberg had tangled hair, was tanned and had a two-week-old beard. Blomkvist immediately felt in much better spirits. When the PR guy and his silly girlfriend went off to dance around the Midsummer pole in front of the general store on the other side of the island, he stayed behind with his herring and aquavit in the cockpit of the M-30, shooting the breeze with his old school pal. Sometime that evening, after they had given up the battle with Arholma’s notorious mosquitoes and moved down to the cabin, and after quite a few shots of aquavit, the conversation turned to friendly banter about ethics in the corporate world. Lindberg had gone from school to the Stockholm School of Economics and into the banking business. Blomkvist had graduated from the Stockholm School of Journalism and devoted much of his professional life to exposing corruption in the banking and business world. Their talk began to explore what was ethically satisfactory in certain golden parachute agreements during the nineties. Lindberg eventually conceded there were one or two immoral bastards in the business world. He looked at Blomkvist with an expression that was suddenly serious. “Why don’t you write about Hans-Erik Wennerstr?m?” “I didn’t know there was anything to write about him.” “Dig. Dig, for God’s sake. How much do you know about the AIA programme?” “Well, it was a sort of assistance programme in the nineties to help industry in the former Eastern Bloc countries get back on their feet. It was shut down a couple of years ago. It’s nothing I’ve ever looked into.” “The Agency for Industrial Assistance was a project that was backed by the state and administered by representatives of about a dozen big Swedish firms. The AIA obtained government guarantees for a number of projects initiated in agreement with the governments in Poland and the Baltics. The Swedish Trade Union Confederation, LO, also joined in as a guarantor that the workers’ movement in the East would be strengthened as well by following the Swedish model. In theory, it was an assistance project that built on the principle of offering help for self-help, and it was supposed to give the regimes in the East the opportunity to restructure their economies. In practice, however, it meant that Swedish companies would get state subventions for going in and establishing themselves as part owners in companies in Eastern European countries. That goddammed minister in the Christian party was an ardent advocate of the AIA, which was going to set up a paper mill in Krakow and provide new equipment for a metals industry in Riga, a cement factory in Tallinn, and so on. The funds would be distributed by the AIA board, which consisted of a number of heavyweights from the banking and corporate world.” “So it was tax money?” “About half came from government contributions, and the banks and corporations put up the rest. But it was far from an ideal operation. The banks and industry were counting on making a sweet profit. Otherwise they damn well wouldn’t have bothered.” “How much money are we talking about?” “Hold on, listen to this. The AIA was dealing primarily with big Swedish firms who wanted to get into the Eastern European market. Heavy industries like ASEA Brown Boveri and Skanska Construction and the like. Not speculation firms, in other words.” “Are you telling me that Skanska doesn’t do speculation? Wasn’t it their managing director who was fired after he let some of his boys speculate away half a billion in quick stock turnovers? And how about their hysterical property deals in London and Oslo?” “Sure, there are idiots in every company the world over, but you know what I mean. At least those companies actually produce something. The backbone of Swedish industry and all that.” “Where does Wennerstr?m come into the picture?” “Wennerstr?m is the joker in the pack. Meaning that he’s a guy who turns up out of the blue, who has no background whatsoever in heavy industry, and who really has no business getting involved in these projects. But he has amassed a colossal fortune on the stock market and has invested in solid companies. He came in by the back door, so to speak.” As he sat there in the boat, Blomkvist filled his glass with Reimersholms brandy and leaned back, trying to remember what little he knew about Wennerstr?m. Born up in Norrland, where in the seventies he set up an investment company. He made money and moved to Stockholm, and there his career took off in the eighties. He created Wennerstr?m-gruppen, the Wennerstr?m Group, when they set up offices in London and New York and the company started to get mentioned in the same articles as Beijer. He traded stock and options and liked to make quick deals, and he emerged in the celebrity press as one of Sweden ’s numerous billionaires with a city home on Strandv?gen, a fabulous summer villa on the island of V?rmd?, and an eighty-two-foot motor yacht that he bought from a bankrupt former tennis star. He was a bean counter, naturally, but the eighties was the decade of the bean counters and property speculators, and Wennerstr?m had not made a significantly big splash. On the contrary, he had remained something of a man in the shadows among his peers. He lacked Jan Stenbeck’s flamboyance and did not spread himself all over the tabloids like Percy Barnevik. He said goodbye to real estate and instead made massive investments in the former Eastern Bloc. When the bubble burst in the nineties and one managing director after another was forced to cash in his golden parachute, Wennerstr?m’s company came out of it in remarkably good shape. “A Swedish success story,” as the Financial Times called it. “That was 1992,” Lindberg said. “Wennerstr?m contacted AIA and said he wanted funding. He presented a plan, seemingly backed by interests in Poland, which aimed at establishing an industry for the manufacture of packaging for foodstuffs.” “A tin-can industry, you mean.” “Not quite, but something along those lines. I have no idea who he knew at the AIA, but he walked out with sixty million kronor.” “This is starting to get interesting. Let me guess: that was the last anyone saw of the money.” “Wrong.” Lindberg gave a sly smile before he fortified himself with a few more sips of brandy. “What happened after that is a piece of classic bookkeeping. Wennerstr?m really did set up a packaging factory in Poland, in L?dz. The company was called Minos. AIA received a few enthusiastic reports during 1993, then silence. In 1994, Minos, out of the blue, collapsed.” Lindberg put his empty glass down with an emphatic smack. “The problem with AIA was that there was no real system in place for reporting on the project. You remember those days: everyone was so optimistic when the Berlin Wall came down. Democracy was going to be introduced, the threat of nuclear war was over, and the Bolsheviks would turn into regular little capitalists overnight. The government wanted to nail down democracy in the East. Every capitalist wanted to jump on the bandwagon and help build the new Europe.” “I didn’t know that capitalists were so anxious to get involved in charity.” “Believe me, it was a capitalist’s wet dream. Russia and Eastern Europe may be the world’s biggest untapped markets after China. Industry had no problem joining hands with the government, especially when the companies were required to put up only a token investment. In all, AIA swallowed about thirty billion kronor of the taxpayers’ money. It was supposed to come back in future profits. Formally, AIA was the government’s initiative, but the influence of industry was so great that in actual fact the AIA board was operating independently.” “So is there a story in all this?” “Be patient. When the project started there was no problem with financing. Sweden hadn’t yet been hit by the interest-rate shock. The government was happy to plug AIA as one of the biggest Swedish efforts to promote democracy in the East.” “And this was all under the Conservative government?” “Don’t get politics mixed up in this. It’s all about money and it makes no difference if the Social Democrats or the moderates appoint the ministers. So, full speed ahead. Then came the foreign-exchange problems, and after that some crazy New Democrats-remember them?-started whining that there was a shortage of oversight in what AIA was into. One of their henchmen had confused AIA with the Swedish International Development Authority and thought it was all some damn do-gooder project like the one in Tanzania. In the spring of 1994 a commission was appointed to investigate. At that time there were concerns about several projects, but one of the first to be investigated was Minos.” “And Wennerstr?m couldn’t show what the funds had been used for.” “Far from it. He produced an excellent report which showed that around fifty-four million kronor was invested in Minos. But it turned out that there were too many huge administrative problems in what was left of Poland for a modern packaging industry to be able to function. In practice their factory was shut out by the competition from a similar German project. The Germans were doing their best to buy up the entire Eastern Bloc.” “You said that he had been given sixty million kronor.” “Exactly. The money served as an interest-free loan. The idea, of course, was that the companies would pay back part of the money over a number of years. But Minos had gone under and Wennerstr?m could not be blamed for it. Here the state guarantees kicked in, and Wennerstr?m was indemnified. All he needed to do was pay back the money that was lost when Minos went under, and he could also show that he had lost a corresponding amount of his own money.” “Let me see if I understand this correctly. The government supplied billions in tax money, and diplomats to open doors. Industries got the money and used it to invest in joint ventures from which they later reaped vast profits. In other words, business as usual.” “You’re a cynic. The loans were supposed to be paid back to the state.” “You said that they were interest-free. So that means the taxpayers got nothing at all for putting up the cash. Wennerstr?m got sixty million, and invested fifty-four million of it. What happened to the other six million?” “When it became clear that the AIA project was going to be investigated, Wennerstr?m sent a cheque for six million to AIA for the difference. So the matter was settled, legally at least.” “It sounds as though Wennerstr?m frittered away a little money for AIA. But compared with the half billion that disappeared from Skanska or the CEO of ABB’s golden parachute of more than a billion kronor-which really upset people-this doesn’t seem to be much to write about,” Blomkvist said. “Today’s readers are pretty tired of stories about incompetent speculators, even if it’s with public funds. Is there more to the story?” “It gets better.” “How do you know all this about Wennerstr?m’s deals in Poland?” “I worked at Handelsbanken in the nineties. Guess who wrote the reports for the bank’s representative in AIA?” “Aha. Tell me more.” “Well, AIA got their report from Wennerstr?m. Documents were drawn up. The balance of the money had been paid back. That six million coming back was very clever.” “Get to the point.” “But, my dear Blomkvist, that is the point. AIA was satisfied with Wennerstr?m’s report. It was an investment that went to hell, but there was no criticism of the way it had been managed. We looked at invoices and transfers and all the documents. Everything was meticulously accounted for. I believed it. My boss believed it. AIA believed it, and the government had nothing to say.” “Where’s the hook?” “This is where the story gets ticklish,” Lindberg said, looking surprisingly sober. “And since you’re a journalist, this is off the record.” “Come off it. You can’t sit there telling me all this stuff and then say I can’t use it.” “I certainly can. What I’ve told you so far is in the public record. You can look up the report if you want. The rest of the story-what I haven’t told you-you can write about, but you’ll have to treat me as an anonymous source.” “OK, but ‘off the record’ in current terminology means that I’ve been told something in confidence and can’t write about it.” “Screw the terminology. Write whatever the hell you want, but I’m your anonymous source. Are we agreed?” “Of course,” Blomkvist said. In hindsight, this was a mistake. “All right then. The Minos story took place more than a decade ago, just after the Wall came down and the Bolsheviks starting acting like decent capitalists. I was one of the people who investigated Wennerstr?m, and the whole time I thought there was something damned odd about his story.” “Why didn’t you say so when you signed off on his report?” “I discussed it with my boss. But the problem was that there wasn’t anything to pinpoint. The documents were all OK, I had only to sign the report. Every time I’ve seen Wennerstr?m’s name in the press since then I think about Minos, and not least because some years later, in the mid-nineties, my bank was doing some business with Wennerstr?m. Pretty big business, actually, and it didn’t turn out so well.” “He cheated you?” “No, nothing that obvious. We both made money on the deals. It was more that…I don’t know quite how to explain it, and now I’m talking about my own employer, and I don’t want to do that. But what struck me-the lasting and overall impression, as they say-was not positive. Wennerstr?m is presented in the media as a tremendous financial oracle. He thrives on that. It’s his ‘trust capital.’” “I know what you mean.” “My impression was that the man was all bluff. He wasn’t even particularly bright as a financier. In fact, I thought he was damned ignorant about certain subjects although he had some really sharp young warriors for advisers. Above all, I really didn’t care for him personally.” “So?” “A few years ago I went down to Poland on some other matter. Our group had dinner with some investors in L?dz, and I found myself at the same table as the mayor. We talked about the difficulty of getting Poland ’s economy on its feet and all that, and somehow or other I mentioned the Minos project. The mayor looked quite astonished for a moment-as if he had never heard of Minos. He told me it was some crummy little business and nothing ever came of it. He laughed and said-I’m quoting word for word-that if that was the best our investors could manage, then Sweden wasn’t long for this life. Are you following me?” “That mayor of L?dz is obviously a sharp fellow, but go on.” “The next day I had a meeting in the morning, but the rest of my day was free. For the hell of it I drove out to look at the shut-down Minos factory in a small town outside of L?dz. The giant Minos factory was a ram-shackle structure. A corrugated iron storage building that the Red Army had built in the fifties. I found a watchman on the property who could speak a little German and discovered that one of his cousins had worked at Minos and we went over to his house nearby. The watchman interpreted. Are you interested in hearing what he had to say?” “I can hardly wait.” “Minos opened in the autumn of 1992. There were at most fifteen employees, the majority of them old women. Their pay was around one hundred fifty kronor a month. At first there were no machines, so the workforce spent their time cleaning up the place. In early October three cardboard box machines arrived from Portugal. They were old and completely obsolete. The scrap value couldn’t have been more than a few thousand kronor. The machines did work, but they kept breaking down. Naturally there were no spare parts, so Minos suffered endless stoppages.” “This is starting to sound like a story,” Blomkvist said. “What did they make at Minos?” “Throughout 1992 and half of 1993 they produced simple cardboard boxes for washing powders and egg cartons and the like. Then they started making paper bags. But the factory could never get enough raw materials, so there was never a question of much volume of production.” “This doesn’t sound like a gigantic investment.” “I ran the numbers. The total rent must have been around 15,000 kronor for two years. Wages may have amounted to 150,000 SEK at most-and I’m being generous here. Cost of machines and cost of freight…a van to deliver the egg cartons…I’m guessing 250,000. Add fees for permits, a little travelling back and forth-apparently one person from Sweden did visit the site a few times. It looks as though the whole operation ran for under two million. One day in the summer of 1993 the foreman came down to the factory and said it was shut down, and a while later a Hungarian lorry appeared and carried off the machinery. Bye-bye, Minos.” In the course of the trial Blomkvist had often thought of that Midsummer Eve. For large parts of the evening the tone of the conversation made it feel as if they were back at school, having a friendly argument. As teenagers they had shared the burdens common to that stage in life. As grown-ups they were effectively strangers, by now quite different sorts of people. During their talk Blomkvist had thought that he really could not recall what it was that had made them such friends at school. He remembered Lindberg as a reserved boy, incredibly shy with girls. As an adult he was a successful…well, climber in the banking world. He rarely got drunk, but that chance meeting had transformed a disastrous sailing trip into a pleasant evening. And because the conversation had so much an echo of a schoolboy tone, he did not at first take Lindberg’s story about Wennerstr?m seriously. Gradually his professional instincts were aroused. Eventually he was listening attentively, and the logical objections surfaced. “Wait a second,” he said. “Wennerstr?m is a top name among market speculators. He’s made himself a billion, has he not?” “The Wennerstr?m Group is sitting on somewhere close to two hundred billion. You’re going to ask why a billionaire should go to the trouble of swindling a trifling fifty million.” “Well, put it this way: why would he risk his own and his company’s good name on such a blatant swindle?” “It wasn’t so obviously a swindle given that the AIA board, the bankers, the government, and Parliament’s auditors all approved Wennerstr?m’s accounting without a single dissenting vote.” “It’s still a ridiculously small sum for so vast a risk.” “Certainly. But just think: the Wennerstr?m Group is an investment company that deals with property, securities, options, foreign exchange…you name it. Wennerstr?m contacted AIA in 1992 just as the bottom was about to drop out of the market. Do you remember the autumn of 1992?” “Do I? I had a variable-rate mortgage on my apartment when the interest rate shot up five hundred percent in October. I was stuck with nineteen percent interest for a year.” “Those were indeed the days,” Lindberg said. “I lost a bundle that year myself. And Hans-Erik Wennerstr?m-like every other player in the market-was wrestling with the same problem. The company had billions tied up in paper of various types, but not so much cash. All of a sudden they could no longer borrow any amount they liked. The usual thing in such a situation is to unload a few properties and lick your wounds, but in 1992 nobody wanted to buy real estate.” “Cash-flow problems.” “Exactly. And Wennerstr?m wasn’t the only one. Every businessman…” “Don’t say businessman. Call them what you like, but calling them businessmen is an insult to a serious profession.” “All right, every speculator had cash-flow problems. Look at it this way: Wennerstr?m got sixty million kronor. He paid back six mil, but only after three years. The real cost of Minos didn’t come to more than two million. The interest alone on sixty million for three years, that’s quite a bit. Depending on how he invested the money, he might have doubled the AIA money, or maybe grown it ten times over. Then we’re no longer talking about cat shit. Sk?l, by the way.” CHAPTER 2. Friday, December 20 Dragan Armansky was born in Croatia fifty-six years ago. His father was an Armenian Jew from Belorussia. His mother was a Bosnian Muslim of Greek extraction. She had taken charge of his upbringing and his education, which meant that as an adult he was lumped together with that large, heterogeneous group defined by the media as Muslims. The Swedish immigration authorities had registered him, strangely enough, as a Serb. His passport confirmed that he was a Swedish citizen, and his passport photograph showed a squarish face, a strong jaw, five-o’clock shadow, and greying temples. He was often referred to as “The Arab,” although he did not have a drop of Arab blood. He looked a little like the stereotypical local boss in an American gangster movie, but in fact he was a talented financial director who had begun his career as a junior accountant at Milton Security in the early seventies. Three decades later he had advanced to CEO and COO of the company. He had become fascinated with the security business. It was like war games-to identify threats, develop counter-strategies, and all the time stay one step ahead of the industrial spies, blackmailers and thieves. It began for him when he discovered how the swindling of a client had been accomplished through creative bookkeeping. He was able to prove who, from a group of a dozen people, was behind it. He had been promoted and played a key role in the firm’s development and was an expert in financial fraud. Fifteen years later he became CEO. He had transformed Milton Security into one of Sweden ’s most competent and trusted security firms. The company had 380 full-time employees and another 300 freelancers. It was small compared to Falck or Swedish Guard Service. When Armansky first joined, the company was called Johan Fredrik Milton’s General Security AB, and it had a client list consisting of shopping centres that needed floorwalkers and muscular guards. Under his leadership the firm was now the internationally recognised Milton Security and had invested in cutting-edge technology. Night watchmen well past their prime, uniform fetishists, and moonlighting university students had been replaced by people with real professional skills. Armansky hired mature ex-policemen as operations chiefs, political scientists specialising in international terrorism, and experts in personal protection and industrial espionage. Most importantly, he hired the best telecommunications technicians and IT experts. The company moved from Solna to state-of-the-art offices near Slussen, in the heart of Stockholm. By the start of the nineties, Milton Security was equipped to offer a new level of security to an exclusive group of clients, primarily medium-sized corporations and well-to-do private individuals-nouveau-riche rock stars, stock-market speculators, and dot-com high flyers. A part of the company’s activity was providing bodyguard protection and security solutions to Swedish firms abroad, especially in the Middle East. This area of their business now accounted for 70 percent of the company’s turnover. Under Armansky, sales had increased from about forty million SEK annually to almost two billion. Providing security was a lucrative business. Operations were divided among three main areas: security consultations, which consisted of identifying conceivable or imagined threats; counter-measures, which usually involved the installation of security cameras, burglar and fire alarms, electronic locking mechanisms and IT systems; and personal protection for private individuals or companies. This last market had grown forty times over in ten years. Lately a new client group had arisen: affluent women seeking protection from former boyfriends or husbands or from stalkers. In addition, Milton Security had a cooperative arrangement with similar firms of good repute in Europe and the United States. The company also handled security for many international visitors to Sweden, including an American actress who was shooting a film for two months in Trollh?ttan. Her agent felt that her status warranted having bodyguards accompany her whenever she took her infrequent walks near the hotel. A fourth, considerably smaller area that occupied only a few employees was what was called PI or P-In, in internal jargon pinders, which stood for personal investigations. Armansky was not altogether enamoured of this part of their business. It was troublesome and less lucrative. It put greater demands on the employees’ judgement and experience than on their knowledge of telecommunications technology or the installation of surveillance apparatus. Personal investigations were acceptable when it was a matter of credit information, background checks before hiring, or to investigate suspicions that some employee had leaked company information or engaged in criminal activity. In such cases the pinders were an integral part of the operational activity. But not infrequently his business clients would drag in private problems that had a tendency to create unwelcome turmoil. I want to know what sort of creep my daughter is going out with…I think my wife is being unfaithful…The guy is OK but he’s mixed up with bad company…I’m being blackmailed… Armansky often gave them a straightforward no. If the daughter was an adult, she had the right to go out with any creep she wanted to, and he thought infidelity was something that husbands and wives ought to work out on their own. Hidden in all such inquiries were traps that could lead to scandal and create legal problems for Milton Security. Which was why Dragan Armansky kept a close watch on these assignments, in spite of how modest the revenue was. The morning’s topic was just such a personal investigation. Armansky straightened the crease in his trousers before he leaned back in his comfortable chair. He glanced suspiciously at his colleague Lisbeth Salander, who was thirty-two years his junior. He thought for the thousandth time that nobody seemed more out of place in a prestigious security firm than she did. His mistrust was both wise and irrational. In Armansky’s eyes, Salander was beyond doubt the most able investigator he had met in all his years in the business. During the four years she had worked for him she had never once fumbled a job or turned in a single mediocre report. On the contrary, her reports were in a class by themselves. Armansky was convinced that she possessed a unique gift. Anybody could find out credit information or run a check with police records. But Salander had imagination, and she always came back with something different from what he expected. How she did it, he had never understood. Sometimes he thought that her ability to gather information was sheer magic. She knew the bureaucratic archives inside out. Above all, she had the ability to get under the skin of the person she was investigating. If there was any dirt to be dug up, she would home in on it like a cruise missile. Somehow she had always had this gift. Her reports could be a catastrophe for the individual who landed in her radar. Armansky would never forget the time he assigned her to do a routine check on a researcher in the pharmaceutical industry before a corporate buyout. The job was scheduled to take a week, but it dragged on for a while. After four weeks’ silence and several reminders, which she ignored, Salander came back with a report documenting that the subject in question was a paedophile. On two occasions he had bought sex from a thirteen-year-old child prostitute in Tallinn, and there were indications that he had an unhealthy interest in the daughter of the woman with whom he was currently living. Salander had habits that sometimes drove Armansky to the edge of despair. In the case of the paedophile, she did not pick up the telephone and call Armansky or come into his office wanting to talk to him. No, without indicating by a single word that the report might contain explosive material, she laid it on his desk one evening, just as Armansky was about to leave for the day. He read it only late that evening, as he was relaxing over a bottle of wine in front of the TV with his wife in their villa on Liding?. The report was, as always, almost scientifically precise, with footnotes, quotations, and source references. The first few pages gave the subject’s background, education, career, and financial situation. Not until page 24 did Salander drop the bombshell about the trips to Tallinn, in the same dry-as-dust tone she used to report that he lived in Sollentuna and drove a dark blue Volvo. She referred to documentation in an exhaustive appendix, including photographs of the thirteen-year-old girl in the company of the subject. The pictures had been taken in a hotel corridor in Tallinn, and the man had his hand under the girl’s sweater. Salander had tracked down the girl in question and she had provided her account on tape. The report had created precisely the chaos that Armansky had wanted to avoid. First he had to swallow a few ulcer tablets prescribed by his doctor. Then he called in the client for a sombre emergency meeting. Finally-over the client’s fierce objections-he was forced to refer the material to the police. This meant that Milton Security risked being drawn into a tangled web. If Salander’s evidence could not be substantiated or the man was acquitted, the company might risk a libel suit. It was a nightmare. However, it was not Lisbeth Salander’s astonishing lack of emotional involvement that most upset him. Milton ’s image was one of conservative stability. Salander fitted into this picture about as well as a buffalo at a boat show. Armansky’s star researcher was a pale, anorexic young woman who had hair as short as a fuse, and a pierced nose and eyebrows. She had a wasp tattoo about an inch long on her neck, a tattooed loop around the biceps of her left arm and another around her left ankle. On those occasions when she had been wearing a tank top, Armansky also saw that she had a dragon tattoo on her left shoulder blade. She was a natural redhead, but she dyed her hair raven black. She looked as though she had just emerged from a week-long orgy with a gang of hard rockers. She did not in fact have an eating disorder, Armansky was sure of that. On the contrary, she seemed to consume every kind of junk food. She had simply been born thin, with slender bones that made her look girlish and fine-limbed with small hands, narrow wrists, and childlike breasts. She was twenty-four, but she sometimes looked fourteen. She had a wide mouth, a small nose, and high cheekbones that gave her an almost Asian look. Her movements were quick and spidery, and when she was working at the computer her fingers flew over the keys. Her extreme slenderness would have made a career in modelling impossible, but with the right make-up her face could have put her on any billboard in the world. Sometimes she wore black lipstick, and in spite of the tattoos and the pierced nose and eyebrows she was…well…attractive. It was inexplicable. The fact that Salander worked for Dragan Armansky at all was astonishing. She was not the sort of woman with whom he would normally come into contact. She had been hired as a jill-of-all-trades. Holger Palmgren, a semi-retired lawyer who looked after old J. F. Milton’s personal affairs, had told Armansky that this Lisbeth Salander was a quick-witted girl with “a rather trying attitude.” Palmgren had appealed to him to give her a chance, which Armansky had, against his better judgement, promised to do. Palmgren was the type of man who would only take “no” as an encouragement to redouble his efforts, so it was easier to say “yes” right away. Armansky knew that Palmgren devoted himself to troubled kids and other social misfits, but he did have good judgement. He had regretted his decision to hire the girl the moment he met her. She did not just seem difficult-in his eyes she was the very quintessence of difficult. She had dropped out of school and had no sort of higher education. The first few months she had worked full time, well, almost full time. She turned up at the office now and then. She made coffee, went to the post office, and took care of the copying, but conventional office hours or work routines were anathema to her. On the other hand, she had a talent for irritating the other employees. She became known as “the girl with two brain cells”-one for breathing and one for standing up. She never talked about herself. Colleagues who tried to talk to her seldom got a response and soon gave up. Her attitude encouraged neither trust nor friendship, and she quickly became an outsider wandering the corridors of Milton like a stray cat. She was generally considered a hopeless case. After a month of nothing but trouble, Armansky sent for her, fully intending to let her go. She listened to his catalogue of her offences without objection and without even raising an eyebrow. She did not have the “right attitude,” he concluded, and was about to tell her that it would probably be a good idea if she looked for employment with another firm that could make better use of her skills. Only then did she interrupt him. “You know, if you just want an office serf you can get one from the temp agency. I can handle anything and anyone you want, and if you don’t have any better use for me than sorting post, then you’re an idiot.” Armansky sat there, stunned and angry, and she went on unperturbed. “You have a man here who spent three weeks writing a completely useless report about that yuppie they’re thinking of recruiting for that dot-com company. I copied the piece of crap for him last night, and I see it’s lying on your desk now.” Armansky’s eyes went to the report, and for a change he raised his voice. “You’re not supposed to read confidential reports.” “Apparently not, but the security routines in your firm have a number of shortcomings. According to your directive he’s supposed to copy such things himself, but he chucked the report at me before he left for the bar yesterday. And by the way, I found his previous report in the canteen.” “You did what?” “Calm down. I put it in his in-box.” “Did he give you the combination to his document safe?” Armansky was aghast. “Not exactly; he wrote it on a piece of paper he kept underneath his blotter along with the password to his computer. But the point is that your joke of a private detective has done a worthless personal investigation. He missed the fact that the guy has old gambling debts and snorts cocaine like a vacuum cleaner. Or that his girlfriend had to seek help from the women’s crisis centre after he beat the shit out of her.” Armansky sat for a couple of minutes turning the pages of the report. It was competently set out, written in clear language, and filled with source references as well as statements from the subject’s friends and acquaintances. Finally he raised his eyes and said two words: “Prove it.” “How much time have I got?” “Three days. If you can’t prove your allegations by Friday afternoon you’re fired.” Three days later she delivered a report which, with equally exhaustive source references, transformed the outwardly pleasant young yuppie into an unreliable bastard. Armansky read her report over the weekend, several times, and spent part of Monday doing a half-hearted double-check of some of her assertions. Even before he began he knew that her information would prove to be accurate. Armansky was bewildered and also angry with himself for having so obviously misjudged her. He had taken her for stupid, maybe even retarded. He had not expected that a girl who had cut so many classes in school that she did not graduate could write a report so grammatically correct. It also contained detailed observations and information, and he quite simply could not comprehend how she could have acquired such facts. He could not imagine that anyone else at Milton Security would have lifted excerpts from the confidential journal of a doctor at a women’s crisis centre. When he asked her how she had managed that, she told him that she had no intention of burning her sources. It became clear that Salander was not going to discuss her work methods, either with him or with anyone else. This disturbed him-but not enough for him to resist the temptation to test her. He thought about the matter for several days. He recalled Holger Palmgren’s saying when he had sent her to him, “Everyone deserves a chance.” He thought about his own Muslim upbringing, which had taught him that it was his duty to God to help the outcasts. Of course he did not believe in God and had not been in a mosque since he was a teenager, but he recognised Lisbeth Salander as a person in need of resolute help. He had not done much along these lines over the past few decades. Instead of giving Salander the boot, he summoned her for a meeting in which he tried to work out what made the difficult girl tick. His impression was confirmed that she suffered from some serious emotional problem, but he also discovered that behind her sullen facade there was an unusual intelligence. He found her prickly and irksome, but much to his surprise he began to like her. Over the following months Armansky took Salander under his wing. In truth, he took her on as a small social project. He gave her straightforward research tasks and tried to give her guidelines on how to proceed. She would listen patiently and then set off to carry out the assignment just as she saw fit. He asked Milton ’s technical director to give her a basic course in IT science. They sat together all afternoon until he reported back that she seemed to have a better understanding of computers than most of the staff. But despite development discussions, offers of in-house training, and other forms of enticement, it was evident that Salander had no intention of adapting to Milton ’s office routines. This put Armansky in a difficult spot. He would not have put up with any other employee coming and going at will, and under normal circumstances he would have demanded that she change or go. But he had a hunch that if he gave Salander an ultimatum or threatened to fire her she would simply shrug her shoulders and be gone. A more serious problem was that he could not be sure of his own feelings for the young woman. She was like a nagging itch, repellent and at the same time tempting. It was not a sexual attraction, at least he did not think so. The women he was usually attracted to were blonde and curvaceous, with full lips that aroused his fantasies. And besides, he had been married for twenty years to a Finnish woman named Ritva who still more than satisfied these requirements. He had never been unfaithful, well…something may have happened just once, and his wife might have misunderstood if she had known about it. But the marriage was happy and he had two daughters of Salander’s age. In any case, he was not interested in flat-chested girls who might be mistaken for skinny boys at a distance. That was not his style. Even so, he had caught himself having inappropriate daydreams about Lisbeth Salander, and he recognised that he was not completely unaffected by her. But the attraction, Armansky thought, was that Salander was a foreign creature to him. He might just as well have fallen in love with a painting of a nymph or a Greek amphora. Salander represented a life that was not real for him, that fascinated him though he could not share it-and in any case she forbade him from sharing it. On one occasion Armansky was sitting at a caf? on Stortorget in Gamla Stan when Salander came sauntering up and sat at a table a short distance away. She was with three girls and a boy, all dressed in much the same way. Armansky had watched her with interest. She seemed to be just as reserved as she was at work, but she had actually almost smiled at a story told by one of her companions, a girl with purple hair. Armansky wondered how she would react if one day he came to work with green hair, worn-out jeans, and a leather jacket covered with graffiti and rivets. She probably would just smirk at him. She had been sitting with her back to him and did not turn around once, obviously unaware that he was there. He felt strangely disturbed by her presence. When at last he got up to slink away unnoticed, she suddenly turned and stared straight at him, as though she had been aware all the time that he was sitting there and had him on her radar. Her gaze had come so surprisingly that it felt like an attack, and he pretended not to see her and hurriedly left the caf?. She had not said hello even, but she followed him with her eyes, he was sure of it, and not until he turned the corner did they stop burning into his neck. She rarely laughed. But over time Armansky thought he noticed a softening of her attitude. She had a dry sense of humour, to put it mildly, which could prompt a crooked, ironic smile. Armansky felt so provoked by her lack of emotional response that sometimes he wanted to grab hold of her and shake her. To force his way into her shell and win her friendship, or at least her respect. Only once, after she had been working for him for nine months, had he tried to discuss these feelings with her. It was at Milton Security’s Christmas party one evening in December, and for once he was not sober. Nothing inappropriate had happened-he had just tried to tell her that he actually liked her. Most of all he wanted to explain that he felt protective towards her, and if she ever needed help with anything, she should not hesitate to come to him. He had even tried to give her a hug. All in friendliness, of course. She had wriggled out of his clumsy embrace and left the party. After that she had not appeared at the office or answered her mobile. Her absence had felt like torture-almost a form of personal punishment. He had nobody to discuss his feelings with, and for the first time he realised with appalling clarity what a destructive hold she had over him. Three weeks later, when Armansky was working late one evening going over the year-end bookkeeping, Salander reappeared. She came into his office as silently as a ghost, and he became aware that she was standing in the shadows inside the doorway, watching him. He had no idea how long she had been there. “Would you like some coffee?” she asked. She handed him a cup from the espresso machine in the canteen. Mutely he accepted it, feeling both relief and terror when she shoved the door closed with her foot. She sat down opposite his desk and looked him straight in the eye. Then she asked the question in a way that could neither be laughed off nor avoided. “Dragan, are you attracted to me?” Armansky sat as if paralysed, while desperately wondering how to answer. His first impulse was to pretend to be insulted. Then he saw her expression and it came to him that this was the first time she had ever uttered any such personal question. It was seriously meant, and if he tried to laugh it off she would take it as an affront. She wanted to talk to him, and he wondered how long it had taken her to get up the courage to ask that question. He slowly put down his pen and leaned back in his chair. Finally he relaxed. “What makes you think that?” he said. “The way you look at me, and the way you don’t look at me. And the times you were about to reach out your hand and touch me but stopped yourself.” He smiled at her. “I reckon you’d bite off my hand if I laid a finger on you.” She did not smile. She was waiting. “Lisbeth, I’m your boss, and even if I were attracted to you, I’d never act on it.” She was still waiting. “Between us-yes, there have been times when I have felt attracted to you. I can’t explain it, but that’s the way it is. For some reason I don’t really understand, I like you a lot. But it’s not a physical thing.” “That’s good. Because it’ll never happen.” Armansky laughed. The first time she had said something personal and it was the most disheartening news a man could imagine receiving. He struggled to find the right words. “Lisbeth, I understand that you’re not interested in an old man of fifty plus.” “I’m not interested in an old man of fifty plus who’s my boss.” She held up a hand. “Wait, let me speak. You’re sometimes stupid and maddeningly bureaucratic, but you’re actually an attractive man, and…I can also feel…But you’re my boss and I’ve met your wife and I want to keep my job with you, and the most idiotic thing I could do is get involved with you.” Armansky said nothing, hardly daring to breathe. “I’m aware of what you’ve done for me, and I’m not ungrateful. I appreciate that you actually showed yourself to be greater than your prejudices and have given me a chance here. But I don’t want you for my lover, and you’re not my father.” After a while Armansky sighed helplessly. “What exactly do you want from me?” “I want to continue working for you. If that’s OK with you.” He nodded and then answered her as honestly as he could. “I really do