CHAPTER 25
Tuesday, April 5–Wednesday, April 6
Paolo Roberto had not gone to sleep, but he was so deeply immersed in his
thoughts that it was a moment before he noticed the woman walking down from
Högalid Church after 11:00 p.m. He saw her in his rearview mirror. Not until she
passed under a streetlight about seventy yards behind him did he snap his head
around and at once recognize that it was Miriam Wu.
He sat up in his seat. His immediate thought was to get out of the car, but he
might scare her off. It was better to wait until she reached the front door.
As he watched her approach, he saw a dark-coloured van pull up next to her. Paolo
Roberto looked on, horrified, as a man—a devilishly huge beast—hopped out from
the sliding doors and grabbed Wu. She was taken completely by surprise. She tried
to wriggle away by backing up, but the man held her wrists in a viselike grip.
Paolo Roberto’s mouth dropped open when he saw Wu’s leg come up in a fast arc.
She’s a kickboxer! She landed a blow on the man’s head but it didn’t seem to faze
him in the least. Instead the man raised his hand and slapped Wu on the side of her
head. Paolo Roberto heard the blow from where he was sitting. Wu hit the deck as
if struck by lightning. The man bent down, picked her up with one hand, and
simply tossed her into the van. That was when Paolo Roberto closed his mouth and
came to life. He threw open the car door and sprinted towards the van.
After only a few steps he realized how fruitless it was. The van that Miriam Wu had
been thrown into like a sack of potatoes had made a U-turn and was already
moving down the street before he reached full speed. It was headed towards
Högalid Church. Paolo Roberto spun around and raced back to his car. He too made
a U-turn. The van had vanished when he came to the corner. He braked, looked
down Högalidsgatan, and then took a chance and turned left towards Hornsgatan.
When he reached Hornsgatan he came up against a red light, but there was no
traffic, so he eased into the intersection and looked around. The only taillights he
could see were turning left up towards Liljeholmsbron at Långholmsgatan. He
could not see if it was the van, but it was the only vehicle in sight. He accelerated
in pursuit but was stopped by the lights at Långholmsgatan and had to let the
traffic from Kungsholmen pass as the seconds ticked away. When the traffic
cleared, he accelerated hard, ignoring another red light.
He drove as fast as he dared across Liljeholmsbron and faster as he passed through
Liljeholmen. He still didn’t know if it was the van whose taillights he had seen, and
he didn’t know whether it had turned off to Gröndal or Årsta. He decided to go
straight and floored it again. He was doing more than ninety miles an hour and
blew past the sluggish, law-abiding traffic, assuming some driver or other would
take down his licence plate number.
When he reached Bredäng he spotted the vehicle again. He closed in until he was
only fifty yards behind and was sure it was the van. He slowed to about fifty miles
an hour and fell back to two hundred yards. Only then did he start breathing
normally.
Miriam Wu felt the blood running down her neck as she landed on the floor of the
van. Her nose was bleeding. He had split her lower lip and probably broken her
nose. The attack had come like a bolt out of the blue. Her resistance had been
quashed in less than a second. She felt the van start up as soon as her attacker slid
the doors shut. For a moment, as the driver turned the van, the blond giant lost his
balance.
She twisted around and braced her hips against the floor. When the man turned
towards her she lashed out with a kick, striking him on the side of his head. She
even saw that her heel left a mark. It was a kick that should have hurt.
He looked at her in surprise. Then he smiled.
Jesus, what kind of a fucking monster is this?
She kicked again, but he caught her leg and twisted her foot so hard that she
shrieked in pain and had to roll over onto her stomach.
Then he leaned over her and slapped her again. He hit the side of her head. Wu saw
stars. It felt like being struck by a sledgehammer. He sat on her back. She tried to
lift him, but she could not move him an inch. He twisted her arms behind her back
and locked them in handcuffs. She was helpless. Suddenly she felt a paralyzing fear.
