The Girl Who Played with Fire (19 page)

“I’ll come again on Friday.”

Palmgren stood up laboriously from his wheelchair. She walked with him to an elevator. As soon as the elevator doors had closed she went to the front desk and asked to speak to whoever was responsible for the patients. She was referred to a Dr. A. Sivarnandan, whom she found in an
office further down a corridor. She introduced herself, explaining that she was Palmgren’s foster daughter.

“I’d like to know how he’s doing and what’s going to happen with him.”

Dr. Sivarnandan looked up Palmgren’s casebook and read the introductory pages. His skin was pitted by smallpox and he had a thin moustache which Salander found absurd. Finally he sat back. To her surprise he spoke with a Finnish accent.

“I have no record of Herr Palmgren having a daughter or foster daughter. In fact, his nearest relative would seem to be an eighty-six-year-old cousin in Jämtland.”

“He took care of me from when I was thirteen until he had his stroke. I was twenty-four at the time.”

She dug into the inside pocket of her jacket and threw a pen on to the desk in front of the doctor.

“My name is Lisbeth Salander. Write my name in his casebook. I’m the closest relation he has in the world.”

“That may be,” replied Dr. Sivarnandan firmly. “But if you are his closest relation you certainly took a long time letting us know. As far as I know, he has only had a few visits from a person who, while not related to him, is to be notified in case the state of his health worsens or if he should pass away.”

“That would be Dragan Armansky.”

Dr. Sivarnandan raised his eyebrows.

“That’s correct. You know him?”

“You can call him and verify that I am who I say I am.”

“That won’t be necessary. I believe you. I was told that you sat and played chess with Herr Palmgren for two hours. But I cannot discuss the state of his health with you without his permission.”

“And you’ll never get it from that stubborn devil. You see, he suffers from the delusion that he shouldn’t burden me with his troubles and that he is still responsible for me, and not the other way around. This is how it is: for two years I thought he was dead. Yesterday I discovered that he was alive. If I’d known that he … it’s complicated to explain, but I’d like to know what sort of prognosis he has and whether he will recover.”

Dr. Sivarnandan picked up the pen and wrote Salander’s name neatly into Palmgren’s casebook. He asked for her social security number and telephone number.

“OK, now you’re formally his foster daughter. This may not be completely
by the book, but considering that you’re the first person to visit him since last Christmas when Herr Armansky stopped by … You saw him today—you can see for yourself that he has problems with coordination and speech. He had a stroke.”

“I know. I was the one who found him and called the ambulance.”

“Aha. Then you should know that he was in intensive care for three months. He was in a coma for a long time. Most patients never wake up from a coma like that, but it does happen. Obviously he wasn’t ready to die. First he was put in the dementia ward for chronic long-term patients who are completely unable to take care of themselves. Against all the odds he showed signs of improvement and was moved here for rehabilitation nine months ago.”

“Tell me what chances he has of getting his mobility and speech back.”

Dr. Sivarnandan threw out his hands. “Have you got a crystal ball that’s better than mine? The truthful answer is that I have no idea. He could die from a cerebral haemorrhage tonight. Or he could live a relatively normal life for another twenty years. I have no way of knowing. You might say it’s God who decides.”

“And if he lives another twenty years?”

“It’s been a laborious rehabilitation for him, and it’s only in the past few months that we have been able to see improvements. Six months ago he couldn’t eat without assistance. One month ago he could hardly get out of his chair, which is partly due to muscle atrophy from being in bed for so long. Now at least he can walk by himself for short distances.”

“Can he get better?”

“Yes. Even a lot better. The first threshold was hard, but now we’re seeing progress every day. He has lost almost two years of his life. In a few months, by the summer, I hope he’ll be able to walk in the park.”

“And his speech?”

“His problem is that both his speech centre and his ability to move were knocked out. He was helpless for a long time. Since then he has been forced to learn how to control his body and talk again. He doesn’t always remember which words to use, and he has to learn some words again. But it’s not like teaching a child to talk—he knows the meaning of the word, he just can’t articulate it. Give him a couple of months and you’ll see how his speech has improved compared with today. The same is true of his ability to get around. Nine months ago he couldn’t tell left from right, or up from down in the elevator.”

