CHAPTER 28
Wednesday, April 6
Bublanski met Modig for coffee and a bite to eat at Wayne’s on Vasagatan at 8:00 in
the evening. She had never seen her boss so downcast before. He told her
everything that had happened that day. Finally she reached out and put her hand
over his. It was the first time she had ever touched Bublanski, and there was no
other reason than companionship. He smiled sadly and patted her hand in an
equally friendly way.
“Maybe I should retire,” he said.
She smiled at him indulgently.
“This investigation is falling apart,” he went on. “It’s already in pieces. I informed
Ekström of everything that occurred today, and he just said, ‘Do what you think is
best.’ He seems incapable of action.”
“I don’t want to bad-mouth a superior, but as far as I’m concerned, Ekström can go
jump in the lake.”
Bublanski nodded. “You’re officially back on the case, but don’t expect he’ll come up
with an apology. Also, Faste stormed out this morning and has had his mobile
switched off all day. If he doesn’t turn up tomorrow I’m going to have to get
somebody to look for him.”
“Faste can stay out of it too. What’s happening with Hedström?”
“Nothing. I wanted to have him charged, but Ekström doesn’t dare. We kicked him
out and I had a serious talk with Armansky We broke off working with Milton,
which unfortunately means that we’ve lost Sonny Bohman too. Which is a shame.
He was a talented detective.”
“How did Armansky take it?”
“He was crushed. The curious thing is that…”
“What?”
“He said that Salander never liked Hedström. He remembered she told him a couple
of years ago that Hedström should be fired. She said he was a shithead, but
apparently wouldn’t explain why. Armansky of course didn’t do as she suggested.”
“Interesting.”
“Curt is still down in Södertälje. They’re about to do a search of Carl-Magnus
Lundin’s place. Jerker is fully occupied digging up bits of Kenneth ‘the Vagabond’
Gustafsson. And just before I got here he called to say that there’s another body in
the second grave. From the clothes it’s probably a woman. Seems to have been
there quite a while.”
“A woodland cemetery. Jan, I assume Salander is not a suspect in the murders at
Nykvarn.”
Bublanski smiled for the first time in hours. “No. She had to be crossed off that one.
But she’s definitely carrying a weapon and she did shoot Lundin.”
“Mind you, she shot him in the foot, not in the head. In Lundin’s case there’s
probably not much difference, but don’t forget that whoever committed the
murders in Enskede is an excellent shot.”
“Sonja… this is totally absurd. Magge Lundin and Sonny Nieminen are two hooligans
with long police records. Lundin may have put on a pound or two and he may not
be in top form, but he’s still dangerous. And Nieminen is a brutal bastard that even
the tough guys are afraid of. I simply can’t imagine how a skinny little creature like
Salander could beat the shit out of them like that. Not that he doesn’t deserve a
beating, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that I don’t understand how it could have
happened.”
“We’ll have to ask her when we find her. She has been documented as violent, after
all.”
“Even Curt would have thought twice about taking those guys on. And Curt isn’t
exactly a pansy.”
“The question is whether she had some reason to attack Lundin and Nieminen.”
“One little girl with two psychopaths in a deserted summer cabin? I can think of a
reason or two,” Bublanski said.
“Could she have had help from someone? Could there have been other people
involved?”
“There’s nothing in the report to indicate that. Salander was inside the cabin. There
was a coffee cup on the table. And besides, we have a statement from Anna Viktoria
Hansson, who keeps an eye on everyone’s movements. She swears that the only
people who passed her were Salander and our two heroes from Svavelsjö.”
“How did Salander get into the cabin?”
“With a key. I’m guessing she took it from Bjurman’s apartment. You remember—”
“The cut police tape. She’s been busy.”
Modig drummed her fingertips on the table and then took a new approach.
“Has it been confirmed that it was Lundin who had a part in the kidnapping of
Miriam Wu?”
“Paolo Roberto looked through mug shots of three dozen bikers. He picked him out
right away, no shadow of a doubt that was the man he saw at the warehouse in
Nykvarn.”
“And Blomkvist?”
“I haven’t gotten hold of him yet. He’s not answering his mobile.”
