CHAPTER 19
Friday, 3.vi – Saturday 4.vi
Salander finished her autobiography at 4.00 on Friday
morning and sent a copy to Blomkvist via the Yahoo group
[Idiotic_Table]. Then she lay quite still in bed and stared at
the ceiling.
She knew that on Walpurgis Night she had had her twenty-seventh birthday, but she had not even reflected on the
fact at the time. She was imprisoned. She had experienced
the same thing at St Stefan’s. If things did not go right for
her there was a risk that she would spend many more
birthdays in some form of confinement.
She was not going to accept a situation like that.
The last time she had been locked up she was scarcely
into her teens. She was grown-up now, and had more
knowledge and skills. She wondered how long it would take
for her to escape and settle down safely in some other
country to create a new identity and a new life for herself.
She got up from the bed and went to the bathroom where
she looked in the mirror. She was no longer limping. She
ran her fingers over her hip where the wound had healed
to a scar. She twisted her arms and stretched her left
shoulder back and forth. It was tight, but she was more or
less healed. She tapped herself on the head. She
less healed. She tapped herself on the head. She
supposed that her brain had not been too greatly damaged
after being perforated by a bullet with a full-metal jacket.
She had been extraordinarily lucky.
Until she had access to a computer, she had spent her time
trying to work out how to escape from this locked room at
Sahlgrenska.
Then Dr Jonasson and Blomkvist had upset her plans by
smuggling in her Palm. She had read Blomkvist’s articles
and brooded over what he had to say. She had done a risk
assessment and pondered his plan, weighing her chances.
She had decided that for once she was going to do as he
advised. She would test the system. Blomkvist had
convinced her that she had nothing to lose, and he was
offering her a chance to escape in a very different way. If
the plan failed, she would simply have to plan her escape
from St Stefan’s or whichever other nuthouse.
What actually convinced her to decide to play the game
Blomkvist’s way was her desire for revenge.
She forgave nothing.
Zalachenko, Björck and Bjurman were dead.
Teleborian, on the other hand, was alive.
So too was her brother, the so-called Ronald Niedermann,
even though in reality he was not her problem. Certainly,
he had helped in the attempt to murder and bury her, but
he seemed peripheral. If I run into him sometime, we’ll see,
but until such time he’s the police’s problem.
Yet Blomkvist was right: behind the conspiracy there had to
be others not known to her who had contributed to the
shaping of her life. She had to put names and social
security numbers to these people.
So she had decided to go along with Blomkvist’s plan. That
was why she had written the plain, unvarnished truth about
her life in a cracklingly terse autobiography of forty pages.
She had been quite precise. Everything she had written
was true. She had accepted Blomkvist’s reasoning that she
had already been so savaged in the Swedish media by
such grotesque libels that a little sheer nonsense could not
possibly further damage her reputation.
The autobiography was a fiction in the sense that she had
not, of course, told the whole truth. She had no intention of
doing that.
She went back to bed and pulled the covers over her.
She felt a niggling irritation that she could not identify. She
reached for a notebook, given to her by Giannini and
hardly used. She turned to the first page, where she had
written:
She had spent several weeks in the Caribbean last winter
working herself into a frenzy over Fermat’s theorem. When
she came back to Sweden, before she got mixed up in the
hunt for Zalachenko, she had kept on playing with the
equations. What was maddening was that she had the
feeling she had seen a solution … that she had discovered
a solution.
But she could not remember what it was.
Not being able to remember something was a phenomenon
unknown to Salander. She had tested herself by going on
the Net and picking out random H.T.M.L. codes that she
glanced at, memorized, and reproduced exactly.
She had not lost her photographic memory, which she had
always considered a curse.
Everything was running as usual in her head.
Save for the fact that she thought she recalled seeing a
solution to Fermat’s theorem, but she could not remember
how, when, or where.
The worst thing was that she did not have the least interest
in it. Fermat’s theorem no longer fascinated her. That was
ominous. That was just the way she usually functioned.