want you to work for me. But I also want you to feel some sort of friendship and trust in me.” She nodded. “You’re not a person who encourages friendship,” he said. She seemed to withdraw, but he went on. “I understand that you don’t want anyone interfering in your life, and I’ll try not to do that. But is it all right if I continue to like you?” Salander thought about it for a long time. Then she replied by getting up, walking around the desk, and giving him a hug. He was totally shocked. Only when she released him did he take her hand. “We can be friends?” She nodded once. That was the only time she ever showed him any tenderness, and the only time she ever touched him. It was a moment that Armansky fondly remembered. After four years she had still vouchsafed hardly a detail about her private life or her background to Armansky. Once he applied his own knowledge of the pinder’s art on her. He also had a long talk with Holger Palmgren-who did not seem surprised to see him-and what he finally found out did not increase his trust in her. He never mentioned a word about this to her or let her know that he had been snooping into her life. Instead he hid his uneasiness and increased his watchfulness. Before that strange evening was over, Armansky and Salander had come to an agreement. In future she would do research projects for him on a freelance basis. She would receive a small monthly income whether she did any assignments or not. The real money would be made when she was paid per assignment. She could work the way she wanted to; in return she pledged never to do anything that might embarrass him or risk subjecting Milton Security to scandal. For Armansky this was a solution that was advantageous to him, the company, and Salander herself. He cut the troublesome PI department down to a single full-time employee, an older colleague who handled routine jobs perfectly well and ran credit checks. All complicated or tricky assignments he turned over to Salander and a few other freelancers who-in the last resort-were independent contractors for whom Milton Security had actually no responsibility. Since he regularly engaged her services, she earned a good salary. It could have been much higher, but Salander worked only when she felt like it. Armansky accepted her as she was, but she was not allowed to meet the clients. Today’s assignment was an exception. Salander was dressed for the day in a black T-shirt with a picture on it of E.T. with fangs, and the words I AM ALSO AN ALIEN. She had on a black skirt that was frayed at the hem, a worn-out black, mid-length leather jacket, rivet belt, heavy Doc Marten boots, and horizontally striped, green-and-red knee socks. She had put on make-up in a colour scheme that indicated she might be colourblind. In other words, she was exceptionally decked out. Armansky sighed and shifted his gaze to the conservatively dressed guest with the thick glasses. Dirch Frode, a lawyer, had insisted on meeting and being able to ask questions of the employee who prepared the report. Armansky had done all he civilly could to prevent the meeting taking place, saying that Salander had a cold, was away, or was swamped with other work. The lawyer replied calmly that it made no difference-the matter was not urgent and he could easily wait a couple of days. At last there was no way to avoid bringing them together. Now Frode, who seemed to be in his late sixties, was looking at Lisbeth Salander with evident fascination. Salander glowered back with an expression that did not indicate any warm feelings. Armansky sighed and looked once more at the folder she had placed on his desk labelled CARL MIKAEL BLOMKVIST. The name was followed by a social security number, neatly printed on the cover. He said the name out loud. Herr Frode snapped out of his bewitched state and turned to Armansky. “So what can you tell me about Mikael Blomkvist?” he said. “This is Ms. Salander, who prepared the report.” Armansky hesitated a second and then went on with a smile that was intended to engender confidence, but which seemed helplessly apologetic. “Don’t be fooled by her youth. She is our absolute best researcher.” “I’m persuaded of that,” Frode said in a dry tone that hinted at the opposite. “Tell me what she found out.” It was clear that Frode had no idea how to act towards Salander. He resorted to directing the question to Armansky, as if she had not been in the room. Salander blew a big bubble with her gum. Before Armansky could answer, she said, “Could you ask the client whether he would prefer the long or the short version?” There was a brief, embarrassed silence before Frode finally turned to Salander and tried to repair the damage by assuming a friendly, avuncular tone. “I would be grateful if the young lady would give me a verbal summary of the results.” For a moment her expression was so surprisingly hostile that it sent a cold shiver down Frode’s spine. Then just as quickly her expression softened and Frode wondered whether he had imagined that look. When she began to speak she sounded like a civil servant. “Allow me to say first that this was not a very complicated assignment, apart from the fact that the description of the task itself was somewhat vague. You wanted to know ‘everything that could be dug up’ about him, but gave no indication of whether there were anything in particular you were looking for. For this reason it’s something of a potpourri of his life. The report is 193 pages long, but 120 pages are copies of articles he wrote or press clippings. Blomkvist is a public person with few secrets and not very much to hide.” “But he does have some secrets?” Frode said. “Everyone has secrets,” she replied neutrally. “It’s just a matter of finding out what they are.” “Let’s hear.” “Mikael Blomkvist was born on January 18, 1960, which makes him forty-two years old. He was born in Borl?nge but has never lived there. His parents, Kurt and Anita Blomkvist, were around thirty-five when the child was born. Both have since died. His father was a machinery installer and moved around a good deal. His mother, as far as I could see, was never anything but a housewife. The family moved house to Stockholm when Mikael started school. He has a sister three years younger named Annika who is a lawyer. He also has some cousins, both male and female. Were you planning to serve coffee?” This last was directed at Armansky, who hastily pumped three cups of coffee from the thermos he had ordered for the meeting. He motioned for Salander to go on. “So in 1966 the family lived in Lilla Essingen. Blomkvist went to school first in Blomma and then to prep school on Kungsholmen. He had decent graduating marks-there are copies in the folder. During his prep school days he studied music and played bass in a rock band named Bootstrap, which actually put out a single that was played on the radio in the summer of 1979. After prep school he worked as a ticket collector in the tunnelbana, saved some money, and travelled abroad. He was away for a year, mostly bumming around Asia- India, Thailand -and a swing down to Australia. He began studying to be a journalist in Stockholm when he was twenty-one, but interrupted his studies after the first year to do his military service as a rifleman in Kiruna in Lapland. It was some sort of macho unit, and he left with good marks. After military service he completed his journalism degree and has worked in the field ever since. How detailed do you want me to be?” “Just tell what you think is important.” “He comes off a little like Practical Pig in The Three Little Pigs. So far he has been an excellent journalist. In the eighties he had a lot of temporary jobs, first in the provincial press and then in Stockholm. There’s a list. His breakthrough came with the story about the Bear Gang-the bank robbers he identified.” “Kalle Blomkvist.” “He hates the nickname, which is understandable. Somebody’d get a fat lip if they ever called me Pippi Longstocking on a newspaper placard.” She cast a dark look at Armansky, who swallowed hard. On more than one occasion he had thought of Salander as precisely Pippi Longstocking. He waved for her to get on with it. “One source declares that up to then he wanted to be a crime reporter-and he interned as one at an evening paper. But he has become known for his work as a political and financial reporter. He has primarily been a freelancer, with one full-time position at an evening paper in the late eighties. He left in 1990 when he helped start the monthly magazine Millennium. The magazine began as a real outsider, without any big publishing company to hold its hand. Its circulation has grown and today is 21,000 copies monthly. The editorial office is on G?tgatan only a few blocks from here.” “A left-wing magazine.” “That depends on how you define the concept ‘left-wing.’ Millennium is generally viewed as critical of society, but I’m guessing the anarchists think it’s a wimpy bourgeois crap magazine along the lines of Arena or Ordfront, while the Moderate Students Association probably thinks that the editors are all Bolsheviks. There is nothing to indicate that Blomkvist has ever been active politically, even during the left-wing wave when he was going to prep school. While he was plugging away at the School of Journalism he was living with a girl who at the time was active in the Syndicalists and today sits in Parliament as a representative of the Left party. He seems to have been given the left-wing stamp primarily because as a financial journalist he specialises in investigative reporting about corruption and shady transactions in the corporate world. He has done some devastating individual portraits of captains of industry and politicians-which were most likely well deserved-and caused a number of resignations and legal repercussions. The most well-known was the Arboga affair, which resulted in the forced resignation of a Conservative politician and the sentencing of a former councillor to a year in prison for embezzlement. Calling attention to crimes can hardly be considered an indication that someone is left-wing.” “I understand what you mean. What else?” “He has written two books. One about the Arboga affair and one about financial journalism entitled The Knights Templar, which came out three years ago. I haven’t read the book, but judging from the reviews it seems to have been controversial. It prompted a good deal of debate in the media.” “Money?” Frode said. “He’s not rich, but he’s not starving. Income tax returns are attached to the report. He has about 250,000 SEK in the bank, in both a retirement fund and a savings account. He has an account of around 100,000 kronor that he uses as cash for working expenses, travel and such. He owns a co-op apartment that’s paid off-700 square feet on Bellmansgatan-and he has no loans or debts. He has one other asset-some property in Sandhamn out in the archipelago. It’s a cottage of 270 square feet, furnished as a summer cabin and by the water, right in the most attractive part of the village. Apparently an uncle of his bought it in the forties, when such things were still possible for normal mortals, and the cabin ended up in Blomkvist’s hands. They divided things up so that his sister got the parents’ apartment in Lilla Essingen and Blomkvist got the cabin. I have no idea what it might be worth today-certainly a few million-but on the other hand he doesn’t seem to want to sell, and he goes out to Sandhamn fairly often.” “Income?” “He’s part owner of Millennium, but he only takes out about 12,000 in salary each month. The rest he earns from his freelance jobs-the total varies. He had a big year three years ago when he took in around 450,000. Last year he only made 120,000 from freelance jobs.” “He has to pay 150,000 in taxes in addition to lawyer’s fees, et cetera,” Frode said. “Let’s assume that the total is rather high. He’ll also be losing money while serving his gaol term.” “Which means that he’s going to be cleaned out,” Salander said. “Is he honest?” “That’s his trust capital, so to speak. His image is to appear as the guardian of robust morality as opposed to the business world, and he is invited pretty regularly to pontificate on television.” “There probably isn’t much left of that capital after his conviction today,” Frode said. “I don’t want to claim that I know exactly what demands are made on a journalist, but after this setback it will probably be a long time before Master Detective Blomkvist wins the Grand Prize for Journalism. He’s really made a fool of himself this time,” Salander said. “If I may make a personal comment…” Armansky opened his eyes wide. In the years Salander had worked for him, she had never made a single personal comment in an investigation of an individual. Bone-dry facts were all that mattered to her. “It wasn’t part of my assignment to look at the question of fact in the Wennerstr?m affair, but I did follow the trial and have to admit that I was actually flabbergasted. The thing felt wrong, and it’s totally…out of character for Mikael Blomkvist to publish something that seems to be so off the wall.” Salander scratched her neck. Frode looked patient. Armansky wondered whether he might be mistaken or whether Salander really was unsure how to continue. The Salander he knew was never unsure or hesitant. Finally she seemed to make up her mind. “Quite off the record, so to speak…I haven’t studied the Wennerstr?m affair properly, but I really think that Mikael Blomkvist was set up. I think there’s something totally different in this story than what the court’s verdict is indicating.” The lawyer scrutinised Salander with searching eyes, and Armansky noticed that for the first time since she began her report, the client was showing more than a polite interest. He made a mental note that the Wennerstr?m affair held a certain interest for Frode. Correction, Armansky thought at once, Frode was not interested in the Wennerstr?m affair-it was when Salander hinted that Blomkvist was set up that Frode reacted. “How do you mean, exactly?” Frode said. “It’s speculation on my part, but I’m convinced that someone tricked him.” “And what makes you think so?” “Everything in Blomkvist’s background shows that he’s a very careful reporter. Every controversial revelation he published before was always well documented. I went to court one day and listened. He seemed to have given up without a fight. That doesn’t accord with his character at all. If we are to believe the court, he made up a story about Wennerstr?m without a shred of evidence and published it like some sort of journalistic suicide bomber. That’s simply not Blomkvist’s style.” “So what do you think happened?” “I can only guess. Blomkvist believed in his story, but something happened along the way and the information turned out to be false. This in turn means that the source was someone he trusted or that someone deliberately fed him false information-which sounds improbably complicated. The alternative is that he was subjected to such a serious threat that he threw in the towel and would rather be seen as an incompetent idiot than fight back. But I’m just speculating, as I said.” When Salander made an attempt to continue her account, Frode held up his hand. He sat for a moment, drumming his fingers on the armrest of his chair before he hesitantly turned to her again. “If we should decide to engage you to unravel the truth in the Wennerstr?m affair…how much chance is there that you’d find out anything?” “I can’t answer that. There may not be anything to find.” “But would you be willing to make an attempt?” She shrugged. “It’s not my place to decide. I work for Herr Armansky, and he decides what jobs he wants to assign to me. And then it depends what sort of information you’re looking for.” “Let me put it this way…and I take it that we’re speaking in confidence?” Armansky nodded. “I don’t know anything about this particular matter, but I do know beyond any doubt that in other situations Wennerstr?m has acted dishonestly. The Wennerstr?m case has seriously affected Mikael Blomkvist’s life, and I have an interest in discerning whether there’s anything in your speculations.” The conversation had taken an unexpected turn, and Armansky was instantly on the alert. What Frode was asking was for Milton Security to poke around in a case that had already been concluded. A case in which there may have been some sort of threat to the man Blomkvist, and if they took this on, Milton would risk colliding with Wennerstr?m’s regiment of lawyers. Armansky was not in the least comforted by the thought of turning Salander loose in such a situation, like a cruise missile out of control. It was not merely a matter of concern for the company. Salander had made plain that she did not want Armansky to act as some sort of worried stepfather, and since their agreement he had been careful never to behave like one, but in reality he would never stop worrying about her. He sometimes caught himself comparing Salander to his daughters. He considered himself a good father who did not interfere unnecessarily in their lives. But he knew that he would not tolerate it if his daughters behaved like Salander or lived the life she led. In the depths of his Croatian-or possibly Bosnian or Armenian-heart he had never been able to shed the conviction that Salander’s life was heading for disaster. She seemed the perfect victim for anyone who wished her ill, and he dreaded the morning he would be awakened by the news that someone had done her harm. “An investigation of this kind could get expensive,” Armansky said, issuing a warning so as to gauge the seriousness of Frode’s inquiry. “Then we’ll set a ceiling,” Frode said. “I don’t demand the impossible, but it’s obvious that your colleague, just as you assured me, is exceedingly competent.” “Salander?” Armansky said, turning to her with a raised eyebrow. “I’m not working on anything else right now.” “OK. But I want us to be in agreement about the constraints of the job. Let’s hear the rest of your report.” “There isn’t much more apart from his private life. In 1986 he married Monica Abrahamsson and the same year they had a daughter, Pernilla. The marriage didn’t last; they were divorced in 1991. Abrahamsson has remarried, but they seem to be friends still. The daughter lives with her mother and doesn’t see Blomkvist often.” Frode asked for more coffee and then turned to Salander. “You said that everyone has secrets. Did you find any?” “I meant that all people have things they consider to be private and that they don’t go around airing in public. Blomkvist is obviously a big hit with women. He’s had several love affairs and a great many casual flings. But one person has kept turning up in his life over the years, and it’s an unusual relationship.” “In what way?” “Erika Berger, editor in chief of Millennium: upper-class girl, Swedish mother, Belgian father resident in Sweden. Berger and Blomkvist met in journalism school and have had an on-and-off relationship ever since.” “That may not be so unusual,” Frode said. “No, possibly not. But Berger happens to be married to the artist Greger Beckman, a minor celebrity who has done a lot of terrible things in public venues.” “So she’s unfaithful.” “Beckman knows about their relationship. It’s a situation apparently accepted by all parties concerned. Sometimes she sleeps at Blomkvist’s and sometimes at home. I don’t know exactly how it works, but it was probably a contributing factor to the breakup of Blomkvist’s marriage to Abrahamsson.” CHAPTER 3. Friday, December 20-Saturday, December 21 Erika Berger looked up quizzically when an apparently freezing Blomkvist came into the editorial office. Millennium’s offices were in the centre of the trendy section of G?tgatan, above the offices of Greenpeace. The rent was actually a bit too steep for the magazine, but they had all agreed to keep the space. She glanced at the clock. It was 5:10, and darkness had fallen over Stockholm long before. She had been expecting him around lunchtime. “I’m sorry,” he said before she managed to say anything. “But I was feeling the weight of the verdict and didn’t feel like talking. I went for a long walk to think things over.” “I heard the verdict on the radio. She from TV4 called and wanted a comment.” “What’d you say?” “Something to the effect that we were going to read the judgement carefully before we make any statements. So I said nothing. And my opinion still holds: it’s the wrong strategy. We come off looking weak with the media. They will run something on TV this evening.” Blomkvist looked glum. “How are you doing?” Blomkvist shrugged and plopped down in his favourite armchair next to the window in Erika’s office. The decor was spartan, with a desk and functional bookcases and cheap office furniture. All of it was from IKEA apart from the two comfortable and extravagant armchairs and a small end table-a concession to my upbringing, she liked to say. She would sit reading in one of the armchairs with her feet tucked underneath her when she wanted to get away from the desk. Blomkvist looked down on G?tgatan, where people were hurrying by in the dark. Christmas shopping was in full swing. “I suppose it’ll pass,” he said. “But right now it feels as if I’ve got myself a very raw deal.” “Yes, I can imagine. It’s the same for all of us. Janne Dahlman went home early today.” “I assume he wasn’t over the moon about the verdict.” “He’s not the most positive person anyway.” Mikael shook his head. For the past nine months Dahlman had been managing editor. He had started there just as the Wennerstr?m affair got going, and he found himself on an editorial staff in crisis mode. Blomkvist tried to remember what their reasoning had been when he and Berger decided to hire him. He was competent, of course, and had worked at the TT news bureau, the evening papers, and Eko on the radio. But he apparently did not like sailing against the wind. During the past year Blomkvist had often regretted that they had hired Dahlman, who had an enervating habit of looking at everything in as negative a light as possible. “Have you heard from Christer?” Blomkvist asked without taking his eyes off the street. Christer Malm was the art director and designer of Millennium. He was also part owner of the magazine together with Berger and Blomkvist, but he was on a trip abroad with his boyfriend. “He called to say hello.” “He’ll have to be the one who takes over as publisher.” “Lay off, Micke. As publisher you have to count on being punched in the nose every so often. It’s part of the job description.” “You’re right about that. But I was the one who wrote the article that was published in a magazine of which I also happen to be the publisher. That makes everything look different all of a sudden. Then it’s a matter of bad judgement.” Berger felt that the disquiet she had been carrying with her all day was about to explode. In the weeks before the trial started, Blomkvist had been walking around under a black cloud. But she had never seen him as gloomy and dejected as he seemed to be now in the hour of his defeat. She walked to his side of the desk and sat on his lap, straddling him, and put her arms round his neck. “Mikael, listen to me. We both know exactly how it happened. I’m as much to blame as you are. We simply have to ride out the storm.” “There isn’t any storm to ride out. As far as the media are concerned, the verdict means that I’ve been shot in the back of the head. I can’t stay on as the publisher of Millennium. The vital thing is to maintain the magazine’s credibility, to stop the bleeding. You know that as well as I do.” “If you think I intend to let you take the rap all by yourself, then you haven’t learned a damn thing about me in the years we’ve worked together.” “I know how you operate, Ricky. You’re 100 percent loyal to your colleagues. If you had to choose, you’d keep fighting against Wennerstr?m’s lawyers until your credibility was gone too. We have to be smarter than that.” “And you think it’s smart to jump ship and make it look as if I sacked you?” “If Millennium is going to survive, it depends on you now. Christer is great, but he’s just a nice guy who knows about images and layout and doesn’t have a clue about street fighting with billionaires. It’s just not his thing. I’m going to have to disappear for a while, as publisher, reporter, and board member. Wennerstr?m knows that I know what he did, and I’m absolutely sure that as long as I’m anywhere near Millennium he’s going to try to ruin us.” “So why not publish everything we know? Sink or swim?” “Because we can’t prove a damn thing, and right now I have no credibility at all. Let’s accept that Wennerstr?m won this round.” “OK, I’ll fire you. What are you going to do?” “I need a break, to be honest. I’m burned right out. I’m going to take some time for myself for a while, some of it in prison. Then we’ll see.” Berger put her arms around him and pulled his head down to her breasts. She hugged him hard. “Want some company tonight?” she said. Blomkvist nodded. “Good. I’ve already told Greger I’m at your place tonight.” *** The street lights reflecting off the corners of the windows were all that lit the room. When Berger fell asleep sometime after 2:00 in the morning, Blomkvist lay awake studying her profile in the dimness. The covers were down around her waist, and he watched her breasts slowly rising and falling. He was relaxed, and the anxious knot in his stomach had eased. She had that effect on him. She always had had. And he knew that he had the same effect on her. Twenty years, he thought. That’s how long it had been. As far as he was concerned, they could go on sleeping together for another two decades. At least. They had never seriously tried to hide their relationship, even when it led to awkwardness in their dealings with other people. They had met at a party when they were both in their second year at journalism school. Before they said goodnight they had exchanged telephone numbers. They both knew that they would end up in bed together, and in less than a week they realised this conviction without telling their respective partners. Blomkvist was sure that it was not the old-fashioned kind of love that leads to a shared home, a shared mortgage, Christmas trees, and children. During the eighties, when they were not bound by other relationships, they had talked of moving in together. He had wanted to, but Erika always backed out at the last minute. It wouldn’t work, she said, they would risk what they had if they fell in love too. Blomkvist had often wondered whether it were possible to be more possessed by desire for any other woman. The fact was that they functioned well together, and they had a connection as addictive as heroin. Sometimes they were together so often that it felt as though they really were a couple; sometimes weeks and months would go by before they saw each other. But even as alcoholics are drawn to the state liquor store after a stint on the wagon, they always came back to each other. Inevitably it did not work in the long run. That kind of relationship was almost bound to cause pain. They had both left broken promises and unhappy lovers behind-his own marriage had collapsed because he could not stay away from Erika Berger. He had never lied about his feelings for her to his wife, Monica, but she had thought it would end when they married and their daughter was born. And Berger had almost simultaneously married Greger Beckman. Blomkvist too had thought it would end, and for the first years of his marriage he and Berger had only seen each other professionally. Then they started Millennium and within a few weeks all their good intentions had dissolved, and one late evening they had furious sex on her desk. That led to a troublesome period in which Blomkvist wanted very much to live with his family and see his daughter grow up, but at the same time he was helplessly drawn to Berger. Just as Salander had guessed, it was his continual infidelity that drove his wife to leave. Strangely enough, Beckman seemed to accept their relationship. Berger had always been open about her feelings for Mikael, and she told her husband as soon as they started having sex again. Maybe it took the soul of an artist to handle such a situation, someone so wrapped up in his own creativity, or possibly just wrapped up in himself, that he did not rebel when his wife slept with another man. She even divided up her holiday so she could spend two weeks with her lover in his summer cabin at Sandhamn. Blomkvist did not think very highly of Beckman, and he had never understood Berger’s love for him. But he was glad that he accepted that she could love two men at the same time. Blomkvist could not sleep, and at 4:00 he gave up. He went to the kitchen and read the court judgement one more time from beginning to end. Having the document in his hand he had a sense that there had been something almost fateful about the meeting at Arholma. He could never be sure whether Lindberg had told him the details of Wennerstr?m’s swindle simply for the sake of a good story between toasts in the privacy of his boat’s cabin or whether he had really wanted the story to be made public. He tended to believe the first. But it may have been that Lindberg, for his own personal or business reasons, had wanted to damage Wennerstr?m, and he had seized the opportunity of having a captive journalist on board. Lindberg had been sober enough to insist on Blomkvist treating him as an anonymous source. From that moment Lindberg could say what he liked, because his friend would never be able to disclose his source. If the meeting at Arholma had been a set-up, then Lindberg could not have played his role better. But the meeting had to have happened by chance. Lindberg could have had no notion of the extent of Blomkvist’s contempt for people like Wennerstr?m. For all that, after years of study, he was privately convinced that there was not a single bank director or celebrity corporate executive who wasn’t also a cretin. Blomkvist had never heard of Lisbeth Salander and was happily innocent of her report delivered earlier that day, but had he listened to it he would have nodded in agreement when she spoke of his loathing for bean counters, saying that it was not a manifestation of his left-wing political radicalism. Mikael was not uninterested in politics, but he was extremely sceptical of political “isms.” He had voted only once in a parliamentary election-in 1982-and then he had hesitantly plumped for the Social Democrats, there being nothing in his imagination worse than three years more with G?sta Bohman as finance minister and Thorbj?rn F?lldin (or possibly Ola Ullsten) as prime minister. So he had voted for Olof Palme, and got instead the assassination of his prime minister plus the Bofors scandal and Ebbe Carlsson. His contempt for his fellow financial journalists was based on something that in his opinion was as plain as morality. The equation was simple. A bank director who blows millions on foolhardy speculations should not keep his job. A managing director who plays shell company games should do time. A slum landlord who forces young people to pay through the nose and under the table for a one-room apartment with shared toilet should be hung out to dry. The job of the financial journalist was to examine the sharks who created interest crises and speculated away the savings of small investors, to scrutinise company boards with the same merciless zeal with which political reporters pursue the tiniest steps out of line of ministers and members of Parliament. He could not for the life of him understand why so many influential financial reporters treated mediocre financial whelps like rock stars. These recalcitrant views had time after time brought him into conflict with his peers. Borg, for one, was going to be an enemy for life. His taking on a role of social critic had actually transformed him into a prickly guest on TV sofas-he was always the one invited to comment whenever any CEO was caught with a golden parachute worth billions. Mikael had no trouble imagining that champagne bottles had been uncorked in some newspapers’ back rooms that evening. Erika had the same attitude to the journalist’s role as he did. Even when they were in journalism school they had amused themselves by imagining a magazine with just such a mission statement. Erika was the best boss Mikael could imagine. She was an organiser who could handle employees with warmth and trust but who at the same time wasn’t afraid of confrontation and could be very tough when necessary. Above all, she had an icy gut feeling when it came to making decisions about the contents of the upcoming issue. She and Mikael often had differing views and could have healthy arguments, but they also had unwavering confidence in each other, and together they made an unbeatable team. He did the field work of tracking down the story, while she packaged and marketed it. Millennium was their mutual creation, but it would never have become reality without her talent for digging up financing. It was the working-class guy and the upper-class girl in a beautiful union. Erika came from old money. She had put up the initial seed money and then talked both her father and various acquaintances into investing considerable sums in the project. Mikael had often wondered why Erika had set her sights on Millennium. True, she was a part owner-the majority partner, in fact-and editor in chief of her own magazine, which gave her prestige and the control over publicity that she could hardly have obtained in any other job. Unlike Mikael, she had concentrated on television after journalism school. She was tough, looked fantastic on camera, and could hold her own with the competition. She also had good contacts in the bureaucracy. If she had stuck to it, she would undoubtedly have had a managerial job at one of the TV channels at a considerably higher salary than she paid herself now. Berger had also convinced Christer Malm to buy into the magazine. He was an exhibitionist gay celebrity who sometimes appeared with his boyfriend in “at home with” articles. The interest in him began when he moved in with Arnold Magnusson, an actor with a background at the Royal Dramatic Theatre who had made a serious breakthrough when he played himself in a docu-soap. Christer and Arn had then become a media item. At thirty-six, Malm was a sought-after professional photographer and designer who gave Millennium a modern look. He ran his business from an office on the same floor as Millennium, and he did graphic design one week in every month. The Millennium staff consisted of three full-time employees, a full-time trainee, and two part-timers. It was not a lucrative affair, but the magazine broke even, and the circulation and advertising revenue had increased gradually but steadily. Until today the magazine was known for its frank and reliable editorial style. Now the situation would in all probability be changing. Blomkvist read through the press release which he and Berger had drafted and which had quickly been converted to a wire service story from TT that was already up on Aftonbladet’s website. CONVICTED REPORTER LEAVES MILLENNIUM Stockholm (T.T.). Journalist Mikael Blomkvist is leaving his post as publisher of the magazine Millennium, reports editor in chief and majority shareholder Erika Berger. Blomkvist is leaving Millennium of his own choice. “He’s exhausted after the drama of recent months and needs time off,” says Berger, who will take over the role of publisher. Blomkvist was one of the founders of Millennium, started in 1990. Berger does not think that the magazine will suffer in the wake of the so-called “Wennerstr?m affair.” The magazine will come out as usual next month, says Berger. “Mikael Blomkvist has played a major role in the magazine’s development, but now we’re turning a new page.” Berger states that she regards the Wennerstr?m affair as the result of a series of unfortunate circumstances. She regrets the nuisance to which Hans-Erik Wennerstr?m was subjected. Blomkvist could not be reached for comment. “It makes me mad,” Berger said when the press release was emailed out. “Most people are going to think that you’re an idiot and I’m a bitch who’s taking the opportunity to sack you.” “At least our friends will have something new to laugh about.” Blomkvist tried to make light of it; she was not the least amused. “I don’t have a plan B, but I think we’re making a mistake,” she said. “It’s the only way out. If the magazine collapses, all our years of work will have been in vain. We’ve already taken a beating on the ads revenue. How did it go with the computer company, by the way?” She sighed. “They told me this morning that they didn’t want to take space in the next issue.” “Wennerstr?m has a chunk of stock in that company, so it’s no accident.” “We can scare up some new clients. Wennerstr?m may be a big wheel, but he doesn’t own everything in Sweden, and we have our contacts.” Blomkvist put an arm around her and pulled her close. “Some day we’re going to nail Herr Wennerstr?m so hard Wall Street is going to jump out of its socks. But today Millennium has to get out of the spotlight.” “I know all that, but I don’t like coming across as a fucking bitch, and you’re being forced into a disgusting situation if we pretend that there’s some sort of division between you and me.” “Ricky, as long as you and I trust each other we’ve got a chance. We have to play it by ear, and right now it’s time to retreat.” She reluctantly admitted that there was a depressing logic to what he said. CHAPTER 4. Monday, December 23-Thursday, December 26 Berger stayed over the weekend. They got up only to go to the bathroom or to get something to eat, but they had not only made love. They had lain head to foot for hours and talked about the future, weighing up the possibilities, and the odds. When dawn came on Monday morning it was the day before Christmas Eve and she kissed him goodbye-until next time-and drove home. Blomkvist spent Monday washing dishes and cleaning the apartment, then walking down to the office and clearing out his desk. He had no intention of breaking ties with the magazine, but he had eventually convinced Berger that he had to be separated from the magazine for a time. He would work from home. The office was closed for the Christmas holidays and all his colleagues were gone. He was weeding through trays of papers and packing books in cartons to take away when the telephone rang. “I’m looking for Mikael Blomkvist,” said a hopeful but unfamiliar voice on the line. “Speaking.” “Forgive me for bothering you like this unannounced, so to speak. My name is Dirch Frode.” Blomkvist noted the name and the time. “I’m a lawyer, and I represent a client who would very much like to have a talk with you.” “That’s fine, please ask your client to call me.” “I mean that he wants to meet with you in person.” “OK, make an appointment and send him up to the office. But you’d better hurry; I’m clearing out my desk right now.” “My client would like you to visit him in Hedestad-it’s only three hours by train.” Blomkvist pushed a filing tray aside. The media have the ability to attract the craziest people to call in perfectly absurd tips. Every newsroom in the world gets updates from UFOlogists, graphologists, scientologists, paranoiacs, every sort of conspiracy theorist. Blomkvist had once listened to a lecture by the writer Karl Alvar Nilsson at the ABF hall on the anniversary of the murder of Prime Minister Olof Palme. The lecture was serious, and in the audience were Lennart Bodstr?m and other friends of Palme’s. But a surprising number of amateur investigators had turned up. One of them was a woman in her forties who during the Q and A had taken the proffered microphone and then lowered her voice to a barely audible whisper. This alone heralded an interesting development, and nobody was surprised when the woman began by claiming, “I know who murdered Olof Palme.” From the stage it was suggested somewhat ironically that if the woman had this information then it would be helpful if she shared it with the Palme investigation at once. She hurried to reply: “I can’t,” she said so softly it was almost impossible to hear. “It’s too dangerous!” Blomkvist wondered whether this Frode was another one of the truth-sayers who could reveal the secret mental hospital where S?po, the Security Police, ran experiments on thought control. “I don’t make house calls,” he said. “I hope I can convince you to make an exception. My client is over eighty, and for him it would be too exhausting to come down to Stockholm. If you insist, we could certainly arrange something, but to tell you the truth, it would be preferable if you would be so kind…” “Who is your client?” “A person whose name I suspect you have heard in your work. Henrik Vanger.” Blomkvist leaned back in surprise. Henrik Vanger-of course he had heard of him. An industrialist and former head of the Vanger companies, once renowned in the fields of sawmills, mines, steel, metals, textiles. Vanger had been one of the really big fish in his day, with a reputation for being an honourable, old-fashioned patriarch who would not bend in a strong wind. A cornerstone of Swedish industry, one of the twenty-point stags of the old school, along with Matts Carlgren of MoDo and Hans Werth?n at the old Electrolux. The backbone of industry in the welfare state, et cetera. But the Vanger companies, still family-owned, had been racked in the past twenty-five years by reorganisations, stock-market crises, interest crises, competition from Asia, declining exports, and other nuisances which taken together had consigned the name Vanger to the backwater. The company was run today by Martin Vanger, whose name Blomkvist associated with a short, plump man with thick hair who occasionally flickered past on the TV screen. He did not know much about him. Henrik Vanger had been out of the picture for at least twenty years. “Why does Henrik Vanger want to meet me?” “I’ve been Herr Vanger’s lawyer for many years, but he will have to tell you himself what he wants. On the other hand, I can say that Herr Vanger would like to discuss a possible job with you.” “Job? I don’t have the slightest intention of going to work for the Vanger company. Is it a press secretary you need?” “Not exactly. I don’t know how to put it other than to say that Herr Vanger is exceedingly anxious to meet you and consult with you on a private matter.” “You couldn’t get more equivocal, could you?” “I beg your pardon for that. But is there any possibility of convincing you to pay a visit to Hedestad? Naturally we will pay all your expenses and a reasonable fee.” “Your call comes at rather an inconvenient time. I have quite a lot to take care of and…I suppose you’ve seen the headlines about me in the past few days.” “The Wennerstr?m affair?” Frode chuckled. “Yes, that did have a certain amusement value. But to tell you the truth, it was the publicity surrounding the trial that caused Herr Vanger to take notice of you. He wants to offer you a freelance assignment. I’m only a messenger. What the matter concerns is something only he can explain.” “This is one of the odder calls I’ve had in a long time. Let me think about it. How can I reach you?” *** Blomkvist sat looking at the disorder on his desk. He could not imagine what sort of job Vanger would want to offer him, but the lawyer had succeeded in arousing his curiosity. He Googled the Vanger company. It might be in the backwaters but it seemed to be in the media almost daily. He saved a dozen company analyses and then searched for Frode, and Henrik and Martin Vanger. Martin Vanger appeared diligent in his capacity as CEO of the Vanger Corporation. Frode kept a low profile; he was on the board of the Hedestad Country Club and active in the Rotary Club. Henrik Vanger appeared, with one exception, only in articles giving the background of the company. The Hedestad Courier had published a tribute to the former magnate on his eightieth birthday two years ago, and it included a short sketch. He put together a folder of fifty pages or so. Then finally he emptied his desk, sealed the cartons, and, having no idea whether he would come back, went home. Salander spent Christmas Eve at the ?ppelviken Nursing Home in Upplands-V?sby. She had brought presents: a bottle of eau de toilette by Dior and an English fruitcake from ?hl?ns department store. She drank coffee as she watched the forty-six-year-old woman who with clumsy fingers was trying to untie the knot on the ribbon. Salander had tenderness in her eyes, but that this strange woman was her mother never ceased to amaze her. She could recognise not the slightest resemblance in looks or nature. Her mother gave up the struggle and looked helplessly at the