The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye: Continuing Stieg Larsson's Millennium Series (31 page)

As he approached the building and took off his sunglasses, he heard footsteps behind him. An elderly lady in a black hat and bright-green coat came past him with a pug on a lead. She smiled.

“Don’t you feel like going home today, Leo?”

For a second, no more, he looked at her in panic. Then he smiled back, as if he found her question witty and appropriate in the circumstance.

“Sometimes you just don’t know what you want,” he said.

“How true. But come on in now. It’s much too cold to be standing around outside, philosophizing.”

She punched in the door code and they went in together and stood waiting for the lift. She smiled at him again and said, “What’s that old coat you’re wearing?”

He felt a stab of nerves.

“This old thing?”

The woman laughed.

“‘This old thing?’ That’s what I say when I’ve put on my very best party frock, fishing for compliments.”

He tried to laugh at that too, but he was clearly not convincing and the woman bit her lip and looked serious. He was sure that she had seen through his deception; not only his clothes but his clumsy way with words must have betrayed his lack of style.

“I’m sorry, Leo. I know it must be hard for you right now. How is Viveka?”

He could tell by her tone that “Fine” would not be an appropriate answer.

“So-so,” he said.

“Let’s hope she won’t have to suffer too long.”

“Let’s hope,” he said, and realized that he would not be able to handle a ride in the lift with her. “You know what? I need some exercise. I’ll take the stairs.”

“Nonsense, Leo. You’re as slender as a gazelle. Give Viveka a hug from me. Tell her I’m thinking of her.”

“I certainly will,” Dan said, and he bounded up the stairs with his guitar.

As he approached Leo’s apartment he slowed. If Leo’s hearing was even half as good as his own, he would have to be as quiet as a mouse. He tiptoed the last few metres. It was the only apartment on the top floor, which was good – it was set apart. Making as little noise as possible, he sat on the floor with his back against the wall. What should he do now? His heart pounded. His mouth was dry.

The hallway smelled of polish and cleaning products. His eyes fixed on the ceiling, painted as a blue sky. Who would think to paint a fresco onto the ceiling of a stairwell? From downstairs came the sound of footsteps, the shuffling of feet, television sets, a chair being moved, a door unlocked. A note on the piano from inside the apartment. It was an A.

There were some tentative bass notes, as if Leo had not quite made up his mind to play. Then he got started. He was improvising – or perhaps not. It was a dark, disquieting loop, with Leo always ending on the seventh tone in the minor key, just as he had done in the recording at the Stockholm Concert Hall. There was something almost ritual and obsessive about it, but also sophisticated, mature. Somehow he managed to conjure up a feeling of something broken and lost, at least that’s how it seemed to Dan. He shuddered.

He could not quite explain it, and all of a sudden it hit him. Tears welled up and he trembled, not only because of the music. It was the kinship in the harmonies, the very fact that when Leo played he conveyed such pain, as if he, not even a professional musician, was better than Dan at expressing their sorrow.

Their
sorrow?

It was a strange thought, and yet just then it appeared true. A moment before, Leo had seemed like a stranger, like someone very different, and more fortunate. Now Dan recognized himself in his twin. He got unsteadily to his feet. He had intended to ring the doorbell, but instead he took his guitar from its case, swiftly tuned it and joined in. It was not hard to find the chords and follow the notes in the loop. The way Leo dwelled on the beat in the syncopation and changed the triple phrasing for straight eighths was similar to his own. He felt … at home. That was the only way he could explain it. It was as if he had played with Leo many times before. He played for several minutes, expecting Leo to notice the accompaniment. But perhaps Leo did not hear as well as Dan did. Perhaps he was entirely absorbed in his playing. Dan couldn’t say.

Then Leo fell silent in the middle of the motif, on an F sharp. But there were no footsteps, no movement. Leo must have sat stock still, and Dan too fell silent, and waited. What was going on? He could hear loud breathing from deep inside the apartment and he played the loop again, a little quicker now and with a flourish of his own, a new variation. At that, the piano stool scraped against the floor and he heard steps approaching the door. He stood with his guitar and felt like a beggar, a street musician who had strayed into an elegant drawing room and was hoping to be accepted. But he was also burning with hope and longing. He closed his eyes and heard the security chain being unhooked by what sounded like fumbling fingers.