“But Lundin matches his description of Salander’s attacker on Lundagatan. So we
can assume that Svavelsjö MC has been hunting Salander for a while. Why?”
Bublanski threw up his hands.
Modig asked, “Was Salander living in Bjurman’s summer cabin all the time we were
looking for her?”
“I thought of that too. But Jerker doesn’t think so. The cabin doesn’t look as if it’s
been lived in recently, and we have a witness who says she arrived on foot earlier
today.”
“Why did she go there? I don’t suppose she’d set up a meeting with Lundin.”
“Hardly. She must have been looking for something. And the only thing we found
was a bunch of files that seem to contain Bjurman’s own investigation of Salander.
It’s all the material about her from social welfare, the Guardianship Agency, and old
school reports. But it seems that some of the folders are missing. They were
numbered. We have folders 1, 4, and 5.”
“So 2 and 3 are missing.”
“And maybe more with higher numbers.”
“Which raises a question. Why would Salander be looking for information about
herself?” Modig said.
“I can think of two reasons. Either she wants to hide something that she knew
Bjurman had written about her, or else she wants to find out something. But
there’s another question too.”
“What’s that?”
“Why would Bjurman compile an extensive report on her and then hide it in his
summer cabin? Salander seems to have found the material in the attic. He was her
guardian and was assigned to handle her finances and other matters. But the
material there gives the impression that he was almost obsessed with charting her
life.”
“Bjurman is looking more and more like a disreputable character. I was thinking
about that today when I went through the list of johns at Millennium. I suddenly
expected his name to turn up there too.”
“Good thinking. Remember the violent porn you found on his computer. Did you
find anything at Millennium?”
“I don’t really know. Blomkvist is busy checking off the names on their list, but
according to Malin Eriksson, one of the editors there, he hasn’t turned up anything
of interest. Jan … I have to say one thing.”
“What?”
“I don’t think Salander did any of this. Enskede and Odenplan, I mean. I was just as
persuaded as all the others when we started, but I don’t believe it now. And I can’t
really explain why.”
Bublanski realized that he agreed with Modig.
The giant paced back and forth in Lundin’s house in Svavelsjö. He stopped by the
kitchen window and looked down the road. They should have been back by now.
He had a sinking feeling in his stomach. Something was wrong.
He didn’t like being alone in this house. He didn’t feel at home here. There was a
draft in his room upstairs, and there were always strange noises. He tried to shake
off his uneasiness. It was foolish, he knew, but he had never liked being alone. He
was not in the least afraid of flesh-and-blood people, but empty houses out in the
country he thought were indescribably horrible. The noises got his imagination
working. He couldn’t shed the sense that something dark and evil was watching
him through the crack in the door. Something he believed he could hear breathing.
When he was younger he’d been troubled by a fear of the dark. That is, he’d been
troubled until he had aggressively told off his friends, his own age and sometimes a
lot older, who were amused by such weaknesses. He was good at telling people off.
But it was embarrassing. He hated darkness and being alone. He hated the
creatures that inhabited darkness and solitude. He wished Lundin would come
home. Lundin’s presence would restore the balance, even if they didn’t exchange a
word or weren’t even in the same room. He would hear real sounds and he would
know that there were people nearby.
He tried to ward off his anxiety by playing CDs on the stereo, and restlessly he tried
to find something he wanted to read on Lundin’s shelves. Lundin’s taste in books
left much to be desired, and he had to settle for a collection of motorcycle
magazines, men’s magazines, and paperback thrillers of the type that had never
interested him. The solitude became more and more claustrophobic. He cleaned
and oiled the pistol he kept in his bag, and for a while that had a calming effect.
Eventually he had to get out of the house. He walked around the garden to get
some fresh air. He stayed out of sight of the neighbouring houses, but stopped so
that he could watch the lighted windows where there were people. If he stood
quite still he could hear the sound of music in the distance.
When he felt he had to go back inside Lundin’s wooden shack he stood for a long
time on the steps before shaking off the oppressive feeling and resolutely going in.
At 7:00 he watched the news on TV4. He listened with horror to the headlines and
then to a report on the shoot-out at the summer cabin in Stallarholmen.
He ran up the stairs to his room on the top floor and stuffed his belongings into a
bag. Two minutes later he was driving away in his white Volvo.