Blomkvist was passing the Globe Arena on his way home from Tyresö. He had spent
the afternoon and evening visiting three people on Svensson’s list. Not a thing had
come of it. He had encountered panic-stricken men who had already been
confronted by Svensson and were just waiting for the sky to fall. They had begged
and pleaded with him. He crossed all of them off his private list of murder suspects.
He took out his mobile as he drove across Skanstullsbron and called Berger. She
didn’t answer. He tried Eriksson. No answer there either. Damn. It was late. He
wanted to talk about this with somebody.
He wondered whether Paolo Roberto had had any success with Miriam Wu and
dialled his number. It rang five times before he got an answer.
“Paolo.”
“Hi. It’s Blomkvist. I’m wondering how it went—”
“Blomkvist, I’m on skrrritch skrrritch a van with Miriam.”
“I can’t hear you.”
“Skrp skrrrraaap skrraaaap.”
“You’re breaking up. I can’t hear you.”
Then the connection broke off.
Paolo Roberto swore. His battery died just as he went through Fittja. He pushed the
ON button and brought the phone back to life. He dialled the number for
emergency services, but as soon as they answered his mobile went dead again.
Shit.
He had a battery charger that worked in the cigarette lighter. But the charger was
in the hall at home. He tossed the mobile onto the passenger seat and concentrated
on keeping the taillights of the van in sight. He was driving a BMW with a full tank,
and there wasn’t a chance in hell that the van would be able to outrun him. But he
didn’t want to attract attention, so he increased the distance to several hundred
yards.
A giant on steroids beats up a girl right in front of me. Just wait till I get my hands
on that fucker.
If Erika Berger had been there she would have called him a macho cowboy. Paolo
Roberto called it being pissed off.
Blomkvist drove down Lundagatan. Miriam Wu’s apartment was in darkness. He
tried calling Paolo Roberto again, but got the message that the subscriber could not
be reached. He swore to himself and then drove home and made coffee and a
sandwich.
The drive took longer than Paolo Roberto had anticipated. The van went as far as
Södertälje before it headed west on the E20 towards Strängnäs. Just past Nykvarn, it
turned off to the left onto smaller roads through the countryside of Sörmland.
The smaller the roads, the greater the risk that he would be noticed by the men in
the van. He eased off the accelerator and fell back even more.
He was unsure of his geography out here, but as far as he could tell they were
passing to the west of Lake Yngern. He lost the van from view and went faster. He
came out on a long straightaway.
The van had disappeared. There were small roads on both sides. He had lost them.
Miriam Wu felt pain in her neck and face, but she had overcome her panic at being
helpless. He had not hit her again. She had managed to sit up and was leaning
against the back of the driver’s seat. Her hands were cuffed behind her back and
there was a strip of duct tape over her mouth. One nostril was clogged with blood
and she was having difficulty breathing.
She looked at her assailant. Since he had taped her mouth he hadn’t said a word.
She looked at the mark where she had kicked him. It was a blow that should have
caused serious damage. He seemed hardly to have noticed it.
He was massively built, and on a huge scale. He had muscles that spoke of long
hours spent in a gym. But he was not a bodybuilder. His muscles looked completely
natural. His hands were as big as frying pans.
The van was bumping along a road full of potholes. She thought they had taken the
E4 south for a long time before they turned off onto country roads.
She knew that even if her hands were free she wouldn’t stand a chance against this
giant.
Eriksson called Blomkvist a little before midnight.
“I’m sorry for calling so late. I’ve been trying to reach you for hours, but you didn’t
answer your mobile.”
“I had it turned off all day while I was dealing with some of the johns.”
“I came up with something that could be of interest,” Eriksson said.
“Tell me.”
“Bjurman. You asked me to look into his background.”
“What did you find?”
“He was born in 1950, and began studying law in 1970. He took his law degree in
1976, started working at Klang and Reine in 1978, and opened his own practice in
1989. One of his side jobs was as a clerk at a district court for a few weeks in 1976.
Right after he got his degree in 1976 he worked for two years, from 1976 to 1978, as
a lawyer at National Police headquarters.”
