CHAPTER 17
Wednesday, 1.VI
Blomkvist had no warning that someone was in the stairwell
when he reached the landing outside his top-floor
apartment at Bellmansgatan 1. It was 7.00 in the evening.
He stopped short when he saw a woman with short, blonde
curly hair sitting on the top step. He recognized her
straightaway as Monica Figuerola of S.I.S. from the
passport photograph Karim had located.
“Hello, Blomkvist,” she said cheerfully, closing the book she
had been reading. Blomkvist looked at the book and saw
that it was in English, on the idea of God in the ancient
world. He studied his unexpected visitor as she stood up.
She was wearing a short-sleeved summer dress and had
laid a brick-red leather jacket over the top stair.
“We need to talk to you,” she said.
She was tall, taller than he was, and that impression was
magnified by the fact that she was standing two steps
above him. He looked at her arms and then at her legs and
saw that she was much more muscular than he was.
“You spend a couple of hours a week at the gym,” he said.
She smiled and took out her I.D.
“My name is—”
“Monica Figuerola, born in 1969, living on Pontonjärgatan
on Kungsholmen. You came from Borlänge and you’ve
worked with the Uppsala police. For three years you’ve
been working in S.I.S., Constitutional Protection. You’re an
exercise fanatic and you were once a top-class athlete,
almost made it on to the Swedish Olympic team. What do
you want with me?”
She was surprised, but she quickly regained her
composure.
“Fair enough,” she said in a low voice. “You know who I am
– so you don’t have to be afraid of me.”
“I don’t?”
“There are some people who need to have a talk with you
in peace and quiet. Since your apartment and mobile seem
to be bugged and we have reason to be discreet, I’ve been
sent to invite you.”
“And why would I go anywhere with somebody who works
for Säpo?”
She thought for a moment. “Well … you could just accept a
friendly personal invitation, or if you prefer, I could handcuff
you and take you with me.” She smiled sweetly. “Look,
Blomkvist. I understand that you don’t have many reasons
to trust anyone who comes from S.I.S. But it’s like this: not
everyone who works there is your enemy, and my superiors
really want to talk to you. So, which do you prefer?
Handcuffed or voluntary?”
“I’ve been handcuffed by the police once already this year.
And that was enough. Where are we going?”
She had parked around the corner down on Pryssgränd.
When they were settled in her new Saab 9-5, she flipped
open her mobile and pressed a speed-dial number.
“We’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
She told Blomkvist to fasten his seat belt and drove over
Slussen to Östermalm and parked on a side street off
Artillerigatan. She sat still for a moment and looked at him.
“This is a friendly invitation, Blomkvist. You’re not risking
anything.”
Blomkvist said nothing. He was reserving judgement until
he knew what this was all about. She punched in the code
on the street door. They took the lift to the fifth floor, to an
apartment with the name Martinsson on the door.
“We’ve borrowed the place for tonight’s meeting,” she said,
opening the door. “To your right, into the living room.”
The first person Blomkvist saw was Torsten Edklinth, which
was no surprise since Säpo was deeply involved in what
had happened, and Edklinth was Figuerola’s boss. The
fact that the Director of Constitutional Protection had gone
to the trouble of bringing him in said that somebody was
nervous.
Then he saw a figure by the window. The Minister of
Justice. That was a surprise.
Then he heard a sound to his right and saw the Prime
Minister get up from an armchair. This he had not for a
moment expected.
“Good evening, Herr Blomkvist,” the P.M. said. “Excuse us
for summoning you to this meeting at such short notice, but
we’ve discussed the situation and agreed that we need to
talk to you. May I offer you some coffee, or something else
to drink?”
Blomkvist looked around. He saw a dining-room table of
dark wood that was cluttered with glasses, coffee cups and
the remnants of sandwiches. They must have been there
for a couple of hours already.
“Ramlösa,” he said.
Figuerola poured him a mineral water. They sat down on
the sofas as she stayed in the background.
“He recognized me and knew my name, where I live, where
I work, and the fact that I’m a workout fanatic,” Figuerola
said to no-one in particular.
The Prime Minister glanced quickly at Edklinth and then at
Blomkvist. Blomkvist realized at once that he was in a
position of some strength. The Prime Minister needed
something from him and presumably had no idea how
much Blomkvist knew or did not know.
“How did you know who Inspector Figuerola was?” Edklinth
said.
Blomkvist looked at the Director of Constitutional
Protection. He could not be sure why the Prime Minister
had set up a meeting with him in a borrowed apartment in
Östermalm, but he suddenly felt inspired. There were not
many ways it could have come about. It was Armansky who
had set this in train by giving information to someone he
trusted. Which must have been Edklinth, or someone close
to him. Blomkvist took a chance.
