CHAPTER 9
Wednesday, 4.v
Three days after Berger started as acting editor-in-chief of
S.M.P., Editor-in-Chief Morander died at lunchtime. He had
been in the glass cage all morning, while Berger and
assistant editor Peter Fredriksson met the sports editors so
that she could get to know her colleagues and find out how
they worked. Fredriksson was forty-five years old and also
relatively new to the paper. He was taciturn but pleasant,
with a broad experience. Berger had already decided that
she would be able to depend on Fredriksson’s insights
when she took command of the ship. She was spending a
good part of her time evaluating the people she might be
able to count on and could then make part of her new
regime. Fredriksson was definitely a candidate.
When they got back to the news desk they saw Morander
get up and come over to the door of the glass cage. He
looked startled.
Then he leaned forward, grabbed the back of a chair and
held on to it for a few seconds before he collapsed to the
floor.
He was dead before the ambulance arrived.
There was a confused atmosphere in the newsroom
throughout the afternoon. Chairman of the Board Borgsjö
arrived at 2.00 and gathered the employees for a brief
memorial to Morander. He spoke of how Morander had
dedicated the past fifteen years of his life to the
dedicated the past fifteen years of his life to the
newspaper, and the price that the work of a newspaperman
can sometimes exact. Finally he called for a minute’s
silence.
Berger realized that several of her new colleagues were
looking at her. The unknown quantity.
She cleared her throat and without being invited to, without
knowing what she would say, took half a step forward and
spoke in a firm voice: “I knew Håkan Morander for all of
three days. That’s too short a time, but from even the little I
managed to know of him, I can honestly say that I would
have wanted very much to know him better.”
She paused when she saw out of the corner of her eye that
Borgsjö was staring at her. He seemed surprised that she
was saying anything at all. She took another pace forward.
“Your editor-in-chief’s untimely departure will create
problems in the newsroom. I was supposed to take over
from him in two months, and I was counting on having the
time to learn from his experience.”
She saw that Borgsjö had opened his mouth as if to say
something himself.
“That won’t happen now, and we’re going to go through a
period of adjustment. But Morander was editor-in-chief of a
daily newspaper, and this paper will come out tomorrow
daily newspaper, and this paper will come out tomorrow
too. There are now nine hours left before we go to press
and four before the front page has to be resolved. May I
ask … who among you was Morander’s closest confidant?”
A brief silence followed as the staff looked at each other.
Finally Berger heard a voice from the left side of the room.
“That would probably be me.”
It was Gunnar Magnusson, assistant editor of the front
page who had worked on the paper for thirty-five years.
“Somebody has to write an obit. I can’t do it … that would
be presumptuous of me. Could you possibly write it?”
Magnusson hesitated a moment but then said, “I’ll do it.”
“We’ll use the whole front page and move everything else
back.”
Magnusson nodded.
“We need images.” She glanced to her right and met the
eye of the pictures editor, Lennart Torkelsson. He nodded.
“We have to get busy on this. Things might be a bit rocky
at first. When I need help making a decision, I’ll ask your
advice and I’ll depend on your skill and experience. You
know how the paper is made and I have a while to go on
the school bench.”
She turned to Fredriksson.
“Peter, Morander put a great deal of trust in you. You will
have to be something of a mentor to me for the time being,
and carry a heavier load than usual. I’m asking you to be
my adviser.”
He nodded. What else could he do?
She returned to the subject of the front page.
“One more thing. Morander was writing his editorial this
morning. Gunnar, could you get into his computer and see
whether he finished it? Even if it’s not quite rounded out,
we’ll publish it. It was his last editorial and it would be a
crying shame not to print it. The paper we’re making today
is still Håkan Morander’s paper.”
Silence.
“If any of you need a little personal time, or want to take a
break to think for a while, do it, please. You all know our
deadlines.”
Silence. She noticed that some people were nodding their
approval.
“Go to work, boys and girls,” she said in English in a low
voice.
Holmberg threw up his hands in a helpless gesture.
Bublanski and Modig looked dubious. Andersson’s
expression was neutral. They were scrutinizing the results
of the preliminary investigation that Holmberg had
completed that morning.
“Nothing?” Modig said. She sounded surprised.
“Nothing,” Holmberg said, shaking his head. “The
pathologist’s final report arrived this morning. Nothing to
indicate anything but suicide by hanging.”
