The Girl who played with Fire

CHAPTER 11

Blomkvist took his red pen and in the margin of Svensson’s manuscript drew a question mark with a circle around it and wrote “footnote.” He wanted a source reference inserted.

It was Wednesday, the evening before Maundy Thursday, and Millennium was more or less closed down for Easter week. Nilsson was out of the country. Karim had gone to the mountains with her husband. Cortez had come in to deal with telephone messages for a few hours, but Blomkvist sent him home since nobody was calling. Cortez left smiling happily, on his way to see a new girlfriend.

Svensson had not been around. Blomkvist sat in the office alone, plodding through his manuscript. The book was going to be twelve chapters and 288 pages long. Svensson had delivered the final text of nine of the twelve chapters, and Blomkvist had been over every word and given the hard copy back with requests for clarification and suggestions for reworking.

Svensson was a talented writer, and Blomkvist confined his editing for the most part to marginal notes. During the weeks when the manuscript had been growing on his desk they had disagreed about only one paragraph, which Blomkvist wanted to delete and Svensson fought tooth and nail to keep. It stayed in.

In short, Millennium had an excellent book that would very soon be off to the printer. There was no doubt that it would make dramatic headlines. Svensson was merciless in his exposure of the johns, and he told the story in such a way that nobody could fail to understand that there was something wrong with the system itself. It was journalistic work of the type that should be on the endangered species list.

Blomkvist had learned that Svensson was an exacting journalist who left very few loose ends. He did not employ the heavy-handed rhetoric typical of so much other social reporting, which turned texts into pretentious trash. His book was more than an exposé – it was a declaration of war. Blomkvist smiled to himself. Svensson was about fifteen years younger, but he recognized the passion that he himself had once had when he took up the lance against second-rate financial reporters and put together a scandalous book. Certain newsrooms had not forgiven him.

The problem with Svensson’s book was that it had to be watertight. A reporter who sticks out his neck like that has to either stand behind his story 100 percent or refrain from publishing it. Right now Svensson was at 98 percent. There were still a few weak points that needed more work and one or two assertions that he had not adequately documented.

At 5:30 p.m. Blomkvist opened his desk drawer and took out a cigarette. Berger had decreed a total ban in the office, but he was alone and nobody else was going to be there that weekend. He worked for another forty minutes before he gathered up the pages and put the chapter on Berger’s desk. Svensson had promised to email the final text of the remaining three chapters the following morning, which would give Blomkvist a chance to go through them over the weekend. A summit meeting was planned for the Tuesday after Easter when they would all sign off on the final version of the book and the Millennium articles. After that only the layout remained, which was Malm’s headache alone, and then it would go to the printer. Blomkvist had not sought bids from different printers; he would entrust the job to Hallvigs Reklam in Morgongåva. They had printed his book about the Wennerström affair and had given him a damn good price and first-rate service.

Blomkvist looked at the clock and decided to reward himself with another cigarette. He sat at the window and stared down on Götgatan. He ran his tongue over the cut on the inside of his lip. It was beginning to heal.

He wondered for the thousandth time what really had happened outside Salander’s building early on Sunday morning.

All he knew for certain was that Salander was alive and back in Stockholm.

He had tried to reach her every day since then. He had sent emails to the address she had used more than a year ago. He had walked up and down Lundagatan. He was beginning to despair.

The nameplate on the door now read SALANDER-WU. There were 230 people with the surname Wu on the electoral roll, of whom about 140 lived in and around Stockholm, none of them on Lundagatan. Blomkvist had no idea whether she had a boyfriend or had rented out the apartment. No-one came to the door when he knocked.

Finally he went back to his desk and wrote her a good old-fashioned letter:

Hello, Sally,

I don’t know what happened a year ago, but by now even a numbskull like me has worked out that you’ve cut off all contact. It’s for you to decide who you hang around with, and I don’t mean to nag. I just want to tell you that I still think of you as my friend, that I miss your company and would love to have a cup of coffee with you – if you felt like it.

I don’t know what kind of a mess you’ve got yourself into, but the ruckus on Lundagatan was alarming. If you need help you can call me anytime. As you know, I am deeply in your debt.

Plus, I have your shoulder bag. When you want it back, just let me know. If you don’t want to see me, just give me an address to mail it to. I promise not to bother you, since you’ve indicated clearly enough that you don’t want anything to do with me.

Mikael

As anticipated he never heard a word from her.

When he had got home the morning after the attack on Lundagatan, he opened the shoulder bag and spread the contents on the kitchen table. There was a wallet with an ID card, about 600 kronor, 200 American dollars, and a monthly travel card. There was a pack of Marlboro Lights, three Bic lighters, a box of throat lozenges, a packet of tissues, a toothbrush, toothpaste, three tampons in a side pocket, an unopened pack of condoms with a price sticker that showed they were bought at Gatwick Airport in London, a bound notebook with stiff black A4 dividers, five ballpoint pens, a can of Mace, a small bag with makeup, an FM radio with an earphone but no batteries, and Saturday’s Aftonbladet.

The most intriguing item was a hammer, easily accessible in an outside pocket. However, the attack had come so suddenly that she had not been able to make use of it or the Mace. She had evidently used her keys as brass knuckles – there were still traces of blood and skin on them.

Of the six keys on the ring, three of them were typical apartment keys-front door, apartment door, and the key to a padlock. But none of them fit the door of the building on Lundagatan.

Blomkvist opened the notebook and went through it page by page. He recognized Salander’s neat hand and could see at once that this was not a girl’s secret diary. Three-quarters of the pages were filled with what looked like mathematical notations. At the top of the first page was an equation that even Blomkvist recognized.

(x³ + y³ = z³)

Blomkvist had never had trouble doing calculations. He had left secondary school with the highest marks in math, which in no way meant, of course, that he was a mathematician, only that he had been able to absorb the content of the school’s curriculum. But Salander’s pages contained formulas of a type that Blomkvist neither understood nor could even begin to understand. One equation stretched across an entire double page and ended with things crossed out and changed. He could not even tell whether they were real mathematical formulas and calculations, but since he knew Salander’s peculiarities he assumed that the equations were genuine and no doubt had some esoteric meaning.

He leafed back and forth for a long time. He might as well have come upon a notebook full of Chinese characters. But he grasped the essentials of what she was trying to do. She had become fascinated by Fermat’s Last Theorem, a classic riddle. He let out a deep sigh.

The last page in the book contained some very brief and cryptic notes which had absolutely nothing to do with math, but nevertheless still looked like a formula:

(Blond Hulk + Magge) = NEB

They were underlined and circled and meant nothing to him. At the bottom of the page was a telephone number and the name of a car rental company in Eskilstuna, Auto-Expert.

Blomkvist made no attempt to interpret the notes. He stubbed out his cigarette and put on his jacket, set the alarm in the office, and walked to the terminal at Slussen, where he took the bus out to the yuppie reserve in Stäket, near Lännersta Sound. He had been invited to dinner with his sister, Annika Blomkvist Giannini, who was turning forty-two.

Berger began her long Easter weekend with a furious and anxiety-filled two-mile jog that ended at the steamboat wharf in Saltsjöbaden. She had been lazy about her hours at the gym and felt stiff and out of shape. She walked home. Her husband was giving a lecture at the Modern Museum and it would be at least 8:00 before he got home. Berger thought she would open a bottle of good wine, switch on the sauna, and seduce him. At least it would stop her thinking about the problem that was worrying her.

A week earlier she had had lunch with the CEO of the biggest media company in Sweden. Over salad he had set forth in all seriousness his intention to recruit her as editor in chief of the company’s largest daily newspaper, the Svenska Morgon-Posten. The board has discussed several possibilities, but we are agreed that you would be a great asset to the paper. You’re the one we want. Attached to the offer was a salary that made her income at Millennium look ridiculous.

The offer had come like a bolt of lightning out of a clear blue sky, and it left her speechless. Why me?

He had been oddly vague, but gradually the explanation emerged that she was known, respected, and a certifiably talented editor. They were impressed by the way she had dragged Millennium out of the quicksand it had been in two years earlier. The Svenska Morgon-Posten needed to be revitalized in the same way. There was an old-man atmosphere about the newspaper that was causing a steady decline in the new-subscriber rate. Berger was a powerful journalist. She had clout. Putting a woman – a feminist no less – in charge of one of Sweden’s most conservative and male-dominated institutions was a provocative and bold idea. Everyone was agreed. Well, almost everyone. The ones who counted were all on his side.

“But I don’t share the basic political views of the newspaper.”

“Who cares? You’re not an outspoken opponent either. You’re going to be the boss – not an apparatchik – and the editorial page will take care of itself.”

He hadn’t said it in so many words, but it was also a matter of class. Berger came from the right background.

She had told him that she was certainly attracted by the proposal but that she could not give him an answer immediately. She was going to have to think the matter through. But they agreed that she would give them her decision sooner rather than later. The CEO had explained that if the salary offer was the reason for her hesitation, she was probably in a position to negotiate an even higher figure. A strikingly generous golden parachute would also be included. It’s time for you to start thinking about your pension plan.

Her forty-fifth birthday was coming up. She had done her apprenticeship as a trainee and a temp. She had put together Millennium and become its editor in chief on her own merits. The moment when she would have to pick up the telephone and say yes or no was fast approaching, and she did not know what she was going to do. During the past week she had considered time and again discussing the matter with Blomkvist, but she had not been able to summon up the nerve. Instead she had been hiding the offer from him, which gave her a pang of guilt.

There were some obvious disadvantages. A yes would mean breaking up the partnership with Blomkvist. He would never follow her to the Svenska Morgon-Posten, no matter how sweet a deal she or they could offer him. He did not need the money now, and he was getting on fine writing articles at his own pace.

Berger liked being editor in chief of Millennium. It had given her a status within the world of journalism that she considered almost undeserved. She had never been the producer of the news. That was not her thing – she regarded herself as a mediocre writer. On the other hand, she was first-rate on radio or TV, and above all she was a brilliant editor. Besides, she enjoyed the hands-on work of editing, which was a prerequisite for the post of editor in chief at Millennium.

Nevertheless, she was tempted. Not so much by the salary as by the fact that the job meant that she would become without question one of Sweden’s big-time media players. This is a once-in-a-lifetime offer, the CEO had said.

Somewhere near the Grand Hotel in Saltsjöbaden she realized to her dismay that she was not going to be able to turn the offer down. And she shuddered at the thought of having to tell Blomkvist.

Dinner at the Gianninis’ was, as always, mildly chaotic. Annika had two children: Monica, thirteen, and Jennie, ten. Her husband, Enrico, who was the head of the Scandinavian arm of an international biotech firm, had custody of Antonio, his sixteen-year-old son from his first marriage. Also at dinner were Enrico’s mother Antonia, his brother Pietro, his sister-in-law Eva-Lotta, and their children Peter and Nicola. Plus Enrico’s sister Marcella and her four kids, who lived in the same neighbourhood. Enrico’s aunt Angelina, who was regarded by the family as stark raving mad, or on good days just extremely eccentric, had also been invited, along with her new boyfriend.

At the dining-room table, abundant with food, the conversation went on in a rattling mixture of Swedish and Italian, sometimes simultaneously. The situation was made more annoying because Angelina spent the evening wondering out loud – to anyone who would listen – why Annika’s brother was still a bachelor. She also proposed a number of suitable solutions to his problem from among the daughters of her friends. Exasperated, Blomkvist finally explained that he would be happy to get married but that unfortunately his lover was already married. That shut up even Angelina for a while.

At 7:30 Blomkvist’s mobile beeped. He’d thought he had shut it off and he almost missed the call as he dug it out of the inside pocket of his jacket, which someone had hung on the coatrack in the hall. It was Svensson.

“Am I interrupting something?”

“Not particularly. I’m at dinner with my sister and a platoon of people from her husband’s family. What’s up?”

“Two things. I’ve tried to get hold of Christer, but he’s not answering.”

“He’s at the theatre with his boyfriend.”

“Damn. I’d promised to meet him at the office tomorrow morning with the photographs and graphics for the book. Christer was going to look at them over the weekend. But Mia has suddenly decided to drive up to see her parents in Dalarna for Easter to show them her thesis. We’ll have to leave early in the morning and some of the pictures I can’t email. Could I messenger them over to you tonight?”

“You could… but look, I’m out in Lännersta. I’ll be here for a while, but I’m coming back into town later. Enskede wouldn’t be that far out of my way. I could drop by and pick them up. Would around 11:00 be OK?”

“That’s fine. The second thing… I don’t think you’re going to like this.”

“Shoot.”

“I stumbled across something I think I had better check out before the book goes to the printer.”

“OK – what is it?”

“Zala, spelled with a Z.”

“Ah. Zala the gangster. The one people seem to be terrified of and nobody wants to talk about.”

“That’s him. A couple of days ago I came across him again. I believe he’s in Sweden now and that he ought to be in the list of johns in chapter seven.”

“Dag – you can’t start digging up new material three weeks before we go to press.”

“I know. But this is a bit special. I talked to a policeman who had heard some talk about Zala. Anyway, I think it would make sense to spend a couple of days next week checking up on him.”

“Why him? You’ve got plenty of other assholes in the book.”

“This one seems to be an Olympian asshole. Nobody really knows who he is. I’ve got a gut feeling that it would be worth our while to poke around one more time.”

“Don’t ever discount your gut feelings,” Blomkvist said. “But honestly… we can’t push back the deadline. The printer is booked, and the book has to come out simultaneously with the Millennium issue.”

“I know,” Svensson said, sounding dejected.

“I’ll call you later,” Blomkvist said.

Johansson had just brewed a pot of coffee and poured it into the table thermos when the doorbell rang. It was just before 9:00 p.m. Svensson was closer to the door and, thinking it was Blomkvist coming earlier than he had said he would, he opened it without first looking through the peephole. Not Blomkvist. Instead he was confronted by a short, doll-like girl in her late teens.

“I’m looking for Dag Svensson and Mia Johansson,” the girl said.

“I’m Dag Svensson.”

“I’d like to speak with both of you.”

Svensson automatically looked at the clock. Johansson was curious and came into the hall to stand behind her boyfriend.

“It’s a bit late for a visit,” Svensson said.

“I’d like to talk about the book you’re planning on publishing at Millennium.”

Svensson and Johansson looked at each other.

“And who are you?”

“I’m interested in the subject. May I come in, or shall we discuss it here on the landing?”

Svensson hesitated for a second. The girl was a total stranger, and the time of her visit was odd, but she seemed harmless enough, so he held the door open. He showed her to the table in the living room.

“Would you like some coffee?” Johansson said.

“How about first telling us who you are,” Svensson said.

“Yes, please. To the coffee, I mean. My name is Lisbeth Salander.”

Johansson shrugged and opened the table thermos. She had already set out cups in anticipation of Blomkvist’s visit. “And what makes you think I’m publishing a book at Millennium?” Svensson said.

He was suddenly deeply suspicious, but the girl ignored him and turned instead to Johansson. She made a face that could have been a crooked smile.

“Interesting thesis,” she said.

Johansson looked shocked.

“How could you know anything about my thesis?”

“I happened to get hold of a copy,” the girl said cryptically.

Svensson’s annoyance grew. “Now you’re really going to have to explain who you are and what you want.”

The girl’s eyes met his. He suddenly noticed that her irises were so dark that in this light her eyes might be raven black. And perhaps he had underestimated her age.

“I’d like to know why you’re going around asking questions about Zala. Alexander Zala,” Salander said. “And above all I’d like to know exactly what you know about him already.”

Alexander Zala, Svensson thought in shock. He had never known the first name.

The girl lifted her coffee cup and took a sip without releasing him from her gaze. Her eyes had no warmth at all. He suddenly felt vaguely uneasy.

Unlike Blomkvist and the other adults at the dinner party (and despite the fact that she was the birthday girl), Annika Giannini had drunk only light beer and refrained from any wine or aquavit with the meal. So at 10:30 she was stone-cold sober. Since in some respects she took her big brother for a complete idiot who needed to be looked after, she generously offered to drive him home via Enskede. She had already planned to drive him to the bus stop on Värmdövägen, and it wouldn’t take that much longer to go into the city.

“Why don’t you get your own car?” she complained anyway as Blomkvist fastened his seat belt.

“Because unlike you I live within walking distance of my work and need a car about once a year. Besides, I wouldn’t have been able to drive anyway after your husband started serving spirits from Skåne.”

“He’s becoming Swedish. Ten years ago it would have been grappa.”

They spent the ride talking as brothers and sisters do. Apart from a persistent paternal aunt, two less persistent maternal aunts, two distant cousins, and one second cousin, Mikael and Annika had only each other for family. The three-year age difference meant that they had not had much in common during their teens. But they had become closer as adults.

Annika had studied law, and Blomkvist thought of her as a great deal more talented than he was. She sailed through university, spent a few years in the district courts, and then became the assistant to one of the better-known lawyers in Sweden. Then she started her own practice. She had specialized in family law, which gradually developed into work on equal rights. She became an advocate for abused women, wrote a book on the subject, and became a respected name. To top it off, she had become involved politically for the Social Democrats, which prompted Blomkvist to tease her about being an apparatchik. Blomkvist himself had decided early on that he could not combine party membership with journalistic credibility. He never willingly voted, and on the occasions when he felt absolutely obliged to vote he refused to talk about his choices, even with Berger.

“How are you doing?” Annika said as they crossed Skurubron.

“Oh, I’m doing fine.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“What problem?”

“I know you, Micke. You’ve been preoccupied all evening.”

Blomkvist sat in silence for a moment.

“It’s a complicated story. I’ve got two problems right now. One is about a girl I met two years ago who helped me on the Wennerström affair and then just disappeared from my life with no explanation. I haven’t seen hide nor hair of her in more than a year, except for last week.”

Blomkvist told her about the attack on Lundagatan.

“Did you report it to the police?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“This girl is manically private. She was the one who was attacked. She’ll have to make the report.”

Which Blomkvist expected would not be high on Salander’s list of priorities.

“Bullheaded as usual,” Annika said, patting Blomkvist on the cheek. “What’s the second problem?”

“We’re working on a story at Millennium that’s going to make headlines. I’ve been sitting all evening wondering whether I should consult you. As a lawyer, I mean.”

Annika glanced in surprise at her brother. “Consult me?” she exclaimed. “That’d be something new.”

“The story’s about trafficking and violence against women. You deal with violence against women and you’re a lawyer. You probably don’t work with cases of freedom of the press, but I would be really grateful if you could read through the manuscript before we send it to the printer. There are magazine articles and a book, so there’s quite a bit to read.”

Annika was silent as she turned down the Hammarby industrial road and passed Sickla lock. She wound her way down side streets parallel to Nynäsvägen until she could turn up Enskedevägen.

“You know, Mikael, I’ve been really mad at you only once in my whole life.”

“Is that so?” he said, surprised.

“It was when you were taken to court by Wennerström and sent to prison for libel. I was so furious with you that I thought I would explode.”

“Why? I only made a fool of myself.”

“You’ve made a fool of yourself many times before. But this time you needed a lawyer, and the only person you didn’t turn to was me. Instead you sat there taking shit in both the media and the courtroom. You didn’t even defend yourself. I thought I was going to die.”

“There were special circumstances. There wasn’t a thing you could have done.”

“All right, but I didn’t understand that until later, when Millennium got back on its feet and mopped the floor with Wennerström. Until that happened I was so damn disappointed in you.”

“There was no way we could have won that trial.”

“You’re not getting the point, big brother. I understand that it was a hopeless case. I’ve read the judgment. The point was that you didn’t come to me and ask for help. As in, hey, little sister, I need a lawyer. That’s why I never turned up in court.”

Blomkvist thought it over.

“I’m sorry. I admit it, I should have done that.”

“Yes, you should have.”

“I wasn’t functioning at all that year. I couldn’t face talking to anybody. I just wanted to lie down and die.”

“Which you didn’t do, exactly.”

“Forgive me.”

Annika Giannini gave him a big smile.

“Beautiful. An apology two years later. OK. I’ll happily read through the text. Are you in a rush?”

“Yes. We’re going to press very soon. Turn left here.”

Annika parked across the street from the building on Björneborgsvägen where Svensson and Johansson lived. “This’ll just take a minute,” Blomkvist said. He jogged across the street to punch in the door code. As soon as he was inside he could tell that something was wrong. He heard excited voices echoing in the stairwell and ran up the three flights to the apartment. Not until he reached their floor did he realize that the commotion was all around their apartment. Five neighbours were standing on the landing. The apartment door was ajar.

“What’s going on?” Blomkvist said, more out of curiosity than concern.

They all fell silent and looked at him. Three women, two men, all in their seventies it seemed. One of the women was wearing a nightgown.

“It sounded like shots,” said a man in a brown dressing gown, who seemed to know what he was talking about.

“Shots?”

“Just now. There was shooting in the apartment about a minute ago. The door was open.”

Blomkvist pushed forward and rang the doorbell as he walked into the apartment.

“Dag? Mia?” he called.

No answer.

Suddenly he felt an icy shiver run down his neck. He recognized the smell: cordite. Then he approached the living-room door. The first thing he saw was HolyMotherofGod Svensson slumped beside the dining-room chairs in a pool of blood a yard across.

Blomkvist hurried over. At the same time he pulled out his mobile and dialled 112 for emergency services. They answered right away.

“My name is Mikael Blomkvist. I need an ambulance and police.”

He gave the address.

“What is this regarding?”

“A man. He seems to have been shot in the head and is unconscious.”

Blomkvist bent down and tried to find a pulse on Svensson’s neck. Then he saw the enormous crater in the back of his head and realized that he must be standing in Svensson’s brain matter. Slowly he withdrew his hand.

No ambulance crew in the world would be able to save Dag Svensson now.

Then he noticed shards from one of the coffee cups that Johansson had inherited from her grandmother and that she was so afraid would get broken. He straightened up quickly and looked all around.

“Mia,” he yelled.

The neighbour in the brown dressing gown had come into the hall behind him. Blomkvist turned at the living-room door and held his hand up.

“Stop there,” he said. “Back out to the stairs.”

The neighbour at first looked as if he wanted to protest, but he obeyed the order. Blomkvist stood still for fifteen seconds. Then he stepped around the pool of blood and proceeded warily past Svensson’s body to the bedroom door.

Johansson lay on her back on the floor at the foot of the bed. NonononotMiatooforGodssake. She had been shot in the face. The bullet had entered below her jaw by her left ear. The exit wound in her temple was as big as an orange and her right eye socket gaped empty. The flow of blood was if possible even greater than that from her partner. The force of the bullet had been such that the wall above the head of the bed, several yards away, was covered with blood splatter.

Blomkvist became aware that he was clutching his mobile in a death grip with the line to the emergency centre still open and that he had been holding his breath. He took air into his lungs and raised the telephone.

“We need the police. Two people have been shot. I think they’re dead. Please hurry.”

He heard the voice from emergency services say something but did not catch the words. He felt as if there was something wrong with his hearing. It was utterly silent around him. He did not hear the sound of his own voice when he tried to say something. He backed out of the apartment. When he got out to the landing he realized that his whole body was shaking and that his heart was pounding painfully. Without a word he squeezed through the petrified crowd of neighbours and sat down on the stairs. From far away he could hear the neighbours asking him questions. What happened? Are they hurt? Did something happen? The sound of their voices echoed as if coming through a tunnel.

Blomkvist felt numb. He knew that he was in shock. He leaned his head down between his knees. Then he began to think. Good God – they’ve been murdered. They were shot just a few minutes ago. The killer could still be in the apartment… no, I would have seen him. He couldn’t stop shaking. The sight of Johansson’s shattered face could not be erased from his retina.

Suddenly his hearing came back, as if someone had turned up a volume control. He got up quickly and looked at the neighbour in the dressing gown.

“You,” he said. “Stay here and make sure nobody goes inside the apartment. The police and an ambulance are on their way. I’ll go down and let them in.”

Blomkvist took the stairs three at a time. On the ground floor he glanced at the cellar stairs and stopped short. He took a step towards the cellar. Halfway down the stairs lay a revolver in plain sight. Blomkvist thought it looked like a Colt.45 Magnum – the kind of weapon used to murder Olof Palme[1].

He suppressed the impulse to pick up the weapon. Instead he went and opened the front door and stood in the night air. It was not until he heard the brief honk of a car horn that he remembered his sister was waiting for him. He walked across the street.

Annika opened her mouth to say something sarcastic about her brother’s tardiness. Then she saw the expression on his face.

“Did you see anyone while you were waiting?” Blomkvist asked. His voice sounded hoarse and unnatural.

“No. Who would that be? What happened?”

Blomkvist was silent for a few seconds while he looked left and right. Everything was quiet on the street. He reached into his jacket pocket and found a crumpled pack with one cigarette left. As he lit it he could hear sirens approaching in the distance. He looked at his watch. It was 11:17 p.m.

“Annika – this is going to be a long night,” he said without looking at her as the police car turned up the street.

The first to arrive were officers Magnusson and Ohlsson. They had been on Nynäsvägen responding to what turned out to be a false alarm. Magnusson and Ohlsson were followed by a staff car with the field superintendent, Oswald Mårtensson, who had been at Skanstull when the central switchboard had sent out a call for all cars in the area. They arrived at almost the same time from different directions and saw a man in jeans and a dark jacket standing in the middle of the street raising his hand for them to stop. At the same time a woman got out of a car parked a few yards away.

All three policemen froze. The central switchboard had reported that two people had been shot, and the man was holding something in his left hand. It took a couple of seconds to be sure that it was a mobile telephone. They got out of their cars at the same time and adjusted their belts. Mårtensson assumed command.

“Are you the one who called about a shooting?”

The man nodded. He seemed badly shaken. He was smoking a cigarette and his hand was trembling when he put it in his mouth.

“What’s your name?”

“Mikael Blomkvist. Two people were just shot in this building a very short time ago. Their names are Dag Svensson and Mia Johansson. Three floors up. Their neighbours are standing outside the door.”

“Good Lord,” the woman said.

“And who are you?” Mårtensson asked Annika.

“Annika Giannini. I’m his sister,” she said, pointing at Blomkvist.

“Do you live here?”

“No,” Blomkvist said. “I was going to visit the couple who were shot. My sister gave me a ride from a dinner party.”

“You say that two people were shot. Did you see what happened?”

“No. I found them.”

“Let’s go up and have a look,” Mårtensson said.

“Wait,” Blomkvist said. “According to the neighbours the shots were fired only a minute or so before I arrived. I dialled 112 within a minute of getting here. Since then less than five minutes have passed. That means the person who killed them must still be in the area.”

“Do you have a description?”

“We haven’t seen anyone, but it’s possible that some of the neighbours saw something.”

Mårtensson motioned to Magnusson, who raised his radio and talked into it in a low voice. He turned to Blomkvist.

“Can you show us the way?” he said.

When they got inside the front door Blomkvist stopped and pointed to the cellar stairs. Mårtensson bent down and looked at the weapon. He went all the way down the stairs and tried the cellar door. It was locked.

“Ohlsson, stay here and keep an eye on this,” Mårtensson said.

Outside the apartment the crowd of neighbours had thinned out. Two had gone back to their own apartments, but the man in the dressing gown was still at his post. He seemed relieved when he saw the uniformed officers.

“I didn’t let anyone in,” he said.

“That’s good,” Blomkvist and Mårtensson said together.

“There seem to be bloody tracks on the stairs,” Officer Magnusson said.

Everyone looked at the footprints. Blomkvist looked at his Italian loafers.

“Those are probably from my shoes,” he said. “I was inside the apartment. There’s quite a bit of blood.”

Mårtensson gave Blomkvist a searching look. He used a pen to push open the apartment door and found more bloody footprints in the hall.

“To the right. Dag Svensson’s in the living room and Mia Johansson’s in the bedroom.”

Mårtensson did a quick inspection of the apartment and came out after only a few seconds. He radioed to ask for backup from the criminal duty officer. As he finished talking, the ambulance crew arrived. Mårtens son stopped them as they were going in.

“Two victims. As far as I can see, they’re beyond help. Can one of you look in without messing up the crime scene?”

It did not take long to confirm. A paramedic decided that the bodies would not be taken to hospital for resuscitation. They were beyond help. Blomkvist suddenly felt sick to his stomach and turned to Mårtensson.

“I’m going outside. I need some air.”

“Unfortunately I can’t let you go just yet.”

“I’ll just sit on the porch outside the door.”

“May I see your ID, please?”

Blomkvist took out his wallet and put it in Mårtensson’s hand. Then he turned without a word and went outside, where Annika was still waiting with Officer Ohlsson. She sat down next to him.

“Micke, what happened?”

“Two people I liked a lot have been murdered. Dag Svensson and Mia Johansson. It was his manuscript I wanted you to read.”

Annika realized that this was no time to ply him with questions. Instead she put her arm around her brother’s shoulders and hugged him. More police cars arrived. A handful of curious nighttime onlookers had stopped on the pavement across the street. Blomkvist watched them while the police started to set up a cordon. A murder investigation was beginning.

It was past 3:00 a.m. by the time Blomkvist and his sister were allowed to leave the police station. They had spent an hour in Annika’s car outside the apartment building in Enskede, waiting for a duty prosecutor to arrive to initiate the pre-investigative stage. Then, since Blomkvist was a good friend of the two victims and since he was the one who had found them, they were asked to follow along to Kungsholmen to assist the investigation.

There they’d had to wait a long time before they were interviewed by an Inspector Nyberg at the station. She had light blond hair and looked like a teenager.

I’m getting old, Blomkvist thought.

By 2:30 he had drunk so many cups of police canteen coffee that he was sober and feeling unwell. He had to interrupt the interview and run to the toilet, where he was violently sick. He still had the image of Johansson’s face swimming in his head. He drank three cups of water and rinsed his face over and over before returning to the interview. He tried to pull himself together to answer all of Inspector Nyberg’s questions.

“Did Dag Svensson or Mia Johansson have enemies?”

“No, not that I know of.”

“Had they received any threats?”

“Not that I know of.”

“How would you describe their relationship?”

“They gave every appearance of loving each other. Dag told me that they were thinking of having a baby after Mia got her doctorate.”

“Did they use drugs?”

“I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think so, and if they did it would be nothing more than a joint at a party when they had something to celebrate.”

“Why were you visiting them so late at night?”

Blomkvist explained that they were doing last-minute work on a book, without identifying the subject.

“Wasn’t it unusual to call on people so late at night?”

“That was the first time it had ever happened.”

“How did you know them?”

“Through work.”

The questions were relentless as they tried to establish the time frame.