“Interesting.”
“I checked out what sort of work he did there. It wasn’t easy to dig up. But he was,
for one thing, in charge of legal matters for the Security Police. He worked on
immigration.”
“Which tells us?”
“That he worked there with your man Björck.”
“That bastard. He didn’t say a word about having actually worked with Bjurman.”
The van had to be somewhere in the vicinity.
Paolo Roberto had glimpsed it only a minute before he lost it. He reversed onto the
grass verge and turned back. He drove slowly, looking for side roads.
After only a hundred and fifty yards he spotted a light glinting through a narrow
gap in the curtain of trees. He saw a forest track on the opposite side of the road
and drove up it about fifty feet, turned, and parked facing out, not bothering to
lock the car. Then he jogged back across the road and hopped over a ditch. He
wished he had a flashlight as he wound his way forward through the undergrowth
and low branches.
Very soon he came out onto a sandy gravel area and could see some low, dark
buildings. As he walked towards them the light above a loading bay came on.
He dropped to his knees and stayed motionless. A second later the lights went on
inside the building. It appeared to be a warehouse about a hundred feet long with a
row of narrow windows high on one side. The yard was full of containers, and to
his right was parked a yellow front-end loader. Next to it was a white Volvo. In the
glow of the outdoor light he suddenly saw the van, parked only twenty-five yards
from where he crouched.
Then a door opened in the loading bay right in front of him. A man with mousy
hair and a beer belly came out of the warehouse and lit a cigarette. Paolo Roberto
saw, against the light from the door, that he had a ponytail.
He kept stock-still. He was in full view less than twenty yards from the man, but
the flame from his cigarette lighter had knocked out his night vision. Then he and
the man with the ponytail both heard a half-choked howl from the van. As Ponytail
moved towards the van, Paolo Roberto eased himself down flat on the ground.
He heard a rattle as the sliding doors of the van opened and saw the huge blond
man get out, reach back inside, and haul out Miriam Wu. He took her under one
arm and held her in an easy grip as she struggled. The two men exchanged some
words, but Paolo Roberto could not hear what they said. Then Ponytail opened the
door on the driver’s side and hopped in. He started up the van and made a tight
turn in the yard. The beams of the headlights swung past only a few yards from
Paolo Roberto. The van disappeared down an access road and the noise of its engine
faded into the distance.
The giant carried Miriam Wu through the door in the loading bay. Paolo Roberto
could see a shadow through the windows high on the wall. It seemed as if the
shadow was moving towards the far end of the building.
He got up cautiously. His clothes felt sticky. He was relieved and uneasy. He was
relieved because he had managed to track the van and had Miriam Wu within
reach. But he was in awe of the giant who had plucked her out of the van as if she
were a bag of groceries.
The sane thing to do would be to retreat and call the police. But his battery was
dead, and he had only a vague idea of where he was. He certainly couldn’t give
directions to anyone else as to how to get there. And he had no clue what was
happening to the girl inside the building.
He made a slow circuit and discovered that there was only one entrance. After two
minutes he was back near the door and had to make a decision. No question that
the giant was a bad guy. He had kidnapped Miriam Wu. Paolo Roberto did not feel
particularly afraid—he had great self-confidence and knew that he could give as
good as he got if it came to a fight. The question was whether the man inside the
warehouse was armed and whether there were other people with him. He
hesitated. There shouldn’t be any others besides the girl and the blond giant.
The loading bay was wide enough for a front-end loader to drive through it, and
there was a normal-sized door fitted into the gate. Paolo Roberto walked over and
pressed down the handle to open it. He entered a big warehouse bathed in light,
filled with assorted building materials, crushed boxes, and trash.
Miriam Wu felt tears running down her cheeks. She was crying not so much from
pain as from helplessness. During the journey the giant had handled her as if she
weighed nothing at all. He ripped the tape off her mouth when the van stopped. He
lifted her and carried her inside without the least effort and dumped her on the
cement floor, paying no heed to her protests. When he looked at her his eyes were
ice cold.