package. It was not one of her better days. Salander pushed across the scissors that had been in plain sight on the table and her mother suddenly seemed to wake up. “You must think I’m stupid.” “No, Mum. You’re not stupid. But life is unfair.” “Have you seen your sister?” “Not in a long time.” “She never comes.” “I know, Mum. She doesn’t see me either.” “Are you working?” “Yes. I’m doing fine.” “Where do you live? I don’t even know where you live.” “I live in your old apartment on Lundagatan. I’ve lived there for several years. I had to take over the payments.” “In the summertime maybe I can come and see you.” “Of course. In the summertime.” Her mother at last got the Christmas present open and sniffed at the aroma, enchanted. “Thank you, Camilla,” she said. “Lisbeth. I’m Lisbeth.” Her mother looked embarrassed. Salander said that they should go to the TV room. Blomkvist spent the hour of the Disney special on Christmas Eve with his daughter Pernilla at the home of his ex-wife, Monica, and her new husband in Sollentuna. After discussions with her mother they had agreed to give Pernilla an iPod, an MP3 player hardly bigger than a matchbox which could store her huge CD collection. Father and daughter spent the time together in her room upstairs. Pernilla’s parents were divorced when she was five, and she had had a new father since she was seven. Pernilla came to see him about once a month and had week-long holidays with him in Sandhamn. When they spent time together they usually got along well, but Blomkvist had let his daughter decide how often she wanted to see him, the more so after her mother remarried. There had been a couple of years in her early teens when contact almost stopped, and it was only in the past two years that she seemed to want to see him more often. She had followed the trial in the firm belief that things were just as her father said: he was innocent, but he could not prove it. She told him about a sort-of boyfriend who was in another class, and she surprised him by saying that she had joined a church. Blomkvist refrained from comment. He was invited to stay for dinner but he was expected with his sister and her family out in the yuppie suburb of St?ket. That morning he had also had an invitation to celebrate Christmas Eve with the Beckmans in Saltsj?baden. He said no, but thank you, certain that there was a limit to Beckman’s indulgence and quite sure that he had no ambition to find out what that limit might be. Instead he was knocking on the door where Annika Blomkvist, now Annika Giannini, lived with her Italian-born husband and their two children. With a platoon of her husband’s relatives, they were about to carve the Christmas ham. During dinner he answered questions about the trial and received much well-meaning and quite useless advice. The only one who had nothing to say about the verdict was his sister, although she was the only lawyer in the room. She had worked as clerk of a district court and as an assistant prosecutor for several years before she and three colleagues opened a law firm of their own with offices on Kungsholmen. She specialised in family law, and without Blomkvist having taken stock of its happening, his little sister began to appear in newspapers as representing battered or threatened women, and on panel discussions on TV as a feminist and women’s rights advocate. As he was helping her prepare the coffee, she put a hand on his shoulder and asked him how was he doing. He told her he felt as low as he had in life. “Get yourself a real lawyer next time,” she said. “It probably wouldn’t have helped in this case. But we’ll talk it all the way through, Sis, some other time when all the dust is settled.” She gave him a hug and kissed him on the cheek before they carried out the Christmas cake and the coffee. Then Blomkvist excused himself and asked to use the telephone in the kitchen. He called the lawyer in Hedestad and could hear there too the buzz of voices in the background. “Merry Christmas,” Frode said. “Dare I hope you have made up your mind?” “I really don’t have any immediate plans and I am curious to know more. I’ll come up the day after Christmas if that suits you.” “Excellent, excellent. I am incredibly pleased. You will forgive me, I’ve got children and grandchildren visiting and can hardly hear myself think. Can I call you tomorrow to agree on a time? Where can I reach you?” Blomkvist regretted his decision before even he left for home, but by then it was too awkward to call and cancel. So on the morning of December 26 he was on the train heading north. He had a driver’s license, but he had never felt the need to own a car. Frode was right, it was not a long journey. After Uppsala came the string of small industrial towns along the Norrland coast. Hedestad was one of the smaller ones, a little more than an hour north of G?vle. On Christmas night there had been a big snowstorm, but the skies had now cleared and the air was ice-cold when Blomkvist alighted at Hedestad. He realised at once that he wasn’t wearing enough clothes for winter in Norrland. Frode knew what he looked like and kindly collected him from the platform and led him straight to the warmth of his Mercedes. In the centre of Hedestad, snow clearing was in full swing, and Frode wove his careful way through the narrow streets. High banks of snow presented a picturesque contrast to Stockholm. The town seemed almost like another planet, yet he was only a little more than three hours from Sergels Torg in downtown Stockholm. He stole a glance at the lawyer: an angular face with sparse, bristly white hair and thick glasses perched on an impressive nose. “First time in Hedestad?” Frode said. Blomkvist nodded. “It’s an old industrial town with a harbour. Population of only 24,000. But people like living here. Herr Vanger lives in Hedeby-at the southern edge of the town.” “Do you live here too?” “I do now. I was born in Sk?ne down south, but I started working for Vanger right after I graduated in 1962. I’m a corporate lawyer, and over the years Herr Vanger and I became friends. Today I’m officially retired, and Herr Vanger is my only client. He’s retired too, of course, and doesn’t need my services very often.” “Only to scrape up journalists with ruined reputations.” “Don’t sell yourself short. You’re not the first one to lose a match against Hans-Erik Wennerstr?m.” Blomkvist turned to Frode, unsure how to read that reply. “Does this invitation have anything to do with Wennerstr?m?” he said. “No,” said Frode. “But Herr Vanger is not remotely in Wennerstr?m’s circle of friends, and he followed the trial with interest. He wants to meet you to discuss a wholly different matter.” “Which you don’t want to tell me about.” “Which it isn’t my place to tell you about. We have arranged it so that you can spend the night at Herr Vanger’s house. If you would rather not do that, we can book you a room in the Grand Hotel in town.” “I might be taking the evening train back to Stockholm.” The road into Hedeby was still unploughed, and Frode manoeuvred the car down frozen tyre ruts. The old town centre consisted of houses along the Gulf of Bothnia, and around them larger, more modern homes. The town began on the mainland and spilled across a bridge to a hilly island. On the mainland side of the bridge stood a small, white stone church, and across the street glowed an old-fashioned neon sign that read SUSANNE’S BRIDGE CAF? AND BAKERY. Frode drove about a hundred yards farther and turned left on to a newly shovelled courtyard in front of a stone building. The farmhouse was too small to be called a manor, but it was considerably larger than the rest of the houses in the settlement. This was the master’s domain. “This is the Vanger farm,” Frode said. “Once it was full of life and hubbub, but today only Henrik and a housekeeper live there. There are plenty of guest rooms.” They got out. Frode pointed north. “Traditionally the person who leads the Vanger concern lives here, but Martin Vanger wanted something more modern, so he built his house on the point there.” Blomkvist looked around and wondered what insane impulse he had satisfied by accepting Frode’s invitation. He decided that if humanly possible he would return to Stockholm that evening. A stone stairway led to the entry, but before they reached it the door was opened. He immediately recognised Henrik Vanger from the photograph posted on the Internet. In the pictures there he was younger, but he looked surprisingly vigorous for eighty-two: a wiry body with a rugged, weather-beaten face and thick grey hair combed straight back. He wore neatly pressed dark trousers, a white shirt, and a well-worn brown casual jacket. He had a narrow moustache and thin steel-rimmed glasses. “I’m Henrik Vanger,” he said. “Thank you for agreeing to visit me.” “Hello. It was a surprising invitation.” “Come inside where it’s warm. I’ve arranged a guest room for you. Would you like to freshen up? We’ll be having dinner a little later. And this is Anna Nygren, who looks after me.” Blomkvist shook hands with a short, stout woman in her sixties. She took his coat and hung it in a hall cupboard. She offered him a pair of slippers because of the draught. Mikael thanked her and then turned to Henrik Vanger. “I’m not sure that I shall be staying for dinner. It depends on what this game is all about.” Vanger exchanged a glance with Frode. There was an understanding between the two men that Blomkvist could not interpret. “I think I’ll take this opportunity to leave you two alone,” said Frode. “I have to go home and discipline the grandkids before they tear the house down.” He turned to Mikael. “I live on the right, just across the bridge. You can walk there in five minutes; the third house towards the water down from the bakery. If you need me, just telephone.” Blomkvist reached into his jacket pocket and turned on a tape recorder. He had no idea what Vanger wanted, but after the past twelve months of havoc with Wennerstr?m he needed a precise record of all strange occurrences anywhere near him, and an unlooked-for invitation to Hedestad came into that category. Vanger patted Frode on the shoulder in farewell and closed the front door before turning his attention to Blomkvist. “I’ll get right to the point in that case. This is no game. I ask you to listen to what I have to say and then make up your mind. You’re a journalist, and I want to give you a freelance assignment. Anna has served coffee upstairs in my office.” The office was a rectangle of more than 1,300 square feet. One wall was dominated by a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf thirty feet long containing a remarkable assortment of literature: biographies, history, business and industry, and A4 binders. The books were arranged in no apparent order. It looked like a bookshelf that was used. The opposite wall was dominated by a desk of dark oak. On the wall behind the desk was a large collection of pressed flowers in neat meticulous rows. Through the window in the gable the desk had a view of the bridge and the church. There was a sofa and coffee table where the housekeeper had set out a thermos, rolls, and pastries. Vanger gestured towards the tray, but Blomkvist pretended not to see; instead he made a tour of the room, first studying the bookshelf and then the wall of framed flowers. The desk was orderly, only a few papers in one heap. At its edge was a silver-framed photograph of a dark-haired girl, beautiful but with a mischievous look; a young woman on her way to becoming dangerous, he thought. It was apparently a confirmation portrait that had faded over the years it had been there. “Do you remember her, Mikael?” Vanger said. “Remember?” “Yes, you met her. And actually you have been in this room before.” Blomkvist turned and shook his head. “No, how could you remember? I knew your father. I hired Kurt first as an installer and machinist several times in the fifties and sixties. He was a talented man. I tried to persuade him to keep studying and become an engineer. You were here the whole summer of 1963, when we put new machinery in the paper mill in Hedestad. It was hard to find a place for your family to live, so we solved it by letting you live in the wooden house across the road. You can see it from the window.” Vanger picked up the photograph. “This is Harriet Vanger, granddaughter of my brother Richard. She took care of you many times that summer. You were two, going on three. Maybe you were already three then-I don’t recall. She was thirteen.” “I am sorry, but I don’t have the least recollection of what you’re telling me.” Blomkvist could not even be sure that Vanger was telling the truth. “I understand. But I remember you. You used to run around everywhere on the farm with Harriet in tow. I could hear your shrieks whenever you fell. I remember I gave you a toy once, a yellow, sheet-metal tractor that I had played with myself as a boy. You were crazy about it. I think that was the colour.” Blomkvist felt a chill inside. The yellow tractor he did remember. When he was older it had stood on a shelf in his bedroom. “Do you remember that toy?” “I do. And you will be amused to know that the tractor is still alive and well, at the Toy Museum in Stockholm. They put out a call for old original toys ten years ago.” “Really?” Vanger chuckled with delight. “Let me show you…” The old man went over to the bookshelf and pulled a photograph album from one of the lower shelves. Blomkvist noticed that he had difficulty bending over and had to brace himself on the bookshelf when he straightened up. He laid the album on the coffee table. He knew what he was looking for: a black-and-white snapshot in which the photographer’s shadow showed in the bottom left corner. In the foreground was a fair-haired boy in shorts, staring at the camera with a slightly anxious expression. “This is you. Your parents are sitting on the garden bench in the background. Harriet is partly hidden by your mother, and the boy to the left of your father is Harriet’s brother, Martin, who runs the Vanger company today.” Blomkvist’s mother was obviously pregnant-his sister was on the way. He looked at the photograph with mixed feelings as Vanger poured coffee and pushed over the plate of rolls. “Your father is dead, I know. Is your mother still alive?” “She died three years ago,” Blomkvist said. “She was a nice woman. I remember her very well.” “But I’m sure you didn’t ask me to come here to talk about old times you had with my parents.” “You’re right. I’ve been working on what I wanted to say to you for several days, but now that you’re actually here I don’t quite know where to begin. I suppose you did some research, so you know that I once wielded some influence in Swedish industry and the job market. Today I’m an old man who will probably die fairly soon, and death perhaps is an excellent starting point for our conversation.” Blomkvist took a swallow of black coffee-plainly boiled in a pan in true Norrland style-and wondered where this was going to lead. “I have pain in my hip and long walks are a thing of the past. One day you’ll discover for yourself how strength seeps away, but I’m neither morbid nor senile. I’m not obsessed by death, but I’m at an age when I have to accept that my time is about up. You want to close the accounts and take care of unfinished business. Do you understand what I mean?” Blomkvist nodded. Vanger spoke in a steady voice, and Blomkvist had already decided that the old man was neither senile nor irrational. “I’m mostly curious about why I’m here,” he said again. “Because I want to ask for your help with this closing of accounts.” “Why me? What makes you think I’d be able to help you?” “Because as I was thinking about hiring someone, your name cropped up in the news. I knew who you were, of course. And maybe it’s because you sat on my knee when you were a little fellow. Don’t misunderstand me.” He waved the thought away. “I don’t look to you to help me for sentimental reasons. It was just that I had the impulse to contact you specifically.” Mikael gave a friendly laugh. “Well, I don’t remember being perched on your knee. But how could you make the connection? That was in the early sixties.” “You misunderstood me. Your family moved to Stockholm when your father got the job as the workshop foreman at Zarinder’s Mechanical. I was the one who got him the job. I knew he was a good worker. I used to see him over the years when I had business with Zarinder’s. We weren’t close friends, but we would chat for a while. The last time I saw him was the year before he died, and he told me then that you had got into journalism school. He was extremely proud. Then you became famous with the story of the bank robber gang. I’ve followed your career and read many of your articles over the years. As a matter of fact, I read Millennium quite often.” “OK, I’m with you, but what is it exactly that you want me to do?” Vanger looked down at his hands, then sipped his coffee, as if he needed a pause before he could at last begin to broach what he wanted. “Before I get started, Mikael, I’d like to make an agreement with you. I want you to do two things for me. One is a pretext and the other is my real objective.” “What form of agreement?” “I’m going to tell you a story in two parts. The first is about the Vanger family. That’s the pretext. It’s a long, dark story, and I’ll try to stick to the unvarnished truth. The second part of the story deals with my actual objective. You’ll probably think some of the story is…crazy. What I want is for you to hear me out-about what I want you to do and also what I am offering-before you make up your mind whether to take on the job or not.” Blomkvist sighed. Obviously Vanger was not going to let him go in time to catch the afternoon train. He was sure that if he called Frode to ask for a lift to the station, the car would somehow refuse to start in the cold. The old man must have thought long and hard how he was going to hook him. Blomkvist had the feeling that every last thing that had happened since he arrived was staged: the introductory surprise that as a child he had met his host, the picture of his parents in the album, and the emphasis on the fact that his father and Vanger had been friends, along with the flattery that the old man knew who Mikael Blomkvist was and that he had been following his career for years from a distance… No doubt it had a core of truth, but it was also pretty elementary psychology. Vanger was a practised manipulator-how else had he become one of Sweden ’s leading industrialists? Blomkvist decided that Vanger wanted him to do something that he was not going to have the slightest desire to do. He had only to wrest from him what this was and then say no thank you. And just possibly be in time to catch the afternoon train. “Forgive me, Herr Vanger,” he said, “I’ve been here already for twenty minutes. I’ll give you exactly thirty minutes more to tell me what you want. Then I’m calling a taxi and going home.” For a moment the mask of the good-natured patriarch slipped, and Blomkvist could detect the ruthless captain of industry from his days of power confronted by a setback. His mouth curled in a grim smile. “I understand.” “You don’t have to beat around the bush with me. Tell me what you want me to do, so that I can decide whether I want to do it or not.” “So if I can’t convince you in half an hour then I wouldn’t be able to do it in a month either-that’s what you think.” “Something along that line.” “But my story is long and complicated.” “Shorten and simplify it. That’s what we do in journalism. Twenty-nine minutes.” Vanger held up a hand. “Enough. I get your point. But it’s never good psychology to exaggerate. I need somebody who can do research and think critically, but who also has integrity. I think you have it, and that’s not flattery. A good journalist ought to possess these qualities, and I read your book The Knights Templar with great interest. It’s true that I picked you because I knew your father and because I know who you are. If I understood the matter correctly, you left your magazine as a result of the Wennerstr?m affair. Which means that you have no job at the moment, and probably you’re in a tight financial spot.” “So you might be able to exploit my predicament, is that it?” “Perhaps. But Mikael-if I may call you Mikael?-I won’t lie to you. I’m too old for that. If you don’t like what I say, you can tell me to jump in the lake. Then I’ll have to find someone else to work with me.” “OK, tell me what this job involves.” “How much do you know about the Vanger family?” “Well, only what I managed to read on the Net since Frode called me on Monday. In your day the Vanger Corporation was one of the most important industrial firms in Sweden; today it’s somewhat diminished. Martin Vanger runs it. I know quite a bit more, but what are you getting at?” “Martin is…he’s a good man but basically he’s a fair-weather sailor. He’s unsuited to be the managing director of a company in crisis. He wants to modernise and specialise-which is good thinking-but he can’t push through his ideas and his financial management is weak too. Twenty-five years ago the Vanger concern was a serious competitor to the Wallenberg Group. We had forty thousand employees in Sweden. Today many of these jobs are in Korea or Brazil. We are down to about ten thousand employees and in a year or two-if Martin doesn’t get some wind into his sails-we’ll have five thousand, primarily in small manufacturing industries, and the Vanger companies will be consigned to the scrap heap of history.” Blomkvist nodded. He had come to roughly this conclusion on the basis of the pieces he had downloaded. “The Vanger companies are still among the few family-held firms in the country. Thirty family members are minority shareholders. This has always been the strength of the corporation, but also our greatest weakness.” Vanger paused and then said in a tone of mounting urgency, “Mikael, you can ask questions later, but I want you to take me at my word when I say that I detest most of the members of my family. They are for the most part thieves, misers, bullies, and incompetents. I ran the company for thirty-five years-almost all the time in the midst of relentless bickering. They were my worst enemies, far worse than competing companies or the government. “I said that I wanted to commission you to do two things. First, I want you to write a history or biography of the Vanger family. For simplicity’s sake, we can call it my autobiography. I will put my journals and archives at your disposal. You will have access to my innermost thoughts and you can publish all the dirt you dig up. I think this story will make Shakespeare’s tragedies read like light family entertainment.” “Why?” “Why do I want to publish a scandalous history of the Vanger family? Or why do I ask you to write it?” “Both, I suppose.” “To tell you the truth, I don’t care whether the book is ever published. But I do think that the story should be written, if only in a single copy that you deliver directly to the Royal Library. I want this story to be there for posterity when I die. My motive is the simplest imaginable: revenge.” “What do you want to revenge?” “I’m proud that my name is a byword for a man who keeps his word and remembers his promises. I’ve never played political games. I’ve never had problems negotiating with trade unions. Even Prime Minister Erlander had respect for me in his day. For me it was a matter of ethics; I was responsible for the livelihoods of thousands of people, and I cared about my employees. Oddly enough, Martin has the same attitude, even though he’s a very different person. He too has tried to do the right thing. Sadly Martin and I are rare exceptions in our family. There are many reasons why the Vanger Corporation is on the ropes today, but one of the key ones is the short-termism and greed of my relatives. If you accept the assignment, I’ll explain how my family went about torpedoing the firm.” “I won’t lie to you either,” Blomkvist said. “Researching and writing a book like this would take months. I don’t have the motivation or the energy to do it.” “I believe I can talk you into it.” “I doubt it. But you said there were two things. The book is the pretext. What is the real objective?” Vanger stood up, laboriously again, and took the photograph of Harriet Vanger from the desk. He set it down in front of Blomkvist. “While you write the biography I want you to scrutinise the family with the eyes of a journalist. It will also give you an alibi for poking around in the family history. What I want is for you to solve a mystery. That’s your real assignment.” “What mystery?” “Harriet was the granddaughter of my brother Richard. There were five brothers. Richard was the eldest, born in 1907. I was the youngest, born in 1920. I don’t understand how God could create this flock of children who…” For several seconds Vanger lost the thread, immersed in his thoughts. Then he went on with new decisiveness. “Let me tell you about my brother Richard. Think of this as a small sample from the family chronicle I want you to write.” He poured more coffee for himself. “In 1924, now seventeen, Richard was a fanatical nationalist and anti Semite. He joined the Swedish National Socialist Freedom League, one of the first Nazi groups in Sweden. Isn’t it fascinating that Nazis always manage to adopt the word freedom?” Vanger pulled out another album and leafed through it until he found the page he was looking for. “Here’s Richard with the veterinarian Birger Furug?rd, soon to become the leader of the so-called Furug?rd movement, the big Nazi movement of the early thirties. But Richard did not stay with him. He joined, a few years later, the Swedish Fascist Battle Organisation, the SFBO, and there he got to know Per Engdahl and others who would be the disgrace of the nation.” He turned the page in the album: Richard Vanger in uniform. “He enlisted-against our father’s wishes-and during the thirties he made his way through most of the Nazi groups in the country. Any sick conspiratorial association that existed, you can be sure his name was on their roster. In 1933 the Lindholm movement was formed, that is, the National Socialist Workers’ Party. How well do you know the history of Swedish Nazism?” “I’m no historian, but I’ve read a few books.” “In 1939 the Second World War began, and in 1940 the Winter War in Finland. A large number of the Lindholm movement joined as Finland volunteers. Richard was one of them and by then a captain in the Swedish army. He was killed in February 1940-just before the peace treaty with the Soviet Union -and thereby became a martyr in the Nazi movement and had a battle group named after him. Even now a handful of idiots gather at a cemetery in Stockholm on the anniversary of his death to honour him.” “I understand.” “In 1926, when he was nineteen, he was going out with a woman called Margareta, the daughter of a teacher in Falun. They met in some political context and had a relationship which resulted in a son, Gottfried, who was born in 1927. The couple married when the boy was born. During the first half of the thirties, my brother sent his wife and child here to Hedestad while he was stationed with his regiment in G?vle. In his free time he travelled around and did proselytising for Nazism. In 1936 he had a huge fight with my father which resulted in my father cutting him off. After that Richard had to make his own living. He moved with his family to Stockholm and lived in relative poverty.” “He had no money of his own?” “The inheritance he had in the firm was tied up. He couldn’t sell outside the family. Worse than their straitened circumstances, Richard was a brutal domestic. He beat his wife and abused his son. Gottfried grew up cowed and bullied. He was thirteen when Richard was killed. I suspect it was the happiest day of his life up to that point. My father took pity on the widow and child and brought them here to Hedestad, where he found an apartment for Margareta and saw to it that she had a decent life. “If Richard personified the family’s dark, fanatical side, Gottfried embodied the indolent one. When he reached the age of eighteen I decided to take him under my wing-he was my dead brother’s son, after all-and you have to remember that the age difference between Gottfried and me was not so great. I was only seven years older, but by then I was on the firm’s board, and it was clear that I was the one who would take over from my father, while Gottfried was more or less regarded as an outsider.” Vanger thought for a moment. “My father didn’t really know how to deal with his grandson, so I was the one who gave him a job in the company. This was after the war. He did try to do a reasonable job, but he was lazy. He was a charmer and good-time Charlie; he had a way with women, and there were periods when he drank too much. It isn’t easy to describe my feelings for him…he wasn’t a good-for-nothing, but he was not the least bit reliable and he often disappointed me deeply. Over the years he turned into an alcoholic, and in 1965 he died-the victim of an accidental drowning. That happened at the other end of Hedeby Island, where he’d had a cabin built, and where he used to hide away to drink.” “So he’s the father of Harriet and Martin?” Blomkvist said, pointing at the portrait on the coffee table. Reluctantly he had to admit that the old man’s story was intriguing. “Correct. In the late forties Gottfried met a German woman by the name of Isabella Koenig, who had come to Sweden after the war. She was quite a beauty-I mean that she had a lovely radiance like Garbo or Ingrid Bergman. Harriet probably got more of her genes from her mother rather than from Gottfried. As you can see from the photograph, she was pretty even at fourteen.” Blomkvist and Vanger contemplated the picture. “But let me continue. Isabella was born in 1928 and is still alive. She was eleven when the war began, and you can imagine what it was like to be a teenager in Berlin during the aerial bombardments. It must have felt as if she had arrived in paradise on earth when she landed in Sweden. Regrettably she shared many of Gottfried’s vices; she was lazy and partied incessantly. She travelled a great deal in Sweden and abroad, and lacked all sense of responsibility. Obviously this affected the children. Martin was born in 1948 and Harriet in 1950. Their childhood was chaotic, with a mother who was forever leaving them and a father who was virtually an alcoholic. “In 1958 I’d had enough and decided to try to break the vicious cycle. At the time, Gottfried and Isabella were living in Hedestad-I insisted that they move out here. Martin and Harriet were more or less left to fend for themselves.” Vanger glanced at the clock. “My thirty minutes are almost up, but I’m close to the end of the story. Will you give me a reprieve?” “Go on,” Blomkvist said. “In short, then. I was childless-in striking contrast to my brothers and other family members, who seemed obsessed with the need to propagate the house of Vanger. Gottfried and Isabella did move here, but their marriage was on the rocks. After only a year Gottfried moved out to his cabin. He lived there alone for long periods and went back to Isabella when it got too cold. I took care of Martin and Harriet, and they became in many ways the children I never had. “Martin was…to tell the truth, there was a time in his youth when I was afraid he was going to follow in his father’s footsteps. He was weak and introverted and melancholy, but he could also be delightful and enthusiastic. He had some troubled years in his teens, but he straightened himself out when he started at the university. He is…well, in spite of everything he is CEO of what’s left of the Vanger Corporation, which I suppose is to his credit.” “And Harriet?” “Harriet was the apple of my eye. I tried to give her a sense of security and develop her self-confidence, and we took a liking to each other. I looked on her as my own daughter, and she ended up being closer to me than to her parents. You see, Harriet was very special. She was introverted-like her brother-and as a teenager she became wrapped up in religion, unlike anyone else in the family. But she had a clear talent and she was tremendously intelligent. She had both morals and backbone. When she was fourteen or fifteen I was convinced that she was the one-and not her brother or any of the mediocre cousins, nephews, and nieces around me-who was destined to run the Vanger business one day, or at least play a central role in it.” “So what happened?” “Now we come to the real reason I want to hire you. I want you to find out who in the family murdered Harriet, and who since then has spent almost forty years trying to drive me insane.” CHAPTER 5. Thursday, December 26 For the first time since he began his monologue, the old man had managed to take Blomkvist by surprise. He had to ask him to repeat it to be sure he had heard correctly. Nothing in the cuttings had hinted at a murder. “It was September 24, 1966. Harriet was sixteen and had just begun her second year at prep school. It was a Saturday, and it turned into the worst day of my life. I’ve gone over the events so many times that I think I can account for what happened in every minute of that day-except the most important thing.” He made a sweeping gesture. “Here in this house a great number of my family had gathered. It was the loathsome annual dinner. It was a tradition which my father’s father introduced and which generally turned into pretty detestable affairs. The tradition came to an end in the eighties, when Martin simply decreed that all discussions about the business would take place at regular board meetings and by voting. That’s the best decision he ever made.” “You said that Harriet was murdered…” “Wait. Let me tell you what happened. It was a Saturday, as I said. It was also the day of the party, with the Children’s Day parade that was arranged by the sports club in Hedestad. Harriet had gone into the town during the day and watched the parade with some of her schoolfriends. She came back here to Hedeby Island just after 2:00 in the afternoon. Dinner was supposed to begin at 5:00, and she was expected to take part along with the other young people in the family.” Vanger got up and went over to the window. He motioned Blomkvist to join him, and pointed. “At 2:15, a few minutes after Harriet came home, a dramatic accident occurred out there on the bridge. A man called Gustav Aronsson, brother of a farmer at ?sterg?rden-a smallholding on Hedeby Island -turned on to the bridge and crashed head-on with an oil truck. Evidently both were going too fast and what should have been a minor collision proved a catastrophe. The driver of the truck, presumably instinctively, turned his wheel away from the car, hit the railing of the bridge and the tanker flipped over; it ended up across the bridge with its trailer hanging over the edge. One of the railings had been driven into the oil tank and flammable heating oil began spurting out. In the meantime Aronsson sat pinned inside his car, screaming in pain. The tanker driver was also injured but managed to scramble out of his cabin.” The old man went back to his chair. “The accident actually had nothing to do with Harriet. But it was significant in a crucial way. A shambles ensued: people on both sides of the bridge hurried to try to help; the risk of fire was significant and a major alarm was sounded. Police officers, an ambulance, the rescue squad, the fire brigade, reporters and sightseers arrived in rapid succession. Naturally all of them assembled on the mainland side; here on the island side we did what we could to get Aronsson out of the wreck, which proved to be damnably difficult. He was pinned in and seriously injured. “We tried to prise him loose with our bare hands, and that didn’t work. He would have to be cut or sawed out, but we couldn’t do anything that risked striking a spark; we were standing in the middle of a sea of oil next to a tanker truck lying on its side. If it had exploded we would have all been killed. It took a long time before we could get help from the mainland side; the truck was wedged right across the bridge, and climbing over it would have been the same as climbing over a bomb.” Blomkvist could not resist the feeling that the old man was telling a meticulously rehearsed story, deliberately to capture his interest. The man was an excellent storyteller, no question. On the other hand, where was the story heading? “What matters about the accident is that the bridge was blocked for twenty-four hours. Not until Sunday evening was the last of the oil pumped out, and then the truck could be lifted up by crane and the bridge opened for traffic. During these twenty-four hours Hedeby Island was to all intents and purposes cut off from the rest of the world. The only way to get across to the mainland was on a fireboat that was brought in to transport people from the small-boat harbour on this side to the old harbour below the church. For several hours the boat was used only by rescue crews-it wasn’t until quite late on Saturday night that stranded islanders began to be ferried across. Do you understand the significance of this?” “I assume that something happened to Harriet here on the island,” Blomkvist said, “and that the list of suspects consists of the finite number of people trapped here. A sort of locked-room mystery in island format?” Vanger smiled ironically. “Mikael, you don’t know how right you are. Even I have read my Dorothy Sayers. These are the facts: Harriet arrived here on the island about 2:10. If we also include children and unmarried guests, all in all about forty family members arrived in the course of the day. Along with servants and residents, there were sixty-four people either here or near the farm. Some of them-the ones who were going to spend the night-were busy getting settled in neighbouring farms or in guest rooms. “Harriet had previously lived in a house across the road, but given that neither Gottfried nor Isabella was consistently stable, and one could clearly see how that upset the girl, undermined her studies and so on, in 1964, when she was fourteen, I arranged for her to move into my house. Isabella probably thought that it was just fine to be spared the responsibility for her daughter. Harriet had been living here for the past two years. So this is where she came that day. We know that she met and exchanged some words with Harald in the courtyard-he’s one of my older brothers. Then she came up the stairs, to this room, and said hello to me. She said that she wanted to talk to me about something. Right then I had some other family members with me and I couldn’t spare the time for her. But she seemed anxious and I promised I’d come to her room when I was free. She left through that door, and that was the last time I saw her. A minute or so later there was the crash on the bridge and the bedlam that followed upset all our plans for the day.” “How did she die?” “It’s more complicated than that, and I have to tell the story in chronological order. When the accident occurred, people dropped whatever they were doing and ran to the scene. I was…I suppose I took charge and was feverishly occupied for the next few hours. Harriet came down to the bridge right away-several people saw her-but the danger of an explosion made me instruct anyone who wasn’t involved in getting Aronsson out of his car to stay well back. Five of us remained. There were myself and my brother Harald. There was a man named Magnus Nilsson, one of my workers. There was a sawmill worker named Sixten Nordlander who had a house down by the fishing harbour. And there was a fellow named Jerker Aronsson. He was only sixteen, and I should really have sent him away, but he was the nephew of Gustav in the car. “At about 2:40 Harriet was in the kitchen here in the house. She drank a glass of milk and talked briefly to Astrid, our cook. They looked out of the window at the commotion down at the bridge. “At 2:55 Harriet crossed the courtyard. She was seen by Isabella. About a minute later she ran into Otto Falk, the pastor in Hedeby. At that time the parsonage was where Martin Vanger has his villa today, and the pastor lived on this side of the bridge. He had been in bed, nursing a cold, when the accident took place; he had missed the drama, but someone had telephoned and he was on his way to the bridge. Harriet stopped him on the road and apparently wanted to say something to him, but he waved her off and hurried past. Falk was the last person to see her alive.” “How did she die?” Blomkvist said again. “I don’t know,” Vanger said with a troubled expression. “We didn’t get Aronsson out of his car until around 5:00-he survived, by the way, although he was not in good shape-and sometime after 6:00 the threat of fire was considered past. The island was still cut off, but things began to calm down. It wasn’t until we sat down at the table to have our longdelayed dinner around 8:00 that we discovered Harriet was missing. I sent one of the cousins to get Harriet from her room, but she came back to say that she couldn’t find her. I didn’t think much about it; I probably assumed she had gone for a walk or she hadn’t been told that dinner was served. And during the evening I had to deal with various discussions and arguments with the family. So it wasn’t until the next morning, when Isabella went to find her, that we realised that nobody knew where Harriet was and that no-one had seen her since the day before.” He spread his arms out wide. “And from that day, she has been missing without a trace.” “Missing?” Blomkvist echoed. “For all these years we haven’t been able to find one microscopic scrap of her.” “But if she vanished, as you say, you can’t be sure that she was murdered.” “I understand the objection. I’ve had thoughts along the same lines. When a person vanishes without a trace, one of four things could have happened. She could have gone off of her own free will and be hiding somewhere. She could have had an accident and died. She could have committed suicide. And finally, she could have been the victim of a crime. I’ve weighed all these possibilities.” “But you believe that someone took Harriet’s life. Why?” “Because it’s the only reasonable conclusion.” Vanger held up one finger. “From the outset I hoped that she had run away. But as the days passed, we all realised that this wasn’t the case. I mean, how would a sixteen-year-old from such a protected world, even a very able girl, be able to manage on her own? How could she stay hidden without being discovered? Where would she get money? And even if she got a job somewhere, she would need a social security card and an address.” He held up two fingers. “My next thought was that she had had some kind of accident. Can you do me a favour? Go to the desk and open the top drawer. There’s a map there.” Blomkvist did as he was asked and unfolded the map on the coffee table. Hedeby Island was an irregularly shaped land mass about two miles long with a maximum width of about one mile. A large part of the island was covered by forest. There was a built-up area by the bridge and around the little summer-house harbour. On the other side of the island was the smallholding, ?sterg?rden, from which the unfortunate Aronsson had started out in his car. “Remember that she couldn’t have left the island,” Vanger said. “Here on Hedeby Island you could die in an accident just like anywhere else. You could be struck by lightning-but there was no thunderstorm that day. You could be trampled to death by a horse, fall down a well, or tumble into a rock crevice. There are no doubt hundreds of ways to fall victim to an accident here. I’ve thought of most of them.” He held up three fingers. “There’s just one catch, and this also applies to the third possibility-that the girl, contrary to every indication, took her own life. Her body must be somewhere in this limited area.” Vanger slammed his fist down on the map. “In the days after she disappeared, we searched everywhere, crisscrossing the island. The men waded through every ditch, scoured every patch of field, cliff, and uprooted tree. We went through every building, chimney, well, barn, and hidden garret.” The old man looked away from Blomkvist and stared into the darkness outside the window. His voice grew lower and more intimate. “The whole autumn I looked for her, even after the search parties stopped and people had given up. When I wasn’t tending to my work I began going for walks back and forth across the island. Winter came on and we still hadn’t found a trace of her. In the spring I kept on looking until I realised how preposterous my search was. When summer came I hired three experienced woodsmen who did the entire search over again