She would be fascinated by a problem, but as soon as she
had solved it, she lost interest.
That was how she felt about Fermat. He was no longer a
demon riding on her shoulder, demanding her attention
and vexing her intellect. It was an ordinary formula, some
squiggles on a piece of paper, and she felt no desire at all
to engage with it.
This bothered her. She put down the notebook.
She should get some sleep.
Instead she took out her Palm again and went on the Net.
She thought for a moment and then went into Armansky’s
hard drive, which she had not done since she got the
hand-held. Armansky was working with Blomkvist, but she
had not had any particular need to read what he was up to.
Absentmindedly she read his email.
She found the assessment Rosin had carried out of
Berger’s house. She could scarcely believe what she was
reading.
Erika Berger has a stalker.
She found a message from Susanne Linder, who had
evidently stayed at Berger’s house the night before and
who had emailed a report late that night. She looked at the
time of the message. It had been sent just before 3.00 in
the morning and reported Berger’s discovery that diaries,
letters and photographs, along with a video of a personal
nature, had been stolen from a chest of drawers in her
bedroom.
After discussing the matter with Fru Berger, we
determined that the theft must have occurred
during the time she was at Nacka hospital.
That left a period of c. 2.5 hours when the
house was empty, and the defective alarm
from N.I.P. was not switched on. At all other
times either Berger or David were in the house
until the theft was discovered.
Conclusion: Berger’s stalker remained in her
area and was able to observe that she was
picked up by a taxi, also possibly that she was
injured. The stalker then took the opportunity
to get into the house.
Salander updated her download of Armansky’s hard drive
and then switched off the Palm, lost in thought. She had
mixed feelings.
She had no reason to love Berger. She remembered still
the humiliation she had felt when she saw her walk off
down Hornsgatan with Blomkvist the day before New Year’s
Eve a year and a half ago.
It had been the stupidest moment of her life and she would
never again allow herself those sorts of feelings.
She remembered the terrible hatred she had felt, and her
desire to run after them and hurt Berger.
Embarrassing.
She was cured.
But she had no reason to sympathize with Berger.
She wondered what the video “of a personal nature”
contained. She had her own film of a personal nature which
showed how Advokat Bastard Bjurman had raped her. And
it was now in Blomkvist’s keeping. She wondered how she
would have reacted if someone had broken into her place
and stolen the D.V.D. Which Blomkvist by definition had
actually done, even though his motives were not to harm
her.
Hmm. An awkward situation.
Berger had not been able to sleep on Thursday night. She
hobbled restlessly back and forth while Linder kept a
watchful eye on her. Her anxiety lay like a heavy fog over
the house.
At 2.30 Linder managed to talk Berger into getting into bed
to rest, even if she did not sleep. She heaved a sigh of
relief when Berger closed her bedroom door. She opened
her laptop and summarized the situation in an email to
Armansky. She had scarcely sent the message before she
heard that Berger was up and moving about again.
At 7.30 she made Berger call S.M.P. and take the day off
sick. Berger had reluctantly agreed and then fallen asleep
on the living-room sofa in front of the boarded-up picture
window. Linder spread a blanket over her. Then she made
some coffee and called Armansky, explaining her presence
at the house and that she had been called in by Rosin.
“Stay there with Berger,” Armansky told her, “and get a
couple of hours’ sleep yourself.”
“I don’t know how we’re going to bill this—”
“We’ll work that out later.”
Berger slept until 2.30. She woke up to find Linder sleeping
in a recliner on the other side of the living room.
in a recliner on the other side of the living room.
Figuerola slept late on Friday morning; she did not have
time for her morning run. She blamed Blomkvist for this
state of affairs as she showered and then rousted him out
of bed.
Blomkvist drove to Millennium, where everyone was
surprised to see him up so early. He mumbled something,
made some coffee, and called Eriksson and Cortez into his
office. They spent three hours going over the articles for
the themed issue and keeping track of the book’s
progress.
“Dag’s book went to the printer yesterday,” Eriksson said.