He had made his escape in the nick of time. Just two miles outside Svavelsjö two
police cars with their blue lights flashing passed him, on their way into the village.
After a great deal of patient negotiation Blomkvist was allowed to see Holger
Palmgren. He was so insistent that the nurse in charge called Dr. Sivarnandan, who
apparently lived nearby. Sivarnandan arrived fifteen minutes later and assumed
responsibility for dealing with the stubborn journalist. At first he was not at all
sympathetic. Over the past two weeks several reporters had found out where
Palmgren was and had used all sorts of strategies to get a statement. Palmgren
himself had refused on any account to receive such visitors, and the staff had
instructions to let no-one in to see him.
Dr. Sivarnandan had been following the case with much distress. He was shocked at
the headlines that Salander had generated in the press. Palmgren had fallen into a
deep depression which, Sivarnandan suspected, was a result of his inability to help
Salander in any way. Palmgren had broken off his rehabilitation therapy and now
spent the days reading newspapers and following the hunt for the girl on TV.
Otherwise he sat in his room and brooded.
Blomkvist remained standing at Sivarnandan’s desk and explained that of course he
had no wish to subject Palmgren to any unpleasantness. He didn’t want a
statement from him. He was a good friend of Salander, he was persuaded of her
innocence, and he was desperately searching for information that might shed some
light on certain aspects of her past.
Dr. Sivarnandan was hard to convince. Blomkvist had to explain in detail his own
role in the drama. Not until half an hour of discussion had passed did Sivarnandan
give his consent. He asked Blomkvist to wait while he went up to ask Palmgren
whether he would see him.
Sivarnandan returned after ten minutes.
“He’s agreed to see you. If he doesn’t like you then he’ll put you out on your ear.
You are not to interview him or write anything in the press about the visit.”
“I won’t write a line about this.”
Palmgren had a small room containing a bed, a bureau, a table, and a couple of
chairs. He was white-haired and thin as a scarecrow. He evidently had trouble with
his balance, but he stood up anyway when Blomkvist was shown into the room. He
did not hold out his hand, but motioned to one of the chairs by the table. Blomkvist
sat down. Dr. Sivarnandan remained in the room. Blomkvist had difficulty at first
understanding Palmgren’s slurred speech.
“Who are you, claiming to be Lisbeth’s friend, and what do you want?”
“You don’t have to say anything to me. But I ask you to listen to what I have to say
before you throw me out.”
Palmgren nodded curtly and shuffled over to the chair opposite Blomkvist.
“I met Lisbeth Salander for the first time two years ago. I hired her to do some
research for me. She visited me in another town where I was living at the time, and
we worked together for several weeks.”
He wondered how much he had to explain to Palmgren. He decided to stay as close
to the truth as possible.
“During that time two important things happened. One was that Lisbeth saved my
life. The other was that we became very good friends. I came to know her well and
I think very highly of her.”
Without going into detail, Blomkvist told Palmgren how his relationship with her
had suddenly ended after the Christmas holiday a year ago, when Salander left the
country.
Then he told Palmgren about his work at Millennium and about how Svensson and
Johansson were murdered and how he had been drawn into the hunt for the killer.
“I’ve heard that you’ve been bothered by reporters lately, and certainly the papers
have published one idiotic story after the other. All I can do now is to assure you
that I’m not here to gather material for yet another article. I’m here because of
Lisbeth, as her friend. I’m probably one of the few people in the country right now
who unhesitatingly, and without an ulterior motive, is on her side. I believe her to
be innocent. I believe that a man named Zalachenko is behind the murders.”
Blomkvist paused. Something had glimmered in Palmgren’s eyes when he said the
name Zalachenko.
“If you can contribute anything that would shed some light on Lisbeth’s past, this is
the time to do it. If you don’t want to help her, then I’m wasting my time and
yours and I’ll know where you stand.”
Palmgren had not said a word during this monologue. As Blomkvist finished, his
eyes flashed again. But he was smiling. He spoke as clearly as he could.
“You really want to help her.”
Blomkvist nodded.
Palmgren leaned forward. “Describe the sofa in her living room.”
