CHAPTER 7
Saturday, January 29–Sunday, February 13
At around 11:00 on Saturday morning, a car drove into Svavelsjö between Järna and
Vagnhärad—the community consisted of no more than fifteen buildings—and
stopped in front of the last building, about 500 feet outside the village proper. It
was a tumbledown industrial structure that had once been a printing factory but
now had a sign over the main door identifying it as Svavelsjö Motorcycle Club.
There was no other car in sight. Nevertheless the driver looked around carefully
before he got out of his car. He was huge and blond. The air was cold. He put on
brown leather gloves and took a black sports bag from the trunk.
He was not worried about being observed. It would be impossible to park close to
the old printing factory without being seen. If any police or government unit
wanted to keep the building under surveillance, they would have to equip their
people with camouflage and telescopes and dig them in at the far end of a field.
Inevitably that would be talked about by the villagers, and three of the houses were
owned by Svavelsjö MC members.
On the other hand, he did not want to go inside the building. The police had raided
the clubhouse on several occasions, and no-one could be sure whether or not
bugging equipment had been hidden there. This meant that conversation inside was
pretty much about cars, girls, and beer, and sometimes about which stocks were
good to invest in.
So the man waited until Carl-Magnus Lundin came out to the yard. Magge Lundin
was club president. He was tall with a slim build, but over time he had acquired a
hefty beer belly. He was only thirty-six. He had dark blond hair in a ponytail and
wore black jeans, boots, and a heavy winter jacket. He had five counts on his police
record. Two of them were for minor drug offences, one for receiving stolen goods,
and one for stealing a car and drunk driving. The fifth charge, the most serious, had
sent him to prison for a year: it was for grievous bodily harm when, several years
ago, he had gone berserk in a bar in Stockholm.
Lundin and his huge visitor shook hands and walked slowly along the fence around
the yard.
“It’s been a few months,” Lundin said.
The man said: “We’ve got a deal going down. 3,060 grams of methamphetamine.”
“Same terms as last time?”
“Fifty-fifty.”
Lundin pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his breast pocket. He liked doing business
with the giant. Meth brought a street price of between 160 and 230 kronor per
gram, depending on availability. So 3,060 grams would yield a cut value of about
600,000 kronor. Svavelsjö MC would distribute the three kilos in batches of about
250 grams each to known dealers. At that stage the price would drop to somewhere
between 120 and 130 kronor per gram.
It was an exceptionally attractive deal for Svavelsjö MC. Unlike deals with other
suppliers, there was never any crap about advance payment or fixed prices. The
blond giant supplied the goods and demanded 50 percent, an entirely reasonable
share of the revenue. They knew more or less what a kilo of meth would bring in.
The exact amount depended on to what extent Lundin could get away with cutting
the stuff. It could vary by a few thousand one way or the other, but when the deal
was done the giant would collect around 190,000 kronor.
They had done a lot of business together over the years, always using the same
system. Lundin knew that the giant could have doubled his take by handling the
distribution himself. He also knew why the man accepted a lower profit: he could
stay in the background and let Svavelsjö MC have all the risk. He made a smaller
but a safer income. And unlike with all other suppliers he had ever come across, it
was a relationship that was based on sound business principles, credit, and
goodwill. No hassle, no bullshit, and no threats.
The giant had also swallowed a loss of almost 100,000 kronor over a weapons
delivery that went bust. Lundin knew no-one else in the business who could absorb
a loss like that. He was terrified when he’d had to tell him. Lundin explained how
the deal had gone sour and how a policeman at the Crime Prevention Centre might
be about to make a big score off a member of the Aryan Brotherhood in Värmland.
But the giant had not so much as raised an eyebrow. He was almost sympathetic.
Shit happens. The whole delivery had to be written off.
Lundin was not without talents. He understood that a smaller, less risky profit was
good business.
He had never once considered double-crossing the giant. That would be bad form.
The giant and his associates settled for a lower profit so long as the accounting was
honest. If he cheated the blond, he would come calling, and Lundin was convinced
that he would not survive such a visit.