The shots had been heard all over the building. They had been fired less than five seconds apart. The seventy-year-old man in the dressing gown, a retired major from the coastal artillery, as it turned out, was their nearest neighbour. He was watching TV. After the second shot, he went out to the stairwell. He had a hip problem and so getting up from the sofa was a slow process. He estimated that it had taken him thirty seconds to reach the landing. Neither he nor any other neighbour had seen anybody on the stairs.

According to the neighbours, Blomkvist had arrived at the apartment less than two minutes after the second shot was fired.

Calculating that he and Annika had had a view of the street for half a minute while she found the right building, parked, and exchanged a few words before he crossed the street and went up the stairs, Blomkvist figured there was a window of thirty to forty seconds. During which time the killer had left the apartment, gone down three flights of stairs – dropping the weapon on the way – left the building, and disappeared before Annika turned into the street. They had just missed him.

For a dizzying moment Blomkvist realized that Inspector Nyberg was toying with the possibility that he himself could have been the killer, that he had only run down one flight and pretended to arrive on the scene after the neighbours had gathered. But he had an alibi in the form of his sister. His whole evening, including the telephone conversation with Svensson, could be vouched for by a dozen members of the Giannini family.

Eventually Annika put her foot down. Blomkvist had given all reasonable and conceivable help. He was visibly tired and he was not feeling well. She told the inspector that she was not only Blomkvist’s sister but also his lawyer. It was time to bring all this to a close and let him go home.

When they got out to the street they stood for a time next to Annika’s car. “Go home and get some sleep,” she said.

Blomkvist shook his head.

“I have to go to Erika’s,” he said. “She knew them too. I can’t just call and tell her, and I don’t want her to wake up and hear it on the news.”

Annika hesitated, but she knew that her brother was right.

“So, off to Saltsjöbaden,” she said.

“Can you take me?”

“What are little sisters for?”

“If you give me a lift out to Nacka I can take a taxi from there or wait for a bus.”

“Nonsense. Jump in and I’ll drive you.”

CHAPTER 12

Annika Giannini was exhausted too, and Blomkvist managed to persuade her to save herself the hour-long detour round the Lännersta Sound and drop him off in Nacka. He kissed her on the cheek, thanked her for all her help, and waited until she had turned the car and driven off before he called a taxi.

It was two years since Blomkvist had been to Saltsjöbaden. He had only been to Berger’s house a few times. He supposed that was a sign of immaturity.

Exactly how her marriage with Greger Beckman functioned, he had no idea. He had known Berger since the early eighties. He planned to go on having a relationship with her until he was too old to get out of his wheelchair. They had broken it off in the late eighties when both he and Berger had met and married other people. The hiatus had lasted little more than a year.

In Blomkvist’s case the consequence of his infidelity was a divorce. For Berger it led to Beckman’s conceding that their long-term sexual passion was evidently so strong that it would be unreasonable to believe that mere convention could keep them apart. Nor did he propose to lose Berger the way that Blomkvist had lost his wife.

When Berger admitted having an affair, Beckman knocked on Blomkvist’s door. Blomkvist had been dreading his visit, but instead of punching him in the face, Beckman had suggested they go out for a drink. They hit three bars in Södermalm before they were sufficiently tipsy to have a serious conversation, which took place on a park bench in Mariatorget around sunrise.

At first Blomkvist was sceptical, but Beckman eventually convinced him that if he tried to sabotage his marriage to Berger, he could expect to see Beckman come back sober with a baseball bat, but if it was simply physical desire and the soul’s inability to rein itself in, that was OK as far as he was concerned.

So Blomkvist and Berger had taken up again, with Beckman’s blessing and without trying to hide anything from him. All Berger had to do was pick up the telephone and tell him she was spending the night with Blomkvist when the spirit moved her, which it did with some regularity.

Beckman had never uttered a word of criticism against Blomkvist. On the contrary, he seemed to regard his relationship with his wife as beneficial; and his love for her was deepened because he knew he could never take her for granted.

Blomkvist, on the other hand, had never felt entirely at ease in Beckman’s company – a dreary reminder that even liberated relationships had a price. Accordingly, he had been to Saltsjöbaden only on the few occasions when Berger had hosted parties where his absence would have been remarked on.

Now he stood at the door of their substantial villa. Despite his uneasiness about bringing bad news, he resolutely put his finger on the doorbell and held it there for about forty seconds until he heard footsteps. Beckman opened the door with a towel wrapped around his waist and his face full of bleary anger that changed to astonishment when he saw his wife’s lover.

“Hi, Greger,” Blomkvist said.

“Good morning, Blomkvist. What the hell time is it?”

Beckman was blond and thin. He had a lot of hair on his chest and hardly any on his head. He had a week’s growth of beard and a prominent scar over his right eyebrow, the result of a sailing accident some years before.

“Just after 5:00,” Blomkvist said. “Could you wake Erika? I have to talk to her.”

Beckman took it that since Blomkvist had all of a sudden overcome his reluctance to visit Saltsjöbaden – and at that hour – something out of the ordinary must have happened. Besides, the man looked as if he badly needed a drink, or at least a bed so that he could sleep off whatever it was. Beckman held the door open and let him in.

“What happened?”

Before Blomkvist could reply, Berger appeared at the top of the stairs, tying the sash of a white terry-cloth bathrobe. She stopped halfway down when she saw Blomkvist in the hall.

“What?”

“Dag and Mia,” Blomkvist said.

His face instantly revealed the news he had come to give her.

“No.” She put a hand to her mouth.

“They were murdered last night. I just came from the police station.”

“Murdered?” Berger and Beckman said at the same time.

“Somebody got into their apartment in Enskede and shot them. I was the one who found them.”

Berger sat down on the stairs.

“I didn’t want you to have to hear it on the morning news,” Blomkvist said.

It was 6:59 a.m. on Maundy Thursday as Blomkvist and Berger let themselves into the Millennium offices. Berger had woken Malm and Eriksson with the news that Svensson and Johansson had been killed the night before. They lived much closer and had already arrived for the meeting. The coffeemaker was going in the kitchenette.

“What the hell is happening?” Malm wanted to know.

Eriksson shushed him and turned up the volume on the 7:00 a.m. news.

Two people, a man and a woman, were shot dead late last night in an apartment in Enskede. The police say that it was a double homicide. Neither of the deceased was previously known to the police. The motive for the murders is still unknown. Our reporter Hanna Olofsson is at the scene.

“It was just before midnight when the police received a report of shots fired in an apartment building on Björneborgsvägen here in Enskede. No suspect has yet been arrested. The police have cordoned off the apartment and a crime scene investigation is under way.”

“That was pretty succinct,” Eriksson said and turned the volume down. Then she started to cry. Berger put an arm around her shoulders. “Jesus Christ,” Malm said to no-one in particular. “Sit down, everyone,” Berger said in a firm voice. “Mikael…” Blomkvist told them what he knew of what had happened. He spoke in a dull monotone and sounded like the radio reporter when he described how he had found Svensson and Johansson.

“Jesus Christ,” Malm said again. “This is crazy.”

Eriksson was once more overwhelmed by emotion. She began weeping again and made no attempt to hide her tears.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“I feel the same way,” said Malm.

Blomkvist wondered why he could not cry. He felt only a huge emptiness, almost as if he were anesthetized.

“What we know this morning doesn’t amount to very much,” Berger said. “We have to discuss two things: first, we’re three weeks from going to press with Dag’s material; should we still publish it? Can we publish it? That’s one thing. The other is a question that Mikael and I discussed on the way here.”

“We don’t know the motive for the murders,” Blomkvist said. “It could be something to do with Dag and Mia’s private life, or it could be a purely senseless act, but we can’t rule out that it may have had something to do with what they were working on.”

A long silence settled around the table.

At last Blomkvist cleared his throat. “As I said, we’re about to publish a story in which we name people who are extremely anxious not to be identified in this connection. Dag started with the confrontations several weeks ago. I’m thinking that if one of them –”

“Wait,” Eriksson said. “We’re exposing three policemen, at least one of whom works for Säpo and another on the vice squad. Then there are several lawyers, one prosecutor, one judge, and a couple of dirty-old-men journalists. Could one of them have killed two people to prevent the publication?”

“Well, I don’t know the answer to that,” Blomkvist said. “They all have a hell of a lot to lose, but they’re damn stupid if they thought they could quash a story like this by murdering a journalist. But we’re also exposing a number of pimps, and even if we use fictitious names it wouldn’t be hard to figure out who they are. Some of them already have records for violent crimes.”

“OK,” Malm said. “But you’re making the murders out to be executions. If I’m reading Svensson’s story correctly, we’re not talking about very bright people. Are they up to pulling off a double murder and getting away with it?”

“How bright do you have to be to fire two shots?” Eriksson said.

“We’re speculating here about something we know practically nothing about,” Berger broke in. “But we do have to ask the question. If suppressing Dag’s articles – or Mia’s dissertation, for that matter – was the motive for the murders, then we have to beef up security here in the office.”

“And a third question,” Eriksson said. “Should we go to the police with the names? What did you tell the police last night, Mikael?”

“I told them what Dag was working on, but they didn’t ask for details and I didn’t give any names.”

“We probably should,” Berger said.

“It’s not quite that simple,” Blomkvist said. “We could give them a list of names, but what do we do if the police start asking questions about how we got hold of them? We can’t reveal any source who wants to remain anonymous. And that’s certainly true of several of the girls Mia talked to.”

“What a fucking mess,” Berger said. “We’re back to the original question – should we publish?”

Blomkvist held up his hand. “Wait. We could take a vote on this, but I happen to be the publisher who’s responsible, and for the first time I think I’ll make a decision all on my own. The answer is no. We can’t publish this material in the next issue. It’s unreasonable for us simply to go ahead according to plan.”

Silence descended over the table.

“I really want to publish, obviously, but we are going to have to rewrite quite a bit. It was Dag and Mia who had the documentation, and the story was based on the fact that Mia intended to file a police report against the people we were going to name. She had expert knowledge. Have we got any information on this?”

The front door slammed and Cortez stood in the doorway.

“Is it Dag and Mia?” he asked, out of breath.

They all nodded.

“Christ. This is crazy.”

“How did you hear about it?” Blomkvist said.

“I was on my way home with my girlfriend when we heard it on a taxi radio. The police have been asking for information on fares going to their street. I didn’t recognize the address. I had to come in.”

Cortez looked so shaken that Berger got up and gave him a hug and asked him to join them at the table.

“I think Dag would want us to publish his story,” she said.

“And I agree that we should. Definitely the book. But under the circumstances, we’ll have to push back the publication date.”

“So what do we do?” Eriksson said. “It’s not just one article that has to be switched – it’s a whole themed issue. The whole magazine has to be remade.”

Berger was quiet for a moment, then gave her first tired smile of the day.

“Had you planned to take Easter off, Malin?” she said. “Well, forget it. This is what we’ll do… Malin, you and I – and Christer – will sit down and plan a new issue without Dag’s material. We’ll have to see if we can pry loose a few articles that we’d planned for June. Mikael, how much material did you get from Dag?”

“I’ve got final versions of nine out of twelve chapters. I have drafts of chapters ten and eleven. Dag was going to email me the final versions – I’ll check my inbox – but I only have an outline of chapter twelve. That’s the summary and the conclusions.”

“But you and Dag had talked through every one of the chapters, right?”

“Yes, and I know what he was planning to write in the last chapter, if that’s what you mean.”

“OK, you’ll have to sit down with the manuscripts – both the book and the articles. I want to know how much is missing and whether we can write whatever Dag didn’t manage to deliver. Could you do an objective assessment today?”

Blomkvist nodded.

“I also need you to think about what we’re going to tell the police. What is within limits and at what point do we risk breaking our confidentiality agreement with our sources. Nobody at Millennium should say anything to anyone outside the magazine without your approval.”

“That sounds good,” Blomkvist said.

“How likely do you think it is that Dag’s book was the motive for the murders?”

“Or Mia’s dissertation… I don’t know. But we can’t rule it out.”

“No, we can’t. You’ll have to keep it together.”

“Keep what together?”

“The investigation.”

“What investigation?”

“Our investigation, damn it.” Berger suddenly raised her voice. “Dag was a journalist and he was working for Millennium. If he was killed because of his job, I want to know about it. So we – as an editorial team – are going to have to dig into what happened. You’ll take care of that part, looking for a motive for the murders in all the material Dag gave us.” She turned to Eriksson. “Malin, if you help me outline a new issue today, then Christer and I will do the draft layout. But you’ve worked a lot with Dag and on other articles in the themed issue. I want you to keep an eye on developments in the murder investigation alongside Mikael.”

Eriksson nodded.

“Henry… can you work today?”

“Sure.”

“Start by calling the rest of our staff and tell them what’s going on. Then go to the police and find out what’s happening. Ask them if there’s going to be a press conference or anything. We have to stay on top of the news.”

“I’ll call everyone first. Then I’ll run home and take a shower. I’ll be back in forty-five minutes.”

“Let’s stay in touch all day.”

“Right,” Blomkvist said. “Are we finished? I have to make a call.”

Harriet Vanger was having breakfast on the glass veranda of Henrik Vanger’s house in Hedeby when her mobile rang. She answered without looking at the display.

“Good morning, Harriet,” said Blomkvist.

“Good heavens. I thought you were one of those people who never gets up before eight.”

“I don’t, as long as I have a chance to go to bed. Which I didn’t last night.”

“Has something happened?”

“You didn’t listen to the news?” Blomkvist gave her a report of the events of the night.

“That’s terrible. How are you holding up?”

“Thanks for asking. I’ve felt better. But the reason I’m calling is that you’re on Millennium’s board and should be informed. I’m guessing that some reporter will discover soon enough that I was the one who found Dag and Mia, and that will give rise to certain speculations, and when it leaks out that Dag was working on a massive exposé for Millennium, questions are going to be asked.”

“And you think I ought to be prepared. So, what should I say?”

“Tell the truth. You’ve been told what happened. You’re shocked about the murders, but you are not privy to the editorial work, so you cannot comment on any speculation. It’s the police’s job to investigate the murders, not Millennium’s.”

“Thanks for the warning. Is there anything I can do?”

“Not right now. But if I think of something I’ll let you know.”

“Good. And Mikael… keep me informed, please.”

CHAPTER 13

The responsibility of leading the preliminary investigation into the double homicide in Enskede landed officially on Prosecutor Richard Ekström’s desk at 7:00 on the morning of Maundy Thursday. The duty prosecutor of the night before, a relatively young and inexperienced lawyer, had realized that the Enskede murders could turn into a media sensation. He called and woke up the assistant county prosecutor, who in turn woke up the assistant county chief of police. Together they decided to pass the ball to a diligent and experienced prosecutor: Richard Ekström.

Ekström was a thin, vital man five feet six inches tall, forty-two years old, with thinning blond hair and a goatee. He was always impeccably dressed and he wore shoes with slightly raised heels. He had begun his career as the assistant prosecutor in Uppsala, until he was recruited as an investigator by the Ministry of Justice, where he worked on bringing Swedish law into accord with that of the EU, and he acquitted himself so well that for a time he was appointed division chief. He attracted attention with his report on organizational deficiencies within legal security, where he made a case for increased efficiency rather than complying with the requests for increased resources demanded by certain police authorities. After four years at the Ministry of Justice, he moved to the prosecutor’s office in Stockholm, where he handled a number of cases involving high-profile robberies and violent crimes.

Within the administration he was taken for a Social Democrat, but in reality Ekström was uninterested in party politics. Even as he started to attract attention in the media, people in high places had begun to keep their eye on him. He was definitely a candidate for higher office, and thanks to his presumed party affiliation he had a broad network of contacts in political and police circles. Within the police force opinion was divided as to Ekström’s ability. His investigations had not found support among those who were advocating that the best way to promote law and order was to recruit more police. On the other hand, he had excelled at not being afraid of getting his hands dirty when he drove a case to trial.

Ekström got a briefing from the criminal duty officer about the events in Enskede, and at once concluded that this was a case which would without a doubt create a stir in the media. The two victims were a criminologist and a journalist – the latter a calling Ekström either loved or hated, depending on the situation.

He had a rapid telephone conversation with the county chief of police. At 7:15 he picked up the phone again and woke Criminal Inspector Jan Bublanski, known to his colleagues as Officer Bubble. Bublanski was off duty over Easter week due to a mountain of overtime he had accumulated during the past year, but he was asked to interrupt his time off and come to police headquarters at once to run the investigation of the Enskede killings.

Bublanski was fifty-two and had been on the force since he was twenty-three. He had spent six years in patrol cars and served in both the weapons division and the burglary division before he took additional courses and advanced to the violent crimes division of the county criminal police. By all accounts, he had taken part in thirty-three murder or manslaughter investigations in the last ten years. He had been in charge of seventeen of these investigations, of which fourteen were solved and two were considered closed, which meant that the police knew who the killer was but there was insufficient evidence to bring the individual to trial. In the one remaining case, now six years old, Bublanski and his colleagues had failed. The case concerned a well-known alcoholic and troublemaker who was stabbed to death in his home in Bergshamra. The crime scene was a nightmare of fingerprints and DNA traces left over a period of years by several dozen people who had gotten drunk or been beat up in the apartment. Bublanski and his colleagues were convinced that the killer could be found among the man’s prodigious network of fellow alcoholics and drug addicts, but despite their intensive work whoever it was had continued to elude the police.

Bublanski’s statistics were good in terms of the number of cases he had solved, and he was held in high esteem by his colleagues. But they also considered him a bit odd, partly because he was Jewish. On certain high holy days he had been seen wearing a yarmulke in the corridors of police headquarters. This had occasioned a comment from a police commissioner, soon after retired, who was of the opinion that it was inappropriate to wear a yarmulke in police headquarters, in the same way he found it inappropriate for a policeman to wear a turban on duty. There was no further discussion about the matter. A journalist heard the comment and started asking questions, at which point the commissioner quickly repaired to his office.

Bublanski belonged to the Söder congregation and ate vegetarian food if kosher fare was unavailable. But he was not so Orthodox that he refused to work on the Sabbath. He immediately recognized that the killings in Enskede were not going to be a routine investigation. Ekström had taken him aside as soon as he appeared, just after 8:00.

“This seems to be a miserable story,” Ekström said. “The two who were shot were a journalist and his partner, a criminologist. And that’s not all. They were found by another journalist.”

Bublanski nodded. That effectively guaranteed that the case would be closely watched by the media.

“And to add a pinch more salt to the wound, the journalist who found the couple was Mikael Blomkvist of Millennium magazine.”

“Whoops,” Bublanski said.

“Well known from the circus surrounding the Wennerström affair.”

“What do we know about the motive?”

“So far, not a thing. Neither of the victims is known to us. They seem to have been a conscientious pair. The woman was going to get her doctorate in a few weeks. This case gets top priority.”

For Bublanski, murder always had top priority.

“We’re putting together a team. You’ll have to work fast, and I’ll ensure that you have all the resources you need. You’ve got Faste and Andersson. You’ll have Holmberg. He’s on the Rinkeby murder case, but it seems that the perp has skipped the country. You can also draw on the National Criminal Police as required.”

“I want Sonja Modig.”

“Isn’t she a little young?”

Bublanski raised his eyebrows in surprise.

“She’s thirty-nine, just about your age, and besides, she’s exceedingly sharp.”

“OK, you decide who you want on the team, but do it quickly. The brass are already after us.”

Bublanski took that to be an exaggeration. At this hour, the brass would be at breakfast.

The investigation formally began with a meeting just before 9:00, when Inspector Bublanski assembled his troops in a conference room at county police headquarters. He studied the group, not altogether happy with its composition.

Modig was the one he had the most confidence in. She had twelve years’ experience, four of them in the violent crimes division, where she had been involved in several of the investigations led by Bublanski. She was exacting and methodical, but Bublanski had observed in her the trait he regarded as the most valuable in tricky investigations: she had imagination and the ability to make associations. In at least two complex cases, Modig had discovered peculiar and improbable connections that all the others had missed, and these had led to breakthroughs. She also had a fresh, intellectual humour that Bublanski appreciated.

He was pleased to have Jerker Holmberg on his team. Holmberg was fifty-five and originally from Ångermanland. He was a stocky, plain individual, who had none of Modig’s imagination, but he was, in Bublanski’s view, perhaps the best crime scene investigator in the entire Swedish police force. They had worked on numerous investigations together over the years, and Bublanski was convinced that if there was something worth finding at a crime scene, Holmberg would find it. His immediate task would be to take command of the work in the apartment in Enskede.

Bublanski hardly knew Curt Andersson. He was a laconic and solidly built officer with such a short stubble of blond hair that at a distance he looked completely bald. Andersson was thirty-eight and had only recently come to the division from Huddinge, where he had spent years dealing with gang crime. He had a reputation for being hot-tempered and tough, which was perhaps a euphemism for the fact that he employed methods that were not quite by the book. Ten years back he had been accused of brutality, but an enquiry cleared him on all counts.

In October 1999 he had driven with a colleague to Alby to pick up a hooligan for interrogation. This man was well known to the police, and for some years had terrorized the neighbours in his apartment building. Now, as the result of a tip, he was to be taken in for questioning in connection with the robbery of a video store in Norsborg. When confronted by Andersson and his colleague, the hooligan pulled a knife instead of coming along quietly. The other officer collected several wounds to his hands, and then his left thumb was sliced off before the thug directed his attention to Andersson, who for the first time in his career was obliged to use his service weapon. He fired three shots. The first was a warning shot, the second was deliberately aimed but missed the man – no easy matter since the distance was less than ten feet – and the third shot hit him in the middle of his chest, severing the aorta. The man bled to death in a matter of minutes. The inevitable enquiry had ultimately cleared Andersson of any wrongdoing, but only solidified his reputation.

Bublanski had had doubts about Andersson at first, but after six months he had encountered nothing to provoke his criticism or wrath. On the contrary, Bublanski was beginning to have some respect for Andersson’s taciturn skill.

The last member of the team, Hans Faste, was forty-seven, a veteran of fifteen years in violent crimes, and the chief reason for Bublanski’s not being totally satisfied. Faste had a plus side and also a minus side. On the plus side, he had extensive experience – and of complicated investigations too. On the minus side, he was egocentric and had a loudmouth sense of humour that especially bothered Bublanski. But when he was kept on a short leash he was a competent detective. Besides, he had become something of a mentor for Andersson, who did not seem to object to his personality.

Inspector Nyberg of the criminal division had been invited to the meeting to report on her interview with the journalist Blomkvist during the night. Superintendent Mårtensson was also present to report on what had happened at the crime scene. Both of them were worn out and eager to go home to bed, but Nyberg had already managed to get photographs of the apartment, and these she passed around to the team.

After half an hour they had the sequence of events clear. Bublanski said: “Bearing in mind that the forensic examination of the crime scene is still in progress, this is what we think happened… An unknown person entered the apartment in Enskede without the neighbours or any other witness noticing and killed the couple, Dag Svensson and Mia Johansson.”

“We don’t know yet,” Nyberg said, “whether the gun that was found is the murder weapon, but it’s at the National Forensics Laboratory, and it’s top priority there. We’ve found a fragment of a bullet – the one that went into Svensson – relatively intact in the bedroom wall. But the bullet that struck Johansson is so fragmented that I doubt it will help much.”

“Thanks for that information. A Colt Magnum is a damned cowboy pistol that ought to be banned outright. Have we got a serial number?”

“Not yet,” Mårtensson said. “I sent the gun and bullet fragments to NFL by messenger direct from the crime scene. Better for them to take care of it than for me to start handling the weapon.”

“That’s good. I haven’t had time to go to the crime scene yet, but the two of you have been there. What are your thoughts?”

Nyberg deferred to her older colleague to speak for them both.

“First of all, we think it was a lone gunman. Second, it was an execution, pure and simple. I get a feeling that someone had very good reason to kill Svensson and Johansson, and he did his job with precision.”

“What do you base that on?” Faste said.

“The apartment was neat and tidy. It bore none of the hallmarks of a robbery or assault or anything like that. And only two shots were fired. Both hit their intended targets in the head. So it’s someone who knows how to handle a gun.”

“Makes sense to me.”

“If we look at the sketch of the apartment… from what we could reconstruct, we think that the man, Svensson, was shot at close range – possibly point-blank. There are burn marks around the entry wound. We’re guessing that he was shot first. He was thrown against the dining table. The gunman could have stood in the hall or just inside the doorway to the living room.

“According to witnesses, people who live on the same staircase, the shots were fired within a few seconds of each other. Mia Johansson was shot from a greater distance. She was probably standing in the entrance to the bedroom and tried to turn away. The bullet hit her below the left ear and exited just above the right eye. The impact threw her into the bedroom, where she was found. She hit the foot of the bed and slid to the floor.”

“A single shot fired by someone used to handling guns,” Faste said.

“More than that: there were no footprints to indicate that the killer went into the bedroom to check that she was dead. He knew he had hit his mark and he left the apartment. So, two shots, two bodies, and then out. We’ll have to wait for forensics, but I’m guessing that the killer used hunting ammunition. Death would have been instantaneous. There were ghastly wounds in both victims.”

The team considered this summary in silence. It was a debate that none of them needed to be reminded of. There are two types of ammunition: hard, full-metal-jacketed bullets that go straight through the body and cause comparatively modest damage, and soft ammunition that expands in the body on impact and does enormous damage. There is a vast difference between hitting a person with a bullet that’s nine millimetres in diameter and a bullet that expands to a couple of centimetres or more in diameter. The latter type is called hunting ammunition, and its objective is to cause massive bleeding. It is considered more humane when hunting moose, since the aim is to put down the prey as quickly and painlessly as possible. But hunting ammunition is forbidden for use in war by international law, because a soldier hit by an expanding bullet almost always dies, no matter where the point of entry.

In its wisdom, however, the Swedish police had introduced hollow-body hunting ammunition to the police arsenal two years earlier. Exactly why was unclear, but it was quite clear that if, for example, the demonstrator Hannes Westberg, who was hit in the stomach during the World Trade Organization riots in Göteborg in 2001, had been shot with hunting ammo, he would not have survived.

“So the purpose, unquestionably, was to kill,” Andersson said.

He was speaking of the murders in Enskede, but he was also voicing his opinion in the silent debate going on around the table.

Nyberg and Mårtensson agreed.

“Then we have this improbable time frame,” Bublanski said.

“Exactly. Immediately after the fatal shots were fired, the killer leaves the apartment, goes down the stairs, drops the weapon, and vanishes into the night. Shortly thereafter – it can only have been a matter of seconds – Blomkvist and his sister drive up and park outside. One possibility is that the killer left through the basement. There’s a side entrance he could have used – into the back courtyard and across a lawn to the street that runs parallel. But he would have had to have a key to the basement door.”

“Is there any sign at all that the killer left that way?”

“No.”

“So, no description to go on,” Modig said. “But why did he ditch the weapon? If he had taken it with him – or if he had flung it away some distance from the building – we wouldn’t have found it for a while.”

It was a question that no-one could answer.

“What should we think about Blomkvist?” Faste said.

“No question he was in shock,” Mårtensson said. “But he acted sensibly. He seemed clearheaded, and I thought he was trustworthy. His sister, a lawyer, confirmed the phone call and the drive there by car. I don’t think he was involved.”

“He’s a celebrity journalist,” Modig said.

“So this is going to turn into a media circus,” Bublanski said. “All the more reason to wrap it up as fast as we can. OK… Jerker, you’ll deal with the crime scene, of course, and the neighbours. Faste, you and Curt investigate the victims. Who were they, what were they working on, who was in their circle of friends, who might have had a motive to kill them? Sonja, you and I will go over the witness statements from that night. Then you’ll make a schedule of what Svensson and Johansson were doing all day yesterday before they were killed. We’ll meet here at 2:00 this afternoon.”

Blomkvist began his working day at Svensson’s desk. He sat quite still for a long while, as if he did not feel up to taking on the task.

Svensson had his own laptop and had initially worked mostly from home. He had usually spent two days a week in the office; more in the last weeks. At Millennium he had access to an older PowerMac G3, a computer that lived on his desk and could be used by any of the staff. Blomkvist turned on the G3 and found much of the material Svensson had been working on. He had primarily used the G3 to search the Net, but there were various folders that he had copied over from his laptop. He also had a complete backup on two disks that he kept locked in the desk drawer. Usually he had backed up new and updated material every day, but since he had not been in the office for a few days, the latest copy was from Sunday night. Three days were missing.

Blomkvist made a copy of the Zip disk and locked it in the safe in his office. Then he spent forty-five minutes going through the contents of the original disk. It contained around thirty folders and countless sub-folders. Four years of Svensson’s research on trafficking. He read the document names and looked for ones that might contain the most sensitive material – the names of sources that Svensson was protecting. He had clearly been very careful with his sources – all such material was in a folder labelled. The folder contained 134 documents, most of them quite small. Blomkvist highlighted all the documents and deleted them. He dragged them to an icon for the Burn programme, which did not simply delete the documents but eradicated them byte by byte.

Then he tackled Svensson’s email. He had been given his own email address at Millennium, which he used both at the office and on his laptop. He had his own password, but that did not present a problem, since Blomkvist had administrator rights and was able to access the entire mail server. He downloaded a copy of Svensson’s email and burned it to a CD.

Finally he turned his attention to the mountain of paper made up of reference material, notes, press clippings, court judgments, and all the correspondence that Svensson had accumulated. He played it safe and made copies of everything that looked important. That came to two thousand pages and took him three hours.

He set to one side all the material that might in any way be connected to a confidential source. It was a stack of about forty pages, mainly notes from two A4 pads that Svensson had locked in his desk. Blomkvist put this material in an envelope and took it into his office. Then he carried all the other material that was part of Svensson’s project to his desk.

When he was finished he took a deep breath and went down to the 7-Eleven, where he had a coffee and a slice of pizza. He mistakenly assumed that the police would arrive at any moment to go through Svensson’s desk.

Bublanski had an unexpected breakthrough in the investigation just after 10:00 a.m., when he was called by Lennart Granlund of the National Forensics Laboratory in Linköping:

“It’s about the killings in Enskede.”

“So soon?”

“We received the weapon early this morning, and I’m not quite done with the analysis, but I have some information that might interest you.”

“Good. Tell me what you’ve come up with,” Bublanski said.

“The weapon is a Colt.45 Magnum, made in the USA in 1981. We have fingerprints and possible DNA – but that analysis will take a little time. We’ve also looked at the bullets that the couple were shot with. Not surprisingly, they appear to have been fired from that weapon. That’s usually the case when we find a gun in the stairwell at a crime scene. The bullets are badly fragmented, but we have a piece to use for comparison. It’s most likely that this is the murder weapon.”

