The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye: Continuing Stieg Larsson's Millennium Series (45 page)

He had no doubt, however, that Stockholm was the hardest hit. The stock market crash was not as bad in Frankfurt, London or Paris, although there was rising panic in those cities too. The American exchanges would not be opening for several hours. Even so, futures prices suggested that there would be sharp downturns on the Dow Jones and Nasdaq. Nothing seemed to help, least of all when central bank governors and ministers, economists and gurus stepped up to talk about “overreaction”, saying that nobody should “rock the boat”. Everything was cast in a negative light and distorted. The herd was already in motion and running for its life, although nobody knew who or what had frightened it. A decision was made to suspend trading on the Stockholm Stock Exchange, perhaps too hastily because prices had begun to recover only moments before. But investigations and analyses were needed before there could be a resumption of trading.

“Too bad about your twins story. It’ll drown in this mess.”

Blomkvist looked up from his computer and gazed wistfully at Berger.

“I’m touched that you’re concerned about my professional pride when the whole world has gone mad,” he said.

“I’m thinking of
Millennium
.”

“I understand. But we have to delay publication now, don’t you think? We can’t put out a new issue without addressing this too.”

“No new print issue, I agree with that. But we have to at least publish something on the twins story online. Otherwise someone could get out ahead of us on that.”

“O.K.,” he said, “You’re probably right. Whatever you think best.”

“But then you’ll have to get going again on this latest story. Can you bear to?”

“Of course, no problem.”

“Good,” she said, and they nodded at each other.

It would be a hot and oppressive summer, and Blomkvist decided to take a walk before tackling the next story. He came down Götgatan towards Slussen, thinking of Holger Palmgren and his clenched fist in the bed in Liljeholmen.

The cathedral was packed. It was not just that it was Storkyrkan, and it was not as if the funeral was for some famous statesman. It was for an elderly lawyer who had never taken on any high-profile cases, but had rather spent his whole working life fighting on behalf of young people who had gone astray.
Millennium
’s recently published report into the so-called “Twins Scandal” may have had something to do with it though, along with the publicity around the old man’s murder.

It was 2.00 p.m. The funeral service had been dignified and moving, with a somewhat unconventional sermon which had scarcely referred to the Almighty or to Jesus but portrayed the dead man with fine brush strokes. It had been overshadowed, however, by the emotional eulogy delivered by Holger Palmgren’s half-sister Britt-Marie Norén. Many of those sitting in the pews were deeply moved, especially a tall, stately African woman by the name of Lulu Magoro who was weeping uncontrollably. Many others had tears in their eyes or their heads lowered respectfully – relatives, friends, former colleagues, neighbours, a number of clients who looked to have done well for themselves. Mikael Blomkvist was there, as was his sister Annika Giannini, Chief Inspector Bublanski and his fiancée Farah Sharif and Inspectors Sonja Modig and Jerker Holmberg, as well as Erika Berger and many others who had been close to Holger. But there were also those who had come out of curiosity and were looking around excitedly, which did not appear to please the priest, a tall, slim woman in her sixties with snow-white hair and sharp features. She stepped forward again with her air of natural authority and nodded at a man in a black-linen jacket who was sitting in the second row on the left.

The man – his name was Dragan Armansky, the owner of the security company Milton Security – shook his head. It was his turn to speak, but he no longer wanted to. It was not obvious why. The priest accepted his apology and prepared for the mourners to file past the coffin, giving a signal to the musicians above.

At that moment a young woman stood up at the back of the church and called out: “Stop. Wait.” It took a while before people realized it was Lisbeth Salander. That may have been because she was wearing a black tailored suit which made her look like a young boy, although she had still managed to forget to do something about her hair. It was as messy and spiky as ever. She made no effort to approach the coffin in a way appropriate to the occasion either. There was something aggressive about the way she moved, and yet – in a curious paradox – she appeared oddly indecisive. When she reached the altar she stared at the floor, refusing to meet the eye of anyone in the congregation. For a moment it looked as though she might go and sit down again.

