CHAPTER 10
Saturday, 7.v – Thursday,
12.v
Blomkvist put his laptop case on the desk. It contained the
findings of Olsson, the stringer in Göteborg. He watched
the flow of people on Götgatan. That was one of the things
he liked best about his office. Götgatan was full of life at all
hours of the day and night, and when he sat by the window
he never felt isolated, never alone.
He was under great pressure. He had kept working on the
articles that were to go into the summer issue, but he had
finally realized that there was so much material that not
even an issue devoted entirely to the topic would be
sufficient. He had ended up in the same situation as during
the Wennerström affair, and he had again decided to
publish all the articles as a book. He had enough text
already for 150 pages, and he reckoned that the final book
would run to 320 or 336 pages.
The easy part was done. He had written about the murders
of Svensson and Johansson and described how he
happened to be the one who came upon the scene. He
had dealt with why Salander had become a suspect. He
had dealt with why Salander had become a suspect. He
spent a chapter debunking first what the press had written
about Salander, then what Prosecutor Ekström had
claimed, and thereby indirectly the entire police
investigation. After long deliberation he had toned down his
criticism of Bublanski and his team. He did this after
studying a video from Ekström’s press conference, in which
it was clear that Bublanski was uncomfortable in the
extreme and obviously annoyed at Ekström’s rapid
conclusions.
After the introductory drama, he had gone back in time and
described Zalachenko’s arrival in Sweden, Salander’s
childhood, and the events that led to her being locked
away in St Stefan’s in Uppsala. He was careful to annihilate
both Teleborian and the now dead Björck. He rehearsed
the psychiatric report of 1991 and explained why Salander
had become a threat to certain unknown civil servants who
had taken it upon themselves to protect the Russian
defector. He quoted from the correspondence between
Teleborian and Björck.
He then described Zalachenko’s new identity and his
criminal operations. He described his assistant
Niedermann, the kidnapping of Miriam Wu, and Paolo
Roberto’s intervention. Finally, he summed up the
dénouement in Gosseberga which led to Salander being
shot and buried alive, and explained how a policeman’s
death was a needless catastrophe because Niedermann
had already been shackled.
Thereafter the story became more sluggish. Blomkvist’s
problem was that the account still had gaping holes in it.
Björck had not acted alone. Behind this chain of events
there had to be a larger group with resources and political
influence. Anything else did not make sense. But he had
eventually come to the conclusion that the unlawful
treatment of Salander would not have been sanctioned by
the government or the bosses of the Security Police.
Behind this conclusion lay no exaggerated trust in
government, but rather his faith in human nature. An
operation of that type could never have been kept secret if
it were politically motivated. Someone would have called in
a favour and got someone to talk, and the press would
have uncovered the Salander affair several years earlier.
He thought of the Zalachenko club as small and
anonymous. He could not identify any one of them, except
possibly Mårtensson, a policeman with a secret
appointment who devoted himself to shadowing the
publisher of Millennium.
It was now clear that Salander would definitely go to trial.
Ekström had brought a charge for grievous bodily harm in
the case of Magge Lundin, and grievous bodily harm or
attempted murder in the case of Karl Axel Bodin.
attempted murder in the case of Karl Axel Bodin.
No date had yet been set, but his colleagues had learned
that Ekström was planning for a trial in July, depending on
the state of Salander’s health. Blomkvist understood the
reasoning. A trial during the peak holiday season would
attract less attention than one at any other time of the year.
Blomkvist’s plan was to have the book printed and ready to
distribute on the first day of the trial. He and Malm had
thought of a paperback edition, shrink-wrapped and sent
out with the special summer issue. Various assignments
had been given to Cortez and Eriksson, who were to
produce articles on the history of the Security Police, the IB
affair,* and the like.
He frowned as he stared out of the window.
It’s not over. The conspiracy is continuing. It’s the only way
to explain the tapped telephones, the attack on Annika,
and the double theft of the Salander report. Perhaps the
murder of Zalachenko is a part of it too.
But he had no evidence.