“An illegal weapon, I suppose. Do you have a serial number?”

“The weapon is quite legal. It belongs to a lawyer, Nils Erik Bjurman, and was bought in 1983. He’s a member of the police shooting club. He lives on Upplandsgatan near Odenplan.”

“What on earth are you saying?”

“We also found, as I mentioned, a number of prints on the weapon. Prints from at least two different people. We may expect that one set belongs to Bjurman, insofar as the weapon was not reported stolen or sold – but I have no information on that.”

“Aha. In other words, we have a lead.”

“We have a hit in the register for the second set. Prints from the right thumb and forefinger.”

“Who is it?”

“A woman born on April 30, 1978. Arrested for an assault in Gamla Stan in 1995, when the prints were taken.”

“Does she have a name?”

“Yes. Her name is Lisbeth Salander.”

Bublanski wrote down the name and a social security number that Granlund gave him.

When Blomkvist returned to work after his late lunch, he went straight to his office and closed the door, making it clear that he did not want to be disturbed. He had not had time to deal with all the peripheral information in Svensson’s email and notes. He would have to settle down and read through the book and the articles with completely new eyes, keeping in mind now that the author was dead and unable to answer any difficult questions that might need to be asked.

He had to decide whether the book could still be published. And he had to make up his mind whether there was anything in the material that might hint at a motive for murder. He switched on his computer and set to work.

Bublanski made a brief call to Ekström, to tell him what had developed at NFL. It was decided that Bublanski and Modig would pay a call on Advokat Bjurman. It could be for a talk, an interrogation, or even an arrest. Faste and Andersson would track down this Lisbeth Salander and ask her to explain how her fingerprints came to be on a murder weapon. The search for Bjurman at first presented no difficulty. His address was listed in the tax records, the weapons registry, and the vehicle licencing database; it was even in the telephone book. Bublanski and Modig drove to Odenplan and managed to get into the building on Upplandsgatan when a young man came out just as they arrived.

After that it was trickier. When they rang Bjurman’s doorbell, no-one answered. They drove to his office at St.Eriksplan, but got the same result there.

“Maybe he’s in court,” Modig said.

“Maybe he got on a plane to Brazil after shooting two people in Enskede,” Bublanski said.

Modig glanced at her colleague. She enjoyed his company. She would not have had anything against flirting with him but for the fact that she was a mother of two and she and Bublanski were both happily married. From the brass nameplates on Bjurman’s floor they noted that his nearest neighbours were a dentist, Dr. Norman, a company called N-Consulting, and Rune Håkansson, a lawyer.

They started with Håkansson.

“Hello, my name is Modig and this is Inspector Bublanski. We’re from the police and have business with Nils Erik Bjurman, your colleague from next door. Do you know where we might find him?”

Håkansson shook his head. “I haven’t seen much of him lately. He was seriously ill two years ago, and has more or less shut down his practice. I only see him about once every two months.”

“Seriously ill?” Bublanski said.

“I’m not sure what with. He was always working flat out, and then he was taken ill. Cancer, I assumed. I hardly know him.”

“Do you think or do you know that he got cancer?” Modig said.

“Well… No, I’m not sure. He had a secretary, Britt Karlsson, or Nilsson, something like that. An older woman. He let her go, and she was the one who told me that he was ill. That was in the spring of 2003. I didn’t see him again until December of that year. He looked ten years older, gaunt and grey-haired. I drew my own conclusions.”

They went back to the apartment. Still no answer. Bublanski took out his mobile and dialled Bjurman’s mobile number. He got an automated message: The subscriber you are calling cannot be reached at present. Please try again later.

He tried the number at the apartment. On the landing they could hear a faint ringing from the other side of the door before an answering machine clicked on and asked the caller to leave a message.

It was 1:00 p.m.

“Coffee?”

“I need a burger.”

At Burger King on Odenplan Modig had a Whopper and Bublanski a veggie burger. Then they returned to police headquarters.

Prosecutor Ekström called the meeting to order at the conference table in his office at 2:00. Bublanski and Modig took seats next to each other by the wall near the window. Andersson arrived two minutes later and sat down opposite them. Holmberg came in with a tray of coffee in paper cups. He had paid a brief visit to Enskede and intended to return later in the afternoon when the techs were finished.

“Where’s Faste?” Ekström asked.

“He’s with the social welfare agency. He called five minutes ago and said he’d be a little late,” Svensson said.

“We’ll get started anyway. What have we got?” Ekström began without ceremony. He pointed first to Bublanski.

“We’ve been looking for Nils Bjurman, the registered owner of what is probably the murder weapon. He isn’t at home or at his office. According to another lawyer in the same building, he fell ill two years ago and has more or less shut down his practice.”

Modig said: “Bjurman is fifty-five, not listed in the criminal register. He is mainly a business lawyer. I haven’t had time to research his background beyond that.”

“But he does own the gun that was used in Enskede.”

“That’s correct. He has a licence for it and he’s a member of the police shooting club,” Bublanski said. “I talked to Gunnarsson in weapons – he’s the chairman of the club and knows Bjurman well. He joined in 1978 and was treasurer from 1984 to 1992. Gunnarsson describes Bjurman as an excellent shot with a pistol, calm and collected, and no funny stuff.”

“A gun freak?”

“Gunnarsson thinks Bjurman was more interested in club life than in the shooting itself. He liked to compete, but he didn’t stand out, at least not as a gun fanatic. In 1983 he participated in the Swedish championships and came in thirteenth. For the past ten years he’s cut back on shooting practice and just shows up for annual meetings and such.”

“Does he own any other weapons?”

“He has had licences for four handguns since he joined the shooting club. In addition to the Colt, he’s had a Beretta, a Smith&Wesson, and a competition pistol made by Rapid. The other three were sold within the club ten years ago, and the licences were transferred to other members.”

“And we have no idea where he is.”

“That’s correct. But we’ve only been looking for him since 10:00 this morning. He may be out walking in Djurgården or in hospital or whatever.”

At that moment Faste burst in. He seemed out of breath.

“Sorry I’m late. May I jump right in?”

Ekström motioned “be my guest.”

“Lisbeth Salander is a very interesting character. I’ve spent the morning at the social welfare agency and the Guardianship Agency.” He took off his leather jacket and hung it over the back of his chair before he sat down and opened a notebook.

“The Guardianship Agency?” Ekström said with a frown.

“This is one very disturbed lady,” Faste said. “She was declared incompetent and put under guardianship. Guess who’s her guardian.” He paused for effect. “Nils Bjurman, the owner of the weapon that was used in Enskede.”

This announcement certainly had the effect Faste had anticipated. It took him fifteen more minutes to brief the group on all he had learned about Salander.

“To sum up,” Ekström said when Faste was finished, “we have fingerprints on the probable murder weapon from a woman who during her teens was in and out of psychiatric units, who is understood to make her living as a prostitute, who was declared incompetent by the district court, and who has been documented as having violent tendencies. We should be asking what the hell she’s doing out on the streets at all.”

“She’s had violent tendencies since she was in elementary school,” said Faste. “She seems to be a real psycho.”

“But so far we have nothing to link her to the couple in Enskede.” Ekström drummed his fingertips on the tabletop. “This double murder may not be so hard to solve after all. Have we got an address for Salander?”

“On Lundagatan in Södermalm. Tax records show that she declared periodic income from Milton Security.”

“And what in God’s name was she doing for them?”

“I don’t know. It’s a pretty modest annual income for several years. Maybe she’s a cleaning woman or something.”

“Hmm,” Ekström said. “We’ll have that checked out. Right now we have to find her.”

“We’ll have to work out the details gradually,” Bublanski said. “But now we have a suspect. Hans, you and Curt go down to Lundagatan and pick up Salander. Be careful – we don’t know if she has other weapons, and we don’t really know how dangerous she may be.”

“OK.”

“Bubble,” Ekström said, “the head of Milton Security is Dragan Armansky. I met him on a case a few years ago. He’s reliable. Go to his office and have a private talk with him about Salander. You’d better get there before he leaves for the day.”

Bublanski was visibly annoyed, partly because Ekström had used his nickname, partly because he had formulated his request as an order.

“Modig,” Bublanski said, “keep looking for Bjurman. Knock on all the neighbours’ doors. I think it’s just as important to find him.”

“OK.”

“We have to find the connection between Salander and the couple in Enskede. And we have to place Salander down in Enskede at the time of the murders. Jerker, get some pictures of her and check with everyone who lives in the apartment building. Knock on doors this evening. Get some uniforms to help you out.”

Bublanski paused and scratched the back of his neck.

“Damn, with a little luck we could tie up this mess tonight – and I thought this was going to be a long, drawn – out affair.”

“One more thing,” Ekström said. “The media are obviously pressuring us. I’ve promised them a press conference at 3:00 p.m. I can handle it provided I get somebody from the press office to help out. I’m guessing that a number of journalists will call you directly as well. We’ll say nothing at all about Salander and Bjurman for as long as need be.”

Armansky had considered going home early. It was Maundy Thursday and he and his wife had planned to go to their summer cabin on Blidö over the Easter weekend. He had just closed his briefcase and put on his coat when the receptionist buzzed him and said that Criminal Inspector Jan Bublanski was looking for him. Armansky did not know Bublanski, but the fact that a senior police officer had come to the office was enough to make him hang his coat back on the coatrack. He did not feel like seeing anyone at all, but Milton Security could not afford to ignore the police. He met Bublanski by the elevator in the corridor.

“Thanks for taking the time to see me,” Bublanski said. “My boss sends his greetings – Prosecutor Ekström.”

They shook hands.

“Ekström – I’ve had dealings with him a few times. It’s been several years. Would you like some coffee?”

Armansky stopped at the coffee machine and pressed the buttons for two cups before he invited Bublanski into his office and offered him the comfortable chair by the window.

“Armansky… Russian?” Bublanski said. “My name ends in-ski too.”

“My family comes from Armenia. And yours?”

“Poland.”

“How can I help you?”

Bublanski took out his notebook.

“I’m investigating the killings in Enskede. I assume you heard the news today.”

Armansky gave a brisk nod.

“Ekström said that you’re discreet.”

“In my position it pays to cooperate with the police. I can keep a secret, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“Good. We’re looking for an individual who worked for your company at one time. Lisbeth Salander. Do you know her?”

Armansky felt a lump of cement form in his stomach. His expression did not change.

“And why are you looking for Fröken Salander?”

“Let’s say that we have reason to consider her a person of interest in the investigation.”

The lump of cement in Armansky’s stomach expanded. It almost caused him physical pain. Since the day he had first met Salander he had had a strong presentiment that her life was on a trajectory towards catastrophe. But he had always imagined her as a victim, not an offender. He still showed no emotion.

“So you suspect Lisbeth Salander of the killings in Enskede. Do I understand you correctly?”

Bublanski hesitated a moment, and then he nodded.

“What can you tell me about her?”

“What do you want to know?”

“First of all, how can we find her?”

“She lives on Lundagatan. I’ll have to look up the exact address. I have a mobile telephone number for her.”

“We have the address. The mobile number would be helpful.”

Armansky went to his desk and read out the number, which Bublanski wrote down.

“She works for you?”

“She has her own business. I gave her freelance assignments now and then from 1998 until about a year and a half ago.”

“What sort of jobs did she do?”

“Research.”

Bublanski looked up from his notebook.

“Research?” he said.

“Personal investigations, to be more precise.”

“Just a moment… are we talking about the same girl? The Lisbeth Salander we’re looking for didn’t finish school and was officially declared incompetent to manage her affairs.”

“They don’t say ‘incompetent’ nowadays,” Armansky said calmly.

“I don’t give a damn what they say nowadays. The girl we’re looking for has a record which says she is a deeply disturbed and violence-prone individual. It says in her social welfare agency file that she was a prostitute in the late nineties. There is nothing anywhere in her records to indicate that she could hold down a white-collar job.”

“Files are one thing. People are something else.”

“You mean that she is qualified to do personal investigations for Milton Security?”

“Not only that. She is by far the best researcher I’ve ever had.”

Bublanski put down his pen and frowned.

“It sounds as though you have… respect for her.”

Armansky looked at his hands. The question marked a fork in the road. He had always feared that Salander would end up in hot water sooner or later, but he could not conceive of her being mixed up in a double murder in Enskede – as the killer or in any other way. But what did he know about her private life? Armansky thought of her recent visit to his office in which she had cryptically explained that she had enough money to get by and did not need a job.

The wisest thing to do at that moment would be to distance himself, and above all Milton Security, from all contact with Salander. But then Salander was probably the loneliest person he knew.

“I have respect for her skills. You won’t find that in her school results or personal record.”

“So you know about her background.”

“The fact that she’s under guardianship and that she had a pretty confused upbringing, yes.”

“And yet you trusted her.”

“That is precisely why I trusted her.”

“Please explain.”

“Her previous guardian, Holger Palmgren, was old J. F. Milton’s lawyer. He took on her case when she was a teenager, and he persuaded me to give her a job. I employed her initially to sort the mail and look after the photocopier, things like that. But she turned out to have unbelievable talents. And you can forget any report that says she may have been a prostitute. That’s nonsense. Lisbeth had a difficult period in her teens and was undoubtedly a bit wild – but that’s not the same as breaking the law. Prostitution is probably the last thing in the world she would turn to.”

“Her current guardian is a lawyer by the name of Nils Bjurman.”

“I’ve never met him. Palmgren had a cerebral haemorrhage a couple of years ago. Lisbeth cut back on the work she did for me quite soon after that happened. The last job she did was in October a year and a half ago.”

“Why did you stop employing her?”

“It wasn’t my choice. She was the one who broke off contact and disappeared abroad. Without a word of explanation.”

“Disappeared abroad?”

“She was gone for about a year.”

“That can’t be right. Bjurman sent in monthly reports on her for all of last year. We have copies up at Kungsholmen.”

Armansky shrugged and smiled.

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“In early February. She popped up out of nowhere and paid me a social visit. She spent all of last year out of the country, travelling in Asia and the Caribbean.”

“Forgive me, but I’m getting a little muddled here. I had the impression that this Lisbeth Salander was a mentally ill girl who hadn’t even finished school and who was under guardianship. Now you tell me that you trusted her as an exceptional researcher, that she has her own business, and that she earned enough money to take a year off and travel around the world, all without her guardian sounding the alarm. Something doesn’t add up here.”

“There’s quite a bit that doesn’t add up regarding Fröken Salander.”

“May I ask… what is your overall opinion of her?”

Armansky thought for a while. Finally he said: “She’s one of the most irritating, inflexible people I’ve met in my whole life.”

“Inflexible?”

“She won’t do anything she doesn’t want to do. She doesn’t give a damn what other people think of her. She is tremendously skilled. And she is unlike anyone I’ve ever met.”

“Is she unbalanced?”

“How do you define unbalanced?”

“Is she capable of murdering two people in cold blood?”

Armansky was quiet for a long time. “I’m sorry. I can’t answer that question. I’m a cynic. I believe that everyone has it in them to kill another person. In desperation or hatred, or at least to defend themselves.”

“You don’t discount the possibility, at any rate.”

“Lisbeth Salander will not do anything unless she has a good reason for it. If she murdered someone, then she must have felt that she had a very good reason to do so. On what grounds do you suspect her of being involved in these murders?”

Bublanski met Armansky’s gaze.

“Can we keep this confidential?”

“Absolutely”

“The murder weapon belonged to her guardian. And her fingerprints were on it.”

Armansky clenched his teeth. That was serious circumstantial evidence.

“I’ve only heard about the murders on the radio. What was it about? Drugs?”

“Is she mixed up with drugs?”

“Not that I know of. But, as I said, she went through a bad time in her teens, and she was arrested a few times for being drunk. Her record will tell you whether drugs were involved.”

“We don’t have a motive for the murders. They were a conscientious couple. She was a criminologist and was just about to get her doctorate. He was a journalist. Dag Svensson and Mia Johansson. Do those names ring any bells?”

Armansky shook his head.

“We’re trying to find a connection between them and Lisbeth Salander.”

“I’ve never heard of them.”

Bublanski stood up. “Thanks for your time. It’s been a fascinating conversation. I don’t know how much the wiser I am for it, but I hope we can keep all of this between ourselves.”

“Of course.”

“I’ll get back to you if necessary. And of course, if Salander should get in touch…”

“Certainly,” Armansky said.

They shook hands. Bublanski was on his way out the door when he stopped.

“You don’t happen to know anyone that Salander associates with, do you? Friends, acquaintances…”

Armansky shook his head.

“I don’t know a single thing about her private life. Except that her old guardian meant something to her. Holger Palmgren. He’s in a nursing home in Ersta. She might have made contact with him since she came back.”

“She never had visitors when she was working here? Would there be a record of that?”

“No. She worked from home mainly and came in only to present her reports. With a few exceptions, she never even met the clients. Possibly…” Armansky was struck by a thought.

“What?”

“There is just possibly one other person she may have got in touch with, a journalist she knew a couple of years ago. He was looking for her when she was out of the country.”

“A journalist?”

“His name is Mikael Blomkvist. Do you remember the Wennerström affair?”

Bublanski came slowly back into Armansky’s office.

“It was Blomkvist who discovered the couple in Enskede. You’ve just established a link between Salander and the murder victims.”

Armansky again felt the solid pain of the lump in his stomach.

CHAPTER 14

Modig tried three times in half an hour to reach Nils Bjurman on his mobile. Each time she got the message that the subscriber could not be reached.

At 3:30 p.m. she drove to Odenplan and rang his doorbell. Once more, no answer. She spent the next twenty minutes knocking on doors in the apartment building to see if any of Bjurman’s neighbours knew where he might be.

In eleven of the nineteen apartments no-one was there. It was obviously the wrong time of day to be knocking on doors, and it would not get any better over the Easter weekend. In the eight apartments that were occupied, everyone was helpful. Five of them knew who Bjurman was – a polite, well-mannered gentleman on the fifth floor. No-one could provide any information as to his whereabouts. She managed to ascertain that Bjurman might be visiting one of his closest neighbours, a businessman named Sjöman. But nobody answered the door there either.

Frustrated, Modig took out her mobile and called Bjurman’s answering machine once again. She gave her name, left her number, and asked him to please contact her as soon as he could.

She went back to Bjurman’s door and wrote him a note asking him to call her. She got out a business card and dropped that through the mail slot as well. Just as she closed the flap, she heard a telephone ring inside the apartment. She leaned down and listened intently as it rang four times. She heard the answering machine click on, but she could not hear any message.

She closed the flap on the mail slot and stared at the door. Exactly what impulse made her reach out and touch the handle she could not have said, but to her great surprise the door was unlocked. She pushed it open and peered into the hall.

“Hello!” she called cautiously and listened. There was no sound.

She took a step into the hall and then hesitated. She had no warrant to search the premises and no right to be in the apartment, even if the door was unlocked. She looked to her left and got a glimpse of the living room. She had just decided to back out of the apartment when her glance fell on the hall table. She saw a box for a Colt Magnum pistol.

Modig suddenly had a strong sense of unease. She opened her jacket and drew her service weapon, which she had rarely done before.

She clicked off the safety catch and aimed the gun at the floor as she went to the living room and looked in. She saw nothing untoward, but her apprehension increased. She backed out and peered into the kitchen. Empty. She went down the corridor and pushed open the bedroom door.

Bjurman’s naked body lay half stretched out on the bed. His knees were on the floor. It was as though he had knelt to say his prayers.

Even from the door Modig could tell that he was dead. Half of his forehead had been blown away by a shot to the back of his head.

Modig closed the apartment door behind her. She still had her service revolver in her hand as she flipped open her mobile and called Inspector Bublanski. She could not reach him. Next she called Prosecutor Ekström. She made a note of the time. It was 4:18.

Faste looked at the entrance door to the building on Lundagatan. He looked at Andersson and then at his watch. 4:10.

After obtaining the entry code from the caretaker, they had already been inside the building and listened at the door with the nameplate SALANDER-WU. They had heard no sound from the apartment, and nobody had answered the bell. They returned to their car and parked where they could keep watch on the door.

From the car they had ascertained by phone that the person in Stockholm whose name had been recently added to the contract for the apartment on Lundagatan was Miriam Wu, born in 1974 and previously living at St.Eriksplan.

They had a passport photograph of Salander taped above the car radio. Faste muttered out loud that she looked like a bitch.

“Shit, the whores are looking worse all the time. You’d have to be pretty desperate to pick her up.”

Andersson kept his mouth shut.

At 4:20 they were called by Bublanski, who told them he was on his way from Armansky’s to the Millennium offices. He asked Faste and Andersson to maintain their watch at Lundagatan. Salander would have to be brought in for questioning, but they should be aware that the prosecutor did not think she could be linked to the killings in Enskede.

“All right,” Faste said. “According to Bubble the prosecutor wants to have a confession before they arrest anybody.”

Andersson said nothing. Listlessly they watched people moving through the neighbourhood.

At 4:40, Prosecutor Ekström called Faste’s mobile.

“Things are happening. We found Bjurman shot in his apartment. He’s been dead for at least twenty-four hours.”

Faste sat up in his seat. “Got it. What should we do?”

“I’m going to issue an alert on Salander. She’s being sought as a suspect in three murders. We’ll send it out county-wide. We have to consider her dangerous and very possibly armed.”

“Got it.”

“I’m sending a van to Lundagatan. They’ll go in and secure the apartment.”

“Understood.”

“Have you been in touch with Bublanski?”

“He’s at Millennium.”

“And seems to have turned off his phone. Could you try to reach him and let him know?”

Faste and Andersson looked at each other.

“The question is, what do we do if she turns up?” Andersson said.

“If she’s alone and things look good, we’ll pick her up. This girl is as crazy as hell and obviously on a killing spree. There may be more weapons in the apartment.”

Blomkvist was dead tired when he laid the pile of manuscript pages on Berger’s desk and slumped into the chair by the window overlooking Götgatan. He had spent the whole afternoon trying to make up his mind what they ought to do with Svensson’s unfinished book.

Svensson had been dead only a few hours, and already his publisher was debating what to do with the work he had left behind. An outsider might think it cynical and coldhearted, but Blomkvist did not see it that way. He felt as if he were in an almost weightless state. It was a sensation that every reporter or newspaper editor knew well, and it kicked in at moments of direst crisis.

When other people are grieving, the newspaperman turns efficient. And despite the numbing shock that afflicted the members of the Millennium team who were there that Maundy Thursday morning, professionalism took over and was rigorously channelled into work.

For Blomkvist this went without saying. He and Svensson were two of a kind, and Svensson would have done the same himself if their roles had been reversed. He would have asked himself what he could do for Blomkvist. Svensson had left a legacy in the form of a manuscript with an explosive story. He had worked on it for four years; he had put his soul into a task which he would now never complete.

And he had chosen to work at Millennium.

The murders of Dag Svensson and Mia Johansson were not a national trauma on the scale of the murder of Olof Palme, and the investigation would not be minutely followed by a grieving nation. But for employees of Millennium the shock was perhaps greater – they were affected personally – and Svensson had a broad network of contacts in the media who were going to demand answers to their questions.

But now it was Blomkvist’s and Berger’s duty to finish Svensson’s book, and to answer the questions Who killed them? And why?

“I can reconstruct the unfinished text,” Blomkvist said. “Malin and I have to go through the unedited chapters line by line and see where more work still needs to be done. For most of it, all we have to do is follow Dag’s notes, but we do have a problem in chapters four and five, which are largely based on Mia’s interviews. Dag didn’t fill in who the sources were, but with one or two exceptions I think we can use the references in her thesis as a primary source.”

“What about the last chapter?”

“I have Dag’s outline, and we talked it through so many times that I know more or less exactly what he wanted to say. I propose that we lift the summary and use it as an afterword, where I can also explain his reasoning.”

“Fair enough, but I want to approve it. We can’t be putting words in his mouth.”

“No danger of that. I’ll write the chapter as my personal reflection and sign it. I’ll describe how he came to write and research the book and say what sort of person he was. I’ll conclude by recapping what he said in at least a dozen conversations over the past few months. There’s plenty in his draft that I can quote. I think I can make it sound dignified.”

“I want this book published more than ever,” Berger said.

Blomkvist understood exactly what she meant.

Berger put her reading glasses on the desk and shook her head. She got up and poured two cups of coffee from the thermos and sat down opposite Blomkvist.

“Christer and I have a layout for the replacement issue. We’ve taken two articles earmarked for the issue after this one and we’re going to fill the gaps with freelance material. But it’ll be a bit of this and a bit of that, an issue without any real focus.”

They sat quietly for a moment.

“Have you listened to the news?” Berger asked.

“No. I know what they’re going to say.”

“It’s the top story on every radio station. The second-place story is a political move by the Centre Party.”

“Which means that absolutely nothing else is happening in the country.”

“The police haven’t released their names yet. They’re being described as a ‘conscientious couple.’ No-one’s mentioned that it was you who found them.”

“I’ll bet the police will do all they can to keep it quiet. At least that’s to our advantage.”

“Why would the police want to do that?”

“Because detectives basically hate a media circus. I would guess something will leak out sometime tonight or early tomorrow morning.”

“So young and so cynical.”

“We aren’t that young anymore, Ricky. I thought about it while I was being questioned last night. The police inspector looked like she could still be at school.”

Berger gave a weak laugh. She had had a few hours’ sleep last night, but she was beginning to feel the strain. Still, in no time at all she would be editor in chief of one of the largest newspapers in Sweden. And no – this was not the right time to reveal that news to Blomkvist.

“Henry called a while ago. A preliminary investigation leader named Ekström held some sort of press conference this afternoon.”

“Richard Ekström?”

“Yes. Do you know him?”

“Political flunky. Guaranteed media circus. This is going to get plenty of publicity.”

“Well, he says that the police are already following up certain leads and hope to solve the case soon. Otherwise he pretty much said nothing. But apparently the place was jammed with reporters.”

Blomkvist rubbed his eyes. “I can’t get the image of Mia’s body out of my mind. Damn, I was just getting to know them.”

“Some crazy –”

“I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about it all day.”

“About what?”

“Mia was shot from the side. I saw the entry wound on the side of her neck and the exit wound in her forehead. Dag was shot from the front. The bullet went into his forehead, and came out the back of his head. Those looked to be the only two shots. It doesn’t feel like the act of a lone nutcase.”

Berger looked at her partner thoughtfully. “So what was it?”

“If it’s not a random killing, then there has to be a motive. And the more I think about it, the more it feels as if this manuscript provides a damned good motive.” Blomkvist gestured at the stack of paper on Berger’s desk. She followed his eyes. Then they looked at each other. “Maybe it’s not the book itself. Maybe they had done too much snooping and managed to… I don’t know… maybe somebody felt threatened.”

“And hired a hit man. Micke – that’s the stuff of American movies. This book is about the exploiters, the users. It names police officers, politicians, journalists… So you think one of them murdered Dag and Mia?”

“I don’t know, Ricky. But we’re supposed to be going to press in three weeks with the toughest exposé of trafficking that’s ever been published in Sweden.”

At that moment Eriksson knocked and put her head round the door. An Inspector Bublanski wanted to speak with Blomkvist.

Bublanski shook hands with Berger and Blomkvist and sat down in the third chair at the table by the window. He studied Blomkvist and saw a hollow-eyed man with a day’s growth of beard.

“Have there been any developments?” Blomkvist said.

“Maybe. I understand you were the one who found the couple in Enskede and called the police last night.”

Blomkvist nodded wearily.

“I know that you told your story to the detective on duty last night, but I wonder if you could clarify a few details for me.”

“What would you like to know?”

“How did you come to be driving over to see Svensson and Johansson so late at night?”

“That’s not a detail, it’s a whole novel,” Blomkvist said with a tired smile. “I was at a dinner party at my sister’s house – she lives in a new development in Stäket. Dag Svensson called me on my mobile and said that he wasn’t going to have time to come to the office on Thursday – today, that is – as we had previously agreed. He was supposed to deliver some photographs to our art director. The reason he gave was that he and Mia had decided to drive up to her parents’ house over the weekend, and they wanted to leave early in the morning. He asked if it would be OK if he messengered them to me last night instead. I said that since I lived so close, I could pick up the photographs on my way home from my sister’s.”

“So you drove to Enskede to pick up photographs.”

“Yes.”

“Can you think of any motive for the murders of Svensson and Johansson?”

Blomkvist and Berger glanced at each other. Neither said a word.

“What is it?” Bublanski wanted to know.

“We’ve discussed the matter today and we’re having a bit of a disagreement. Well, actually not a disagreement – we’re just not certain. We would rather not speculate.”

“Tell me.”

Blomkvist described to him the subject of Svensson’s book, and how he and Berger had been discussing whether it might have some connection to the murders. Bublanski sat quietly for a moment, digesting the information.

“So Dag Svensson was about to expose police officers.”

He did not at all like the turn the conversation had taken, and imagined how a “police trail” might wander back and forth in the media and give rise to all kinds of conspiracy theories.

“No,” Blomkvist said. “He was about to expose criminals, a few of whom happen to be police officers. There are also one or two members of my own profession, namely journalists.”

“And you’re thinking of publishing this information now?”

Blomkvist turned to look at Berger.

“No,” she said. “We’ve spent the day working on the next issue. In all probability we’ll publish Svensson’s book, but that won’t happen until we know exactly what’s going on. In light of what has happened, the book will have to be extensively reworked. We will do nothing to sabotage the investigation into the murder of our two friends, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I’ll have to take a look at Svensson’s desk, but since these are the editorial offices of a magazine it might be a sensitive thing to put in hand a complete search.”

“You’ll find all Dag’s material in his laptop,” Berger said.

“I’ve gone through his desk,” Blomkvist said. “I’ve taken some documents that directly identify sources who want to remain anonymous. You are at liberty to examine everything else, and I’ve put a note on the desk to the effect that nothing may be touched or moved. The problem is that the contents of the book absolutely have to remain under wraps until it’s printed. We badly need to avoid having the text passed around the police force, the more so since we’re going to hang one or two policemen out to dry.”

Shit, Bublanski thought. Why didn’t I come straight here this morning? But he only nodded and changed tack.

“OK. We have a person we want to question in connection with the murders. I believe it’s someone you know. I’d like to hear what you have to say about a woman named Lisbeth Salander.”

For a second Blomkvist looked like a virtual question mark. Bublanski noted that Berger gave her colleague a sharp look.

“Now I don’t understand.”

“You know Lisbeth Salander?”

“Yes, I do know her.”

“How do you know her?”

“Why do you ask?”