Salander thought about this for a minute. She discovered that she liked this Dr. A. Sivarnandan with the Indian looks and the Finnish accent.

“What does the
A
stand for?” she asked.

He gave her an amused look. “Anders.”

“Anders?”

“I was born in Sri Lanka but then adopted by a couple in Åbo when I was three months old.”

“OK, Anders, how can I help?”

“Visit him. Give him intellectual stimulation.”

“I can come every day.”

“I don’t want you to be here every day. If he likes you, I want him to look forward to your visits, not get bored with them.”

“Could any type of special care improve his odds? I can pay whatever it costs.”

He smiled at Salander. “I’m afraid that we’re all the special care there is. Of course I wish we had more resources and that the cutbacks didn’t affect us, but I assure you that he’s getting very competent care.”

“And if you didn’t have to worry about the cutbacks, what else could you offer him?”

“The ideal for patients like Holger Palmgren, of course, would be if I could offer him a full-time personal trainer. But it’s been quite a while since we had resources like that in Sweden.”

“Hire one.”

“Excuse me?”

“Hire him a personal trainer. Find the best you can. Please do it first thing tomorrow. And make sure he has everything he needs in the way of technical equipment. I’ll see to it that the funds are available by the end of the week to pay for it.”

“Are you pulling my leg, young lady?”

Salander gave Dr. Anders Sivarnandan her hard, steady look.

Johansson braked and pulled her Fiat over to the curb outside Gamla Stan tunnelbana station. Svensson opened the door and slipped into the passenger seat. He leaned over and gave her a kiss on the cheek as she drew away behind a bus.

“Hello, you,” she said without taking her eyes off the traffic. “You look so serious. Has something happened?”

Svensson sighed as he fastened his seat belt.

“No, nothing major. A little problem with the manuscript is all.”

“What problem?”

“Two months till the deadline. I’ve done only nine of the twenty-two confrontations we planned. I’m having trouble with Björck at the Security Police. The bastard is on long-term sick leave and he’s not answering his home telephone.”

“Is he in hospital?”

“Don’t know. Have you ever tried getting information out of Säpo? They won’t even admit that he works there.”

“Did you try his parents?”

“Both dead. He’s not married. He has a brother who lives in Spain. I just have no idea how to get hold of him.”

Johansson glanced at her partner as she navigated across Slussen to the tunnel leading to Nynäsvägen.

“Worst-case scenario, we jettison the section on Björck. Blomkvist insists that everyone we’re planning to expose must have a chance to comment before being hung out to dry.”

“But it would be a shame to miss out on a representative of the Security Police who runs around with prostitutes. What are you going to do?”

“Find him, of course. How are you doing? Nervous?”

He poked her carefully in the side.

“Actually, no. In two months I have to defend my dissertation and become a full-fledged doctor, and I feel as cool as a cucumber.”

“You know the subject backwards. Why be nervous?”

“Look behind you.”

Svensson turned and saw an open box on the backseat.

“Mia—it’s printed!” he said in delight. He held up a copy of the bound thesis.

“It wasn’t going to be ready until next week. Damn … we’re going to have to crack open a bottle when we get home. Congratulations, Doctor!”

He leaned over and kissed her again.

“Calm down. I won’t be a doctor for another two months. And keep your hands under control while I’m driving.”

Svensson laughed. Then he turned serious.

“By the way, fly in the ointment and all that… you interviewed a girl named Irina P. about a year ago.”

“Irina P., twenty-two, from St. Petersburg. She first came here in 1999 and has made some return trips. What about her?”

“I ran into Gulbrandsen today. The policeman involved in the Södertälje brothel investigation. Did you read last week that they’d found a girl floating in the canal there? There were headlines in the evening papers. It was Irina P.”

“Oh no. That’s horrible.”