Miriam Wu knew that she was going to die in this warehouse.
He turned his back on her and walked to a table, where he opened a bottle of
mineral water, drinking from it in long gulps. He had not taped her legs together,
and she attempted to stand up.
He turned to her and smiled. He was closer to the door than she was. She would
have no chance of making it past him. Resigned, she sank to her knees, furious at
herself. I’ll be damned if I give up without a fight. She got up again and clenched
her teeth. Come on, you fucking tub of lard.
She felt clumsy and off balance with her hands cuffed behind her, but when he
came towards her she backed, circling away, watching for an opening. She lashed
out with a lightning kick to his ribs, wheeled around and kicked again at his crotch.
She hit his hip, backed off a few feet, and switched legs for the next kick. With her
hands manacled she did not have the balance to kick at his face, but she delivered a
swift kick to his breastbone.
He reached out a hand and grabbed her by the shoulder, spun her around and gave
her a single blow with his fist, not very hard, to the kidneys. Miriam Wu shrieked
like a madwoman as a paralyzing pain sliced through her midsection. She sank to
her knees again. He gave her one more slap to the side of her head, and she
tumbled to the floor. Then he kicked her in the torso. She gasped for breath as she
heard a rib crack.
Paolo Roberto saw nothing of the beating, but he did hear Miriam Wu wail in pain,
a sharp, shrill scream that was immediately cut off. He looked in the direction of
the sound and clenched his teeth. There was a room beyond a dividing wall. He
moved silently through the warehouse and peered through the doorway just as the
man rolled the girl onto her back. The giant vanished from his field of view for a
few seconds and came back with a chain saw, which he set on the floor in front of
her. Paolo Roberto slipped off his jacket.
“I want the answer to a simple question.”
He had a high-pitched voice, almost as if it had never broken, and an accent.
“Where is Lisbeth Salander?”
“I don’t know,” Miriam Wu said, obviously in pain.
“That’s the wrong answer. You’ll have one more chance before I start this thing.”
He squatted down and patted the chain saw.
“Where is Lisbeth Salander hiding?”
Wu shook her head.
When the man reached for the chain saw, Paolo Roberto took three determined
strides into the room and threw a hard right hook at his kidneys.
Paolo Roberto had not become a world-famous boxer by being tentative in the ring.
He had fought thirty-three bouts in his professional career and won twenty-eight of
them. When he punched someone as hard as he could he expected to see his
opponent feel pain. But this time he felt as if he had smashed his hand into a
concrete wall. He had never experienced anything like it in all the years he’d spent
as a boxer. He looked in astonishment at the colossus in front of him.
The man turned and looked with equal astonishment at the boxer.
“What do you say we find you somebody in your own weight class?” said Paolo
Roberto.
He got off a string of right-left-right punches to the body and put some muscle
behind them. They were heavy blows. The only effect was that the giant took half a
step back, more from surprise than from the effect of the punches. Then he smiled.
“You’re Paolo Roberto,” he said.
Paolo Roberto stopped, amazed. He had just landed four punches that should have
put the giant on the deck while the referee counted to ten. But his blows seemed
not to have had the slightest effect.
Good God. This isn’t normal.
Then he saw as if in slow motion the man’s right hook come flying towards him.
He was slow and telegraphed the punch in advance. Paolo Roberto had time to
move, but the blow glanced off his shoulder. It felt as if he had been hit by a steel
bar.
Paolo Roberto backed up two steps, filled with new respect for his opponent.
There’s something wrong with him. Nobody can hit this hard.
He automatically blocked a left hook with his forearm and felt at once a sharp pain.
He did not manage to block the right hook that came out of nowhere and landed
on his forehead.
Paolo Roberto tumbled backwards out the door. He landed against a mound of
wooden pallets and shook his head. He felt blood streaming down his face. He cut
my eyebrow. It’ll have to be sewn up. Again.