The door opened and Leo looked at him. He was dumbfounded. His mouth fell open. He looked shocked, terrified.

“Who are you?”

Those were his first words, and how was Dan to answer him? What should he say?

“My name is …”

Silence.

“… Dan Brody,” he said. “I’m a jazz guitarist. I must be your twin brother.”

Leo said nothing. He seemed on the verge of sinking to his knees. His face was white.

“I …”

That was all he managed, and Dan could not speak either. His heart pounded and the words would not come. He too tried to speak:

“I …”

“
What
?
”

There was a desperation in Leo’s voice that was almost too much for Dan to bear. He resisted an impulse to turn and run, and instead said:

“When I heard you playing the piano … I was thinking that all my life I’ve felt like half a person. As if I’ve been missing something. And now at last …”

He got no further. He didn’t know if the words were true, or even half true – or whether he was simply spouting set phrases without thinking.

“I can’t get my head around this,” Leo said. “How long have you known?”

His hands were shaking now.

“Only a few days.”

“I just can’t get my head around this.”

“I know, it’s unreal.”

Leo held out his hand. It seemed strangely formal in the circumstances.

“I’ve always …” he said. He bit his lip. His hands would not stop shaking. “I’ve always felt the same. Will you come in?”

Dan nodded and stepped into an apartment which was grander than anything he had ever seen.

As many as one pregnancy in eight may begin as a twin pregnancy, although sometimes one of the embryos does not thrive and is reabsorbed into the gestational sac. This is known as Vanishing Twin Syndrome, or V.T.S.

Some twins lose a sibling after birth because of adoption, or, more rarely, a mix-up in the maternity ward. Some meet for the first time only as adults; others never meet at all. Identical twins Jack Yufe and Oskar Stohr first encountered each other at a railway station in West Germany in 1954. Jack Yufe had lived on a kibbutz and been a soldier in the Israeli army. Oskar Stohr had been active in the Hitler Youth.

Many people feel they are missing someone.

Blomkvist walked along the river in Nyköping to Hotel Forsen. It was a simple brown wooden building with a red-tiled roof, more of a hostel than a hotel. But it was in a beautiful location, right next to the water. It was 8.30 p.m. by the time he got there. In the entrance was a miniature watermill and photographs of fishermen in gumboots.

A young blonde woman sat behind the reception desk, possibly a summer temp. She could not have been more than seventeen. She was wearing jeans and a red shirt and was busy with her mobile. Blomkvist worried that she might recognize him and post something on social media, but he was reassured by her disinterested expression. He went up two floors and knocked on the grey door of room number 214. He heard a cracked voice from inside.

“Who is it?”

He gave his name, and Hilda von Kanterborg opened the door. For a moment he caught his breath. She looked wild. Her hair was unkempt, her eyes darting about nervously, like a frightened animal’s. Her skin was covered in pigment spots. She was busty, with broad shoulders and hips – her light-blue dress seemed barely big enough for her.

“It’s good of you to see me,” he said.

“Good? It’s terrifying. What you told Lotta seemed crazy.”

He did not ask her to be more specific. First he wanted to calm her, allow her to get her breathing under control. He took the bottles of rosé out of his bag and put them on the round oak table next to the open window.

“I’m afraid they’re not so chilled now,” he said.

“I’ve survived worse.”

She went to the bathroom and came back with two Duralex glasses.

“Are you going to stay sober and sensible or will you join me?”

“Whatever makes you feel comfortable,” he said.

“All drunks want company, so you’ll have to drink. Look at it as a professional strategy.”

She filled Blomkvist’s glass to the brim and he swallowed a large mouthful, to show that he meant business. He looked out at the river and the subtly shifting daylight of the evening sky.

“Let me just assure you—”

“Don’t try to assure me of anything,” she said. “You can’t. I don’t need any sententious bullshit about protection of sources. I’m telling you what I’m telling you because I don’t want to keep quiet any longer.”