Together with Eriksson and Malm, he had decided that
Millennium Publishing would publish Svensson’s text about
sex trafficking, also to coincide with the trial. It was better to
present the package all at once, and besides, there was no
reason to delay publication. On the contrary – the book
reason to delay publication. On the contrary – the book
would never be able to attract the same attention at any
other time. Eriksson was Blomkvist’s principal assistant for
the Salander book. Karim and Malm (against his will) had
thus become temporary assistant editors at Millennium,
with Nilsson as the only available reporter. One result of
this increased workload was that Eriksson had had to
contract several freelancers to produce articles for future
issues. It was expensive, but they had no choice.
Blomkvist wrote a note on a yellow Post-it, reminding
himself to discuss the rights to the book with Svensson’s
family. His parents lived in Örebro and they were his sole
heirs. He did not really need permission to publish the book
in Svensson’s name, but he wanted to go and see them to
get their approval. He had postponed the visit because he
had had too much to do, but now it was time to take care of
the matter.
Then there were a hundred other details. Some of them
concerned how he should present Salander in the articles.
To make the ultimate decision he needed to have a
personal conversation with her to get her approval to tell
the truth, or at least parts of it. And he could not have that
conversation because she was under arrest and no visitors
were allowed.
In that respect, his sister was no help either. Slavishly she
followed the regulations and had no intention of acting as
Blomkvist’s go-between. Nor did Giannini tell him anything
of what she and her client discussed, other than the parts
that concerned the conspiracy against her – Giannini
needed help with those. It was frustrating, but all very
correct. Consequently Blomkvist had no clue whether
Salander had revealed that her previous guardian had
raped her, or that she had taken revenge by tattooing a
shocking message on his stomach. As long as Giannini did
not mention the matter, neither could he.
But Salander’s being isolated presented one other acute
problem. She was a computer expert, also a hacker, which
Blomkvist knew but Giannini did not. Blomkvist had
promised Salander that he would never reveal her secret,
and he had kept his promise. But now he had a great need
for her skills in that field.
Somehow he had to establish contact with her.
He sighed as he opened Olsson’s folder again. There was
a photocopy of a passport application form for one Idris
Ghidi, born 1950. A man with a moustache, olive skin and
black hair going grey at the temples.
He was Kurdish, a refugee from Iraq. Olsson had dug up
much more on Ghidi than on any other hospital worker.
Ghidi had apparently aroused media attention for a time,
and appeared in several articles.
and appeared in several articles.
Born in the city of Mosul in northern Iraq, he graduated as
an engineer and had been part of the “great economic
leap forward” in the ’70s. In 1984 he was a teacher at the
College of Construction Technology in Mosul. He had not
been known as a political activist, but he was a Kurd, and
so a potential criminal in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. In 1987
Ghidi’s father was arrested on suspicion of being a Kurdish
militant. No elaboration was forthcoming. He was executed
in January 1988. Two months later Idris Ghidi was seized
by the Iraqi secret police, taken to a prison outside Mosul,
and tortured there for eleven months to make him confess.
What he was expected to confess, Ghidi never discovered,
so the torture continued.
In March 1989, one of Ghidi’s uncles paid the equivalent of
50,000 Swedish kronor, to the local leader of the Ba’ath
Party, as compensation for the injury Ghidi had caused the
Iraqi state. Two days later he was released into his uncle’s
custody. He weighed thirty-nine kilos and was unable to
walk. Before his release, his left hip was smashed with a
sledgehammer to discourage any mischief in the future.
He hovered between life and death for several weeks.
When, slowly, he began to recover, his uncle took him to a
farm well away from Mosul and there, over the summer, he
regained his strength and was eventually able to walk
again with crutches. He would never regain full health. The
again with crutches. He would never regain full health. The
question was: what was he going to do in the future? In
August he learned that his two brothers had been arrested.
He would never see them again. When his uncle heard that
Saddam Hussein’s police were looking once more for Ghidi,
he arranged, for a fee of 30,000 kronor, to get him across
the border into Turkey and thence with a false passport to
Europe.
Idris Ghidi landed at Arlanda airport in Sweden on 19
October, 1989. He did not know a word of Swedish, but he
had been told to go to the passport police and immediately
to ask for political asylum, which he did in broken English.