In the next moment the giant came into view and Paolo Roberto instinctively
twisted to the side. He escaped by a hairsbreadth another clublike blow from those
enormous fists. He quickly backed up, three, four shuffles, and got his arms up in a
defensive position. He was shaken.
The man regarded him with eyes that were curious and almost amused. Then he
assumed the same defensive position. This guy is a boxer. They began to circle each
other slowly.
The hundred and eighty seconds that followed became the most bizarre match that
Paolo Roberto had ever fought. There were no coaches, no referee. There was no
bell to call a halt to the round and send the fighters to their corners. No pause for
water and smelling salts and a towel to wipe the blood from his eyes.
Paolo Roberto knew now that he was fighting for his life. All his training, all the
years of hammering on punching bags, all the sparring, and all the experience from
all the bouts he had fought came together as the adrenaline pumped in a way he
had never before experienced.
They went at each other in an exchange into which Paolo Roberto put all his power
and all his fury. Left, right, left, left again, and a jab with the right to the face, duck
the left hook, back up a step, attack with the right. Every punch landed with solid
force.
He was in the biggest battle of his life. He was hitting with his brain as much as
with his fists. He managed to avoid every punch his opponent threw at him.
He landed a right hook clear as a bell to the jaw that felt like he had broken a bone
in his hand and that should have made his opponent collapse in a heap. He glanced
at his knuckles and saw that they were bloody. He could see bruises and a swollen
area on the giant’s face. But his opponent seemed not even to feel the blows.
Paolo Roberto backed up, breathed as steadily as he could, and took stock. He’s no
boxer. He moves like a boxer, but he can’t box for shit. He’s only pretending. He
can’t block. He telegraphs his punches. And he’s as slow as a tortoise.
In the next instant the giant got in a left hook to the side of Paolo Roberto’s rib
cage. That was the second time he had connected well. Paolo Roberto felt pain
shoot through his body as a rib cracked. Again he backed away, but he tripped over
a pile of scaffolding and fell on his back. He saw the giant towering over him, but
he flung himself into a roll to the side and staggered to his feet.
He squared up, trying to gather his strength, but the man was on him again. He
ducked, ducked again, and backed away, feeling terrible pain each time he parried a
blow with his shoulder.
Then came the moment that every boxer has experienced with dread. The feeling
that could turn up any time in the middle of a bout. The feeling of just not being
good enough. The realization that you are about to lose.
That’s the crux of almost every fight, the moment when the strength drains out of
you and the adrenaline pumps so hard that it becomes a burden and surrender
appears like a ghost at ringside. That’s the moment that separates the pros from
the amateurs and the winner from the loser. Few boxers who find themselves at
the edge of that abyss manage to turn the match around, turn certain defeat into
victory.
Paolo Roberto was struck by this insight. He felt a roaring in his head that made
him dizzy and he experienced the moment as if he were watching the scene from
outside, peering at this giant through a camera lens. This was the moment when it
was a matter of winning or disappearing for good.
He backed in a wide semicircle to collect his strength and buy time. The man
followed him steadily but slowly, precisely as though he knew that the outcome
was decided but he wanted to draw the round out. He boxes, but he can’t really
box. He knows who I am. He’s a rank amateur. But he has a devastating power in
his punch and he seems insensitive to all punishment.
These thoughts rattled around in Paolo Roberto’s head as he tried to decide what to
do.
Suddenly he was reliving the night in Mariehamn two years before when his career
as a professional boxer had ended in the most brutal way. He had met the
Argentine Sebastián Luján, or rather, Sebastián Luján met him. Paolo Roberto had
walked into the first knockout of his life and had been unconscious for fifteen
seconds.
He often thought about what had gone wrong. He was in tip-top shape. He was
focused. But the Argentine had landed a solid punch and the round had been
transformed into a raging sea.
Watching the video afterwards, he saw how he had staggered around the ring, as
defenceless as Donald Duck. The knockout came twenty-three seconds later.