“On the occasions I visited her she had a worn-out, extremely ugly piece of
furniture with a certain curiosity value. I would guess it’s from the early fifties. It
has two shapeless cushions covered in brown cloth with a yellow pattern of sorts
on it. The cloth is torn in several places and the stuffing was coming out when I
last saw it.”
All of a sudden Palmgren laughed. It sounded more like he was clearing his throat.
He looked at Dr. Sivarnandan.
“He’s been to her apartment at least. Does the doctor think it would be possible to
offer my guest a cup of coffee?”
“Certainly.” Dr. Sivarnandan got up to leave. He paused in the doorway to nod at
Blomkvist.
“Alexander Zalachenko,” Palmgren said as soon as the door was closed.
“So you know that name?”
“Lisbeth told me the name. And I think it’s important that I tell this story to
someone … should I happen to drop dead, which is all too possible.”
“Lisbeth? How would she know anything about his existence?”
“He is Lisbeth’s father.”
At first Blomkvist could not make out what Palmgren was saying. Then the words
sank in.
“What the hell are you saying?”
“Zalachenko was some sort of a political refugee—I’ve never gotten the story quite
straight, and Lisbeth was always tight-lipped about it. It was something she
absolutely did not want to talk about.”
Her birth certificate. Father unknown.
“Zalachenko is Lisbeth’s father,” Blomkvist repeated aloud.
“On only one occasion in all the years I’ve known her did she tell me what
happened. Here’s how I understood it—Zalachenko came here in the mid-seventies.
He met Lisbeth’s mother in 1977, they had a relationship, and the result was two
children.”
“Two?”
“Lisbeth and her twin sister Camilla.”
“Good God—there are two of her?”
“They’re very different. But that’s another story. Lisbeth’s mother’s name was in fact
Agneta Sofia Sjölander. She was seventeen when she met Zalachenko. I don’t know
anything else about how they met, but I gather she was quite a dependent young
girl and easy prey for an older, more experienced man. She was impressed by him
and probably head over heels in love with him. Zalachenko turned out to be
anything but nice. I assume he was just after a willing woman and not much else.
Naturally she fantasized about a secure future with him, but he wasn’t the least bit
interested in marriage. They never did marry, but in 1979 she changed her name
from Sjölander to Salander. That was, I suppose, her way of showing that they
belonged together.”
“How do you mean?”
“Zala. Salander.”
“Jesus,” Blomkvist said.
“I started looking into the whole matter just before I fell ill. She had the right to
take the name because her mother, Lisbeth’s grandmother, was actually named
Salander. Then what happened was that Zalachenko proved himself to be a
psychopath on a grand scale. He drank and savagely abused Agneta. As far as I
know, this abuse went on throughout the girls’ childhood. As long as Lisbeth can
remember, Zalachenko would turn up from time to time. Sometimes he would be
gone for long periods, but then he was suddenly there again in the apartment on
Lundagatan. And every time it was the same old story. He came there to have sex
and to get drunk, and it ended with him abusing Lisbeth’s mother in various ways.
Lisbeth told me things that indicated it was more than physical abuse. He carried a
gun and was threatening, and there were elements of sadism and psychological
terrorizing. I gather it only got worse as the years went on. Lisbeth’s mother spent
a great part of the eighties living in fear.”
“Did he hit the children too?”
“No. Apparently he was totally uninterested in his daughters. He hardly even said
hello to them. Their mother used to send them to their room when Zalachenko
turned up, and they weren’t allowed to come out without permission. On one
occasion he may have spanked Lisbeth or her sister, but that was mostly because
they were irritating him or were somehow in the way. All the violence was directed
towards their mother.”
“Jesus Christ. Poor Lisbeth.”
Palmgren nodded. “Lisbeth told me all this about a month before I had my stroke. It
was the first time she had spoken openly about what had happened. I’d just
decided that it was time to put an end to the absurd declaration of incompetence.
Lisbeth is as smart as anyone I know, and I was prepared to take up her case again
with the district court. Then I had the stroke … and when I woke up I was here.”
He waved at his confined quarters. A nurse knocked at the door and brought in
coffee. Palmgren sat in silence until she left.