They looked once more at the photographs taken in the
living room of the summer cabin in Smådalarö. Everything
pointed to the conclusion that Gunnar Björck, assistant
chief of the Immigration Division of the Security Police, had
climbed on to a stool, tied a rope to the lamp hook, placed
it around his neck, and then with great resolve kicked the
stool across the room. The pathologist was unable to
supply the exact time of death, but he had established that
it occurred on the afternoon of April 12. The body had
been discovered on April 19 by none other than Inspector
Andersson. This happened because Bublanski had
repeatedly tried to get hold of Björck. Annoyed, he finally
sent Andersson to bring him in.
Sometime during that week, the lamp hook in the ceiling
came away and Björck’s body fell to the floor. Andersson
had seen the body through a window and called in the
alarm. Bublanski and the others who arrived at the summer
house had treated it as a crime scene from the word go,
taking it for granted that Björck had been garrotted by
someone. Later that day the forensic team found the lamp
hook. Holmberg had been tasked to work out how Björck
had died.
“There’s nothing whatsoever to suggest a crime, or that
Björck was not alone at the time,” Holmberg said.
“The lamp?”
“The ceiling lamp has fingerprints from the owner of the
cabin – who put it up two years ago – and Björck himself.
Which says that he took the lamp down.”
“Where did the rope come from?”
“From the flagpole in the garden. Someone cut off about
two metres of rope. There was a Mora sheath knife on the
windowsill outside the back door. According to the owner of
the house, it’s his knife. He normally keeps in a tool drawer
underneath the draining board. Björck’s prints were on the
handle and the blade, as well as the tool drawer.”
“Hmm,” Modig said.
“What sort of knots?” Andersson said.
“Granny knots. Even the noose was just a loop. It’s
probably the only thing that’s a bit odd. Björck was a sailor,
he would have known how to tie proper knots. But who
knows how much attention a person contemplating suicide
would pay to the knots on his own noose?”
“What about drugs?”
“According to the toxicology report, Björck had traces of a
strong painkiller in his blood. That medication had been
prescribed for him. He also had traces of alcohol, but the
percentage was negligible. In other words, he was more or
less sober.”
“The pathologist wrote that there were graze wounds.”
“A graze over three centimetres long on the outside of his
left knee. A scratch, really. I’ve thought about it, but it could
have come about in a dozen different ways … for instance,
if he walked into the corner of a table or a bench, whatever.
”
Modig held up a photograph of Björck’s distorted face. The
noose had cut so deeply into his flesh that the rope itself
was hidden in the skin of his neck. The face was
grotesquely swollen.
grotesquely swollen.
“He hung there for something like twenty-four hours before
the hook gave way. All the blood was either in his head –
the noose having prevented it from running into his body –
or in the lower extremities. When the hook came out and
his body fell, his chest hit the coffee table, causing deep
bruising there. But this injury happened long after the time
of death.”
“Hell of a way to die,” said Andersson.
“I don’t know. The noose was so thin that it pinched deep
and stopped the blood flow. He was probably unconscious
within a few seconds and dead in one or two minutes.”
Bublanski closed the preliminary report with distaste. He
did not like this. He absolutely did not like the fact that
Zalachenko and Björck had, so far as they could tell, both
died on the same day. But no amount of speculating could
change the fact that the crime scene investigation offered
no grain of support to the theory that a third party had
helped Björck on his way.
“He was under a lot of pressure,” Bublanski said. “He knew
that the whole Zalachenko affair was in danger of being
exposed and that he risked a prison sentence for sex-trade
crimes, plus being hung out to dry in the media. I wonder
which scared him more. He was sick, had been suffering
which scared him more. He was sick, had been suffering
chronic pain for a long time … I don’t know. I wish he had
left a letter.”
“Many suicides don’t.”
“I know. O.K. We’ll put Björck to one side for now. We have
no choice.”
Berger could not bring herself to sit at Morander’s desk
right away, or to move his belongings aside. She arranged
for Magnusson to talk to Morander’s family so that the
widow could come herself when it was convenient, or send
someone to sort out his things.
Instead she had an area cleared off the central desk in the
heart of the newsroom, and there she set up her laptop
and took command. It was chaotic. But three hours after
she had taken the helm of S.M.P. in such appalling
circumstances, the front page went to press. Magnusson
had put together a four-column article about Morander’s
life and career. The page was designed around a black-bordered portrait, almost all of it above the fold, with his
unfinished editorial to the left and a frieze of photographs
along the bottom edge. The layout was not perfect, but it
had a strong moral and emotional impact.