He was sent to a refugee camp in Upplands Väsby. There
he would spend almost two years, until the immigration
authorities decided that Ghidi did not have sufficient
grounds for a residency permit.
By this time Ghidi had learned Swedish and obtained
treatment for his shattered hip. He had two operations and
could now walk without crutches. During that period the
Sjöbo debate* had been conducted in Sweden, refugee
camps had been attacked, and Bert Karlsson had formed
the New Democracy Party.
The reason why Ghidi had appeared so frequently in the
press archives was that at the eleventh hour he came by a
new lawyer who went directly to the press, and they
published reports on his case. Other Kurds in Sweden got
published reports on his case. Other Kurds in Sweden got
involved, including members of the prominent Baksi family.
Protest meetings were held and petitions were sent to
Minister of Immigration Birgit Friggebo, with the result that
Ghidi was granted both a residency permit and a work visa
in the kingdom of Sweden. In January 1992 he left
Upplands Väsby a free man.
Ghidi soon discovered that being a well-educated and
experienced construction engineer counted for nothing. He
worked as a newspaper boy, a dish-washer, a doorman,
and a taxi driver. He liked being a taxi driver except for two
things. He had no local knowledge of the streets in
Stockholm county, and he could not sit still for more than
an hour before the pain in his hip became unbearable.
In May 1998 he moved to Göteborg after a distant relative
took pity on him and offered him a steady job at an office-cleaning firm. He was given a part-time job managing a
cleaning crew at Sahlgrenska hospital, with which the
company had a contract. The work was routine. He
swabbed floors six days a week including, as Olsson’s
ferreting had revealed, in corridor 11C.
Blomkvist studied the photograph of Idris Ghidi from the
passport application. Then he logged on to the media
archive and picked out several of the articles on which
Olsson’s report was based. He read attentively. He lit a
cigarette. The smoking ban at Millennium had soon been
cigarette. The smoking ban at Millennium had soon been
relaxed after Berger left. Cortez now kept an ashtray on his
desk.
Finally Blomkvist read what Olsson had produced about Dr
Anders Jonasson.
Blomkvist did not see the grey Volvo on Monday, nor did he
have the feeling that he was being watched or followed, but
he walked briskly from the Academic bookshop to the side
entrance of N.K. department store, and then straight
through and out of the main entrance. Anybody who could
keep up surveillance inside the bustling N.K. would have to
be superhuman. He turned off both his mobiles and walked
through the Galleria to Gustav Adolfs Torg, past the
parliament building, and into Gamla Stan. Just in case
anyone was still following him, he took a zigzag route
through the narrow streets of the old city until he reached
the right address and knocked at the door of Black/White
Publishing.
It was 2.30 in the afternoon. He was there without warning,
but the editor, Kurdo Baksi, was in and delighted to see
him.
“Hello there,” he said heartily. “Why don’t you ever come
and visit me any more?”
“I’m here to see you right now,” Blomkvist said.
“Sure, but it’s been three years since the last time.”
They shook hands.
Blomkvist had known Baksi since the ’80s. Actually,
Blomkvist had been one of the people who gave Baksi
practical help when he started the magazine Black/White
with an issue that he produced secretly at night at the
Trades Union Federation offices. Baksi had been caught in
the act by Per-Erik Åström – the same man who went on to
be the paedophile hunter at Save the Children – who in the
’80s was the research secretary at the Trades Union
Federation. He had discovered stacks of pages from
Black/White’s first issue along with an oddly subdued Baksi
in one of the copy rooms. Åström had looked at the front
page and said: “God Almighty, that’s not how a magazine is
supposed to look.” After that Åström had designed the logo
that was on Black/White’s masthead for fifteen years
before Black/White magazine went to its grave and
became the book publishing house Black/White. At the
same time Blomkvist had been suffering through an
appalling period as I.T. consultant at the Trades Union
Federation – his only venture into the I.T. field. Åström had
enlisted him to proofread and give Black/White some
editorial support. Baksi and Blomkvist had been friends
ever since.
Blomkvist sat on a sofa while Baksi got coffee from a
machine in the hallway. They chatted for a while, the way
you do when you haven’t seen someone for some time, but
they were constantly being interrupted by Baksi’s mobile.