with dogs. They combed every square foot of the island. By that time I had begun to think that someone must have killed her. So they also searched for a grave. They worked at it for three months. We found not the slightest vestige of the girl. It was as if she had dissolved into thin air.” “I can think of a number of possibilities,” Blomkvist ventured. “Let’s hear them.” “She could have drowned, accidentally or on purpose. This is an island, and water can hide most things.” “True, but the probability isn’t great. Consider the following: if Harriet met with an accident and drowned, logically it must have occurred somewhere in the immediate vicinity of the village. Remember that the excitement on the bridge was the most sensational thing that had happened here on Hedeby Island in several decades. It was not a time when a sixteen-year-old girl with a normal sense of curiosity would decide to go for a walk to the other side of the island. “But more important,” he said, “there’s not much of a current here, and the winds at that time of year were out of the north or northeast. If anything falls into the water, it comes up somewhere along the beach on the mainland, and over there it’s built up almost everywhere. Don’t think that we didn’t consider this. We dragged almost all the spots where she could conceivably have gone down to the water. I also hired young men from a scuba-diving club here in Hedestad. They spent the rest of the season combing the bottom of the sound and along the beaches…I’m convinced she’s not in the water; if she had been we would have found her.” “But could she not have met with an accident somewhere else? The bridge was blocked, of course, but it’s a short distance over to the mainland. She could have swum or rowed across.” “It was late September and the water was so cold that Harriet would hardly have set off to go swimming in the midst of all the commotion. But if she suddenly got the idea to swim to the mainland, she would have been seen and drawn a lot of attention. There were dozens of eyes on the bridge, and on the mainland side there were two or three hundred people along the water watching the scene.” “A rowing boat?” “No. That day there were precisely thirteen boats on Hedeby Island. Most of the pleasure boats were already in storage on land. Down in the small-boat harbour by the summer cabins there were two Pettersson boats in the water. There were seven eka rowing boats, of which five were pulled up on shore. Below the parsonage one rowing boat was on shore and one in the water. By ?sterg?rden there was a rowing boat and a motorboat. All these boats were checked and were exactly where they were supposed to be. If she had rowed across and run away, she would have had to leave the boat on the other side.” Vanger held up four fingers. “So there’s only one reasonable possibility left, namely that Harriet disappeared against her will. Someone killed her and got rid of the body.” Lisbeth Salander spent Christmas morning reading Mikael Blomkvist’s controversial book about financial journalism, The Knights Templar: A Cautionary Tale for Financial Reporters. The cover had a trendy design by Christer Malm featuring a photograph of the Stockholm Stock Exchange. Malm had worked in PhotoShop, and it took a moment to notice that the building was floating in air. It was a dramatic cover with which to set the tone for what was to come. Salander could see that Blomkvist was a fine writer. The book was set out in a straightforward and engaging way, and even people with no insight into the labyrinth of financial journalism could learn something from reading it. The tone was sharp and sarcastic, but above all it was persuasive. The first chapter was a sort of declaration of war in which Blomkvist did not mince words. In the last twenty years, Swedish financial journalists had developed into a group of incompetent lackeys who were puffed up with self-importance and who had no record of thinking critically. He drew this conclusion because time after time, without the least objection, so many financial reporters seemed content to regurgitate the statements issued by CEOs and stock-market speculators-even when this information was plainly misleading or wrong. These reporters were thus either so naive and gullible that they ought to be packed off to other assignments, or they were people who quite consciously betrayed their journalistic function. Blomkvist claimed that he had often been ashamed to be called a financial reporter, since then he would risk being lumped together with people whom he did not rate as reporters at all. He compared the efforts of financial journalists with the way crime reporters or foreign correspondents worked. He painted a picture of the outcry that would result if a legal correspondent began uncritically reproducing the prosecutor’s case as gospel in a murder trial, without consulting the defence arguments or interviewing the victim’s family before forming an opinion of what was likely or unlikely. According to Blomkvist the same rules had to apply to financial journalists. The rest of the book consisted of a chain of evidence to support his case. One long chapter examined the reporting of a famous dot-com in six daily papers, as well as in the Financial Journal, Dagens Industri, and “A-ekonomi,” the business report on Swedish TV. He first quoted and summarised what the reporters had said and written. Then he made a comparison with the actual situation. In describing the development of the company he listed time after time the simple questions that a serious reporter would have asked but which the whole corps of financial reporters had neglected to ask. It was a neat move. Another chapter dealt with the IPO of Telia stock-it was the book’s most jocular and ironic section, in which some financial writers were castigated by name, including one William Borg, to whom Blomkvist seemed to be particularly hostile. A chapter near the end of the book compared the level of competence of Swedish and foreign financial reporters. He described how serious reporters at London ’s Financial Times, the Economist, and some German financial newspapers had reported similar subjects in their own countries. The comparison was not favourable to the Swedish journalists. The final chapter contained a sketch with suggestions as to how this deplorable situation could be remedied. The conclusion of the book echoed the introduction: If a parliamentary reporter handled his assignment by uncritically taking up a lance in support of every decision that was pushed through, no matter how preposterous, or if a political reporter were to show a similar lack of judgement-that reporter would be fired or at the least reassigned to a department where he or she could not do so much damage. In the world of financial reporting, however, the normal journalistic mandate to undertake critical investigations and objectively report findings to the readers appears not to apply. Instead the most successful rogue is applauded. In this way the future of Sweden is also being created, and all remaining trust in journalists as a corps of professionals is being compromised. Salander had no difficulty understanding the agitated debate that had followed in the trade publication The Journalist, certain financial newspapers, and on the front pages and in the business sections of the daily papers. Even though only a few reporters were mentioned by name in the book, Salander guessed that the field was small enough that everyone would know exactly which individuals were being referred to when various newspapers were quoted. Blomkvist had made himself some bitter enemies, which was also reflected in the malicious comments to the court in the Wennerstr?m affair. She closed the book and looked at the photograph on the back. Blomkvist’s dark blond shock of hair fell a bit carelessly across his forehead, as if caught in a gust of wind. Or (and this was more plausible) as if Christer Malm had posed him. He was looking into the camera with an ironic smile and an expression perhaps aiming to be charming and boyish. A very good-looking man. On his way to do three months in the slammer. “Hello, Kalle Blomkvist,” she said to herself. “You’re pretty pleased with yourself, aren’t you?” At lunchtime Salander booted up her iBook and opened Eudora to write an email. She typed: “Have you got time?” She signed it Wasp and sent it to the address ‹[email protected]› To be on the safe side, she ran the message through her PGP encryption programme. Then she put on black jeans, heavy winter boots, a warm polo shirt, a dark pea jacket and matching knitted gloves, cap, and scarf. She took the rings out of her eyebrows and nostril, put on a pale pink lipstick, and examined herself in the bathroom mirror. She looked like any other woman out for a weekend stroll, and she regarded her outfit as appropriate camouflage for an expedition behind enemy lines. She took the tunnelbana from Zinkensdamm to ?stermalmstorg and walked down towards Strandv?gen. She sauntered along the central reserve reading the numbers on the buildings. She had almost got to Djurg?rds Bridge when she stopped and looked at the door she had been searching for. She crossed the street and waited a few feet from the street door. She noticed that most people who were out walking in the cold weather on the day after Christmas were walking along the quay; only a few were on the pavement side. She had to wait for almost half an hour before an old woman with a cane approached from the direction of Djurg?rden. The woman stopped and studied Salander with suspicion. Salander gave her a friendly smile in return. The lady with the cane returned her greeting and looked as though she were trying to remember when she had last seen the young woman. Salander turned her back and took a few steps away from the door, as though she were impatiently waiting for someone, pacing back and forth. When she turned, the lady had reached the door and was slowly putting in a number on the code lock. Salander had no difficulty seeing that the combination was 1260. She waited five minutes more before she went to the door. She punched in the code and the lock clicked. She peered into the stairwell. There was a security camera which she glanced at and ignored; it was a model that Milton Security carried and was activated only if an alarm for a break-in or an attack was sounded on the property. Farther in, to the left of an antique lift cage, there was a door with another code lock; she tried 1260 and it worked for the entrance to the cellar level and rubbish room. Sloppy, very sloppy. She spent three minutes investigating the cellar level, where she located an unlocked laundry room and a recycling room. Then she used a set of picklocks that she had “borrowed” from Milton’s locksmith to open a locked door to what seemed to be a meeting room for the condominium association. At the back of the cellar was a hobby room. Finally she found what she was looking for: the building’s small electrical room. She examined the meters, fuse boxes, and junction boxes and then took out a Canon digital camera the size of a cigarette packet. She took three pictures. On the way out she cast her eye down the list of residents by the lift and read the name for the apartment on the top floor. Wennerstr?m. Then she left the building and walked rapidly to the National Museum, where she went into the cafeteria to have some coffee and warm up. After about half an hour she made her way back to S?der and went up to her apartment. There was an answer from ‹[email protected]› When she decoded it in PGP it read: 20. CHAPTER 6. Thursday, December 26 The time limit set by Blomkvist had been exceeded by a good margin. It was 4:30, and there was no hope of catching the afternoon train, but he still had a chance of making the evening train at 9:30. He stood by the window rubbing his neck as he stared out at the illuminated facade of the church on the other side of the bridge. Vanger had shown him a scrapbook with articles from both the local newspaper and the national media. There had been quite a bit of media interest for a while-girl from noted industrialist’s family disappears. But when no body was found and there was no breakthrough in the investigation, interest gradually waned. Despite the fact that a prominent family was involved, thirty-six years later the case of Harriet Vanger was all but forgotten. The prevailing theory in articles from the late sixties seemed to be that she drowned and was swept out to sea-a tragedy, but something that could happen to any family. Blomkvist had been fascinated by the old man’s account, but when Vanger excused himself to go to the bathroom, his scepticism returned. The old man had still not got to the end, and Blomkvist had finally promised to listen to the whole story. “What do you think happened to her?” he said when Vanger came back into the room. “Normally there were some twenty-five people living here year-round, but because of the family gathering there were more than sixty on Hedeby Island that day. Of these, between twenty and twenty-five can be ruled out, pretty much so. I believe that of those remaining, someone-and in all likelihood it was someone from the family-killed Harriet and hid the body.” “I have a dozen objections to that.” “Let’s hear them.” “Well, the first one is that even if someone hid her body, it should have been found if the search was as thorough as the one you described.” “To tell you the truth, the search was even more extensive than I’ve described. It wasn’t until I began to think of Harriet as a murder victim that I realised several ways in which her body could have disappeared. I can’t prove this, but it’s at least within the realm of possibility.” “Tell me.” “Harriet went missing sometime around 3:00 that afternoon. At about 2:55 she was seen by Pastor Falk, who was hurrying to the bridge. At almost exactly the same time a photographer arrived from the local paper, and for the next hour he took a great number of pictures of the drama. We-the police, I mean-examined the photographs and confirmed that Harriet was not in any one of them; but every other person in town was seen in at least one, apart from very small children.” Vanger took out another album and placed it on the table. “These are pictures from that day. The first one was taken in Hedestad during the Children’s Day parade. The same photographer took it around 1:15 p.m., and Harriet is there in it.” The photograph was taken from the second floor of a building and showed a street along which the parade-clowns on trucks and girls in bathing suits-had just passed. Spectators thronged the pavements. Vanger pointed at a figure in the crowd. “That’s Harriet. It’s about two hours before she will disappear; she’s with some of her schoolfriends in town. This is the last picture taken of her. But there’s one more interesting shot.” Vanger leafed through the pages. The album contained about 180 pictures-five rolls-from the crash on the bridge. After having heard the account, it was almost too much to suddenly see it in the form of sharp black-and-white images. The photographer was a professional who had managed to capture the turmoil surrounding the accident. A large number of the pictures focused on the activities around the overturned tanker truck. Blomkvist had no problem identifying a gesticulating, much younger Henrik Vanger soaked with heating oil. “This is my brother Harald.” The old man pointed to a man in shirtsleeves bending forward and pointing at something inside the wreck of Aronsson’s car. “My brother Harald may be an unpleasant person, but I think he can be eliminated from the list of suspects. Except for a very short while, when he had to run back here to the farm to change his shoes, he spent the afternoon on the bridge.” Vanger turned some more pages. One image followed another. Focus on the tanker truck. Focus on spectators on the foreshore. Focus on Aronsson’s car. General views. Close-ups with a telephoto lens. “This is the interesting picture,” Vanger said. “As far as we could determine it was taken between 3:40 and 3:45, or about 45 minutes after Harriet ran into Falk. Take a look at the house, the middle second floor window. That’s Harriet’s room. In the preceding picture the window was closed. Here it’s open.” “Someone must have been in Harriet’s room.” “I asked everyone; nobody would admit to opening the window.” “Which means that either Harriet did it herself, and she was still alive at that point, or else that someone was lying to you. But why would a murderer go into her room and open the window? And why should anyone lie about it?” Vanger shook his head. No explanation presented itself. “Harriet disappeared sometime around 3:00 or shortly thereafter. These pictures give an impression of where certain people were at that time. That’s why I can eliminate a number of people from the list of suspects. For the same reason I can conclude that some people who were not in the photographs at that time must be added to the list of suspects.” “You didn’t answer my question about how you think the body was removed. I realise, of course, that there must be some plausible explanation. Some sort of common old illusionist’s trick.” “There are actually several very practical ways it could have been done. Sometime around 3:00 the killer struck. He or she presumably didn’t use any sort of weapon-or we would have found traces of blood. I’m guessing that Harriet was strangled and I’m guessing that it happened here-behind the wall in the courtyard, somewhere out of the photographer’s line of sight and in a blind spot from the house. There’s a path, if you want to take a shortcut, to the parsonage-the last place she was seen-and back to the house. Today there’s a small flower bed and lawn there, but in the sixties it was a gravelled area used for parking. All the killer had to do was open the boot of a car and put Harriet inside. When we began searching the island the next day, nobody was thinking that a crime had been committed. We focused on the shorelines, the buildings, and the woods closest to the village.” “So nobody was checking the boots of cars.” “And by the following evening the killer would have been free to get in his car and drive across the bridge to hide the body somewhere else.” “Right under the noses of everyone involved in the search. If that’s the way it happened, we’re talking about a cold-blooded bastard.” Vanger gave a bitter laugh. “You just gave an apt description of quite a few members of the Vanger family.” They continued their discussion over supper at 6:00. Anna served roast hare with currant jelly and potatoes. Vanger poured a robust red wine. Blomkvist still had plenty of time to make the last train. He thought it was about time to sum things up. “It’s a fascinating story you’ve been telling me, I admit it. But I still don’t know why you wanted me to hear it.” “I told you. I want to nail the swine who murdered Harriet. And I want to hire you to find out who it was.” “Why?” Vanger put down his knife and fork. “Mikael, for thirty-six years I’ve driven myself crazy wondering what happened to Harriet. I’ve devoted more and more of my time to it.” He fell silent and took off his glasses, scrutinising some invisible speck of dirt on the lens. Then he raised his eyes and looked at Blomkvist. “To be completely honest with you, Harriet’s disappearance was the reason why gradually I withdrew from the firm’s management. I lost all motivation. I knew that there was a killer somewhere nearby and the worrying and searching for the truth began to affect my work. The worst thing is that the burden didn’t get any lighter over time-on the contrary. Around 1970 I had a period when I just wanted to be left alone. Then Martin joined the board of directors, and he had to take on more and more of my work. In 1976 I retired and Martin took over as CEO. I still have a seat on the board, but I haven’t sailed many knots since I turned fifty. For the last thirty-six years not a day has passed that I have not pondered Harriet’s disappearance. You may think I’m obsessed with it-at least most of my relatives think so.” “It was a horrific event.” “More than that. It ruined my life. That’s something I’ve become more aware of as time has passed. Do you have a good sense of yourself?” “I think so, yes.” “I do too. I can’t forget what happened. But my motives have changed over the years. At first it was probably grief. I wanted to find her and at least have a chance to bury her. It was about getting justice for Harriet.” “In what way has that changed?” “Now it’s more about finding the bastard who did it. But the funny thing is, the older I get, the more of an all-absorbing hobby it has become.” “Hobby?” “Yes, I would use that word. When the police investigation petered out I kept going. I’ve tried to proceed systematically and scientifically. I’ve gathered all the information that could possibly be found-the photographs, the police report, I’ve written down everything people told me about what they were doing that day. So in effect I’ve spent almost half my life collecting information about a single day.” “You realise, I suppose, that after thirty-six years the killer himself might be dead and buried?” “I don’t believe that.” Blomkvist raised his eyebrows at the conviction in his voice. “Let’s finish dinner and go back upstairs. There’s one more detail before my story is done. And it’s the most perplexing of all.” Salander parked the Corolla with the automatic transmission by the commuter railway station in Sundbyberg. She had borrowed the Toyota from Milton Security’s motor pool. She had not exactly asked permission, but Armansky had never expressly forbidden her from using Milton ’s cars. Sooner or later, she thought, I have to get a vehicle of my own. She did own a second-hand Kawasaki 125, which she used in the summertime. During the winter the bike was locked in her cellar. She walked to H?gklintav?gen and rang the bell at 6:00 on the dot. Seconds later the lock on the street door clicked and she went up two flights and rang the doorbell next to the name of Svensson. She had no idea who Svensson might be or if any such person even lived in that apartment. “Hi, Plague,” she said. “Wasp. You only pop in when you need something.” As usual, it was dark in the apartment; the light from a single lamp seeped out into the hall from the bedroom he used as an office. The man, who was three years older than Salander, was six foot two and weighed 330 pounds. She herself was four feet eleven and weighed 90 pounds and had always felt like a midget next to Plague. The place smelled stuffy and stale. “It’s because you never take a bath, Plague. It smells like a monkey house in here. If you ever went out I could give you some tips on soap. They have it at the Konsum.” He gave her a wan smile, but said nothing. He motioned her to follow him into the kitchen. He plopped down on a chair by the kitchen table without turning on a light. The only illumination came from the street light beyond the window. “I mean, I may not hold the record in cleaning house either, but if I’ve got old milk cartons that smell like maggots I bundle them up and put them out.” “I’m on a disability pension,” he said. “I’m socially incompetent.” “So that’s why the government gave you a place to live and forgot about you. Aren’t you ever afraid that your neighbours are going to complain to the inspectors? Then you might fetch up in the funny farm.” “Have you something for me?” Salander unzipped her jacket pocket and handed him five thousand kronor. “It’s all I can spare. It’s my own money, and I can’t really deduct you as a dependant.” “What do you want?” “The electronic cuff you talked about two months ago. Did you get it?” He smiled and laid a box on the table. “Show me how it works.” For the next few minutes she listened intently. Then she tested the cuff. Plague might be a social incompetent, but he was unquestionably a genius. *** Vanger waited until he once more had Blomkvist’s attention. Blomkvist looked at his watch and said, “One perplexing detail.” Vanger said: “I was born on November 1. When Harriet was eight she gave me a birthday present, a pressed flower, framed.” Vanger walked around the desk and pointed to the first flower. Bluebell. It had an amateurish mounting. “That was the first. I got it in 1958.” He pointed to the next one. “ 1959.” Buttercup. “ 1960.” Daisy. “It became a tradition. She would make the frame sometime during the summer and save it until my birthday. I always hung them on the wall in this room. In 1966 she disappeared and the tradition was broken.” Vanger pointed to a gap in the row of frames. Blomkvist felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck. The wall was filled with pressed flowers. “ 1967, a year after she disappeared, I received this flower on my birthday. It’s a violet.” “How did the flower come to you?” “Wrapped in what they call gift paper and posted in a padded envelope from Stockholm. No return address. No message.” “You mean that…” Blomkvist made a sweeping gesture. “Precisely. On my birthday every damn year. Do you know how that feels? It’s directed at me, precisely as if the murderer wants to torture me. I’ve worried myself sick over whether Harriet might have been taken away because someone wanted to get at me. It was no secret that she and I had a special relationship and that I thought of her as my own daughter.” “So what is it you want me to do?” Blomkvist said. When Salander returned the Corolla to the garage under Milton Security, she made sure to go to the toilet upstairs in the office. She used her card key in the door and took the lift straight up to the third floor to avoid going in through the main entrance on the second floor, where the duty officer worked. She used the toilet and got a cup of coffee from the espresso machine that Armansky had bought when at long last he recognised that Salander would never make coffee just because it was expected of her. Then she went to her office and hung her leather jacket over the back of her chair. The office was a 61/2-by-10-foot glass cubicle. There was a desk with an old model Dell desktop PC, a telephone, one office chair, a metal waste paper basket, and a bookshelf. The bookshelf contained an assortment of directories and three blank notebooks. The two desk drawers housed some ballpoints, paper clips, and a notebook. On the window sill stood a potted plant with brown, withered leaves. Salander looked thoughtfully at the plant, as if it were the first time she had seen it, then she deposited it firmly in the waste paper basket. She seldom had anything to do in her office and visited it no more than half a dozen times a year, mainly when she needed to sit by herself and prepare a report just before handing it in. Armansky had insisted that she have her own space. His reasoning was that she would then feel like part of the company although she worked as a freelancer. She suspected that Armansky hoped that this way he would have a chance to keep an eye on her and meddle in her affairs. At first she had been given space farther down the corridor, in a larger room that she was expected to share with a colleague. But since she was never there Armansky finally moved her into the cubbyhole at the end of the corridor. Salander took out the cuff. She looked at it, meditatively biting her lower lip. It was past 11:00 and she was alone on the floor. She suddenly felt excruciatingly bored. After a while she got up and walked to the end of the hall and tried the door to Armansky’s office. Locked. She looked around. The chances of anyone turning up in the corridor around midnight on December 26 were almost nonexistent. She opened the door with a pirate copy of the company’s card key, which she had taken the trouble to make several years before. Armansky’s office was spacious: in front of his desk were guest chairs, and a conference table with room for eight people was in the corner. It was impeccably neat. She had not snooped in his office for quite some time, but now that she was here…She spent a while at his desk to bring herself up to date regarding the search for a suspected mole in the company, which of her colleagues had been planted undercover in a firm where a theft ring was operating, and what measures had been taken in all secrecy to protect a client who was afraid her child was in danger of being kidnapped by the father. At last she put the papers back precisely the way they were, locked Armansky’s door, and walked home. She felt satisfied with her day. *** “I don’t know whether we’ll find out the truth, but I refuse to go to my grave without giving it one last try,” the old man said. “I simply want to commission you to go through all the evidence one last time.” “This is crazy,” Blomkvist said. “Why is it crazy?” “I’ve heard enough. Henrik, I understand your grief, but I have to be honest with you. What you’re asking me to do is a waste of my time and your money. You are asking me to conjure up a solution to a mystery that the police and experienced investigators with considerably greater resources have failed to solve all these years. You’re asking me to solve a crime getting on for forty years after it was committed. How could I possibly do that?” “We haven’t discussed your fee,” Vanger said. “That won’t be necessary.” “I can’t force you, but listen to what I’m offering. Frode has already drawn up a contract. We can negotiate the details, but the contract is simple, and all it needs is your signature.” “Henrik, this is absurd. I really don’t believe I can solve the mystery of Harriet’s disappearance.” “According to the contract, you don’t have to. All it asks is that you do your best. If you fail, then it’s God’s will, or-if you don’t believe in Him-it’s fate.” Blomkvist sighed. He was feeling more and more uncomfortable and wanted to end this visit to Hedeby, but he relented. “All right, let’s hear it.” “I want you to live and work here in Hedeby for a year. I want you to go through the investigative report on Harriet’s disappearance one page at a time. I want you to examine everything with new eyes. I want you to question all the old conclusions exactly the way an investigative reporter would. I want you to look for something that I and the police and other investigators may have missed.” “You’re asking me to set aside my life and career to devote myself for a whole year to something that’s a complete waste of time.” Vanger smiled. “As to your career, we might agree that for the moment it’s somewhat on hold.” Blomkvist had no answer to that. “I want to buy a year of your life. Give you a job. The salary is better than any offer you’ll ever get in your life. I will pay you 200,000 kronor a month-that’s 2.4 million kronor if you accept and stay the whole year.” Blomkvist was astonished. “I have no illusions. The possibility you will succeed is minimal, but if against all odds you should crack the mystery then I’m offering a bonus of double payment, or 4.8 million kronor. Let’s be generous and round it off to five million.” Vanger leaned back and cocked his head. “I can pay the money into any bank account you wish, anywhere in the world. You can also take the money in cash in a suitcase, so it’s up to you whether you want to report the income to the tax authorities.” “This is…not healthy,” Blomkvist stammered. “Why so?” Vanger said calmly. “I’m eighty-two and still in full possession of my faculties. I have a large personal fortune; I can spend it any way I want. I have no children and absolutely no desire to leave any money to relatives I despise. I’ve made my last will and testament; I’ll be giving the bulk of my fortune to the World Wildlife Fund. A few people who are close to me will receive significant amounts-including Anna.” Blomkvist shook his head. “Try to understand me,” Vanger said. “I’m a man who’s going to die soon. There’s one thing in the world I want to have-and that’s an answer to this question that has plagued me for half my life. I don’t expect to find the answer, but I do have resources to make one last attempt. Is that unreasonable? I owe it to Harriet. And I owe it to myself.” “You’ll be paying me several million kronor for nothing. All I need to do is sign the contract and then twiddle my thumbs for a year.” “You wouldn’t do that. On the contrary-you’ll work harder than you’ve ever worked in your life.” “How can you be so sure?” “Because I can offer you something that you can’t buy for any price, but which you want more than anything in the world.” “And what would that be?” Vanger’s eyes narrowed. “I can give you Hans-Erik Wennerstr?m. I can prove that he’s a swindler. He happened, thirty-five years ago, to begin his career with me, and I can give you his head on a platter. Solve the mystery and you can turn your defeat in court into the story of the year.” CHAPTER 7. Friday, January 3 Erika set her coffee cup on the table and stood by the window looking out at the view of Gamla Stan. It was 9:00 in the morning. All the snow had been washed away by the rain over New Year’s. “I’ve always loved this view,” she said. “An apartment like this would make me give up living in Saltsj?baden.” “You’ve got the keys. You can move over from your upper-class reserve any time you want,” Blomkvist said. He closed the suitcase and put it by the front door. Berger turned and gave him a disbelieving look. “You can’t be serious, Mikael,” she said. “We’re in our worst crisis and you’re packing to go and live in Tjottahejti.” “Hedestad. A couple of hours by train. And it’s not for ever.” “It might as well be Ulan Bator. Don’t you see that it will look as if you’re slinking off with your tail between your legs?” “That’s precisely what I am doing. Besides, I have to do some gaol time too.” Christer Malm was sitting on the sofa. He was uncomfortable. It was the first time since they founded Millennium that he had seen Berger and Blomkvist in such disagreement. Over all the years they had been inseparable. Sometimes they had furious clashes, but their arguments were always about business matters, and they would invariably resolve all those issues before they hugged each other and went back to their corners. Or to bed. Last autumn had not been fun, and now it was as if a great gulf had opened up between them. Malm wondered if he was watching the beginning of the end of Millennium. “I don’t have a choice,” Blomkvist said. “We don’t have a choice.” He poured himself a coffee and sat at the kitchen table. Berger shook her head and sat down facing him. “What do you think, Christer?” she said. He had been expecting the question and dreading the moment when he would have to take a stand. He was the third partner, but they all knew that it was Blomkvist and Berger who were Millennium. The only time they asked his advice was when they could not agree. “Honestly,” Malm said, “you both know perfectly well it doesn’t matter what I think.” He shut up. He loved making pictures. He loved working with graphics. He had never considered himself an artist, but he knew he was a damned good designer. On the other hand, he was helpless at intrigue and policy decisions. Berger and Blomkvist looked at each other across the table. She was cool and furious. He was thinking hard. This isn’t an argument, Malm thought. It’s a divorce. “OK, let me present my case one last time,” Blomkvist said. “This does not mean I’ve given up on Millennium. We’ve spent too much time working our hearts out for that.” “But now you won’t be at the office-Christer and I will have to carry the load. Can’t you see that? You’re the one marching into self-imposed exile.” “That’s the second thing. I need a break, Erika. I’m not functioning anymore. I’m burned out. A paid sabbatical in Hedestad might be exactly what I need.” “The whole thing is idiotic, Mikael. You might as well take a job in a circus.” “I know. But I’m going to get 2.4 million for sitting on my backside for a year, and I won’t be wasting my time. That’s the third thing. Round One with Wennerstr?m is over, and he knocked me out. Round Two has already started-he’s going to try to sink Millennium for good because he knows that the staff here will always know what he’s been up to, for as long as the magazine exists.” “I know what he’s doing. I’ve seen it in the monthly ad sales figures for the last six months.” “That’s exactly why I have to get out of the office. I’m like a red rag waving at him. He’s paranoid as far as I’m concerned. As long as I’m here, he’ll just keep on coming. Now we have to prepare ourselves for Round Three. If we’re going to have the slightest chance against Wennerstr?m, we have to retreat and work out a whole new strategy. We have to find something to hammer him with. That’ll be my job this year.” “I understand all that,” Berger said. “So go ahead and take a holiday. Go abroad, lie on a beach for a month. Check out the love life on the Costa Brava. Relax. Go out to Sandhamn and look at the waves.” “And when I come back nothing will be different. Wennerstr?m is going to crush Millennium unless he is appeased by my having stood down. You know that. The only thing which might otherwise stop him is if we get something on him that we can use.” “And you think that’s what you will find in Hedestad?” “I checked the cuttings. Wennerstr?m did work at the Vanger company from 1969 to 1972. He was in management and was responsible for strategic placements. He left in a hurry. Why should we rule out the possibility that Henrik Vanger does have something on him?” “But if what he did happened thirty years ago, it’s going to be hard to prove it today.” “Vanger promised to set out in detail what he knows. He’s obsessed with this missing girl-it seems to be the only thing he’s interested in, and if this means he has to burn Wennerstr?m then I think there’s a good chance he’ll do it. We certainly can’t ignore the opportunity-he’s the first person who’s said he’s willing to go on record with evidence against Wennerstr?m.” “We couldn’t use it even if you came back with incontrovertible proof that it was Wennerstr?m who strangled the girl. Not after so many years. He’d massacre us in court.” “The thought had crossed my mind, but it’s no good: he was plugging away at the Stockholm School of Economics and had no connection with the Vanger companies at the time she disappeared.” Blomkvist paused. “Erika, I’m not going to leave Millennium, but it’s important for it to look as if I have. You and Christer have to go on running the magazine. If you can…if you have a chance to…arrange a cease-fire with Wennerstr?m, then do it. You can’t do that if I’m still on the editorial board.” “OK, but it’s a rotten situation, and I think you’re grasping at straws going to Hedestad.” “Have you a better idea?” Berger shrugged. “We ought to start chasing down sources right now. Build up the story from the beginning. And do it right this time.” “Ricky-that story is dead as a doornail.” Dejected, Berger rested her head on her hands. When she spoke, at first she did not want to meet Blomkvist’s eyes. “I’m so fucking angry with you. Not because the story you wrote was baseless-I was in on it as much as you were. And not because you’re leaving your job as publisher-that’s a smart decision in this situation. I can go along with making it look like a schism or a power struggle between you and me-I understand the logic when it’s a matter of making Wennerstr?m believe I’m a harmless bimbo and you’re the real threat.” She paused and now looked him resolutely in the eye. “But I think you’re making a mistake. Wennerstr?m isn’t going to fall for it. He’s going to keep on destroying Millennium. The only difference is that starting from today, I have to fight him alone, and you know that you’re needed more than ever on the editorial board. OK, I’d love to wage war against Wennerstr?m, but what makes me so cross is that you’re abandoning ship all of a sudden. You’re leaving me in the lurch when things are absolutely at their worst ever.” Blomkvist reached across and stroked her hair. “You’re not alone. You’ve got Christer and the rest of the staff behind you.” “Not Janne Dahlman. By the way, I think you made a mistake hiring him. He’s competent, but he does more harm than good. I don’t trust him. He went around looking gleeful about your troubles all autumn. I don’t know if he hopes he can take over your role or whether it’s just personal chemistry between him and the rest of the staff.” “I’m afraid you’re right,” Blomkvist said. “So what should I do? Fire him?” “Erika, you’re editor in chief and the senior shareholder of Millennium. If you have to, fire him.” “We’ve never fired anyone, Micke. And now you’re dumping this decision on me too. It’s no fun any more going to the office in the morning.” At that point Malm surprised them by standing up. “If you’re going to catch that train we’ve got to get moving.” Berger began to protest, but he held up a hand. “Wait, Erika, you asked me what I thought. Well, I think the situation is shitty. But if things are the way Mikael says-that he’s about to hit the wall-then he really does have to leave for his own sake. We owe him that much.” They stared at Malm in astonishment and he gave Blomkvist an embarrassed look. “You both know that it’s you two who are Millennium. I’m a partner and you’ve always been fair with me and I love the magazine and all that, but you could easily replace me with some other art director. But since you asked for my opinion, there you have it. As far as Dahlman is concerned, I agree with you. And if you want to fire him, Erika, then I’ll do it for you. As long as we have a credible reason. Obviously it’s extremely unfortunate that Mikael’s leaving right now, but I don’t think we have a choice. Mikael, I’ll drive you to the station. Erika and I will hold the fort until you get back.” “What I’m afraid of is that Mikael won’t ever come back,” Berger said quietly. Armansky woke up Salander when he called her at 1:30 in the afternoon. “What’s this about?” she said, drunk with sleep. Her mouth tasted like tar. “Mikael Blomkvist. I just talked to our client, the lawyer, Frode.” “So?” “He called to say that we can drop the investigation of Wennerstr?m.” “Drop it? But I’ve just started working on it.” “Frode isn’t interested any more.” “Just like that?” “He’s the one who decides.” “We agreed on a fee.” “How much time have you put in?” Salander thought about it. “Three full days.” “We agreed on a ceiling of forty thousand kronor. I’ll write an invoice for ten thousand; you’ll get half, which is acceptable for three days of time wasted. He’ll have to pay because he’s the one who initiated the whole thing.” “What should I do with the material I’ve gathered?” “Is there anything dramatic?” “No.” “Frode didn’t ask for a report. Put it on the shelf in case he comes back. Otherwise you can shred it. I’ll have a new job for you next week.” Salander sat for a while holding the telephone after Armansky hung up. She went to her work corner in the living room and looked at the notes she had pinned up on the wall and the papers she had stacked on the desk. What she had managed to collect was mostly press cuttings and articles downloaded from the Internet. She took the papers and dropped them in a desk drawer. She frowned. Blomkvist’s strange behaviour in the courtroom had presented an interesting challenge, and Salander did not like aborting an assignment once she had started. People always have secrets. It’s just a matter of finding out what they are. PART 2. Consequence Analyses JANUARY 3-MARCH 17 Forty-six percent of the women in Sweden have been subjected to violence by a man. CHAPTER 8. Friday, January 3-Sunday, January 5 When Blomkvist alighted from his train in Hedestad for the second time, the sky was a pastel blue and the air icy cold. The thermometer on the wall of the station said 0°F. He was wearing unsuitable walking shoes. Unlike on his previous visit, there was no Herr Frode waiting with a warm car. Blomkvist had told them which day he would arrive, but not on which train. He assumed there was a bus to Hedeby, but he did not feel like struggling with two heavy suitcases and a shoulder bag, so he crossed the square to the taxi stand. It had snowed massively all along the Norrland coast between Christmas and New Year’s, and judging by the ridges and piles of snow thrown up by the ploughs, the road teams had been out in full force in Hedestad. The taxi driver, whose name, according to his ID posted on the window, was Hussein, nodded when Blomkvist asked whether they had been having rough weather. In the broadest Norrland accent, he reported that it had been the worst snowstorm in decades, and he bitterly regretted not taking his holiday in Greece over the Christmas period. Blomkvist directed him to Henrik Vanger’s newly