“There are some aspects of Lisbeth’s story that I don’t understand,” he said. “Agneta
had been forced to go to the hospital dozens of times. I read her medical record. It
was perfectly obvious that she was the victim of aggravated assault, and social
welfare should have intervened. But nothing happened. Lisbeth and Camilla had to
stay at the social emergency service whenever she sought care, but as soon as she
was discharged she would go back home and it would start all over again. I can
only interpret this as the collapse of the whole social safety net, and Agneta was
too terrified to do anything but wait for her torturer. Then something happened.
Lisbeth calls it All The Evil.’”
“What was it?”
“Zalachenko had been gone for several months. Lisbeth had turned twelve. She had
apparently begun to think that he was gone for good. But he wasn’t, of course. One
day he came back. First Agneta locked Lisbeth and her sister in their room. Then
she and Zalachenko went to bed. And then he started hitting her. He enjoyed
beating people. But this time it wasn’t two helpless little girls who were locked up
… The twins reacted quite differently. Camilla was panic-stricken that someone
would find out what was going on in their apartment. She repressed everything
and made out that her mother was never beaten. When the abuse was over,
Camilla would go in and hug her father and pretend that everything was fine.”
“Her way of protecting herself, no doubt.”
“Right. But Lisbeth was a whole different story. This time she interrupted the
beating. She went into the kitchen and got a knife and stabbed Zalachenko in the
shoulder. She stabbed him five times before he managed to take the knife away and
punch her in the face. They weren’t deep wounds, it seems, but he was bleeding
like a stuck pig and he ran off.”
“That sounds like Lisbeth.”
Palmgren laughed. “Yes, it does. Don’t ever fight with Lisbeth Salander. Her attitude
towards the rest of the world is that if someone threatens her with a gun, she’ll get
a bigger gun. That’s what frightens me about what’s going on right now.”
“So that was ‘All The Evil’?”
“No, no. Then two things happened. I can’t understand it. Zalachenko was wounded
so badly that he had to go to the hospital. There should have been a police report.”
“But?”
“But as far as I could discover, there were absolutely no repercussions. Lisbeth
remembers that a man came and talked with Agneta. She didn’t know what was
said or who he was. And then her mother told her that Zalachenko had forgiven
her everything.”
“Forgiven?”
“That was the expression she used.”
And suddenly Blomkvist understood.
Björck. Or one of Björck’s colleagues. It was about cleaning up after Zalachenko.
Those fucking pigs. He closed his eyes.
“What is it?” Palmgren said.
“I think I know what happened. And someone is going to pay for this. But go on
with the story.”
“Zalachenko was gone for several months. Lisbeth waited for him and made her
preparations. She had played truant from school every single day to watch out for
her mother. She was scared to death that Zalachenko would really hurt her. She
was twelve and felt responsible for her mother, who did not dare to go to the
police and couldn’t break it off with Zalachenko, or who perhaps did not
understand the seriousness of the situation. But on the day Zalachenko finally
turned up, Lisbeth was at school. She came home just as he was leaving the
apartment. He didn’t say a word. He just laughed at her. Lisbeth went in and found
her mother unconscious on the kitchen floor.”
“But Zalachenko didn’t touch Lisbeth?”
“No. She caught up with him just as he was getting into his car. He rolled down the
window, possibly to say something. Lisbeth was ready. She threw a milk carton she
had filled with gasoline into the car. Then she threw in a burning match.”
“Good God.”
“She tried to kill her father twice. This time there were consequences. A man sitting
in a car on Lundagatan burning like a beacon could hardly go unnoticed.”
“But he survived.”
“He suffered horribly. One of his feet had to be amputated. His face and other parts
of his body suffered serious burns. And Lisbeth ended up at St. Stefan’s Psychiatric
Clinic for Children.”
Despite the fact that she already knew every word by heart, Salander once again
read through the material about herself that she had found in Bjurman’s files. She
sat in the window seat and opened the cigarette case Miriam Wu had given her.
She lit a cigarette and looked out towards Djurgården. She had discovered some
things about her life that she had never known before.
In fact so much fell into place that she turned quite cold. Above all she was
interested in the report filed by Björck in March 1991. She wasn’t certain which one
of the many grown-ups who had talked to her was Björck, but she thought she
knew. He had introduced himself with another name. Sven Jansson. She
remembered every feature of his face, every word he said, and every gesture he
made on the three occasions she had encountered him.