Sebastián Luján hadn’t been any better, or better trained than he was. The margins
of error being so small, the bout could have gone either way.
The only difference he could detect later was that Luján had been hungrier. When
Paolo Roberto went into that ring in Mariehamn he was set on winning, but he
wasn’t dying to box. It did not mean life or death any more. A loss was not a
catastrophe.
A year and a half later he was still a boxer. But he was no longer a pro, and he took
on only friendly sparring matches. He went on training, and he had not put on
weight or gone soft in the gut. He was not as well-tuned an instrument as before a
title bout for which his body had been drilled for months, but he was Paolo
Roberto and not some nobody. And unlike Mariehamn, the bout in the warehouse
south of Nykvarn literally meant life or death.
He made a decision. He stopped short and let the giant come in close. He feinted
with his left and put everything he had behind a right hook. He lashed out with a
punch that hit the man across the mouth and nose. His attack was totally
unexpected since he had been in retreat for the past few moments. He heard
something give way. He followed up with a left-right-left and landed all three in
the man’s face.
The man was boxing in slow motion. He struck back with his right.
Paolo Roberto saw the punch coming far in advance and ducked under the huge
fist. He saw the giant shift his body weight and knew that he was going to follow
up with a left. Instead of blocking, Paolo Roberto leaned back and let the left hook
pass in front of his nose. He replied with a massive blow to the body, just below
the ribs. When the man turned to meet the attack, Paolo Roberto’s left hook came
up and hit him across the nose again.
He suddenly felt that everything he was doing was utterly right and that he was in
control of the bout. The giant backed away. His nose was bleeding. He was not
smiling now.
Then the giant kicked him.
His foot shot up and took Paolo Roberto by surprise. He had not been expecting a
kick. It felt as if a sledgehammer had hit his thigh just above the knee, and pain ran
right through his leg. No. He took a step back and his right leg gave way. He was
on his back.
The giant looked down at him. For a second their eyes met. The message was
unmistakable. The fight was over.
Then the giant’s eyes widened as Miriam Wu kicked him in the crotch from behind.
Every muscle in Miriam Wu’s body was aching, but somehow she had managed to
slip her bound hands underneath her and then—agonizingly—over her feet so that
she got her arms in front of her body.
She had pain in her ribs, neck, back, and kidneys, and only with difficulty did she
get to her feet. Finally she wobbled to the door and looked on wide-eyed as Paolo
Roberto—where did he come from?—hit the giant with a right hook and then a
combination to the face before he was kicked to the ground.
Miriam Wu realized that she could not care less how or why Paolo Roberto had
shown up. He was one of the good guys. But for the first time in her life she felt a
murderous desire to damage another human being. She took a few quick steps
forward, mobilizing every bit of energy and all the muscles she had intact. She
came up to the giant from behind and landed a kick in his balls. It may not have
been elegant Thai boxing, but the kick had the desired effect.
Miriam Wu nodded to herself. Men could be as big as a house and made of granite,
but they all had balls in the same place. For the first time the man looked shaken.
He gave a moan, grabbed at his crotch, and went down on one knee.
Wu stood indecisive until she realized that she had to do more to try to end this.
She was going to kick him in the face, but to her amazement he lifted an arm. It
should have been impossible for him to recover so fast. And it had felt like kicking a
tree trunk. He grabbed her foot, dragged her down, and began to haul her in. She
saw him raise a fist and she twisted desperately, kicking with her free leg. She hit
him above the ear at the same instant his blow struck her on the temple. She saw
lightning and blackness alternating before her eyes.
The giant began to scramble to his feet.
That was when Paolo Roberto swung a plank into the back of his head. The man
fell forward and landed with a crash.
Paolo Roberto looked around as if in a dream. The giant was writhing on the floor.
The girl had a glassy look and seemed to be totally drained. Their combined efforts
had bought them only a brief respite.
