The Girl Who Played with Fire (66 page)

“It’s not that straightforward. I hope you understand that there really is something wrong with Lisbeth,” Palmgren said sharply.

“How do you mean?”

“You’re aware that she had a lot of trouble when she was growing up and problems in school and all that.”

“It’s been in every daily paper. And I would have had trouble in school myself if I’d had the childhood she had.”

“Her problems go way beyond the problems she had at home. I’ve read all the psychiatric assessments, and there isn’t even a diagnosis. I think we can agree that Lisbeth Salander isn’t like normal people. Have you ever played chess with her?”

“No.”

“She has a photographic memory.”

“I know. I realized that when I was working with her.”

“She loves puzzles. One time when she came over for Christmas dinner I enticed her into solving some problems from a Mensa intelligence test. It was the kind where they show you five similar symbols and you have to decide what the sixth one will look like. I’d tried myself and got about half of them right. And I plodded away at it for two evenings. She took one look at the paper and answered every question correctly.”

“Lisbeth is a very special girl.”

“She has an extremely hard time relating to other people. I thought she had Asperger’s syndrome or something like it. If you read the clinical descriptions of patients diagnosed with Asperger’s, there are things that seem to fit Lisbeth very well, but there are just as many symptoms that don’t apply at all. Mind you, she’s not the least bit dangerous to people who leave her in peace and treat her with respect. But she is violent, without a doubt,” said Palmgren in a low voice. “If she’s provoked or threatened, she can strike back with appalling violence.”

Blomkvist nodded.

“The question is, what do we do now?” Palmgren said.

“We find Zalachenko,” Blomkvist said.

At that moment Dr. Sivarnandan knocked and came in.

“I hope I’m not disturbing you. But if you’re interested in Lisbeth Salander, you might want to turn on the TV and watch the news.”

Salander was shaking with rage. That morning she had gone to Bjurman’s summer cabin in peace and quiet. She hadn’t opened her computer since the night before, and during the day she had been too busy to listen to the news. She was half expecting the incident in Stallarholmen to get a mention, but she was completely unprepared for the storm that she now encountered on the TV news.

Miriam Wu was in Söder hospital, attacked and badly wounded by a gigantic assailant who had kidnapped her outside the apartment building on Lundagatan. Her condition was described as serious.

She’d been rescued by the former professional boxer Paolo Roberto. How he had come to be in a warehouse in Nykvarn was not explained. He was mobbed by reporters when he came out of the hospital, but he didn’t want to make any comments. His face looked as if he had gone ten rounds with his hands tied behind his back.

Two bodies had been found buried in the woods close to where Miriam Wu had been assaulted. It was reported that the police had designated a third site to be excavated as well, and that this might not be the last of it.

And then there was the search for the fugitive Lisbeth Salander.

The net, so they said, was tightening. That day the police had surrounded the neighbourhood of Stallarholmen. She was armed and dangerous. She had shot and wounded a Hell’s Angels biker, possibly two. The shoot-out had taken place at the summer cabin of the murdered lawyer Nils Bjurman. By evening the police were ready to concede that she might have managed to elude the cordon.

Ekström had called a press conference. His responses were evasive. No, he could not say whether Salander had dealings with the Hell’s Angels. No, he could not confirm the rumour that Salander had been seen at the warehouse in Nykvarn. No, there was nothing to indicate that this was an underworld gang war. No, it could not be confirmed that Salander alone was responsible for the Enskede murders. They were now searching for her solely to question her about the circumstances of the murders.

Salander frowned. Something had shifted within the police investigation.

She went online and first read the newspapers’ reports, then accessed the hard drives of Ekström, Armansky, and Blomkvist, one by one.

Ekström’s email contained several messages of interest, in particular a memo sent by Jan Bublanski at 5:22 p.m. The email was brisk and devastatingly critical of Ekström’s management of the preliminary investigation. It ended with what was effectively an ultimatum. He demanded (a) that Inspector Modig be reinstated, effective immediately; (b) that the focus of the investigation be redirected so as to explore alternative solutions to the Enskede murders; and (c) that research be started without delay on the figure known only as Zala.

Bublanski finished by saying that if his demands were not met he would leave the investigative team, which he did not intend to do quietly. Ekström had replied that Bublanski should do what he thought was best. Salander obtained even more surprising information from Armansky’s hard drive. A brief exchange of emails with Milton’s payroll office
established that Niklas Hedström had left the company, effective immediately. He would get vacation pay and three months’ severance. An email to the manager on duty stated that if Hedström came back to the building he could be escorted to his desk to remove personal effects and then escorted from the premises. An email to the technical department advised them that Hedström’s card key was to be devalidated.

But most interesting was an exchange between Armansky and Milton Security’s lawyer, Frank Alenius. Armansky asked how Salander could best be represented in the event that she was taken into custody. Alenius replied that there was no reason for Milton to become concerned with a former employee who had committed murder—it would not reflect well upon Milton Security were the company to be so involved. Armansky replied brusquely that Salander’s involvement in any murder was still an open question, and that his concern was to provide support for a former employee whom he considered innocent.

Blomkvist had not, Salander discovered, been on his computer since early the previous day. So no news.

Bohman laid the folder on the table in Armansky’s office. He sat down heavily. Fräklund opened it and began to read. Armansky stood by the window looking out at Gamla Stan.