“A mutual friend spoke with you,” he said to Edklinth. “You
sent Figuerola to find out what was going on, and she
discovered that some Säpo activists are running illegal
telephone taps and breaking into my apartment and
stealing things. This means that you have confirmed the
stealing things. This means that you have confirmed the
existence of what I call the Zalachenko club. It made you so
nervous that you knew you had to take the matter further,
but you sat in your office for a while and didn’t know in
which direction to go. So you went to the justice minister,
and he in turn went to the Prime Minister. And now here we
all are. What is it that you want from me?”
Blomkvist spoke with a confidence that suggested that he
had a source right at the heart of the affair and had
followed every step Edklinth had taken. He knew that his
guesswork was on the mark when Edklinth’s eyes widened.
“The Zalachenko club spies on me, I spy on them,”
Blomkvist went on. “And you spy on the Zalachenko club.
This situation makes the Prime Minister both angry and
uneasy. He knows that at the end of this conversation a
scandal awaits that the government might not survive.”
Figuerola understood that Blomkvist was bluffing, and she
knew how he had been able to surprise her by knowing her
name and shoe size.
He saw me in my car on Bellmansgatan. He took the
registration number and looked me up. But the rest is
guesswork.
She did not say a word.
The Prime Minister certainly looked uneasy now.
“Is that what awaits us?” he said. “A scandal to bring down
the government?”
“The survival of the government isn’t my concern,”
Blomkvist said. “My role is to expose shit like the
Zalachenko club.”
The Prime Minister said: “And my job is to run the country
in accordance with the constitution.”
“Which means that my problem is definitely the
government’s problem. But not vice versa.”
“Could we stop going round in circles? Why do you think I
arranged this meeting?”
“To find out what I know and what I intend to do with it.”
“Partly right. But more precisely, we’ve landed in a
constitutional crisis. Let me first say that the government
has absolutely no hand in this matter. We have been
caught napping, without a doubt. I’ve never heard mention
of this … what you call the Zalachenko club. The minister
here has never heard a word about this matter either.
Torsten Edklinth, an official high up in S.I.S. who has
worked in Säpo for many years, has never heard of it.”
“It’s still not my problem.”
“I appreciate that. What I’d like to know is when you mean
to publish your article, and exactly what it is you intend to
publish. And this has nothing to do with damage control.”
“Does it not?”
“Herr Blomkvist, the worst possible thing I could do in this
situation would be to try to influence the shape or content
of your story. Instead, I am going to propose a co-operation.”
“Please explain.”
“Since we have now had confirmation that a conspiracy
exists within an exceptionally sensitive part of the
administration, I have ordered an investigation.” The P.M.
turned to the Minister of Justice. “Please explain what the
government has directed.”
“It’s very simple,” said the Minister of Justice. “Torsten
Edklinth has been given the task of finding out whether we
can confirm this. He is to gather information that can be
turned over to the Prosecutor General, who in turn must
decide whether charges should be brought. It is a very
clear instruction. And this evening Edklinth has been
reporting on how the investigation is proceeding. We’ve
had a long discussion about the constitutional implications
– obviously we want it to be handled properly.”
– obviously we want it to be handled properly.”
“Naturally,” Blomkvist said in a tone that indicated he had
scant trust in the Prime Minister’s assurances.
“The investigation has already reached a sensitive stage.
We have not yet identified exactly who is involved. That will
take time. And that’s why we sent Inspector Figuerola to
invite you to this meeting.”
“It wasn’t exactly an invitation.”
The Prime Minister frowned and glanced at Figuerola.
“It’s not important,” Blomkvist said. “Her behaviour was
exemplary. Please come to the point.”
“We want to know your publication date. This investigation
is being conducted in great secrecy. If you publish before
Edklinth has completed it, it could be ruined.”
“And when would you like me to publish? After the next
election, I suppose?”
“You decide that for yourself. It’s not something I can
influence. Just tell us, so that we know exactly what our
deadline is.”
“I see. You spoke about co-operation …”
The P.M. said: “Yes, but first let me say that under normal
circumstances I would not have dreamed of asking a
journalist to come to such a meeting.”
“Presumably in normal circumstances you would be doing
everything you could to keep journalists away from a
meeting like this.”
“Quite so. But I’ve understood that you’re driven by several
factors. You have a reputation for not pulling your punches
when there’s corruption involved. In this case there are no
differences of opinion to divide us.”
“Aren’t there?”
“No, not in the least. Or rather … the differences that exist
might be of a legal nature, but we share an objective. If this
Zalachenko club exists, it is not merely a criminal
conspiracy – it is a threat to national security. These
activities must be stopped, and those responsible must be
held accountable. On that point we would be in agreement,
correct?”
Blomkvist nodded.
“I’ve understood that you know more about this story than
anyone else. We suggest that you share your knowledge. If
this were a regular police investigation of an ordinary
crime, the leader of the preliminary investigation could
decide to summon you for an interview. But, as you can
appreciate, this is an extreme state of affairs.”
Blomkvist weighed the situation for a moment.
“And what do I get in return – if I do co-operate?”
“Nothing. I’m not going to haggle with you. If you want to
publish tomorrow morning, then do so. I won’t get involved
in any horse-trading that might be constitutionally dubious.