shovelled courtyard, where he lifted his suitcases on to the cobblestones and watched the taxi head back towards Hedestad. He suddenly felt lonely and uncertain. He heard the door open behind him. Vanger was wrapped up in a heavy fur coat, thick boots, and a cap with earflaps. Blomkvist was in jeans and a thin leather jacket. “If you’re going to live up here, you need to learn to dress more warmly for this time of year.” They shook hands. “Are you sure you don’t want to stay in the main house? No? Then I think we’d better start getting you settled into your new lodgings.” One of the conditions in his negotiations with Vanger and Dirch Frode had been that he have living quarters where he could do his own housekeeping and come and go as he pleased. Vanger led Blomkvist back along the road towards the bridge and then turned to open the gate to another newly shovelled courtyard in front of a small timbered house close to the end of the bridge. The house was not locked. They stepped into a modest hallway where Blomkvist, with a sigh of relief, put down his suitcases. “This is what we call our guest house. It’s where we usually put people up who are going to stay for a longer period of time. This was where you and your parents lived in 1963. It’s one of the oldest buildings in the village, but it’s been modernised. I asked Nilsson, my caretaker, to light the fire this morning.” The house consisted of a large kitchen and two smaller rooms, totalling about 500 square feet. The kitchen took up half the space and was quite modern, with an electric stove and a small refrigerator. Against the wall facing the front door stood an old cast-iron stove in which a fire had indeed been lit earlier in the day. “You don’t need to use the woodstove unless it gets bitterly cold. The firewood bin is there in the hallway, and you’ll find a woodshed at the back. The house has been unlived-in this autumn. The electric heaters are usually sufficient. Just make sure you don’t hang any clothes on them, or it may start a fire.” Blomkvist looked around. Windows faced three different directions, and from the kitchen table he had a view of the bridge, about a hundred feet away. The furnishings in the kitchen included three big cupboards, some kitchen chairs, an old bench, and a shelf for newspapers. On top was an issue of See from 1967. In one corner was a smaller table that could be used as a desk. Two narrow doors led to smaller rooms. The one on the right, closest to the outside wall, was hardly more than a cubbyhole with a desk, a chair, and some shelves along the wall. The other room, between the hallway and the little office, was a very small bedroom with a narrow double bed, a bedside table, and a wardrobe. On the walls hung landscape paintings. The furniture and wallpaper in the house were all old and faded, but the place smelled nice and clean. Someone had worked over the floor with a dose of soap. The bedroom had another door to the hallway, where a storeroom had been converted into a bathroom with a shower. “You may have a problem with the water,” Vanger said. “We checked it this morning, but the pipes aren’t buried very deep, and if this cold hangs on for long they may freeze. There’s a bucket in the hallway so come up and get water from us if you need to.” “I’ll need a telephone,” Blomkvist said. “I’ve already ordered one. They’ll be here to install it the day after tomorrow. So, what do you think? If you change your mind, you would be welcome in the main house at any time.” “This will be just fine,” Blomkvist said. “Excellent. We have another hour or so of daylight left. Shall we take a walk so you can familiarise yourself with the village? Might I suggest that you put on some heavy socks and a pair of boots? You’ll find them by the front door.” Blomkvist did as he suggested and decided that the very next day he would go shopping for long underwear and a pair of good winter shoes. The old man started the tour by explaining that Blomkvist’s neighbour across the road was Gunnar Nilsson, the assistant whom Vanger insisted on calling “the caretaker.” But Blomkvist soon realised that he was more of a superintendent for all the buildings on Hedeby Island, and he also had responsibility for several buildings in Hedestad. “His father was Magnus Nilsson, who was my caretaker in the sixties, one of the men who helped out at the accident on the bridge. Magnus is retired and lives in Hedestad. Gunnar lives here with his wife, whose name is Helena. Their children have moved out.” Vanger paused for a moment to shape what he would say next, which was: “Mikael, the official explanation for your presence here is that you’re going to help me write my autobiography. That will give you an excuse for poking around in all the dark corners and asking questions. The real assignment is strictly between you and me and Dirch Frode.” “I understand. And I’ll repeat what I said before: I don’t think I’m going to be able to solve the mystery.” “All I ask is that you do your best. But we must be careful what we say in front of anyone else. Gunnar is fifty-six, which means that he was nineteen when Harriet disappeared. There’s one question that I never got answered-Harriet and Gunnar were good friends, and I think some sort of childish romance went on between them. He was pretty interested in her, at any rate. But on the day she disappeared, he was in Hedestad; he was one of those stranded on the mainland. Because of their relationship, he came under close scrutiny. It was quite unpleasant for him. He was with some friends all day, and he didn’t get back here until evening. The police checked his alibi and it was airtight.” “I assume that you have a list of everyone who was on the island and what everybody was doing that day.” “That’s correct. Shall we go on?” They stopped at the crossroads on the hill, and Vanger pointed down towards the old fishing harbour, now used for small boats. “All the land on Hedeby Island is owned by the Vanger family-or by me, to be more precise. The one exception is the farmland at ?sterg?rden and a few houses here in the village. The cabins down there at the fishing harbour are privately owned, but they’re summer cottages and are mostly vacant during the winter. Except for that house farthest away-you can see smoke coming from the chimney.” Blomkvist saw the smoke rising. He was frozen to the bone. “It’s a miserably draughty hovel that functions as living quarters year-round. That’s where Eugen Norman lives. He’s in his late seventies and is a painter of sorts. I think his work is kitsch, but he’s rather well known as a landscape painter. You might call him the obligatory eccentric in the village.” Vanger guided Blomkvist out towards the point, identifying one house after the other. The village consisted of six buildings on the west side of the road and four on the east. The first house, closest to Blomkvist’s guest house and the Vanger estate, belonged to Henrik Vanger’s brother Harald. It was a rectangular, two-storey stone building which at first glance seemed unoccupied. The curtains were drawn and the path to the front door had not been cleared; it was covered with a foot and a half of snow. On second glance, they could see the footprints of someone who had trudged through the snow from the road up to the door. “Harald is a recluse. He and I have never seen eye to eye. Apart from our disagreements over the firm-he’s a shareholder-we’ve barely spoken to each other in nearly 60 years. He’s ninety-two now, and the only one of my four brothers still alive. I’ll tell you the details later, but he trained to be a doctor and spent most of his professional life in Uppsala. He moved back to Hedeby when he turned seventy.” “You don’t care much for each other, and yet you’re neighbours.” “I find him detestable, and I would have rather he’d stayed in Uppsala, but he owns this house. Do I sound like a scoundrel?” “You sound like someone who doesn’t much like his brother.” “I spent the first twenty-five years of my life apologising for people like Harald because we’re family. Then I discovered that being related is no guarantee of love and I had few reasons to defend Harald.” The next house belonged to Isabella, Harriet Vanger’s mother. “She’ll be seventy-five this year, and she’s still as stylish and vain as ever. She’s also the only one in the village who talks to Harald, and occasionally visits him, but they don’t have much in common.” “How was her relationship with Harriet?” “Good question. The women have to be included among the suspects. I told you that she mostly left the children to their own devices. I can’t be sure, but I think her heart was in the right place; she just wasn’t capable of taking responsibility. She and Harriet were never close, but they weren’t enemies either. Isabella can be tough, but sometimes she’s not all there. You’ll see what I mean when you meet her.” Isabella’s neighbour was Cecilia Vanger, the daughter of Harald. “She was married once and lived in Hedestad, but she and her husband separated some twenty years ago. I own the house and offered to let her move in. She is a teacher, and in many ways she’s the direct opposite of her father. I might add that she and her father speak to each other only when necessary.” “How old is she?” “Born in 1946. So she was twenty when Harriet disappeared. And yes, she was one of the guests on the island that day. Cecilia may seem flighty, but in fact she’s shrewder than most. Don’t underestimate her. If anyone’s going to ferret out what you’re up to, she’s the one. I might add that she’s one of my relatives for whom I have the highest regard.” “Does that mean that you don’t suspect her?” “I wouldn’t say that. I want you to ponder the matter without any constraints, regardless of what I think or believe.” The house closest to Cecilia’s was also owned by Henrik Vanger, but it was leased to an elderly couple formerly part of the management team of the Vanger companies. They had moved to Hedeby Island in the eighties, so they had nothing to do with Harriet’s disappearance. The next house was owned by Birger Vanger, Cecilia’s brother. The house had been empty for many years since Birger moved to a modern house in Hedestad. Most of the buildings lining the road were solid stone structures from the early twentieth century. The last house was of a different type, a modern, architect-designed home built of white brick with black window frames. It was in a beautiful situation, and Blomkvist could see that the view from the top floor must be magnificent, facing the sea to the east and Hedestad to the north. “This is where Martin lives-Harriet’s brother and the Vanger Corporation CEO. The parsonage used to be here, but that building was destroyed by a fire in the seventies, and Martin built this house in 1978 when he took over as CEO.” In the last building on the east side of the road lived Gerda Vanger, widow of Henrik’s brother Greger, and her son, Alexander. “Gerda is sickly. She suffers from rheumatism. Alexander owns a small share of the Vanger Corporation, but he runs a number of his own businesses, including restaurants. He usually spends a few months each year in Barbados, where he has invested a considerable sum in the tourist trade.” Between Gerda’s and Henrik’s houses was a plot of land with two smaller, empty buildings. They were used as guest houses for family members. On the other side of Henrik’s house stood a private dwelling where another retired employee lived with his wife, but it was empty in the winter when the couple repaired to Spain. They returned to the crossroads, and with that the tour was over. Dusk was beginning to fall. Blomkvist took the initiative. “Henrik, I’ll do what I’ve been hired to do. I’ll write your autobiography, and I’ll humour you by reading all the material about Harriet as carefully and critically as I can. I just want you to realise that I’m not a private detective.” “I expect nothing.” “Fine.” “I’m a night owl,” Vanger said. “So I’m at your disposal any time after lunch. I’ll arrange for you to have an office up here, and you can make use of it whenever you like.” “No, thank you. I have an office in the guest house, and that’s where I’ll do my work.” “As you wish.” “If I need to talk to you, we’ll do it in your office, but I’m not going to start throwing questions at you tonight.” “I understand.” The old man seemed improbably timid. “It’s going to take a couple of weeks to read through the papers. We’ll work on two fronts. We’ll meet for a few hours each day so that I can interview you and gather material for your biography. When I start having questions about Harriet which I need to discuss with you, I’ll let you know.” “That sounds sensible.” “I’m going to require a free hand to do my work, and I won’t have any set work hours.” “You decide for yourself how the work should be done.” “I suppose you’re aware that I have to spend a couple of months in prison. I don’t know exactly when, but I’m not going to appeal. It’ll probably be sometime this year.” Vanger frowned. “That’s unfortunate. We’ll have to solve that problem when it comes up. You can always request a postponement.” “If it’s permitted and I have enough material, I might be able to work on your book in prison. One more thing: I’m still part owner of Millennium and as of now it’s a magazine in crisis. If something happens that requires my presence in Stockholm, I would have to drop what I’m doing and go there.” “I didn’t take you on as a serf. I want you to do a thorough job on the assignment I’ve given you, but, of course, you can set your own schedule and do the work as you see fit. If you need to take some time off, feel free to do it, but if I find out that you’re not doing the work, I’ll consider that a breach of contract.” Vanger looked over towards the bridge. He was a gaunt man, and Blomkvist thought that he looked at that moment like a melancholy scarecrow. “As far as Millennium is concerned, we ought to have a discussion about what kind of crisis it’s in and whether I can help in some way.” “The best assistance you can offer is to give me Wennerstr?m’s head on a platter right here and now.” “Oh no, I’m not thinking of doing that.” The old man gave Blomkvist a hard look. “The only reason you took this job was because I promised to expose Wennerstr?m. If I give you the information now, you could stop work on the job whenever you felt like it. I’ll give you the information a year from now.” “Henrik, forgive me for saying this, but I can’t be sure that a year from now you’ll be alive.” Vanger sighed and cast a thoughtful gaze over the fishing harbour. “Fair enough. I’ll talk to Frode and see if we can work something out. But as far as Millennium is concerned, I might be able to help in another way. As I understand it, the advertisers have begun to pull out.” “The advertisers are the immediate problem, but the crisis goes deeper than that. It’s a matter of trust. It doesn’t matter how many advertisers we have if no-one wants to buy the magazine.” “I realise that. I’m still on the board of directors of quite a large corporation, albeit in a passive role. We have to place advertisements somewhere. Let’s discuss the matter at some stage. Would you like to have dinner…” “No. I want to get settled, buy some groceries, and take a look around. Tomorrow I’ll go to Hedestad and shop for winter clothes.” “Good idea.” “I’d like the files about Harriet to be moved over to my place.” “They need to be handled…” “With great care-I understand.” Blomkvist returned to the guest house. His teeth were chattering by the time he got indoors. The thermometer outside the window said 5°F, and he couldn’t remember ever feeling so cold as after that walk, which had lasted barely twenty minutes. He spent an hour settling himself into what was to be his home for the coming year. He put his clothes in the wardrobe in the bedroom, his toiletries went in the bathroom cabinet. His second suitcase was actually a trunk on wheels. From it he took books, CDs and a CD player, notebooks, a Sanyo tape recorder, a Microtek scanner, a portable ink-jet printer, a Minolta digital camera, and a number of other items he regarded as essential kit for a year in exile. He arranged the books and the CDs on the bookshelf in the office alongside two binders containing research material on Hans-Erik Wennerstr?m. The material was useless, but he could not let it go. Somehow he had to turn those two folders into building blocks for his continuing career. Finally he opened his shoulder bag and put his iBook on the desk in the office. Then he stopped and looked about him with a sheepish expression. The benefits of living in the countryside, forsooth. There was nowhere to plug in the broadband cable. He did not even have a telephone jack to connect an old dial-up modem. Blomkvist called the Telia telephone company from his mobile. After a slight hassle, he managed to get someone to find the order that Vanger had placed for the guest house. He wanted to know whether the connection could handle ADSL and was told that it would be possible by way of a relay in Hedeby, and that it would take several days. It was after 4:00 by the time Blomkvist was done. He put on a pair of thick socks and the borrowed boots and pulled on an extra sweater. At the front door he stopped short; he had been given no keys to the house, and his big-city instincts rebelled at the idea of leaving the front door unlocked. He went back to the kitchen and began opening drawers. Finally he found a key hanging from a nail in the pantry. The temperature had dropped to -1°F. He walked briskly across the bridge and up the hill past the church. The Konsum store was conveniently located about three hundred yards away. He filled two paper bags to overflowing with supplies and then carried them home before returning across the bridge. This time he stopped at Susanne’s Bridge Caf?. The woman behind the counter was in her fifties. He asked whether she was Susanne and then introduced himself by saying that he was undoubtedly going to be a regular customer. He was for the time being the only customer, and Susanne offered him coffee when he ordered sandwiches and bought a loaf of bread. He picked up a copy of the Hedestad Courier from the newspaper rack and sat at a table with a view of the bridge and the church, its facade now lit up. It looked like a Christmas card. It took him about four minutes to read the newspaper. The only news of interest was a brief item explaining that a local politician by the name of Birger Vanger (Liberal) was going to invest in “IT TechCent”-a technology development centre in Hedestad. Mikael sat there until the caf? closed at 6:00. At 7:30 he called Berger, but was advised that the party at that number was not available. He sat on the kitchen bench and tried to read a novel which, according to the back cover text, was the sensational debut of a teenage feminist. The novel was about the author’s attempt to get a handle on her sex life during a trip to Paris, and Blomkvist wondered whether he could be called a feminist if he wrote a novel about his own sex life in the voice of a high-school student. Probably not. He had bought the book because the publisher had hailed the first-time novelist as “a new Carina Rydberg.” He quickly ascertained that this was not the case in either style or content. He put the book aside for a while and instead read a Hopalong Cassidy story in an issue of Rekordmagasinet from the mid-fifties. Every half hour he heard the curt, muted clang of the church bell. Lights were visible in the windows at the home of the caretaker across the road, but Blomkvist could not see anyone inside the house. Harald Vanger’s house was dark. Around 9:00 a car drove across the bridge and disappeared towards the point. At midnight the lights on the facade of the church were turned off. That was apparently the full extent of the entertainment in Hedeby on a Friday night in early January. It was eerily quiet. He tried again to call Berger and got her voicemail, asking him to leave his name and a message. He did so and then turned off the light and went to bed. The last thing he thought about before he fell asleep was that he was going to run a high risk of going stir-crazy in Hedeby. It was strange to awake to utter silence. Blomkvist passed from deep sleep to total alertness in a fraction of a second, and then lay still, listening. It was cold in the room. He turned his head and looked at his wristwatch on a stool next to the bed. It was 7:08-he had never been much of a morning person, and it used to be hard for him to wake up without having at least two alarm clocks. Today he had woken all by himself, and he even felt rested. He put some water on for coffee before getting into the shower. He was suddenly amused at his situation. Kalle Blomkvist-on a research trip in the back of beyond. The shower head changed from scalding to ice-cold at the slightest touch. There was no morning paper on the kitchen table. The butter was frozen. There was no cheese slicer in the drawer of kitchen utensils. It was still pitch dark outside. The thermometer showed 6 below zero. It was Saturday. The bus stop for Hedestad was over the road from Konsum, and Blomkvist started off his exile by carrying out his plan to go shopping in town. He got off the bus by the railway station and made a tour of the centre of town. Along the way he bought heavy winter boots, two pairs of long underwear, several flannel shirts, a proper thigh-length winter jacket, a warm cap, and lined gloves. At the electronics store he found a small portable TV with rabbit ears. The sales clerk assured him that he would at least be able to get SVT, the state TV channel, out at Hedeby, and Blomkvist promised to ask for his money back if that turned out not to be the case. He stopped at the library to get himself a card and borrowed two mysteries by Elizabeth George. He bought pens and notebooks. He also bought a rucksack for carrying his new possessions. Finally he bought a pack of cigarettes. He had stopped smoking ten years ago, but occasionally he would have a relapse. He stuck the pack in his jacket pocket without opening it. His last stop was the optician’s, and there he bought contact lens solution and ordered new lenses. By 2:00 he was back in Hedeby, and he was just removing the price tags from his new clothes when he heard the front door open. A blonde woman-perhaps in her fifties-knocked on the open kitchen door as she stepped across the threshold. She was carrying a sponge cake on a platter. “Hello. I just wanted to come over to introduce myself. My name is Helena Nilsson, and I live across the road. I hear we’re going to be neighbours.” They shook hands and he introduced himself. “Oh yes, I’ve seen you on TV. It’s going to be nice to see lights over here in the evening.” Blomkvist put on some coffee. She began to object but then sat at the kitchen table, casting a furtive glance out the window. “Here comes Henrik with my husband. It looks like some boxes for you.” Vanger and Gunnar Nilsson drew up outside with a dolly, and Blomkvist rushed out to greet them and to help carry the four packing crates inside. They set the boxes on the floor next to the stove. Blomkvist got out the coffee cups and cut into Fr?ken Nilsson’s sponge cake. The Nilssons were pleasant people. They did not seem curious about why Blomkvist was in Hedestad-the fact that he was working for Henrik Vanger was evidently enough of an explanation. Blomkvist observed the interaction between the Nilssons and Vanger, concluding that it was relaxed and lacking in any sort of gulf between master and servants. They talked about the village and the man who had built the guest house where Blomkvist was living. The Nilssons would prompt Vanger when his memory failed him. He, on the other hand, told a funny story about how Nilsson had come home one night to discover the village idiot from across the bridge trying to break a window at the guest house. Nilsson went over to ask the half-witted delinquent why he didn’t go in through the unlocked front door. Nilsson inspected Blomkvist’s little TV with misgiving and invited him to come across to their house if there was ever a programme he wanted to see. Vanger stayed on briefly after the Nilssons left. He thought it best that Blomkvist sort through the files himself, and he could come to the house if he had any problems. When he was alone once more, Blomkvist carried the boxes into his office and made an inventory of the contents. Vanger’s investigation into the disappearance of his brother’s granddaughter had been going on for thirty-six years. Blomkvist wondered whether this was an unhealthy obsession or whether, over the years, it had developed into an intellectual game. What was clear was that the old patriarch had tackled the job with the systematic approach of an amateur archaeologist-the material was going to fill twenty feet of shelving. The largest section of it consisted of twenty-six binders, which were the copies of the police investigation. Hard to believe an ordinary missing-person case would have produced such comprehensive material. Vanger no doubt had enough clout to keep the Hedestad police following up both plausible and implausible leads. Then there were scrapbooks, photograph albums, maps, texts about Hedestad and the Vanger firm, Harriet’s diary (though it did not contain many pages), her schoolbooks, medical certificates. There were sixteen bound A4 volumes of one hundred or so pages each, which were Vanger’s logbook of the investigations. In these notebooks he had recorded in an impeccable hand his own speculations, theories, digressions. Blomkvist leafed through them. The text had a literary quality, and he had the feeling that these texts were fair copies of perhaps many more notebooks. There were ten binders containing material on members of the Vanger family; these pages were typed and had been compiled over the intervening years, Vanger’s investigations of his own family. Around 7:00 he heard a loud meowing at the front door. A reddish-brown cat slipped swiftly past him into the warmth. “Wise cat,” he said. The cat sniffed around the guest house for a while. Mikael poured some milk into a dish, and his guest lapped it up. Then the cat hopped on to the kitchen bench and curled up. And there she stayed. It was after 10:00 before Blomkvist had the scope of the material clear in his mind and had arranged it on the shelves. He put on a pot of coffee and made himself two sandwiches. He had not eaten a proper meal all day, but he was strangely uninterested in food. He offered the cat a piece of sausage and some liverwurst. After drinking his coffee, he took the cigarettes out of his jacket pocket and opened the pack. He checked his mobile. Berger had not called. He tried her once more. Again only her voicemail. One of the first steps Blomkvist had taken was to scan in the map of Hedeby Island that he had borrowed from Vanger. While all the names were still fresh in his mind, he wrote down who lived in each house. The Vanger clan consisted of such an extensive cast that it would take time to learn who was who. Just before midnight he put on warm clothes and his new shoes and walked across the bridge. He turned off the road and along the sound below the church. Ice had formed on the sound and inside the old harbour, but farther out he could see a darker belt of open water. As he stood there, the lights on the facade of the church went out, and it was dark all around him. It was icy cold and stars filled the sky. All of a sudden Blomkvist felt depressed. He could not for the life of him understand how he had allowed Vanger to talk him into taking on this assignment. Berger was right: he should be in Stockholm -in bed with her, for instance-and planning his campaigns against Wennerstr?m. But he felt apathetic about that too, and he didn’t even have the faintest idea how to begin planning a counter-strategy. Had it been daylight, he would have walked straight to Vanger’s house, cancelled his contract, and gone home. But from the rise beside the church he could make out all the houses on the island side. Harald Vanger’s house was dark, but there were lights on in Cecilia’s home, as well as in Martin’s villa out by the point and in the house that was leased. In the small-boat harbour there were lights on in the draughty cabin of the artist and little clouds of sparks were rising from his chimney. There were also lights on in the top floor of the caf?, and Blomkvist wondered whether Susanne lived there, and if so, whether she was alone. On Sunday morning he awoke in panic at the incredible din that filled the guest house. It took him a second to get his bearings and realise that it was the church bells summoning parishioners to morning service. It was nearly 11:00. He stayed in bed until he heard an urgent meowing in the doorway and got up to let out the cat. By noon he had showered and eaten breakfast. He went resolutely into his office and took down the first binder from the police investigation. Then he hesitated. From the gable window he could see Susanne’s Bridge Caf?. He stuffed the binder into his shoulder bag and put on his outdoor clothes. When he reached the caf?, he found it brimming with customers, and there he had the answer to a question that had been in the back of his mind: how could a caf? survive in a backwater like Hedeby? Susanne specialised in churchgoers and presumably did coffee and cakes for funerals and other functions. He took a walk instead. Konsum was closed on Sundays, and he continued a few hundred yards towards Hedestad, where he bought newspapers at a petrol station. He spent an hour walking around Hedeby, familiarising himself with the town before the bridge. The area closest to the church and past Konsum was the centre, with older buildings-two-storey stone structures which Blomkvist guessed had been built in the 1910s or ’20s and which formed a short main street. North of the road into town were well-kept apartment buildings for families with children. Along the water and to the south of the church were mostly single-family homes. Hedeby looked to be a relatively well-to-do area for Hedestad’s decision-makers and civil servants. When he returned to the bridge, the assault on the caf? had ebbed, but Susanne was still clearing dishes from the tables. “The Sunday rush?” he said in greeting. She nodded as she tucked a lock of hair behind one ear. “Hi, Mikael.” “So you remember my name.” “Hard to forget,” she said. “I followed your trial on TV.” “They have to fill up the news with something,” he muttered, and drifted over to the corner table with a view of the bridge. When he met Susanne’s eyes, she smiled. At 3:00 Susanne announced that she was closing the caf? for the day. After the church rush, only a few customers had come and gone. Blomkvist had read more than a fifth of the first binder of the police investigation. He stuck his notebook into his bag and walked briskly home across the bridge. The cat was waiting on the steps. He looked around, wondering whose cat it was. He let it inside all the same, since the cat was at least some sort of company. He made one more vain attempt to reach Berger. Obviously she was furious with him still. He could have tried calling her direct line at the office or her home number, but he had already left enough messages. Instead, he made himself coffee, moved the cat farther along the kitchen bench, and opened the binder on the table. He read carefully and slowly, not wanting to miss any detail. By late evening, when he closed the binder, he had filled several pages of his own notebook-with reminders and questions to which he hoped to find answers in subsequent binders. The material was all arranged in chronological order. He could not tell whether Vanger had reorganised it that way or whether that was the system used by the police at the time. The first page was a photocopy of a handwritten report form headed Hedestad Police Emergency Centre. The officer who had taken the call had signed his name D.O. Ryttinger, and Blomkvist assumed the “D.O.” stood for “duty officer.” The caller was Henrik Vanger. His address and telephone number had been noted. The report was dated Sunday, September 25, 1966, at 11:14 a.m. The text was laconic: Call from Hrk. Vanger, stating that his brother’s daughter (?) Harriet Ulrika VANGER, born 15 Jan. 1950 (age 16) has been missing from her home on Hedeby Island since Saturday afternoon. The caller expressed great concern. A note sent at 11:20 a.m. stated that P-014 (police car? patrol? pilot of a boat?) had been sent to the site. Another at 11:35 a.m., in a less legible hand than Ryttinger’s, inserted that Off. Magnusson reports that bridge to Hedeby Island still blocked. Transp. by boat. In the margin an illegible signature. At 12:14 p.m. Ryttinger is back: Telephone conversation Off. Magnusson in H-by confirms that 16-year-old Harriet Vanger missing since early Saturday afternoon. Family expressed great concern. Not believed to have slept in her bed last night. Could not have left island due to blocked bridge. None of family members has any knowledge as to HV’s whereabouts. At 12:19 p.m.: G.M. informed by telephone about the situation. The last note was recorded at 1:42 p.m.: G.M. on site at H-by; will take over the matter. The next page revealed that the initials “G.M.” referred to Detective Inspector Gustaf Morell, who arrived at Hedeby Island by boat and there took over command, preparing a formal report on the disappearance of Harriet Vanger. Unlike the initial notations with their needless abbreviations, Morell’s reports were written on a typewriter and in very readable prose. The following pages recounted what measures had been taken, with an objectivity and wealth of detail that surprised Blomkvist. Morell had first interviewed Henrik Vanger along with Isabella Vanger, Harriet’s mother. Then he talked in turn with Ulrika Vanger, Harald Vanger, Greger Vanger, Harriet’s brother Martin Vanger, and Anita Vanger. Blomkvist came to the conclusion that these interviews had been conducted according to a scale of decreasing importance. Ulrika Vanger was Henrik Vanger’s mother, and evidently she held a status comparable to that of a dowager queen. Ulrika lived at the Vanger estate and was able to provide no information. She had gone to bed early on the previous night and had not seen Harriet for several days. She appeared to have insisted on meeting Detective Inspector Morell solely to give air to her opinion that the police had to act at once, immediately. Harald Vanger ranked as number two on the list. He had seen Harriet only briefly when she returned from the festivities in Hedestad, but he had not seen her since the accident on the bridge occurred and he had no knowledge of where she might be at present. Greger Vanger, brother of Henrik and Harald, stated that he had seen the missing sixteen-year-old in Henrik Vanger’s study, asking to speak with Henrik after her visit to Hedestad earlier in the day. Greger Vanger stated that he had not spoken with her himself, merely given her a greeting. He had no idea where she might be found, but he expressed the view that she had probably, thoughtlessly, gone to visit some friend without telling anyone and would reappear soon. When asked how she might in that case have left the island, he offered no answer. Martin Vanger was interviewed in a cursory fashion. He was in his final year at the preparatory school in Uppsala, where he lived in the home of Harald Vanger. There was no room for him in Harald’s car, so he had taken the train home to Hedeby, arriving so late that he was stranded on the wrong side of the bridge accident and could not cross until late in the evening by boat. He was interviewed in the hope that his sister might have confided in him and perhaps given him some clue if she was thinking of running away. The question was met with protests from Harriet Vanger’s mother, but at that moment Inspector Morell was perhaps thinking that Harriet’s having run away would be the best they could hope for. But Martin had not spoken with his sister since the summer holiday and had no information of value. Anita Vanger, daughter of Harald Vanger, was erroneously listed as Harriet’s “first cousin.” She was in her first year at the university in Stockholm and had spent the summer in Hedeby. She was almost the same age as Harriet and they had become close friends. She stated that she had arrived at the island with her father on Saturday and was looking forward to seeing Harriet, but she had not had the opportunity to find her. Anita stated that she felt uneasy, and that it was not like Harriet to go off without telling the family. Henrik and Isabella Vanger confirmed that this was the case. While Inspector Morell was interviewing family members, he had told Magnusson and Bergman-patrol 014-to organise the first search party while there was still daylight. The bridge was still closed to traffic, so it was difficult to call in reinforcements. The group consisted of about thirty available individuals, men and women of varying ages. The areas they searched that afternoon included the unoccupied houses at the fishing harbour, the shoreline at the point and along the sound, the section of woods closest to the village, and the hill called S?derberget behind the fishing harbour. The latter was searched because someone had put forward the theory that Harriet might have gone up there to get a good view of the scene on the bridge. Patrols were also sent out to ?sterg?rden and to Gottfried’s cabin on the other side of the island, which Harriet occasionally visited. But the search was fruitless; it was not called off until long after dark fell, at 10:00 at night. The temperature overnight dropped to freezing. During the afternoon Inspector Morell set up his headquarters in a drawing room that Henrik Vanger had put at his disposal on the ground floor of the Vanger estate office. He had undertaken a number of measures. In the company of Isabella Vanger, he had examined Harriet’s room and tried to ascertain whether anything was missing: clothes, a suitcase, or the like, which would indicate that Harriet had run away from home. Isabella, a note implied, had not been helpful and did not seem to be familiar with her daughter’s wardrobe. She often wore jeans, but they all look the same, don’t they? Harriet’s purse was on her desk. It contained ID, a wallet holding nine kronor and fifty ?re, a comb, a mirror, and a handkerchief. After the inspection, Harriet’s room was locked. Morell had summoned more people to be interviewed, family members and employees. All the interviews were meticulously reported. When the participants in the first search party began returning with disheartening reports, the inspector decided that a more systematic search had to be made. That evening and night, reinforcements were called in. Morell contacted, among others, the chairman of Hedestad’s Orienteering Club and appealed for help in summoning volunteers for the search party. By midnight he was told that fifty-three members, mostly from the junior division, would be at the Vanger estate at 7:00 the next morning. Henrik Vanger called in part of the morning shift, numbering fifty men, from the paper mill. He also arranged for food and drink for them all. Blomkvist could vividly imagine the scenes played out at the Vanger estate during those days. The accident on the bridge had certainly contributed to the confusion during the first hours-by making it difficult to bring in reinforcements, and also because people somehow thought that these two dramatic events happening at the same place and close to the same time must in some way have been connected. When the tanker truck was hoisted away, Inspector Morell went down to the bridge to be sure that Harriet Vanger had not, by some unlikely turn of events, ended up under the wreck. That was the only irrational action that Mikael could detect in the inspector’s conduct, since the missing girl had unquestionably been seen on the island after the accident had occurred. During those first confused twenty-four hours, their hopes that the situation would come to a swift and happy resolution sank. Instead, they were gradually replaced by two theories. In spite of the obvious difficulties in leaving the island unnoticed, Morell refused to discount the possibility that she had run away. He decided that an all-points bulletin should be sent out for Harriet Vanger, and he gave instructions for the patrol officers in Hedestad to keep their eyes open for the missing girl. He also sent a colleague in the criminal division to interview bus drivers and staff at the railway station, to find out whether anyone might have seen her. As the negative reports came in, it became increasingly likely that Harriet Vanger had fallen victim to some sort of misfortune. This theory ended up dominating the investigative work of the following days. The big search party two days after her disappearance was apparently, as far as Blomkvist could tell, carried out effectively. Police and firefighters who had experience with similar operations had organised the search. Hedeby Island did have some parts that were almost inaccessible, but it was nevertheless a small area, and the island was searched with a fine-tooth comb in one day. A police boat and two volunteer Pettersson boats did what they could to search the waters around the island. On the following day the search was continued with decreased manpower. Patrols were sent out to make a second sweep of the particularly rugged terrain, as well as an area known as “the fortress”-a now-abandoned bunker system that was built during the Second World War. That day they also searched cubbyholes, wells, vegetable cellars, outhouses, and attics in the village. A certain frustration could be read in the official notes when the search was called off on the third day after the girl’s disappearance. Morell was, of course, not yet aware of it, but at that moment he had actually reached as far in the investigation as he would ever get. He was puzzled and struggled to identify the natural next step or any place where the search ought to be pursued. Harriet Vanger seemed to have dissolved into thin air, and Henrik Vanger’s years of torment had begun. CHAPTER 9. Monday, January 6-Wednesday, January 8 Blomkvist kept reading until the small hours and did not get up until late on Epiphany Day. A navy blue, late-model Volvo was parked outside Vanger’s house. Even as he reached for the door handle, the door was opened by a man on his way out. They almost collided. The man seemed to be in a hurry. “Yes? Can I help you?” “I’m here to see Henrik Vanger,” Blomkvist said. The man’s eyes brightened. He smiled and stuck out his hand. “You must be Mikael Blomkvist, the one who’s going to help Henrik with the family chronicle, right?” They shook hands. Vanger had apparently begun spreading Blomkvist’s cover story. The man was overweight-the result, no doubt, of too many years of negotiating in offices and conference rooms-but Blomkvist noticed at once the likeness, the similarity between his face and Harriet Vanger’s. “I’m Martin Vanger,” the man said. “Welcome to Hedestad.” “Thank you.” “I saw you on TV a while ago.” “Everybody seems to have seen me on TV.” “Wennerstr?m is…not very popular in this house.” “Henrik mentioned that. I’m waiting to hear the rest of the story.” “He told me a few days ago that he’d hired you.” Martin Vanger laughed. “He said it was probably because of Wennerstr?m that you took the job up here.” Blomkvist hesitated before deciding to tell the truth. “That was one important reason. But to be honest, I needed to get away from Stockholm, and Hedestad cropped up at the right moment. At least I think so. I can’t pretend that the court case never happened. And anyway, I’m going to have to go to prison.” Martin Vanger nodded, suddenly serious. “Can you appeal?” “It won’t do any good.” Vanger glanced at his watch. “I have to be in Stockholm tonight, so I must hurry away. I’ll be back in a few days. Come over and have dinner. I’d really like to hear what actually went on during that trial. Henrik is upstairs. Go right in.” Vanger was sitting on a sofa in his office where he had the Hedestad Courier, Dagens Industri, Svenska Dagbladet, and both national evening papers on the coffee table. “I ran into Martin outside.” “Rushing off to save the empire,” Vanger said. “Coffee?” “Yes, please.” Blomkvist sat down, wondering why Vanger looked so amused. “You’re mentioned in the paper.” Vanger shoved across one of the evening papers, open at a page with the headline “Media Short Circuit.” The article was written by a columnist who had previously worked for Monopoly Financial Magazine, making a name for himself as one who cheerfully ridiculed everyone who felt passionate about any issue or who stuck their neck out. Feminists, antiracists, and environmental activists could all reckon on receiving their share. The writer was not known for espousing a single conviction of his own. Now, several weeks after the trial in the Wennerstr?m affair, he was bringing his fire to bear on Mikael Blomkvist, whom he described as a complete idiot. Erika Berger was portrayed as an incompetent media bimbo: A rumour is circulating that Millennium is on the verge of collapse in spite of the fact that the editor in chief is a feminist who wears mini-skirts and pouts her lips on TV. For several years the magazine has survived on the image that has been successfully marketed by the editors-young reporters who undertake investigative journalism and expose the scoundrels of the business world. This advertising trick may work with young anarchists who want to hear just such a message, but it doesn’t wash in the district court. As Kalle Blomkvist recently found out. Blomkvist switched on his mobile and checked to see if he had any calls from Berger. There were no messages. Vanger waited without saying anything. Blomkvist realised that the old man was allowing him to break the silence. “He’s a moron,” Blomkvist said. Vanger laughed, but he said: “That may be. But he’s not the one who was sentenced by the court.” “That’s true. And he never will be. He never says anything original; he always just jumps on the bandwagon and casts the final stone in the most damaging terms he can get away with.” “I’ve had many enemies over the years. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s never engage in a fight you’re sure to lose. On the other hand, never let anyone who has insulted you get away with it. Bide your time and strike back when you’re in a position of strength-even if you no longer need to strike back.” “Thank you for your wisdom, Henrik. Now I’d like you to tell me about your family.” He set the tape recorder between them on the table and pressed the record button. “What do you want to know?” “I’ve read through the first binder, about the disappearance and the searches, but there are so many Vangers mentioned that I need your help identifying them all.” For nearly ten minutes Salander stood in the empty hall with her eyes fixed on the brass plaque that said “Advokat N. E. Bjurman” before she rang the bell. The lock on the entry door clicked. It was Tuesday. It was their second meeting, and she had a bad feeling about it. She was not afraid of Bjurman-Salander was rarely afraid of anyone or anything. On the other hand, she felt uncomfortable with this new guardian. His predecessor, Advokat Holger Palmgren, had been of an entirely different ilk: courteous and kind. But three months ago Palmgren had had a stroke, and Nils Erik Bjurman had inherited her in accordance with some bureaucratic pecking order. In the twelve years that Salander had been under social and psychiatric guardianship, two of those years in a children’s clinic, she had never once given the same answer to the simple question: “So, how are you today?” When she turned thirteen, the court had decided, under laws governing the guardianship of minors, that she should be entrusted to the locked ward at St. Stefan’s Psychiatric Clinic for Children in Uppsala. The decision was primarily based on the fact that she was deemed to be emotionally disturbed and dangerously violent towards her classmates and possibly towards herself. All attempts by a teacher or any authority figure to initiate a conversation with the girl about her feelings, emotional life, or the state of her health were met, to their great frustration, with a sullen silence and a great deal of intense staring at the floor, ceiling, and walls. She would fold her arms and refuse to participate in any psychological tests. Her resistance to all attempts to measure, weigh, chart, analyse, or educate her applied also to her school work-the authorities could have her carried to a classroom and could chain her to the bench, but they could not stop her from closing her ears and refusing to lift a pen to write anything. She completed the nine years of compulsory schooling without a certificate. This had consequently become associated with the great difficulty of even diagnosing her mental deficiencies. In short, Lisbeth Salander was anything but easy to handle. By the time she was thirteen, it was also decided that a trustee should be assigned to take care of her interests and assets until she came of age. This trustee was Advokat Palmgren who, in spite of a rather difficult start, had succeeded where psychiatrists and doctors had failed. Gradually he won not only a certain amount of trust but also a modest amount of warmth from the girl. When she turned fifteen, the doctors had more or less agreed that she was not, after all, dangerously violent, nor did she represent any immediate danger to herself. Her family had been categorised as dysfunctional, and she had no relatives who could look after her welfare, so it was decided that Lisbeth Salander should be released from the psychiatric clinic for children in Uppsala and eased back into society by way of a foster family. That had not been an easy journey. She ran away from the first foster family after only two weeks. The second and third foster families fell by the wayside in quick succession. At that point Palmgren had a serious discussion with her, explaining bluntly that if she persisted on this path she would be institutionalised again. This threat had the effect that she accepted foster family number four-an elderly couple who lived in Midsommarkransen. But it did not mean, however, that she behaved herself. At the age of seventeen, Salander was arrested by the police on four occasions; twice she was so intoxicated that she ended up in the emergency room, and once she was plainly under the influence of narcotics. On one of these occasions she was found dead drunk, with her clothes in disarray, in the back seat of a car parked at S?der M?larstrand. She was with an equally drunk and much older man. The last arrest occurred three weeks before her eighteenth birthday, when she, perfectly sober, kicked a male passenger in the head inside the gates of the Gamla Stan tunnelbana station. She was charged with assault and battery. Salander claimed that the man had groped her, and her testimony was supported by witnesses. The prosecutor dismissed the case. But her background was such that the district court ordered a psychiatric evaluation. Since she refused, as was her custom, to answer any questions or to participate in the examinations, the doctors consulted by the National Board of Health and Welfare handed down an opinion based on “observations of the patient.” It was unclear precisely what could be observed when it was a matter of a silent young woman sitting on a chair with her arms folded and her lower lip stuck out. The only determination made was that she must suffer from some kind of emotional disturbance, whose nature was of the sort that could not be left untreated. The medical/legal report recommended care in a closed psychiatric institution. An assistant head of the social welfare board wrote an opinion in support of the conclusions of the psychiatric experts. With regard to her personal record, the opinion concluded that there was grave risk of alcohol and drug abuse, and that she lacked self-awareness. By then her casebook was filled with terms such as introverted, socially inhibited, lacking in empathy, ego-fixated, psychopathic and asocial behaviour, difficulty in cooperating, and incapable of assimilating learning. Anyone who read her casebook might be tempted to conclude that Salander was seriously retarded. Another mark against her was that the social services street patrol had on several occasions observed her “with various men” in the area around Mariatorget. She was once stopped and frisked in Tantolunden, again with a much older man. It was feared that Salander was possibly operating as, or ran the risk of becoming, a prostitute. When the district court-the institution that would determine her future-met to decide on the matter, the outcome seemed a foregone conclusion. She was obviously a problem child, and it was unlikely that the court would come to any decision other than to accept the recommendations of both the psychiatric and the social inquiries. On the morning the court hearing was to take place, Salander was brought from the psychiatric clinic for children where she had been confined since the incident in Gamla Stan. She felt like a prisoner from a concentration camp: she had no hope of surviving the day. The first person she saw in the courtroom was Palmgren, and it took a while for her to realise that he was not there in the role of a trustee but rather as her legal representative. To her surprise, he was firmly in her corner, and he made a powerful appeal against institutionalisation. She did not betray with so much as a raised eyebrow that she was surprised, but she listened intently to every word that was said. Palmgren was brilliant during the two hours in which he cross-examined the physician, a Dr. Jesper H. L?derman, who had signed his name to the recommendation that Salander be locked away in an institution. Every detail of the opinion was scrutinised, and the doctor was required to explain the scientific basis for each statement. Eventually it became clear that since the patient had refused to complete a single test, the basis for the doctor’s conclusions was in fact nothing more than guesswork. At the end of the hearing, Palmgren intimated that compulsory institutionalisation was in all probability not only contrary to Parliament’s decisions in similar situations, but in this particular case it might in addition be the subject of political and media reprisals. So it was in everyone’s interest to find an appropriate alternative solution. Such language was unusual for negotiations in this type of situation, and the members of the court had squirmed nervously. The solution was also a compromise. The court concluded that Lisbeth Salander was indeed emotionally disturbed, but that her condition did not necessarily warrant internment. On the other hand, the social welfare director’s recommendation of guardianship was taken under consideration. The chairman of the court turned, with a venomous smile, to Holger Palmgren, who up until then had been her trustee, and inquired whether he might be willing to take on the guardianship. The chairman obviously thought that Palmgren would back away and try to push the responsibility on to someone else. On the contrary, Palmgren declared that he would be happy to take on the job of serving as Fr?ken Salander’s guardian-but on one condition: “that Fr?ken Salander must be willing to trust me and accept me as her guardian.” He turned to face her. Lisbeth Salander was somewhat bewildered by the exchange that had gone back and forth over her head all day. Until now no-one had asked for her opinion. She looked at Holger Palmgren for a long time and then nodded once. Palmgren was a peculiar mixture of jurist and social worker, of the old school. At first he had been a politically appointed member of the social welfare board, and he had spent nearly all his life dealing with problem youths. A reluctant sense of respect, almost bordering on friendship, had in time formed between Palmgren and his ward, who was unquestionably the most difficult he had ever had to deal with. Their relationship had lasted eleven years, from her thirteenth birthday until the previous year, when a few weeks before Christmas she had gone to see Palmgren at home after he missed one of their scheduled monthly meetings. When he did not open the door even though she could hear sounds coming from his apartment, she broke in by climbing up a drainpipe to the balcony on the fourth floor. She found him lying on the floor in the hall, conscious but unable to speak or move. She called for an ambulance and accompanied him to S?der Hospital with a growing feeling of panic in her stomach. For three days she hardly left the corridor outside the intensive care unit. Like a faithful watchdog, she kept an eye on every doctor and nurse who went in or out of the door. She wandered up and down the corridor like a lost soul, fixing her eyes on every doctor who came near. Finally a doctor whose name she never discovered took her into a room to explain the gravity of the situation. Herr Palmgren was in critical condition following a severe cerebral haemorrhage. He was not expected to regain consciousness. He was only sixty-four years old. She neither wept nor changed her expression. She stood up, left the hospital, and did not return. Five weeks later the Guardianship Agency summoned Salander to the first meeting with her new guardian. Her initial impulse was to ignore the summons, but Palmgren had imprinted in her consciousness that every action has its consequences. She had learned to analyse the consequences and so she had come to the conclusion that the easiest way out of this present dilemma was to satisfy the Guardianship Agency by behaving as if she cared about what they had to say. Thus, in December-taking a break from her research on Mikael Blomkvist-she arrived at Bjurman’s office on St. Eriksplan, where an elderly woman representing the board had handed over Salander’s extensive file to Advokat Bjurman. The woman had kindly asked Salander how things were going, and she seemed satisfied with the stifled silence she received in reply. After about half an hour she left Salander in the care of Advokat Bjurman. Salander decided that she did not like Advokat Bjurman. She studied him furtively as he read through her casebook. Age: over fifty. Trim body. Tennis on Tuesdays and Fridays. Blond. Thinning hair. A slight cleft in his chin. Hugo Boss aftershave. Blue suit. Red tie with a gold tiepin and ostentatious cufflinks with the initials NEB. Steel-rimmed glasses. Grey eyes. To judge by the magazines on the side table, his interests were hunting and shooting. During the years she had known Palmgren, he had always offered her coffee and chatted with her. Not even her worst escapes from foster homes or her regular truancy from school had ever ruffled his composure. The only time Palmgren had been really upset was when she had been charged with assault and battery after that scumbag had groped her in Gamla Stan. Do you understand what you’ve done? You have harmed another human being, Lisbeth. He had sounded like an old teacher, and she had patiently ignored every word of his scolding. Bjurman did not have time for small talk. He had immediately concluded that there was a discrepancy between Palmgren’s obligations, according to the regulations of guardianship, and the fact that he had apparently allowed the Salander girl to take charge of her own household and finances. Bjurman started in on a sort of interrogation: How much do you earn? I want a copy of your financial records. Who do you spend time with? Do you pay your rent on time? Do you drink? Did Palmgren approve of those rings you have on your face? Are you careful about hygiene? Fuck you. Palmgren had become her trustee right after All The Evil had happened. He had insisted on meetings with her at least once a month, sometimes more often. After she moved back to Lundagatan, they were also practically neighbours. He lived on Hornsgatan, a couple of blocks away, and they would run into each other and go for coffee at Giffy’s or some other caf? nearby. Palmgren had never tried to impose, but a few times he had visited her, bringing some little gift for her birthday. She had a standing invitation to visit him whenever she liked, a privilege that she seldom took advantage of. But when she moved to S?der, she had started spending Christmas Eve with him after she went to see her mother. They would eat Christmas ham and play chess. She had no real interest in the game, but after she learned the rules, she never lost a match. He was a widower, and Salander had seen it as her duty to take pity on him on those lonely holidays. She considered herself in his debt, and she always paid her debts. It was Palmgren who had sublet her mother’s apartment on Lundagatan for her until Salander needed her own place to live. The apartment was about 500 square feet, shabby and unrenovated, but at least it was a roof over her head. Now Palmgren was gone, and another tie to established society had been severed. Nils Bjurman was a wholly different sort of person. No way she would be spending Christmas Eve at his house. His first move had been to put in place new rules on the management of her account at Handelsbanken. Palmgren had never had any problems about bending the conditions of his guardianship so as to allow her to take care of her own finances. She paid her bills and could use her savings as she saw fit. Prior to the meeting with Bjurman the week before Christmas she had prepared herself; once there, she had tried to explain that his predecessor had trusted her and had never been given occasion to do otherwise. Palmgren had let her take care of her own affairs and not interfered in her life. “That’s one of the problems,” Bjurman said, tapping her casebook. He then made a long speech about the rules and government regulations on guardianship. “He let you run free, is that it? I wonder how he got away with it.” Because he was a crazy social democrat who had worked with troubled kids all his life. “I’m not a child any more,” Salander said, as if that were explanation enough. “No, you’re not a child. But I’ve been appointed your guardian, and as long as I have that role, I am legally and financially responsible for you.” He opened a new account in her name, and she was supposed to report it to Milton ’s personnel office and use it from now on. The good old days were over. In future Bjurman would pay her bills, and she would be given an allowance each month. He told her that he expected her to provide receipts for all her expenses. She would receive 1,400 kronor a week-“for food, clothing, film tickets, and such like.” Salander earned more than 160,000 kronor a year. She could double that by working full-time and accepting all the assignments Armansky offered her. But she had few expenses and did not need much money. The cost of her apartment was about 2,000 kronor a month, and in spite of her modest income, she had 90,000 kronor in her savings account. But she no longer had access to it. “This has to do with the fact that I’m responsible for your money,” he said. “You have to put money aside for the future. But don’t worry; I’ll take care of all that.” I’ve taken care of myself since I was ten, you creep! “You function well enough in social terms that you don’t need to be institutionalised, but this society is responsible for you.” He questioned her closely about what kind of work assignments she was given at Milton Security. She had instinctively lied about her duties. The answer she gave him was a description of her very first weeks at Milton. Bjurman got the impression that she made coffee and sorted the post-suitable enough tasks for someone who was a little slow-and seemed satisfied. She did not know why she had lied, but she was sure it was a wise decision. Blomkvist had spent five hours with Vanger, and it took much of the night and all of Tuesday to type up his notes and piece together the genealogy into a comprehensible whole. The family history that emerged was a dramatically different version from the one presented as the official image of the family. Every family had a few skeletons in their cupboards, but the Vanger family had an entire gallimaufry of them. Blomkvist had had to remind himself several times that his real assignment was not to write a biography of the Vanger family but to find out what had happened to Harriet Vanger. The Vanger biography would be no more than playing to the gallery. After a year he would receive his preposterous salary-the contract drawn up by Frode had been signed. His true reward, he hoped, would be the information about Wennerstr?m that Vanger claimed to possess. But after listening to Vanger, he began to see that the year did not have to be a waste of time. A book about the Vanger family had significant value. It was, quite simply, a terrific story. The idea that he might light upon Harriet Vanger’s killer never crossed his mind-assuming she had been murdered, that is, and did not just die in some freak accident. Blomkvist agreed with Vanger that the chances of a sixteen-year-old girl going off of her own accord and then staying hidden for thirty-six years, despite the oversight of all the government bureaucracy, were nonexistent. On the other hand, he did not exclude the possibility that Harriet Vanger had run away, maybe heading for Stockholm, and that something had befallen her subsequently-drugs, prostitution, an assault, or an accident pure and simple. Vanger was convinced, for his part, that Harriet had been murdered and that a family member was responsible-possibly in collaboration with someone else. His argument was based on the fact that Harriet had disappeared during the confusion in the hours when the island was cut off and all eyes were directed at the accident. Berger had been right to say that his taking the assignment was beyond all common sense if the goal was to solve a murder mystery. But Blomkvist was beginning to see that Harriet’s fate had played a central role in the family, and especially for Henrik Vanger. No matter whether he was right or wrong, Vanger’s accusation against his relatives was of great significance in the family’s history. The accusation had been aired openly for more than thirty years, and it had coloured the family gatherings and given rise to poisonous animosities that had contributed to destabilising the corporation. A study of Harriet’s disappearance would consequently function as a chapter all on its own, as well as provide a red thread through the family history-and there was an abundance of source material. One starting point, whether Harriet Vanger was his primary assignment or whether he made do with writing a family chronicle, would be to map out the gallery of characters. That was the gist of his first long conversation that day with Vanger. The family consisted of about a hundred individuals, counting all the children of cousins and second cousins. The family was so extensive that he was forced to create a database in his iBook. He used the NotePad programme (www.ibrium.se), one of those full-value products that two men at the Royal Technical College had created and distributed as shareware for a pittance on the Internet. Few programmes were as useful for an investigative journalist. Each family member was given his or her own document in the database. The family tree could be traced back to the early sixteenth century, when the name was Vangeersad. According to Vanger the name may have originated from the Dutch van Geerstat; if that was the case, the lineage could be traced as far back as the twelfth century. In modern times, the family came from northern France, arriving in Sweden with King Jean Baptiste Bernadotte in the early nineteenth century. Alexandre Vangeersad was a soldier and not personally acquainted with the king, but he had distinguished himself as the capable head of a garrison. In 1818 he was given the Hedeby estate as a reward for his service. Alexandre Vangeersad also had his own fortune, which he used to purchase considerable sections of forested land in Norrland. His son, Adrian, was born in France, but at his father’s request he moved to Hedeby in that remote area of Norrland, far from the salons of Paris, to take over the administration of the estate. He took up farming and forestry, using new methods imported from Europe, and he founded the pulp and paper mill around which Hedestad was built. Alexandre’s grandson was named Henrik, and he shortened his surname to Vanger. He developed trade with Russia and created a small merchant fleet of schooners that served the Baltics and Germany, as well as England with its steel industry during the mid-1800s. The elder Henrik Vanger diversified the family enterprises and founded a modest mining business, as well as several of Norrland’s first metal industries. He left two sons, Birger and Gottfried, and they were the ones who laid the basis for the high-finance Vanger clan. “Do you know anything about the old inheritance laws?” Vanger had asked. “No.” “I’m confused about it too. According to family tradition, Birger and Gottfried fought like cats-they were legendary competitors for power and influence over the family business. In many respects the power struggle threatened the very survival of the company. For that reason their father decided-shortly before he died-to create a system whereby all members of the family would receive a portion of the inheritance-a share-in the business. It was no doubt well-intentioned, but it led to a situation in which instead of being able to bring in skilled people and possible partners from the outside, we had a board of directors consisting only of family members.” “And that applies today?” “Precisely. If a family member wishes to sell his shares, they have to stay within the family. Today the annual shareholders’ meeting consists of 50 percent family members. Martin holds more than 10 percent of the shares; I have 5 percent after selling some of my shares, to Martin among others. My brother Harald owns 7 percent, but most of the people who come to the shareholders’ meeting have only one or half a percent.” “It sounds medieval in some ways.” “It’s ludicrous. It means that today, if Martin wants to implement some policy, he has to waste time on a lobbying operation to ensure support from at least 20 percent to 25 percent of the shareholders. It’s a patchwork quilt of alliances, factions, and intrigues.” Vanger resumed the history: “Gottfried Vanger died childless in 1901. Or rather, may I be forgiven, he was the father of four daughters, but in those days women didn’t really count. They owned shares, but it was the men in the family who constituted the ownership interest. It wasn’t until women won the right to vote, well into the twentieth century, that they were even allowed to attend the shareholders’ meetings.” “Very liberal.” “No need to be sarcastic. Those were different times. At any rate-Gottfried’s brother, Birger Vanger, had three sons: Johan, Fredrik, and Gideon Vanger. They were all born towards the end of the nineteenth century. We can ignore Gideon; he sold his shares and emigrated to America. There is still a branch of the family over there. But Johan and Fredrik Vanger made the company the modern Vanger Corporation.” Vanger took out a photograph album and showed Blomkvist pictures from the gallery of characters as he talked. The photographs from the early 1900s showed two men with sturdy chins and plastered-down hair who stared into the camera lens without a hint of a smile. “Johan Vanger was the genius of the family. He trained as an engineer, and he developed the manufacturing industry with several new inventions, which he patented. Steel and iron became the basis of the firm, but the business also expanded into other areas, including textiles. Johan Vanger died in 1956 and had three daughters: Sofia, M?rit, and Ingrid, who were the first women automatically to win admittance to the company’s shareholders’ meetings. “The other brother, Fredrik Vanger, was my father. He was a businessman and industry leader who transformed Johan’s inventions into income. My father lived until 1964. He was active in company management right up until his death, although he had turned over daily operations to me in the fifties. “It was exactly like the preceding generation-but in reverse. Johan had only daughters.” Vanger showed Blomkvist pictures of big-busted women with wide-brimmed hats and carrying parasols. “And Fredrik-my father-had only sons. We were five brothers: Richard, Harald, Greger, Gustav, and myself.” Blomkvist had drawn up a family tree on several sheets of A4 paper taped together. He underlined the names of all those on Hedeby Island for the family meeting in 1966 and thus, at least theoretically, who could have had something to do with Harriet Vanger’s disappearance. He left out children under the age of twelve-he had to draw the line somewhere. After some pondering, he also left out Henrik Vanger. If the patriarch had had anything to do with the disappearance of his brother’s granddaughter, his actions over the past thirty-six years would fall into the psychopathic arena. Vanger’s mother, who in 1966 was already eighty-one, could reasonably also be eliminated. Remaining were twenty-three family members who, according to Vanger, had to be included in the group of “suspects.” Seven of these were now dead, and several had now reached a respectable old age. Blomkvist was not willing to share Vanger’s conviction that a family member was behind Harriet’s disappearance. A number of others had to be added to the list of suspects. Dirch Frode began working for Vanger as his lawyer in the spring of 1962. And aside from the family, who were the servants when Harriet vanished? Gunnar Nilsson-alibi or not-was nineteen years old, and his father, Magnus, was in all likelihood present on Hedeby Island, as were the artist Norman and the pastor Falk. Was Falk married? The ?sterg?rden farmer Aronsson, as well as his son Jerker Aronsson, lived on the island, close enough to Harriet Vanger while she was growing up-what sort of relationship did they have? Was Aronsson still married? Did other people live at that time on the farm? As Blomkvist wrote down all the names, the list had grown to forty people. It was 3:30 in the morning and the thermometer read -6°F. He longed for his own bed on Bellmansgatan. He was awoken by the workman from Telia. By 11:00 he was hooked up and no longer felt quite as professionally handicapped. On the other hand, his own telephone remained stubbornly silent. He was starting to feel quite pig-headed and would not call the office. He switched on his email programme and looked rapidly through the nearly 350 messages sent to him over the past week. He saved a dozen; the rest were spam or mailing lists that he subscribed to. The first email was from ‹[email protected]›: I HOPE YOU SUCK COCK IN THE SLAMMER YOU FUCKING COMMIE PIG. He filed it in the “INTELLIGENT CRITICISM” folder. He wrote to ‹[email protected]›: “Hi Ricky. Just to tell you that I’ve got the Net working and can be reached when you can forgive me. Hedeby is a rustic place, well worth a visit. M.” When it felt like lunchtime he put his iBook in his bag and walked to Susanne’s Bridge Caf?. He parked himself at his usual corner table. Susanne brought him coffee and sandwiches, casting an inquisitive glance at his computer. She asked him what he was working on. For the first time Blomkvist used his cover story. They exchanged pleasantries. Susanne urged him to check with her when he was ready for the real revelations. “I’ve been serving Vangers for thirty-five years, and I know most of the gossip about that family,” she said, and sashayed off to the kitchen. With children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren-whom he had not bothered to include-the brothers Fredrik and Johan Vanger had approximately fifty living offspring today. The family had a tendency to live to a ripe old age. Fredrik Vanger lived to be seventy-eight, and his brother Johan to seventy-two. Of Fredrik’s sons who were yet alive, Harald was ninety-two and Henrik was eighty-two. The only exception was Gustav, who died of lung disease at the age of thirty-seven. Vanger had explained that Gustav had always been sickly and had gone his own way, never really fitting in with the rest of the family. He never married and had no children. The others who had died young had succumbed to other factors than illness. Richard Vanger was killed in the Winter War, only thirty-three years old. Gottfried Vanger, Harriet’s father, had drowned the year before she disappeared. And Harriet herself was only sixteen. Mikael made note of the strange symmetry in that particular branch of the family-grandfather, father, and daughter had all been struck by misfortune. Richard’s only remaining descendant was Martin Vanger who, at fifty-four, was still unmarried. But Vanger had explained that his nephew was a veritable hermit with a woman who lived in Hedestad. Blomkvist noted two factors in the family tree. The first was that no Vanger had ever divorced or remarried, even if their spouse had died young. He wondered how common that was, in terms of statistics. Cecilia Vanger had been separated from her husband for years, but apparently, they were still married. The other peculiarity was that whereas Fredrik Vanger’s descendants, including Henrik, had played leading roles in the business and lived primarily in or near Hedestad, Johan Vanger’s branch of the family, which produced only daughters, had married and dispersed to Stockholm, Malm?, and G?teborg or abroad. And they only came to Hedestad for summer holidays or the more important meetings. The single exception was Ingrid Vanger, whose son, Gunnar Karlman, lived in Hedestad. He was the editor in chief of the Hedestad Courier. Thinking as a private detective might, Vanger thought that the underlying motive for Harriet’s murder might be found in the structure of the company-the fact that early on he had made it known that Harriet was special to him; the motive might have been to harm Vanger himself, or perhaps Harriet had discovered some sensitive information concerning the company and thereby became a threat to someone. These were mere speculations; nevertheless, in this manner he had identified a circle consisting of thirteen individuals whom he considered to be of potential interest. Blomkvist’s conversation with Vanger the day before had been illuminating on one other point. From the start the old man had talked to Blomkvist about so many members of his family in a contemptuous and denigrating manner. It struck him as odd. Blomkvist wondered whether the patriarch’s suspicions about his family had warped his judgement in the matter of Harriet’s disappearance, but now he was starting to realise that Vanger had made an amazingly sober assessment. The image that was emerging revealed a family that was socially and financially successful, but in all the more ordinary aspects was quite clearly dysfunctional. Henrik Vanger’s father had been a cold, insensitive man who sired his children and then let his wife look after their upbringing and welfare. Until the children reached the age of sixteen they barely saw their father except at special family gatherings when they were expected to be present but also invisible. Henrik could not remember his father ever expressing any form of love, even in the smallest way. On the contrary, the son was often told that he was incompetent and was the target of devastating criticism. Corporal punishment was seldom used; it wasn’t necessary. The only times he had won his father’s respect came later in life, through his accomplishments within the Vanger Corporation. The oldest brother, Richard, had rebelled. After an argument-the reason for which was never discussed in the family-the boy had moved to Uppsala to study. There had been sown the seeds of the the Nazi career which Vanger had already mentioned, and which would eventually lead to the Finnish trenches. What the old man had not mentioned previously was that two other brothers had had similar careers. In 1930 Harald and Greger had followed in Richard’s footsteps to Uppsala. The two had been close, but Vanger was not sure to what extent they had spent time with Richard. It was quite clear that the brothers all joined Per Engdahl’s fascist movement, The New Sweden. Harald had loyally followed Per Engdahl over the years, first to Sweden ’s National Union, then to the Swedish Opposition group, and finally The New Swedish Movement after the war. Harald continued to be a member until Engdahl died in the nineties, and for certain periods he was one of the key contributors to the hibernating Swedish fascist movement. Harald Vanger studied medicine in Uppsala and landed almost immediately in circles that were obsessed with race hygiene and race biology. For a time he worked at the Swedish Race Biology Institute, and as a physician he became a prominent campaigner for the sterilisation of undesirable elements in the population. Quote, Henrik Vanger, tape 2, 02950: Harald went even further. In 1937 he co-authored-under a pseudonym, thank God-a book entitled The People’s New Europe. I didn’t find this out until the seventies. I have a copy that you can read. It must be one of the most disgusting books ever published in the Swedish language. Harald argued not only for sterilisation but also for euthanasia-actively putting to death people who offended his aesthetic tastes and didn’t fit his image of the perfect Swedish race. In other words, he was appealing for wholesale murder in a text that was written in impeccable academic prose and contained all the required medical arguments. Get rid of those who are handicapped. Don’t allow the Saami people to spread; they have a Mongolian influence. People who are mentally ill would regard death as a form of liberation, wouldn’t they? Loose women, vagrants, gypsies, and Jews-you can imagine. In my brother’s fantasies, Auschwitz could have been located in Dalarna. After the war Greger Vanger became a secondary-school teacher and eventually the headmaster of the Hedestad preparatory school. Vanger thought that he no longer belonged to any party after the war and had given up Nazism. He died in 1974, and it wasn’t until he went through his brother’s correspondence that he learned that in the fifties Greger had joined the politically ineffectual but totally crackpot sect called the Nordic National Party. He had remained a member until his death. Quote, Henrik Vanger, tape 2, 04167: Consequently, three of my brothers were politically insane. How sick were they in other respects? The only brother worthy of a measure of empathy in Vanger’s eyes was the sickly Gustav, who died of lung disease in 1955. Gustav had never been interested in politics, and he seemed to be some sort of misanthropic artistic soul, with absolutely no interest in business or working in the Vanger Corporation. Blomkvist asked Vanger: “Now you and Harald are the only ones left. Why did he move back to Hedeby?” “He moved home in 1979. He owns that house.” “It must feel strange living so close to a brother that you hate.” “I don’t hate my brother. If anything, I may pity him. He’s a complete idiot, and he’s the one who hates me.” “He hates you?” “Precisely. I think that’s why he came back here. So that he could spend his last years hating me at close quarters.” “Why does he hate you?” “Because I got married.” “I think you’re going to have to explain that.” Vanger had lost contact with his older brothers early on. He was the only brother to show an aptitude for business-he was his father’s last hope. He had no interest in politics and steered clear of Uppsala. Instead he studied economics in Stockholm. After he turned eighteen he spent every break and summer holiday working at one of the offices within the Vanger Corporation or working with the management of one of its companies. He became familiar with all the labyrinths of the family business. On 10 June, 1941-in the midst of an all-out war-Vanger was sent to Germany for a six-week visit at the Vanger Corporation business offices in Hamburg. He was only twenty-one and the Vanger’s German agent, a company veteran by the name of Hermann Lobach, was his chaperone and mentor. “I won’t tire you with all the details, but when I went there, Hitler and Stalin were still good friends and there wasn’t yet an Eastern Front. Everyone still believed that Hitler was invincible. There was a feeling of…both optimism and desperation. I think those are the right words. More than half a century later, it’s still difficult to put words to the mood. Don’t get me wrong-I was not a Nazi, and in my eyes Hitler seemed like some absurd character in an operetta. But it would have been almost impossible not to be infected by the optimism about the future, which was rife among ordinary people in Hamburg. Despite the fact that the war was getting closer, and several bombing raids were carried out against Hamburg during the time I was there, the people seemed to think it was mostly a temporary annoyance-that soon there would be peace and Hitler would establish his Neuropa. People wanted to believe that Hitler was God. That’s what it sounded like in the propaganda.” Vanger opened one of his many photograph albums. “This is Lobach. He disappeared in 1944, presumably lost in some bombing raid. We never knew what his fate was. During my weeks in Hamburg I became close to him. I was staying with him and his family in an elegant apartment in a well-to-do neighbourhood of Hamburg. We spent time together every day. He was no more a Nazi than I was, but for convenience he was a member of the party. His membership card opened doors and facilitated opportunities for the Vanger Corporation-and business was precisely what we did. We built freight wagons for their trains-I’ve always wondered whether any of our wagons were destined for Poland. We sold fabric for their uniforms and tubes for their radio sets-although officially we didn’t know what they were using the goods for. And Lobach knew how to land a contract; he was entertaining and good-natured. The perfect Nazi. Gradually I began to see that he was also a man who was desperately trying to hide a secret. “In the early hours of June 22 in 1941, Lobach knocked on the door of my bedroom. My room was next to his wife’s bedroom, and he signalled me to be quiet, get dressed, and come with him. We went downstairs and sat in the smoking salon. Lobach had been up all night. He had the radio on, and I realised that something serious had happened. Operation Barbarossa had begun. Germany had invaded the Soviet Union on Midsummer Eve.” Vanger gestured in resignation. “Lobach took out two glasses and poured a generous aquavit for each of us. He was obviously shaken. When I asked him what it all meant, he replied with foresight that it meant the end for Germany and Nazism. I only half believed him-Hitler seemed undefeatable, after all-but Lobach and I drank a toast to the fall of Germany. Then he turned his attention to practical matters.” Blomkvist nodded to signal that he was still following the story. “First, he had no possibility of contacting my father for instructions, but on his own initiative he had decided to cut short my visit to Germany and send me home. Second, he asked me to do something for him.” Vanger pointed to a yellowed portrait of a dark-haired woman, in three-quarter view. “Lobach had been married for forty years, but in 1919 he met a wildly beautiful woman half his age, and he fell hopelessly in love with her. She was a poor, simple seamstress. Lobach courted her, and like so many other wealthy men, he could afford to install her in an apartment a convenient distance from his office. She became his mistress. In 1921 she had a daughter, who was christened Edith.” “Rich older man, poor young woman, and a love child-that can’t have caused much of a scandal in the forties,” Blomkvist said. “Absolutely right. If it hadn’t been for one thing. The woman was Jewish, and consequently Lobach was the father of a Jew in the midst of Nazi Germany. He was what they called a ‘traitor to his race.’” “Ah…That does change the situation. What happened?” “Edith’s mother had been picked up in 1939. She disappeared, and we can only guess what her fate was. It was known, of course, that she had a daughter who was not yet included on any transport list, and who was now being sought by the department of the Gestapo whose job it was to track down fugitive Jews. In the summer of 1941, the week that I arrived in Hamburg, Edith’s mother was somehow linked to Lobach, and he was summoned for an interview. He acknowledged the relationship and his paternity, but he stated that he had no idea where his daughter might be, and he had not had any contact with her in ten years.” “So where was the daughter?” “I had seen her every day in the Lobachs’ home. A sweet and quiet twenty-year-old girl who cleaned my room and helped serve dinner. By 1937 the persecution of the Jews had been going on for several years, and Edith’s mother had begged Lobach for help. And he did help-Lobach loved his illegitimate child just as much as his legitimate children. He hid her in the most unlikely place he could think of-right in front of everyone’s nose. He had arranged