The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye: Continuing Stieg Larsson's Millennium Series (23 page)

It was said that Steinberg saw other women, that he was a real power player with more clout than even his impressive C.V. would seem to warrant. He had been head of the Department of Social Work at Stockholm University and had chaired a number of government inquiries. Hilda found him dogmatic and obtuse, but she was fascinated by him, and not just by his appearance and his aura. She saw him as a riddle to be solved.

She was intrigued when she saw him in that restaurant with a woman who was certainly not his wife. She had short ash-blonde hair, beautiful, determined eyes and a regal presence. Hilda could not be sure that this was a lover’s tryst, but Steinberg was obviously disturbed when he caught sight of her. There was in fact nothing out of the ordinary about the scene. Even so it felt as if she had caught a glimpse of the secret life she had always imagined Steinberg to be living, and she quickly stole out again.

During the days and weeks that followed, Steinberg looked at her with curiosity, and one evening he invited her to take a walk with him along the forest paths around the university. The sky was dark that day. For a long time Steinberg stayed quiet, though it seemed he was on the verge of sharing something important with her. Then he broke the silence with a question which was so trite that it amazed her:

“Have you ever wondered, Hilda, why you are just as you are?”

She answered politely:

“Yes, Martin, I have.”

“It’s one of the big questions, not just for our own pasts but also for our future,” he said.

That was how she was drawn into Project 9. For a long time it seemed harmless: a number of children from different social backgrounds, who had been placed in foster homes when they were small, were tested and assessed. Some were gifted, others not. But none of the results were made public. On the surface there was nothing at all exploitative about it. Quite the opposite. In fact the children were treated with care and consideration, and in some areas the team was initiating new if not pioneering lines of research.

Yet with the benefit of hindsight she should have asked more questions: How had the children been selected and why had so many been placed in such widely different social circumstances? Gradually she came to understand the broader picture, but by then the door was closed. And in any case she still thought the project was defensible, both as a whole and for each individual case.

Then came another autumn, and news that Carl Seger had been accidentally killed during an elk hunt. That really frightened her. She decided to get out. Steinberg and Greitz noticed it right away. They gave her the chance to have a positive influence on the project, and that kept her involved for a little while longer. Her task was to save one particular girl who was living an absolute nightmare with her twin sister on Lundagatan in Stockholm. The authorities had been no help so Hilda was to find a solution, and a foster family.

Nothing was as straightforward as she had been told. She found herself getting close to the mother and the girl. She stood up for them and it cost her her career; it almost cost her her life. Sometimes she regretted it, but more often she was proud, and she came to see it as the best thing she had done during her time at the Registry.

Now, as the evening drew in, Hilda drank her Chardonnay and looked out of the window. People were strolling by and looking happy. Did she feel like going down and settling with a book at some outdoor café? No sooner had the thought occurred to her than she spotted a figure getting out of a black Renault a little way down the street. It was Rakel Greitz. There was nothing strange about that in itself. Greitz came by every now and again and treated her to a flood of friendly chatter and flattery. But lately things had not felt quite right. Greitz had sounded tense on the telephone and had begun to utter threats again, just as she used to.

She was now standing on the pavement outside, wearing a disguise but nevertheless unmistakable, and she was accompanied by Benjamin. Benjamin Fors was Greitz’s factotum. He not only ran her errands, but was also called in when there was need for coercion. Or brute force. Hilda was frightened by what she saw and made a quick and drastic decision.

She quickly put on her coat and grabbed her wallet and mobile which had been lying on silent on her desk. Then she left the apartment and locked the door. Not quite quick enough. Footsteps could be heard in the entrance hall below. She was gripped by panic and rushed downstairs, knowing that she might run straight into their grasp. As luck would have it they were waiting for the lift. Hilda made it into the backyard, her only escape route that avoided the street entrance. She could climb over a yellow wall at the far end if she moved the garden table a little closer. The table screeched as she pushed it across the flagstones. She scrambled over the wall like a clumsy child and dropped into the neighbouring yard, and then made her way out into Bohusgatan. There she turned towards Eriksdalsbadet and the waterfront. She walked quickly, even though her left foot throbbed from the fall and she was not entirely sober.