He would have urgent-sounding conversations in Kurdish
or possibly Turkish or Arabic or some other language that
Blomkvist did not understand. It had always been this way
on his other visits to Black/White Publishing. People called
from all over the world to talk to Baksi.
“My dear Mikael, you look worried. What’s on your mind?”
he said at last.
“Could you turn off your telephone for a few minutes?”
Baksi turned off his telephone.
“I need a favour. A really important favour, and it has to be
done immediately and cannot be mentioned outside this
room.”
“Tell me.”
“In 1989 a refugee by the name of Idris Ghidi came to
Sweden from Iraq. When he was faced with the prospect of
deportation, he received help from your family until he was
granted a residency permit. I don’t know if it was your
father or somebody else in the family who helped him.”
“It was my uncle Mahmut. I know Ghidi. What’s going on?”
“He’s working in Göteborg. I need his help to do a simple
job. I’m willing to pay him.”
“What kind of job?”
“Do you trust me, Kurdo?”
“Of course. We’ve always been friends.”
“The job I need done is very odd. I don’t want to say what it
entails right now, but I assure you it’s in no way illegal, nor
will it cause any problems for you or for Ghidi.”
Baksi gave Blomkvist a searching look. “You don’t want to
tell me what it’s about?”
“The fewer people who know, the better. But I need your
help for an introduction – so that Idris will listen to me.”
Baksi went to his desk and opened an address book. He
looked through it for a minute before he found the number.
Then he picked up the telephone. The conversation was in
Kurdish. Blomkvist could see from Baksi’s expression that
he started out with words of greeting and small talk before
he got serious and explained why he was calling. After a
while he said to Blomkvist:
“When do you want to meet him?”
“Friday afternoon, if that would work. Ask if I can visit him at
home.”
Baksi spoke for a short while before he hung up.
“Idris lives in Angered,” he said. “Do you have the
address?”
Blomkvist nodded.
“He’ll be home by 5.00 on Friday afternoon. You’re
welcome to visit him there.”
“Thanks, Kurdo.”
“He works at Sahlgrenska hospital as a cleaner,” Baksi
said.
“I know.”
“I couldn’t help reading in the papers that you’re mixed up
in this Salander story.”
“That’s right.”
“She was shot.”
“Yes.”
“I heard she’s at Sahlgrenska.”
“That’s also true.”
Baksi knew that Blomkvist was busy planning some sort of
mischief, which was what he was famous for doing. He had
known him since the ’80s. They might not have been best
friends, but they never argued either, and Blomkvist had
never hesitated if Baksi asked him a favour.
“Am I going to get mixed up in something I ought to know
about?”
“You’re not going to get involved. Your role was only to do
me the kindness of introducing me to one of your
acquaintances. And, I repeat, I won’t ask him to do anything
illegal.”
This assurance was enough for Baksi. Blomkvist stood up.
“I owe you one.”
“We always owe each other one.”
Cortez put down the telephone and drummed so loudly with
his fingertips on the edge of his desk that Nilsson glared at
him. But she could see that he was lost in his own
thoughts, and since she was feeling irritated in general she
decided not to take it out on him.
She knew that Blomkvist was doing a lot of whispering with
Cortez and Eriksson and Malm about the Salander story,
while she and Karim were expected to do all the spadework
for the next issue of a magazine that had not had any real
leadership since Berger left. Eriksson was fine, but she
lacked experience and the gravitas of Berger. And Cortez
was just a young whippersnapper.
Nilsson was not unhappy that she had been passed over,
nor did she want their jobs – that was the last thing she
wanted. Her own job was to keep tabs on the government
departments and parliament on behalf of Millennium. It was
a job she enjoyed, and she knew it inside out. Besides, she
had had it up to here with other work, like writing a column
in a trade journal every week, or various volunteer tasks
for Amnesty International and the like. She was not
interested in being editor-in-chief of Millennium and
working a minimum of twelve hours a day as well as
sacrificing her weekends.
She did, however, feel that something had changed at
Millennium. The magazine suddenly felt foreign. She could
not put her finger on what was wrong.