Bublanski was obviously irritated, but all he said was, “I’d like to interview her in connection with the murders. How do you know her?”

“But… that doesn’t make sense. Lisbeth Salander has no connection whatsoever to Dag Svensson or Mia Johansson.”

“That’s something we’ll establish in due course,” Bublanski said patiently. “But my question remains. How do you know Lisbeth Salander?”

Blomkvist stroked the stubble on his chin and then rubbed his eyes as thoughts tumbled around in his head. At last he met Bublanski’s gaze.

“I hired her about two years ago to do some research for me on a completely different project.”

“What was that project?”

“I’m sorry, but now you’ll have to take my word for it: it didn’t have the slightest thing to do with Dag Svensson or Mia Johansson. And it’s all over.”

Bublanski did not like it when someone claimed there were matters that could not be discussed even in a murder investigation, but he chose to drop it for the time being.

“When was the last time you saw Salander?”

Blomkvist paused before he spoke.

“Here’s how it is. During the autumn two years ago I was seeing her. The relationship ended around Christmas of that year. Then she disappeared from the city. I hadn’t seen her for more than a year until a week ago.”

Berger raised her eyebrows. Bublanski surmised that this was news to her.

“Tell me where you saw her.”

Blomkvist took a deep breath and then gave a brisk account of the events on Lundagatan. Bublanski listened with gathering astonishment, unsure how much of the story Blomkvist was making up.

“So you didn’t talk to her?”

“No, she disappeared on upper Lundagatan. I waited a long time, but she never came back. I wrote her a note and asked her to get in touch with me.”

“And you’re quite sure you know of no connection between her and the couple in Enskede.”

“I am certain of it.”

“Can you describe the man you say you saw attack her?”

“Not in detail. He attacked, and she defended herself and fled. I saw him from a distance of forty to forty-five yards. It was late at night and quite dark.”

“Were you intoxicated?”

“I was a little under the influence, but I wasn’t falling-down drunk. The man had lightish hair in a ponytail. He wore a dark waist-length jacket. He had a prominent belly. When I went up the stairs on Lundagatan I only saw him from behind, but he turned around when he clobbered me. I seem to remember that he had a thin face and blue eyes set close together.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?” Berger said.

Blomkvist shrugged. “There was a weekend in between, and you went to Göteborg to take part in that damned debate programme. You were gone Monday, and on Tuesday we only saw each other briefly. It didn’t seem so important.”

“But considering what has happened in Enskede… it’s odd that you didn’t mention this to the police,” Bublanski said.

“Why would I mention it to the police? That’s like saying I should have mentioned that I caught a pickpocket trying to rob me in the tunnelbana at T-Centralen a month ago. There is absolutely no imaginable connection between what happened on Lundagatan and what happened in Enskede.”

“But you didn’t report the attack to the police?”

“No.” Blomkvist paused. “Lisbeth Salander is a very private person. I considered going to the police but decided it was up to her to do that if she wanted to. And I wanted to speak to her first.”

“Which you haven’t done?”

“I haven’t spoken to her since the day after Christmas a year ago.”

“Why did your – if relationship is the right word – why did it end?”

Blomkvist’s eyes darkened.

“I don’t know. She broke off contact with me – it happened practically overnight.”

“Did something happen between you?”

“No, not if you mean an argument or anything like that. One day we were good friends. The next day she didn’t answer her telephone. Then she melted into thin air and was gone from my life.”

Bublanski contemplated Blomkvist’s explanation. It sounded honest and was supported by the fact that Armansky had described her disappearance from Milton Security in similar terms. Something had apparently happened to Salander during the winter a year earlier. He turned to Berger.

“Do you know Salander too?”

“I met her once. Could you tell us why you’re asking questions about her in connection with Enskede?” she said.

Bublanski shook his head. “She has been linked to the crime scene. That’s all I can say. But I have to admit that the more I hear about Lisbeth Salander the more surprised I am. What is she like as a person?”

“In what respect?” Blomkvist said.

“How would you describe her?”

“Professionally – one of the best fact finders I have ever come across.”

Berger glanced at Blomkvist and bit her lower lip. Bublanski was convinced that some piece of the puzzle was missing and that they knew something they were unwilling to tell him.

“And privately?”

Blomkvist paused for a long moment before he spoke.

“She is a very lonely and odd person,” Blomkvist said. “Socially introverted. Doesn’t like talking about herself. At the same time she’s a person with a strong will. She has morals.”

“Morals?”

“Yes. Her own particular moral standards. You can’t talk her into doing anything against her will. In her world, things are either right or wrong, so to speak.”

Again Blomkvist had described her in the same terms as Armansky had. Two men who knew her, and the same evaluation.

“Do you know Dragan Armansky?”

“We’ve met a few times. I took him out for a beer once last year when I was trying to find out where Lisbeth had got to.”

“And you say that she was a competent researcher?”

“The best,” Blomkvist said.

Bublanski drummed his fingers on the table and looked down at the flow of people on Götgatan. He felt strangely torn. The psychiatric reports that Faste had retrieved from the Guardianship Agency claimed that Salander was a deeply disturbed and possibly violent person who was for all intents and purposes mentally handicapped. What Armansky and Blomkvist had told him painted a very different picture from the one established by medical experts over several years of study. Both men conceded that Salander was an odd person, but both held her in high regard professionally.

Blomkvist had also said that he had been “seeing her” for a period – which indicated a sexual relationship. Bublanski wondered what rules applied for individuals who had been declared incompetent. Could Blomkvist have implicated himself in some form of abuse by exploiting a person in a position of dependency?

“And how did you perceive her social handicap?” he asked.

“What handicap?”

“The guardianship and her psychiatric problems.”

“Guardianship?”

“What psychiatric problems?” Berger said.

Bublanski looked in astonishment from Blomkvist to Berger and back. They didn’t know. They really did not know. Bublanski was suddenly angry at both Armansky and Blomkvist, and especially at Berger with her elegant clothes and her fashionable office looking down on Götgatan. Here she sits, telling people what to think. But he directed his annoyance at Blomkvist.

“I don’t understand what’s wrong with you and Armansky,” he said.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Lisbeth Salander has been in and out of psychiatric units since she was a teenager. A psychiatric assessment and a judgment in the district court determined that she was and still is unable to look after her own affairs. She was declared incompetent. She has a documented violent tendency and has been in trouble with the authorities all her life. And now she is a prime suspect in a murder investigation. And you and Armansky talk about her as though she were some sort of princess.”

Blomkvist sat motionless, staring at Bublanski.

“I’ll put it another way,” Bublanski said. “We were looking for a connection between Salander and the couple in Enskede. It turns out that you not only discovered the victims, you are also the connection. Do you have anything to say to this?”

Blomkvist leaned back, closed his eyes, and tried to make heads or tails of the situation. Salander suspected of murdering Svensson and Johansson? That can’t be right. It doesn’t make sense. Was she capable of murder? Blomkvist suddenly saw in his mind’s eye her expression from two years ago when she had gone after Martin Vanger with a golf club. There was no shadow of doubt that she could have killed him. But she didn’t, because she had to save my life. He unconsciously reached for his neck, where Vanger’s noose had been. But Svensson and Johansson … it doesn’t make any logical sense whatsoever.

He was aware that Bublanski was watching him closely. Like Armansky, Blomkvist had to make a choice. Sooner or later he would have to decide which corner of the ring he was going to be in if Salander was accused of murder. Guilty or not guilty?

Before he managed to say anything, the telephone on Berger’s desk rang. She picked it up, listened, then handed the receiver to Bublanski.

“Somebody called Faste wants to speak to you.”

Bublanski took the receiver and listened attentively. Blomkvist and Berger could see his expression change.

“When are they going in?”

Silence.

“What’s the address again? Lundagatan. And the number? OK. I’m in the vicinity. I’ll drive there.”

Bublanski stood up.

“Excuse me, but I’ll have to cut this conversation short. Salander’s guardian has just been found shot dead. She’s now being formally charged, in absentia, with three murders.”

Berger’s mouth dropped open. Blomkvist looked as if he had been struck by lightning.

The occupation of the apartment on Lundagatan was an uncomplicated procedure from a tactical perspective. Faste and Andersson leaned on the hood of their car keeping watch while the armed response team, supplied with backup weapons, occupied the stairwell and took control of the building and the rear courtyard.

The team swiftly confirmed what Faste and Andersson already knew. No-one opened the door when they rang the bell.

Faste looked down Lundagatan, which was blocked off from Zinkensdamm to Högalid Church, to the great annoyance of the passengers on the number 66 bus.

One bus had been stuck inside the barriers on the hill and could not go forward or back. Eventually Faste went over and ordered a patrolman to step aside and let the bus through. A large number of onlookers were watching the commotion from upper Lundagatan.

“There has to be a simpler way,” Faste said.

“Simpler than what?” Andersson said.

“Simpler than sending in the storm troopers every time a stray hooligan has to be brought in.”

Andersson refrained from commenting.

“After all, she’s less than five feet tall and weighs about ninety pounds.”

It had been decided that it was not necessary to break down the door with a sledgehammer. Bublanski joined them as they waited for a locksmith to drill out the lock, and then he stepped aside so that the troops could enter the apartment. It took about eight seconds to eyeball the 500 square feet and confirm that Salander was not hiding under the bed, in the bathroom, or in a wardrobe. Then Bublanski was given the all clear to come in.

The three detectives looked with curiosity around the impeccably kept and tastefully furnished apartment. The furniture was simple. The kitchen chairs were painted in different pastel colours. There were attractive black-and-white photographs in frames on the walls. In the hall was a shelf with a CD player and a large collection of CDs. Everything from hard rock to opera. It all looked arty. Elegant. Tasteful.

Andersson inspected the kitchen and found nothing out of the ordinary. He looked through a stack of newspapers and checked the counter-top, the cupboards, and the freezer in the refrigerator.

Faste opened the wardrobes and the drawers of the chest in the bedroom. He whistled when he found handcuffs and a number of sex toys. In the wardrobe he found some latex clothing that his mother would have been embarrassed even to look at.

“There’s been a party here,” he said out loud, holding up a patent-leather outfit that according to the label was designed by Domino Fashion – whatever that was.

Bublanski looked in the desk in the hall, where he found a small pile of unopened letters addressed to Salander. He looked through the pile and saw that they were bills and bank statements, and one personal letter. It was from Mikael Blomkvist. So far, Blomkvist’s story held up. Then he bent down and picked up the mail on the doormat, stained with footprints from the armed response team. It consisted of a magazine, Thai Pro Boxing, the free newspaper Södermalm News, and three envelopes addressed to Miriam Wu.

Bublanski was struck by an unpleasant suspicion. He went into the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet. He found a box of paracetamol painkillers and a half-full tube of Citodon, paracetamol with codeine. Citodon was a prescription drug. The medicine was prescribed for Miriam Wu. There was one toothbrush in the medicine cabinet.

“Faste, why does it say SALANDER-WU on the door?” he said.

“No idea.”

“OK, let me put it this way – why is there mail on the doormat addressed to a Miriam Wu, and why is there a prescription tube of Citodon in the medicine cabinet made out to Miriam Wu? Why is there only one toothbrush? And why – when you consider that Lisbeth Salander is, according to our information, only one hand’s breadth tall – do those leather pants you’re holding up fit a person who is at least five foot eight?”

There was a brief, embarrassed silence in the apartment. It was broken by Andersson.

“Shit,” he said.

CHAPTER 15

Malm felt drained and miserable when he finally got home after the unplanned day at work. He smelled the aroma of something spicy from the kitchen and went in and hugged his boyfriend.

“How are you feeling?” Arnold Magnusson asked.

“Like a sack of shit.”

“I’ve been hearing about it on the news all day long. They haven’t released the names yet. But it sounds fucking awful.”

“It is fucking awful. Dag worked for us. He was a friend and I liked him a lot. I didn’t know his girlfriend, but both Micke and Erika did.”

Malm looked around the kitchen. They had moved into the apartment on Allhelgonagatan only three months ago. Suddenly it felt like another world.

The telephone rang. They looked at each other and decided to ignore it. Then the answering machine switched on and they heard a familiar voice.

“Christer. Are you there? Pick up.”

It was Berger calling to tell him that the police were now looking for Blomkvist’s former researcher, who was the prime suspect for the murders of Svensson and Johansson.

Malm received the news with a sense of unreality.

Cortez had missed the commotion on Lundagatan for the simple reason that he had been standing outside the police press office at Kungsholmen the whole time, from which no news had been released since the press conference earlier that afternoon.

He was tired, hungry, and annoyed at being ignored by the people he was trying to contact. Not until 6:00, when the raid at Salander’s apartment was over, did he pick up a rumour that the police had a suspect in the investigation. The tip came from a colleague at an evening paper. But Cortez soon managed to find out Prosecutor Ekström’s mobile phone number. He introduced himself and asked his questions about who, how, and why.

“What newspaper did you say you were from?” Ekström said.

“Millennium magazine. I knew one of the victims. I understand that the police are looking for a specific person. Can you confirm this?”

“I can’t comment at present.”

“Can you say when you will be able to provide some concrete information?”

“We may well call another press conference later this evening.”

Ekström sounded evasive. Cortez tugged on the gold ring in his ear-lobe.

“Press conferences are for reporters who have immediate deadlines. I work for a monthly magazine, and we have a very special personal interest in knowing what progress is being made.”

“I can’t help you. You’ll have to be patient like everyone else.”

“According to my source it’s a woman who is wanted for questioning. Who is she?”

“I can’t comment just now.”

“Can you confirm that you’re searching for a woman?”

“I’m not going to confirm or deny anything at all. Goodbye.”

Holmberg stood in the doorway of the bedroom and contemplated the huge pool of blood on the floor where Mia Johansson had been found. He turned and could see a similar pool of blood where Svensson had lain. He pondered the extensive blood loss. It was a lot more blood than he was used to finding at shootings; Supervisor Mårtensson had been correct in his assessment that the killer had used hunting ammo. The blood had coagulated in a black and rusty-brown mass that covered so much of the floor that the ambulance personnel and technical team had to walk through it, leaving footprints throughout the apartment. Holmberg was wearing gym shoes with blue plastic booties over them.

The real crime scene investigation began, in his view, now. The bodies of the victims had been removed. Holmberg was there by himself after the two remaining techs had said goodnight and left. They had photographed the victims and measured blood splatter on the walls and conferred about “splatter distribution areas” and “droplet velocity.” Holmberg had not paid much attention to the technical examination. The crime scene techs’ findings would be compiled in a report which would reveal in detail where the killer had stood in relation to his victims, and at what distance, in which order the shots had been fired, and which fingerprints might be of interest. But for Holmberg it was of no interest at all. The technical examination would not contain a syllable about who the killer was or what motive he or she – a woman was now the prime suspect – might have had for the murders. Those were the questions he now had to try to answer.

Holmberg went into the bedroom. He put a worn briefcase on a chair and took out a Dictaphone, a digital camera, and a notebook.

He began by going through the chest of drawers behind the bedroom door. The top two drawers contained women’s underwear, sweaters, and a jewellery box. He arranged each object on the bed and scrutinized the jewellery box. He did not think it contained any pieces of great value. In the bottom drawer he found two photograph albums and two folders containing household accounts. He turned on his tape recorder.

“Confiscation protocol for Björneborgsvägen 8B. Bedroom, chest of drawers, bottom bureau drawer. Two bound photograph albums, size A4. One folder with black spine marked HOUSEHOLD and one folder with blue spine marked FINANCIAL DOCUMENTS containing information about a mortgage and loans for the apartment. A small box containing handwritten letters, postcards, and personal items.”

He carried the objects to the hall and placed them in a suitcase. He continued with the drawers in the bedside tables on each side of the double bed, finding nothing of interest. He opened the wardrobes and sorted through clothes, feeling in each pocket and in the shoes to check for any forgotten or hidden objects, and then turned his attention to the shelves at the top of the wardrobes. He opened boxes and small storage containers. Every so often he found papers or items that he would include for various reasons in the confiscation inventory.

There was a desk in one corner of the bedroom. It was a very small home office with a desktop Compaq computer and an old monitor. Under the desk was a two-drawer filing cabinet and on the floor next to the desk stood a low shelf unit. Holmberg knew that it would be in this home office that he would probably make the most important finds – to the extent that there was anything to find – and so he saved the desk for last. Instead he went into the living room and continued the crime scene inspection. He opened the glass-fronted cabinet and examined each bowl, each drawer, each shelf. Then he turned his attention to the large bookcase along the outer wall and the wall of the bathroom. He took a chair and began at the top, checking whether anything was hidden on top of the bookcase. Then he went down it shelf by shelf, quickly picking out stacks of books and going through them, also checking whether anything was concealed behind them on the shelves. After forty-five minutes he put the last book back on the shelf. On the living-room table was a neat stack of books. He turned on the tape recorder.

“From the bookcase in the living room. A book by Mikael Blomkvist, The Mafia’s Banker. A book in German entitled Der Staat und die Autonomen, a book in Swedish with the title Revolutionary Terrorism, and an English book Islamic Jihad.”

He included the book by Blomkvist because its author had turned up in the preliminary investigation. The last three works were perhaps less obvious. Holmberg had no idea whether the murders were related to any form of political activity – or indeed whether Svensson or Johansson was politically involved – or whether the books were merely indicative of a general interest in politics as part of their academic or journalistic work. On the other hand, if two dead bodies were found in an apartment where there were books about terrorism, he was going to make note of the fact. He placed the books in the suitcase with the other items.

Then he looked through the drawers in an antique desk. On top of the desk was a CD player, and the drawers contained a great number of CDs. Holmberg spent half an hour opening every CD case and verifying that the contents matched the cover. He found about ten CDs that had no label, and were probably burned at home or possibly pirated copies; he inserted the ones without labels into the CD player to check that they were not storing anything besides music. He examined the TV shelf nearest the bedroom door, where there was a large collection of video-cassettes. He test-played several of them. They seemed to be everything from action movies to a hodgepodge of taped news programmes and reports from Cold Facts, Insider, and Assignment Scrutiny. He added thirty-six videocassettes to the inventory. Then he went to the kitchen, opened a thermos of coffee, and took a short break before he went on with his search.

From a shelf in a kitchen cupboard he gathered a number of jars and medicine bottles. They too were placed in a plastic bag and added to the confiscated material. He picked out foodstuffs from the pantry and refrigerator and opened every jar, coffee package, and recorked bottle. In a pot sitting on the windowsill he found 1,220 kronor plus some receipts. From the bathroom he took nothing, but he did observe that the laundry basket was overflowing. He went through all the clothing. He took coats out of a closet in the hall and searched in every pocket.

He found Svensson’s wallet in the inner pocket of a sports jacket and added it to the inventory of confiscated items. Svensson had a membership card to the Friskis&Svettis gym chain, a Handelsbanken ATM card, and just under 400 kronor in cash. He found Johansson’s handbag and spent a few minutes going through its contents. She also had a card to Friskis&Svettis, an ATM card, a Konsum co-op loyalty card, and a membership card to something called Club Horizon, which had a globe as its logo. He found about 2,500 kronor in cash, a relatively large but not unreasonable sum, given that they were on their way out of Stockholm for the holiday weekend. That there was money in their wallets did reduce the likelihood of their deaths being robbery-related.

“From Johansson’s handbag found on the shelf above the coatrack in the hall. One ProPlan pocket diary, a separate address book, and a leather-bound black notebook.”

Holmberg took another break for coffee and noted that for a change he had so far found nothing embarrassing or intimate in the Svensson-Johansson couple’s home – no hidden sex aids, no scandalous underwear, no drawer full of pornographic videos, no marijuana cigarettes or any sign at all of other illegal substances. They seemed to be a normal couple, possibly (from a police standpoint) somewhat duller than average.

Finally he returned to the bedroom and sat down at the desk. He opened the top drawer. He soon found that the desk and shelf unit next to it contained extensive source and reference materials for Johansson’s doctoral thesis “From Russia with Love.” The material was neatly arranged, exactly like a police report, and he lost himself for a while in certain sections of the text. Mia Johansson was good enough to be on the force, he told himself. One section of the bookshelf was only half full and seemed to contain material belonging to Svensson, mainly press clippings of his own articles and others on subjects that had interested him.

Holmberg spent a while going through the computer and found that it held almost five gigabytes, everything from software to letters and downloaded articles and PDF files. Certainly he was not going to be able to read through it in one evening. He added the computer and assorted CDs and a Zip drive with about thirty disks to the confiscated items.

Then he sat brooding for a while. The computer contained Johansson’s work, as far as he could see. Svensson was a journalist, and a computer ought to be his most important tool, but he did not even get email on the desktop. So he must have had a computer somewhere else. Holmberg got up and went through the apartment, thinking. In the hall there was a black backpack with some notebooks that belonged to Svensson and an empty compartment for a computer. He could not find a laptop anywhere in the apartment. He took the keys and went down to the courtyard and searched Johansson’s car and then the apartment’s basement storage area. He found no computer there either.

The strange thing about the dog is that it did not bark, my dear Watson.

He made a note that at least one computer seemed to be missing.

Bublanski and Faste met Ekström in his office at 6:30 p.m., soon after they returned from Lundagatan. Andersson, after calling in, had been sent to Stockholm University to interview Johansson’s tutor about her doctoral thesis. Holmberg was still in Enskede, and Modig was running the crime scene investigation at Odenplan. Ten hours had passed since Bublanski was appointed leader of the investigative team, and seven hours since the hunt for Salander had begun.

“And who is Miriam Wu?” Ekström said.

“We don’t know much about her yet. She has no criminal record. It’ll be Faste’s task to start looking for her first thing tomorrow morning. But as far as we could see, there’s no sign that Salander lives at Lundagatan. For one thing, all the clothes in the wardrobe were the wrong size for her.”

“And they weren’t your typical clothes, either,” Faste said.

“Meaning what?” Ekström asked.

“Well, let’s just say they weren’t the type of clothes you’d buy for Mother’s Day.”

“We know nothing about the Wu woman at present,” Bublanski said.

“How much do you have to know, for God’s sake? She has a closet full of whore outfits.”

“Whore outfits?” Ekström said.

“Black leather, patent leather, corsets, and fetishist whips and sex toys in a drawer. They didn’t look like cheap stuff, either.”

“Are you saying that Miriam Wu is a prostitute?”

“We know nothing about Fröken Wu at this stage,” Bublanski said a little more sharply.

“One of Salander’s social welfare reports indicated a few years ago that she was involved in prostitution,” Ekström said.

“And social welfare usually knows what they’re talking about,” Faste said.

“The social welfare report was not supported by any police reports,” Bublanski said. “There was an incident in Tantolunden when she was sixteen or seventeen; she was in the company of a considerably older man. Later the same year she was arrested for being drunk in public. Again with a considerably older man.”

“You mean that we shouldn’t draw conclusions too hastily,” Ekström said. “OK. But it strikes me that Johansson’s thesis having been on trafficking and prostitution, there’s a possibility that in her work she made contact with Salander and this Wu and in some way provoked them, and that this might somehow constitute a motive for murder.”

“Johansson might have got in touch with Salander’s guardian and started the whole merry-go-round,” Faste said.

“That’s possible,” Bublanski said. “But the investigation will have to document that. The important thing for now is to find Salander. She’s obviously no longer living on Lundagatan. That means we also have to find Wu and discover how she came to live in that apartment and what her relationship with Salander is.”

“And how do we find Salander?”

“She’s out there somewhere. The problem is that the only address she ever had was on Lundagatan. No change of address was filed.”

“You’re forgetting that she was also admitted to St.Stefan’s and lived with various different foster families.”

“I’m not forgetting.” Bublanski checked his papers. “She had three separate foster families when she was fifteen. It didn’t go well. From just before she turned sixteen until she was eighteen, she lived with a couple in Hägersten. Fredrik and Monika Gullberg. Andersson is going out to see them this evening when he’s finished at the university.”

“How are we doing on the press conference?” Faste said.

The mood in Berger’s office at 7:00 that evening was grim. Blomkvist had been sitting silent and almost immobile ever since Inspector Bublanski had left. Eriksson had cycled over to Lundagatan to watch what was going on there. She reported that no-one seemed to have been arrested and that traffic was flowing once again. Cortez had called in to tell them that the police were now looking for a second unnamed woman. Berger told him the name.

Berger and Eriksson had talked through what needed to be done, but the immediate situation was complicated by the fact that Blomkvist and Berger knew what role Salander had played in the denouement of the Wennerström affair – in her capacity as elite-level hacker she had been Blomkvist’s secret source. Eriksson had no knowledge of this and had never even heard Salander’s name mentioned. So the conversation occasionally lapsed into cryptic silences.

“I’m going home,” Blomkvist said, getting up abruptly. “I’m so tired I can’t think straight. I’ve got to get some sleep. Tomorrow being Good Friday, I plan to sleep and go through papers. Malin, can you work over Easter?”

“Do I have any choice?”

“No. We’ll start at noon on Saturday. Could we work at my place rather than in the office?”

“That would be fine.”

“I’m thinking of revamping the approach that we decided on this morning. Now it’s no longer just a matter of trying to find out if Dag’s exposé had something to do with the murders. It’s about working out, from the material, who murdered Dag and Mia.”

Eriksson wondered how they were going to go about doing any such thing, but she said nothing. Blomkvist waved goodbye to the two of them and left without another word.

At 7:15 Inspector Bublanski reluctantly followed Prosecutor Ekström onto the podium in the police press centre. Bublanski had absolutely no interest in being in the spotlight in front of a dozen TV cameras. He was almost panic-stricken to be the focus of such attention. He would never get used to or begin to enjoy seeing himself on television.

Ekström, on the other hand, moved with ease, adjusted his glasses, and adopted a suitably serious expression. He let the photographers take their pictures before he raised his hands and asked for quiet.

“I’d like to welcome you all to this somewhat hastily arranged press conference regarding the murders in Enskede late last night. We have some more information to share with you. My name is Prosecutor Richard Ekström, and this is Criminal Inspector Jan Bublanski of the County Criminal Police Violent Crimes Division, who is leading the investigation. I have a statement to read, and then there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions.”

Ekström looked at the assembled journalists. The murders in Enskede were big news, and getting bigger. He was pleased to note that Aktuellt, Rapport, and TV4 were all there, and he recognized reporters from the TT wire service and the evening and morning papers. There were also quite a few reporters he did not recognize.

“As you know, two people were murdered in Enskede last night. A weapon was found at the crime scene, a Colt.45 Magnum. Today the National Forensics Laboratory established that this gun was the murder weapon. The owner of the weapon was identified, and we went looking for him today.”

Ekström paused for effect.

“At 4:15 this afternoon the owner of the weapon was found dead in his apartment in the vicinity of Odenplan. He had been shot. He is believed to have been dead at the time of the killings in Enskede. The police” – Ekström here gestured towards Bublanski – “have reason to believe that the same person was responsible for all three murders.”

A murmur broke out among the reporters. Several of them began talking in low voices on their mobile telephones. “Have you got a suspect?” a reporter from Swedish Radio called out.

Ekström raised his voice. “If you would refrain from interrupting my statement, we’ll get to that. This evening a person has been named whom the police want to question in connection with these three murders.”

“Will you give us his name, please?”

“It’s not a he, but a she. The police are looking for a twenty-six-year-old woman who has a connection to the owner of the weapon, and whom we know to have been at the scene of the murders in Enskede.”

Bublanski frowned and then looked sullen. They had reached the point in the agenda over which he and Ekström had disagreed, namely the question of whether they should name their suspect.

Ekström had maintained that according to all available documentation, Salander was a mentally ill, potentially violent woman and that something had apparently triggered a murderous rage. There was no guarantee that the violence was at an end, and therefore it was in the public interest that she be named and apprehended as soon as possible.

Bublanski held that there was reason to wait at least for results of the technical examination of Bjurman’s apartment before the investigative team committed itself unequivocally to one approach. But Ekström had prevailed.

Ekström held up a hand to interrupt the buzzing of the assembled reporters. The revelation that a woman was being sought for three murders would go off like a bomb. He passed the microphone to Bublanski, who cleared his throat twice, adjusted his glasses, and stared hard at the paper with the wording they had agreed on.

“The police are searching for a twenty-six-year-old woman by the name of Lisbeth Salander. A photograph from the passport office will be distributed. We do not know where she is at present, but we believe that she is in the greater Stockholm area. The police would like the public’s assistance in finding this woman as soon as possible. Lisbeth Salander is four feet eleven inches tall, with a slim build.”

He took a deep, nervous breath. He could feel the dampness under his arms.

“Lisbeth Salander has previously been in the care of a psychiatric clinic and is regarded as dangerous to herself and to the public. We would emphasize that we cannot say unequivocally that she is the killer, but circumstances dictate that we question her immediately to ascertain what knowledge she may have about the murders in Enskede and at Odenplan.”

“You can’t have it both ways,” shouted a reporter from an evening paper. “Either she’s a murder suspect or she isn’t.”

Bublanski gave Ekström a helpless look.

“The police are investigating on a broad front, and of course we’re looking at various scenarios. But there is reason to suspect the woman we have named, and the police consider it extremely urgent that she is taken into custody. She is a suspect due to forensic evidence which emerged during the investigation of the crime scene.”

“What sort of evidence?” someone in the crowded room immediately asked.

“We are not going to go into it.”

Several reporters started talking at once. Ekström held up his hand and pointed to a reporter from Dagens Eko. He had dealt with him before and regarded him as objective.

“Inspector Bublanski said that Fröken Salander had been in a psychiatric clinic. Why was that?”

“This woman had a… a troubled upbringing and encountered over the years a number of problems. She is under guardianship, and the person who owned the weapon was her guardian.”

“Who is he?”

“The individual who was shot in his apartment at Odenplan. At present we are withholding his name until his next of kin are notified.”

“What motive did she have for the murders?”

Bublanski took the microphone and said, “We will not speculate as to possible motives.”

“Does she have a police record?”

“Yes.”

Then came a question from a reporter with a deep, distinctive voice that could be heard over the crowd.

“Is she dangerous to the public?”

Ekström hesitated for a moment. Then he said: “We have reports which indicate that she could be considered prone to violence in stressful situations. We are issuing this statement because we want to get in touch with her as soon as possible.”

Bublanski bit his lower lip.

Criminal Inspector Sonja Modig was still in Advokat Bjurman’s apartment at 9:00 that evening. She had called home to explain the situation to her husband. After eleven years of marriage he had accepted that her job was never going to be nine to five. She was sitting at Bjurman’s desk and reading through the papers that she had found in the drawers when she heard a knock on the door and turned to see Officer Bubble balancing two cups of coffee on his notebook, with a blue bag of cinnamon rolls from the local kiosk in his other hand. Wearily she waved him in.