“When can you deliver?”
The giant dropped his sports bag to the ground.
“Delivery has been made.”
Lundin did not feel like opening the bag to check the contents. Instead he reached
out his hand as a sign that they had a deal and he intended to do his part.
“There’s one more thing,” the giant said.
“What’s that?”
“We’d like to put a special job your way.”
“Let’s hear it.”
He pulled an envelope out of his inside jacket pocket and gave it to Lundin, who
opened it and took out a passport photograph and a sheet of A4 containing
personal data. He raised his eyebrows inquiringly.
“Her name is Lisbeth Salander and she lives in Stockholm, on Lundagatan in
Södermalm.”
“Right.”
“She’s probably out of the country at present, but she’ll turn up sooner or later.”
“OK.”
“My employer would like to have a quiet talk with her. She has to be delivered
alive. We suggest that warehouse near Yngern. And we need someone to clean up
afterwards. She has to disappear without a trace.”
“We should be able to handle that. How will we know when she’s home?”
“I’ll tell you.”
“And the price?”
“What do you say to ten thousand for the whole job? It’s pretty straightforward.
Drive to Stockholm, pick her up, deliver her to me.”
They shook hands again.
• • •
On her second visit to Lundagatan, Salander flopped down on the lumpy sofa to
think. She had to make a number of decisions, and one of these was whether or not
she should keep the apartment.
She lit a cigarette, blew smoke up towards the ceiling, and tapped the ash into an
empty Coke can.
She had no reason to love this apartment. She had moved in with her mother and
her sister when she was four. Her mother had slept in the living room, and she and
Camilla shared the tiny bedroom. When she was twelve and “All The Evil”
happened, she was moved to a children’s clinic and then, when she was fifteen, to
the first in a series of foster families. The apartment had been rented out by her
trustee, Holger Palmgren, who had also seen to it that it was returned to her when
she turned eighteen and needed a place to live.
The apartment had been a fixed point for almost all of her life. Although she no
longer needed it, she did not like the idea of selling it. That would mean strangers
in her space.
The logistical problem was that all her mail—insofar as she received any at all—
came to Lundagatan. If she got rid of the apartment she would have to find another
address to use. Salander did not want to be an official entry in all the databases. In
this regard she was almost paranoid. She had no reason to trust the authorities, or
anyone else for that matter.
She looked out at the firewall of the back courtyard, as she had done her whole life.
She was suddenly glad of her decision to leave the apartment. She had never felt
safe there. Every time she turned onto Lundagatan and approached the street door
—sober or not—she had been acutely aware of her surroundings, of parked cars and
passersby She felt sure that somewhere out there were people who wished her
harm, and they would most probably attack her as she came or went from the
apartment.
There had been no attack. But that did not mean that she could relax. The address
on Lundagatan was on every public register and database, and in all those years she
had never had the means to improve her security; she could only stay on her guard.
Now the situation was different. She did not want anyone to know her new
address in Mosebacke. Instinct warned her to remain as anonymous as possible.
But that did not solve the problem of what to do with the old apartment. She
brooded about it for a while and then took out her mobile and called Mimmi.
“Hi, it’s me.”
“Hi, Lisbeth. So you make contact after only a week this time?”
“I’m at Lundagatan.”
“OK.”
“I was wondering if you’d like to take over the apartment.”
“What do you mean?”
“You live in a shoebox.”
“I like my shoebox. Are you moving?”
“It’s empty here.”
Mimmi seemed to hesitate at the other end of the line.
“Lisbeth, I can’t afford it.”
“It’s a housing association apartment and it’s all paid off. The rent is 1,480 a month,
which must be less than you’re paying for the shoebox. And the rent has been paid
for a year.”
“But are you thinking of selling it? I mean, it must be worth quite a bit.”
“About one and a half million, if you can believe the estate agents’ ads.”
“I can’t afford that.”
“I’m not selling. You could move in here tonight, you can live here as long as you
like, and you won’t have to pay anything for a year. I’m not allowed to rent it out,
but I can write you into my agreement as my roommate. That way you won’t have
any hassle with the housing association.”