I’m asking you to cooperate in the interests of the country.”
“In this case ‘nothing’ could be quite a lot,” Blomkvist said.
“For one thing … I’m very, very angry. I’m furious at the
state and the government and Säpo and all these fucking
bastards who for no reason at all locked up a twelve-year-old girl in a mental hospital until she could be declared
incompetent.”
“Lisbeth Salander has become a government matter,” the
P.M. said, and smiled. “Mikael, I am personally very upset
over what happened to her. Please believe me when I say
that those responsible will be called to account. But before
we can do that, we have to know who they are.”
“My priority is that Salander should be acquitted and
declared competent.”
“I can’t help you with that. I’m not above the law, and I can’t
direct what prosecutors and the courts decide. She has to
be acquitted by a court.”
“O.K.,” Blomkvist said. “You want my co-operation. Then
give me some insight into Edklinth’s investigation, and I’ll
tell you when and what I plan to publish.”
“I can’t give you that insight. That would be placing myself
in the same relation to you as the Minister of Justice’s
predecessor once stood to the journalist Ebbe Carlsson.”*
“I’m not Ebbe Carlsson,” Blomkvist said calmly.
“I know that. On the other hand, Edklinth can decide for
himself what he can share with you within the framework of
his assignment.”
“Hmm,” Blomkvist said. “I want to know who Evert Gullberg
was.”
Silence fell over the group.
“Gullberg was presumably for many years the chief of that
division within S.I.S. which you call the Zalachenko club,”
Edklinth said.
The Prime Minister gave him a sharp look.
“I think he knows that already,” Edklinth said by way of
apology.
“That’s correct,” Blomkvist said. “He started at Säpo in the
’50s. In the ’60s he became chief of some outfit called the
Section for Special Analysis. He was the one in charge of
the Zalachenko affair.”
The P.M. shook his head. “You know more than you ought
to. I would very much like to discover how you came by all
this information. But I’m not going to ask.”
“There are holes in my story,” Blomkvist said. “I need to fill
them. Give me information and I won’t try to compromise
you.”
“As Prime Minister I’m not in a position to deliver any such
information. And Edklinth is on a very thin ice if he does so.
”
“Don’t pull the wool over my eyes. I know what you want
and you know what I want. If you give me information, then
you’ll be my sources – with all the enduring anonymity that
implies. Don’t misunderstand me … I’ll tell the truth as I see
it in what I publish. If you are involved, I will expose you and
do everything I can to ensure that you are never re-elected. But as yet I have no reason to believe that is the
case.”
The Prime Minister glanced at Edklinth. After a moment he
nodded. Blomkvist took it as a sign that the Prime Minister
had just broken the law – if only of the more academic
specie – by giving his consent to the sharing of classified
information with a journalist.
“This can all be solved quite simply,” Edklinth said. “I have
my own investigative team and I decide for myself which
colleagues to recruit for the investigation. You can’t be
employed by the investigation because that would mean
you would be obliged to sign an oath of confidentiality. But I
can hire you as an external consultant.”
Berger’s life had been filled with meetings and work around
the clock the minute she had stepped into Morander’s
shoes.
It was not until Wednesday night, almost two weeks after
Blomkvist had given her Cortez’s research papers on
Borgsjö, that she had time to address the issue. As she
opened the folder she realized that her procrastination had
also to do with the fact that she did not really want to face
up to the problem. She already knew that however she
dealt with it, calamity would be inevitable.
She arrived home in Saltsjöbaden at 7.00, unusually early,
and it was only when she had to turn off the alarm in the
hall that she remembered her husband was not at home.
She had given him an especially long kiss that morning
because he was flying to Paris to deliver some lectures and
would not be back until the weekend. She had no idea
where he was giving the lectures, or what they were about.
She went upstairs, ran the bath, and undressed. She took
Cortez’s folder with her and spent the next half hour
reading through the whole story. She could not help but
smile. The boy was going to be a formidable reporter. He
was twenty-six years old and had been at Millennium for
four years, right out of journalism school. She felt a certain
pride. The story had Millennium’s stamp on it from
beginning to end, every t was crossed, every i dotted.
But she also felt tremendously depressed. Borgsjö was a
good man, and she liked him. He was soft-spoken, sharp-witted and charming, and he seemed unconcerned with
prestige. Besides, he was her employer. How in God’s
name could he have been so bloody stupid?
She wondered whether there might be an alternative
explanation or some mitigating circumstances, but she
already knew it would be impossible to explain this away.
She put the folder on the windowsill and stretched out in
the bath to ponder the situation.
Millennium was going to publish the story, no question. If
she had still been there, she would not have hesitated.
she had still been there, she would not have hesitated.
That Millennium had leaked the story to her in advance
was nothing but a courtesy – they wanted to reduce the
damage to her personally. If the situation had been
reversed – if S.M.P. had made some damaging discovery
about Millennium’s chairman of the board (who happened
to be herself) – they would not have hesitated either.