They drove in silence past Skanstull.

“She’s in my thesis,” Johansson said at last. “I gave her the pseudonym Tamara.”

Svensson turned to the interview section of “From Russia with Love” and leafed through it to find “Tamara.” He read with concentration as Mia passed Gullmarsplan and the Globe Arena.

“She was brought here by somebody you call Anton.”

“I can’t use real names. I might get criticism for it during my oral exams, but I cannot name the girls. It would put them in real, mortal danger. And obviously I can’t identify the johns either, since they could work out which of the girls I had talked to. So in all the case studies I only use pseudonyms.”

“Who’s Anton?”

“His name is probably Zala. I’ve never been able to pin down who he is, but I think he’s a Pole or a Yugoslav and that’s not his real name. I talked with Irina P. four or five times, and it wasn’t until our last meeting that she told me his name. She was trying to straighten out her life and get out of the business, but she was certainly really afraid of him.”

“I’m just wondering … I ran into the name Zala a week or so ago.”

“Where was that?”

“I confronted Sandström—the john who’s a journalist. A complete bastard.”

“In what way?”

“He’s not a real journalist. He does advertising newsletters for various companies. And he has sick fantasies about rape that he’d get off on with that girl…”

“I know. I was the one who interviewed her.”

“But did you know that he did the text for a brochure about sexually transmitted diseases for the Public Health Institute?”

“I didn’t know that.”

“I confronted him last week. He totally lost it when I laid out all the evidence and asked why he uses teenage prostitutes from the East to live out his rape fantasies. Gradually I got some sort of explanation out of him.”

“And what was it?”

“Sandström had gotten into a situation where he wasn’t just another customer. He also ran errands for the sex mafia. He gave me the names he knew, including this Zala. He didn’t say anything specific about him, but it’s not a common name.”

Johansson glanced at him.

“Do you know who he is?” Svensson said.

“No. I’ve never been able to identify him. He’s just a name that crops up now and then. The girls all seem terrified of him, and none of them was willing to tell me anything else.”

Dr. Sivarnandan stopped in his tracks on his way into the dining room when he caught sight of Palmgren and Salander. They were bent over their chessboard. She came once a week now, usually on Sundays. She always arrived at around 3:00 and spent a couple of hours playing chess with Palmgren. She left around 8:00 in the evening, when it was time for him to go to bed. The doctor had observed that she did not treat him as you would an invalid—on the contrary, it looked like they were squabbling all the time, and she did not mind Palmgren waiting on her, fetching her coffee.

Dr. Sivarnandan could not make her out, this peculiar young woman who took herself for Palmgren’s foster daughter. She had a very striking look about her and she seemed to treat everything around her with suspicion. She appeared to have no sense of humour at all. Or the ability to carry on a normal conversation. And when he asked what kind of work she did, she somehow contrived not to give him an answer.

A few days after her first visit she had come back with a bundle of documents which declared that a nonprofit foundation had been established with the sole purpose of assisting the care centre with Palmgren’s rehabilitation. The chair of the trustees of the foundation was a lawyer in Gibraltar. There was another lawyer mentioned, also with an address in Gibraltar, and an accountant by the name of Hugo Svensson with an address in Stockholm. The foundation was to make available funds of up to 2.5 million kronor, which Dr. Sivarnandan could dispose of as he wished, but with the exclusive object of giving the patient Holger Palmgren every possible care and facility towards full recovery. Sivarnandan had only to request the necessary funds from the accountant.

It was an unusual, if not unique, arrangement. Sivarnandan had thought hard for several days about whether there was anything unethical about the situation. He decided that there was not and accordingly hired Johanna Karolina Oskarsson as Holger Palmgren’s personal assistant and trainer. She was thirty-nine, a certified physical therapist with a degree in psychology and with extensive experience in rehabilitation care. To Sivarnandan’s surprise her first month’s salary was paid to the hospital in advance, as soon as her employment contract was signed. Until then he had vaguely worried that this might be some sort of hoax.