“What don’t you want me to touch?” Bublanski said.

“The techs have finished in here. They’re working on the kitchen and the bedroom. The body’s still in there.”

Bublanski pulled up a chair and sat down. Modig opened the bag and took out a roll.

“Thanks. I was having such caffeine withdrawal I thought I’d die.”

They munched quietly.

Modig licked her fingers and said, “I heard things didn’t go so well at Lundagatan.”

“There was nobody there. There were unopened letters for Salander, but someone called Miriam Wu lives there. We haven’t found her yet either.”

“Who is she?”

“Don’t really know. Faste is working on her background. She was added to the contract about a month ago, but she just seems to be someone who lives in the apartment. I think Salander moved without filing a change of address.”

“Maybe she planned all this.”

“What? A triple murder?” Bublanski shook his head dejectedly. “What a mess this is turning into. Ekström insisted on holding a press conference, and now we’re going to get it in the neck from the media. Have you found anything?”

“Apart from Bjurman’s body in the bedroom, you mean? We found the empty box for the Magnum. It’s being checked for prints. Bjurman has a file with copies of his monthly reports about Salander that he sent to the Guardianship Agency. If they are to be believed, Salander is a regular little angel, big time.”

“Not him too,” Bublanski said.

“Not him too what?”

“Another admirer of Fröken Salander.”

Bublanski summed up what he had learned from Armansky and Blomkvist. Modig listened without interrupting. When he finished, she ran her fingers through her hair and rubbed her eyes.

“That sounds completely absurd,” she said.

Bublanski tugged on his lower lip. Modig glanced at him and had to suppress a smile. He had a rough-chiselled face that looked almost brutal. But when he was confused or unsure of something, his expression turned sullen. It was in those moments that she thought of him as Officer Bubble. She had never used the nickname to his face and did not know who had coined it. But it suited him perfectly.

“How sure are we?”

“The prosecutor seems sure. An APB went out nationally for Salander this evening,” Bublanski said. “She spent the past year abroad, and it’s possible she could try to leave again.”

“But how sure are we?”

He shrugged. “We’ve taken people in for a lot less.”

“Her prints were on the murder weapon in Enskede. Her guardian was murdered. Without trying to get ahead of things, I’m guessing it’s the same weapon that was used here. We’ll know tomorrow – the techs found a fairly intact bullet fragment in the bed frame.”

“Good.”

“There are some rounds for the revolver in the bottom desk drawer. Bullets with uranium cores and gold tips.”

“Very useful.”

“We have lots of paperwork that says Salander is unstable. Bjurman was her guardian and he owned the gun.”

“Mmm…,” Bublanski said glumly.

“We have a link between Salander and the couple in Enskede-Mikael Blomkvist.”

“Mmm…,” he said again.

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“I can’t get a clear line on Salander. The paperwork says one thing, but Armansky and Blomkvist say something else. According to the paperwork she is a developmentally disabled near-psychopath. According to the two men who have worked with her, she’s a skilled researcher. That’s a huge discrepancy. We have no motive for Bjurman and nothing to say that she knew the couple in Enskede.”

“How much of a motive does a psychotic nutcase need?”

“I haven’t been in the bedroom yet. How does it look?”

“I found the body prostrate against the bed. He was kneeling on the floor as if he were saying his prayers. He’s naked. Shot in the back of the neck.”

“One shot, just like in Enskede?”

“As far as I could see. It seems that Salander, if she’s the one who did it, forced him onto his knees by the bed before she fired. The bullet went up through the back of his head and exited through his face.”

“Like an execution, then.”

“Precisely.”

“I was thinking… somebody must have heard the shot.”

“His bedroom overlooks the rear courtyard, and the neighbours above and below had left for the holiday. The window was closed. Besides, she used a pillow to muffle the sound.”

“Smart thinking.”

At that moment Gunnar Samuelsson from forensics stuck his head in the door.

“Hi, Bubble,” he said, and then turned to his colleague. “Modig, we were thinking of removing the body, so we turned him over. There’s something you ought to take a look at.”

They all went into the bedroom. Bjurman’s body had been placed on its back on a wheeled stretcher, the first stop on the way to the pathologist. There was no doubt about the cause of death. His forehead bore a wound four inches across, and a large part of his skull was hanging by a flap of skin. The blood splattered across the bed and the wall told the tale.

Bublanski pouted.

“What are we supposed to be looking at?” Modig asked.

Samuelsson lifted the plastic sheet which covered Bjurman’s lower body. Bublanski put on his glasses when he and Modig stepped closer to read the text tattooed on Bjurman’s abdomen. The letters were irregular and clumsy – obviously whoever wrote them was a novice tattoo artist – but the message could not have been clearer: I AM A SADISTIC PIG, A PERVERT, AND A RAPIST.

Modig and Bublanski looked at each other in astonishment.

“Are we possibly looking at a motive?” Modig said at last.

Blomkvist bought a pasta meal from the 7-Eleven on his way home and put the paper carton in the microwave as he undressed and stood under the shower for three minutes. He got a fork and ate standing up, right out of the carton. He was hungry, but he had no appetite for food; he just wanted to take it on board as fast as he could. When it was finished he opened a Vestfyn Pilsner beer and drank it straight from the bottle.

Without turning on a lamp he stood by the window overlooking Gamla Stan for more than twenty minutes, while he tried to stop thinking.

Twenty-four hours ago he had been at his sister’s house when Svensson had called him on his mobile. He and Johansson had still been alive.

Blomkvist had not slept for thirty-six hours, and the days when he could skip a night’s sleep with impunity were long gone. And he knew that he would not be able to sleep without thinking about what he had seen. The images from Enskede felt ingrained in his memory for all time.

Finally he turned off his mobile and crept under the covers. At 11:00 he was still awake. He got up and brewed some coffee. He put on the CD player and listened to Debbie Harry singing “Maria.” He wrapped himself in a blanket and sat on the living-room sofa and drank coffee while he worried about Salander.

What did he actually know about her? Hardly anything.

She had a photographic memory and she was a hell of a hacker. He knew that she was a peculiar, introverted woman who didn’t like to talk about herself, and that she had absolutely no trust in authority of any kind.

She could be viciously violent. He owed his life to that.

But he had had no idea that she had been declared incompetent or was under guardianship, or that she had spent any part of her teenage years in a psychiatric clinic.

He had to choose whose side he was on.

Sometime after midnight he decided that he couldn’t accept the police’s assumption that she had murdered Svensson and Johansson. At the very least, he owed her a chance to explain herself before he passed judgment.

He had no idea when he nodded off, but at 4:30 a.m. he woke up on the sofa. He staggered into the bedroom and fell instantly back to sleep.

CHAPTER 16

Eriksson leaned back into Blomkvist’s sofa. Without thinking, she put her feet up on the coffee table – exactly as she would have done at home – and quickly took them off again. Blomkvist gave her a smile.

“That’s OK,” he said. “Make yourself at home.”

She grinned and put her feet up again.

On Good Friday Blomkvist had brought the copies of Svensson’s papers from the Millennium offices to his apartment. He had laid out the material on the floor of the living room, and he and Eriksson had spent eight hours going through emails, notes, jottings in Svensson’s notebook, and above all the manuscript of the book.

On Saturday morning Annika Giannini had come to see her brother. She brought the evening newspapers from the day before with their glaring headlines and a huge reproduction of Salander’s passport photograph on the front page. One read:

WANTED FOR

TRIPLE MURDER

The other had opted for the more sensational headline:

PSYCHOTIC MASS MURDERER

They talked for an hour, during which Blomkvist explained his relationship with Salander and why he couldn’t believe that she was guilty. Finally he asked his sister whether she would consider representing Salander if or when she was caught.

“I’ve represented women in various cases of violence and abuse, but I’m not really a criminal defence lawyer,” she said.

“You’re the shrewdest lawyer I know, and Lisbeth is going to need somebody she can trust. I think in the end she would accept you.”

Annika thought for a while before reluctantly agreeing to at least have a discussion with Salander if they ever got to that stage.

At 1:00 on Saturday afternoon, Inspector Modig called and asked if she could come over to pick up Salander’s shoulder bag. The police had evidently opened and read the letter he sent to Salander’s address on Lundagatan.

Modig arrived only twenty minutes later, and Blomkvist asked her to have a seat with Eriksson at the table in the living room. He went into the kitchen and took the bag down from the shelf next to the microwave. He hesitated a moment, then opened the bag and took out the hammer and the Mace canister. Withholding evidence. Mace was an illegal weapon and possession was a punishable offence. The hammer would only serve to support those who believed in Salander’s violent tendencies. That wasn’t necessary, Blomkvist thought.

He offered Modig some coffee.

“May I ask you some questions?” the inspector said.

“Please.”

“In your letter to Salander which my colleagues found at Lundagatan, you wrote that you are in her debt. What exactly did you mean by that?”

“Lisbeth Salander did me an enormous favour.”

“What manner of favour was that?”

“It was a favour strictly between her and me, which I don’t intend to discuss.”

Modig looked at him intently. “This is a murder investigation we’re carrying out here.”

“And I hope that you will catch the bastard who killed Dag and Mia as soon as possible.”

“You don’t think Salander is that killer?”

“No, I do not.”

“In that case, who do you think did shoot your friends?”

“I don’t know. But Dag was intending to expose a large number of people who had a great deal to lose. One of them could be the killer.”

“And why would such a person also shoot the lawyer, Nils Bjurman?”

“I don’t know. At least not yet.”

His gaze was steady with his own conviction. Modig suddenly smiled. She knew that he was nicknamed Kalle Blomkvist after the detective in Astrid Lindgren’s books. Now she understood why.

“But you intend to find out?”

“If I can. You can tell that to Inspector Bublanski.”

“I’ll do that. And if Salander gets in touch, I hope you’ll let us know.”

“I don’t expect her to contact me and confess that she’s guilty of the murders, but if she does I’ll do everything I can to persuade her to give herself up. In that case I would support her in any way I can – she’s going to need a friend.”

“And if she says she’s not guilty?”

“Then I just hope she can shed some light on what happened.”

“Herr Blomkvist, just between us and off the record, I hope you realize that Lisbeth Salander has to be apprehended. Don’t do anything stupid if she gets in touch with you. If you’re wrong and she is responsible for these killings, it could be extremely dangerous for you.”

Blomkvist nodded.

“I hope we won’t have to put you under surveillance. You know, of course, that it is illegal to give help to a fugitive. Aiding and abetting anyone wanted for murder is a serious offence.”

“For my part, I hope that you will devote some time to looking at the possibility that Salander had nothing to do with these killings.”

“We will. Next question. Do you happen to know what sort of computer Dag Svensson worked on?”

“He had a secondhand Mac iBook 500, white, with a fourteen-inch screen. Just like mine but with a larger display.” Blomkvist pointed to his machine on the table next to them.

“Do you have any idea where he kept it?”

“He usually carried it in a black bag. I assume it’s in his apartment.”

“It’s not. Could it be at the office?”

“No. I’ve been through his desk and it definitely isn’t there.”

They sat in silence for a moment.

“Do I take it that Dag’s computer is missing?” Blomkvist said at last.

Blomkvist and Eriksson had made a list of the people who might theoretically have had a motive for killing Svensson. Each name had been written on large sheets of paper that Blomkvist taped up on his livingroom wall. All of them were men, either johns or pimps, and they all appeared in the book. By 8:00 that night they had thirty-seven names, of which thirty were readily identified. Seven had been given pseudonyms in Svensson’s text. Twenty-one of the men identified were johns who on various occasions had exploited one or another of the girls. The practical problem – from the point of view of whether they should publish the book – was that many of the claims were based on information that only Svensson or Johansson possessed. A writer who knew – inevitably – less about the subject would have to verify the information independently.

They estimated that about 80 percent of the existing text could be published without any great problems, but a good deal of legwork was going to have to be done before Millennium could risk publishing the remaining 20 percent. They didn’t doubt the accuracy of the contents, but weren’t sufficiently familiar with the detailed work behind the book’s most explosive findings. If Svensson were still alive they would have been able to publish without question – he and Johansson could have easily dealt with and refuted any objections.

Blomkvist looked out the window. Night had fallen and it was raining. He asked if Eriksson wanted more coffee. She did not.

“We’ve got the manuscript under control,” she said. “But we aren’t any closer to pinpointing Dag and Mia’s killer.”

“It could be one of the names on the wall,” Blomkvist said.

“It could be somebody who doesn’t have anything whatsoever to do with the book. Or it could be your girlfriend.”

“Lisbeth,” Blomkvist said.

Eriksson stole a glance at him. She had worked at Millennium for eighteen months. She joined right in the middle of the chaos of the Wennerström affair. After years of temp jobs, Millennium was her first full-time position. She was doing splendidly. Working at Millennium was status. She had a close bond with Berger and the rest of the staff, but she had always felt a little uncomfortable in Blomkvist’s company. There was no clear reason for it, but of all the people at Millennium, Blomkvist was the one she found the most reserved and unapproachable.

During the past year he had been coming in late and sitting in his office by himself a lot, or in Berger’s office. He had often been away, and during her first few months at the magazine she seemed to see him more frequently on some sofa in a TV studio than in real life. He did not encourage small talk, and from the comments she heard from other staff members, he appeared to have changed. He was quieter and harder to talk to.

“If I’m going to work on trying to figure out why Dag and Mia were shot, I’ll have to know more about Salander. I don’t really know where to start, if…”

She left the sentence hanging. Blomkvist looked at her. Finally he sat down in the armchair at ninety degrees to her and put his feet up next to hers.

“Do you like working at Millennium?” he said, disconcertingly. “I mean, you’ve been working for us for a year and a half now, but I’ve been running around so much that we’ve never had a chance to get to know each other.”

“I like working there a lot,” she said. “Are you happy with me?”

“Erika and I have said over and over that we’ve never had such a valuable managing editor. We think you’re a real find. And forgive me for not telling you as much before now.”

Eriksson smiled contentedly. Praise from the great Blomkvist was extremely gratifying.

“But that’s not what I was actually asking about,” she said.

“You’re wondering about Lisbeth Salander’s links with Millennium.”

“You’ve never said anything, and Erika is pretty tight-lipped about her.”

Blomkvist met her gaze. He and Berger might have complete confidence in her, but there were things he just could not discuss.

“I agree with you,” he said. “If we’re going to dig into the murders, you’re going to need more information. I’m a firsthand source, and also the link between Lisbeth and Dag and Mia. Go ahead and ask me questions, and I’ll answer them as best I can. And when I can’t answer, I’ll say so.”

“Why all the secrecy? Who is Lisbeth Salander, and what does she have to do with Millennium in the first place?”

“This is how it is. Two years ago I hired her as a researcher for an extremely complicated job. That’s the problem. I can’t tell you what she worked on for me. Erika knows what it was, and she’s bound by confidentiality.”

“Two years ago… that was before you cracked Wennerström. Should I assume that she was doing research connected with that case?”

“No, you shouldn’t assume that. I’m neither going to confirm or deny it. But I can tell you that I hired Lisbeth for an altogether different project and that she did an outstanding job.”

“OK, that’s when you were living like a hermit in Hedestad, as far as I’ve heard. And Hedestad didn’t exactly go unnoticed on the media map that summer. Harriet Vanger resurfacing from the dead and all that. Strangely enough, we at Millennium haven’t written a word about her resurrection.”

“The reason we didn’t write about Harriet is that she’s on our board. We’ll let the rest of the media scrutinize her. And as far as Salander is concerned, take my word for it when I tell you that what she did for me in the earlier project has absolutely no bearing on what happened in Enskede.”

“I do take your word for it.”

“Let me give you a piece of advice. Don’t guess. Don’t jump to conclusions. Just accept that she worked for me and that I cannot and will not discuss what it involved. She did something else for me. During that time she saved my life. Literally.”

Eriksson looked up in surprise. She had not heard a word about that at Millennium.

“So that means you know her rather well.”

“As well as anyone can know Lisbeth Salander, I suppose,” Blomkvist said. “She is the most introverted person I’ve ever met.”

He sprang to his feet and looked out into the darkness.

“I don’t know if you want one, but I think I’ll make myself a vodka and lime juice,” he said at last.

“Sounds much better than another cup of coffee.”

Armansky spent the Easter weekend at his cabin on the island of Blidö thinking about Salander. His children were grown up and had chosen not to spend the holiday with their parents. Ritva, his wife of twenty-five years, noticed that he seemed sometimes far away. He would subside into silent brooding and answered absentmindedly when she spoke to him. He drove every day to the nearest shop to buy the newspapers. He would sit by the window on the veranda and read about the hunt for Salander.

Armansky was disappointed that he had so terribly misjudged her. He had known for several years that she had mental problems. The idea that she could be violent and seriously injure someone who was threatening her did not surprise him. The idea that she had attacked her guardian – whom she would without a doubt perceive as someone who meddled in her affairs – was understandable. She viewed any attempt to control her life as provocative and possibly hostile.

On the other hand, he could not for the life of him understand what would have prompted her to murder two people who, according to all available information, were utterly unknown to her.

Armansky kept waiting for a link to be established between Salander and the couple in Enskede. But no such link was reported in the newspapers; instead there was speculation that the mentally ill woman must have had some sort of breakdown.

Twice he telephoned Inspector Bublanski and asked about developments, but not even the director of the investigation could give him a connection. Blomkvist knew both Salander and the couple, but there was nothing to suggest that Salander knew or had even heard of Svensson and Johansson. If the murder weapon had not had her fingerprints on it, and had there not been an unchallengable link to Bjurman, the police would have been fumbling in the dark.

“So let’s sum up,” Eriksson said. “The assignment is to find out whether Salander murdered Dag and Mia, as the police claim. Where to begin?”

“Look at it as an excavation job. We don’t have to do our own police investigation. But we do have to stay on top of what the police uncover and worm out of them what they know. It’ll be just like any other job, except that we don’t necessarily have to publish everything we find out.”

“But if Salander is the killer, there has to be a significant connection between her and Dag and Mia. And the only connection so far is you.”

“And in fact I’m no connection at all. I haven’t talked to Lisbeth in more than a year. How could she have known that –”

Blomkvist suddenly stopped. Lisbeth Salander: the world-class hacker. It dawned on him that his iBook was full of correspondence with Svensson, as well as various versions of the book and a file containing Johansson’s thesis. He couldn’t know if Salander was checking his computer. But what possible reason could she have to shoot Svensson and Johansson? What they were working on was a report about violence against women, and Salander should have encouraged them in every way. If Blomkvist knew her at all.

“You look like you’ve thought of something,” Eriksson said.

He had no intention of telling her about Salander’s talents with computers.

“No, I’m just tired and going a little off the rails,” he said.

“Well, now, your Lisbeth is suspected of killing not only Dag and Mia but also her guardian, and in that case the connection is crystal clear. What do you know about him?”

“Not a thing. I never heard his name; I didn’t even know she had a guardian.”

“But the likelihood of someone else having murdered all three of them is negligible. Even if someone killed Dag and Mia because of their story, there wouldn’t be the slightest reason for whoever it was to kill Salander’s guardian as well.”

“I know, and I’ve worried myself sick over it. But I can imagine one scenario, at least, where an outside person might murder Dag and Mia as well as Lisbeth’s guardian.”

“And what’s that?”

“Let’s say that Dag and Mia were murdered because they were rooting around in the sex trade and Lisbeth had somehow gotten involved as a third party. If Bjurman was Lisbeth’s guardian, then there’s a chance that she confided in him and he thereby became a witness to or obtained knowledge of something that subsequently led to his murder.”

“I see what you mean,” Eriksson said. “But you don’t have a grain of evidence for that theory.”

“No, not one grain.”

“So what do you think? Is she guilty or not?”

Blomkvist thought for a long time.

“You’re asking me if she is capable of murder? The answer is yes. Salander has a violent streak. I’ve seen her in action when…”

“When she saved your life?”

Blomkvist looked at her, then said, “I can’t tell you the circumstances. But there was a man who was going to kill me and he was just about to succeed. She stepped in and beat him senseless with a golf club.”

“And you haven’t told the police any of this?”

“Absolutely not. And this has to remain between you and me.” He gave her a sharp look. “Malin, I have to be able to trust you on this.”

“I won’t tell anyone about anything we discuss. You’re not just my boss – I like you too, and I don’t want to do anything that would hurt you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing.”

He laughed and then turned serious again. “I’m convinced that if it had been necessary, she would have killed that man to protect me. But at the same time I believe she’s quite rational. Peculiar, yes, but completely rational according to her own scheme of things. She used violence because she had to, not because she wanted to. To kill someone, she would have to be exceedingly threatened or provoked.”

He thought for a while. Eriksson watched him patiently.

“I can’t explain the lawyer. I don’t know a thing about him. But I just can’t imagine her being threatened or provoked – at all – by Dag and Mia. It’s not possible.”

They sat quietly for a long time. Eriksson looked at her watch and saw that it was 9:30.

“It’s late. I have to be getting home.”

“It’s been a long day. We can go on sifting tomorrow. No, leave the dishes. I’ll take care of it.”

On the Saturday night before Easter, Armansky lay awake, listening to Ritva sleeping. He could not make sense of the drama. In the end he got up, put on his slippers and dressing gown, and went into the living room. The air was cool and he put a few pieces of wood in the soapstone stove, opened a beer, and sat looking out at the dark waters of the Furusund channel.

What do I know?

Salander was unpredictable. No doubt about that.

Something had happened in the winter of 2003, when she stopped working for him and disappeared on her year-long sabbatical abroad. Blomkvist was somehow mixed up in her sudden departure – but he didn’t know what had happened to her either.

She came back and had come to see him. Claimed that she was “financially independent,” which presumably meant that she had enough to get by for a while.

She had been regularly to see Palmgren. She had not been in touch with Blomkvist.

She had shot three people, two apparently unknown to her.

It doesn’t make any sense.

Armansky took a gulp of his beer and lit a cigarillo. He had a guilty conscience, and that contributed to his bad mood.

When Bublanski had been to see him, Armansky had unhesitatingly given him as much information as he could so that Salander could be caught. He had no doubt that she had to be caught – and the sooner the better. Armansky was a realist. If the police told him that a person was suspected of murder, the chances were that it was true. So Salander was guilty.

But the police weren’t taking into account whether she might have felt that her actions were justified – or whether there might be some mitigating circumstance or a reasonable explanation for her having gone berserk. The police were required to catch her and prove that she had fired the shots, not dig into her psyche. They would be satisfied if they could find a motive, but failing that, they were ready to call it an act of insanity. He shook his head. He could not accept that she was an insane mass murderer. Salander never did anything against her will or without thinking through the consequences.

Peculiar – yes. Insane – no.

So there had to be an explanation, no matter how obscure it might appear to anyone who did not know her.

At around 2:00 in the morning he made a decision.

CHAPTER 17

Armansky got up early on Sunday after hours of worrying. He padded downstairs without waking Ritva and made coffee and a sandwich. Then he opened his laptop.

He opened the report form that Milton Security used for personal investigations. He typed in as many facts as he could think of about Salander’s personality.

At 9:00 Ritva came down and poured herself coffee. She wondered what he was doing. He gave a noncommittal answer and kept writing. He was going to be a lost cause all day.

Blomkvist turned out to be wrong, probably because it was Easter weekend and police headquarters was still relatively empty. It took until Sunday morning before the media discovered that he was the one who had found Svensson and Johansson. The first to call was a reporter from Aftonbladet, an old friend.

“Hello, Blomkvist. It’s Nicklasson.”

“Hello, Nicklasson.”

“So you were the one who found the couple in Enskede.”

Blomkvist confirmed that was true.

“My source tells me they worked for Millennium.”

“Your source is part right and part wrong. Dag Svensson was doing a freelance report for Millennium. Mia Johansson wasn’t working for us.”

“Oh boy. This is a hell of a story, you’ve got to admit.”

“I know,” Blomkvist said wearily.

“Why haven’t you released a statement?”

“Dag was a colleague and a friend. We thought it would be best at least to tell his and Mia’s relatives what happened before we put out any story.”

Blomkvist knew that he wouldn’t be quoted on that point.

“That makes sense. What was Dag working on?”

“A story we commissioned.”

“What about?”

“What sort of scoop are you planning at Aftonbladet?”

“So it was a scoop.”

“Screw you, Nicklasson.”

“Oh, come on, Blomman. You think the murders had anything to do with the story Dag Svensson was working on?”

“You call me Blomman one more time, and I’m hanging up and not talking to you for the rest of the year.”

“All right, I’m sorry. Do you think Dag was murdered because of his work as an investigative journalist?”

“I have no idea why Dag was murdered.”

“Did the story he was working on have anything to do with Lisbeth Salander?”

“No. Nothing whatsoever.”

“Did Dag know that nutcase?”

“I have no idea.”

“Dag wrote a bunch of articles on computer crime recently. Was that the type of story he was writing for Millennium?”

You just won’t give up, will you? Blomkvist thought. He was about to tell Nicklasson to piss off when he sat bolt upright in bed. He had just had two great ideas. Nicklasson started to say something else.

“Hold on, Nicklasson. Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”

Blomkvist got up and held his hand over the mouthpiece. He was suddenly on a completely different planet.

Ever since the murders, he had been racking his brains about how he could find a way to get in touch with Salander. There was a chance – a rather good chance – that she would read what he said to the newspapers, wherever she was. If he denied that he knew her, she might interpret that to mean that he had abandoned her or betrayed her. If he defended her, then other people would interpret it as meaning that he knew more about the murders than he had said. But if he made a statement in just the right way, it might give Salander an impulse to reach him.

“Sorry, I’m back. What did you say?”

“Was Dag writing about computer crime?”

“If you want a sound bite from me, I’ll give you one.”

“Go for it.”

“Only if you quote me word for word.”

“How else would I quote you?”

“I’d rather not answer that question.”

“So what do you want to say?”

“I’ll email it to you in fifteen minutes.”

“What?”

“Check your email,” Blomkvist said and hung up. He went over to his desk and booted up his iBook. He opened Word and sat there concentrating for two minutes before he started writing.

Blomkvist picked up the telephone and called Berger.

“Hi, Ricky. You’ve just been interviewed by Aftonbladet.”

“Do tell.”

He read her the quote.

“How come?”

“Every word is true. Dag has worked freelance for ten years, and one of his specializations was computer security. I discussed it with him many times, and we were considering running an article by him on it when we finished the trafficking story. And do you know anyone else who is interested in hacking?”

Berger realized what he was trying to do.

“Smart, Micke. Damned smart. OK. Run it.”

Nicklasson called back a minute after he got Blomkvist’s email.

“That’s not much of a sound bite.”

“That’s all you’re getting, and it’s more than any other paper will get. You run the whole quote or nothing.”

Blomkvist went back to his iBook. He thought for a minute and then wrote:

He named the document [To Sally]. Then he created a folder that he named and put an icon for it on the desktop of his iBook.

On Tuesday morning Armansky called a meeting in his office at Milton Security. He had brought in three people.

Johan Fräklund, a former criminal inspector with the Solna police, was the chief of Milton’s operations unit. He had overall responsibility for planning and analysis. Armansky had recruited him ten years earlier and had come to regard him, now in his early sixties, as one of the company’s most valuable assets.

Armansky also called in Sonny Bohman and Niklas Hedström. Bohman too was a former policeman. He had received his training in the Norrmalm armed response squad in the eighties and then moved to the violent crimes division, where he had led a dozen dramatic investigations. During the rampage of the “Laser Man” sniper in the early nineties, Bohman had been one of the key players, and in 1997 he had moved to Milton only after a great deal of persuasion and the offer of a significantly higher salary.

Niklas Hedström was regarded as a rookie. He had been trained at the police academy, but just before he was due to take his final exams he learned that he had a congenital heart defect. This not only required a major operation but also meant that his police career was already at an end.

Fräklund, who had been a contemporary of Hedström’s father, had suggested to Armansky that they give him a chance. Since there was a position free in the analysis unit, Armansky approved the recruitment, and he had never had cause to regret it. Hedström had worked for Milton for five years. He might lack field experience, but he stood out as a sharp-witted intellectual asset.

“Good morning, everyone. Take a seat and start reading,” Armansky said. He handed out three folders with some fifty photocopied pages of press cuttings about the hunt for Salander, along with Armansky’s three-page summary of her background. Hedström finished reading first and put the folder down. Armansky waited until Bohman and Fräklund were done.

“I presume none of you gentlemen has missed seeing the headlines in the papers over the weekend.”

“Lisbeth Salander,” Fräklund said in a gloomy voice.

Bohman shook his head.

Hedström stared into space with an inscrutable expression and the hint of a sad smile.

Armansky gave the trio a searching look.

“One of our employees,” he said. “How well did you get to know her when she worked here?”

“I tried a little light banter with her once,” Hedström said, again with a hint of a smile. “It didn’t go so well. I thought she was going to bite my head off. She was a first-class sourpuss, and I hardly exchanged ten sentences with her.”

“I found her seriously odd,” Fräklund said.

Bohman shrugged. “She was a real pain to deal with. I knew she was weird, but not that she was this fucking crazy.”

“She did things her own way,” Armansky said. “She wasn’t easy to handle. But I trusted her because she was the best researcher I’ve ever come across. She delivered results beyond expectation every time.”

“I never understood that,” Fräklund said. “I couldn’t figure out how she could be so incredibly skilled and at the same time so hopeless socially.”

“The explanation, of course, lies in her mental state,” Armansky said, poking at one of the folders. “She was declared incompetent.”

“I didn’t have a clue about that,” Hedström said. “I mean, she didn’t wear a sign on her back. And you never said anything.”

“No,” Armansky said. “I didn’t think she needed to be any more stigmatized than she already was. Everybody deserves a chance.”

“And the result of that experiment is what we saw happen in Enskede,” Bohman said.

“Could be,” Armansky said.

He did not want to betray his weakness for Salander in front of these three professionals who were now watching him expectantly. They had adopted quite a neutral tone during the conversation, but Armansky knew that Salander was in fact detested by all three of them, as well as by the rest of the employees at Milton Security. He did not want to come across as soft or confused. It was important to present the matter in a way that created a measure of enthusiasm and professionalism.

“I’ve decided for the first time ever to utilize some of Milton’s resources for a purely internal matter,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be a big expense in the budget, but I’m thinking of releasing you two, Bohman and Hedström, from your present duties. Your assignment, although I may be formulating it a bit vaguely, is to ‘establish the truth’ about Lisbeth Salander.”

