The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Trilogy Bundle (135 page)

“I very much doubt it, and if I were you I wouldn't voice that theory in public.”

“So how is she involved?”

“This is an intricate story, as Mikael Blomkvist claimed from the very beginning. It revolves around this Zala … Alexander Zalachenko.”

Ekström flinched at the mention of the name Blomkvist.

“Go on,” he said.

“Zala is a Russian hit man—apparently without a grain of conscience—who defected in the seventies, and Lisbeth Salander was unlucky enough to have him as her father. He was sponsored or supported by a faction within Säpo that tidied up after any crimes he committed. A police officer attached to Säpo also saw to it that Salander was locked up in a children's psychiatric clinic. She was twelve and had threatened to blow Zalachenko's identity, his alias, his whole cover.”

“This is a bit difficult to digest. It's hardly a story we can make public. If I understand the matter correctly, all this stuff about Zalachenko is highly classified.”

“Nevertheless, it's the truth. I have documentation.”

“May I see it?”

Bublanski pushed across the desk a folder containing a police report dated 1991. Ekström surreptitiously scanned the stamp, which indicated that the document was top secret, and the registration number, which he at once identified as belonging to the Security Police. He leafed rapidly through the hundred or so pages, reading paragraphs here and there. Eventually he put the folder aside.

“We have to try to tone this down, so that the situation doesn't get completely out of our control. So Salander was locked up in an asylum because she tried to kill her father, this Zalachenko. And now she has attacked him with an axe. By any interpretation that would be attempted murder. And she has to be charged with shooting Magge Lundin in Stallarholmen.”

“You can arrest whomever you want, but I would tread carefully if I were you.”

“There's going to be an enormous scandal if Säpo's involvement gets leaked.”

Bublanski shrugged. His job was to investigate crimes, not to clean up after scandals.

“This bastard from Säpo, this Gunnar Björck. What do you know about his role?”

“He's one of the major players. He's on sick leave for a slipped disk and lives in SmÃ¥dalarö at present.”

“OK … we'll keep the lid on Säpo's involvement for the time being. The focus right now is to be on the murder of a police officer.”

“It's going to be hard to keep this under wraps.”

“What do you mean?”

“I sent Andersson to bring in Björck for a formal interrogation. That should be happening”—Bublanski looked at his watch—“yes, about now.”

“You
what
?”

“I was rather hoping to have the pleasure of driving out to SmÃ¥dalarö myself, but the events surrounding last night's killing took precedence.”

“I didn't give anyone permission to arrest Björck.”

“That's true. But it's not an arrest. I'm just bringing him in for questioning.”

“Whichever, I don't like it.”

Bublanski leaned forward, almost as if to confide in the other man.

“Richard, this is how it is. Salander has been subjected to a number of infringements of her rights, starting when she was a child. I do not mean for this to continue on my watch. You have the option to remove me as leader of the investigation … but if you did that I would be forced to write a harsh memo about the matter.”

Ekström looked as if he had just swallowed something very sour.

Gunnar Björck, on sick leave from his job as assistant chief of the immigration division of the Security Police, opened the door of his summer house in Smådalarö and looked up at a powerfully built blond man with a crew cut who wore a black leather jacket.

“I'm looking for Gunnar Björck.”

“That's me.”

“Curt Andersson, County Criminal Police.” The man held up his ID.

“Yes?”

“You are requested to accompany me to Kungsholmen to assist the police in their investigations into the case involving Lisbeth Salander.”

“Uh … there must be some sort of misunderstanding.”

“There's no misunderstanding,” Andersson said.

“You don't understand. I'm a police officer myself. Save yourself making a big mistake: check it out with your superior officers.”

“My superior is the one who wants to talk to you.”

“I have to make a call and—”

“You can make your call from Kungsholmen.”

Björck felt suddenly resigned.
It's happened. I'm going to be arrested. That goddamn fucking Blomkvist. And fucking Salander
.