Publication would be a serious blow to Borgsjö. The
damaging thing was not that his company, Vitavara Inc.,
had imported goods from a company on the United Nations
blacklist of companies using child labour – and in this case
slave labour too, in the form of convicts, and undoubtedly
some of these convicts were political prisoners. The really
damaging thing was that Borgsjö knew about all this and
still went on ordering toilets from Fong Soo Industries. It
was a mark of the sort of greed that did not go down well
with the Swedish people in the wake of the revelations
about other criminal capitalists such as Skandia’s former
president.
Borgsjö would naturally claim that he did not know about
the conditions at Fong Soo, but Cortez had solid evidence.
If Borgsjö took that tack he would be exposed as a liar. In
June 1997 Borgsjö had gone to Vietnam to sign the first
contracts. He had spent ten days there on that occasion
and been round the company’s factories. If he claimed not
to have known that many of the workers there were only
twelve or thirteen years old, he would look like an idiot.
twelve or thirteen years old, he would look like an idiot.
Cortez had demonstrated that in 1999, the U.N.
commission on child labour had added Fong Soo Industries
to its list of companies that exploit child labour, and that this
had then been the subject of magazine articles. Two
organizations against child labour, one of them the globally
recognized International Joint Effort Against Child Labour in
London, had written letters to companies that had placed
orders with Fong Soo. Seven letters had been sent to
Vitavara Inc., and two of those were addressed to Borgsjö
personally. The organization in London had been very
willing to supply the evidence. And Vitavara Inc. had not
replied to any of the letters.
Worse still, Borgsjö went to Vietnam twice more, in 2001
and 2004, to renew the contracts. This was the coup de
grâce. It would be impossible for Borgsjö to claim
ignorance.
The inevitable media storm could lead only to one thing. If
Borgsjö was smart, he would apologize and resign from his
positions on various boards. If he decided to fight, he
would be steadily annihilated.
Berger did not care if Borgsjö was or was not chairman of
the board of Vitavara Inc. What mattered to her was that he
was the board chairman of S.M.P. At a time when the
newspaper was on the edge and a campaign of
newspaper was on the edge and a campaign of
rejuvenation was under way, S.M.P. could not afford to
keep him as chairman.
Berger’s decision was made.
She would go to Borgsjö, show him the document, and
thereby hope to persuade him to resign before the story
was published.
If he dug in his heels, she would call an emergency board
meeting, explain the situation, and force the board to
dismiss Borgsjö. And if they did not, she would have to
resign, effective immediately.
She had been thinking for so long that the bathwater was
now cold. She showered and towelled herself and went to
the bedroom to put on a dressing gown. Then she picked
up her mobile and called Blomkvist. No answer. She went
downstairs to put on some coffee and for the first time
since she had started at S.M.P., she looked to see whether
there was a film on T.V. that she could watch to relax.
As she walked into the living room, she felt a sharp pain in
her foot. She looked down and saw blood. She took
another step and pain shot through her entire foot, and
she had to hop over to an antique chair to sit down. She
lifted her foot and saw to her dismay that a shard of glass
had pierced her heel. At first she felt faint. Then she
had pierced her heel. At first she felt faint. Then she
steeled herself and took hold of the shard and pulled it out.
The pain was appalling, and blood gushed from the wound.
She pulled open a drawer in the hall where she kept
scarves, gloves and hats. She found a scarf and wrapped
it around her foot and tied it tight. That was not going to be
enough, so she reinforced it with another improvised
bandage. The bleeding had apparently subsided.
She looked at the bloodied piece of glass in amazement.
How did this get here? Then she discovered more glass on
the hall floor. Jesus Christ… She looked into the living
room and saw that the picture window was shattered and
the floor was covered in shattered glass.
She went back to the front door and put on the outdoor
shoes she had kicked off as she came home. That is, she
put on one shoe and stuck the toes of her injured foot into
the other, and hopped into the living room to take stock of
the damage.
Then she found the brick in the middle of the living-room
floor.
She limped over to the balcony door and went out to the
garden. Someone had sprayed in metre-high letters on the
back wall:
WHORE
It was just after 9.00 in the evening when Figuerola held
the car door open for Blomkvist. She went around the car
and got into the driver’s seat.
“Should I drive you home or do you want to be dropped off
somewhere?”
Blomkvist stared straight ahead. “I haven’t got my bearings
yet, to be honest. I’ve never had a confrontation with a
prime minister before.”
Figuerola laughed. “You played your cards very well,” she
said. “I would never have guessed you were such a good
poker player.”
“I meant every word.”
“Of course, but what I meant was that you pretended to
know a lot more than you actually do. I realized that when I
worked out how you identified me.”
Blomkvist turned and looked at her profile.
“You wrote down my car registration when I was parked on
the hill outside your building. You made it sound as if you
knew what was being discussed at the Prime Minister’s
secretariat.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Blomkvist said.