The whole thing was a disaster.
Zalachenko had burned like fury inside the car. He had managed to push open the
door and roll out onto the pavement, but his leg got caught inside by the seat belt.
People had come rushing up to smother the flames. A fire engine arrived and put
out the fire. An ambulance arrived and Lisbeth had tried to get the medics to ignore
Zalachenko and come and see to her mother. They had shoved her aside. The police
arrived, and there were witnesses who pointed to her. She tried to explain what
had happened, but it felt as if nobody was listening to her, and suddenly she was
sitting in the backseat of a police car and it took minutes and minutes and minutes
and finally almost an hour before the police went into the apartment and found
her mother.
Agneta Sofia Salander was unconscious. She had brain damage. The first in a long
series of small cerebral haemorrhages had been triggered by the beating. She would
never recover.
Salander now understood why nobody had read the police report, why Palmgren
had failed in his attempt to have it released, and why even today Prosecutor
Ekström, who was leading the search for her, did not have access to it. It had not
been written by the regular police. It had been put together by some creep in the
Security Police. It had rubber stamps on it saying that the report was classified as
top secret according to the law of national security.
Zalachenko had worked for Säpo.
It was no report. It was a cover-up. Zalachenko was more important than Agneta
Salander. He could not be identified or exposed. Zalachenko did not exist.
It was not Zalachenko who was the problem—it was Lisbeth Salander, the crazy kid
who threatened to crack one of the country’s most crucial secrets wide open.
A secret that she had not known anything about. She brooded. Zalachenko had met
her mother very soon after he had arrived in Sweden. He had introduced himself
using his real name. Perhaps at that time he had not yet been given a cover name
or a Swedish identity, or he was not using it for her. She only knew his real name.
But he had been given a new name by the Swedish government. That explained
why Lisbeth had never found his name in any public records in all these years.
She got the point. If Zalachenko were accused of aggravated assault, Agneta
Salander’s lawyer would start looking into his past. Where do you work, Herr
Zalachenko? What’s your real name? Where do you come from?
If Salander ended up with social services maybe somebody would start digging
around. She was too young to be charged, but if the gasoline-bomb attack were
investigated in too much detail, the same thing would happen. She could imagine
the headlines in the papers. The investigation would have to be conducted by a
trusted person. And then stamped top secret and buried so deep that nobody would
find it. And Salander would have to be buried so deep that nobody would find her
either.
Gunnar Björck.
St. Stefan’s.
Peter Teleborian.
The explanation was driving her wild.
Dear Government… I’m going to have a serious talk with you if I ever find anyone
to talk to.
She wondered fleetingly what the minister of health and social welfare would think
about getting a Molotov cocktail tossed through the front doors of his department.
But in the absence of anyone else who could be held responsible, Teleborian was a
good substitute. She made a mental note to deal with him in earnest as soon as she
had tidied up the rest of this mess.
But she still didn’t understand the whole picture. Zalachenko had suddenly sprung
to life again after all these years. He was in danger of being exposed by Svensson.
Two shots. Svensson and Johansson. A gun with her fingerprints on it…
Zalachenko or whoever he sent to carry out the executions could not have known
that she had found the revolver in the box in Bjurman’s desk drawer and handled it.
It had been pure chance, but for her it had already been clear from the start that
there had to be a connection between Bjurman and Zala.
Yet the story still did not add up. She mulled it over, trying out the pieces of the
puzzle one by one.
There was only one reasonable answer.
Bjurman.
Bjurman had done his investigation into her life. He had discovered the connection.
He had turned to Zalachenko.
She had the video of Bjurman raping her. That was her sword over his neck.
Perhaps he dreamed that Zalachenko would force her into giving it up.
She hopped down from the window seat, opened her desk drawer, and took out the
DVD with BJURMAN written on it in marker pen. She had not even put it in a
plastic sleeve. She had not looked at it since she had given Bjurman his very own
screening two years ago. She weighed it in her hand and put it back in the drawer.
Bjurman was a fool. If he’d only kept his distance she would have released him as
soon as he’d managed to get her declaration of incompetence rescinded. He would
have been transformed forever into Zalachenko’s lapdog, and that would have been
a fair punishment.