As always, Blomkvist was irresponsible and kept vanishing
on another of his mysterious trips, coming and going as he
pleased. He was one of the owners of Millennium, fair
enough, he could decide for himself what he wanted to do,
but Jesus, a little sense of responsibility would not hurt.
Malm was the other current part-owner, and he was about
as much help as he was when he was on holiday. He was
talented, no question, and he could step in and take over
the reins when Berger was away or busy, but usually he
just followed through with what other people had already
decided. He was brilliant at anything involving graphic
design or presentations, but he was right out of his depth
when it came to planning a magazine.
Nilsson frowned.
No, she was being unfair. What bothered her was that
something had happened at the office. Blomkvist was
working with Eriksson and Cortez, and the rest of them
were somehow excluded. Those three had formed an inner
circle and were always shutting themselves in Berger’s
office … well, Eriksson’s office, and then they’d all come
trooping out in silence. Under Berger’s leadership the
magazine had always been a collective.
Blomkvist was working on the Salander story and would not
share any part of it. But this was nothing new. He had not
said a word about the Wennerström story either – not even
Berger had known – but this time he had two confidants.
In a word, Nilsson was pissed off. She needed a holiday.
She needed to get away for a while. Then she saw Cortez
She needed to get away for a while. Then she saw Cortez
putting on his corduroy jacket.
“I’m going out for a while,” he said. “Could you tell Malin
that I’ll be back in two hours?”
“What’s going on?”
“I think I’ve got a lead on a story. A really good story. About
toilets. I want to check a few things, but if this pans out we’ll
have a fantastic article for the June issue.”
“Toilets,” Nilsson muttered. “A likely story.”
Berger clenched her teeth and put down the article about
the forthcoming Salander trial. It was short, two columns,
intended for page five under national news. She looked at
the text for a minute and pursed her lips. It was 3.30 on
Thursday. She had been working at S.M.P. for exactly
twelve days. She picked up the telephone and called Holm,
the news editor.
“Hello, it’s Berger. Could you find Johannes Frisk and bring
him to my office asap?”
She waited patiently until Holm sauntered into the glass
cage with the reporter Frisk in tow. Berger looked at her
watch.
“Twenty-two,” she said.
“Twenty-two what?” said Holm.
“Twenty-two minutes. That’s how long it’s taken you to get
up from the editorial desk, walk the fifteen metres to Frisk’s
desk, and drag yourself over here with him.”
“You said there was no rush. I was pretty busy.”
“I did not say there was no rush. I asked you to get Frisk
and come to my office. I said asap, and I meant asap, not
tonight or next week or whenever you feel like getting your
arse out of your chair.”
“But I don’t think—”
“Shut the door.”
She waited until Holm had closed the door behind him and
studied him in silence. He was without doubt a most
competent news editor. His role was to make sure that the
pages of S.M.P. were filled every day with the correct text,
logically organized, and appearing in the order and
position they had decided on in the morning meeting. This
meant that Holm was juggling a colossal number of tasks
every day. And he did it without ever dropping a ball.
The problem with him was that he persistently ignored the
decisions Berger made. She had done her best to find a
decisions Berger made. She had done her best to find a
formula for working with him. She had tried friendly
reasoning and direct orders, she had encouraged him to
think for himself, and generally she had done everything
she could think of to make him understand how she wanted
the newspaper to be shaped.
Nothing made any difference.
An article she had rejected in the afternoon would appear
in the newspaper sometime after she had gone home. We
had a hole we needed to fill so I had to put in something.
The headline that Berger had decided to use was suddenly
replaced by something entirely different. It was not always
a bad choice, but it would be done without her being
consulted. As an act of defiance.
It was always a matter of details. An editorial meeting at
2.00 was suddenly moved to 1.30 without her being told,
and most of the decisions were already made by the time
she arrived. I’m sorry … in the rush I forgot to let you know.
For the life of her, Berger could not see why Holm had
adopted this attitude towards her, but she knew that calm
discussions and friendly reprimands did not work. Until now
she had not confronted him in front of other colleagues in
the newsroom. Now it was time to express herself more
clearly, and this time in front of Frisk, which would ensure
clearly, and this time in front of Frisk, which would ensure
that the exchange was common knowledge in no time.