“But Lisbeth—are you proposing to me?” Mimmi laughed.
“I’m not using the apartment and I don’t want to sell it.”
“You mean I could live there for free, girl? Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“As long as you like. Are you interested?”
“Of course I am. I don’t get offered a free apartment in the middle of Söder every
day of the week.”
“There’s a catch.”
“I thought as much.”
“You can live here as long as you like, but I’ll still be listed as resident and I’ll get
my mail here. All you have to do is take in the mail and let me know if anything
interesting turns up.”
“Lisbeth, you’re the freakiest. Where are you going to live?”
“We’ll talk about that later,” Salander said.
They agreed to meet that afternoon so that Mimmi could have a proper look at the
apartment. Salander was already in a much better mood. She walked down to
Handelsbanken on Hornsgatan, where she took a number and waited her turn.
She showed her ID and explained that she had been abroad for some time and
wanted to know the balance of her savings account. The sum was 82,670 kronor.
The account had been dormant for more than a year, and one deposit of 9,312
kronor had been made the previous autumn. That was the inheritance from her
mother.
Salander withdrew 9,312 kronor. She wanted to spend the money on something that
would have made her mother happy. She walked to the post office on
Rosenlundsgatan and sent an anonymous deposit to one of Stockholm’s crisis
centres for women.
It was 8:00 on Friday evening when Berger shut down her computer and stretched.
She had spent nine hours solid putting the finishing touches on the March issue of
Millennium, and since Eriksson was working full-time on Svensson’s themed issue
she had had to do a good part of the editing herself. Cortez and Karim had helped
out, but they were primarily writers and researchers, and not used to editing.
So she was tired and her back ached, but she was satisfied both with the day and
with life in general. The accountant’s graphs were pointing in the right direction,
articles were coming in on time, or at least not unmanageably late, and the staff
was happy. After more than a year, they were still on a high from the adrenaline
rush of the Wennerström affair.
After trying for a while to massage her neck, Berger decided she needed a shower
and thought about using the one in the office bathroom. But she felt too lazy and
put her feet up on the desk instead. She was going to turn forty-five in three
months, and that famous future she had longed for was starting to be a thing of
the past. She had developed a network of tiny wrinkles and lines around her eyes
and mouth, but she knew that she still looked good. She worked out at the gym
twice a week, but she had noticed it was getting more difficult to climb the mast
during her long sailing trips. And she was the one who always had to do the
climbing—her husband had terrible vertigo.
Berger reflected that her first forty-five years, despite a number of ups and downs,
had been by and large successful. She had money, status, a home which gave her
great pleasure, and a job she enjoyed. She had a tenderhearted husband who loved
her and with whom she was still in love after fifteen years of marriage. And on the
side she had a pleasant and seemingly inexhaustible lover, who might not satisfy
her soul but who did satisfy her body when she needed it.
She smiled as she thought of Blomkvist. She wondered when he was going to come
clean and tell her that he was sleeping with Harriet Vanger. Neither of them had
breathed a word about their relationship, but Berger wasn’t born yesterday. At the
board meeting in August she had noticed a glance that passed between them. Out
of sheer cussedness she had tried both of their mobile numbers later that evening,
and both were turned off. That was hardly watertight evidence, of course, but after
subsequent board meetings Blomkvist was always unavailable in the evening. It was
almost comical to watch the way Vanger would leave after dinner with the same
excuse—that she had to go to bed early. Berger did not pry, and she was not jealous.
On the other hand, she would certainly tease them both about it at some suitable
occasion.
She never got involved in Blomkvist’s affairs with other women, but she hoped that
his affair with Vanger would not give rise to problems on the board. Yet she was
not really worried. Blomkvist had all manner of terminated relationships behind
him, and he was still on friendly terms with most of the women involved.