“We’re going down the perfect-bound trade paperback
route.”
“The special issue is going to be called The Lisbeth
Salander Story,” Cortez said. “They’re bound to move the
date of the trial, but at the moment it’s set for Wednesday,
July 13. The magazine will be printed by then, but we
haven’t fixed on a distribution date yet. You can decide
nearer the time.”
“Good. That leaves the Zalachenko book, which right now
is a nightmare. I’m calling it The Section. The first half is
basically what’s in the magazine. It begins with the murders
of Dag and Mia, and then follows the hunt for Salander
of Dag and Mia, and then follows the hunt for Salander
first, then Zalachenko, and then Niedermann. The second
half will be everything that we know about the Section.”
“Mikael, even if the printer breaks every record for us,
we’re going to have to send them the camera-ready copy
by the end of this month – at the latest,” Eriksson said.
“Christer will need a couple of days for the layout, the
typesetter, say, a week. So we have about two weeks left
for the text. I don’t know how we’re going to make it.”
“We won’t have time to dig up the whole story,” Blomkvist
conceded. “But I don’t think we could manage that even if
we had a whole year. What we’re going to do in this book is
to state what happened. If we don’t have a source for
something, then I’ll say so. If we’re flying kites, we’ll make
that clear. So, we’re going to write about what happened,
what we can document, and what we believe to have
happened.”
“That’s pretty vague,” Cortez said.
Blomkvist shook his head. “If I say that a Säpo agent broke
into my apartment and I can document it – and him – with a
video, then it’s documented. If I say that he did it on behalf
of the Section, then that’s speculation, but in the light of all
the facts we’re setting out, it’s a reasonable speculation.
Does that make sense?”
“It does.”
“I won’t have time to write all the missing pieces myself. I
have a list of articles here that you, Henry, will have to
cobble together. It corresponds to about fifty pages of book
text. Malin, you’re back-up for Henry, just as when we were
editing Dag’s book. All three of our names will be on the
cover and title page. Is that alright with you two?”
“That’s fine,” Eriksson said. “But we have other urgent
problems.”
“Such as?”
“While you were concentrating on the Zalachenko story, we
had a hell of a lot of work to do here—”
“You’re saying I wasn’t available?”
Eriksson nodded.
“You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“No need to apologize. We all know that when you’re in the
throes of a story, nothing else matters. But that won’t work
for the rest of us, and it definitely doesn’t work for me.
Erika had me to lean on. I have Henry, and he’s an ace, but
he’s putting in an equal amount of time on your story. Even
if we count you in, we’re still two people short in editorial.”
“Two?”
“And I’m not Erika. She had a routine that I can’t compete
with. I’m still learning this job. Monika is working her
backside off. And so is Lottie. Nobody has a moment to
stop and think.”
“This is all temporary. As soon as the trial begins—”
“No, Mikael. It won’t be over then. When the trial begins, it’ll
be sheer hell. Remember what it was like during the
Wennerström affair. We won’t see you for three months
while you hop from one T. V. interview sofa to another.”
Blomkvist sighed. “What do you suggest?”
“If we’re going to run Millennium effectively during the
autumn, we’re going to need new blood. Two people at
least, maybe three. We just don’t have the editorial
capacity for what we’re trying to do, and …”
“And?”
“And I’m not sure that I’m ready to do it.”
“I hear you, Malin.”
“I mean it. I’m a damn good assistant editor – it’s a piece of
cake with Erika as your boss. We said that we were going
cake with Erika as your boss. We said that we were going
to try this over the summer … well, we’ve tried it. I’m not a
good editor-in-chief.”
“Stuff and nonsense,” Cortez said.
Eriksson shook her head.
“I hear what you’re saying,” Blomkvist said, “But remember
that it’s been an extreme situation.”
Eriksson smiled at him sadly. “You could take this as a
complaint from the staff,” she said.