Just before 6.00, as Berger was going through the
headlines on page two and discussing the texts with the
headlines on page two and discussing the texts with the
head of revisions, Borgsjö approached and touched her
shoulder. She looked up.
“Could I have a word?”
They went together to the coffee machine in the canteen.
“I just wanted to say that I’m really very pleased with the
way you took control today. I think you surprised us all.”
“I didn’t have much choice. But I may stumble a bit before I
really get going.”
“We understand that.”
“We?”
“I mean the staff and the board. The board especially. But
after what happened today I’m more than ever persuaded
that you were the ideal choice. You came here in the nick
of time, and you took charge in a very difficult situation.”
Berger almost blushed. But she had not done that since
she was fourteen.
“Could I give you a piece of advice?”
“Of course.”
“I heard that you had a disagreement about a headline with
Anders Holm.”
“We didn’t agree on the angle in the article about the
government’s tax proposal. He inserted an opinion into the
headline in the news section, which is supposed to be
neutral. Opinions should be reserved for the editorial page.
And while I’m on this topic … I’ll be writing editorials from
time to time, but as I told you I’m not active in any political
party, so we have to solve the problem of who’s going to be
in charge of the editorial section.”
“Magnusson can take over for the time being,” said Borgsjö
.
Erika shrugged. “It makes no difference to me who you
appoint. But it should be somebody who clearly stands for
the newspaper’s views. That’s where they should be aired
… not in the news section.”
“Quite right. What I wanted to say was that you’ll probably
have to give Holm some concessions. He’s worked at
S.M.P. a long time and he’s been news chief for fifteen
years. He knows what he’s doing. He can be surly
sometimes, but he’s irreplaceable.”
“I know. Morander told me. But when it comes to policy he’s
going to have to toe the line. I’m the one you hired to run
the paper.”
Borgsjö thought for a moment and said: “We’re going to
have to solve these problems as they come up.”
Giannini was both tired and irritated on Wednesday
evening as she boarded the X2000 at Göteborg Central
Station. She felt as if she had been living on the X2000 for
a month. She bought a coffee in the restaurant car, went to
her seat, and opened the folder of notes from her last
conversation with Salander. Who was also the reason why
she was feeling tired and irritated.
She’s hiding something. That little fool is not telling me the
truth. And Micke is hiding something too. God knows what
they’re playing at.
She also decided that since her brother and her client had
not so far communicated with each other, the conspiracy –
if it was one – had to be a tacit agreement that had
developed naturally. She did not understand what it was
about, but it had to be something that her brother
considered important enough to conceal.
She was afraid that it was a moral issue, and that was one
of his weaknesses. He was Salander’s friend. She knew
her brother. She knew that he was loyal to the point of
foolhardiness once he had made someone a friend, even if
the friend was impossible and obviously flawed. She also
the friend was impossible and obviously flawed. She also
knew that he could accept any number of idiocies from his
friends, but that there was a boundary and it could not be
infringed. Where exactly this boundary was seemed to vary
from one person to another, but she knew he had broken
completely with people who had previously been close
friends because they had done something that he
regarded as beyond the pale. And he was inflexible. The
break was for ever.
Giannini understood what went on in her brother’s head.
But she had no idea what Salander was up to. Sometimes
she thought that there was nothing going on in there at all.
She had gathered that Salander could be moody and
withdrawn. Until she met her in person, Giannini had
supposed it must be some phase, and that it was a
question of gaining her trust. But after a month of
conversations – ignoring the fact that the first two weeks
had been wasted time because Salander was hardly able
to speak – their communication was still distinctly one-sided.
Salander seemed at times to be in a deep depression and
had not the slightest interest in dealing with her situation or
her future. She simply did not grasp or did not care that the
only way Giannini could provide her with an effective
defence would be if she had access to all the facts. There
was no way in the world she was going to be able to work in
was no way in the world she was going to be able to work in
the dark.
Salander was sulky and often just silent. When she did say
something, she took a long time to think and she chose her
words carefully. Often she did not reply at all, and
sometimes she would answer a question that Giannini had
asked several days earlier. During the police interviews,
Salander had sat in utter silence, staring straight ahead.