“Am I being arrested?” he said.

“Not at the moment. But we can arrange for that if you like.”

“No … no, of course I'll come with you. Naturally I'd want to assist my colleagues in the police force.”

“All right, then,” Andersson said, walking into the hallway to keep a close eye on Björck as he turned off the coffee machine and picked up his coat.

In the late morning it dawned on Blomkvist that his rental car was still at the Gosseberga farm, but he was so exhausted that he did not have the strength or the means to get out there to fetch it, much less drive safely for any distance. Erlander kindly arranged for a crime scene tech to take the car back on his way home.

“Think of it as compensation for the way you were treated last night.”

Blomkvist thanked him and took a taxi to City Hotel on Lorensbergsgatan. He booked in for the night for 800 kronor and went straight to his room and undressed. He sat naked on the bed and took Salander's Palm Tungsten T3 from the inside pocket of his jacket, weighing it in his hand. He was still amazed that it had not been confiscated when Paulsson frisked him, but Paulsson presumably thought it was Blomkvist's own, and he had never been formally taken into custody and searched. He thought for a moment and then slipped it into a compartment of his laptop case, where he had also put Salander's DVD marked “Bjurman,” which Paulsson had also missed. He knew that technically he was withholding evidence, but these were the things that Salander would no doubt prefer not to have fall into the wrong hands.

He turned on his mobile and saw that the battery was low, so he plugged in the charger. He made a call to his sister, Advokat Giannini.

“Hi, Annika.”

“What did you have to do with the policeman's murder last night?” she asked him at once.

He told her succinctly what had happened.

“So Salander is in intensive care.”

“Correct, and we won't know the extent or severity of her injuries until she regains consciousness, but now she's really going to need a lawyer.”

Giannini thought for a moment. “Do you think she'd want me for her lawyer?”

“Probably she wouldn't want any lawyer at all. She isn't the type to ask anyone for help.”

“Mikael … I've said this before: it sounds like she might need a criminal lawyer. Let me look at the documentation you have.”

“Talk to Erika and ask her for a copy.”

As soon as Blomkvist hung up, he called Berger himself. She did not answer her mobile, so he tried her number at the
Millennium
offices. Henry Cortez answered.

“Erika's out somewhere,” he said.

Blomkvist briefly explained what had happened and asked Cortez to pass the information to Erika.

“I will. What do you want us to do?” Cortez said.

“Nothing today,” Blomkvist said. “I have to get some sleep. I'll be back in Stockholm tomorrow if nothing else comes up.
Millennium
will have an opportunity to present its version of the story in the next issue, but that's almost a month away.”

He flipped his mobile shut and crawled into bed. He was asleep within thirty seconds.

Assistant County Police Chief Carina Spångberg tapped her pen against her glass of water and asked for quiet. Nine people were seated around the conference table in her office at police headquarters. Three women and six men: the head of the violent crimes division and his assistant head; three criminal inspectors, including Erlander; the Göteborg police public information officer; preliminary investigation leader Agneta Jervas from the prosecutor's office; and Inspectors Modig and Holmberg from the Stockholm police. They were included as a sign of goodwill and to demonstrate that Göteborg wished to cooperate with their colleagues from the capital. Possibly also to show them how a real police investigation should be run.

Spångberg, who was frequently the lone woman in a male landscape, had a reputation for not wasting time on formalities or mere courtesies. She explained that the county police chief was at the Europol conference in Madrid, that he had cut short his trip as soon as he learned that one of his police officers had been murdered, but that he was not expected back before late that night. Then she turned directly to the head of the violent crimes division, Anders Pehrzon, and asked him to brief the assembled company.

“It's been about ten hours since our colleague was murdered on Nossebrovägen.
We know the name of the killer, Ronald Niedermann, but we still don't have a picture of him.”

“In Stockholm we have a photograph of him that's about twenty years old. Paolo Roberto got it through a boxing club in Germany, but it's almost unusable,” Holmberg said.