The operations unit of Constitutional Protection spent
Friday trying to get a handle on the information they had
received from Blomkvist. Two of their team had moved into
a temporary office at Fridhemsplan, where all the
documentation was being assembled. It was inconvenient
because the police intranet was at headquarters, which
meant that they had to walk back and forth between the
two buildings several times a day. Even if it was only a ten-minute walk, it was tiresome. By lunchtime they already had
extensive documentation of the fact that both Fredrik
Clinton and Hans von Rottinger had been associated with
the Security Police in the ’60s and early ’70s.
Von Rottinger came originally from the military intelligence
service and worked for several years in the office that
coordinated military defence with the Security Police.
Clinton’s background was in the air force and he began
working for the Personal Protection Unit of the Security
Police in 1967.
They had both left S.I.S.: Clinton in 1971 and von Rottinger
in 1973. Clinton had gone into business as a management
consultant, and von Rottinger had entered the civil service
to do investigations for the Swedish Atomic Energy Agency.
He was based in London.
It was late afternoon by the time Figuerola was able to
convey to Edklinth with some certainty the discovery that
Clinton’s and von Rottinger’s careers after they left S.I.S.
were falsifications. Clinton’s career was hard to follow.
Being a consultant for industry can mean almost anything
at all, and a person in that role is under no obligation to
report his activities to the government. From his tax returns
it was clear that he made good money, but his clients were
for the most part corporations with head offices in
Switzerland or Liechtenstein, so it was not easy to prove
that his work was a fabrication.
Von Rottinger, on the other hand, had never set foot in the
office in London where he supposedly worked. In 1973 the
office building where he had claimed to be working was in
fact torn down and replaced by an extension to King’s
Cross Station. No doubt someone made a blunder when
the cover story was devised. In the course of the day
Figuerola’s team had interviewed a number of people now
retired from the Swedish Atomic Energy Agency. Not one of
them had heard of Hans von Rottinger.
“Now we know,” Edklinth said. “We just have to discover
what it was they really were doing.”
Figuerola said: “What do we do about Blomkvist?”
“In what sense?”
“We promised to give him feedback if we uncovered
anything about Clinton and von Rottinger.”
Edklinth thought about it. “He’s going to be digging up that
stuff himself if he keeps at it for a while. It’s better that we
stay on good terms with him. You can give him what you’ve
found. But use your judgement.”
Figuerola promised that she would. They spent a few
minutes making arrangements for the weekend. Two of
Figuerola’s team were going to keep working. She would
be taking the weekend off.
Then she clocked out and went to the gym at St Eriksplan,
where she spent two hours driving herself hard to catch up
on lost training time. She was home by 7.00. She
showered, made a simple dinner, and turned on the T. V. to
listen to the news. But then she got restless and put on her
running kit. She paused at the front door to think. Bloody
running kit. She paused at the front door to think. Bloody
Blomkvist. She flipped open her mobile and called his
Ericsson.
“We found out a certain amount about von Rottinger and
Clinton.”
“Tell me.”
“I will if you come over.”
“Sounds like blackmail,” Blomkvist said.
“I’ve just changed into jogging things to work off a little of
my surplus energy,” Figuerola said. “Should I go now or
should I wait for you?”
“Would it be O.K. if I came after 9.00?” “That’ll be fine.”
At 8.00 on Friday evening Salander had a visit from Dr
Jonasson. He sat in the visitor’s chair and leaned back.
“Are you going to examine me?” Salander said.
“No. Not tonight.”
“O.K.”
“We studied all your notes today and we’ve informed the
prosecutor that we’re prepared to discharge you.”
prosecutor that we’re prepared to discharge you.”
“I understand.”
“They want to take you over to the prison in Göteborg
tonight.”
“So soon?”
He nodded. “Stockholm is making noises. I said I had a
number of final tests to run on you tomorrow and that I
couldn’t discharge you until Sunday.”
“Why’s that?”
“Don’t know. I was just annoyed they were being so pushy.”
Salander actually smiled. Given a few years she would
probably be able to make a good anarchist out of Dr
Anders Jonasson. In any case he had a penchant for civil
disobedience on a private level.