for counterfeit documents, and he had taken her in as their housekeeper.” “Did his wife know who she was?” “No, it seemed she had no idea. It had worked for four years, but now Lobach felt the noose tightening. It was only a matter of time before the Gestapo would come knocking on the door. Then he went to get his daughter and introduced her to me as such. She was very shy and didn’t even dare look me in the eye. She must have been up half the night waiting to be called. Lobach begged me to save her life.” “How?” “He had arranged the whole thing. I was supposed to be staying another three weeks and then to take the night train to Copenhagen and continue by ferry across the sound-a relatively safe trip, even in wartime. But two days after our conversation a freighter owned by the Vanger Corporation was to leave Hamburg headed for Sweden. Lobach wanted to send me with the freighter instead, to leave Germany without delay. The change in my travel plans had to be approved by the security service; it was a formality, but not a problem. But Lobach wanted me on board that freighter.” “Together with Edith, I presume.” “Edith was smuggled on board, hidden inside one of three hundred crates containing machinery. My job was to protect her if she should be discovered while we were still in German territorial waters, and to prevent the captain of the ship from doing anything stupid. Otherwise I was supposed to wait until we were a good distance from Germany before I let her out.” “It sounds terrifying.” “It sounded simple to me, but it turned into a nightmare journey. The captain was called Oskar Granath, and he was far from pleased to be made responsible for his employer’s snotty little heir. We left Hamburg around 9:00 in the evening in late June. We were just making our way out of the inner harbour when the air-raid sirens went off. A British bombing raid-the heaviest I had then experienced, and the harbour was, of course, the main target. But somehow we got through, and after an engine breakdown and a miserably stormy night in mine-filled waters we arrived the following afternoon at Karlskrona. You’re probably going to ask me what happened to the girl.” “I think I know.” “My father was understandably furious. I had put everything at risk with my idiotic venture. And the girl could have been deported from Sweden at any time. But I was already just as hopelessly in love with her as Lobach had been with her mother. I proposed to her and gave my father an ultimatum-either he accepted our marriage or he’d have to look for another fatted calf for the family business. He gave in.” “But she died?” “Yes, far too young, in 1958. She had a congenital heart defect. And it turned out that I couldn’t have children. And that’s why my brother hates me.” “Because you married her.” “Because-to use his own words-I married a filthy Jewish whore.” “But he’s insane.” “I couldn’t have put it better myself.” CHAPTER 10. Thursday, January 9-Friday, January 31 According to the Hedestad Courier, Blomkvist’s first month out in the country was the coldest in recorded memory, or (as Vanger informed him) at least since the wartime winter of 1942. After only a week in Hedeby he had learned all about long underwear, woolly socks, and double undershirts. He had several miserable days in the middle of the month when the temperature dropped to -35°F. He had experienced nothing like it, not even during the year he spent in Kiruna in Lapland doing his military service. One morning the water pipes froze. Nilsson gave him two big plastic containers of water for cooking and washing, but the cold was paralysing. Ice flowers formed on the insides of the windows, and no matter how much wood he put in the stove, he was still cold. He spent a long time each day splitting wood in the shed next to the house. At times he was on the brink of tears and toyed with taking the first train heading south. Instead he would put on one more sweater and wrap up in a blanket as he sat at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and reading old police reports. Then the weather changed and the temperature rose steadily to a balmy 14°F. *** Mikael was beginning to get to know people in Hedeby. Martin Vanger kept his promise and invited him for a meal of moose steak. His lady friend joined them for dinner. Eva was a warm, sociable, and entertaining woman. Blomkvist found her extraordinarily attractive. She was a dentist and lived in Hedestad, but she spent the weekends at Martin’s home. Blomkvist gradually learned that they had known each other for many years but that they had not started going out together until they were middle-aged. Evidently they saw no reason to marry. “She’s actually my dentist,” said Martin with a laugh. “And marrying into this crazy family isn’t really my thing,” Eva said, patting Martin affectionately on the knee. Martin Vanger’s villa was furnished in black, white, and chrome. There were expensive designer pieces that would have delighted the connoisseur Christer Malm. The kitchen was equipped to a professional chef’s standard. In the living room there was a high-end stereo with an impressive collection of jazz records from Tommy Dorsey to John Coltrane. Martin Vanger had money, and his home was both luxurious and functional. It was also impersonal. The artwork on the walls was reproductions and posters, of the sort found in IKEA. The bookshelves, at least in the part of the house that Blomkvist saw, housed a Swedish encyclopedia and some coffee table books that people might have given him as Christmas presents, for want of a better idea. All in all, he could discern only two personal aspects of Martin Vanger’s life: music and cooking. His 3,000 or so LPs spoke for the one and the other could be deduced from the fact of Martin’s stomach bulging over his belt. The man himself was a mixture of simplicity, shrewdness, and amiability. It took no great analytical skill to conclude that the corporate CEO was a man with problems. As they listened to “Night in Tunisia,” the conversation was devoted to the Vanger Corporation, and Martin made no secret of the fact that the company was fighting for survival. He was certainly aware that his guest was a financial reporter whom he hardly knew, yet he discussed the internal problems of his company so openly that it seemed reckless. Perhaps he assumed that Blomkvist was one of the family since he was working for his great-uncle; and like the former CEO, Martin took the view that the family members only had themselves to blame for the situation in which the company found itself. On the other hand, he seemed almost amused by his family’s incorrigible folly. Eva nodded but passed no judgement of her own. They had obviously been over the same ground before. Martin accepted the story that Blomkvist had been hired to write a family chronicle, and he inquired how the work was going. Blomkvist said with a smile that he was having the most trouble remembering the names of all the relatives. He asked if he might come back to do an interview in due course. Twice he considered turning the conversation to the old man’s obsession with Harriet’s disappearance. Vanger must have pestered her brother with his theories, and Martin must realise that if Blomkvist was going to write about the Vangers, he could not ignore the fact that one family member had vanished in dramatic circumstances. But Martin showed no sign of wanting to discuss the subject. The evening ended, after several rounds of vodka, at 2:00 in the morning. Blomkvist was fairly drunk as he skidded the three hundred yards to the guest house. It had been a pleasant evening. One afternoon during Blomkvist’s second week in Hedeby there was a knock on the door. He put aside the binder from the police report that he had just opened-the sixth in the series-and closed the door to his office before he opened the front door to a blonde woman well wrapped up against the cold. “Hi. I just thought I’d come and say hello. I’m Cecilia Vanger.” They shook hands and he got out the coffee cups. Cecilia, daughter of Harald Vanger, appeared to be an open and engaging woman. Blomkvist remembered that Vanger had spoken of her appreciatively; he had also said that she was not on speaking terms with her father, her next-door neighbour. They chatted for a while before she brought up the reason for her visit. “I understand that you’re writing a book about the family,” she said. “I’m not sure that I care for the idea. I wanted to see what sort of person you are.” “Well, Henrik Vanger hired me. It’s his story, so to speak.” “And our good Henrik isn’t exactly neutral in his attitude towards the family.” Blomkvist studied her, unsure what she was getting at. “You’re opposed to having a book written about the Vanger family?” “I didn’t say that. And it doesn’t really matter what I think. But by now you must have realised that it hasn’t always been plain sailing to be part of this family.” Blomkvist had no idea what Vanger had said or how much Cecilia knew about his assignment. He threw out his hands. “I’m contracted by your uncle to write a family chronicle. He has some very colourful views about members of the family, but I’ll be sticking strictly to what can be documented.” Cecilia Vanger smiled but without warmth. “What I want to know is: will I have to go into exile or emigrate when the book comes out?” “I don’t expect so,” Blomkvist said. “People will be able to tell the sheep from the goats.” “Like my father, for instance?” “Your father the famous Nazi?” Blomkvist said. Cecilia Vanger rolled her eyes. “My father is crazy. I only see him a few times a year.” “Why don’t you want to see him?” “Wait a minute-before you start in asking a lot of questions…Are you planning to quote anything I say? Or can I carry on a normal conversation with you?” “My job is to write a book starting with Alexandre Vangeersad’s arrival in Sweden with Bernadotte and going up to the present. It’s to cover the business empire over many decades, but it will also discuss why the empire is in difficulty and it will touch on the animosity that exists within the family. In such a survey it’s impossible to avoid having some dirty linen float to the surface. But that doesn’t mean that I’m going to set out to present a malicious portrait of anyone. For example, I’ve met Martin Vanger; he seems to me a very sympathetic person, and that’s how I’m going to describe him.” Cecilia Vanger did not reply. “What I know about you is that you’re a teacher…” “It’s actually worse than that-I’m the headmistress of Hedestad preparatory school.” “I’m sorry. I know that your uncle is fond of you, that you’re married but separated…and that’s about all so far. So do please go ahead and talk to me without fear of being quoted. I’m sure I’ll come knocking on your door some day soon. Then it will be an official interview, and you can choose whether you want to answer my questions or not.” “So I can talk to you then or now…off the record, as they say?” “Of course.” “And this is off the record?” “Of course. This is a social visit after all.” “OK. Then can I ask you something?” “Please.” “How much of this book is going to deal with Harriet?” Blomkvist bit his lip and then said as casually as he could: “To be honest, I have no idea. It might fill a chapter. It was a dramatic event that has cast a shadow over your uncle, at the very least.” “But you’re not here to look into her disappearance?” “What makes you think that?” “Well, the fact that Nilsson lugged four massive boxes over here. That could be Henrik’s private investigations over the years. I looked in Harriet’s old room, where Henrik keeps it, and it was gone.” Cecilia Vanger was no fool. “You’ll have to take the matter up with Henrik, not with me,” Blomkvist said. “But it won’t surprise you to know that Henrik has talked a lot about the girl’s disappearance, and I thought it would be interesting to read through what had been collected.” Cecilia gave him another of her joyless smiles. “I wonder sometimes who’s crazier, my father or my uncle. I must have listened to him on Harriet’s disappearance a thousand times.” “What do you think happened to her?” “Is this an interview question?” “No,” he said with a laugh. “I’m just curious.” “What I’m curious about is whether you’re a nut case too. Whether you’ve swallowed Henrik’s conviction or whether in fact you’re the one who’s egging him on.” “You think that Henrik’s a nut case?” “Don’t get me wrong. He’s one of the warmest and most thoughtful people I know. I’m very fond of him. But on this particular topic, he’s obsessive.” “But Harriet really did disappear.” “I’m just so damn sick of the whole story. It’s poisoned our lives for decades, and it doesn’t stop doing so.” She got up abruptly and put on her fur coat. “I have to go. You seem like a pleasant sort. Martin thinks so too, but his judgement isn’t always reliable. You’re welcome to come for coffee at my house whenever you like. I’m almost always home in the evening.” “Thank you,” Blomkvist said. “You didn’t answer the question that wasn’t an interview question.” She paused at the door and replied without looking at him. “I have no idea. I think it was an accident that has such a simple explanation that it will astonish us if we ever find out.” She turned to smile at him-for the first time with warmth. Then she was gone. If it had been an agreeable first meeting with Cecilia Vanger, the same could not be said of his first encounter with Isabella. Harriet’s mother was exactly as Henrik Vanger had warned: she proved to be an elegant woman who reminded him vaguely of Lauren Bacall. She was thin, dressed in a black Persian lamb coat with matching cap, and she was leaning on a black cane when Blomkvist ran into her one morning on his way to Susanne’s. She looked like an ageing vampire-still strikingly beautiful but as venomous as a snake. Isabella Vanger was apparently on her way home after taking a walk. She called to him from the crossroad. “Hello there, young man. Come here.” The commanding tone was hard to mistake. Blomkvist looked around and concluded that he was the one summoned. He did as instructed. “I am Isabella Vanger,” the woman said. “Hello. My name is Mikael Blomkvist.” He stuck out his hand, which she ignored. “Are you that person who’s been snooping around in our family affairs?” “Well, if you mean am I the person that Henrik Vanger has put under contract to help him with his book about the Vanger family, then yes.” “That’s none of your business.” “Which? The fact that Henrik Vanger offered me a contract or the fact that I accepted?” “You know perfectly well what I mean. I don’t care for people poking around in my life.” “I won’t poke around in your life. The rest you’ll have to discuss with Henrik.” Isabella raised her cane and pressed the handle against Mikael’s chest. She did not use much force, but he took a step back in surprise. “Just you keep away from me,” she said, and turned on her heel and walked unsteadily towards her house. Blomkvist went on standing where he was, looking like a man who has just met a real live comic-book character. When he looked up he saw Vanger in the window of his office. In his hand he was holding a cup, which he raised in an ironic salute. The only travelling that Blomkvist did during that first month was a drive to a bay on Lake Siljan. He borrowed Frode’s Mercedes and drove through a snowy landscape to spend the afternoon with Detective Superintendent Morell. Blomkvist had tried to form an impression of Morell based on the way he came across in the police report. What he found was a wiry old man who moved softly and spoke even more slowly. Blomkvist brought with him a notebook with ten questions, mainly ideas that had cropped up while he was reading the police report. Morell answered each question put to him in a schoolmasterly way. Finally Blomkvist put away his notes and explained that the questions were simply an excuse for a meeting. What he really wanted was to have a chat with him and ask one crucial question: was there any single thing in the investigation that had not been included in the written report? Any hunches, even, that the inspector might be willing to share with him? Because Morell, like Vanger, had spent thirty-six years pondering the mystery, Blomkvist had expected a certain resistance-he was the new man who had come in and started tramping around in the thicket where Morell had gone astray. But there was not a hint of hostility. Morell methodically filled his pipe and lit it before he replied. “Well yes, obviously I had my own ideas. But they’re so vague and fleeting that I can hardly put them into words.” “What do you think happened?” “I think Harriet was murdered. Henrik and I agree on that. It’s the only reasonable explanation. But we never discovered what the motive might have been. I think she was murdered for a very specific reason-it wasn’t some act of madness or a rape or anything like that. If we had known the motive, we’d have known who killed her.” Morell stopped to think for a moment. “The murder may have been committed spontaneously. By that I mean that someone seized an opportunity when it presented itself in the coming and going in the wake of the accident. The murderer hid the body and then at some later time removed it while we were searching for her.” “We’re talking about someone who has nerves of ice.” “There’s one detail…Harriet went to Henrik’s room wanting to speak to him. In hindsight, it seems to me a strange way to behave-she knew he had his hands full with all the relatives who were hanging around. I think Harriet alive represented a grave threat to someone, that she was going to tell Henrik something, and that the murderer knew she was about to…well, spill the beans.” “And Henrik was busy with several family members?” “There were four people in the room, besides Henrik. His brother Greger, a cousin named Magnus Sj?gren, and two of Harald’s children, Birger and Cecilia. But that doesn’t tell us anything. Let’s suppose that Harriet had discovered that someone had embezzled money from the company-hypothetically, of course. She may have known about it for months, and at some point she may even have discussed it with the person in question. She may have tried to blackmail him, or she may have felt sorry for him and felt uneasy about exposing him. She may have decided all of a sudden and told the murderer so, and he in desperation killed her.” “You’ve said ‘he’ and ‘him.’” “The book says that most killers are men. But it’s also true that in the Vanger family are several women who are real firebrands.” “I’ve met Isabella.” “She’s one of them. But there are others. Cecilia Vanger can be extremely caustic. Have you met Sara Sj?gren?” Blomkvist shook his head. “She’s the daughter of Sofia Vanger, one of Henrik’s cousins. In her case we’re talking about a truly unpleasant and inconsiderate lady. But she was living in Malm?, and as far as I could ascertain, she had no motive for killing the girl.” “So she’s off the list.” “The problem is that no matter how we twisted and turned things, we never came up with a motive. That’s the important thing.” “You put a vast amount of work into this case. Was there any lead you remember not having followed up?” Morell chuckled. “No. I’ve devoted an endless amount of time to this case, and I can’t think of anything that I didn’t follow up to the bitter, fruitless end. Even after I was promoted and moved away from Hedestad.” “Moved away?” “Yes, I’m not from Hedestad originally. I served there from 1963 until 1968. After that I was promoted to superintendent and moved to the G?vle police department for the rest of my career. But even in G?vle I went on digging into the case.” “I don’t suppose that Henrik would ever let up.” “That’s true, but that’s not the reason. The puzzle about Harriet still fascinates me to this day. I mean…it’s like this: every police officer has his own unsolved mystery. I remember from my days in Hedestad how older colleagues would talk in the canteen about the case of Rebecka. There was one officer in particular, a man named Torstensson-he’s been dead for years-who year after year kept returning to that case. In his free time and when he was on holiday. Whenever there was a period of calm among the local hooligans he would take out those folders and study them.” “Was that also a case about a missing girl?” Morell looked surprised. Then he smiled when he realised that Blomkvist was looking for some sort of connection. “No, that’s not why I mentioned it. I’m talking about the soul of a policeman. The Rebecka case was something that happened before Harriet Vanger was even born, and the statute of limitations has long since run out. Sometime in the forties a woman was assaulted in Hedestad, raped, and murdered. That’s not altogether uncommon. Every officer, at some point in his career, has to investigate that kind of crime, but what I’m talking about are those cases that stay with you and get under your skin during the investigation. This girl was killed in the most brutal way. The killer tied her up and stuck her head into the smouldering embers of a fireplace. One can only guess how long it took for the poor girl to die, or what torment she must have endured.” “Christ Almighty.” “Exactly. It was so sadistic. Poor Torstensson was the first detective on the scene after she was found. And the murder remained unsolved, even though experts were called in from Stockholm. He could never let go of that case.” “I can understand that.” “My Rebecka case was Harriet. In this instance we don’t even know how she died. We can’t even prove that a murder was committed. But I have never been able to let it go.” He paused to think for a moment. “Being a homicide detective can be the loneliest job in the world. The friends of the victim are upset and in despair, but sooner or later-after weeks or months-they go back to their everyday lives. For the closest family it takes longer, but for the most part, to some degree, they too get over their grieving and despair. Life has to go on; it does go on. But the unsolved murders keep gnawing away and in the end there’s only one person left who thinks night and day about the victim: it’s the officer who’s left with the investigation.” Three other people in the Vanger family lived on Hedeby Island. Alexander Vanger, son of Greger, born in 1946, lived in a renovated wooden house. Vanger told Blomkvist that Alexander was presently in the West Indies, where he gave himself over to his favourite pastimes: sailing and whiling away the time, not doing a scrap of work. Alexander had been twenty and he had been there on that day. Alexander shared the house with his mother, Gerda, eighty years old and widow of Greger Vanger. Blomkvist had never seen her; she was mostly bedridden. The third family member was Harald Vanger. During his first month Blomkvist had not managed even a glimpse of him. Harald’s house, the one closest to Blomkvist’s cabin, looked gloomy and ominous with its blackout curtains drawn across all the windows. Blomkvist sometimes thought he saw a ripple in the curtains as he passed, and once when he was about to go to bed late, he noticed a glimmer of light coming from a room upstairs. There was a gap in the curtains. For more than twenty minutes he stood in the dark at his own kitchen window and watched the light before he got fed up and, shivering, went to bed. In the morning the curtains were back in place. Harald seemed to be an invisible but ever-present spirit who affected life in the village by his absence. In Blomkvist’s imagination, Harald increasingly took on the form of an evil Gollum who spied on his surroundings from behind the curtains and devoted himself to no-one-knew-what matters in his barricaded cavern. Harald was visited once a day by the home-help service (usually an elderly woman) from the other side of the bridge. She would bring bags of groceries, trudging through the snowdrifts up to his door. Nilsson shook his head when Blomkvist asked about Harald. He had offered to do the shovelling, he said, but Harald did not want anyone to set foot on his property. Only once, during the first winter after Harald had returned to Hedeby Island, did Nilsson drive the tractor up there to clear the snow from the courtyard, just as he did for all the other driveways. Harald had come out of his house at a startling pace, yelling and gesticulating until Nilsson went away. Unfortunately, Nilsson was unable to clear Blomkvist’s yard because the gate was too narrow for the tractor. A snow shovel and manual labour were still the only way to do it. In the middle of January Blomkvist asked his lawyer to find out when he was going to be expected to serve his three months in prison. He was anxious to take care of the matter as quickly as possible. Getting into prison turned out to be easier than he had expected. After a very few weeks of discussion, it was decreed that Blomkvist present himself on March 17 at the Rull?ker Prison outside ?stersund, a minimum-security prison. The lawyer advised him that the sentence would very likely be shortened. “Fine,” Blomkvist said, without much enthusiasm. He sat at the kitchen table and petted the cat, who now arrived every few days to spend the night with Blomkvist. From the Nilssons he had learned that the cat’s name was Tjorven. It did not belong to anyone in particular, it just made the rounds of all the houses. Blomkvist met his employer almost every afternoon. Sometimes they would have a brief conversation; sometimes they would sit together for hours. The conversation often consisted of Blomkvist putting up a theory that Vanger would then shoot down. Blomkvist tried to maintain a certain distance from his assignment, but there were moments when he found himself hopelessly fascinated by the enigma of the girl’s disappearance. Blomkvist had assured Berger that he would also formulate a strategy for taking up the battle with Wennerstr?m, but after a month in Hedestad he had not yet opened the files which had brought him to the dock in the district court. On the contrary, he had deliberately pushed the matter aside because every time he thought about Wennerstr?m and his own situation, he would sink into depression and listlessness. He wondered whether he was going crazy like the old man. His professional reputation had imploded, and his means of recovering was to hide himself away in a tiny town in the deep country, chasing ghosts. Vanger could tell that Blomkvist was on some days a bit off balance. By the end of January, the old man made a decision that surprised even himself. He picked up the telephone and called Stockholm. The conversation lasted twenty minutes and dealt largely with Mikael Blomkvist. It had taken almost that whole month for Berger’s fury to subside. At 9:30 in the evening, on one of the last days in January, she called him. “Are you really intending to stay up there?” she began. The call was such a surprise that Blomkvist could not at first reply. Then he smiled and wrapped the blanket tighter around him. “Hi, Ricky. You should try it yourself.” “Why would I? What is so charming about living in the back of beyond?” “I just brushed my teeth with ice water. It makes my fillings hurt.” “You have only yourself to blame. But it’s cold as hell down here in Stockholm too.” “Let’s hear the worst.” “We’ve lost two-thirds of our regular advertisers. No-one wants to come right out and say it, but…” “I know. Make a list of the ones that jump ship. Someday we’ll do a good story on them.” “Micke…I’ve run the numbers, and if we don’t rope in some new advertisers, we’ll be bust by the autumn. It’s as simple as that.” “Things will turn around.” She laughed wearily on the other end of the line. “That’s not something you can say, nestling up there in Laplander hell.” “Erika, I’m…” “I know. A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do, and all that crap. You don’t have to say anything. I’m sorry I was such a bitch and didn’t answer your messages. Can we start again? Do I dare come up there to see you?” “Whenever you like.” “Do I need to bring along a rifle with wolf-shot?” “Not at all. We’ll have our own Lapps, dog teams and all the gear. When are you coming?” “Friday evening, OK?” Apart from the narrow shovelled path to the door, there was about three feet of snow covering the property. Blomkvist gave the shovel a long, critical look and then went over to Nilsson’s house to ask whether Berger could park her BMW there. That was no problem; they had room in the double garage, and they even had engine heaters. Berger drove through the afternoon and arrived around 6:00. They stared at each other warily for several seconds and then hugged each other for much longer. There was not much to see in the darkness except for the illuminated church, and both Konsum and Susanne’s Bridge Caf? were closing up. So they hurried home. Blomkvist cooked dinner while Berger poked around in his house, making remarks about the issues of Rekordmagasinet from the fifties that were still there, and getting engrossed in his files in the office. They had lamb cutlets with potatoes in cream sauce and drank red wine. Blomkvist tried to take up the thread of their earlier conversation, but Berger was in no mood to discuss Millennium. Instead they talked for two hours about what Blomkvist was doing up there and how he and Vanger were getting on. Later they went to see if the bed was big enough to hold both of them. Her third meeting with Advokat Nils Bjurman was rescheduled, and finally set for 5:00 on that same Friday afternoon. At the previous meetings, Salander was greeted by a middle-aged woman who smelled of musk and worked as his secretary. This time she had left for the day, and Bjurman smelled faintly of drink. He waved Salander to a visitor’s chair and leafed distractedly through the documents on his desk until he seemed suddenly to become aware of her presence. It turned out to be another interrogation. This time he asked Salander about her sex life-which she had no intention of discussing with anyone. After the meeting she knew that she had handled it badly. At first she refused to answer his questions. His interpretation of this was that she was shy, retarded, or had something to hide, and he pressed her for answers. Salander realised that he was not going to give up, so she started giving him brief, colourless answers of the sort she assumed would fit with her psychological profile. She mentioned “Magnus”-who, according to her description, was a nerdy computer programmer her own age who treated her like a gentleman should, took her to the cinema, and sometimes shared her bed. “Magnus” was fiction; she made him up as she went along, but Bjurman took her account as a pretext for meticulously mapping out her sex life. How often do you have sex? Occasionally. Who takes the initiative-you or him? I do. Do you use condoms? Of course-she knew about HIV. What’s your favourite position? Hmm, usually on my back. Do you enjoy oral sex? Er, wait a second…Have you ever had anal sex? “No, it’s not particularly nice to be fucked in the arse-but what the hell business is it of yours?” That was the only time she lost her temper. She had kept her eyes on the floor so they would not betray her exasperation. When she looked at him again, he was grinning at her from across the desk. She left his office with a feeling of disgust. Palmgren would never have dreamed of asking such questions. On the other hand, he had always been there if she had wanted to discuss anything. Not that she did. Bjurman was on his way to being a Major Problem. CHAPTER 11. Saturday, February 1-Tuesday, February 18 During the brief hours of daylight on Saturday, Blomkvist and Berger took a walk past the small-boat harbour along the road to ?sterg?rden. He had been living on Hedeby Island for a month, but he had never taken a walk inland; the freezing temperatures and regular snowstorms had deterred him. But Saturday was sunny and pleasant. It was as if Berger had brought with her a hint of spring. The road was lined with snow, ploughed three feet high. As soon as they left the summer-cabin area they were walking in dense fir forest. Blomkvist was surprised by how much higher and more inaccessible S?derberget, the hill across from the cabins, was than it appeared from the village. He thought about how many times Harriet Vanger must have played here as a child, but then he pushed all thoughts of her out of his mind. After about a mile the woods ended at a fence where the ?sterg?rden farmland began. They could see a white wooden structure and red farm buildings arranged in a square. They turned to head back the same way. As they passed the driveway to the estate house, Vanger knocked on the upstairs window and gestured firmly for them to come up. Blomkvist and Berger looked at each other. “Would you like to meet a corporate legend?” Blomkvist said. “Does he bite?” “Not on Saturdays.” Vanger received them at the door to his office. “You must be Fr?ken Berger, I recognise you.” he said. “Mikael didn’t say a word about your coming to Hedeby.” One of Berger’s outstanding talents was her ability to instantly get on friendly terms with the most unlikely individuals. Blomkvist had seen her turn on the charm for five-year-old boys, who within ten minutes were fully prepared to abandon their mothers. Men over eighty seemed not to be an exception. After two minutes Berger and Henrik Vanger were ignoring Blomkvist as they chattered on. It was as if they had known each other since childhood-well, since Erika’s childhood, at any rate. Berger started off quite boldly by scolding Vanger for luring her publisher away into the sticks. The old man replied that as far as he could tell-from assorted press reports-she had in fact fired him. And had she not done so, then now might be high time to get rid of excess ballast in the editorial offices. And in that case, Vanger said, a period of rustic life would do young Blomkvist some good. For five minutes they discussed Blomkvist’s shortcomings in the most irritating terms. Blomkvist leaned back and pretended to be insulted, but he frowned when Berger made some cryptic remarks that might allude to his failings as a journalist but might also have applied to sexual prowess. Vanger tilted his head back and roared with laughter. Blomkvist was astonished. He had never seen Vanger so natural and relaxed. He could suddenly see that Vanger, fifty years younger-or even thirty years-must have been quite a charming, attractive ladies’ man. He had never remarried. There must have been women who crossed his path, yet for nearly half a century he had remained a bachelor. Blomkvist took a sip of coffee and pricked up his ears again when he realised that the conversation had suddenly turned serious and had to do with Millennium. “Mikael has told me that you’re having problems at the magazine.” Berger glanced at Blomkvist. “No, he hasn’t discussed your internal operations, but a person would have to be deaf and blind not to see that your magazine, just like the Vanger Corporation, is in difficulties.” “I’m confident that we can repair the situation,” Berger said. “I doubt it,” Vanger said. “Why is that?” “Let’s see-how many employees do you have? Six? A monthly magazine with a print run of 21,000, manufacturing costs, salaries, distribution, offices…You need revenues of about 10 million. I think we know what percentage of that amount has to come from advertising revenue.” “So?” “So friend Wennerstr?m is a vengeful and narrow-minded bastard who isn’t going to forget his recent contretemps in a hurry. How many advertisers have you lost in the past six months?” Berger regarded Vanger with a wary expression. Blomkvist caught himself holding his breath. On those occasions when he and the old man had touched on the future of Millennium, it had always concerned annoying remarks or the magazine’s situation in relation to Blomkvist’s ability to finish his work in Hedestad. But Vanger was now addressing Erika alone, one boss to another. Signals passed between them that Blomkvist could not interpret, which might have had to do with the fact that he was basically a poor working-class boy from Norrland and she was an upper-class girl with a distinguished, international family tree. “Could I have a little more coffee?” Berger asked. Vanger poured her a cup at once. “OK, you’ve done your homework. We’re bleeding.” “How long?” “We’ve got six months to turn ourselves around. Eight months, max. We don’t have enough capital to keep ourselves afloat longer than that.” The old man’s expression was inscrutable as he stared out of the window. The church was still standing there. “Did you know that I was once in the newspaper business?” he said, once more addressing them both. Blomkvist and Berger both shook their heads. Vanger laughed again, ruefully. “We owned six daily newspapers in Norrland. That was back in the fifties and sixties. It was my father’s idea-he thought it might be politically advantageous to have a section of the media behind us. We’re actually still one of the owners of the Hedestad Courier. Birger is the chairman of the board for the group of owners. Harald’s son,” he added, for Blomkvist’s benefit. “And also a local politician,” Blomkvist said. “Martin is on the board too. He keeps Birger in line.” “Why did you let go of the newspapers you owned?” Blomkvist asked. “Corporate restructuring in the sixties. Publishing newspapers was in some ways more a hobby than an interest. When we needed to tighten the budget, it was one of the first assets that we sold. But I know what it takes to run a publication…May I ask you a personal question?” This was directed at Erika. “I haven’t asked Mikael about this, and if you don’t want to answer, you don’t have to. I’d like to know how you ended up in this quagmire. Did you have a story or didn’t you?” Now it was Blomkvist’s turn to look inscrutable. Berger hesitated only a second before she said: “We had a story. But it was a very different story.” Vanger nodded, as if he understood precisely what Berger was saying. Blomkvist did not. “I don’t want to discuss the matter.” Blomkvist cut the discussion short. “I did the research and wrote the article. I had all the sources I needed. But then it all went to hell.” “You had sources for every last thing you wrote?” “I did.” Vanger’s voice was suddenly sharp. “I won’t pretend to understand how the hell you could walk into such a minefield. I can’t recall a similar story except perhaps the Lundahl affair in Expressen in the sixties, if you youngsters have ever heard of it. Was your source also a mythomaniac?” He shook his head and turned to Berger and said quietly, “I’ve been a newspaper publisher in the past, and I can be one again. What would you say to taking on another partner?” The question came like a bolt out of the blue, but Berger did not seem the least bit surprised. “Tell me more,” she said. Vanger said: “How long are you staying in Hedestad?” “I’m going home tomorrow.” “Would you consider-you and Mikael, of course-humouring an old man by joining me for dinner tonight? Would 7:00 suit?” “That would suit us fine. We’d love it. But you’re not answering the question I asked. Why would you want to be a partner in Millennium?” “I’m not avoiding the question. I just thought we could discuss it over dinner. I have to talk with my lawyer before I can put together a concrete offer. But in all simplicity I can say that I have money to invest. If the magazine survives and starts making a profit again, then I’ll come out ahead. If not-well, I’ve had significantly bigger losses in my day.” Blomkvist was about to open his mouth when Berger put her hand on his knee. “Mikael and I have fought hard so that we could be completely independent.” “Nonsense. No-one is completely independent. But I’m not out to take over the magazine, and I don’t give a damn about the contents. That bastard Stenbeck got all sorts of points for publishing Modern Times, so why can’t I back Millennium? Which happens to be an excellent magazine, by the way.” “Does this have anything to do with Wennerstr?m?” Blomkvist said. Vanger smiled. “Mikael, I’m eighty years plus. There are things I regret not doing and people I regret not fighting more. But, apropos this topic-” He turned to Berger again. “This type of investment would have at least one condition.” “Let’s hear it,” Berger said. “Mikael Blomkvist must resume his position as publisher.” “No,” Blomkvist snapped. “But yes,” Vanger said, equally curt. “Wennerstr?m will have a stroke if we send out a press release saying that the Vanger Corporation is backing Millennium, and at the same time you’re returning as publisher. That’s absolutely the clearest signal we could send-everyone will understand that it’s not a takeover and that the editorial policies won’t change. And that alone will give the advertisers who are thinking of pulling out reason to reconsider. Wennerstr?m isn’t omnipotent. He has enemies too, and there are companies new to you that will consider taking space.” “What the hell was that all about?” Blomkvist said as soon as Berger pulled the front door shut. “I think it’s what you call advance probes for a business deal,” she said. “You didn’t tell me that Henrik Vanger is such a sweetie.” Blomkvist planted himself in front of her. “Ricky, you knew exactly what this conversation was going to be about.” “Hey, toy boy. It’s only 3:00, and I want to be properly entertained before dinner.” Blomkvist was enraged. But he had never managed to be enraged at Erika Berger for very long. *** She wore a black dress, a waist-length jacket, and pumps, which she just happened to have brought along in her little suitcase. She insisted that Blomkvist wear a jacket and tie. He put on his black trousers, a grey shirt, dark tie, and grey sports coat. When they knocked punctually on the door of Vanger’s home, it turned out that Dirch Frode and Martin Vanger were also among the guests. Everyone was wearing a jacket and tie except for Vanger. “The advantage of being over eighty is that no-one can criticise what you wear,” he declared. He wore a bow tie and a brown cardigan. Berger was in high spirits throughout the dinner. It was not until they moved to the drawing room with the fireplace and cognac was poured that the discussion took on a serious tone. They talked for almost two hours before they had the outline for a deal on the table. Frode would set up a company to be wholly owned by Henrik Vanger; the board would consist of Henrik and Martin Vanger and Frode. Over a four-year period, this company would invest a sum of money that would cover the gap between income and expenses for Millennium. The money would come from Vanger’s personal assets. In return, Vanger would have a conspicuous position on the magazine’s board. The agreement would be valid for four years, but it could be terminated by Millennium after two years. But this type of premature termination would be costly, since Vanger could only be bought out by repayment of the sum he had invested. In the event of Vanger’s death, Martin Vanger would replace him on the Millennium board for the remainder of the period during which the agreement was valid. If Martin wished to continue his involvement beyond this period, he could make that decision himself when the time came. He seemed amused by the prospect of getting even with Wennerstr?m, and Blomkvist wondered again what the origin was of the animosity between those two. Martin refilled their glasses. Vanger made a point of leaning towards Blomkvist, and in a low voice told him that this new arrangement had no effect whatsoever on the agreement that existed between them. Blomkvist could resume his duties as publisher full-time at the end of the year. It was also decided that the reorganisation, in order to have the greatest impact in the media, should be presented on the same day that Blomkvist began his prison sentence in mid-March. Combining a strongly negative event with a reorganisation was, in PR terms, such a clumsy error that it could not but astonish Blomkvist’s detractors and garner optimum attention for Henrik Vanger’s new role. But everyone also saw the logic in it-it was a way of indicating that the yellow plague flag fluttering over Millennium’s editorial offices was about to be hauled down; the magazine had backers who were willing to be ruthless. The Vanger Corporation might be in a crisis, but it was still a prominent industrial firm which could go on the offence if the need arose. The whole conversation was a discussion between Berger, on one side, and Henrik and Martin Vanger on the other. No-one asked Blomkvist what he thought. Late that night Blomkvist lay with his head resting on Erika’s breasts, looking into her eyes. “How long have you and Henrik Vanger been discussing this arrangement?” “About a week,” she said, smiling. “Is Christer in agreement?” “Of course.” “Why didn’t you tell me?” “Why in the world should I discuss it with you? You resigned as publisher, you left the editorial staff and the board, and you went to live in the woods.” “So I deserve to be treated like an idiot.” “Oh yes,” she said. “Decidedly you do.” “You really have been mad at me.” “Mikael, I’ve never felt so furious, so abandoned, and so betrayed as when you left. I’ve never been this upset with you before.” She took a firm grip on his hair and then shoved him farther down in the bed. By the time Berger left Hedeby on Sunday, Blomkvist was still so annoyed with Vanger that he did not want to risk running into either him or any other member of his clan. Instead, on Monday he took the bus into Hedestad and spent the afternoon walking in the town, visiting the library, and drinking coffee in a bakery. In the evening he went to the cinema to see The Lord of the Rings, which he had never before had time to see. He thought that orcs, unlike human beings, were simple and uncomplicated creatures. He ended his outing at McDonald’s in Hedestad and caught the last bus to Hedeby. He made coffee, took out a binder, and sat at the kitchen table. He read until 4:00 in the morning. There were a number of questions regarding the investigation that seemed increasingly odd the further Blomkvist went through the documents. They were not revolutionary discoveries that he made all on his own; they were problems that had preoccupied Inspector Morell for long periods, especially in his free time. During the last year of her life, Harriet had changed. In some ways this change could be explained as the change that everyone goes through in one form or another during their teenage years. Harriet was growing up. Classmates, teachers, and several members of the family, however, all testified that she had turned in on herself and become uncommunicative. The girl who, two years earlier, was a lively teenager had begun to distance herself from everyone around her. In school she still spent time with her friends, but now she behaved in an “impersonal” manner, as one of her friends described it. This word was unusual enough for Morell to have made a note of it and then ask more questions. The explanation he got was that Harriet had stopped talking about herself, stopped gossiping, and stopped confiding in her friends. Harriet Vanger had been a Christian, in a child’s sense of the word-attending Sunday school, saying evening prayers, and becoming confirmed. In her last year she seemed to have become yet more religious. She read the Bible and went regularly to church. But she had not turned to Hedeby Island ’s pastor, Otto Falk, who was a friend of the Vanger family. Instead, during the spring she had sought out a Pentecostal congregation in Hedestad. Yet her involvement in the Pentecostal church did not last long. After only two months she left the congregation and instead began reading books about the Catholic faith. The religious infatuation of a teenager? Perhaps, but no-one else in the Vanger family had ever been noticeably religious, and it was difficult to discern what impulses may have guided her. One explanation for her interest in God could, of course, have been that her father had drowned the previous year. Morell came to the conclusion that something had happened in Harriet’s life that was troubling her or affecting her. Morell, like Vanger, had devoted a great deal of time to talking to Harriet’s friends, trying to find someone in whom she might have confided. Some measure of hope was pinned on Anita Vanger, two years older than Harriet and the daughter of Harald. She had spent the summer of 1966 on Hedeby Island and they were thought to be close friends. But Anita had no solid information to offer. They had hung out together that summer, swimming, taking walks, talking about movies, pop bands, and books. Harriet had sometimes gone with Anita when she took driving lessons. Once they had got happily drunk on a bottle of wine they stole from the house. For several weeks the two of them had also stayed at Gottfried’s cabin on the very tip of the island. The questions about Harriet’s private thoughts and feelings remained unanswered. But Blomkvist did make a note of a discrepancy in the report: the information about her uncommunicative frame of mind came chiefly from her classmates, and to a certain extent from the family. Anita Vanger had not thought of her as being introverted at all. He made a note to discuss this matter with Vanger at some point. A more concrete question, to which Morell had devoted much more attention, was a surprising page in Harriet’s date book, a beautiful bound book she had been given as a Christmas present the year before she disappeared. The first half of the date book was a day-by-day calendar in which Harriet had listed meetings, the dates of exams at school, her homework, and so on. The date book also had a large section for a diary, but Harriet used the diary only sporadically. She began ambitiously enough in January with many brief entries about people she had met over the Christmas holidays and several about films she had seen. After that she wrote nothing personal until the end of the school year when she apparently-depending on how the entries were interpreted-became interested from a distance in some never-named boy. The pages that listed telephone numbers were the ones that held the real mystery. Neatly, in alphabetical order, were the names and numbers of family members, classmates, certain teachers, several members of the Pentecostal congregation, and other easily identifiable individuals in her circle of acquaintances. On the very last page of the address book, which was blank and not really part of the alphabetical section, there were five names and telephone numbers. Three female names and two sets of initials: Magda-32016 Sara-32109 R.J.