Zalachenko’s network. Some of the tentacles went all the way to Svavelsjö MC.
The blond giant.
He was her key.
She had to find him and force him to tell her where Zalachenko was.
She lit another cigarette and looked out at the citadel next to Skeppsholmen. She
looked across to the roller coaster at Gröna Lund. She was talking to herself. And in
a voice she had heard once in a film, she said:
Daaaaddyyyyy, I’m coming to get yoooou.
At 7:30 she turned on the TV to catch up on the latest developments in the hunt for
Lisbeth Salander. She was stunned by what she saw.
Bublanski finally got hold of Faste on his mobile just after 8:00 in the evening. No
pleasantries were exchanged. He did not ask what Faste had been up to, but coolly
gave him his instructions.
Faste had had more than he could bear of the circus at headquarters that morning
and had done something he had never done before on duty. He went out on the
town. He turned off his mobile and sat in the bar at Central Station and drank two
beers while he boiled with rage.
Then he went home, took a shower, and went to bed.
He needed to catch up on his sleep.
He woke up in time for Rapport and his eyes almost popped out of his head when
he heard the top stories. Bodies dug up in Nykvarn. Salander had shot a leader of
Svavelsjö MC. Police hunt through the southern suburbs. The net was tightening.
He turned on his mobile.
Almost immediately that fucker Bublanski called. He said that the investigation was
now redirecting its focus to identifying an alternative killer, and that Faste was to
relieve Holmberg at the crime scene in Nykvarn. During the wrapping up of the
Salander investigation Faste was supposed to be collecting cigarette butts in the
woods. Other people would be hunting Salander.
What the hell did Svavelsjö MC have to do with all this?
Suppose there was something to the reasoning of that fucking dyke Modig.
It wasn’t possible.
It had to be Salander.
He wanted to be the one who caught her. He wanted to catch her so badly that it
almost made his hands hurt as he held his mobile.
Palmgren calmly watched Blomkvist pace back and forth in front of the window in
the small room. It was getting on towards 7:30 in the evening, and they had been
talking nonstop for almost an hour. At last Palmgren tapped on the tabletop to get
Blomkvist’s attention.
“Sit down before you wear out your shoes,” he said.
Blomkvist sat down.
“All these secrets,” Palmgren said. “I never understood the connection until you
explained Zalachenko’s background. All I’ve seen are the assessments of Lisbeth
claiming that she’s mentally disturbed.”
“Peter Teleborian.”
“He must have some sort of deal with Björck. They have to have been working
together somehow.”
Blomkvist nodded pensively. Whatever happened, Teleborian was going to be the
object of journalistic scrutiny.
“Lisbeth said that I should stay away from him. That he was evil.”
Palmgren looked at him sharply. “When did she say that?”
Blomkvist said nothing for some moments. Then he smiled and looked at Palmgren.
“More secrets, damn it. I’ve been in touch with her while she’s been in hiding. By
computer. Only short, cryptic messages on her part, but she has always led me in
the right direction.”
Palmgren sighed. “And of course you didn’t tell the police.”
“No. Not exactly.”
“Then you haven’t told me either. She’s quite good with computers.”
You have no idea how good.
“I have a great belief in her ability to land on her feet. She may be hard up, but
she’s a survivor.”
Not that hard up. She stole almost three billion kronor. She’s not going to starve.
She has a bag full of gold, just like Pippi Longstocking.
“What I don’t quite understand,” Blomkvist said, “is why you didn’t take up her case
in all those years.”
Palmgren sighed again. He felt infinitely sad.
“I failed her,” he said. “When I became her trustee she was only one in a series of
difficult young people with problems. I’ve dealt with dozens of others. I was given
the assignment by Stefan Brådhensjö when he was minister of welfare. By then she
was already at St. Stefan’s, and I didn’t even see her that first year. I talked to
Teleborian a couple of times and he explained that she was psychotic and that she
was getting the best possible care. I believed him—and why not? But I also talked to
Jonas Beringer, who was senior clinician at that time. I don’t think he had anything
to do with her case. He made an assessment at my request, and we agreed to try
and get her back into society again by way of a foster family. That was when she
was fifteen.”