“Fredrik Clinton,” Blomkvist said, staring at the ceiling
above Figuerola’s bed.
“If you light that cigarette I’ll stub it out in your navel,”
Figuerola said.
Blomkvist looked in surprise at the cigarette he had
extracted from his jacket.
“Sorry,” he said. “Could I borrow your balcony?”
“As long as you brush your teeth afterwards.”
He tied a sheet around his waist. She followed him to the
kitchen and filled a large glass with cold water. Then she
leaned against the door frame by the balcony.
“Clinton first?”
“If he’s still alive, he’s the link to the past.”
“He’s dying, he needs a new kidney and spends a lot of his
time in dialysis or some other treatment.”
“But he’s alive. We should contact him and put the
question to him directly. Maybe he’ll talk.”
“No,” Figuerola said. “First of all, this is a preliminary
investigation and the police are handling it. In that sense,
there is no ‘we’ about it. Second, you’re receiving this
information in accordance with your agreement with
Edklinth, but you’ve given your word not to take any
initiatives that could interfere with the investigation.”
Blomkvist smiled at her. “Ouch,” he said. “The Security
Police are pulling on my leash.” He stubbed out his
cigarette.
“Mikael, this is not a joke.”
Berger drove to the office on Saturday morning still feeling
queasy. She had thought that she was beginning to get to
grips with the actual process of producing a newspaper
and had planned to reward herself with a weekend off – the
first since she started at S.M.P. – but the discovery that
her most personal and intimate possessions had been
stolen, and the Borgsjö report too, made it impossible for
her to relax.
During a sleepless night spent mostly in the kitchen with
Linder, Berger had expected the “Poison Pen” to strike,
disseminating pictures of her that would be deplorably
damaging. What an excellent tool the Internet was for
freaks. Good grief … a video of me shagging my husband
and another man – I’m going to end up on half the websites
in the world.
Panic and terror had dogged her through the night.
It took all of Linder’s powers of persuasion to send her to
bed.
At 8.00 she got up and drove to S.M.P. She could not stay
away. If a storm was brewing, then she wanted to face it
first before anyone else got wind of it.
But in the half-staffed Saturday newsroom everything was
normal. People greeted her as she limped past the central
normal. People greeted her as she limped past the central
desk. Holm was off today. Fredriksson was the acting news
editor.
“Morning. I thought you were taking today off,” he said.
“Me too. But I wasn’t feeling well yesterday and I’ve got
things I have to do. Anything happening?”
“No, it’s pretty slow today. The hottest thing we’ve got is
that the timber industry in Dalarna is reporting a boom, and
there was a robbery in Norrköping in which one person was
injured.”
“Right. I’ll be in the cage for a while.”
She sat down, leaned her crutches against the
bookshelves, and logged on. First she checked her email.
She had several messages, but nothing from Poison Pen.
She frowned. It had been two days now since the break-in,
and he had not yet acted on what had to be a treasure
trove of opportunities. Why not? Maybe he’s going to
change tactics. Blackmail? Maybe he just wants to keep
me guessing.
She had nothing specific to work on, so she clicked on the
strategy document she was writing for S.M.P. She stared at
the screen for fifteen minutes without seeing the words.
She tried to call Greger, but with no success. She did not
even know if his mobile worked in other countries. Of
course she could have tracked him down with a bit of effort,
but she felt lazy to the core. Wrong, she felt helpless and
paralysed.
She tried to call Blomkvist to tell him that the Borgsjö folder
had been stolen, but he did not answer.
By 10.00 she had accomplished nothing and decided to go
home. She was just reaching out to shut down her
computer when her I.C.Q. account pinged. She looked in
astonishment at the icon bar. She knew what I.C.Q. was but
she seldom chatted, and she had not used the program
since starting at S.M.P.
She clicked hesitantly on Answer.
A trick? Poison Pen?
Berger stared at the screen. It took her a few seconds to
make the connection. Lisbeth Salander. Impossible.