“Would you like to say a few words?” the priest said.

She nodded.

“Please, go ahead. I understand you were close to Holger.”

“I was,” she said.

Then she fell silent. There was nervous muttering in the church. It was impossible to decipher her body language, although most thought she seemed angry, or stunned. When finally she began to speak, she was barely audible even to those in the first row.

“Louder!” somebody shouted.

She raised her eyes and looked lost.

“Holger was … a pain,” she said. “Tiresome. He wouldn’t accept it if people didn’t want to talk and preferred to be left alone. He didn’t know when to give up. He just barged right in and got all sorts of disturbed freaks to open up. He was dumb enough to believe in people, even in me – and there weren’t too many people who shared that opinion. He was a proud old fool who refused to accept help, however bad the pain, and he always did everything he could to unearth the truth, never for himself. So naturally …”

She closed her eyes.

“… there was every reason for them to murder him. They killed a defenceless old man in his bed and that makes me mad, really mad, especially since Holger and I …”

She never finished the sentence. She stared blankly to one side. Then she straightened up and looked directly out at the congregation.

“The last time we saw each other, we talked about that statue over there,” she said. “He wanted to know why I was so fascinated by it. I told him that I had never seen it as a monument to a heroic deed, but rather as a representation of a terrible assault. He understood immediately, and asked, ‘What about the fire the dragon is breathing?’ I said it was the same fire that burns inside everyone who is being trampled on. The same fire that can turn us into ashes and waste, but which sometimes, if some old fool like Holger spots us, plays chess with us and talks to us and just takes an interest, can become something totally different: a force which allows us to strike back. Holger knew that you can still get back on your feet, even with a spear sticking through your body, and that’s why he kept on nagging and was such a pain,” she said, and then fell silent again.

She turned and bowed to the coffin, her movements stiff and angular, and said “Thanks”, and “Sorry”. She caught a look from Mikael Blomkvist, who smiled at her. She may have smiled back, it was hard to tell.

The church erupted with murmuring and whispers, and the priest had difficulty restoring order for the procession past the coffin. Hardly anybody noticed Salander as she stole along the rows of benches and disappeared through the church door, into the square outside and the narrow lanes of Gamla Stan.

My heartfelt thanks to my agent Magdalena Hedlund and to my publishers Eva Gedin and Susanna Romanus.

A big thanks too to my editor Ingemar Karlsson, to Stieg Larsson’s father and brother, Erland and Joakim Larsson, to my friends Johan and Jessica Norberg, and to David Jacoby, senior security researcher at Kaspersky Lab.

Thanks also to my British publisher Christopher MacLehose, Jessica Bab Bonde at Hedlund Agency, Nancy Pedersen, professor of genetic epidemiology at the Swedish Twin Registry, Ulrica Blomgren, assistant prison governor at Hall Prison, Svetlana Bajalica Lagercrantz, consultant and associate professor at Karolinska University Hospital, Hedvig Kjellström, professor of computer science at K.T.H. Royal Institute of Technology, Agneta Geschwind, deputy head of department at the Stockholm City Archives, Mats Galvenius, deputy managing director at Insurance Sweden, my neighbour Joachim Hollman, Danica Kragi-Jensfelt, professor of information technology at K.T.H. Royal Institute of Technology, and Linda Altrov Berg and Catherine Mörk at Norstedts Agency.

And always, always to my Anne.

DAVID LAGERCRANTZ

Stockholm, June 1, 2017

DAVID LAGERCRANTZ
is an acclaimed writer and journalist. He is the author of the bestselling
I am Zlatan Ibrahimovic
and
Fall of Man in Wilmslow
, a novel inspired by the life and death of Alan Turing.
The Girl in the Spider’s Web
, his continuation of Stieg Larsson’s
Millennium
Trilogy, was published in 2015. It became a global bestseller, and a major film is in production.

GEORGE GOULDING
was born in Stockholm, educated in England, and spent his legal career working for a London-based law firm. He is now a translator of Swedish fiction into English.