She gave him a quick look and turned on to Grev
Turegatan. “The rules of the game. I shouldn’t have picked
that spot, but there wasn’t anywhere else to park. You keep
a sharp eye on your surroundings, don’t you?”
“You were sitting with a map spread out on the front seat,
talking on the telephone. I took down your registration and
ran a routine check. I check out every car that catches my
attention. I usually draw a blank. In your case I discovered
that you worked for Säpo.”
“I was following Mårtensson.”
“Aha. So simple.”
“Then I discovered that you were tailing him using Susanne
Linder at Milton Security.”
“Armansky’s detailed her to keep an eye on what goes on
around my apartment.”
“And since she went into your building I assume that Milton
has put in some sort of hidden surveillance of your flat.”
“That’s right. We have an excellent film of how they break
in and go through my papers. Mårtensson carries a
portable photocopier with him. Have you identified
portable photocopier with him. Have you identified
Mårtensson’s sidekick?”
“He’s unimportant. A locksmith with a criminal record who’s
probably being paid to open your door.”
“Name?”
“Protected source?”
“Naturally.”
“Lars Faulsson. Forty-seven. Alias Falun. Convicted of
safe-cracking in the ’80s and some other minor stuff. Has a
shop at Norrtull.”
“Thanks.”
“But let’s save the secrets till we meet again tomorrow.”
The meeting had ended with an agreement that Blomkvist
would come to Constitutional Protection the next day to set
in train an exchange of information. Blomkvist was thinking.
They were just passing Sergels Torg in the city centre.
“You know what? I’m incredibly hungry. I had a late lunch
and was going to make a pasta when I got home, but I was
waylaid by you. Have you eaten?”
“A while ago.”
“Take us to a restaurant where we can get some decent
food.”
“All food is decent.”
He looked at her. “I thought you were a health-food fanatic.
”
“No, I’m a workout fanatic. If you work out you can eat
whatever you want. Within reason.”
She braked at the Klaraberg viaduct and considered the
options. Instead of turning down towards Södermalm she
kept going straight to Kungsholmen.
“I don’t know what the restaurants are like in Söder, but I
know an excellent Bosnian place at Fridhemsplan. Their
burek is fantastic.”
“Sounds good,” Blomkvist said.
Salander tapped her way, letter by letter, through her
report. She had worked an average of five hours each day.
She was careful to express herself precisely. She left out all
the details that could be used against her.
That she was locked up had turned out to be a blessing.
She always had plenty of warning to put away her Palm
when she heard the rattling of a key ring or a key being put
in the lock.
I was about to lock up Bjurman’s cabin outside
Stallarholmen when Carl-Magnus Lundin and
Sonny Nieminen arrived on motorbikes. Since
they had been searching for me in vain for a
while on behalf of Zalachenko and
Niedermann, they were surprised to see me
there. Magge Lundin got off his motorbike and
declared, quote, I think the dyke needs some
cock, unquote. Both he and Nieminen acted
so threateningly that I had no choice but to
resort to my right of self-defence. I left the
scene on Lundin’s motorbike which I then
abandoned at the shopping centre in Älvsjö.
There was no reason to volunteer the information that
Lundin had called her a whore or that she had bent down
and picked up Nieminen’s P-83 Wanad and punished
Lundin by shooting him in the foot. The police could
probably work that out for themselves, but it was up to
them to prove it. She did not mean to make their job any
easier by confessing to something that would lead to a
prison sentence.
The text had grown to thirty-three pages and she was
nearing the end. In some sections she was particularly
nearing the end. In some sections she was particularly
reticent about details and went to a lot of trouble not to
supply any evidence that could back up in any way the
many claims she was making. She went so far as to
obscure some obvious evidence and instead moved on to
the next link in the chain of events.
She scrolled back and read through the text of a section
where she told how Advokat Bjurman had violently and
sadistically raped her. That was the part she had spent the
most time on, and one of the few she had rewritten several
times before she was satisfied. The section took up
nineteen lines in her account. She reported in a matter-of-fact manner how he had hit her, thrown her on to her
stomach on the bed, taped her mouth and handcuffed her.
She then related how he had repeatedly committed acts of
sexual violence against her, including anal penetration.
She went on to report how at one point during the rape he
had wound a piece of clothing – her own T-shirt – around
her neck and strangled her for such a long time that she
temporarily lost consciousness. Then there were several
lines of text where she identified the implements he had
used during the rape, which included a short whip, an anal
plug, a rough dildo, and clamps which he attached to her
nipples.
She frowned and studied the text. At last she raised the
stylus and tapped out a few more lines of text.
On one occasion when I still had my mouth
taped shut, Bjurman commented on the fact
that I had several tattoos and piercings,
including a ring in my left nipple. He asked if I
liked being pierced and then left the room. He
came back with a needle which he pushed
through my right nipple.
The matter-of-fact tone gave the text such a surreal touch
that it sounded like an absurd fantasy.
The story simply did not sound credible.
That was her intention.
At that moment she heard the rattle of the guard’s key ring.