“The first thing I did when I started here was to tell you that
I had a special interest in everything to do with Lisbeth
Salander. I explained that I wanted information in advance
on all proposed articles, and that I wanted to look at and
approve everything that was to be published. I’ve reminded
you about this at least half a dozen times, most recently at
the editorial meeting on Friday. Which part of these
instructions do you not understand?”
“All the articles that are planned or in production are on the
daily memo on our intranet. They’re always sent to your
computer. You’re always kept informed,” Holm said.
“Bullshit,” Berger said. “When the city edition of the paper
landed in my letterbox this morning we had a three-column
story about Salander and the developments in the
Stallarholmen incident in our best news spot.”
“That was Margareta Orring’s article. She’s a freelancer,
she didn’t turn it in until 7.00 last night.”
“Margareta called me with the proposal at 11.00 yesterday
morning. You approved it and gave her the assignment at
11.30. You didn’t say a word about it at the two o’clock
meeting.”
“It’s in the daily memo.”
“Oh, right … here’s what it says in the daily memo: quote,
Margareta Orring, interview with Prosecutor Martina
Fransson, re: narcotics bust in Södertälje, unquote.”
“The basic story was an interview with Martina Fransson
about the confiscation of anabolic steroids. A would-be
Svavelsjö biker was busted for that,” Holm said.
“Exactly. And not a word in the daily memo about Svavelsjö
M.C., or that the interview would be focused on Magge
Lundin and Stallarholmen, and therefore the investigation
of Salander.”
“I assume it came up during the interview—”
“Anders, I don’t know why, but you’re standing here lying to
my face. I spoke to Margareta and she said that she clearly
explained to you what her interview was going to focus on.”
“I must not have realized that it would centre on Salander.
Then I got an article late in the evening. What was I
supposed to do, kill the whole story? Orring turned in a
good piece.”
“There I agree with you. It’s an excellent story. But that’s
now your third lie in about the same number of minutes.
Orring turned it in at 3.20 in the afternoon, long before I
went home at 6.00.”
“Berger, I don’t like your tone of voice.”
“Great. Then I can tell you that I like neither your tone nor
your evasions nor your lies.”
“It sounds as if you think I’m organizing some sort of
conspiracy against you.”
“You still haven’t answered the question. And item two:
today this piece by Johannes shows up on my desk. I can’t
recall having any discussion about it at the two o’clock
meeting. Why has one of our reporters spent the day
working on Salander without anybody telling me?”
Frisk squirmed. He was bright enough to keep his mouth
shut.
“So …,” Holm said. “We’re putting out a newspaper, and
there must be hundreds of articles you don’t know about.
We have routines here at S.M.P. and we all have to adapt
to them. I don’t have time to give special treatment to
specific articles.”
“I didn’t ask you to give special treatment to specific
articles. I asked you for two things: first, that I be informed
of everything that has a bearing on the Salander case.
Second, I want to approve everything we publish on that
topic. So, one more time … what part of my instructions did
topic. So, one more time … what part of my instructions did
you not understand?”
Holm sighed and adopted an exasperated expression.
“O.K.,” Berger said. “I’ll make myself crystal clear. I am not
going to argue with you about this. Just let’s see if you
understand this message. If it happens again I’m going to
relieve you of your job as news editor. You’ll hear bang-boom, and then you’ll find yourself editing the family page
or the comics page or something like that. I cannot have a
news editor that I can’t trust or work with and who devotes
his precious time to undermining my decisions.
Understood?”
Holm threw up his hands in a gesture that indicated he
considered Berger’s accusations to be absurd.
“Do you understand me? Yes or no?”
“I heard what you said.”
“I asked if you understood. Yes or no?”
“Do you really think you can get away with this? This paper
comes out because I and the other cogs in the machinery
work our backsides off. The board is going to—”
“The board is going to do as I say. I’m here to revamp this
paper. I have a carefully worded agreement that gives me
paper. I have a carefully worded agreement that gives me
the right to make far-reaching editorial changes at section
editors’ level. I can get rid of the dead meat and recruit new
blood from outside if I choose. And Holm … you’re starting
to look like dead meat to me.”