“As vivid as bloodstains on snow – and a perfect one-volume introduction to the unique strengths of Scandinavian crime fiction”

LEE CHILD

“Several cuts above most thrillers … intelligent, complex, with a gripping plot and deeply intriguing characters”

PHILIP PULLMAN

“What a cracking novel! I haven’t read such a stunning thriller debut for years. The way Larsson interweaves his two stories had me in thrall from beginning to end. Brilliantly written and totally gripping”

MINETTE WALTERS

“Salander is a unique character in crime fiction … Larsson’s books sparkle with wit and playfulness”

VAL MCDERMID

“So much more than a thriller,
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
is a dazzling novel of big ideas. It tackles issues of power, corruption, justice, and innocence – all the while drawing you into the twists and turns of a frighteningly suspenseful mystery”

HARLAN COBEN

“I’ve just spent a few weeks with all my experienced reader’s critical defences swept away by the cyclonic force of a story … Exceptional … Welcome to the immortality of fiction, Lisbeth Salander!”

MARIO VARGAS LLOSA

“Just when I was thinking there wasn’t anything new on the horizon, along comes Stieg Larsson with this wonderfully unique story. I was completely absorbed”

MICHAEL CONNELLY

“An utterly fresh political and journalistic thriller that is also intimate and moral. In spite of its dark unearthings Stieg Larsson has written a feast of a book, with central characters you will not forget”

MICHAEL ONDAATJE

“A year ago,
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
won ecstatic praise from British critics and readers … With the spiky and sassy Lisbeth Salander – punkish
wild child, traumatised survivor of the ‘care’ system, sexual adventurer
and computer hacker of genius – Larsson created the most original heroine to emerge in crime fiction for many years … The air of sizzling enigma that she leaves in her wake only intensifies as Larsson’s galloping prose twists the plot”

BOYD TONKIN
,
Independent

“A combination of urgent, multi-layered thriller, traditional police procedural and articulate examination of the way a supposedly open-minded country like Sweden treats both its vulnerable women and children in care …
The Girl Who Played with Fire
is that rare thing – a sequel that is even better than the book that went before … to be read in great hungry chunks”

LOUISE FRANCE
,
Observer

“Even more gripping and astonishing than the first … conscious of the way crime and other networks transcend national boundaries, it’s a very modern novel. What makes it outstanding is the author’s ability to handle dozens of characters and parallel narratives without ever losing tension … This novel will leave readers on the edge of their seats”

JOAN SMITH
,
Sunday Times

“An astonishing crime novel … as a novelist Larsson came up with an entirely new kind of heroine for the crime story … as with Larsson’s first novel, this is wonderful stuff”

BARRY FORSHAW
,
Daily Express

“Lisbeth Salander really is a wonderful creation: psychologically complex, unswerving in her morality and fearless in her pursuit of her very individual notion of justice … What is more intriguing, however, is this book’s moral and political resonance: what seems, on the face of it, merely an engaging thriller has somehow managed to acquire an aura of moral quest, not just in the fictional world, but in the actual place we inhabit”

JOHN BURNSIDE
,
Scotsman

“I was completely enthralled by
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest
, the tense and almost apocalyptic conclusion to Stieg Larsson’s
Millennium
Trilogy”

ANTHONY HOROWITZ

“Larsson has produced a
coup de foudre
, a novel that is complex, satisfying, clever, moral … This is a grown-up novel for grown-up readers, who want something more than a quick fix and a car chase. And it’s why the
Millennium
Trilogy is rightly a publishing phenomenon all over the world”

KATE MOSSE

“If fans of the first two of Stieg Larsson’s mega-selling
Millennium
Trilogy feared that his tales of dark doings in Sweden might not delight to the last, they need not have worried.
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest
begins where its predecessors left off, gripping the reader in a relentlessly fast narrative. Some novels claim to be page turners, this trilogy is the real deal”

TONY TASSELL
,
Financial Times