Paolo Roberto could barely support himself on his injured leg, and he was afraid
that a muscle had torn just above his knee. He limped over to Miriam Wu and
pulled her to her feet. She began to move again, but her eyes could not seem to
focus. Without a word he slung her over his shoulder and started hobbling towards
the door. The pain in his right knee was acute.
It was exhilarating to come out into the dark, cold air. But he had no time to pause.
He navigated across the yard and into the curtain of woods, the same way he had
come. He was no sooner in the trees than he tripped over a root and tumbled to
the ground. Miriam Wu moaned and he heard the door of the warehouse slam
open with a crash.
The giant was a monumental silhouette in the bright rectangle of the doorway.
Paolo Roberto put a hand over the girl’s mouth. He bent down and whispered in
her ear to be utterly still and quiet.
Then he groped among the roots of a fallen tree and found a stone that was bigger
than his fist. He made the sign of the cross. For the first time in his sinful life he
was ready to kill another human being, if it proved necessary. He was so shattered
that he knew he would not be able to go another round. But nobody, not even a
freak of nature, could go on fighting with a crushed skull. He squeezed the rock
and felt that it was oval-shaped with a sharp edge.
The man went unsteadily to the corner of the building and then made a long sweep
across the yard. He stopped less than ten paces from where Paolo Roberto was
holding his breath. He listened and peered around—but he could only guess which
way they had disappeared into the night. After a few minutes he seemed to realize
that the search was futile. He went back into the building with quick
determination and was gone for a minute or so. He turned off the lights and then
came out with a bag and walked over to the Volvo. He drove off down the access
road. Paolo Roberto listened until he could no longer hear the sound of the engine.
When he looked down he saw a pair of eyes gleaming in the dark.
“Hi, Miriam,” he said. “My name is Paolo—you don’t have to be afraid of me.”
“I know.”
Her voice was weak. He slumped exhausted against the fallen tree and felt his
adrenaline dropping to zero.
“I don’t know how I’m going to get up,” he said. “But I have a car on the other side
of the main road.”
The blond giant was shaken and dazed and had a strange feeling in his head. He
braked and turned into a side road east of Nykvarn.
For the first time in his life he had been beaten in a fight. And the one who had
dished out the punishment was Paolo Roberto … the boxer. It felt like an absurd
dream, the kind he might have on a restless night. He could not understand where
the boxer had come from. Out of the blue he was just there, standing inside the
warehouse.
It made no sense.
He had not even felt the punches. That did not surprise him. But he had felt the
kick in the balls. And that terrific thump on the head had made him black out.
Gingerly he explored the back of his neck and touched an enormous lump. He
pressed with his fingers but he sensed no pain. And yet he felt groggy. He had lost a
tooth on the left side of his upper jaw. His mouth was full of the taste of blood. He
held his nose between his thumb and forefinger and bent it experimentally
upwards. He heard a snapping sound inside his head and could tell that his nose
was broken.
He had done the right thing in taking his bag and leaving the warehouse before the
police could get there. But he had made a colossal mistake. On the Discovery
Channel he had seen how crime scene investigators could find any amount of
forensic evidence. Blood. Hair. DNA.
He didn’t have the slightest desire to return to the warehouse, but he had no
choice. He had to clean up. He made a U-turn and started back.
Just before Nykvarn he passed a car coming the other way, but he thought no more
about it.
The trip back to Stockholm was a nightmare. Paolo Roberto had blood in his eyes
and was so beaten up that his whole body hurt. He was driving like a drunk,
weaving all over the road. He wiped his eyes with one hand and tentatively felt his
nose. It really hurt, and he had to breathe through his mouth. He kept looking out
for a white Volvo and thought he saw one pass going the other way near Nykvarn.
When he got on the E20 the driving was a little easier. He thought about stopping
in Södertälje, but he had no idea where to go. He glanced back at the girl, still in
handcuffs, lying on the backseat without a seat belt. He had had to carry her to the
car, and as soon as she landed on the seat she went out like a light. He didn’t know
if she had fainted from her wounds or shut down out of sheer exhaustion.
He hesitated, then turned onto the E4 and headed for Stockholm.