Berger was incredibly happy to be Blomkvist’s friend and confidante. In certain
ways he was a fool, and in others so insightful that he seemed like an oracle. But he
had never understood her love for her husband, had never been able to grasp why
she considered Greger Beckman such an enchanting person: warm, exciting,
generous, and above all without many of the traits that she so detested in most
men. Beckman was the man she wanted to grow old with. She had wanted to have
children with him, but it had not been possible and now it was too late. But in her
choice of a life partner she could not imagine a better or more stable person—
someone she could so completely and wholeheartedly trust and who was always
there for her when she needed him.
Blomkvist was very different. He was a man with such shifting traits that he
sometimes appeared to have multiple personalities. As a professional he was
obstinate and almost pathologically focused on the job at hand. He took hold of a
story and worked his way forward to the point where it approached perfection, and
then he tied up all the loose ends. When he was at his best he was brilliant, and
when he was not at his best he was still far better than the average. He seemed to
have an almost intuitive gift for deciding which story was hiding a skeleton in the
closet and which story would turn into a dull, run-of-the-mill piece. She had never
regretted working with him.
Nor had she ever regretted becoming his lover.
The only person who understood Berger’s passion for sex with Blomkvist was her
husband, and he understood it because she dared to discuss her needs with him. It
was not a matter of infidelity, but of desire. Sex with Blomkvist gave her a kick that
no other man was able to give her, including her husband.
Sex was important to her. She had lost her virginity when she was fourteen and
spent a great part of her teenage years in a frustrated search for fulfilment. She had
tried everything, from heavy petting with classmates and an awkward affair with a
teacher to phone sex and fetishism. She had experimented with most of what
interested her in eroticism. She had toyed with bondage and been a member of
Club Xtreme, which arranged parties of the kind that were not socially acceptable.
On several occasions she had tried sex with other women and, disappointed,
admitted that it simply was not her thing and that women could not excite her
even a fraction as much as a man could. Or two. With Beckman she had explored
sex with two men—one of them a famous gallery owner—and discovered both that
her mate had a strong bisexual inclination and that she herself was almost
paralyzed with pleasure at feeling two men simultaneously caressing and satisfying
her, just as she experienced a sense of pleasure that was difficult to define when
she watched her husband being caressed by another man. She and Beckman had
repeated that excitement with the same success with a couple of regular partners.
It was not that her sex life with her husband was boring or unsatisfying. It was just
that Blomkvist gave her a completely different experience.
He had talent. He was quite simply so good that it felt as if she had achieved the
optimal balance with Beckman as husband and Blomkvist as lover-when-needed.
She could not do without either of them, and she had no intention of choosing
between them.
And this was what her husband had understood, that she had a need beyond what
he could offer her, even in the form of his most imaginative acrobatic exercises in
the Jacuzzi.
What Berger liked best about her relationship with Blomkvist was the fact that he
had no desire whatsoever to control her. He was not the least bit jealous, and even
though she herself had had several attacks of jealousy when they first began to go
out together twenty years ago, she had discovered that in his case she did not need
to be jealous. Their relationship was built on friendship, and in matters of
friendship he was boundlessly loyal. It was a relationship that would survive the
harshest tests.
But it bothered her that so many of her acquaintances still whispered about her
relationship with Blomkvist, and always behind her back.
Blomkvist was a man. He could go from bed to bed without anyone raising their
eyebrows. She was a woman, and the fact that she had a lover, and with her
husband’s consent—coupled with the fact that she had also been true to her lover
for twenty years—resulted in the most interesting dinner conversations.
She thought for a moment and then picked up the phone to call her husband.
“Hi, darling. What are you doing?”
“Writing.”
Beckman was not just an artist; he was most of all a professor of art history and
the author of several books. He often participated in public debate, and he acted as
consultant to several large architecture firms. For the past year he had been
working on a book about the artistic decoration of buildings and its influence, and
why people prospered in some buildings but not in others. The book had begun to
develop into an attack on functionalism which (Berger suspected) would cause a
furor.
“How’s it going?”
“Good. It’s flowing. How about you?”
“I just finished the latest issue. It’s going to the printer on Thursday.”