Both men gave Armansky a sceptical look.

“I want you, Fräklund, to lead and keep track of the investigation. I want to know what happened and what would have induced Salander to murder her guardian as well as the couple in Enskede. There has to be a rational explanation.”

“Forgive my saying so, but this sounds like a job for the police,” Fräklund said.

“No question,” Armansky shot back. “But we have an advantage over the police. We knew Salander, and we have an insight into how she functions.”

“Well, if you say so,” Bohman said, sounding unsure. “I don’t believe anyone here at the firm has any idea what went on in her little head.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Armansky said. “Salander worked for Milton Security. In my view, we have a responsibility to establish the truth.”

“Salander hasn’t worked for us in… what is it, almost two years,” Fräklund said. “I don’t see us as responsible for what she may have done. And I don’t think the police would appreciate it if we interfered in their investigation.”

“On the contrary,” Armansky said. This was his trump card, and he had to play it well.

“How’s that?” Bohman wondered.

“Yesterday I had a couple of long conversations with the preliminary investigation leader, Prosecutor Ekström, and Criminal Inspector Bublanski, who’s in charge of the investigation. Ekström is under pressure. This isn’t some sort of showdown among gangsters; it’s an event with enormous media potential in which a lawyer, a criminologist, and a journalist were all – it would appear – executed. I explained that since the prime suspect is a former employee of Milton Security, we have also decided to start an investigation of our own.” Armansky paused to let this sink in before going on. “Ekström and I agree that the important thing right now is for Lisbeth Salander to be taken into custody as rapidly as possible – before she causes any more harm to herself or to others. Since we have more knowledge of her than the police do, we can contribute to the investigation. Ekström and I decided that you two” – he pointed at Bohman and Hedström – “will move over to Kungsholmen and be seconded to Bublanski’s team.”

All three of his employees looked astonished.

“Pardon me for asking a simple question… but we’re only civilians,” Bohman said. “Do the police really intend to let us into a murder investigation, just like that?”

“You’ll be working under Bublanski, but you’ll also report to me. You will be given full access to the investigation. All the material we have and that you turn up will go to Bublanski. For the police, this means that his team will get free reinforcements. And none of you are ‘only civilians.’ You two, Fräklund and Bohman, worked for the police for longer than you’ve worked here, and even you, Hedström, went to the police academy.”

“But it’s against the principles –”

“Not at all. The police often bring civilian consultants into investigations, whether psychologists in sex crimes or interpreters where foreigners are involved. You will simply participate as civilian consultants with particular knowledge of the prime suspect.”

Fräklund nodded slowly. “OK. Milton is joining the police investigation and trying to help catch Salander. Anything else?”

“Yes. Your principal assignment as far as Milton is concerned is to establish the truth. Nothing else. I want to know if Salander shot these three people – and if so, why.”

“Is there any doubt about her guilt?” asked Hedström.

“The circumstantial evidence the police hold is very damaging to her. But I want to know whether there’s another side to the story – whether there’s some accomplice we don’t know about, someone who may have been the one actually holding the gun, or whether there are any other as yet unknown circumstances.”

“It’s going to be hard work to find mitigating circumstances in a triple murder,” Fräklund said. “If that’s what we’re looking for, we’d have to suppose there’s a possibility she’s innocent. And I don’t believe that.”

“I don’t either,” Armansky said. “But your work will be to assist the police in every way and to help them take her into custody in the shortest time possible.”

“Budget?” Fräklund said.

“Open. I want to be regularly updated on what this is costing, and if it gets out of hand we’ll shut it down. But assume that you’ll be on this for a week at least, starting today. And since I’m the one here who knows Salander best, I should be one of the people you interview.”

Modig hurtled down the corridor and made it into the conference room just as her colleagues had settled in their seats. She sat down next to Bublanski, who had gathered the whole investigative team for this meeting, including the preliminary investigation leader. Faste gave her an annoyed look and then took care of the introduction; he was the one who had asked for the meeting.

He had gone on burrowing through the years of confrontation between the social welfare bureaucracy and Salander – what he called the “psychopath trail” – and he had managed to assemble quite a body of material. He cleared his throat and turned to the man on his right.

“This is Dr. Peter Teleborian, head physician at St.Stefan’s Psychiatric Clinic in Uppsala. He has been good enough to come down to Stockholm to assist in the investigation and to tell us what he knows about Lisbeth Salander.”

Modig studied Dr. Teleborian. He was a short man with curly brown hair, steel-rimmed glasses, and a small goatee. He was casually dressed in a beige corduroy jacket, jeans, and a light-blue striped shirt buttoned at the neck. His features were sharp and his appearance boyish. Modig had come across Dr. Teleborian on several occasions but had never spoken to him. He had given a lecture on psychiatric disturbances when she was in her last term at the police academy, and on another occasion at a course he had spoken about psychopaths and psychopathic behaviour in young people. She had also attended the trial of a serial rapist when Teleborian was called as an expert witness. Dr. Teleborian was one of the best-known psychiatrists in Sweden. He had made a name for himself with his tough criticism of the cutbacks in psychiatric care that had resulted in the closure of mental hospitals. People who were obviously in need of care had been abandoned to the streets, doomed to become homeless welfare cases. Since the assassination of Foreign Minister Anna Lindh[2], Dr. Teleborian had been a member of the government commission that reported on the decline in psychiatric care.

Teleborian nodded to the group and poured mineral water into his plastic cup.

“We’ll have to see whether there’s anything I can contribute,” he began cautiously. “I hate being right in my predictions in situations like this.”

“Your predictions?” Bublanski said.

“Yes. It’s ironic. On the evening of the murders in Enskede, I was on a TV panel discussing the time bomb that’s ticking almost everywhere in our society. It’s terrible. I wasn’t thinking specifically of Lisbeth Salander just then, but I gave a number of examples – with pseudonyms, of course – of patients who quite simply ought to be in institutions rather than at liberty on our streets. I would surmise that during this year alone the police will have to solve half a dozen murder or manslaughter cases where the killer is among this small group of patients.”

“And you think that Lisbeth Salander is one of these loonies?” Faste asked.

“Loony isn’t a term we would use. Yet she is without doubt one of these frayed individuals that I would not have let out into society, were it up to me.”

“Are you saying that she should have been locked up before she committed a crime?” Modig asked. “That doesn’t really accord with the principles of a society governed by the rule of law.”

Faste frowned and gave her a dirty look. Modig wondered why Faste always seemed so hostile towards her.

“You’re perfectly right,” Teleborian said, inadvertently coming to her rescue. “It’s not compatible with a society based on the rule of law, at least not in its present form. It’s a balancing act between respect for the individual and respect for the potential victims that a mentally ill person may leave in his wake. Every case is different, and each patient must be treated on an individual basis. It’s inevitable that we in the psychiatric field also make mistakes and release people who shouldn’t be out on the streets.”

“Well, I don’t think we need to go into social politics in great depth here,” Bublanski said cautiously.

“Of course,” Teleborian said. “We’re dealing with a specific case. But let me just say that it’s important for you all to understand that Lisbeth Salander is a sick person in need of care, just as any patient with a toothache or heart disease is in need of care. She can still get well, and she would have gotten well if she had received the care she needed when she was still treatable.”

“So you weren’t her doctor,” Faste said.

“I’m one of many people who was involved with Lisbeth Salander’s case. She was my patient in her early teens, and I was one of the doctors who evaluated her before it was decided to place her under guardianship when she turned eighteen.”

“Could you give us a little background about her?” Bublanski asked. “What could have made her murder two people she didn’t know, and what could have made her murder her guardian?”

Dr. Teleborian laughed.

“No, I can’t tell you that. I haven’t followed her development in several years, and I don’t know what stage of psychosis she’s in at present. But I can say without a shadow of a doubt that the couple in Enskede had to have been known to her.”

“What makes you so sure?” Faste wanted to know.

“One of the failures in the treatment of Lisbeth Salander was that no complete diagnosis was ever established for her. That was because she was not receptive to treatment. She invariably refused to answer questions or participate in any form of therapy.”

“So you don’t actually know if she’s sick or not,” Modig said. “I mean, if there isn’t any diagnosis.”

“Look at it this way,” Dr. Teleborian said. “I was given Lisbeth Salander just as she was about to turn thirteen. She was psychotic, showed obsessive behaviour, and was obviously suffering from paranoia. She was my patient for two years after she was committed to St.Stefan’s. The reason for committing her was that throughout her childhood she had exhibited exceedingly violent behaviour towards schoolmates, teachers, and acquaintances. In repeated instances she was reported for assault. In every case that we know of, the violence was directed at people in her own circle, that is, against people she knew who said or did something that she perceived as an insult. There is no case of her ever having attacked a stranger. That’s why I believe there must be a link between her and the couple in Enskede.”

“Except for the attack in the tunnelbana when she was seventeen,” Faste said.

“Well, on that occasion she was the one who was attacked and she was defending herself,” Teleborian said. “Against, it should be said, a known sex offender. But it’s also a good example of the way she behaves. She could have walked away or sought refuge among other passengers in the carriage. Instead she responded with aggravated assault. When she feels threatened she reacts with excessive violence.”

“What’s actually the matter with her?” Bublanski asked.

“As I said, we don’t have a real diagnosis. I would say that she suffers from schizophrenia and is continually balancing on the brink of psychosis. She lacks empathy and in many respects can be described as a sociopath. It’s surprising, frankly, that she has managed so well since she turned eighteen. She has been functioning in society, albeit under guardianship, for eight years without doing anything that led to a police report or arrest. But her prognosis –”

“Her prognosis?”

“During this entire time she has not received any treatment. My guess is that the illness we might have been able to treat and cure ten years ago is now a fixed part of her personality. I predict that when she is apprehended, she will not be given a prison sentence. She needs treatment.”

“So why the hell did the district court decide to give her a free pass into society?” Faste asked.

“It should probably be viewed as a combination of things. She had a lawyer, an eloquent one, but it was also a manifestation of the current liberalization policies and cutbacks. It was a decision that I opposed when I was consulted by forensic medicine. But I had no say in the matter.”

“But surely that kind of prognosis must be pretty much guesswork, don’t you think?” Modig said. “You don’t actually know what’s been going on with her since she turned eighteen.”

“It’s more than a guess. It’s based on my professional experience.”

“Is she self-destructive?” Modig asked.

“You mean could I picture her committing suicide? No, I doubt that. She’s more of an egomaniacal psychopath. It’s all about her. Everyone else around her is unimportant.”

“You said that she might react with excessive force,” Faste said. “In other words, should we consider her to be dangerous?”

Dr. Teleborian looked at him for a long moment. Then he leaned forward and rubbed his forehead.

“You have no idea how difficult it is to say exactly how a person will react. I don’t want Lisbeth Salander to be harmed when you apprehend her… but yes, in her case I would try to make sure the arrest is carried out with the utmost circumspection. If she is armed, there would be a very real risk that she will use the weapon.”

CHAPTER 18

The three parallel investigations into the murders in Enskede churned on. Officer Bubble’s investigation enjoyed the advantages of authority. On the surface, the solution seemed to lie within reach; they had a suspect and a murder weapon that was linked to the suspect. They had an ironclad connection to one victim and a possible connection via Blomkvist to the other two victims. For Bublanski it was now basically a matter of finding Salander and putting her in a cell in Kronoberg prison.

Armansky’s investigation was formally subordinate to the police investigation, and he had his own agenda. His objective was somehow to watch out for Salander’s interests – to discover the truth, preferably a truth in the form of a persuasively mitigating circumstance.

Millennium’s investigation was the difficult one. The magazine lacked the resources of the police, obviously, and of Armansky’s organization. Unlike the police, however, Blomkvist was not primarily interested in establishing a reasonable scenario for why Salander might have gone down to Enskede and murdered two of his friends. He had decided over the Easter weekend that he simply did not believe the story. If Salander was in some way involved in the murders, there had to be entirely different grounds from those the police were suggesting – someone else may have held the gun or something had happened that was beyond her control.

Hedström said nothing during the taxi journey from Slussen to Kungsholmen. He was in a daze from out of the blue ending up in a real police investigation. He glanced at Bohman, who was reading Armansky’s presentation again.

Then all at once he smiled to himself. The assignment had given him an unexpected opportunity to realize an ambition that neither Armansky nor Bohman knew anything about. He was going to have a chance to get back at Salander. He hoped that he would be able to help catch her. He hoped above all that she would be sentenced to life in prison.

It was well known that Salander was not a popular person at Milton Security. Most of the staff who had ever had anything to do with her thought she was a pain. But no-one had any idea how profoundly Hedström loathed her.

Life had been unfair to Hedström. He was good-looking, he was young, and he was clever too. But he was forever denied the possibility of becoming what he had always wanted to be – a policeman. His Achilles heel was a microscopic hole in his pericardium that caused a heart murmur and meant that the wall of one chamber was compromised. He had had an operation and the problem was fixed, but having a heart condition meant that he was once and for all deprived of a place on the police force. He was relegated to second-class.

When he was given the chance to work for Milton Security he accepted, but without the slightest enthusiasm. Milton was a dump for has-beens-police officers who were too old and couldn’t cut it anymore. He too had been turned down by the police – but in his case through no fault of his own.

When he started at Milton one of his first assignments had been to work with the operations unit on a personal protection analysis for a famous female singer. She had been frightened by an over-enthusiastic admirer, who also happened to be a mental patient on the run. The singer lived alone in a villa in Södertörn, and Milton had installed surveillance equipment and alarms and provided an on-site bodyguard.

Over a two-week period Hedström had regularly visited the villa in Södertörn along with other Milton employees. He thought the singer was a snobbish and standoffish old bitch. She gave him only a bewildered look when he turned on the charm, but she ought to have been grateful that any fan remembered her at all.

He hated the way Milton’s staff sprang to do her bidding. But of course he didn’t say a word about how he felt.

One afternoon, the singer and two of the Milton staff were by her pool while he was in the house taking photographs of windows and doors that might need reinforcing. He had gone from room to room, and when he came to her bedroom he could not resist the temptation to open her desk. He found a dozen photograph albums from when she was a big star in the seventies and eighties and had toured the world. He also found a box with some very private pictures of the singer. The pictures were relatively innocent, but with a little imagination they might be viewed as “erotic studies.” God, what a stupid cow she was. He stole five of the most risqué images, which had obviously been taken by some lover.

He photographed the images there and then and put the originals back. He waited several months before he sold them to a British tabloid. He was paid 9,000 pounds for the photographs and they gave rise to sensational headlines.

He still did not know how Salander had managed it, but after the photographs were published, he had a visit from her. She knew that he was the one who had sold them. She was going to expose him to Armansky if he ever did anything like that again. She would have exposed him immediately if she could have proved it – but she obviously could not. From that day on he had felt her watching him. He had seen her little piggy eyes every time he turned around.

He felt stressed and frustrated. The only way to get back at her was to undermine her credibility by adding his contributions to the gossip about her in the canteen. But not even that had been very successful. He did not dare draw attention to himself, since for some unknown reason she was under Armansky’s protection. He wondered what sort of hold she had over Milton’s CEO, or if it was possible that the old bastard was fucking her in secret. But even though nobody at Milton was especially enamoured of Salander, the staff had great respect for Armansky and so they accepted her peculiar presence. It was a monumental relief to him when she began to play less of a role and finally stopped working at Milton altogether.

Now an opportunity had presented itself for him to get even. And it was risk-free. She could accuse him of anything she liked – nobody would believe her. Not even Armansky would take the word of a pathologically sick murderer.

Bublanski saw Faste coming out of the elevator with Bohman and Hedström from Milton. He had been sent down to bring these new colleagues through security. Bublanski was not entirely enchanted with the idea of giving outsiders access to a murder investigation, but the decision had been made way over his head and… what the hell, Bohman was a real police officer with a lot of miles on him. Hedström had graduated from the police academy and so could not be an outright idiot. Bublanski pointed towards the conference room.

The hunt for Salander was in its sixth day and it was time for a major evaluation. Prosecutor Ekström did not take part in the meeting. The group consisted of criminal inspectors Modig, Faste, Andersson, and Holmberg, reinforced by four officers from the search unit of the National Criminal Police. Bublanski began by introducing their new colleagues from Milton Security and asking if either of them wanted to say a few words. Bohman cleared his throat.

“It’s been a while since I was last in this building, but some of you know me and know that I was a police officer for many years before I switched to the private sector. The reason we’re here is that Salander worked for Milton over several years and we feel a measure of responsibility. Our job is to try and assist in her arrest. We can contribute some personal knowledge of her, but we’re not here in any way to mess up the investigation or to try to trip you up.”

“Tell us what she was like to work with,” Faste said.

“She wasn’t exactly a person you warmed to,” Hedström said. He stopped when Bublanski held up his hand.

“We’ll have a chance to talk in detail during the meeting. But let’s take things one by one and get a grip on where we stand. After this meeting, you two will have to go to Prosecutor Ekström and sign a confidentiality statement. Let’s begin with Sonja.”

“It’s frustrating. We had a breakthrough just a few hours after the murders and were able to identify Salander. We found where she lived – or at least where we thought she lived. After that, not a trace. We’ve received around thirty calls from people who think they’ve seen her, but so far they’ve all been false alarms. She seems to have gone up in smoke.”

“That’s a little hard to believe,” Andersson said. “She looks unusual and has tattoos and shouldn’t be that hard to find.”

“The police in Uppsala went in with their weapons drawn yesterday after receiving a tip. They surrounded and scared the hell out of a fourteen-year-old boy who did look a lot like Salander. The parents were quite upset.”

“It’s a handicap that we’re searching for someone who looks like a fourteen-year-old. She could melt into any crowd of teenagers.”

“But with the attention she’s been getting in the media, someone should have seen something,” Andersson said. “They’re running her picture on Sweden’s Most Wanted this week, so maybe that will lead to something new.”

“I doubt it, considering that she’s already been on the front page of every newspaper in the country,” Faste said.

“Which suggests that maybe we should change our approach,” Bublanski said. “With accomplices, she could have slipped out of the country, but it’s more probable that she’s gone to ground.”

Bohman held up his hand. Bublanski nodded to him.

“The profile we have of her is that she’s self-destructive. On the other hand, she’s a strategist who plans all her actions carefully. She does nothing without analysing the consequences. At least that’s what Dragan Armansky thinks.”

“That was the assessment her one-time psychiatrist gave as well. But let’s hold off on the characterization for a while,” Bublanski said. “Sooner or later she’ll have to make a move. Jerker, what sort of resources does she have?”

“Now here’s something you can sink your teeth into,” Holmberg said. “She’s had a bank account for several years at Handelsbanken. That’s the income she declares. Or rather, the income that her guardian, Nils Bjurman, declared. A year ago the account held about 100,000 kronor. In the autumn of 2003 she withdrew the entire amount.”

“She needed cash in the autumn of 2003. That was when she stopped working for Milton Security,” Bohman said.

“Possibly. The account stood at zero for about two weeks. And then she put the same amount back into it.”

“She thought she needed money for something, but she didn’t spend it and put the money back?”

“Possibly. In December 2003 she used the account to pay a number of bills, including her rent for a year in advance. The account dropped to 70,000 kronor. After that the account wasn’t touched for a year, except for a deposit of around 9,000 kronor. I’ve checked – it was an inheritance from her mother. In March this year she took out this sum – the exact amount was 9,312 kronor – and that’s the only time she’s touched the account.”

“So what the hell does she live on?”

“Listen to this. In January of this year she opened a new account. This one at Svenska Enskilda Banken. She deposited two million kronor.”

“Where did the money come from?” Modig asked.

“The money was transferred to her account from a bank in the Channel Islands.”

Silence descended over the conference room.

“I don’t understand any of this,” Modig said after a moment.

“So this is money she hasn’t declared?” Bublanski asked.

“No, but technically she doesn’t have to until next year. What’s interesting is that the sum is not recorded in Bjurman’s report on her assets, and he filed a report every month.”

“So – either he didn’t know about it or else they were running a scam together. Jerker, where do we stand on forensics?”

“I had a report from the leader of the preliminary investigation yesterday evening. This is what we know. One: we can tie Salander to both crime scenes. We found her fingerprints on the murder weapon and on the shards of a broken coffee cup in Enskede. We’re waiting for results from all the DNA samples we gathered, but there’s no doubt that she was there in the apartment. Two: we have her prints on the box we found in Bjurman’s apartment, the one the gun came in. Three: we finally have a witness who can place her at the site of the murders in Enskede. The owner of a corner shop telephoned to say that Salander was definitely in his shop on the night of the murders. She bought a pack of Marlboro Lights.”

“And he comes out with this days after we asked the public for information?”

“He was away over the holidays, like everybody else. In any case” – Holmberg pointed at a map – “the corner shop is here, about two hundred yards from the crime scene. She came in just as he was closing at 10:00 p.m. He gave a perfect description of her.”

“Tattoo on her neck?” Andersson said.

“He was a bit vague about that. He thought he saw a tattoo. But he definitely saw that she had a pierced eyebrow.”

“What else?”

“Not that much in the way of technical evidence. But it should hold up.”

“Faste – the apartment on Lundagatan?”

“We’ve got her prints, but we don’t think she lives there. We’ve turned the place upside down, and it seems that a Miriam Wu is living there. Her name was added to the contract as recently as February this year.”

“What do we know about Wu?”

“No police record. Known lesbian. She appears in shows at the Gay Pride Festival. Seems to be studying sociology and is part owner of Domino Fashion, a sex shop on Tegnérgatan.”

“Sex shop?” Modig said with raised eyebrows.

On one occasion she had bought, to her husband’s delight, some sexy lingerie at Domino Fashion. And she had absolutely no intention of revealing that to the men in the room.

“Yeah, they sell handcuffs and whore outfits and stuff like that. Need a whip?”

“It’s not a sex shop. It’s a fashion boutique for people who like sexy underwear.”

“Same shit.”

“Go on,” Bublanski said angrily. “Is there any sign of Fröken Wu?”

“Not a trace.”

“She could have gone away for Easter,” Modig said.

“Or else Salander whacked her too,” Faste said. “Maybe she wants to make a clean sweep of all her acquaintances.”

“Wu is a lesbian. Should we conclude that she and Salander are a couple?”

“I think we can draw the conclusion that there’s a sexual relationship,” Andersson said. “First, we found Salander’s prints on and around the bed in the apartment. We also found her prints on a pair of handcuffs.”

“Then she’ll appreciate the cuffs I’ve got ready for her,” Faste said.

Modig groaned.

“Go on,” Bublanski said to Andersson.

“We got a tip that Miriam Wu was seen at Kvarnen kissing a girl who matched Salander’s description. That was about two weeks ago. The informant claimed that he knows who Salander is and has run into her there before, although he hadn’t seen her in the past year. I haven’t had time to double-check with the staff, but I’ll do it this afternoon.”

“In her casebook at social welfare it doesn’t mention a thing about her being a lesbian. A number of times in her teens she ran away from her foster families and picked up men in bars. She was noticed by the police several times in the company of older men.”

“Which doesn’t mean shit if she was a whore,” Faste said.

“What do we know about people she knows? Curt?”

“Hardly anything. She hasn’t had a run-in with the police since she was eighteen. She knows Dragan Armansky and Mikael Blomkvist, we know that much. And she knows Miriam Wu, of course. The same source that tipped us off about her and Wu at Kvarnen says that she used to hang out with a bunch of girls there a while back. Some kind of girl band called Evil Fingers.”

“Evil Fingers?” Bublanski repeated.

“Seems to be something occult.”

“Don’t tell me Salander is some damned Satanist too,” Bublanski said. “The media are going to go nuts.”

“Lesbian Satanists,” Faste said helpfully.

“Hans, you’ve got a view of women from the Middle Ages,” Modig said. “Even I’ve heard of Evil Fingers.”

“You have?” Bublanski said.

“It was a girl rock band in the late nineties. No superstars, but they were pretty famous for a while.”

“So, hard-rocking lesbian Satanists,” Faste said.

“OK, enough goofing around,” Bublanski said. “Hans, you and Curt check out who was in Evil Fingers and talk to them. Does Salander have any other friends?”

“Not many, other than her former guardian, Holger Palmgren. He’s in long-term care now after a stroke and is apparently unwell. To be honest, I can’t say that I found any circle of friends, though we haven’t seen her address book. For that matter, we still don’t know where she lives.”

“Nobody can go around without leaving traces, like some kind of ghost. What do we think about Mikael Blomkvist?”

“We haven’t had him under direct surveillance, but we’ve checked in with him off and on over the holiday,” Faste said. “On the chance that Salander might pop up, that is. He went home after work on Thursday and doesn’t seem to have left his apartment all weekend.”

“I can’t see him having anything to do with the murders,” Modig said. “His story holds up, and he can account for every minute of that night.”

“But he does know Salander. He’s the link between her and the couple in Enskede. And besides, we have his statement that a man attacked Salander a week before the murders took place. What are we supposed to make of that?” Bublanski said.

“Other than the fact that Blomkvist was the only witness to the attack?” Faste said.

“You think Blomkvist is imagining things or lying?”

“Don’t know. But it sounds to me like a bullshit story. How come a full-grown man couldn’t take care of a tiny girl who weighs less than ninety pounds?”

“Why would Blomkvist lie?”

“To muddle our thinking about Salander?”

“But none of this really adds up. Blomkvist’s hypothesis is that his friends were killed because of the book that Svensson was writing.”

“Bullshit,” Faste said. “It’s Salander. Why would anybody murder their guardian to shut Dag Svensson up? And who else could it be… a policeman?”

“If Blomkvist goes public with his hypothesis, we’re going to see a hell of a lot of police conspiracy theories,” said Andersson.

Everyone at the table murmured agreement.

“All right,” Modig said. “Why did she shoot Bjurman?”

“And what does the tattoo mean?” Bublanski said, pointing at a photograph of Bjurman’s lower abdomen.

I AM A SADISTIC PIG, A PERVERT, AND A RAPIST.

“What does the pathologist’s report say?” Bohman said.

“The tattoo is between one and three years old. That’s measured by the extent of bleed-through in the skin,” Modig said.

“I think we can rule out the likelihood of Bjurman actually having commissioned it.”

“There are plenty of crazies around, but it can hardly be a standard motif among tattoo enthusiasts.”

Modig waved her index finger. “The pathologist says that the tattoo has to have been done by a rank amateur. The needle penetrated to different depths, and it’s a very large tattoo on a sensitive part of the body. All in all, it must have been a very painful procedure, comparable to aggravated assault.”

“Except for the fact that Bjurman never filed a police report,” Faste said.

“I wouldn’t file a police report either, if somebody tattooed that on me,” Andersson said.

“One more thing,” Modig said. “And this might reinforce the confession, as it were, in the tattoo.” She opened a folder of photographic printouts and passed them around. “I printed out some samples from a folder on Bjurman’s hard drive. They’re downloaded from the Internet. His computer contains about two thousand images of a similar nature.”

Faste whistled and held up a photograph of a woman bound in a brutally uncomfortable position. “This may be something for Domino Fashion or Evil Fingers,” he said.

Bublanski gestured in annoyance for Faste to shut up.

“What are we supposed to make of this?” Bohman said.

“Suppose the tattoo is about two years old,” Bublanski said. “It would have been done around the time that Bjurman got sick. No medical records indicate that he had any illness, other than high blood pressure. So we can assume that there was a connection.”

“Salander changed during that year,” Bohman said. “She stopped working for Milton and without warning, I understand, went overseas.”

“Should we assume that there’s a connection there too? The message in the tattoo plainly says that Bjurman raped someone. Salander is a likely victim. And that would be a motive for murder.”

“There are other ways to interpret this, of course,” Faste said. “I can imagine a scenario where Salander and the Chinese girl are running some sort of escort service with S&M overtones. Bjurman could be one of those nuts who gets off on being whipped by small girls. He could have been in some sort of dependence relationship with Salander and things went wrong.”

“But that doesn’t explain what she was doing in Enskede.”

“If Svensson and Johansson were about to expose the sex trade, they may have stumbled on Salander and Wu. That may be your motive for Salander to commit murder.”

“So far this is mere speculation,” said Modig.

The meeting went on for another hour, and also dealt with the fact that Svensson’s laptop was missing. When they broke for lunch they were all frustrated. The investigation was fraught with more question marks than ever.

Berger called Magnus Borgsjö, CEO of Svenska Morgon-Posten, as soon as she reached the office on Tuesday morning.

“I’m interested,” she said.

“I thought you would be.”

“I meant to let you know right after the Easter holiday. But as you’ll have heard, chaos has broken out here.”

“The murder of Dag Svensson. I’m so sorry. A terrible thing.”

“Then you’ll understand that this is no time for me to announce my resignation.”

He was silent for a moment.

“We have a problem,” Borgsjö said. “The last time we spoke, we said that the job would start on August 1. But the thing is, our editor in chief, Håkan Morander, whom you would be replacing, is in very poor health. He has heart problems and has to cut back on work. He talked to his doctor a few days ago, and this weekend I learned that he’s now planning to retire on July 1. The idea was that he would still be here until fall, and that you could work in tandem through August and September. But the way the situation looks now, we have a crisis. Erika – we’re going to need you to start on May 1, and certainly no later than May 15.”

“God. That’s only weeks away.”

“Are you still interested?”

“Yes, of course… but that means I have only a month to tidy things up here at Millennium.”

“I know. I’m sorry to do it, Erika, but I have to rush you. A month should be enough time to straighten out affairs at a magazine with only half a dozen employees.”

“But it means leaving in the midst of a crisis.”

“You’d have to leave in any case. All we’re doing is bringing forward your departure date by a few weeks.”

“I do have some conditions.”

“Let me hear them.”

“I’ll have to remain on Millennium’s board of directors.”

“That might not be appropriate. Millennium is much smaller, of course, and a monthly magazine besides, but technically we’re competitors.”

“That can’t be helped. I won’t have anything to do with Millennium’s editorial work, but I won’t sell my share of the business. So I have to stay on the board.”

“OK, we can probably deal with that.”

They agreed to meet with his board during the first week of April to iron out the details and draw up a contract.

Blomkvist had a feeling of déjà vu when he studied the list of suspects that he and Eriksson had put together over the weekend. Thirty-seven names, all people Dag Svensson was leaning on hard in his book, twenty-one of whom were johns he had identified.

It reminded Blomkvist of the gallery of suspects from when he had set out to track a murderer in Hedestad two years before.

At 10:00 on Tuesday morning he asked Eriksson to come into his office at Millennium. He closed the door behind her. They sat for a few moments, drinking their coffee. Then he passed her the list of names.