Blomkvist had slept only an hour before the telephone started ringing. He squinted
at the clock and saw that it was just past 4:00 a.m. He reached groggily for the
receiver. It was Berger, and at first he could not understand what she was saying.
“Paolo Roberto is where?”
“At the hospital in Söder with the Wu girl. He tried to reach you, but you weren’t
answering.”
“I turned my mobile off. What the hell is he doing in the hospital?”
Berger’s voice sounded patient but determined.
“Mikael, get a taxi over there right away and find out. He sounded totally confused
and was talking about a chain saw and some building out in the woods and a
monster who couldn’t box.”
Blomkvist blinked himself awake. Then he shook his head and made for the shower.
Paolo Roberto looked miserable lying there in his shorts on the hospital bed.
Blomkvist had waited an hour to be allowed to see him. His nose was hidden
beneath a bandage. His left eye was covered too and one eyebrow had surgical tape
over five stitches. He had a bandage wrapped round his chest, and cuts and bruises
all over his body. His right knee was in a brace.
Blomkvist offered him a coffee from the machine in the hall and inspected his face
critically.
“You look like a car crash,” he said. “Tell me what happened.”
Paolo Roberto shook his head and met Blomkvist’s gaze. “A fucking monster
happened,” he said.
He shook his head again and inspected his fists. His knuckles were so swollen that
he could scarcely hold the cup. His right hand and wrist were in a splint. His
girlfriend already had a lukewarm attitude towards boxing—now she was going to
be furious.
“I’m a boxer,” he said. “I mean, when I was active I wasn’t afraid to step into the
ring with anybody. I’ve taken a punch or two, but I know how to dish them out
too. When I punch somebody they’re supposed to sit down and hurt.”
“But this one didn’t do that.”
Paolo Roberto shook his head for the third time. Then he told Blomkvist what had
happened during the night.
“I hit him at least thirty times. Fourteen or fifteen times to the head. I hit him on
the jaw four times. At first I was holding back a bit—I didn’t want to kill him, just
protect myself. But in the end I gave it everything I had. One of my punches should
have broken his jaw. But that fucking monster just shook his head a little and kept
on coming. That is not a normal human being, I swear to God.”
“What did he look like?”
“He was built like a tank. I’m not exaggerating. He was over six foot six and
weighed at least 300 pounds. All muscle and armour plating. A fucking giant who
doesn’t know what pain is.”
“You’ve never seen him before?”
“Never. He had no idea how to box. I could feint and throw him off his guard and
he didn’t have a clue how to move to avoid being hit. He was out of it. But at the
same time he tried to move like a boxer. He held his arms up the right way and he
kept recovering to a starting stance. Maybe he’d trained in boxing but hadn’t heard
a word of what the trainer said. What saved my life—and the girl’s—was that he
moved so slowly. He would throw roundhouse swings that he telegraphed a month
in advance, and I could duck or parry them. He got in two good punches on me—
one to the face, and you see what that did, then one to the body, where he cracked
a rib. But neither of them was full power. If he’d landed them properly he would
have knocked my head off.”
Paolo Roberto laughed, a bubbling sort of laugh.
“What’s funny?”
“I won. That moron tried to kill me and I won. I actually decked him. But I had to
use a fucking plank to get him down for the count.”
He turned serious again. “If Miriam Wu hadn’t kicked him in the balls at just the
right moment, I don’t want to think about how the hell it would have ended.”
“Paolo—I’m really, really glad you won. Miriam is going to say the same thing when
she wakes up. Have you heard how she’s doing?”
“She looks about the same as I do. She has a concussion, several cracked ribs, a
broken nose, and damage to her kidneys.”
Blomkvist bent forward and put his hand on Paolo Roberto’s good knee. “If you
ever need me to do anything …” he said.
Paolo Roberto smiled. “Blomkvist—if you ever need a favour again…”
“Yes?”
“… ask Sebastián Luján to do it for you.”
0 comments:
Post a Comment