“Well done.”
“I’m wiped out.”
“It sounds like you’ve got something in mind.”
“Have you planned anything for tonight? Would you be terribly upset if I didn’t
come home?”
“Say hello to Blomkvist and tell him he’s tempting fate,” said Beckman.
“He might like that.”
“OK. Then tell him that you’re a witch who’s impossible to satisfy and he’ll end up
aging prematurely.”
“He knows that.”
“In that case all that’s left for me is to commit suicide. I’m going to keep writing
until I pass out. Have a good time.”
Blomkvist was at Svensson and Johansson’s place in Enskede, wrapping up a
discussion about some details in Svensson’s manuscript. She wondered if he was
busy tonight, or would he consider giving a massage to an aching back.
“You’ve got the keys,” he said. “Make yourself at home.”
“I will. See you in an hour or so.”
It took her ten minutes to walk to Bellmansgatan. She undressed and showered and
made espresso. Then she crawled into bed and waited naked and full of
anticipation.
The optimum gratification for her would probably be a threesome with her
husband and Blomkvist, and that would never happen. Blomkvist was so straight
that she liked to tease him about being a homophobe. He had zero interest in men.
Apparently you could not get everything you wanted in this world.
The blond giant frowned in irritation as he manoeuvred the car at ten miles an
hour along a forest road in such bad repair that for a while he thought he must
have taken a wrong turn. It was just beginning to get dark when the road finally
widened and he caught sight of the cabin. He stopped, turned off the engine, and
took a look around. He had about fifty yards to go.
He was in the region of Stallarholmen, not far from the town of Mariefred. It was a
simple 1950s cabin in the middle of the woods. Through a line of trees he could see
a strip of ice on Lake Mälaren.
He could not imagine why anyone would want to spend their free time in such an
isolated place. He felt suddenly uncomfortable when he shut the car door behind
him. The forest seemed threatening, as if it were closing in around him. He sensed
that he was being watched. He started towards the cabin, but he heard a rustling
that made him stop short.
He stared into the woods. It was dusk, silent with no wind. He stood there for two
minutes with his nerves on full alert before, seeing it out of the corner of his eye,
he realized that a figure was silently, slowly moving in the trees. When his eyes
focused, he saw that the figure was standing perfectly still about thirty yards into
the forest, staring at him.
He felt a vague panic. He tried to make out details. He saw a dark, bony face. It
appeared to be a dwarf, no more than half his own size, and dressed in something
that looked like a tunic of pine branches and moss. A forest troll? A leprechaun?
He held his breath. He felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck.
Then he blinked six times and shook his head. When he looked again the creature
had moved about ten yards to the right. There was nobody there. He knew that he
was imagining things. And yet he could so clearly make out the figure in the trees.
Suddenly it moved and came closer. It seemed to be lurching in a semicircle to get
into a position to attack him.
The blond giant hurried to the cabin. He knocked a little too hard on the door. As
soon as he heard voices within, his panic subsided. He looked over his shoulder.
There was nothing there.
But he did not breathe out until the door opened. Bjurman greeted him courteously
and invited him in.
Miriam Wu was panting when she arrived back upstairs after dragging the last
trash bag of Salander’s possessions down to the recycling room in the cellar. The
apartment was clinically clean and smelled of soap, paint, and freshly brewed coffee
made by Salander. She was sitting on a stool, gazing thoughtfully at the bare rooms
from which curtains, rugs, discount coupons on the refrigerator, and her usual junk
in the hall had vanished as if by magic. She was amazed at how much bigger the
apartment seemed.
Mimmi and Salander did not have the same taste in clothes, furniture, or
intellectual stimulation. Correction: Mimmi had taste and definite views on how
she wanted her living quarters to look, what kind of furniture she wanted, and
what sort of clothes one should wear. Salander had no taste whatsoever, Mimmi
realized.