“All right. The patrol car that Niedermann is thought to have driven away was found in AlingsÃ¥s this morning, as you all know. It was parked on a side street a quarter of a mile from the railway station. We haven't had a report yet of any car thefts in the area this morning.”

“What's the status of the search?”

“We're keeping an eye on all trains arriving in Stockholm and Malmö. There is a nationwide APB out and we've alerted the police in Norway and Denmark. Right now we have about thirty officers working directly on the investigation, and of course the whole force is keeping their eyes peeled.”

“No leads?”

“No, nothing yet. But someone with Niedermann's distinctive appearance is not going to go unnoticed for long.”

“Does anyone know about the wounded officer's condition?” asked one of the inspectors from Violent Crimes.

“He's at Sahlgrenska. His injuries seem to be similar to those of a car crash victim—it's hardly credible that anyone could do such damage with his bare hands: leg broken, ribs crushed, cervical vertebrae injured, plus there's a risk that he may be paralysed.”

They all took stock of their colleague's plight for a few moments until Spångberg turned to Erlander.

“Marcus, tell us what really happened at Gosseberga.”

“Thomas Paulsson happened at Gosseberga.”

A ripple of groans greeted this response.

“Can't someone give that man early retirement? He's a walking catastrophe.”

“I know all about Paulsson,” SpÃ¥ngberg interjected. “But I haven't heard any complaints about him in the last … well, not for the past two years. In what way has he become harder to handle?”

“The police chief up there is an old friend of Paulsson's, and he's probably been trying to protect him. With all good intentions, of course, and I don't mean to criticize him. But last night Paulsson's behaviour was so bizarre that several of his people mentioned it to me.”

“In what way bizarre?”

Erlander glanced at Modig and Holmberg. He was embarrassed to be
discussing flaws in their organization in front of the visitors from Stockholm.

“As far as I'm concerned, the strangest thing was that he detailed one of the techs to make an inventory of everything in the woodshed—where we found the Zalachenko guy.”

“An inventory of
what
in the woodshed?” SpÃ¥ngberg wanted to know.

“He said he needed to know exactly how many pieces of wood were in there. So that the report would be accurate.”

There was a charged silence around the conference table before Erlander went on.

“And this morning it came out that Paulsson has been taking at least two different antidepressants. He should have been on sick leave, but no-one knew about his condition.”

“What condition?” SpÃ¥ngberg said sharply.

“Well, obviously I don't know what's wrong with him—patient confidentiality and all that—but he's taking both strong tranquilizers and stimulants. He was high as a kite all night.”

“Good God,” said SpÃ¥ngberg emphatically. She looked like the thundercloud that had swept over Göteborg that morning. “I want Paulsson in here for a chat. Right now.”

“He collapsed this morning and was admitted to the hospital, suffering from exhaustion. It was just our bad luck that he happened to be on rotation.”

“Did he arrest Mikael Blomkvist last night?”

“He wrote a report citing disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and illegal possession of a weapon. That's what he put in the report.”

“What does Blomkvist say?”

“He concedes that he was insulting, but he claims it was in self-defence. He says that the resistance consisted of a forceful verbal attempt to prevent two officers from going to pick up Niedermann alone, without backup.”

“Witnesses?”

“Well, there is the surviving officer. I don't believe Paulsson's claim of resisting arrest. It's a typical pre-emptive retaliation to undermine potential complaints from Blomkvist.”

“But Blomkvist managed to overpower Niedermann all by himself, did he not?” Prosecutor Jervas said.

“By holding a gun on him.”

“So Blomkvist had a gun. Then there was some basis for his arrest after all. Where did he get the weapon?”

“Blomkvist won't discuss it without his lawyer being there. And Paulsson
arrested Blomkvist when he was trying to hand in the weapon to the police.”

“Could I make a small, informal suggestion?” Modig said cautiously.