With rare exceptions, she had refused to say a single word
to the police. The exceptions were on those occasions
when Inspector Erlander had asked her what she knew
about Niedermann. Then she looked up at him and
answered every question in a perfectly matter-of-fact way.
As soon as he changed the subject, she lost interest.
On principle, she knew, Salander never talked to the
authorities. In this case, that was an advantage. Despite
the fact that she kept urging her client to answer questions
from the police, deep inside she was pleased with
Salander’s silence. The reason was simple. It was a
consistent silence. It contained no lies that could entangle
her, no contradictory reasoning that would look bad in
court.
But she was astonished at how imperturbable Salander
was. When they were alone she had asked her why she so
provocatively refused to talk to the police.
“They’ll twist what I say and use it against me.”
“But if you don’t explain yourself, you risk being convicted
anyway.”
“Then that’s how it’ll have to be. I didn’t make all this mess.
And if they want to convict me, it’s not my problem.”
Salander had in the end described to her lawyer almost
everything that had happened at Stallarholmen. All except
for one thing. She would not explain how Magge Lundin
had ended up with a bullet in his foot. No matter how much
she asked and nagged, Salander would just stare at her
and smile her crooked smile.
She had also told Giannini what happened in Gosseberga.
But she had not said anything about why she had run her
father to ground. Did she go there expressly to murder him
– as the prosecutor claimed – or was it to make him listen
to reason?
When Giannini raised the subject of her former guardian,
Nils Bjurman, Salander said only that she was not the one
who shot him. And that particular murder was no longer
one of the charges against her. And when Giannini
reached the very crux of the whole chain of events, the role
of Dr Teleborian in the psychiatric clinic in 1991, Salander
lapsed into such inexhaustible silence that it seemed she
might never utter a word again.
This is getting us nowhere, Giannini decided. If she won’t
trust me, we’re going to lose the case.
Salander sat on the edge of her bed, looking out of the
window. She could see the building on the other side of the
car park. She had sat undisturbed and motionless for an
hour, ever since Giannini had stormed out and slammed
the door behind her. She had a headache again, but it was
mild and it was distant. Yet she felt uncomfortable.
She was irritated with Giannini. From a practical point of
view she could see why her lawyer kept going on and on
about details from her past. Rationally she understood it.
Giannini needed to have all the facts. But she did not have
the remotest wish to talk about her feelings or her actions.
Her life was her own business. It was not her fault that her
father had been a pathological sadist and murderer. It was
not her fault that her brother was a murderer. And thank
God nobody yet knew that he was her brother, which would
otherwise no doubt also be held against her in the
psychiatric evaluation that sooner or later would inevitably
be conducted. She was not the one who had killed
Svensson and Johansson. She was not responsible for
appointing a guardian who turned out to be a pig and a
rapist.
And yet it was her life that was going to be turned inside
out. She would be forced to explain herself and to beg for
forgiveness because she had defended herself.
She just wanted to be left in peace. And when it came down
to it, she was the one who would have to live with herself.
She did not expect anyone to be her friend. Annika Bloody
Giannini was most likely on her side, but it was the
professional friendship of a professional person who was
her lawyer. Kalle Bastard Blomkvist was out there
somewhere – Giannini was for some reason reluctant to
talk about her brother, and Salander never asked. She did
not expect that he would be quite so interested now that
the Svensson murder was solved and he had got his story.
She wondered what Armansky thought of her after all that
had happened.
She wondered how Holger Palmgren viewed the situation.
According to Giannini, both of them had said they would be
in her corner, but that was words. They could not do
anything to solve her private problems.
She wondered what Miriam Wu felt about her.
She wondered what she thought of herself, come to that,
and came to the realization that most of all she felt
indifference towards her entire life.
She was interrupted when the Securitas guard put the key
in the door to let in Dr Jonasson.
“Good evening, Fröken Salander. And how are you feeling
today?”
“O.K.,” she said.
He checked her chart and saw that she was free of her
fever. She had got used to his visits, which came a couple
of times a week. Of all the people who touched her and
poked at her, he was the only one in whom she felt a
measure of trust. She never felt that he was giving her
strange looks. He visited her room, chatted a while, and
examined her to check on her progress. He did not ask any
questions about Niedermann or Zalachenko, or whether
she was off her rocker or why the police kept her locked
up. He seemed to be interested only in how her muscles
were working, how the healing in her brain was
progressing, and how she felt in general.