She fell silent. Holm met her gaze. He was furious.
“That’s all,” Berger said. “I suggest you consider very
carefully what we’ve talked about today.”
“I don’t think—”
“It’s up to you. That’s all. Now go.”
He turned on his heel and left the glass cage. She watched
him disappear into the editorial sea in the direction of the
canteen. Frisk stood up and made to follow.
“Not you, Johannes. You stay here and sit down.”
She picked up his article and read it one more time.
“You’re here on a temporary basis, I gather.”
“Yes. I’ve been here five months – this is my last week.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-seven.”
“Twenty-seven.”
“I apologize for putting you in the middle of a duel between
me and Holm. Tell me about this story.”
“I got a tip this morning and took it to Holm. He told me to
follow up on it.”
“I see. It’s about the police investigating the possibility that
Lisbeth Salander was mixed up in the sale of anabolic
steroids. Does this story have any connection to
yesterday’s article about Södertälje, in which steroids also
appeared?”
“Not that I know of, but it’s possible. This thing about
steroids has to do with her connection to boxers. Paolo
Roberto and his pals.”
“Paolo Roberto uses steroids?”
“What? No, of course not. It’s more about the boxing world
in general. Salander used to train at a gym in Söder. But
that’s the angle the police are taking. Not me. And
somewhere the idea seems to have popped up that she
might have been involved in selling steroids.”
“So there’s no actual substance to this story at all, just a
rumour?”
“It’s no rumour that the police are looking into the
possibility. Whether they’re right or wrong, I have no idea
yet.”
“O.K., Johannes. I want you to know that what I’m
discussing with you now has nothing to do with my dealings
with Holm. I think you’re an excellent reporter. You write well
and you have an eye for detail. In short, this is a good
story. My problem is that I don’t believe it.”
“I can assure you that it’s quite true.”
“And I have to explain to you why there’s a fundamental
flaw in the story. Where did the tip come from?”
“From a source within the police.”
“Who?”
Frisk hesitated. It was an automatic response. Like every
other journalist the world over, he was unwilling to name his
source. On the other hand, Berger was editor-in-chief and
therefore one of the few people who could demand that
information from him.
“An officer named Faste in the Violent Crimes Division.”
“Did he call you or did you call him?”
“He called me.”
“Why do you think he called you?”
“I interviewed him a couple of times during the hunt for
Salander. He knows who I am.”
“And he knows you’re twenty-seven and a temp and that
you’re useful when he wants to plant information that the
prosecutor wants put out.”
“Sure, I understand all that. But I get a tip from the police
investigation and go over and have a coffee with Faste and
he tells me this. He is correctly quoted. What am I
supposed to do?”
“I’m persuaded that you quoted him accurately. What
should have happened is that you should have taken the
information to Holm, who should have knocked on the door
of my office and explained the situation, and together we
would have decided what to do.”
“I get it. But I—”
“You left the material with Holm, who’s the news editor. You
acted correctly. But let’s analyse your article. First of all,
why would Faste want to leak this information?”
Frisk shrugged.
“Does that mean that you don’t know, or that you don’t
care?”
“I don’t know.”
“If I were to tell you that this story is untrue, and that
Salander doesn’t have a thing to do with anabolic steroids,
what do you say then?”
“I can’t prove otherwise.”
“No indeed. But you think we should publish a story that
might be a lie just because we have no proof that it’s a lie.”
“No, we have a journalistic responsibility. But it’s a
balancing act. We can’t refuse to publish when we have a
source who makes a specific claim.”
“We can ask why the source might want this information to
get out. Let me explain why I gave orders that everything to
do with Salander has to cross my desk. I have special
knowledge of the subject that no-one else at S.M.P. has.
The legal department has been informed that I possess
this knowledge but cannot discuss it with them. Millennium
is going to publish a story that I am contractually bound not
to reveal to S.M.P., despite the fact that I work here. I
obtained the information in my capacity as editor-in-chief of
Millennium, and right now I’m caught between two loyalties.
Do you see what I mean?”
“Yes.”