She knocked back her glass and looked him in the eye. There was something appealing and easy-going about her.

“O.K., I understand. Forgive me for worrying you. Shall we get to it?”

She nodded. He got out his voice recorder and switched it on.

“I assume you’ve heard about the State Institute for Racial Biology,” she said.

“Oh God yes,” he said. “What an appalling outfit.”

“Indeed, but don’t get yourself too worked up, you star reporter, this is not half as exciting as it sounds. The institute was closed down in 1958, as you may know, and you’d have a hard time finding anyone in the whole of Sweden these days who’s into race biology. I’m only saying this because there’s a connection. When I started my work at the Registry, I had no idea, I thought I was only going to be working with gifted children. As it turned out …” She drank some more wine. “… I don’t know where to start.”

“Take your time,” Blomkvist said. “We’ll find a way in.”

She emptied her glass and lit a cigarette, a Gauloise, looking at it with a grin.

“Smoking’s not allowed here,” she said. “Actually, the story could begin right there, with smoking – and the suspicion that it might be harmful. In the 1950s, some researchers claimed that smoking could cause lung cancer. Imagine that!”

“Unbelievable!”

“I know, right? As you know, the theory met with massive resistance. One line of thought said: maybe a lot of smokers do get lung cancer, but that isn’t necessarily because of the tobacco. It could just as easily be because they eat too many vegetables. Nothing could be proven. ‘More Doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette’ was a well-known slogan at the time. Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall were held up as examples of how sophisticated smoking was. And yet the suspicion stuck, and it was no small matter. The British Ministry of Health discovered that deaths due to lung cancer had increased by a factor of fifteen in two decades, and a group of doctors at the Karolinska Institute here decided to test the theory by using twins. Twins are ideal research subjects, and a register of more than eleven thousand of them was established over a period of two years. They were questioned about their smoking and drinking habits and their responses made an important contribution to the sorrowful discovery that ciggies and booze aren’t all that great for you after all.”

She gave a mournful laugh, took a deep drag on her cigarette and poured herself yet another glass of rosé.

“It didn’t stop there,” she said. “The register grew and new twins were added, including many who did not grow up together. In Sweden in the 1930s, several hundred twins had been separated at birth, mostly for reasons of poverty. Many of them didn’t meet until they were adults. This provided a wealth of valuable scientific material used by researchers not only to investigate new illnesses and their causes, but also to address the classic question: How do heredity and environment shape an individual?”

“I’ve read about that,” Blomkvist said, “and I know about the Swedish Twin Registry. But surely the work done is above board?”

“Absolutely, it’s valuable and important research. All I’m trying to do is give you some background. While the Twin Registry was being constituted, the Institute for Racial Biology changed its name to the Institute for Human Genetics and was integrated into Uppsala University. It wasn’t just semantics. These gentlemen gradually began to devote themselves to something which at least vaguely resembled scientific work. The old business of measuring heads and crap theories about the purity of the Swedo-Germanic race were finally abandoned.”

“But they still had all the registers of Roma and other minorities?”

“Yes, also something more important, and much worse.”

Blomkvist raised his eyebrows.

“Their outlook on mankind. Maybe they no longer thought that one race was better than another. Maybe there was no such thing as ‘different races’. But still, some pure-bred Swedes were arguably more diligent and hard-working than others of their countrymen. Why was that? Because they’d been given a good, solid Swedish upbringing, perhaps? Maybe we can find a way to create a real, honest-to-goodness Swede, they thought – someone who doesn’t smoke Gauloises and get drunk on lukewarm rosé.”

“Doesn’t sound so good.”

“No. Times had changed, but people on one extreme can easily start heading towards a different one, don’t you think? Before long this group at Uppsala began to believe in Freud and Marx in the same way they’d once believed in racial biology. Their organization was called the Institute for Human Genetics so they didn’t dismiss the significance of heredity. Far from it. But they believed that social and material factors played by far the greater role. Nothing wrong with that, especially not these days when class barriers can be such impenetrable walls.