Down near the outdoor gym by Årstaviken she reached for her mobile. There were a number of missed calls, and when she listened to the messages she realized that something was very wrong. The journalist Mikael Blomkvist had been trying to reach her and, even though he apologized profusely, his voice sounded agitated. In his second message he added that now that Holger Palmgren was dead, he was “particularly keen to have a word”.

Holger Palmgren, she muttered to herself.
Holger Palmgren
. Why did that name sound familiar? She searched on her mobile and it came up immediately. Palmgren had been Lisbeth Salander’s guardian. Of course. Some story was obviously about to break and that was not good. If the media were chasing after information, she could be the weak link.

As she walked faster she looked out towards the water and the trees, and all the people strolling or picnicking on the grass. Just beyond the outdoor gym, by the open space on the waterfront where the small boats were moored, she saw three surly-looking teenage boys sprawled on a blanket, drinking beer. She stopped and looked at her mobile again. Hilda was no expert in technology, but she did know that it could be used to track her. So she made a quick last call to her sister, which she immediately regretted – every one of her telephone conversations left an after-taste of guilt and accusation. Then she walked over to the teenagers and chose one with long straggly hair and a frayed denim jacket. She held out her telephone.

“Here you go,” she said. “It’s an iPhone, brand new. It’s yours. Just change the S.I.M.-card or whatever.”

“What? Why are you giving me this?”

“Because you seem like such a nice guy. Good luck, don’t buy any drugs,” she said and then she hurried away in the evening sun.

Thirty minutes later she was standing at an A.T.M. in Hornstull, damp from the heat, and withdrew three thousand kronor in cash before heading for Stockholm Central Station. She would go to Nyköping, to a small, out-of-the-way hotel where she had gone into hiding years ago when all her colleagues at the university had accused her of being a slut.

Blomkvist passed an older woman in the doorway. She was wearing a hat and carrying a walking stick, and she was followed by a powerfully built man of his own age who must have been two metres tall with small eyes and a round face. But he didn’t pay them much attention. He was just relieved to have managed to get into the building, and he ran up the stairs to Hilda von Kanterborg’s apartment. There did not seem to be anyone at home.

He left and walked towards the Clarion Hotel in Skanstull, and there he tried to call her again. This time an arrogant voice answered. A son, perhaps?

“Hey!”

“Hello!” Blomkvist said. “Is Hilda there?”

“There’s no fucking Hildas here. This is my mobile now.”

“What do you mean?”

“Some crazy drunk woman gave it to me.”

“When?”

“Just now.”

“How did she seem?”

“Stressed and bonkers.”

“Where are you?”

“None of your fucking business,” the boy said and hung up.

Blomkvist swore. For want of anything better to do, he went into the bar of the Clarion and ordered a Guinness.

He sat down in an armchair next to the windows overlooking Ringvägen. He needed to think. A bald man at the reception desk behind him was in a heated argument over his bill. Two young women were sitting not far from his window table and whispering.

Thoughts were chasing around in his head. Salander had mentioned lists of names and Leo Mannheimer. In view of Palmgren’s death and the documents found in his hallway, it was probably safe to assume that whatever this was all about had happened a long time ago.

Talk to Hilda von …

Could he have meant somebody other than Hilda von Kanterborg? It was possible but unlikely. Plus there had been Hilda’s erratic behaviour just now, giving her mobile away to a teenage boy. Blomkvist’s Guinness arrived. He looked over at the young women sitting in the bar who now seemed to be whispering about him. He took out his mobile and searched for Hilda von Kanterborg. He did not expect to find what he was looking for so swiftly on Google, or for anything to be available on the net. But he might be able to read between the lines. Leads could sometimes be found in perfectly anodyne or evasive answers to interview questions, or in someone’s choice of subjects or interests.