“What should we do?” Eriksson said.

“First we have to show the list to Erika – maybe in ten minutes. Then we have to check them off one by one. It’s possible, it’s even probable, that one of these people has a connection to the murders.”

“And how do we check them off?”

“I’m thinking of focusing on the twenty-one johns. They have more to lose than the others. I’m thinking of following in Dag’s footsteps, of going to see them one by one.”

“And what do I do?”

“Two jobs. First, there are seven people here who aren’t identified. Your assignment over the next couple of days is to try and identify them. Some of the names are in Mia’s thesis; there may be ways of cross-referencing that would help you work out their real identities. Second, we know very little about Nils Bjurman, Lisbeth’s guardian. There was a brief CV in the papers, but my guess is that half of it is made up.”

“So I should ferret out his background.”

“Precisely. Everything you can find.”

Harriet Vanger called Blomkvist at 5:00 in the afternoon.

“Can you talk?”

“For a minute.”

“This girl the police are looking for… it’s the same one who helped you track me down, isn’t it?”

Harriet Vanger and Salander had never met.

“That’s right,” Blomkvist said. “I’m sorry I haven’t had time to call and update you. But, yes, she’s the one.”

“What does it mean?”

“As far as you’re concerned? Nothing, I hope.”

“But she knows everything about me and what happened.”

“Yes, she knows everything that happened.”

Harriet was quiet on the other end of the line.

“Harriet, I don’t think she did it. I’m working on the assumption that she’s innocent of all these murders. I trust her.”

“If I’m to believe what’s in the newspapers, then –”

“But you shouldn’t believe what’s in the papers. And as far as it affects you, it’s quite simple: she gave her word that she would keep her mouth shut. I believe she’ll keep that promise for the rest of her life. Everything I know about her tells me that she is extremely principled.”

“And if she didn’t do it?”

“I don’t know. Harriet, I’m doing everything in my power to discover what actually happened. Don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried, but I do want to be prepared for the worst. How are you holding up, Mikael?”

“So-so. We’ve been going nonstop.”

“Mikael… I’m in Stockholm right now. I’m flying to Australia tomorrow – I’ll be gone for a month.”

“I see.”

“I’m at the hotel.”

“I don’t know, Harriet. I feel spread really thin. I have to work tonight and I wouldn’t be very good company.”

“You don’t have to be good company. Come over and relax for a while.”

Mikael got home at one in the morning. He was tired and felt like saying the hell with everything and going to bed, but instead he booted up his iBook and checked his email. There was no new mail of any interest.

He opened the folder and discovered a new document. It was named [To MikBlom], next to the document he had called [To Sally].

It was almost a physical shock to see the document on his computer. She’s here. Salander has been in my computer. Maybe she’s even connected right now. He double-clicked.

He was not sure what he had expected. A letter. An answer. A protestation of innocence. An explanation. Salander’s reply was exasperatingly brief. The message consisted of one word, four letters.

Mikael stared at the name.

Svensson had mentioned Zala in his last phone call, three hours before he was murdered.

What is she trying to say? Is Zala the link between Bjurman and Dag and Mia? How? Why? Who is he? And how did Salander know that? How is she involved?

He opened the document properties and saw that the text had been created not fifteen minutes before. Then he smiled. The document showed Mikael Blomkvist as its author. She had created the document in his computer with his own licenced Word programme. That was better than email and did not leave an IP address that could be traced, even though Blomkvist was sure that Salander in any case would be impossible to trace through the Internet. And it proved beyond all doubt that Salander had done a hostile takeover – her term – of his computer.

He stood by the window and looked out at City Hall. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched at that very moment by Salander, almost as if she were there in the room staring at him through the screen of his iBook. She could, of course, be anywhere in the world, but he suspected that she was close. Somewhere in Södermalm. Within a radius of a couple of miles from where he was.

He sat down and created a new Word document that he called [Sally-2] and placed it on the desktop. He wrote a pithy message.

She was inside Blomkvist’s iBook now. The reply came within a minute. A new document appeared in the folder on his desktop, this time called [Kalle Blomkvist].

Blomkvist frowned. She was teasing him and using the nickname she knew he loathed. And she gave him not the slightest help. He wrote the document [Sally-3] and put it on his desktop.

For several hours he waited for another reply. At 4:00 a.m. he gave up and went to bed.

CHAPTER 19

Blomkvist spent Wednesday combing Svensson’s material for every reference to Zala. Just as Salander had done earlier, he discovered the folder on Svensson’s computer and read the three documents [Irina P], [Sandström], and [Zala], and like Salander he discovered that Svensson had a police source by the name of Gulbrandsen. He traced him to the Criminal Police in Södertälje, but when he called he was told that Gulbrandsen was on a trip away from the office and would not be back until the following Monday.

He could see that Svensson had spent a great deal of time on Irina P. From the autopsy report he learned that the woman had been killed in a slow, cruel way. The murder had taken place at the end of February. The police had no leads as to who the killer might have been, but since she was a prostitute they assumed that it was one of her clients.

Blomkvist wondered why Svensson had put the [Irina P] document in the folder. Evidently he had linked Zala to Irina P., but there were no such references in the text. Presumably he had made the connection late on.

The document [Zala] looked like rough working notes. Zala (if indeed he existed) seemed almost like a phantom in the criminal world. He did not seem entirely credible, and the text lacked source references.

He closed the document and scratched his head. Solving the murders was going to be a considerably more difficult task than he had imagined. Nor could he avoid being assailed by doubt. Nothing told him unequivocally that Salander was innocent. All he had to go on was his instinct.

He knew that she was not short of funds. She had exploited her skills as a hacker to steal a sum of several billion kronor, but she didn’t know that he knew this. Apart from when he had been forced to explain her computer talents to Berger, he had never betrayed her secrets to any outsider.

He didn’t want to believe that Salander was guilty of the murders. He would never be able to repay his debt to her. She had not only saved his life, she had also salvaged his career and possibly Millennium magazine itself by delivering Hans-Erik Wennerström’s head to them on a platter.

And he felt a great loyalty to her. Whether she was guilty or not, he was going to do everything he could to help her when she eventually was caught.

But there was so much that he didn’t know about her. The psychiatric assessments, the fact that she had been committed to one of the country’s most highly regarded institutions, and that she had even been declared incompetent, all tended to confirm that something was wrong with her. The chief of staff at St.Stefan’s Psychiatric Clinic in Uppsala, Dr. Peter Teleborian, had been widely quoted in the press. As was appropriate, he had not made statements specifically about Salander but had commented on the national collapse of mental health care. Teleborian was renowned and respected not merely in Sweden but internationally as well. He had been thoroughly convincing and had managed to convey his sympathy for the murder victims and their families while making it known that he was most anxious about Salander’s well-being.

Blomkvist wondered whether he ought to get in touch with Dr. Teleborian and whether he might be able to help in some way. But he refrained. The doctor would have plenty of time to help Salander once she was caught.

Finally he went to the kitchenette and poured coffee into a cup with the logo of the Moderate Unity Party and went in to see Berger.

“I have a long list of johns and pimps I have to interview,” he said.

She looked at him with concern.

“It’ll probably take a week or two to check off everyone on the list. They’re dotted about from Strängnäs to Norrköping. I’ll need a car.”

She opened her handbag and took out the keys to her BMW.

“Is that really all right?”

“Of course it’s all right. I drive to work as rarely as I drive out to Saltsjöbaden. And if need be I can take Greger’s car.”

“Thanks.”

“There’s one condition, though.”

“What’s that?”

“Some of these guys are serious thugs. If you’re going out to accuse pimps of murdering Dag and Mia, I want you to take this with you and always keep it in the pocket of your jacket.”

She put a canister of Mace on the desk.

“Where’d you get that?”

“I bought it in the States last year. I’ll be damned if I’m going to run around alone at night without some sort of weapon.”

“There’ll be hell to pay if I get caught in possession of an illegal weapon.”

“Better that than me having to write your obituary, Mikael… I’m not sure if you know this, but sometimes I really worry about you.”

“I see.”

“You take risks and you’re so pigheaded that you can never back down from a stupid decision.”

Blomkvist smiled and put the Mace on Erika’s desk.

“Thanks for the concern. But I don’t need it.”

“Micke, I insist.”

“That’s fine. But I’ve already taken precautions.”

He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a canister. It was the Mace he had taken out of Salander’s shoulder bag and had carried with him ever since.

Bublanski knocked on the open door of Modig’s office and then sat down on the visitor’s chair by her desk.

“Dag Svensson’s computer,” he said.

“I’ve been thinking about that too,” she said. “I did a timeline of Svensson and Johansson’s last day. There are still a few gaps, but Svensson never went to Millennium’s offices that day. On the other hand he did go into the centre of town, and at around 4:00 in the afternoon he ran into an old school friend. It was a chance meeting at a café on Drottninggatan. The friend says that Svensson definitely had his computer. He saw it and even made a comment about it.”

“And by 11:00 that night – by the time the police arrived at his apartment – the computer was gone.”

“Correct.”

“What should we deduce from that?”

“He could have stopped somewhere else and for some reason left or forgotten his computer.”

“How likely is that?”

“Not very likely. But he could have dropped it off for repair. Then there’s the possibility that there was some other place he worked that we don’t know about. For example, he once rented a desk at a freelancers’ office near St.Eriksplan. Then, of course, there’s the possibility that the killer took the computer with him.”

“According to Armansky, Salander is very good with computers.”

“Exactly,” Modig said, nodding.

“Hmm. Blomkvist’s theory is that Svensson and Johansson were murdered because of the research Svensson was doing. Which would all be on his computer.”

“We’re lagging a little behind. Three murder victims create so many loose ends that we can’t really keep up, but we actually haven’t done a proper search of Svensson’s workplace at Millennium yet.”

“I talked with Erika Berger this morning. She says they’re surprised that we haven’t been over to take a look at what he left there.”

“We’ve been focusing too much on the hunt for Salander, and so far we don’t have a clue about the motive. Could you…?”

“I’ve made a rendezvous with Berger at Millennium for tomorrow.”

“Thanks.”

On Thursday Blomkvist was at his desk talking to Eriksson when a telephone rang somewhere else in the offices. Through the doorway he caught a glimpse of Cortez on his way to answer it. Then he registered somewhere in the back of his mind that it was the phone on Svensson’s desk. He jumped to his feet.

“Stop – don’t touch that phone!” he yelled.

Cortez had his hand on the receiver. Blomkvist hurried across the room. What the hell was the name of that phony company Svensson made up?

“Indigo Market Research, this is Mikael. May I help you?”

“Uh… hello, my name is Gunnar Björck. I got a letter saying I’ve won a mobile phone.”

“Congratulations,” Blomkvist said. “It’s a Sony Ericsson, the latest model.”

“And it’s free?”

“That’s right, it’s free. To receive the gift you only have to be interviewed. We do market research studies and in-depth analyses for various companies. It’ll take about an hour to answer the questions. After that your name will be entered in another drawing and you’ll have the chance to win 100,000 kronor.”

“I understand. Can we do it over the phone?”

“Unfortunately not. The questionnaire involves looking at company logos and identifying them. We will also be asking about what type of advertising images you like and we show you various alternatives. We have to send out one of our employees.”

“I see… and how did I happen to be selected?”

“We do this type of study several times a year. Right now we’re focusing on a number of successful men in your age group. We’ve drawn social security numbers at random within that demographic.”

Björck finally agreed to a meeting. He told Blomkvist that he was on sick leave and was convalescing at a summer cabin up in Smådalarö. He gave directions on how to get there. They agreed to meet on Friday morning.

“YES!” Blomkvist cried when he hung up the phone. He punched the air with his fist. Eriksson and Cortez exchanged puzzled glances.

Paolo Roberto landed at Arlanda at 11:30 on Thursday morning. He had slept during much of the flight from New York, and for once did not have any jet lag.

He had spent a month in the United States talking boxing, watching exhibition fights, and looking for ideas for a production he was planning to sell to Strix Television. Sadly, he admitted to himself, he had left his own professional career on the shelf, partly because of gentle persuasion from his family, but also because he was simply feeling his age. It wasn’t so much about keeping in shape, which he did with strenuous workouts at least once a week. He was still a name in the boxing world, and he expected to be working in the sport in some capacity for the rest of his life.

He collected his suitcase from the baggage carousel. At Customs he was stopped and about to be pulled aside when one of the Customs officers recognized him.

“Hello, Paolo. All you’ve got in your case is gloves, I presume?”

He was crossing the arrivals hall to the escalator down to the Arlanda Express when he stopped short, stunned by Salander’s face on the headlines of the evening newspapers. He wondered if he was suffering from jet lag after all. Then he read the headline again.

HUNT FOR

LISBETH SALANDER

He looked at the other headline.

EXTRA!

PSYCHOPATH SOUGHT

FOR TRIPLE KILLING

He bought both the evening papers and the morning ones too and then went over to a cafeteria. He read the articles with growing astonishment.

When Blomkvist came home to Bellmansgatan at 11:00 on Thursday night he was tired and depressed. He had planned to make it an early night to catch up on his sleep, but he couldn’t resist the temptation to switch on his iBook and check his email. Nothing of great interest there, but he opened the folder. His pulse quickened when he discovered a new document entitled [MB2]. He double-clicked.

Blomkvist pondered the message, baffled. What old police report? Why did she have to write every message like a riddle? He created a new document that he called [Cryptic].

He waited at his desk. The reply [Cryptic 2] came a minute later.

He replied with [Cryptic 3].

Blomkvist had almost given up hope when, nearly fifty minutes later, the file [Cryptic 4] materialized.

Blomkvist sighed with relief. He felt a little ray of hope. The reply meant exactly what it said. She was going to think about it. It was the first time since, without a word of explanation, she had vanished from his life that she had held out the prospect of communicating with him at all. He wrote [Cryptic 5].

Inspector Faste got the call when he was on Långholmsgatan near Västerbron on his way to work on Friday morning. The police did not have the resources to put the apartment on Lundagatan under twenty-four-hour surveillance, so they had arranged for a neighbour, a retired policeman, to keep an eye on it.

“The Chinese girl just came in,” the neighbour said.

Faste could hardly have been in a more convenient place. He made an illegal turn past the bus shelter on to Heleneborgsgatan just before Västerbron and drove down Högalidsgatan to Lundagatan. He was there less than two minutes after he got the call and jogged across the street and through to the back building.

Miriam Wu was still standing at the door of her apartment staring at the drilled-out lock and the police tape across the door when she heard footsteps on the stairs behind her. She turned and saw a powerfully built man looking intently at her. She felt he was hostile and dropped her bag on the floor and prepared to resort to Thai boxing if necessary. “Are you Miriam Wu?” he said. To her surprise he held up a police ID. “Yes,” she said. “What’s going on here?”

“Where have you been staying the past week?”

“I’ve been away. What happened? Was there a break-in?”

“I’m going to have to ask you to come with me to Kungsholmen,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder.

Bublanski and Mo dig watched as Miriam Wu was escorted by Faste into the interview room. She was plainly angry.

“Please have a seat. My name is Criminal Inspector Jan Bublanski, and this is my colleague Inspector Sonja Modig. I’m sorry we’ve had to bring you in like this, but we have a number of questions we need answered.”

“OK. But why? That guy isn’t very talkative.” She jerked a thumb at Faste.

“We’ve been looking for you for some time. Can you tell us where you’ve been?”

“Yes, I can. But I don’t feel like it, and as far as I’m concerned it’s none of your business.”

Bublanski raised his eyebrows.

“I come home to find my door broken open and police tape across it, and a guy pumped up on steroids drags me down here. Can I get an explanation?”

“Don’t you like men?” Faste said.

Miriam Wu turned and stared at him, astonished. Bublanski gave him a furious look.

“You haven’t read any newspapers in the past week? Have you been out of the country?”

“No, I haven’t read any papers. I’ve been in Paris visiting my parents. For two weeks. I just came from Central Station.”

“You took the train?”

“I don’t like flying.”

“And you didn’t see any news headlines or Swedish papers today?”

“I got off the night train and took the tunnelbana home.”

Bublanski thought for a moment. There hadn’t been anything about Salander in the headlines this morning. He stood up and left the room. When he returned he was carrying Aftonbladet’s Easter edition with Salander’s photograph on the front page. Miriam Wu almost flipped.

Blomkvist followed the directions that Björck had given him to the cabin in Smådalarö. As he parked he saw that the “cabin” was a modern one-family home which looked to be habitable all year round. It had a view of the sea towards the Jungfrufjärden inlet. He walked up the gravel path and rang the bell. Björck was clearly recognizable from the passport photograph that Svensson had in his file.

“Good morning,” Blomkvist said.

“Good, you found the place.”

“Thanks to your directions.”

“Come in. We can sit in the kitchen.”

Björck appeared to be in good health, but he had a slight limp.

“I’m on sick leave,” he said.

“Nothing serious, I hope.”

“I’m waiting to have surgery on a slipped disk. Would you like coffee?”

“No thanks,” Blomkvist said and sat at the kitchen table and opened his briefcase. He took out a folder. Björck sat down facing him.

“You look familiar. Have we met before?”

“I think not,” Blomkvist said.

“I’m sure I’ve seen you somewhere.”

“Maybe in the newspapers.”

“What did you say your name was?”

“Mikael Blomkvist. I’m a journalist, I work at Millennium magazine.”

Björck looked confused. Then the penny dropped. Kalle Blomkvist. The Wennerström affair. But still he did not understand the implications.

“Millennium? I didn’t know you did market research.”

“Once in a while. I’d like to begin by asking you to look at three photographs and tell me which one you like best.”

Blomkvist put images of three girls on the table. One had been downloaded from a porn site on the Internet. The other two were blown-up passport photographs.

Björck turned pale as a corpse.

“I don’t get it.”

“No? This is Lidia Komarova, sixteen years old, from Minsk. Next to her is Myang So Chin, goes by the name of Jo-Jo, from Thailand. She’s twenty-five. And lastly we have Yelena Barasova, nineteen, from Tallinn. You bought sex from all three of these women, and my question is: which one did you like best? Think of it as market research.”

“To sum up, you claim that you have known Lisbeth Salander for about three years. Without expecting to be remunerated she signed over her apartment to you this spring and moved somewhere else. You have sex with her once in a while when she gets in touch, but you don’t know where she lives, what kind of work she does, or how she supports herself. Do you expect me to believe that?”

Miriam Wu glowered at him. “I don’t give a shit what you believe. I haven’t done anything illegal, and how I choose to live my life and who I have sex with is none of your business or anyone else’s.”

Bublanski sighed. That morning, when he had received news of Miriam Wu’s reappearance, he had felt a great sense of relief. Finally a breakthrough. But the information he was getting from her was anything but enlightening. It was most peculiar, in fact. And the problem was that he believed her. She gave clear, intelligible answers, without hesitation. She cited places and dates when she had met Salander, and she gave such a precise account of how it came about that she had moved to Lundagatan that Bublanski and Modig both strongly felt that such a bizarre story had to be true.

Faste had listened to the interview with mounting exasperation, but he managed to keep his mouth shut. He thought that Bublanski was too lenient by far with the Chinese girl, who was an arrogant bitch and used a lot of words to avoid answering the only question that mattered. Namely, where in burning hell was that fucking whore Salander hiding?

But Wu did not know where Salander was. She did not know what kind of work Salander did. She had never heard of Milton Security. She had never heard of Dag Svensson or Mia Johansson, and consequently she could not provide a single scrap of information of any interest. She had had no idea that Salander was under guardianship, or that in her teens she had been committed, or that she had copious psychiatric assessments on her CV.

On the other hand, she was willing to confirm that she and Salander had gone to Kvarnen and kissed and then gone home to Lundagatan and parted early the next morning. Days later Miriam Wu had taken the train to Paris and missed all the headlines in the Swedish papers. Apart from a quick visit to return her car keys, she had not seen Salander since that evening at Kvarnen.

“Car keys?” Bublanski asked. “Salander doesn’t own a car.”

Miriam Wu told him that she had a burgundy Honda which was parked outside the apartment building. Bublanski got up and looked at Modig.

“Can you take over the interview?” he said and left the room.

He had to find Holmberg and have him do a forensic examination of a burgundy Honda parked on Lundagatan. And he needed to be alone to think.

Gunnar Björck, assistant chief of the immigration division of the Security Police, now on sick leave, sat ashen and ghostlike in the kitchen with its lovely view of Jungfrufjärden. Blomkvist watched him with a patient, neutral gaze. By now he was sure that Björck had had nothing to do with the murders. Since Svensson had never managed to confront him, Björck had no idea that he was about to be exposed, his name and photograph published in Millennium and in a book.

Björck did offer one valuable piece of information. He knew Nils Bjurman. They had met at the police shooting club, where Björck had been an active member for twenty-eight years. For a time he had even sat on the board along with Bjurman. They weren’t close friends, but they had spent time together and occasionally had dinner.

No, he had not seen Bjurman in several months. The last time he ran into him was the previous summer, when they had been drinking in the same bar. He was sorry that Bjurman had been murdered – and by that psychopath – but he didn’t plan to go to the funeral.

Blomkvist worried about the coincidence but gradually ran out of questions. Bjurman must have known hundreds of people in his professional and social life. The fact that he happened to know someone who turned up in Svensson’s material was neither improbable nor statistically unusual. Blomkvist was himself casually acquainted with a journalist who also appeared in the book.

It was time to wind things up. Björck had gone through all the expected stages. First denial, then – when shown part of the documentation – anger, threats, attempted bribery, and, finally, pleading. Blomkvist had ignored all his outbursts.

“You’ll ruin my life if you publish this stuff,” said Björck.

“Yes.”

“And you’re going to do it.”

“Absolutely”

“Why? Can’t you give me a break? I’m not well.”

“Interesting that you bring up human kindness as an argument.”

“It doesn’t cost a thing to be compassionate.”

“You’re right about that. While you moan about me destroying your life, you’ve enjoyed destroying the lives of young girls against whom you’ve committed crimes. We can prove three of them. God knows how many others there are. Where was your compassion then?”

He picked up his papers and stuffed them into his briefcase.

“I’ll find my own way out.”

As he reached the door, he turned back to Björck.

“Have you ever heard of a man named Zala?” he said.

Björck stared at him. He was still so agitated that he scarcely heard Blomkvist’s question. Then his eyes widened.

Zala!

It’s not possible.

Bjurman!

Could it be possible?

Blomkvist noticed the change and came back to the table.

“Why do you ask about Zala?” Björck said. He looked to be almost in shock.

“He interests me,” Blomkvist said.

Blomkvist could almost see the wheels turning in Björck’s head. After a while Björck grabbed a pack of cigarettes from the windowsill and lit one.

“If I do know something about Zala… what’s it worth to you?”

“It depends on what you know.”

Feelings and thoughts tumbled through Björck’s head.

How the hell could Blomkvist know anything about Zalachenko?

“It’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time,” Björck finally said.

“So you know who he is?”

“I didn’t say that. What are you after?”

“He’s one of the names on the list of people Svensson was investigating.”

“What’s it worth to you?” he said again.

“What’s what worth?”

“If I can lead you to Zala… Would you leave me out of your report?”

Blomkvist sat down slowly. After Hedestad he had decided never again to bargain over a story. He did not intend to bargain with Björck either; no matter what happened he was going to hang him out to dry. But he realized he was unscrupulous enough to do a deal with Björck, then double-cross him. He felt no guilt. Björck was a policeman who had committed crimes. If he knew the name of a possible murderer, then it was his job to intervene – not to use the information to save his own skin. Blomkvist put his hand in his jacket pocket and switched on the tape recorder he had turned off when he got up from the table. “Let’s hear it,” he said.

Modig was infuriated by Faste, but she did not allow her expression to reveal what she thought of him. The interview with Miriam Wu, which had continued after Bublanski left the room, was anything but by the book.

Modig was also surprised. She had never liked Faste and his macho style, but she had considered him a skilful police officer. That skill was glaringly absent today. It was obvious that Faste felt threatened by a beautiful, intelligent, and outspoken lesbian. It was equally obvious that Wu was aware of Faste’s irritation and ruthlessly played to it.

“So you found the strap-on in my drawer. What did you fantasize about then?”

Miriam Wu gave a curious smirk. Faste looked like he was going to explode.

“Shut up and answer the question.”

“You asked me if I ever fuck Lisbeth Salander with it. And my answer is that it’s none of your fucking business.”

Modig raised her hand: “The interview with Miriam Wu was interrupted for a break at 11:12 a.m.”

She turned off the tape recorder.

“Would you stay here, please, Miriam? Faste, I’d like a word with you.”

Miriam Wu smiled sweetly when Faste gave her a filthy look and slouched after Modig into the corridor. Modig spun around and looked Faste in the eye, her nose nearly touching his.

“Bublanski assigned me to take over the interview. Your help’s not worth shit.”

“Oh, come off it. That surly cunt is squirming like a snake.”

“Could there be some sort of Freudian symbolism in your choice of similes?”

“What?”

“Forget it. Go and find Curt and challenge him to a game of tic-tac-toe, or go and shoot your pistol in the club room, or do whatever the hell you want. Just stay away from this interview.”

“Why the hell are you acting this way, Modig?”

“Because you’re sabotaging my interview.”

“Are you so hot for her that you want to have her all to yourself?”

Before Modig could stop herself her hand shot out and slapped Faste across the face. She regretted it instantly, but it was too late. She glanced up and down the hall and saw that there were no witnesses, thank God.

At first Faste looked surprised. Then he sneered at her, tossed his jacket over his shoulder, and walked away. Modig almost called after him to apologize but decided against it. She waited a whole minute while she calmed down. Then she collected two cups of coffee from the vending machine and went back to Miriam Wu.

They sat in silence, drinking the coffee. At last Modig looked up.

“I’m sorry. This is probably one of the worst interviews ever conducted in police headquarters.”

“He seems like a great guy to work with. Let me guess: he’s heterosexual, divorced, and in charge of cracking gay jokes during coffee breaks.”

“He’s… a relic of something. That’s all I can say.”

“And you aren’t?”

“At least I’m not homophobic.”

“I’ll buy that.”

“Miriam, I… we, all of us, have been working around the clock for ten days now. We’re tired and pissed off. We’re trying to get to the bottom of a horrible double murder in Enskede and an equally horrible murder near Odenplan. Your friend Lisbeth Salander has been linked to the sites of both crimes. We have forensic evidence. A nationwide alert has been put out for her. Please understand that, whatever the cost, we have to apprehend her before she does harm to someone else or maybe to herself.”

“I know Lisbeth Salander. I can’t believe she murdered anyone.”

“You can’t believe it or you don’t want to? Miriam, we don’t put out a nationwide alert for someone without a damn good reason. But I can tell you this much: my boss, Criminal Inspector Bublanski, isn’t convinced that she’s guilty. We’re discussing the possibility that she had an accomplice, or that she was somehow drawn into all this against her will. But we have to find her. You believe she’s innocent, Miriam, but what happens if you’re wrong? You say yourself that you don’t know that much about her.”

“I don’t know what to believe.”

“Then help us figure out the truth.”

“Am I being arrested for anything?”

“No.”

“Can I leave here when I want?”

“Technically, yes.”

“And untechnically?”

“You’ll remain a question mark in our eyes.”

Miriam Wu weighed Modig’s words. “Fire away. If your questions piss me off I won’t answer.”

Modig turned on the tape recorder again.

CHAPTER 20

Miriam Wu spent one more hour with Modig. Towards the end of the interview, Bublanski came into the room and sat down and listened without saying a word. Miriam Wu acknowledged him politely, but she carried on talking only to Modig.

Finally Modig looked at Bublanski and asked whether he had any more questions. Bublanski shook his head.

“I declare the interview with Miriam Wu concluded. The time is 1:09 p.m.” She turned off the tape recorder.

“I understand there was a little problem with Criminal Inspector Faste,” Bublanski said.

“He had difficulty concentrating,” said Modig neutrally.

“He’s an idiot,” said Miriam Wu.

“Criminal Inspector Faste actually does have many good points, but he may not be the best choice to interview a young woman,” said Bublanski, looking Miriam Wu in the eye. “I shouldn’t have entrusted him with the task. I apologize.”

Miriam Wu looked surprised. “Apology accepted. I was quite unfriendly to you at first too.”

Bublanski waved it off.

“May I ask you a few more things? With the tape recorder off?”

“Go ahead.”

“The more I hear about Lisbeth Salander, the more puzzled I become. The picture I get from the people who know her is inconsistent with the documentation from the social welfare and psychiatric agencies.”

“So?”

“Please give me some straight answers.”

“All right”

“The psychiatric evaluation that was done when Salander was eighteen concludes that she is mentally retarded.”

“Nonsense. Lisbeth is probably smarter than anyone I know.”

“She never graduated from school and doesn’t even have a certificate that says she can read and write.”

“Lisbeth reads and writes a whole lot better than I do. Sometimes she sits and scribbles mathematical formulas. Pure algebra. I have no clue about that sort of math.”

“Mathematics?”

“It’s a hobby she’s taken up.”

“A hobby?” asked Bublanski after a moment.

“Some sort of equations. I don’t even know what the symbols mean.”

Bublanski sighed.

“Social services wrote a report after she was brought in one time from Tantolunden when she was seventeen. It indicated that she was supporting herself as a prostitute.”

“Lisbeth a whore? Bullshit. I don’t know what sort of work she does, but I’m not the least bit surprised that she had a job at that security company.”

“How does she make a living?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is she a lesbian?”

“No. Lisbeth has sex with me, but that isn’t the same thing as being a dyke. I don’t think she knows herself what sort of sexual identity she has. I’d guess she’s bisexual.”

“What about the fact that you two use handcuffs and that sort of thing? Is Salander sadistically inclined, or how would you describe her?”

“You misunderstood all those sex toys. We may use handcuffs sometimes for role-playing, but it has nothing to do with sadism or violence. It’s a game.”

“Has she ever been violent towards you?”

“No. I’m usually the dominant one in our games.”

Miriam Wu smiled sweetly.

The afternoon meeting at 3:00 resulted in the first serious disagreement of the investigation. Bublanski gave an update and then explained that he felt they should be widening their scope.

“From day one we’ve been focusing all our energies on finding Lisbeth Salander. She is definitely a top suspect – this is based on evidence – but our picture of her is meeting resistance from everyone who knows her. Armansky, Blomkvist, and Miriam Wu don’t hold with the picture of her as a psychotic killer. Therefore I want us to expand our thinking a bit, to consider alternative killers and the possibility that Salander herself may have had an accomplice or merely have been present when the shots were fired.”