“And you backed her up over the years.”
“Not enough. I took her side after the episode in the tunnelbana. By then I had
gotten to know her and I liked her a lot. She was feisty. I stopped them from
putting her back in an institution. The price of that was that she was declared
incompetent and I became her guardian.”
“Presumably Björck wasn’t running around telling the court what to decide. It
would have attracted attention. He wanted her locked up, and he counted on
painting a bleak picture of her through psychiatric assessments from Teleborian
and others, assuming that the court would come to the logical conclusion. But
instead they followed your recommendation.”
“I’ve never thought that she ought to be under guardianship. But to be honest, I
didn’t do much to get the ruling reversed. I should have acted sooner and more
forcefully. But I was quite enchanted by Lisbeth and … I always put it off. I had too
many irons in the fire. And then I got sick.”
“I don’t think you should blame yourself. No-one else looked after her interests
better over the years.”
“The problem was always that I didn’t know enough. Lisbeth was my client, but she
never uttered a word about Zalachenko. When she got out of St. Stefan’s it was
years before she manifested the slightest trust in me. It was only after the hearing
that I sensed she was very slowly starting to communicate with me beyond the
necessary formalities.”
“How did she happen to start telling you about Zalachenko?”
“I suppose that in spite of everything she had begun to trust me. Besides, on a
number of occasions I’d raised the subject of having the incompetency declaration
rescinded. Apparently, she thought it over and then one day she called and wanted
to meet. And she told me the whole story about Zalachenko and how she viewed
what had happened. You’ll probably appreciate that it was a lot for me to take in.
But I started digging around in the story straightaway. I couldn’t find a Zalachenko
in any database in all of Sweden. I did sometimes wonder whether she might be
imagining the whole thing.”
“After you had your stroke, Bjurman became her guardian. That couldn’t have been
an accident.”
“No. I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to prove it, but I’ve been thinking that if we
tried hard enough we would find … whoever it is that took over after Björck and is
in charge of the cleanup of the Zalachenko affair.”
“I don’t wonder at Lisbeth’s absolute refusal to talk to psychiatrists or the
authorities,” Blomkvist said. “Every time she did, it only made matters worse. She
tried to explain what had happened and no-one listened. She, a child all by herself,
tried to save her mother’s life and defend her against a psychopath. In the end she
did the only thing she felt she could do. And instead of saying ‘well done’ and ‘good
girl,’ they locked her up in an asylum.”
“It’s not that straightforward. I hope you understand that there really is something
wrong with Lisbeth,” Palmgren said sharply.
“How do you mean?”
“You’re aware that she had a lot of trouble when she was growing up and problems
in school and all that.”
“It’s been in every daily paper. And I would have had trouble in school myself if I’d
had the childhood she had.”
“Her problems go way beyond the problems she had at home. I’ve read all the
psychiatric assessments, and there isn’t even a diagnosis. I think we can agree that
Lisbeth Salander isn’t like normal people. Have you ever played chess with her?”
“No.”
“She has a photographic memory.”
“I know. I realized that when I was working with her.”
“She loves puzzles. One time when she came over for Christmas dinner I enticed
her into solving some problems from a Mensa intelligence test. It was the kind
where they show you five similar symbols and you have to decide what the sixth
one will look like. I’d tried myself and got about half of them right. And I plodded
away at it for two evenings. She took one look at the paper and answered every
question correctly.”
“Lisbeth is a very special girl.”
“She has an extremely hard time relating to other people. I thought she had
Asperger’s syndrome or something like it. If you read the clinical descriptions of
patients diagnosed with Asperger’s, there are things that seem to fit Lisbeth very
well, but there are just as many symptoms that don’t apply at all. Mind you, she’s
not the least bit dangerous to people who leave her in peace and treat her with
respect. But she is violent, without a doubt,” said Palmgren in a low voice. “If she’s
provoked or threatened, she can strike back with appalling violence.”
Blomkvist nodded.
“The question is, what do we do now?” Palmgren said.
“We find Zalachenko,” Blomkvist said.
At that moment Dr. Sivarnandan knocked and came in.
“I hope I’m not disturbing you. But if you’re interested in Lisbeth Salander, you
might want to turn on the TV and watch the news.”
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