She turned off the Palm at once and put it in the recess in
the back of the bedside table. It was Giannini. She frowned.
It was 9.00 in the evening and Giannini did not usually
appear this late.
“Hello, Lisbeth.”
“Hello.”
“How are you feeling?”
“I’m not finished yet.”
Giannini sighed. “Lisbeth, they’ve set the trial date for July
13.”
“That’s O.K.”
“No, it’s not O.K. Time is running out, and you’re not telling
me anything. I’m beginning to think that I made a colossal
mistake taking on the job. If we’re going to have the
slightest chance, you have to trust me. We have to work
together.”
Salander studied her for a long moment. Finally she leaned
her head back and looked up at the ceiling.
“I know what we’re supposed to be doing. I understand
Mikael’s plan. And he’s right.”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
“But I am.”
“The police want to interrogate you again. A detective
named Hans Faste from Stockholm.”
“Let him interrogate me. I won’t say a word.”
“You have to hand in a statement.”
Salander gave Giannini a sharp look. “I repeat: we won’t
say a word to the police. When we get to that courtroom
the prosecutor won’t have a single syllable from any
interrogation to fall back on. All they’ll have is the statement
that I’m composing now, and large parts of it will seem
preposterous. And they’re going to get it a few days before
the trial.”
“So when are you actually going to sit down with a pen and
paper and write this statement?”
“You’ll have it in a few days. But it can’t go to the
prosecutor until just before the trial.”
Giannini looked sceptical. Salander suddenly gave her a
cautious smile. “You talk about trust. Can I trust you?”
“Of course you can.”
“O.K., could you smuggle me in a hand-held computer so
that I can keep in touch with people online?”
“No, of course not. If it were discovered I’d be charged with
a crime and lose my licence to practise.”
“But if someone else got one in … would you report it to
the police?”
Giannini raised her eyebrows. “If I didn’t know about it …”
“But if you did know about it, what would you do?”
“I’d shut my eyes. How about that?”
“This hypothetical computer is soon going to send you a
hypothetical email. When you’ve read it I want you to come
again.”
“Lisbeth—”
“Wait. It’s like this. The prosecutor is dealing with a marked
deck. I’m at a disadvantage no matter what I do, and the
purpose of the trial is to get me committed to a secure
psychiatric ward.”
“I know.”
“If I’m going to survive, I have to fight dirty.”
Finally Giannini nodded.
“When you came to see me the first time,” Salander said,
“you had a message from Blomkvist. He said that he’d told
you almost everything, with a few exceptions. One of those
exceptions had to do with the skills he discovered I had
when we were in Hedestad.”
“That’s correct.”
“He was referring to the fact that I’m extremely good with
computers. So good that I can read and copy what’s on
Ekström’s machine.”
Giannini went pale.
“You can’t be involved in this. And you can’t use any of that
material at the trial,” Salander said.
“Hardly. You’re right about that.”
“So you know nothing about it.”
“O.K.”
“But someone else – your brother, let’s say – could publish
selected excerpts from it. You’ll have to think about this
possibility when you plan your strategy.”
“I understand.”
“Annika, this trial is going to turn on who uses the toughest
methods.”
“I know.”
“I’m happy to have you as my lawyer. I trust you and I need
your help.”
“Hmm.”
“Hmm.”
“But if you get difficult about the fact that I’m going to use
unethical methods, then we’ll lose the trial.”
“Right.”
“And if that were the case, I need to know now. I’d have to
get myself a new lawyer.”
“Lisbeth, I can’t break the law.”
“You don’t have to break any law. But you do have to shut
your eyes to the fact that I am. Can you manage that?”
Salander waited patiently for almost a minute before Annika
nodded.
“Good. Let me tell you the main points that I’m going to put
in my statement.”
Figuerola had been right. The burek was fantastic.
Blomkvist studied her carefully as she came back from the
ladies’. She moved as gracefully as a ballerina, but she
had a body like … hmm. Blomkvist could not help being
fascinated. He repressed an impulse to reach out and feel
her leg muscles.
“How long have you been working out?” he said.
“Since I was a teenager.”
“And how many hours a week do you do it?”
“Two hours a day. Sometimes three.”
“Why? I mean, I understand why people work out, but …”
“You think it’s excessive.”
“I’m not sure exactly what I think.”
She smiled and did not seem at all irritated by his
questions.
“Maybe you’re just bothered by seeing a girl with muscles.
Do you think it’s a turn-off, or unfeminine?”
“No, not at all. It suits you somehow. You’re very sexy.”
She laughed.
“I’m cutting back on the training now. Ten years ago I was
doing rock-hard bodybuilding. It was cool. But now I have to
be careful that the muscles don’t turn to fat. I don’t want to
get flabby. So I lift weights once a week and spend the rest
of the time doing some cross-training, or running, playing
badminton, or swimming, that sort of thing. It’s exercise
more than hard training.”
“I see.”