-30112 R.L.-32027 Mari-32018 The telephone numbers that began with 32 were Hedestad numbers in the sixties. The one beginning with 30 was a Norrbyn number, not far from Hedestad. The problem was that when Morell contacted every one of Harriet’s friends and acquaintances, no-one had any idea whose numbers they were. The first number belonging to “Magda” initially seemed promising. It led to a haberdashery at Parkgatan 12. The telephone was in the name of one Margot Lundmark, whose mother’s name was actually Magda; she sometimes helped out in the store. But Magda was sixty-nine years old and had no idea who Harriet Vanger was. Nor was there any evidence that Harriet had ever visited the shop or bought anything there. She wasn’t interested in sewing. The second number for “Sara” belonged to a family by the name of Toresson, who lived in V?ststan, on the other side of the tracks. The family included Anders and Monica and their children, Jonas and Peter, who at the time were pre-school age. There was no Sara in the family, nor did they know of Harriet Vanger, other than that she had been reported in the media as missing. The only vague connection between Harriet and the Toresson family was that Anders, who was a roofer, had several weeks earlier put a tiled roof on the school which Harriet attended. So theoretically there was a chance that they had met, although it might be considered extremely unlikely. The remaining three numbers led to similar dead ends. The number 32027 for “R.L.” had actually belonged to one Rosmarie Larsson. Unfortunately, she had died several years earlier. Inspector Morell concentrated a great deal of his attention during the winter of 1966-67 on trying to explain why Harriet had written down these names and numbers. One possibility was that the telephone numbers were written in some personal code-so Morell tried to guess how a teenage girl would think. Since the thirty-two series obviously pointed to Hedestad, he set about rearranging the remaining three digits. Neither 32601 or 32160 led to a Magda. As Morell continued his numerology, he realised that if he played around with enough of the numbers, sooner or later he would find some link to Harriet. For example, if he added one to each of the three remaining digits in 32016, he got 32127-which was the number to Frode’s office in Hedestad. But one link like that meant nothing. Besides, he never discovered a code that made sense of all five of the numbers. Morell broadened his inquiry. Could the digits mean, for example, car number plates, which in the sixties contained the two-letter county registration code and five digits? Another dead end. The inspector then concentrated on the names. He obtained a list of everyone in Hedestad named Mari, Magda, or Sara or who had the initials R.L. or R.J. He had a list of 307 people. Among these, 29 actually had some connection to Harriet. For instance, a boy from her class was named Roland Jacobsson-R.J. They scarcely knew each other and had had no contact since Harriet started preparatory school. And there was no link to the telephone number. The mystery of the numbers in the date book remained unsolved. Her fourth encounter with Advokat Bjurman was not one of their scheduled meetings. She was forced to make contact with him. In the second week of February Salander’s laptop fell victim to an accident that was so uncalled for that she felt an urgent desire to kill someone. She had ridden her bike to a meeting at Milton Security and parked it behind a pillar in the garage. As she set her rucksack on the ground to put on the bike lock, a dark red Saab began reversing out. She had her back turned but heard the cracking sound from her rucksack. The driver didn’t notice a thing and, unwitting, drove off up the exit ramp. The rucksack contained her white Apple iBook 600 with a 25-gig hard drive and 420 megs of RAM, manufactured in January 2002 and equipped with a 14-inch screen. At the time she bought it, it was Apple’s state-of-the-art laptop. Salander’s computers were upgraded with the very latest and sometimes most expensive configurations-computer equipment was the only extravagant entry on her list of expenses. When she opened the rucksack, she could see that the lid of her computer was cracked. She plugged in the power adapter and tried to boot up the computer; not even a death rattle. She took it over to Timmy’s MacJesus Shop on Br?nnkyrkagatan, hoping that at least something on the hard drive could be saved. After fiddling with it for a short time, Timmy shook his head. “Sorry. No hope,” he said. “You’ll have to arrange a nice funeral.” The loss of her computer was depressing but not disastrous. Salander had had an excellent relationship with it during the year she had owned it. She had backed up all her documents, and she had an older desktop Mac G3 at home, as well as a five-year-old Toshiba PC laptop that she could use. But she needed a fast, modern machine. Unsurprisingly she set her sights on the best available alternative: the new Apple PowerBook G4/1.0 GHz in an aluminium case with a PowerPC 7451 processor with an AltiVec Velocity Engine, 960 MB RAM and a 60 GB hard drive. It had BlueTooth and built-in CD and DVD burners. Best of all, it had the first 17-inch screen in the laptop world with NVIDIA graphics and a resolution of 1440 x 900 pixels, which shook the PC advocates and outranked everything else on the market. In terms of hardware, it was the Rolls-Royce of portable computers, but what really triggered Salander’s need to have it was the simple feature that the keyboard was equipped with backlighting, so that she could see the letters even if it was pitch dark. So simple. Why had no-one thought of that before? It was love at first sight. It cost 38,000 kronor, plus tax. That was the problem. Come what may, she put in her order at MacJesus. She bought all her computer accessories there, so they gave her a reasonable discount. She tallied up her expenses. The insurance on her ruined computer would cover a good part of the price, but with the warranty and the higher price of her new acquisition, she was still 18,000 kronor short. She had 10,000 kronor hidden in a coffee tin at home but that was all. She sent evil thoughts to Herr Bjurman, but then she bit the bullet and called her guardian to explain that she needed money for an unexpected expense. Bjurman’s secretary said that he had no time to see her that day. Salander replied that it would take the man twenty seconds to write out a cheque for 10,000 kronor. She was told to be at his office at 7:30 that evening. Blomkvist might have no experience of evaluating criminal investigations, but he reckoned that Inspector Morell had been exceptionally conscientious. When Blomkvist had finished with the police investigation, Morell still kept turning up as a player in Vanger’s own notes. They had become friends, and Blomkvist wondered whether Morell had been as obsessed as the captain of industry became. It was unlikely, in his view, that Morell had missed anything. The solution to the mystery was not going to be found in the police records. Every imaginable question had been asked, and all leads followed up, even some that seemed absurdly far-fetched. He had not read every word of the report, but the further into the investigation he got, the more obscure the subsequent leads and tips became. He was not going to find anything that his professional predecessor and his experienced team had missed, and he was undecided what approach he should adopt to the problem. Eventually it came to him that the only reasonably practical route for him to take was to try to find out the psychological motives of the individuals involved. The first question had to do with Harriet herself. Who was she? From his kitchen window Blomkvist had noticed a light go on upstairs in Cecilia Vanger’s house at a little after 5:00 in the afternoon. He knocked on her door at 7:30, just as the news broadcast was starting on TV. She opened the door dressed in her bathrobe, her hair wet under a yellow towel. Blomkvist apologised at once for disturbing her and made to retreat, but she waved him into the living room. She turned on the coffeemaker and vanished upstairs for a few minutes. When she came back down, she had put on jeans and a check flannel shirt. “I was starting to think you were never going to call.” “I should have rung first, but I saw your light was on and came over on impulse.” “I’ve seen the lights on all night at your place. And you’re often out walking after midnight. You’re a night owl?” Blomkvist shrugged. “It’s turned out that way.” He looked at several textbooks stacked on the edge of the kitchen table. “Do you still teach?” “No, as headmistress I don’t have time. But I used to teach history, religion, and social studies. And I have a few years left.” “Left?” She smiled. “I’m fifty-six. I’ll be retiring soon.” “You don’t look a day over fifty, more like in your forties.” “Very flattering. How old are you?” “Well, over forty,” Blomkvist said with a smile. “And you were just twenty the other day. How fast it all goes. Life, that is.” Cecilia Vanger served the coffee and asked if he was hungry. He said that he had already eaten, which was partly true. He did not bother with cooking and ate only sandwiches. But he was not hungry. “Then why did you come over? Is it time to ask me those questions?” “To be honest…I didn’t come over to ask questions. I think I just wanted to say hello.” She smiled. “You’re sentenced to prison, you move to Hedeby, clamber through all the material of Henrik’s favourite hobby, you don’t sleep at night and take long nighttime walks when it’s freezing cold…Have I left anything out?” “My life is going to the dogs.” “Who was that woman visiting you over the weekend?” “Erika…She’s the editor in chief of Millennium.” “Your girlfriend?” “Not exactly. She’s married. I’m more a friend and occasional lover.” Cecilia Vanger hooted with laughter. “What’s so funny?” “The way you said that. Occasional lover. I like the expression.” Blomkvist took a liking to Cecilia Vanger. “I could use an occasional lover myself,” she said. She kicked off her slippers and propped one foot on his knee. Blomkvist automatically put his hand on her foot and stroked the ankle. He hesitated for a second-he could sense he was getting into unexpected waters. But tentatively he started massaging the sole of her foot with his thumb. “I’m married too,” she said. “I know. No-one gets divorced in the Vanger clan.” “I haven’t seen my husband in getting on for twenty years.” “What happened?” “That’s none of your business. I haven’t had sex in…hmmm, it must be three years now.” “That surprises me.” “Why? It’s a matter of supply and demand. I have no interest in a boyfriend or a married man or someone living with me. I do best on my own. Who should I have sex with? One of the teachers at school? I don’t think so. One of the students? A delicious story for the gossiping old ladies. And they keep a close watch on people called Vanger. And here on Hedeby Island there are only relatives and people already married.” She leaned forward and kissed him on the neck. “Do I shock you?” “No. But I don’t know whether this is a good idea. I work for your uncle.” “And I’m the last one who’s going to tell. But to be honest, Henrik probably wouldn’t have anything against it.” She sat astride him and kissed him on the mouth. Her hair was still wet and fragrant with shampoo. He fumbled with the buttons on her flannel shirt and pulled it down around her shoulders. She had no bra. She pressed against him when he kissed her breasts. Bjurman came round the desk to show her the statement of her bank account-which she knew down to the last ?re, although it was no longer at her disposal. He stood behind her. Suddenly he was massaging the back of her neck, and he let one hand slide from her left shoulder across her breasts. He put his hand over her right breast and left it there. When she did not seem to object, he squeezed her breast. Salander did not move. She could feel his breath on her neck as she studied the letter opener on his desk; she could reach it with her free hand. But she did nothing. If there was one lesson Holger Palmgren had taught her over the years, it was that impulsive actions led to trouble, and trouble could have unpleasant consequences. She never did anything without first weighing the consequences. The initial sexual assault-which in legal terms would be defined as sexual molestation and the exploitation of an individual in a position of dependence, and could in theory get Bjurman up to two years in prison-lasted only a few seconds. But it was enough to irrevocably cross a boundary. For Salander it was a display of strength by an enemy force-an indication that aside from their carefully defined legal relationship, she was at the mercy of his discretion and defenceless. When their eyes met a few seconds later, his lips were slightly parted and she could read the lust on his face. Salander’s own face betrayed no emotions at all. Bjurman moved back to his side of the desk and sat on his comfortable leather chair. “I can’t hand out money to you whenever you like,” he said. “Why do you need such an expensive computer? There are plenty of cheaper models that you can use for playing computer games.” “I want to have control of my own money like before.” Bjurman gave her a pitying look. “We’ll have to see how things go. First you need to learn to be more sociable and get along with people.” Bjurman’s smile might have been more subdued if he could have read her thoughts behind the expressionless eyes. “I think you and I are going to be good friends,” he said. “We have to be able to trust each other.” When she did not reply he said: “You’re a grown woman now, Lisbeth.” She nodded. “Come here,” he said and held out his hand. Salander fixed her gaze on the letter opener for several seconds before she stood up and went over to him. Consequences. He took her hand and pressed it to his crotch. She could feel his genitals through the dark gabardine trousers. “If you’re nice to me, I’ll be nice to you.” He put his other hand around her neck and pulled her down to her knees with her face in front of his crotch. “You’ve done this before, haven’t you?” he said as he lowered his zip. He smelled as if he had just washed himself with soap and water. Salander turned her face away and tried to get up, but he held her in a tight grip. In terms of physical strength, she was no match for him; she weighed 90 pounds to his 210. He held her head with both hands and turned her face so their eyes met. “If you’re nice to me, I’ll be nice to you,” he repeated. “If you make trouble, I can put you away in an institution for the rest of your life. Would you like that?” She said nothing. “Would you like that?” he said again. She shook her head. He waited until she lowered her eyes, in what he regarded as submission. Then he pulled her closer. Salander opened her lips and took him in her mouth. He kept his grip on her neck and pulled her fiercely towards him. She felt like gagging the whole ten minutes he took to bump and grind; when finally he came, he was holding her so tight she could hardly breathe. He showed her the bathroom in his office. Salander was shaking all over as she wiped her face and tried to rub off the spots on her sweater. She chewed some of his toothpaste to get rid of the taste. When she went back to his office, he was sitting impassively behind his desk, studying some papers. “Sit down, Lisbeth,” he told her without looking up. She sat down. Finally he looked at her and smiled. “You’re grown-up now, aren’t you, Lisbeth?” She nodded. “Then you also need to be able to play grown-up games,” he said. He used a tone of voice as if he were speaking to a child. She did not reply. A small frown appeared on his brow. “I don’t think it would be a good idea for you to tell anyone about our games. Think about it-who would believe you? There are documents stating that you’re non compos mentis. It would be your word against mine. Whose word do you think would carry more weight?” He sighed when still she did not speak. He was annoyed at the way she just sat there in silence, looking at him-but he controlled himself. “We’re going to be good friends, you and I,” he said. “I think you were smart to come and see me today. You can always come to me.” “I need 10,000 kronor for my computer,” she said, precisely, as if she were continuing the conversation they were having before the interruption. Bjurman raised his eyebrows. Hard-nosed bitch. She really is fucking retarded. He handed her the cheque he had written when she was in the bathroom. This is better than a whore. She gets paid with her own money. He gave her an arrogant smile. Salander took the cheque and left. CHAPTER 12. Wednesday, February 19 If Salander had been an ordinary citizen, she would most likely have called the police and reported the rape as soon as she left Advokat Bjurman’s office. The bruises on her neck, as well as the DNA signature of his semen staining her body and clothing, would have nailed him. Even if the lawyer had claimed that she wanted to do it or she seduced me or any other excuse that rapists routinely used, he would have been guilty of so many breaches of the guardianship regulations that he would instantly have been stripped of his control over her. A report would have presumably resulted in Salander being given a proper lawyer, someone well-versed in assaults on women, which in turn might have led to a discussion of the very heart of the problem-meaning the reason she had been declared legally incompetent. Since 1989, the term “legally incompetent” has no longer been applied to adults. There are two levels of social welfare protection-trusteeship and guardianship. A trustee steps in to offer voluntary help for individuals who, for various reasons, have problems managing their daily lives, paying their bills, or taking proper care of their hygiene. The person who is appointed as a trustee is often a relative or close friend. If there is no-one close to the person in question, the welfare authorities can appoint a trustee. Trusteeship is a mild form of guardianship, in which the client-the person declared incompetent-still has control over his or her assets and decisions are made in consultation with the trustee. Guardianship is a stricter form of control, in which the client is relieved of the authority to handle his or her own money or to make decisions regarding various matters. The exact wording states that the guardian shall take over all of the client’s legal powers. In Sweden approximately 4,000 people are under guardianship. The most common reason for a guardianship is mental illness or mental illness in conjunction with heavy abuse of alcohol or drugs. A smaller group includes those suffering from dementia. Many of the individuals under guardianship are relatively young-thirty-five or less. One of them was Lisbeth Salander. Taking away a person’s control of her own life-meaning her bank account-is one of the greatest infringements a democracy can impose, especially when it applies to young people. It is an infringement even if the intent may be perceived as benign and socially valid. Questions of guardianship are therefore potentially sensitive political issues, and are protected by rigorous regulations and controlled by the Guardianship Agency. This agency comes under the county administrative board and is controlled, in turn, by the Parliamentary Ombudsman. For the most part the Guardianship Agency carries out its activities under difficult conditions. But considering the sensitive issues handled by the authorities, remarkably few complaints or scandals are ever reported in the media. Occasionally there are reports that charges have been brought against some trustee or guardian who has misappropriated funds or sold his client’s co-op apartment and stuffed the proceeds into his own pockets. That those cases are relatively rare may be the result of two things: the authorities are carrying out their jobs in a satisfactory manner, or the clients have no opportunity to complain and in a credible way make themselves heard by the media or by the authorities. The Guardianship Agency is bound to conduct an annual review to see whether any cause exists for revoking a guardianship. Since Salander persisted in her refusal to submit to psychiatric examination-she would not even exchange a polite “good morning” with her teachers-the authorities had never found any reason to alter their decision. Consequently, a situation of status quo had resulted, and so year after year she was retained under guardianship. The wording of the law states, however, that the conditions of a guardianship “shall be adapted to each individual case.” Palmgren had interpreted this to mean that Salander could take charge of her own money and her own life. He had meticulously fulfilled the requirements of the authorities and submitted a monthly report as well as an annual review. In all other respects he had treated Salander like any other normal being, and he had not interfered with her choice of lifestyle or friends. He did not think it was either his business or that of society to decide whether the young lady should have a ring in her nose or a tattoo on her neck. This rather stubborn attitude vis-?-vis the district court was one of the reasons why they had got along so well. As long as Palmgren was her guardian, Salander had not paid much attention to her legal status. Salander was not like any normal person. She had a rudimentary knowledge of the law-it was a subject she had never had occasion to explore-and her faith in the police was generally exiguous. For her the police were a hostile force who over the years had put her under arrest or humiliated her. The last dealing she had had with the police was in May of the previous year when she was walking past G?tgatan on her way to Milton Security. She suddenly found herself facing a visor-clad riot police officer. Without the slightest provocation on her part, he had struck her on the shoulders with his baton. Her spontaneous reaction was to launch a fierce counterattack, using a Coca-Cola bottle that she had in her hand. The officer turned on his heel and ran off before she could injure him. Only later did she find out that “Reclaim the Streets” was holding a demonstration farther down the road. Visiting the offices of those visor-clad brutes to file a report against Nils Bjurman for sexual assault did not even cross her mind. And besides-what was she supposed to report? Bjurman had touched her breasts. Any officer would take one look at her and conclude that with her miniature boobs, that was highly unlikely. And if it had actually happened, she should be proud that someone had even bothered. And the part about sucking his dick-it was, as he had warned her, her word against his, and generally in her experience the words of other people weighed more heavily than hers. The police were not an option. She left Bjurman’s office and went home, took a shower, ate two sandwiches with cheese and pickles, and then sat on the worn-out sofa in the living room to think. An ordinary person might have felt that her lack of reaction had shifted the blame to her-it might have been another sign that she was so abnormal that even rape could evoke no adequate emotional response. Her circle of acquaintances was not large, nor did it contain any members of the sheltered middle class from the suburbs. By the time she was eighteen, Salander did not know a single girl who at some point had not been forced to perform some sort of sexual act against her will. Most of these assaults involved slightly older boyfriends who, using a certain amount of force, made sure that they had their way. As far as Salander knew, these incidents had led to crying and angry outbursts, but never to a police report. In her world, this was the natural order of things. As a girl she was legal prey, especially if she was dressed in a worn black leather jacket and had pierced eyebrows, tattoos, and zero social status. There was no point whimpering about it. On the other hand, there was no question of Advokat Bjurman going unpunished. Salander never forgot an injustice, and by nature she was anything but forgiving. But her legal status was difficult. For as long as she could remember, she was regarded as cunning and unjustifiably violent. The first reports in her casebook came from the files of the school nurse from elementary school. Salander had been sent home because she hit a classmate and shoved him against a coat peg and drew blood. She still remembered her victim with annoyance-an overweight boy by the name of David Gustavsson who used to tease her and throw things at her; he would grow up to be an arch bully. In those days she did not know what the word “harassment” meant, but when she came to school the next day, the boy had threatened revenge. So she had decked him with a right jab fortified with a golf ball-which led to more bloodshed and a new entry in her casebook. The rules for social interaction in school had always baffled her. She minded her own business and did not interfere with what anyone around her did. Yet there was always someone who absolutely would not leave her in peace. In middle school she had several times been sent home after getting into violent fights with classmates. Much stronger boys in her class soon learned that it could be quite unpleasant to fight with that skinny girl. Unlike the other girls in the class, she never backed down, and she would not for a second hesitate to use her fists or any weapon at hand to protect herself. She went around with the attitude that she would rather be beaten to death than take any shit. And she always got revenge. Salander once found herself in a fight with a much bigger and stronger boy. She was no match for him physically. At first he amused himself shoving her to the ground several times, then he slapped her when she tried to fight back. But nothing did any good; no matter how much stronger he was, the stupid girl kept attacking him, and after a while even his classmates began to realise that things had gone too far. She was so obviously defenceless it was painful to watch. Finally the boy punched her in the face; it split open her lip and made her see stars. They left her on the ground behind the gym. She stayed at home for two days. On the morning of the third day she waited for her tormentor with a baseball bat, and she whacked him over the ear with it. For that prank she was sent to see the head teacher, who decided to report her to the police for assault, which resulted in a special welfare investigation. Her classmates thought she was crazy and treated her accordingly. She also aroused very little sympathy among the teachers. She had never been particularly talkative, and she became known as the pupil who never raised her hand and often did not answer when a teacher asked her a direct question. No-one was sure whether this was because she did not know the answer or if there was some other reason, which was reflected in her grades. No doubt that she had problems, but no-one wanted to take responsibility for the difficult girl, even though she was frequently discussed at various teachers’ meetings. That was why she ended up in the situation where the teachers ignored her and allowed her to sit in sullen silence. She left middle school and moved to another, without having a single friend to say goodbye to. An unloved girl with odd behaviour. Then, as she was on the threshold of her teenage years, All The Evil happened, which she did not want to think about. The last outburst set the pattern and prompted a review of the casebook entries from elementary school. After that she was considered to be legally…well, crazy. A freak. Salander had never needed any documents to know that she was different. But it was not something that bothered her for as long as her guardian was Holger Palmgren; if the need arose, she could wrap him around her little finger. With the appearance of Nils Bjurman, the declaration of incompetence threatened to become a troublesome burden in her life. No matter who she turned to, pitfalls would open up; and what would happen if she lost the battle? Would she be institutionalised? Locked up? There was really no option. Later that night, when Cecilia Vanger and Blomkvist were lying peacefully with their legs intertwined and Cecilia’s breasts resting against his side, she looked up at him. “Thank you. It’s been a long time. And you’re not bad.” He smiled. That sort of flattery was always childishly satisfying. “It was unexpected, but I had fun.” “I’d be happy to do it again,” Cecilia said. “If you feel like it.” He looked at her. “You don’t mean that you’d like to have a lover, do you?” “An occasional lover,” Cecilia said. “But I’d like you to go home before you fall asleep. I don’t want to wake up tomorrow morning and find you here before I manage to do my exercises and fix my face. And it would be good if you didn’t tell the whole village what we’ve been up to.” “Wouldn’t think of it,” Blomkvist said. “Most of all I don’t want Isabella to know. She’s such a bitch.” “And your closest neighbour…I’ve met her.” “Yes, but luckily she can’t see my front door from her house. Mikael, please be discreet.” “I’ll be discreet.” “Thank you. Do you drink?” “Sometimes.” “I’ve got a craving for something fruity with gin in it. Want some?” “Sure.” She wrapped a sheet around herself and went downstairs. Blomkvist was standing naked, looking at her bookshelves when she returned with a carafe of iced water and two glasses of gin and lime. They drank a toast. “Why did you come over here?” she asked. “No special reason. I just…” “You were sitting at home, reading through Henrik’s investigation. And then you came over here. A person doesn’t need to be super intelligent to know what you’re brooding about.” “Have you read the investigation?” “Parts of it. I’ve lived my entire adult life with it. You can’t spend time with Henrik without being affected by the mystery of Harriet.” “It’s actually a fascinating case. What I believe is known in the trade as a locked-room mystery, on an island. And nothing in the investigation seems to follow normal logic. Every question remains unanswered, every clue leads to a dead end.” “It’s the kind of thing people can get obsessed about.” “You were on the island that day.” “Yes. I was here, and I witnessed the whole commotion. I was living in Stockholm at the time, studying. I wish I had stayed at home that weekend.” “What was she really like? People seem to have completely different views of her.” “Is this off the record or…?” “It’s off the record.” “I haven’t the least idea what was going on inside Harriet’s head. You’re thinking of her last year, of course. One day she was a religious crackpot. The next day she put on make-up like a whore and went to school wearing the tightest sweater she possessed. Obviously she was seriously unhappy. But, as I said, I wasn’t here and just picked up the gossip.” “What triggered the problems?” “Gottfried and Isabella, obviously. Their marriage was totally haywire. They either partied or they fought. Nothing physical-Gottfried wasn’t the type to hit anyone, and he was almost afraid of Isabella. She had a horrendous temper. Sometime in the early sixties he moved more or less permanently to his cabin, where Isabella never set foot. There were periods when he would turn up in the village, looking like a vagrant. And then he’d sober up and dress neatly again and try to tend to his job.” “Wasn’t there anyone who wanted to help Harriet?” “Henrik, of course. In the end she moved into his house. But don’t forget that he was preoccupied playing the role of the big industrialist. He was usually off travelling somewhere and didn’t have a lot of time to spend with Harriet and Martin. I missed a lot of this because I was in Uppsala and then in Stockholm -and let me tell you, I didn’t have an easy childhood myself with Harald as my father. In hindsight I’ve realised that the problem was that Harriet never confided in anyone. She tried hard to keep up appearances and pretend that they were one big happy family.” “Denial.” “Yes. But she changed when her father drowned. She could no longer pretend that everything was OK. Up until then she was…I don’t know how to explain it: extremely gifted and precocious, but on the whole a rather ordinary teenager. During the last year she was still brilliant, getting top marks in every exam and so on, but it seemed as if she didn’t have any soul.” “How did her father drown?” “In the most prosaic way possible. He fell out of a rowing boat right below his cabin. He had his trousers open and an extremely high alcohol content in his blood, so you can just imagine how it happened. Martin was the one who found him.” “I didn’t know that.” “It’s funny. Martin has turned out to be a really fine person. If you had asked me thirty-five years ago, I would have said that he was the one in the family who needed psychiatric care.” “Why so?” “Harriet wasn’t the only one who suffered ill effects from the situation. For many years Martin was so quiet and introverted that he was effectively antisocial. Both children had a rough time of it. I mean, we all did. I had my own problems with my father-I assume you realise that he’s stark raving mad. My sister, Anita, had the same problem, as did Alexander, my cousin. It was tough being young in the Vanger family.” “What happened to your sister?” “She lives in London. She went there in the seventies to work in a Swedish travel agency, and she stayed. She married someone, never even introduced him to the family, and anon they separated. Today she’s a senior manager of British Airways. She and I get along fine, but we are not much in contact and only see each other every other year or so. She never comes to Hedestad.” “Why not?” “An insane father. Isn’t that explanation enough?” “But you stayed.” “I did. Along with Birger, my brother.” “The politician.” “Are you making fun of me? Birger is older than Anita and me. We’ve never been very close. In his own eyes he’s a fantastically important politician with a future in Parliament and maybe ministerial rank, if the conservatives should win. In point of fact he’s a moderately talented local councillor in a remote corner of Sweden, which will probably be both the high point and the whole extent of his career.” “One thing that tickles me about the Vanger family is that you all have such low opinions of each other.” “That’s not really true. I’m very fond of Martin and Henrik. And I always got on well with my sister, for all that we seldom see each other. I detest Isabella and can’t abide Alexander. And I never speak to my father. So that’s about fifty-fifty in the family. Birger is…well, more of a pompous fathead than a bad person. But I see what you mean. Look at it this way: if you’re a member of the Vanger family, you learn early on to speak your mind. We do say what we think.” “Oh yes, I’ve noticed that you all get straight to the point.” Blomkvist stretched out his hand to touch her breast. “I wasn’t here fifteen minutes before you attacked me.” “To be honest, I’ve been wondering how you would be in bed ever since I first saw you. And it felt right to try it out.” For the first time in her life Salander felt a strong need to ask someone for advice. The problem was that asking for advice meant that she would have to confide in someone, which in turn would mean revealing her secrets. Who should she tell? She was simply not very good at establishing contact with other people. After going through her address book in her mind, she had, strictly speaking, ten people who might be considered her circle of acquaintances. She could talk to Plague, who was more or less a steady presence in her life. But he was definitely not a friend, and he was the last person on earth who would be able to help solve her problem. Not an option. Salander’s sex life wasn’t quite as modest as she had led Advokat Bjurman to believe. On the other hand, sex had always (or at least most often) occurred on her conditions and at her initiative. She had had over fifty partners since the age of fifteen. That translated into approximately five partners per year, which was OK for a single girl who had come to regard sex as an enjoyable pastime. But she had had most of these casual partners during a two-year period. Those were the tumultuous years in her late teens when she should have come of age. There was a time when Salander had stood at a crossroads and did not really have control over her own life-when her future could have taken the form of another series of casebook entries about drugs, alcohol, and custody in various institutions. After she turned twenty and started working at Milton Security, she had calmed down appreciably and-she thought-had got a grip on her life. She no longer felt the need to please anyone who bought her three beers in a pub, and she did not experience the slightest degree of self-fulfilment by going home with some drunk whose name she could not remember. During the past year she had had only one regular sex partner-hardly promiscuous, as her casebook entries during her late teens had designated her. For her, sex had most often been with one of a loose group of friends; she was not really a member, but she was accepted because she knew Cilla Nor?n. She met Cilla in her late teens when, at Palmgren’s insistence, she was trying to get the school certificate she had failed to complete at Komvux. Cilla had plum-red hair streaked with black, black leather trousers, a ring in her nose, and as many rivets on her belt as Salander. They had glared suspiciously at each other during the first class. For some reason Salander did not understand, they had started hanging out together. Salander was not the easiest person to be friends with, and especially not during those years, but Cilla ignored her silences and took her along to the bar. Through Cilla, she had become a member of “Evil Fingers,” which had started as a suburban band consisting of four teenage girls in Enskede who were into hard rock. Ten years later, they were a group of friends who met at Kvarnen on Tuesday nights to talk trash about boys and discuss feminism, the pentagram, music, and politics while they drank large quantities of beer. They also lived up to their name. Salander found herself on the fringe of the group and rarely contributed to the talk, but she was accepted for who she was. She could come and go as she pleased and was allowed to sit in silence over her beer all evening. She was also invited to birthday parties and Christmas gl?gg celebrations, though she usually didn’t go. During the five years she hung out with “Evil Fingers,” the girls began to change. Their hair colour became less extreme, and the clothing came more often from the H