Bublanski’s comments triggered a vigorous debate, in which he encountered strong opposition from Faste as well as Bohman from Milton Security. Bohman reminded the team that the simplest explanation was most often the right one.

“It’s possible, of course, that Salander didn’t act alone, but we have no forensic trace of any accomplice.”

“We could always follow up on Blomkvist’s leads within the police,” Faste said acidly.

In the discussion, Bublanski was backed up only by Modig. Andersson and Holmberg were content with making isolated comments. Hedström from Milton was as quiet as a mouse during the whole discussion. Finally Prosecutor Ekström raised a hand.

“Bublanski – as I understand it, you don’t want to eliminate Salander from the investigation.”

“No, of course not. We have her fingerprints. But so far we have no motive. I want us to start thinking along different lines. Could several people have been involved? Could it still be related to that book about the sex trade that Svensson was writing? Blomkvist is certainly right that several people named in the book have a motive for murder.”

“How do you want to proceed?” Ekström said.

“I want two people to start looking at alternative killers. Sonja and Niklas can work together.”

“Me?” said Hedström in astonishment.

Bublanski had chosen him because he was the youngest person in the room and the one who was most likely to think outside the box.

“You’ll work with Modig. Go through everything we know so far and try to find anything we might have missed. Faste, you, Andersson, and Bohman keep on the hunt for Salander. That’s our number one priority.”

“What should I do?” asked Holmberg.

“Focus on Advokat Bjurman. Do a fresh examination of his apartment in case we missed anything. Questions?”

Nobody had any.

“OK. We’ll keep it quiet that Miriam Wu has turned up. She might have more to tell us, and I don’t want the media jumping all over her.”

Ekström agreed that they should proceed according to Bublanski’s plan.

“Right,” Hedström said, looking at Modig. “You’re the detective, you tell me what we’re going to do.”

They were in the corridor outside the conference room.

“I think we should have another talk with Mikael Blomkvist,” she said. “But first I have to discuss one or two things with Bublanski. I have tomorrow and Sunday off. That means we won’t get started until Monday morning. Spend the weekend going through the case material.”

They said goodbye to each other. Modig walked into Bublanski’s office as Ekström was leaving.

“Do you have a minute?” she said.

“Sit down.”

“I got so angry with Faste that I lost my temper.”

“He mentioned that you really laid into him.”

“He said that I obviously wanted to be alone with Wu because I was turned on by her.”

“That qualifies as sexual harassment. Would you like to file a complaint?”

“I slapped his face. That was enough.”

“You were extremely provoked.”

“I was.”

“Faste has problems with strong women.”

“I’ve noticed that.”

“You’re a strong woman and a very good cop.”

“Thanks.”

“But I’d appreciate it if you didn’t beat up the staff.”

“It won’t happen again. I didn’t even get a chance to go through Svensson’s desk at Millennium today.”

“Go home and take it easy over the weekend. We’ll get started with the new approach on Monday.”

Hedström stopped off at Central Station and had a coffee at George Café. He felt depressed. All week he had been waiting for the news that Salander had been caught. If she had resisted arrest, with a little luck some right-minded cop might have shot her.

And that was an appealing fantasy.

But Salander was still at liberty. Not only that, but Bublanski was floating the idea that she might not be the murderer. Not a positive development.

Being subordinate to Bohman was bad enough – the man was one of the most boring and least imaginative people at Milton – but now he had been put under Inspector Modig, and she was the most sceptical of the Salander lead. She was probably the one who had put doubts in Bublanski’s mind. He wondered whether the famous Officer Bubble had something going on with that bitch. It wouldn’t surprise him. He seemed thoroughly pussy-whipped by her. Of all the officers in the investigation, only Faste had enough balls to say what he thought.

Hedström was thinking hard. That morning he and Bohman had had a brief meeting at Milton with Armansky and Fräklund. A week of investigating had turned up nothing, and Armansky was frustrated that nobody had found any explanation for the murders. Fräklund had suggested that Milton Security should rethink its involvement – there were other more pressing tasks for Bohman and Hedström than to work as unpaid labour for the police.

Armansky decided that Bohman and Hedström should stay on for one more week. If by then there was no result, the assignment would be called off.

In other words, Hedström had only a week before the door to his involvement in the investigation would slam shut. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do.

After a while he took out his mobile and called Tony Scala, a freelance journalist who made a living writing drivel for men’s magazines. Hedström had met him a few times. He told Scala that he had one or two bits of information about the investigation into the murders in Enskede. He explained how he had ended up right in the middle of the hottest police investigation in years. Scala took the bait at once: it might turn into a scoop for a major magazine. They agreed to meet for a coffee an hour later at the Aveny on Kungsgatan.

Scala was fat. Seriously fat.

“If you want information from me there are two preconditions,” Hedström said.

“Shoot.”

“First, no mention of Milton Security in the article. Our role is as consultants only.”

“Although it is newsworthy given that Salander worked at Milton.”

“Cleaning and stuff like that,” Hedström said, brushing him off. “That’s no news.”

“If you say so.”

“Second, you have to slant the article so it sounds as though a woman leaked the information.”

“How come?”

“To divert suspicion from me.”

“All right. So what have you got?”

“Salander’s lesbian girlfriend just showed up.”

“OK, excellent! The chick she signed over the Lundagatan apartment to? The one who disappeared?”

“Miriam Wu. Is that worth anything to you?”

“You’d better believe it. Where was she?”

“Out of the country. She claims she hadn’t even heard about the murders.”

“Is she a suspect at all?”

“No. Not yet anyway. She was interviewed today and released three hours ago.”

“I see. Do you believe her story?”

“I think she’s lying through her teeth. She knows something.”

“Great stuff, Niklas.”

“But check her out. We’re talking about a girl who goes in for S&M with Salander.”

“You know this for a fact?”

“She admitted to it during the interview. We found handcuffs, leather outfits, whips, and the whole shebang when we searched the place.”

The stuff about the whips was an exaggeration. All right, it was a total lie, but surely that Chinese cunt played with whips too.

“Are you kidding?” Scala said.

Paolo Roberto was one of the last to leave the library. He had spent the afternoon reading every line that had been written about the hunt for Salander.

He came out on Sveavägen feeling depressed and confused. And hungry. He went into McDonald’s, ordered a burger, and sat down at a corner table.

Lisbeth Salander a triple murderer. He could hardly believe it. Not that skinny little fucking freaky chick. But should he do something about it? And if so, what?

Miriam Wu took a cab back to Lundagatan and slowly took in the devastation of her newly decorated apartment. Cupboards, wardrobes, storage boxes, and desk drawers had been emptied out. There was fingerprint powder on every surface. Her highly private sex toys were heaped on the bed. But as far as she could tell, nothing had been taken.

She put on the coffeemaker and shook her head. Lisbeth, Lisbeth, what the fuck have you got yourself mixed up in?

She took out her mobile and called Salander’s number, but got the message that the subscriber could not be reached. She sat for a long time at her kitchen table and tried to work out what was real and what wasn’t. The Salander she knew was no psychotic killer, but on the other hand she didn’t know her very well. Salander was hot in bed, sure, but she could be a very cold fish if her mood changed.

She promised herself not to make up her mind before she saw Salander and got her own explanation. She felt like crying and spent two hours cleaning up.

By 7:00 p.m. the apartment was more or less habitable again. She took a shower and was in the kitchen dressed in a black-and-gold Oriental silk robe when the doorbell rang. At the door was an unshaven, exceptionally fat man.

“Hi, Miriam, my name is Tony Scala. I’m a journalist. Can I ask you a few questions?”

Standing next to him was a photographer who took a flash picture right in her face.

Miriam Wu contemplated a dropkick and an elbow to his nose, but she had the presence of mind to realize that it would only give them more photo ops.

“Have you been out of the country with Lisbeth Salander? Do you know where she is?”

Miriam Wu shut the door in their faces and locked it with the newly installed dead bolt. Scala pushed open the mail slot.

“Miriam, sooner or later you’ll have to talk to the press. I can help you.”

She balled up her fist and smashed it down on Scala’s fingers. She heard a wail of pain. Then she closed the inner door and lay on the bed, closing her eyes. Lisbeth, I’m going to wring your neck when I find you.

After his trip to Smådalarö, Blomkvist spent the afternoon visiting another of the men that Svensson had planned to name. So far that week he had crossed off six of the thirty-seven names. The latest one was a retired judge living in Tumba; he had presided over several cases involving prostitution.

Refreshingly, the wretched man did not attempt denials, threats, or pleas for mercy. On the contrary, he cheerfully conceded that he had screwed whores from the East. No, he did not feel a grain of remorse. Prostitution was an honourable profession and he considered he was doing the girls a favour by being their customer.

Blomkvist was driving through Liljeholmen around 10:00 p.m. when Eriksson called him.

“Hi,” she said. “Did you read the online edition of the Morgon-Posten?”

“No, what’ve they got?”

“Salander’s girlfriend came home today.”

“What? Who?”

“That dyke Miriam Wu who lives in her apartment on Lundagatan.”

Wu, Blomkvist thought. SALANDER-WU on the nameplate.

“Thanks. I’m on my way.”

Wu had unplugged the phone in her apartment and turned off her mobile. By 7:30 that evening news of her homecoming had appeared on the website of one of the morning papers. Soon after that Aftonbladet called, and three minutes later Expressen. Aktuellt ran the story without naming her, but by 9:00 no fewer than sixteen reporters from various media had tried to get a comment out of her.

Twice the doorbell had rung. She had not opened the door, and she turned off all the lights in the apartment. She felt like breaking the nose of the next reporter who hassled her. In the end she turned on her mobile and called a girlfriend who lived within walking distance down by Hornstull and asked if she could spend the night there.

She slipped out the entrance door on Lundagatan less than five minutes before Blomkvist rang her doorbell.

Bublanski called Modig just after 10:00 on Saturday morning. She had slept until 9:00 and then played with the children before her husband took them out for a Saturday treat.

“Have you read the papers today?”

“No, not yet. I’ve only been up an hour, and busy with the kids. Did something happen?”

“Somebody on our team is leaking stuff to the press.”

“We’ve known that all along. Someone leaked Salander’s psychiatric report several days ago.”

“That was Ekström.”

“It was?” Modig said.

“Of course, though he’ll never admit it. He’s trying to generate interest because it’s to his advantage. But not this. A freelancer called Tony Scala talked to someone who told him all kinds of stuff about Miriam Wu. Among other things, details from what was said in the interview yesterday. That was something we wanted to keep quiet, and Ekström has gone through the roof.”

“Damn it.”

“The reporter didn’t name anyone. The source was described as a person with a ‘central position in the investigation.’”

“Shit,” Modig said.

“The article describes the source as a ‘she.’”

Modig said nothing for ten seconds. She was the only woman on the investigative team.

“Bublanski… I haven’t said one word to a single journalist. I haven’t discussed the investigation with anyone outside our corridor. Not even with my husband.”

“I don’t for a second believe that you would leak information. But unfortunately Prosecutor Ekström does. And Faste, who’s on weekend duty, is brimming with insinuations.”

Modig felt quite weary. “So what happens now?”

“Ekström is insisting that you be taken off the investigation while the charge is checked out.”

“What charge? This is absurd. How am I supposed to prove –”

“You don’t have to prove a thing. The person making the accusation has to come up with the proof.”

“I know, but… damn it all. How long is this going to take?”

“It’s already over.”

“What?”

“I’ve just asked you. You said that you hadn’t leaked any information. So the investigation is done and I write a report. I’ll see you at 9:00 on Monday in Ekström’s office, and I’ll handle the questions.”

“Thank you, Bublanski.”

“My pleasure.”

“There is one problem.”

“I know.”

“Since I didn’t leak anything, somebody else on the team must have.”

“Any suggestions?”

“My first guess would be Faste, but I don’t really think he could be the one.”

“I’m inclined to agree with you. He can be a total prick, but he was genuinely outraged at the leak.”

Bublanski liked his walks, depending on the weather and how much time he had. It was exercise he enjoyed. He lived on Katarina Bangata in Södermalm, not so far from Millennium’s offices, or from Milton Security for that matter, where Salander had worked, and Lundagatan, where she had lived. It was also within walking distance of the synagogue on St.Paulsgatan. On Saturday afternoon he walked to all of these places.

His wife Agnes accompanied him for the first part of the walk. They had been married for twenty-three years, and in all that time he had never strayed.

They stopped at the synagogue for a while and talked to the rabbi. Bublanski was a Polish Jew, while Agnes’ family – the few who had survived Auschwitz – were originally from Hungary.

After visiting the synagogue they parted – Agnes to go shopping, Bublanski to keep walking. He needed to be alone, to think about the investigation. He went back over the measures he had taken since the job had landed on his desk on the morning of Maundy Thursday, and he could identify only a couple of mistakes.

One was that he hadn’t immediately sent someone to go through Svensson’s desk at Millennium. When eventually he remembered to do it – and he had done it himself – Blomkvist had already cleaned out God knows what.

Another mistake was missing the fact that Salander had bought a car. But Holmberg had reported that the car contained nothing of interest.

Apart from these two errors, the investigation had been as thorough as could have been expected.

He stopped at a kiosk near Zinkensdamm and stared at a newspaper headline. The passport photograph of Salander had been cropped to a small but easily recognizable size and the focus had shifted to a more sensational line of news:

POLICE TRACKING

LESBIAN SATANIST CULT

He bought a copy and found the spread, which was dominated by a photograph of five girls in their late teens dressed in black leather jackets with rivets, torn black jeans, and tight T-shirts. One of the girls was holding up a flag with a pentagram and another was making a sign with her index and little fingers. The caption read: Lisbeth Salander hung out with a death-metal band that played in small clubs. In 1996 the group paid homage to the Church of Satan and had a hit with “Etiquette of Evil.”

The name Evil Fingers was not mentioned, and the newspaper had blacked out their eyes, but friends of the rock group would certainly recognize the girls.

The story was mainly about Miriam Wu and was illustrated with a picture taken from a show at Bern’s in which she had performed. She was topless and wearing a Russian army officer’s cap. Her eyes were blacked out too.

The reporter had even found a girl he called Sara who, according to her own testimony, had been the object of the woman’s pickup attempts. Her boyfriend had been “disturbed” by the incident. The article went on to say that the band was an obscure and elitist feminist variant on the fringes of the gay movement, and that it had acquired a certain fame for hosting a “bondage workshop” at the Gay Pride Festival. The rest of the article was based on a deliberately provocative piece Wu had written six years earlier for a feminist fanzine. Bublanski scanned the text and then tossed the paper into a trash can.

He brooded over Faste and Modig, both competent detectives. But Faste was a problem; he got on people’s nerves. He would have to have a talk with the man, but he didn’t think he was the source of the leaks.

When Bublanski got his bearings again he was standing on Lundagatan staring at the front door of Salander’s building. It had not been a conscious decision to walk there.

He walked up the steps to upper Lundagatan, where he stood for a long time thinking about Blomkvist’s story of Salander’s attack. That didn’t lead anywhere either. There was no police report, no names of persons involved, and not even an adequate description of the attacker. Blomkvist had claimed that he could not read the licence plate of the van that drove away from the scene.

Assuming any of it had happened at all.

Another dead end.

Bublanski looked down Lundagatan at the burgundy Honda that was still parked in the street, and at that moment Blomkvist walked up to the front door.

Miriam Wu awoke late in the day, tangled in the sheets. She sat up and looked around at the unfamiliar room.

She had used the torrent of media attention as an excuse to call a girlfriend. But she had also left the apartment, she realized, because she was afraid that Salander might knock on her door. Her interview with the police and the newspaper coverage had affected her profoundly, and even though she had resolved not to make up her mind one way or the other until Salander had a chance to explain what had happened, she had started to suspect that her friend might actually be guilty.

She glanced down at Viktoria Viktorsson – known as Double-V and 100 percent dyke. She was lying on her stomach and mumbling in her sleep. Miriam slipped out of bed and took a shower. Then she went out to buy rolls for breakfast. It was not until she was standing at the cash register of the shop next to Café Cinnamon on Verkstadsgatan that she saw the headlines. She fled back to Double-V’s apartment.

Blomkvist punched in the entry code and went inside. He was gone for two minutes before he reappeared. Nobody home. He looked up and down the street, apparently undecided. Bublanski watched him intently.

What bothered Bublanski was that if Blomkvist had lied about the attack on Lundagatan then he was playing some kind of game, which in the worst case could mean that he was involved in the murders. But if he was telling the truth there was still a hidden element in the drama; there were more players than those who were visible, and the murders could be considerably more complex than an attack of insanity in a pathologically disturbed girl.

As Blomkvist moved towards Zinkensdamm, Bublanski called after him. Blomkvist stopped, saw the detective, and walked over to him. They met at the foot of the steps.

“Hello, Blomkvist. Looking for Lisbeth Salander?”

“As a matter of fact, no. I’m looking for Miriam Wu.”

“She isn’t home. Somebody leaked the news to the press that she had resurfaced.”

“What did she have to say?”

Bublanski gave Blomkvist a searching look. Kalle Blomkvist.

“Walk with me,” Bublanski said. “I need a cup of coffee.”

They passed Högalid Church in silence. Bublanski took him to Café Lillasyster, near to where Liljeholmsbron crosses the Norrström to the southern suburb of Liljeholmen. Bublanski ordered a double espresso with a teaspoonful of cold milk and Blomkvist a caffè latte. They sat in the smoking section.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve had such a frustrating case,” Bublanski said. “How much can I discuss with you without having to read it in Expressen tomorrow morning?”

“I don’t work for Expressen.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Bublanski – I don’t believe Lisbeth is guilty.”

“And now you’re doing your own private investigation? Is that why they call you Kalle Blomkvist?”

Blomkvist smiled. “They tell me you’re called Officer Bubble.”

Bublanski gave him a stiff smile. “Why do you think Salander is innocent?”

“I don’t know a thing about her guardian, but she had no reason whatsoever to murder Dag and Mia. Especially not Mia. Lisbeth loathes men who hate women, and Mia was in the process of putting the screws to a whole bunch of prostitutes’ clients. What Mia was doing was completely in line with what Lisbeth herself would have done. She is a very moral creature.”

“I can’t seem to piece together a coherent picture of her. A retarded psycho case or a skilled researcher?”

“Lisbeth is just different. She’s abnormally antisocial, but there is definitely nothing wrong with her intelligence. On the contrary, she’s probably smarter than you or me.”

Bublanski sighed. Blomkvist was giving him the same story that Miriam Wu had.

“She has to be caught, come what may. I can’t go into the details, but she was at the murder scene, and she has been linked to the murder weapon.”

“I suppose that means you found her fingerprints on it. That doesn’t prove she fired the shots.”

Bublanski nodded. “Dragan Armansky doesn’t believe it either. He’s too cautious to say it straight out, but he’s also looking for proof that she’s innocent.”

“And you? What do you think?”

“I’m a detective. I arrest people and question them. Right now things look dismal for Fröken Salander. We’ve put away murderers on considerably weaker circumstantial evidence.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“I don’t know. If she did turn out to be innocent… Who do you think would have a motive for killing both her guardian and your two friends?”

Blomkvist took out a pack of cigarettes and offered it to Bublanski, who shook his head. He did not want to lie to the police. He ought to say something about the man known as Zala. He should also tell Bublanski about Superintendent Gunnar Björck of the Security Police.

But Bublanski and his colleagues had access to Svensson’s material, which contained the same folder. All they had to do was read it. Instead they were charging along like a steamroller and feeding salacious details about Salander to the press.

He had an idea, but didn’t know where it would lead. He didn’t want to name Björck before he was sure. Zalachenko. That was the link between Bjurman and Dag and Mia. The problem was that Björck so far hadn’t told him anything.

“Let me dig a little deeper, then I’ll give you an alternative theory.”

“No police traces, I hope.”

“Not yet. What did Miriam Wu say?”

“Just about the same as you. They had a relationship.”

“None of my business,” Blomkvist said.

“She and Salander have known each other for three years. She says she knows nothing about Salander’s background and didn’t even know where she worked. It’s hard to believe, but I think she’s telling the truth.”

“Lisbeth is obsessively private,” Blomkvist said. “Do you have Miriam Wu’s phone number?”

“Yes.”

“Can I have it?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Mikael, this is police business. We don’t need private investigators with wild theories.”

“I don’t have any theories yet. On the other hand, I think the answer lies somewhere in Svensson’s material.”

“You could get in touch with Wu if you made an effort.”

“Probably, but the simplest way is to ask somebody who already has the number.”

Bublanski sighed.

Blomkvist was suddenly very annoyed with him. “Are policemen more talented than normal people, the ones you call private investigators?”

“No, I don’t think that. But the police have the training and it’s their job to solve crimes.”

“Ordinary people have training too,” Blomkvist said slowly. “And sometimes a private investigator is better at working things out than a real detective.”

“So you believe.”

“I know it. Take the Rahman case[3]. A bunch of policemen sat on their backsides with their eyes closed for five years while Rahman was locked up, innocent of the murder of an old lady. He would still be locked up today if a schoolteacher hadn’t devoted several years to a serious investigation. She did it without the resources you have at your disposal. Not only did she prove that he was innocent, but she also identified the person who in all probability was the real killer.”

“We did lose face in the Rahman case. The prosecutor refused to listen to the facts.”

“Bublanski… I’m going to tell you something. At this very moment you’re losing face in the Salander case as well. I’m damn sure that she did not kill Dag and Mia, and I’m going to prove it. I’m going to produce another killer for you, and when that happens I am also going to write an article that you and your colleagues are going to find painful reading.”

On his way home to Katarina Bangata, Bublanski felt an urge to talk with God about the case, but instead of going to the synagogue he went to the Catholic church on Folkungagatan. He sat in one of the pews at the back and did not move for over an hour. As a Jew he had no business being in a church, but it was a peaceful place that he regularly visited when he felt the need to sort out his thoughts, and he knew that God did not mind. There was a difference, besides, between Catholicism and Judaism. He went to the synagogue when he needed company and fellowship with other people. Catholics went to church to seek peace in the presence of God. The church invited silence and visitors would always be left to themselves.

He brooded about Salander and Wu. And he wondered what Berger and Blomkvist might be withholding from him – certainly they knew something about Salander that they hadn’t told him. What sort of research had Salander done for Blomkvist? For a moment Bublanski considered whether she might have worked on the Wennerström exposé, but then dismissed that possibility. Salander couldn’t have contributed anything of value there, no matter how good she was at personal investigations.

Bublanski was worried: he did not like Blomkvist’s cocksure certainty that Salander was innocent. It was one thing for him as a detective to be beset by doubt – doubting was his job. It was quite another thing for Blomkvist to deliver an ultimatum as a private investigator.

He didn’t care for private investigators because they often produced conspiracy theories, which prompted headlines in the newspapers but also created a lot of unnecessary extra work for the police.

This had developed into the most exasperating murder investigation he had ever been involved in. Somehow he had lost his focus. There had to be a chain of logical consequences.

If a teenager is found stabbed to death on Mariatorget, it’s a matter of tracking down which skinhead gang or other mob was rampaging through Söder station an hour earlier. There are friends, acquaintances, and witnesses, and very soon there are suspects.

If a man is killed with three bullets in a bar in Skärholmen and it turns out he was a heavy in the Yugoslav mafia, then it’s a matter of finding out which thugs are trying to take control of cigarette smuggling.

If a young woman with a decent background and normal lifestyle is found strangled in her apartment, it’s a matter of finding out who her boyfriend was, or who was the last person she talked to at the bar the night before.

Bublanski had run so many investigations like these that he could do them in his sleep.

The current investigation had started off so well. After only a few hours they had found a prime suspect. Salander was practically designed for the role – an obvious psycho case, known to have suffered from violent, uncontrollable outbursts her whole life. It was simply a matter of picking her up and getting a confession or, depending on the circumstances, putting her into psychiatric care.

But after the promising beginning everything had gone to hell. Salander did not live at her address. She had friends like Armansky and Blomkvist. She had a relationship with a lesbian who liked sex with handcuffs, and that put the media in a new frenzy. She had 2.5 million kronor in the bank and no known employer. Then Blomkvist shows up with theories about trafficking and conspiracies – and as a celebrity journalist he has the political clout to create utter chaos in the investigation with a single article.

Above all, the prime suspect had proven to be impossible to locate, despite the fact that she was no taller than a hand’s breadth and had tattoos all over her body. It had been almost two weeks since the murders and there wasn’t so much as a whisper as to where she might be hiding.

Björck had had a wretched day since Blomkvist stepped across his threshold. He had a continuous dull ache in his back, but he paced back and forth in his borrowed house, incapable either of relaxing or of taking any initiative. He couldn’t make any sense of the story. The pieces of the puzzle would not fall into place.

When he’d first heard the news about Bjurman’s murder, he was aghast. But he hadn’t been surprised when Salander was almost immediately identified as the prime suspect and then the hue and cry for her began. He had followed every report on TV, and he bought all the daily papers he could get hold of and read every word written about the case.

He didn’t doubt for a second that Salander was mentally ill and capable of killing. He had no reason to question her guilt or the assumptions of the police – on the contrary, everything he knew about Salander told him that she really was a psychotic madwoman. He had been just about to call in and offer his advice to the investigation, or at least check that the case was being handled properly, but then he realized that it actually no longer concerned him. Besides, a call from him might attract the sort of attention that he wanted to avoid. Instead he kept following the breaking news developments with absentminded interest.

Blomkvist’s visit had turned his peace and quiet upside down. Björck never had any inkling that Salander’s orgy of murder might involve him personally – that one of her victims had been a media swine who was about to expose him to the whole of Sweden.

He had even less of an idea that the name Zala would crop up in the story like a hand grenade with its pin pulled, and least of all that the name would be known to a journalist like Blomkvist. It defied all common sense.

The day after Blomkvist’s visit Björck telephoned his former boss, who was seventy-eight years old and living in Laholm. He had to try to worm out the context without letting on that he was calling for any reason other than pure curiosity and professional concern. It was a relatively short conversation.

“This is Björck. I assume you’ve read the papers.”

“I have. She’s popped up again.”

“And she doesn’t seem to have changed much.”

“It’s no longer our concern.”

“You don’t think that –”

“No, I don’t. All that is dead and buried. There’s no connection.”

“But Bjurman, of all people. I presume it wasn’t by chance that he became her guardian.”

There were several seconds of silence on the line.

“No, it was no accident. It seemed like a good idea two years ago. Who could have predicted this?”

“How much did Bjurman know?”

His former boss chuckled. “You know quite well what Bjurman was like. Not the most talented actor.”

“I mean… did he know about the connection? Could there be something among his papers or personal effects that would lead anyone to – ”

“No, of course not. I understand what you’re getting at, but don’t worry. Salander has always been the loose cannon in this story. We arranged it so that Bjurman got the assignment, but that was only so we’d have someone we could check up on. Better that than an unknown quantity. If she had started blabbing, he would have come to us. Now this will all work out for the best.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, after this, Salander is going to be sitting in a psychiatric ward for a long, long time.”

“That makes sense.”

“Don’t worry. Go and enjoy your sick leave in peace and quiet.”

But that was exactly what Björck was unable to do. Blomkvist had seen to that. He sat at the kitchen table and looked out over Jungfrufjärden as he tried to sum up his own situation. He was being threatened from two flanks.

Blomkvist was going to hang him out to dry as a john. There was a serious risk that he would end his police career by being convicted of breaking the sex-trade law.

But even more serious was the fact that Blomkvist was trying to track down Zalachenko. Somehow he was mixed up in the story too. And Zala would lead him back to Björck’s front door.

His former boss had apparently been assured that there was nothing among Bjurman’s personal effects that could provide a further lead. But there was. The report from 1991. And Bjurman had gotten it from Björck.

He tried to visualize the meeting with Bjurman more than three months earlier. They had met in Gamla Stan. Bjurman had called him one afternoon at work and suggested they have a beer. They talked about the shooting club and everything under the sun, but Bjurman had sought him out for a particular reason. He needed a favour. He had asked about Zalachenko…

Björck got up and stood by the kitchen window. He had been a little tipsy at the meeting. In fact he was quite drunk. What had Bjurman asked him?

“Speaking of which… I’m in the middle of doing something for an old acquaintance who’s popped up…”

“Oh yeah, who’s that?”

“Alexander Zalachenko. Do you remember him?”

“Are you kidding? He’s not an easy man to forget.”

“Whatever happened to him?”

Technically, it was none of Bjurman’s business. In fact there was good reason to put Bjurman under the microscope just for having asked… but he was Salander’s guardian. He said he needed the old report. And I gave it to him.

Björck had made a serious mistake. He had assumed that Bjurman had already been informed – anything else would have seemed unthinkable. And Bjurman had presented the matter as though he was only trying to take a shortcut through the plodding bureaucratic procedure in which everything was stamped “confidential” and hush-hush and could drag on for months. In particular anything that had to do with Zalachenko.

I gave him the report. It was still stamped “confidential,” but it was for a good and understandable reason, and Bjurman was not someone who would spill the beans. He was stupid, but he had never been a gossip. What could it hurt? It was so many years ago.

Bjurman had made a fool of him. The more Björck thought about it, the more convinced he was that Bjurman had chosen his words deliberately, very cautiously.

But what the fuck was Bjurman after? And why would Salander have murdered him?

Blomkvist went to the apartment in Lundagatan four more times on Saturday in the hope of finding Miriam Wu, but she was never there.

He spent a good part of the day at the Kaffebar on Hornsgatan with his iBook, rereading the emails that Svensson had received at his Millennium address and the contents of the folder named. In the weeks before he was murdered, Svensson had spent more and more time researching Zala.

Blomkvist wished he could phone Svensson and ask him why the document about Irina P. was in the folder. The only reasonable conclusion was that Svensson had suspected Zala of murdering her.

At 5:00 p.m. Bublanski called and gave him Miriam Wu’s phone number. He didn’t know what had made the detective change his mind, but now that he had the number he tried it about once every half hour. Not until 11:00 p.m. did she answer. It was a short conversation.

“Hello, Miriam. My name is Mikael Blomkvist.”

“And who the hell are you?”

“I’m a journalist and I work at a magazine called Millennium.”

Miriam Wu expressed her feelings in a pithy way. “Ah yes. That Blomkvist. Go to hell, journalist creep.”

She broke off the connection before Blomkvist had a chance to explain what he wanted. He directed some bad thoughts at Tony Scala and tried to call back. She did not answer. In the end he sent a text message.

Please call me. It’s important.

She never called.

Late that night Blomkvist shut down his computer, undressed, and crawled into bed. He wished he had Berger to keep him company.