“The reason I work out is that it feels great. That’s a normal
phenomenon among people who do extreme training. The
body produces a pain-suppressing chemical and you
become addicted to it. If you don’t run every day, you get
withdrawal symptoms after a while. You feel an enormous
sense of wellbeing when you give something your all. It’s
almost as powerful as good sex.”
Blomkvist laughed.
“You should start working out yourself,” she said. “You’re
getting a little thick in the waist.”
“I know,” he said. “A constant guilty conscience. Sometimes
I start running regularly and lose a couple of kilos. Then I
get involved in something and don’t get time to do it again
for a month or two.”
“You’ve been pretty busy these last few months. I’ve been
reading a lot about you. You beat the police by several
lengths when you tracked down Zalachenko and identified
Niedermann.”
“Lisbeth Salander was faster.”
“How did you find out Niedermann was in Gosseberga?”
Blomkvist shrugged. “Routine research. I wasn’t the one
who found him. It was our assistant editor, well, now our
editor-in-chief Malin Eriksson who managed to dig him up
through the corporate records. He was on the board of
Zalachenko’s company, K.A.B Import.”
“That simple …”
“And why did you become a Säpo activist?” he said.
“Believe it or not, I’m something as old-fashioned as a
democrat. I mean, the police are necessary, and a
democracy needs a political safeguard. That’s why I’m
proud to be working at Constitutional Protection.”
“Is it really something to be proud of?” said Blomkvist.
“You don’t like the Security Police.”
“I don’t like institutions that are beyond normal
parliamentary scrutiny. It’s an invitation to abuse of power,
no matter how noble the intentions. Why are you so
interested in the religion of antiquity?”
Figuerola looked at Blomkvist.
“You were reading a book about it on my staircase,” he
said.
“The subject fascinates me.”
“I see.”
“I’m interested in a lot of things. I’ve studied law and
political science while I’ve worked for the police. Before that
I studied both philosophy and the history of ideas.”
“Do you have any weaknesses?”
“I don’t read fiction, I never go to the cinema, and I watch
only the news on T. V. How about you? Why did you
become a journalist?”
“Because there are institutions like Säpo that lack
parliamentary oversight and which have to be exposed
from time to time. I don’t really know. I suppose my answer
to that is the same one you gave me: I believe in a
constitutional democracy and sometimes it has to be
protected.”
“The way you did with Hans-Erik Wennerström?”
“Something like that.”
“You’re not married. Are you and Erika Berger together?”
“Erika Berger’s married.”
“So all the rumours about you two are nonsense. Do you
have a girlfriend?”
“No-one steady.”
“So the rumours might be true after all.”
Blomkvist smiled.
Eriksson worked at her kitchen table at home in Årsta until
the small hours. She sat bent over spreadsheets of
Millennium’s budget and was so engrossed that Anton, her
boyfriend, eventually gave up trying to have a conversation
with her. He washed the dishes, made a late snack, and put
on some coffee. Then he left her in peace and sat down to
watch a repeat of C.S.I.
Malin had never before had to cope with anything more
complex than a household budget, but she had worked
alongside Berger balancing the monthly books, and she
understood the principles. Now she was suddenly editor-in-chief, and with that role came responsibility for the budget.
Sometime after midnight she decided that, whatever
happened, she was going to have to get an accountant to
help her. Ingela Oscarsson, who did the bookkeeping one
day a week, had no responsibility for the budget and was
not at all helpful when it came to making decisions about
how much a freelancer should be paid or whether they
could afford to buy a new laser printer that was not already
could afford to buy a new laser printer that was not already
included in the sum earmarked for capital investments or
I.T. upgrades. In practice it was a ridiculous situation –
Millennium was making a profit, but that was because
Berger had always managed to balance an extremely tight
budget. Instead of investing in something as fundamental
as a new colour laser printer for 45,000 kronor, they would
have to settle for a black-and-white printer for 8,000
instead.
For a moment she envied Berger. At S.M.P. she had a
budget in which such a cost would be considered pin
money.
Millennium’s financial situation had been healthy at the last
annual general meeting, but the surplus in the budget was
primarily made up of the profits from Blomkvist’s book
about the Wennerström affair. The revenue that had been
set aside for investment was shrinking alarmingly fast. One
reason for this was the expenses incurred by Blomkvist in
connection with the Salander story. Millennium did not have
the resources to keep any employee on an open-ended
budget with all sorts of expenses in the form of rental cars,
hotel rooms, taxis, purchase of research material, new
mobile telephones and the like.
Eriksson signed an invoice from Daniel Olsson in
Göteborg. She sighed. Blomkvist had approved a sum of
14,000 kronor for a week’s research on a story that was
14,000 kronor for a week’s research on a story that was
not now going to be published. Payment to an Idris Ghidi
went into the budget under fees to sources who could not
be named, which meant that the accountant would
remonstrate about the lack of an invoice or receipt and
insist that the matter have the board’s approval. Millennium
had paid a fee to Advokat Giannini which was supposed to
come out of the general fund, but she had also invoiced
Millennium for train tickets and other costs.