Besides, he had – literally – rootled around in her brain.
Someone who rummaged around in your brain had to be
treated with respect. To her surprise she found the visits of
Dr Jonasson pleasant, despite the fact that he poked at
her and fussed over her fever chart.
“Do you mind if I check?”
He made his usual examination, looking at her pupils,
listening to her breathing, taking her pulse, her blood
pressure, and checking how she swallowed.
“How am I doing?”
“You’re on the road to recovery. But you have to work
harder on the exercises. And you’re picking at the scab on
your head. You need to stop that.” He paused. “May I ask a
personal question?”
She looked at him. He waited until she nodded.
“That dragon tattoo … Why did you get it?”
“You didn’t see it before?”
He smiled all of a sudden.
“I mean I’ve glanced at it, but when you were uncovered I
was pretty busy stopping the bleeding and extracting
bullets and so on.”
“Why do you ask?”
“Out of curiosity, nothing more.”
Salander thought for a while. Then she looked at him.
“I got it for reasons that I don’t want to discuss.”
“Forget I asked.”
“Do you want to see it?”
He looked surprised. “Sure. Why not?”
She turned her back and pulled the hospital gown off her
shoulder. She sat so that the light from the window fell on
her back. He looked at her dragon. It was beautiful and well
done, a work of art.
After a while she turned her head.
“Satisfied?”
“It’s beautiful. But it must have hurt like hell.”
“Yes,” she said. “It hurt.”
*
Jonasson left Salander’s room somewhat confused. He was
satisfied with the progress of her physical rehabilitation.
But he could not work out this strange girl. He did not need
a master’s degree in psychology to know that she was not
doing very well emotionally. The tone she used with him
was polite, but riddled with suspicion. He had also gathered
that she was polite to the rest of the staff but never said a
that she was polite to the rest of the staff but never said a
word when the police came to see her. She was locked up
inside her shell and kept her distance from those around
her.
The police had locked her in her hospital room, and a
prosecutor intended to charge her with attempted murder
and grievous bodily harm. He was amazed that such a
small, thin girl had the physical strength for this sort of
violent criminality, especially when the violence was
directed at full-grown men.
He had asked about her dragon tattoo, hoping to find a
personal topic he could discuss with her. He was not
particularly interested in why she had decorated herself in
such a way, but he supposed that since she had chosen
such a striking tattoo, it must have a special meaning for
her. He thought simply that it might be a way to start a
conversation.
His visits to her were outside his schedule, since Dr Endrin
was assigned to her case. But Jonasson was head of the
trauma unit, and he was proud of what had been achieved
that night when Salander was brought into A. & E. He had
made the right decision, electing to remove the bullet. As
far as he could see she had no complications in the form of
memory lapses, diminished bodily function, or other
handicaps from the injury. If she continued to heal at the
same pace, she would leave hospital with a scar on her
same pace, she would leave hospital with a scar on her
scalp, but with no other visible damage. Scars on her soul
were another matter.
Returning to his office he discovered a man in a dark suit
leaning against the wall outside his door. He had a thick
head of hair and a well-groomed beard.
“Dr Jonasson?”
“Yes?”
“My name is Peter Teleborian. I’m the head physician at St
Stefan’s psychiatric clinic in Uppsala.”
“Yes, I recognize you.”
“Good. I’d like to have a word in private with you if you
have a moment.”
Jonasson unlocked the door and ushered the visitor in.
“How can I help you?”
“It’s about one of your patients, Lisbeth Salander. I need to
visit her.”
“You’ll have to get permission from the prosecutor. She’s
under arrest and all visitors are prohibited. And any
applications for visits must also be referred in advance to
Salander’s lawyer.”
Salander’s lawyer.”
“Yes, yes, I know. I thought we might be able to cut through
all the red tape in this case. I’m a physician, so you could
let me have the opportunity to visit her on medical grounds.
”
“Yes, there might be a case for that, but I can’t see what
your objective is.”
“For several years I was Lisbeth Salander’s psychiatrist
when she was institutionalized at St Stefan’s. I followed up
with her until she turned eighteen, when the district court
released her back into society, albeit under guardianship. I
should perhaps mention that I opposed that action. Since
then she has been allowed to drift aimlessly, and the
consequences are there for all to see today.”
“Indeed?”
“I feel a great responsibility towards her still, and would
value the chance to gauge how much deterioration has
occurred over the past ten years.”