“What I learned at Millennium tells me that I can say without
a doubt that this story is a lie, and its purpose is to damage
Salander before the trial.”
“It would be hard to do her any more damage, considering
all the revelations that have already come out about her.”
“Revelations that are largely lies and distortions. Hans
Faste is one of the key sources for the claims that
Salander is a paranoid and violence-prone lesbian devoted
to Satanism and S. & M. And the media as a whole bought
Faste’s propaganda simply because he appears to be a
serious source and it’s always cool to write about S. & M.
And now he’s trying a new angle which will put her at a
disadvantage in the public consciousness, and which he
wants S.M.P. to help disseminate. Sorry, but not on my
watch.”
“I understand.”
“Do you? Good. Then I can sum up everything I said in two
sentences. Your job description as a journalist is to
question and scrutinize most critically. And never to repeat
claims uncritically, no matter how highly placed the sources
in the bureaucracy. Don’t ever forget that. You’re a terrific
writer, but that talent is completely worthless if you forget
your job description.”
your job description.”
“Right.”
“I intend to kill this story.”
“I understand.”
“This doesn’t mean that I distrust you.”
“Thank you.”
“So that’s why I’m sending you back to your desk with a
proposal for a new story.”
“Alright.”
“The whole thing has to do with my contract with
Millennium. I’m not allowed to reveal what I know about the
Salander story. At the same time I’m editor-in-chief of a
newspaper that’s in danger of skidding because the
newsroom doesn’t have the information that I have. And we
can’t allow that to happen. This is a unique situation and
applies only to Salander. That’s why I’ve decided to choose
a reporter and steer him in the right direction so that we
won’t end up with our trousers down when Millennium
comes out.”
“And you think that Millennium will be publishing something
noteworthy about Salander?”
noteworthy about Salander?”
“I don’t think so, I know so. Millennium is sitting on a scoop
that will turn the Salander story on its head, and it’s driving
me crazy that I can’t go public with it.”
“You say you’re rejecting my article because you know that
it isn’t true. That means there’s something in the story that
all the other reporters have missed.”
“Exactly.”
“I’m sorry, but it’s difficult to believe that the entire Swedish
media has been duped in the same way …”
“Salander has been the object of a media frenzy. That’s
when normal rules no longer apply, and any drivel can be
posted on a billboard.”
“So you’re saying that Salander isn’t exactly what she
seems to be.”
“Try out the idea that she’s innocent of these accusations,
that the picture painted of her on the billboards is
nonsense, and that there are forces at work you haven’t
even dreamed of.”
“Is that the truth?”
Berger nodded.
“So what I just handed in is part of a continuing campaign
against her.”
“Precisely.”
Frisk scratched his head. Berger waited until he had
finished thinking.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Go back to your desk and start working on another story.
You don’t have to stress out about it, but just before the
trial begins we might be able to publish a whole feature that
examines the accuracy of all the statements that have
been made about Salander. Start by reading through the
clippings, list everything that’s been said about her, and
check off the allegations one by one.”
“Alright.”
“Think like a reporter. Investigate who’s spreading the
story, why it’s being spread, and ask yourself whose
interests it might serve.”
“But I probably won’t be at S.M.P. when the trial starts. This
is my last week.”
Berger took a plastic folder from a desk drawer and laid a
sheet of paper in front of him.
“I’ve extended your assignment by three months. You’ll
finish off this week with your ordinary duties and report in
here on Monday.”
“Thank you.”
“If you want to keep working at S.M.P., that is.”
“Of course I do.”
“You’re contracted to do investigative work outside the
normal editorial job. You’ll report directly to me. You’re
going to be a special correspondent assigned to the
Salander trial.”
“The news editor is going to have something to say—”
“Don’t worry about Holm. I’ve talked with the head of the
legal department and fixed it so there won’t be any hassle
there. But you’re going to be digging into the background,
not news reporting. Does that sound good?”
“It sounds fantastic.”
“Right then … that’s all. I’ll see you on Monday.”
As she waved him out of the glass cage she saw Holm
watching her from the other side of the news desk. He
lowered his gaze and pretended that he had not been
looking at her.
0 comments:
Post a Comment