She put down her pen and looked at the totals. Blomkvist
had blown 150,000 kronor on the Salander story, way
beyond their budget. Things could not go on this way.
She was going to have to have a talk with him.
Berger spent the evening not on her sofa watching T.V.,
but in A. & E. at Nacka hospital. The shard of glass had
penetrated so deeply that the bleeding would not stop. It
turned out that one piece had broken off and was still in
her heel, and would have to be removed. She was given a
local anaesthetic and afterwards the wound was sewn up
with three stitches.
Berger cursed the whole time she was at the hospital, and
she kept trying to call her husband or Blomkvist. Neither
chose to answer the telephone. By 10.00 she had her foot
wrapped in a thick bandage. She was given crutches and
took a taxi home.
took a taxi home.
She spent a while limping around the living room, sweeping
up the floor. She called Emergency Glass to order a new
window. She was in luck. It had been a quiet evening and
they arrived within twenty minutes. But the living-room
window was so big that they did not have the glass in stock.
The glazier offered to board up the window with plywood for
the time being, and she accepted gratefully.
As the plywood was being put up, she called the duty
officer at Nacka Integrated Protection, and asked why the
hell their expensive burglar alarm had not gone off when
someone threw a brick through her biggest window.
Someone from N.I.P. came out to look at the damage. It
turned out that whoever had installed the alarm several
years before had neglected to connect the leads from the
windows in the living room.
Berger was furious.
The man from N.I.P. said they would fix it first thing in the
morning. Berger told him not to bother. Instead she called
the duty officer at Milton Security and explained her
situation. She said that she wanted to have a complete
alarm package installed the next morning. I know I have to
sign a contract, but tell Armansky that Erika Berger called
and make damn sure someone comes round in the
and make damn sure someone comes round in the
morning.
Then, finally, she called the police. She was told that there
was no car available to come and take her statement. She
was advised to contact her local station in the morning.
Thank you. Fuck off.
Then she sat and fumed for a long time until her
adrenaline level dropped and it began to sink in that she
was going to have to sleep alone in a house without an
alarm while somebody was running around the
neighbourhood calling her a whore and smashing her
windows.
She wondered whether she ought to go into the city to
spend the night at a hotel, but Berger was not the kind of
person who liked to be threatened. And she liked giving in
to threats even less.
But she did take some elementary safety precautions.
Blomkvist had told her once how Salander had put paid to
the serial killer Martin Vanger with a golf club. So she went
to the garage and spent several minutes looking for her
golf bag, which she had hardly even thought about for
fifteen years. She chose an iron that she thought had a
certain heft to it and laid it within easy reach of her bed.
She left a putter in the hall and an 8-iron in the kitchen.
She left a putter in the hall and an 8-iron in the kitchen.
She took a hammer from the tool box in the basement and
put that in the master bathroom too.
She put the canister of Mace from her shoulder bag on her
bedside table. Finally she found a rubber doorstop and
wedged it under the bedroom door. And then she almost
hoped that the moron who had called her a whore and
destroyed her window would be stupid enough to come
back that night.
By the time she felt sufficiently entrenched it was 1.00. She
had to be at S.M.P. at 8.00. She checked her diary and
saw that she had four meetings, the first at 10.00. Her foot
was aching badly. She undressed and crept into bed.
Then, inevitably, she lay awake and worried.
Whore.
She had received nine emails, all of which had contained
the word “whore,” and they all seemed to come from
sources in the media. The first had come from her own
newsroom, but the source was a fake.
She got out of bed and took out the new Dell laptop that
she had been given when she had started at S.M.P.
The first email – which was also the most crude and
intimidating with its suggestion that she would be fucked
intimidating with its suggestion that she would be fucked
with a screwdriver – had come on May 16, a couple of
weeks ago.
Email number two had arrived two days later, on May 18.
Then a week went by before the emails started coming
again, now at intervals of about twenty-four hours. Then
the attack on her home. Again, whore.
During that time Carlsson on the culture pages had
received an ugly email purportedly sent by Berger. And if
Carlsson had received an email like that, it was entirely
possible that the emailer had been busy elsewhere too –
that other people had got mail apparently from her that she
did not know about.
It was an unpleasant thought.
The most disturbing was the attack on her house.
Someone had taken the trouble to find out where she lived,
drive out here, and throw a brick through the window. It was
obviously premeditated – the attacker had brought his can
of spray paint. The next moment she froze when she
realized that she could add another attack to the list. All
four of her tyres had been slashed when she spent the
night with Blomkvist at the Slussen Hilton.
The conclusion was just as unpleasant as it was obvious.
She was being stalked.
Someone, for some unknown reason, had decided to
harass her.
The fact that her home had been subject to an attack was
understandable – it was where it was and impossible to
disguise. But if her car had been damaged on some
random street in Södermalm, her stalker must have been
somewhere nearby when she parked it. They must have
been following her.
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