After she had inspected the apartment on Lundagatan as closely as an estate agent
might, they had discussed things and Mimmi had decided that most of the stuff had
to go. Especially the disgusting dirt-brown sofa in the living room. Did Salander
want to keep any of the things? No. Then Mimmi had spent a few long days as well
as several hours each evening for two weeks throwing out bits of old furniture,
cleaning cupboards, scrubbing the floor, scouring the bathtub, and repainting the
walls in the kitchen, living room, bedroom, and hall. She also varnished the parquet
floor in the living room.
Salander had no interest in such tasks, but she came several times to watch Mimmi
at work, fascinated. Eventually the apartment was empty of everything except for a
kitchen table of solid wood, much the worse for wear, that Mimmi intended to
sand down and refinish, two stools that Salander had pounced on when an attic in
the building was cleared, and a set of sturdy shelves in the living room that Mimmi
thought she could repaint.
“I’m moving in this weekend, unless you’re going to change your mind.”
“I don’t need the apartment.”
“But it’s a great apartment. I mean, there are bigger and better apartments, but it’s
slap in the middle of Söder and the rent is nothing. Lisbeth, you’re passing up a
fortune by not selling it.”
“I have enough to get by.”
Mimmi shut up, not sure how to interpret Salander’s brusque dismissal.
“Where are you living now?”
Salander did not reply.
“Could a person come and visit you?”
“Not right now.”
Salander opened her shoulder bag, took out some papers, and passed them over to
Mimmi.
“I’ve fixed the agreement with the housing association. The simplest thing is to
register you as my roommate and say I’m selling half of the apartment to you. The
price is one krona. You have to sign the contract.”
Mimmi took the pen and signed the contract, adding her date of birth.
“Is that all?”
“That’s it.”
“Lisbeth, I’ve always thought that you were a little weird. Do you realize that you
just gave away half of this apartment to me? I’d love to have the apartment, but I
don’t want to end up in a situation where you suddenly regret it or it causes bad
feelings between us.”
“There will never be any bad feelings. I want you to live here. It feels right to me.”
“But with nothing in return? You’re nuts.”
“You’re taking care of my mail. That’s the deal.”
“That’ll take me an average of four seconds a week. Do you intend to come over
once in a while to have sex?”
Salander fixed her eyes on Mimmi. She was quiet for a moment.
“I’d like to very much, but it’s not part of the contract. You can say no whenever
you want.”
Mimmi sighed. “And here I was just beginning to enjoy being a kept woman. You
know, having somebody who gives me an apartment and pays my rent and comes
over now and then to wrestle around in bed.”
They sat in silence for a while. Then Mimmi stood up resolutely and went into the
living room to turn off the bare bulb in the ceiling fixture.
“Come here.”
Salander followed her.
“I’ve never had sex on the floor of a newly painted apartment with almost no
furniture. I saw a movie with Marlon Brando once about a couple in Paris who did
it.”
Salander glanced at the floor.
“I feel like playing. Are you up for it?” Mimmi said.
“I’m almost always up for it.”
“Tonight I think I’ll be a dominating bitch. I get to make the decisions. Take off
your clothes.”
Salander smiled a crooked smile. She took off her clothes. It took at least ten
seconds.
“Lie down on the floor. On your stomach.”
Salander did as Mimmi commanded. The parquet floor was cool and her skin got
goose bumps immediately. Mimmi used Salander’s T-shirt with the slogan YOU
HAVE THE RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT to tie her hands behind her back.
Salander could not help thinking that this was similar to the way Nils Fucking
Slimebag Bjurman had tied her up two years ago.
The similarities ended there.
With Mimmi, Salander felt only lustful anticipation. She was compliant when
Mimmi rolled her over on her back and spread her legs. Salander watched her in
the dim room as she pulled off her own T-shirt, and was fascinated by her soft
breasts. Then Mimmi tied her T-shirt as a blindfold over Salander’s eyes. She could
hear the rustle of clothes. A few seconds later she felt Mimmi’s tongue on her belly
and her fingers on the inside of her thighs. She was more excited than she had been
in a long time. She shut her eyes tight beneath the blindfold and let Mimmi set the
pace.
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