He found nothing. Hilda had been a reasonably prolific author of scientific articles until she lost her position at Stockholm University. Then there was silence. Blomkvist found no trail of clues to follow and, in the old material, nothing remotely confidential or shady, or to do with adopted children, and still less with hyperacoustic boys who had gone from being left-handed to being right-handed. Her articles did muster clear and sound arguments against the hidden racist agenda, which at the time was still in evidence in research into the significance of nature over nurture. But that was it.

He ordered another Guinness. Maybe there was someone he could call. He searched the articles for names of co-authors and colleagues, and then he looked up “von Kanterborg” in the directory. He found only one other living person in the country with that name: a woman, six years younger, by the name of Charlotte. She lived a few blocks away on Renstiernas gata and was listed as a hairdresser, with a salon on Götgatan. Blomkvist looked at photographs of Hilda and Charlotte von Kanterborg and saw the resemblance. They were probably sisters. Without giving it much thought, he dialled Charlotte’s number.

“Lotta,” said the voice.

“Hello, my name is Mikael Blomkvist and I’m a journalist at
Millennium
magazine,” he said, and he sensed at once that this worried her.

He was used to that and often he regretted it, and joked that he should write more positive articles so that people would not get anxious when he called. But this time there seemed to be more to it.

“I’m so sorry to disturb you. I need to get hold of Hilda von Kanterborg,” he said.

“What’s happened to her?”

Not “Has anything happened to her?” but “What’s happened …”

“When did you last hear from her?” he asked.

“Only an hour ago.”

“And where was she at the time?”

“Can I ask why you’re calling? I mean … well, it’s not as though journalists come looking for her all the time these days.”

She drew a deep breath.

“I don’t mean to worry you,” Blomkvist said.

“She sounded stressed and frightened. What’s going on?”

“I honestly don’t know,” he said. “But a wonderful old man called Holger Palmgren has been murdered. I was there while he was fighting for his life, and the last thing he said was that I should talk to Hilda. I think she has some important information.”

“About what?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out. I want to help her. I want us to help each other.”

“How can I know whether to believe that?”

Blomkvist answered with surprising honesty:

“In my job, it’s not that easy to promise anything. The truth – if I manage to find it, that is – can end up hurting even those to whom I wish no harm. But most of us tend to feel better once we’ve opened up about what’s troubling us.”

“She feels absolutely horrible,” Lotta said.

“I understand.”

“She’s been feeling horrible for the last twenty years, in fact. But this time it seems worse than ever.”

“Why’s that, do you think?”

“I … I have no idea.”

He heard the hesitation in her voice and struck like a cobra.

“Can I pop round for a moment? I see you live nearby.”

That seemed to make the woman even more nervous, but he was almost certain she would say yes. So it surprised him when she answered with a sharp and uncompromising “No! I don’t want to get involved.”

“Involved in what?”

“Well …”

Blomkvist could hear her breathing hard on the other end of the line. He understood that this was one of those moments when things hang in the balance. He had experienced it many times as a journalist. When people get to the point of debating whether to speak out or not, they tend to freeze in concentration as they try to weigh the consequences. He knew that this often ended with them talking. But there are no guarantees, so he tried not to sound too eager.

“Is there something you want to say?”

“When Hilda writes, she sometimes uses the pseudonym Leonard Bark,” Lotta said.

“Oh, wow, is that her?”

“So you’ve heard of Leonard Bark?”

“I may be just an old hack, but I do try to keep reasonably up to date with the culture pages. I like his – or rather her – stuff. But why is this important?”

“As Leonard Bark she wrote a feature article for
Svenska Dagbladet
under the title ‘Born Together – Raised Apart’. This would have been about three years ago.”

“O.K.”

“It was about a scientific investigation by some people at the University of Minnesota. Nothing out of the ordinary. But it was important to her, that was obvious from the way she talked about it.”

“Right,” he said. “What are you trying to say?”