“Deterioration?”
“Compared with when she was receiving qualified care as a
teenager. I thought we might be able to come to an
understanding here, as one doctor to another.”
“While I have it fresh in my mind, perhaps you could help
me with a matter I don’t quite understand … as one doctor
to another, that is. When she was admitted to Sahlgrenska
hospital I performed a comprehensive medical examination
on her. A colleague sent for the forensic report on the
patient. It was signed by a Dr Jesper H. Löderman.”
“That’s correct. I was Dr Löderman’s assistant when he was
in practice.”
“I see. But I noticed that the report was vague in the
extreme.”
“Really?”
“It contains no diagnosis. It almost seems to be an
academic study of a patient who refuses to speak.”
Teleborian laughed. “Yes, she certainly isn’t easy to deal
with. As it says in the report, she consistently refused to
participate in conversations with Dr Löderman. With the
result that he was bound to express himself rather
imprecisely. Which was entirely correct on his part.”
“And yet the recommendation was that she should be
institutionalized?”
“That was based on her prior history. We had experience
with her pathology compiled over many years.”
“That’s exactly what I don’t understand. When she was
admitted here, we sent for a copy of her file from St
Stefan’s. But we still haven’t received it.”
“I’m sorry about that. But it’s been classified Top Secret by
order of the district court.”
“And how are we supposed to give her the proper care
here if we can’t have access to her records? The medical
responsibility for her right now is ours, no-one else’s.”
“I’ve taken care of her since she was twelve, and I don’t
think there is any other doctor in Sweden with the same
insight into her clinical condition.”
“Which is what …?”
“Lisbeth Salander suffers from a serious mental disorder.
Psychiatry, as you know, is not an exact science. I would
hesitate to confine myself to an exact diagnosis, but she
has obvious delusions with distinct paranoid schizophrenic
characteristics. Her clinical status also includes periods of
manic depression and she lacks empathy.”
Jonasson looked intently at Dr Teleborian for ten seconds
before he said: “I won’t argue a diagnosis with you, Dr
Teleborian, but have you ever considered a significantly
simpler diagnosis?”
simpler diagnosis?”
“Such as?”
“For example, Asperger’s syndrome. Of course I haven’t
done a psychiatric evaluation of her, but if I had
spontaneously to hazard a guess, I would consider some
form of autism. That would explain her inability to relate to
social conventions.”
“I’m sorry, but Asperger’s patients do not generally set fire
to their parents. Believe me, I’ve never met so clearly
defined a sociopath.”
“I consider her to be withdrawn, but not a paranoid
sociopath.”
“She is extremely manipulative,” Teleborian said. “She acts
the way she thinks you would expect her to act.”
Jonasson frowned. Teleborian was contradicting his own
reading of Salander. If there was one thing Jonasson felt
sure about her, it was that she was certainly not
manipulative. On the contrary, she was a person who
stubbornly kept her distance from those around her and
showed no emotion at all. He tried to reconcile the picture
that Teleborian was painting with his own image of
Salander.
“And you have seen her only for a short period when she
has been forced to be passive because of her injuries. I
have witnessed her violent outbursts and unreasoning
hatred. I have spent years trying to help Lisbeth Salander.
That’s why I’m here. I propose a co-operation between
Sahlgrenska hospital and St Stefan’s.”
“What sort of co-operation are you talking about?”
“You’re responsible for her medical condition, and I’m
convinced that it’s the best care she could receive. But I’m
extremely worried about her mental state, and I would like
to be included at an early stage. I’m ready to offer all the
help I can.”
“I see.”
“So I do need to visit her to do a first-hand evaluation of
her condition.”
“There, unfortunately, I cannot help you.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“As I said, she’s under arrest. If you want to initiate any
psychiatric treatment of her, you’ll have to apply to
Prosecutor Jervas here in Göteborg. She’s the one who
makes the decisions on these things. And it would have to
be done, I repeat, in co-operation with her lawyer, Annika
Giannini. If it’s a matter of a forensic psychiatric report,
Giannini. If it’s a matter of a forensic psychiatric report,
then the district court would have to issue you a warrant.”
“It was just that sort of bureaucratic procedure I wanted to
avoid.”
“Understood, but I’m responsible for her, and if she’s going
to be taken to court in the near future, we need to have
clear documentation of all the measures we have taken. So
we’re bound to observe the bureaucratic procedures.”