“This is the last report I can deliver. I’ve been kicked off the investigation,” Bohman said.

“Not your fault,” Fräklund said.

“No, not your fault,” Armansky said and sat down. He had collected all the material that Bohman had provided over the course of two weeks in a pile on the conference table.

“I talked to Bublanski. You’ve done a good job, Sonny. He is sorry to lose you, but he had no choice because of Hedström.”

“That’s OK. I discovered that I get along much better here at Milton than down at Kungsholmen.”

“Can you give us a summary?”

“Well, if the objective was to find Lisbeth Salander, then obviously we failed. It was a very messy investigation with a number of competing personalities, and Bublanski may not have had ultimate control over the search.”

“Hans Faste—”

“Faste is a real fuckup. But the problem is not just Faste and a sloppy
investigation. Bublanski saw to it that all the leads were followed as far as they could be. The fact is, Salander has been damn good at covering her tracks.”

“But your job wasn’t only to pin down Salander,” Armansky said.

“No, and I’m thankful that we didn’t tell Hedström about my other assignment to act as your mole and see to it that Salander wasn’t falsely accused.”

“And what do you think today?”

“When we started I was positive that she was guilty. Today I’m not sure one way or the other. So many things don’t fit…”

“Yes?”

“Well, I would no longer consider her the prime suspect. I’m leaning more and more towards thinking there’s something to Mikael Blomkvist’s reasoning.”

“Which means that we have to identify and find the killers. Shall we take the investigation from the beginning?” Armansky said, pouring coffee.

Salander had one of the worst evenings of her life. She was thinking about when she had thrown the firebomb into Zalachenko’s car. In that instant the nightmares stopped and she had felt a great inner peace. She had had other problems, but they had always been about her, and she could handle them. Now it was about Mimmi.

Mimmi had been beaten up and was in the hospital. She was innocent. She’d had nothing to do with any of this. Her only crime was that she knew Salander.

She cursed herself. She was riddled with feelings of guilt. The blame was all hers.
Her
address was secret;
she
was safe. And then she had persuaded Mimmi to live in her apartment, at the address that anyone could find.

How could she have been so thoughtless? She might as well have beaten her up herself.

She felt so wretched that tears came to her eyes. But Salander never cried. She wiped them away.

At 10:30 she was so restless that she could not stay in the apartment. She put on her coat and boots and set off into the night. She walked down side streets until she reached Ringvägen and stood at the end of the driveway to Söder hospital. She wanted to go to Mimmi’s room and wake her up and tell her that everything was going to be all right. Then she saw
blue lights from a police car near Zinken and stepped into an alleyway to avoid being seen.

She was home again just after midnight. She was freezing, so she undressed and crawled into bed. She could not sleep. At 1:00 a.m. she was up again, walking naked through the unlit apartment. She went into the guest bedroom, where there was a bed and a desk. She had never set foot in it before. She sat on the floor with her back to the wall and stared into the night.

Lisbeth Salander has a guest bedroom. What a joke.

She sat there until after 2:00, and by then she was so cold that she was shivering. Then she started to cry again.

Some time before dawn, Salander took a shower and dressed. She put on the coffeemaker and made breakfast and turned on her computer. She went into Blomkvist’s hard drive. She was surprised to discover that he had not updated his research journal, and instead she opened the folder
. There was a new document titled [Lisbeth-IMPORTANT]. She looked at the document properties. It had been created at 12:52 a.m. She double-clicked.

Salander read the document slowly again. Kalle Blomkvist had been busy. Practical Pig.
Practical Fucking Pig
. He still thought there was something to solve.

He meant well. He wanted to help.

He didn’t understand that whatever happened, her life was over.

It had ended before she even turned thirteen.

There was only one solution.

She created a new document and tried to write a reply, but the thoughts were whirling around in her head and there were so many things she wanted to say to him.

Salander in love. What a fucking joke.

He would never find out. She would never give him the satisfaction.

She deleted the document and stared at the empty screen. But no answer at all was less than he deserved. He had stood faithfully in her corner like a steadfast tin soldier. She created a new document and wrote:

Thanks for being my friend.

First she had a number of logistical decisions to take. She needed a means of transport. Using the burgundy Honda, still on Lundagatan, was tempting but out of the question. There was nothing in Prosecutor Ekström’s laptop to indicate that anyone in the police investigation had discovered that she had bought a car, which might be because she had not yet managed to send in the registration documents and insurance papers. But Mimmi might have talked about the car when she was questioned by the police, and obviously Lundagatan was under sporadic surveillance.

The police knew that she had a motorcycle, and it would be even more obtrusive to take it out of storage from the apartment building on Lundagatan. Besides, after a number of summer-like days, a change in the weather was forecast, and she had no great desire to venture out on a bike on rain-slick highways.

One alternative, of course, would be to rent a car in Irene Nesser’s name, but there were risks involved with that too. Someone might recognize her, and the fake identity would then be lost to her. That would be a catastrophe; it was her escape route out of the country.

Then she gave a lopsided smile. There was one other possibility. She booted up her computer, logged on to Milton Security’s network and navigated to the car pool, which was administered by a secretary in Milton’s reception area. Milton Security had close to forty cars at its disposal, some of which carried the company logo and were used on business trips. The majority were unmarked surveillance cars, and these were kept in the garage at Milton’s HQ near Slussen. Practically around the corner.