Berger swallowed. Only four people in the world knew how
he had come by that scar. Salander was one of them.
Salander is a devil with computers. But how the hell is she
managing to communicate from Sahlgrenska, where she’s
been isolated since April?
She doesn’t want the police to know she has access to the
Net. Of course not. Which is why she’s chatting with the
editor-in-chief of one of the biggest newspapers in
Sweden.
Berger’s heart beat furiously.
Berger could not believe she was asking this question. It
was absurd. Salander was in rehabilitation at Sahlgrenska
and was up to her neck in her own problems. She was the
most unlikely person Berger could turn to with any hope of
getting help.
Berger thought for while before she replied.
Berger stared at the screen as she tried to work out what
Salander was getting at.
Why am I not surprised?
Berger hesitated for ten seconds. Open up S.M.P. to …
what? A complete loony? Salander might be innocent of
murder, but she was definitely not normal.
But what did she have to lose?
Berger followed the instruction.
It took three minutes.
It took three minutes.
Berger stared in fascination at the screen as her computer
slowly rebooted. She wondered whether she was mad.
Then her I.C.Q. pinged.
Figuerola woke at 8.00 on Saturday morning, about two
hours later than usual. She sat up in bed and looked at the
man beside her. He was snoring. Well, nobody’s perfect.
She wondered where this affair with Blomkvist was going to
lead. He was obviously not the faithful type, so no point in
looking forward to a long-term relationship. She knew that
much from his biography. Anyway, she was not so sure she
wanted a stable relationship herself – with a partner and a
mortgage and kids. After a dozen failed relationships since
her teens, she was tending towards the theory that stability
was overrated. Her longest had been with a colleague in
Uppsala – they had shared an apartment for two years.
But she was not someone who went in for one-night
stands, although she did think that sex was an underrated
therapy for just about all ailments. And sex with Blomkvist,
out of shape as he was, was just fine. More than just fine,
actually. Plus, he was a good person. He made her want
more.
A summer romance? A love affair? Was she in love?
She went to the bathroom and washed her face and
She went to the bathroom and washed her face and
brushed her teeth. Then she put on her shorts and a thin
jacket and quietly left the apartment. She stretched and
went on a 45-minute run out past Rålambshov hospital and
around Fredhäll and back via Smedsudden. She was home
by 9.00 and discovered Blomkvist still asleep. She bent
down and bit him on the ear. He opened his eyes in
bewilderment.
“Good morning, darling. I need somebody to scrub my
back.”
He looked at her and mumbled something.
“What did you say?”
“You don’t need to take a shower. You’re soaked to the
skin already.”
“I’ve been running. You should come along.”
“If I tried to go at your pace, I’d have a heart attack on Norr
Mälarstrand.”
“Nonsense. Come on, time to get up.”
He scrubbed her back and soaped her shoulders. And her
hips. And her stomach. And her breasts. And after a while
she had completely lost interest in her shower and pulled
him back to bed.
They had their coffee at the pavement café beside Norr
Mälarstrand.
“You could turn out to be a bad habit,” she said. “And
we’ve only known each other a few days.”
“I find you incredibly attractive. But you know that already.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“Sorry, can’t answer that question. I’ve never understood
why I’m attracted to one woman and totally uninterested in
another.”
She smiled thoughtfully. “I have today off,” she said.
“But not me. I have a mountain of work before the trial
begins, and I’ve spent the last three evenings with you
instead of getting on with it.”
“What a shame.”
He stood up and gave her a kiss on the cheek. She took
hold of his shirtsleeve.
“Blomkvist, I’d like to spend some more time with you.”
“Same here. But it’s going to be a little up and down until
we put this story to bed.”
He walked away down Hantverkargatan.
Berger got some coffee and watched the screen. For fifty-three minutes absolutely nothing happened except that her
screen saver started up from time to time. Then her I.C.Q.
pinged again.
But Salander was gone from her I.C.Q. Berger stared at
the screen in frustration. Finally she turned off the
computer and went out to find a café where she could sit
and think.
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