“Alright. Then I might as well tell you that I’ve already
received a formal commission from Prosecutor Ekström in
Stockholm to do a forensic psychiatric report. It will be
needed in connection with the trial.”
“Then you can also obtain formal access to visit her
through the appropriate channels without side-stepping
regulations.”
“But while we’re going backwards and forwards with
bureaucracy, there is a risk that her condition may continue
to deteriorate. I’m only interested in her wellbeing.”
“And so am I,” Jonasson said. “And between us, I can tell
you that I see no sign of mental illness. She has been
badly treated and is under a lot of pressure. But I see no
evidence whatsoever that she is schizophrenic or suffering
from paranoid delusions.”
When at long last he realized that it was fruitless trying to
persuade Jonasson to change his mind, Teleborian got up
abruptly and took his leave.
Jonasson sat for a while, staring at the chair Teleborian
had been sitting in. It was not unusual for other doctors to
contact him with advice or opinions on treatment. But that
usually happened only with patients whose doctors were
already managing their treatment. He had never before
seen a psychiatrist land like a flying saucer and more or
less demand to be given access to a patient, ignoring all
the protocols, and a patient, at that, whom he obviously
had not been treating for several years. After a while
Jonasson glanced at his watch and saw that it was almost
7.00. He picked up the telephone and called Martina
Karlgren, the psychologist at Sahlgrenska who had been
made available to trauma patients.
“Hello. I’m assuming you’ve already left for the day. Am I
disturbing you?”
“No problem. I’m at home, but just pottering.”
“I’m curious about something. You’ve spoken to our
notorious patient, Lisbeth Salander. Could you give me
your impression of her?”
“Well, I’ve visited her three times and offered to talk with
her. Every time she declined in a friendly but firm way.”
her. Every time she declined in a friendly but firm way.”
“What’s your impression of her?”
“What do you mean?”
“Martina, I know that you’re not a psychiatrist, but you’re an
intelligent and sensible person. What general impression
did you get of her nature, her state of mind?”
After a while Karlgren said: “I’m not sure how I should
answer that question. I saw her twice soon after she was
admitted, but she was in such wretched shape that I didn’t
make any real contact with her. Then I visited her about a
week ago, at the request of Helena Endrin.”
“Why did Helena ask you to visit her?”
“Salander is starting to recover. She mainly just lies there
staring at the ceiling. Dr Endrin wanted me to look in on
her.”
“And what happened?”
“I introduced myself. We chatted for a couple of minutes. I
asked how she was feeling and whether she felt the need
to have someone to talk to. She said that she didn’t. I
asked if I could help her with anything. She asked me to
smuggle in a pack of cigarettes.”
“Was she angry, or hostile?”
“No, I wouldn’t say that. She was calm, but she kept her
distance. I considered her request for cigarettes more of a
joke than a serious need. I asked if she wanted something
to read, whether I could bring her books of any sort. At first
she said no, but later she asked if I had any scientific
journals that dealt with genetics and brain research.”
“With what?”
“Genetics.”
“Genetics?”
“Yes. I told her that there were some popular science
books on the subject in our library. She wasn’t interested in
those. She said she’d read books on the subject before,
and she named some standard works that I’d never heard
of. She was more interested in pure research in the field.”
“Good grief.”
“I said that we probably didn’t have any more advanced
books in the patient library – we have more Philip Marlowe
than scientific literature – but that I’d see what I could dig
up.”
“And did you?”
“I went upstairs and borrowed some copies of Nature
magazine and The New England Journal of Medicine. She
was pleased and thanked me for taking the trouble.”
“But those journals contain mostly scholarly papers and
pure research.”
“She reads them with obvious interest.”
Jonasson sat speechless for a moment.
“And how would you rate her mental state?”
“Withdrawn. She hasn’t discussed anything of a personal
nature with me.”
“Do you have the sense that she’s mentally ill? Manic
depressive or paranoid?”
“No, no, not at all. If I thought that, I’d have sounded the
alarm. She’s strange, no doubt about it, and she has big
problems and is under stress. But she’s calm and matter-of-fact and seems to be able to cope with her situation.
Why do you ask? Has something happened?”
“No, nothing’s happened. I’m just trying to take stock of her.
”
CHAPTER 10
Saturday, 7.v – Thursday,
12.v
Blomkvist put his laptop case on the desk. It
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