The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Trilogy Bundle (26 page)

She waited. He did not react, but she could see him quivering. She grabbed the whip and flicked it right over his genitals.

“Are you following me?” she said more loudly. He nodded.

“Good. So we're singing from the same song sheet.”

She pulled the chair up close so she could look into his eyes.

“What do you think we should do about this problem?” He could not give her an answer. “Have you any good ideas?” When he did not react she reached out and grabbed his scrotum and pulled until his face contorted in pain. “Have you got any good ideas?” she repeated. He shook his head.

“Good. I'm going to be pretty fucking mad at you if you ever have any ideas in the future.”

She leaned back and stubbed her cigarette out on the carpet. “This is what's going to happen. Next week, as soon as you manage to shit out that oversized rubber plug in your arse, you're going to inform my bank that I—
and I alone
—have access to my account. Do you understand what I'm saying?” Bjurman nodded.

“Good boy. You will never ever contact me again. In the future we will meet only if I decide it's necessary. You're under a restraining order to stay away from me.” He nodded repeatedly.
She doesn't intend to kill me.

“If you ever try to contact me again, copies of this DVD will wind up in every newsroom in Stockholm. Do you understand?”

He nodded.
I have to get hold of that video.

“Once a year you will turn in your report on my welfare to the Guardianship Agency. You will report that my life is completely normal, that I have a steady job, that I'm supporting myself, and that you don't think there is anything abnormal about my behaviour. OK?”

He nodded.

“Each month you will prepare a report about your non-existent meetings with me. You will describe in detail how positive I am and how well things are going for me. You will post a copy to me. Do you understand?” He nodded again. Salander noticed absent-mindedly the beads of sweat forming on his forehead.

“In a year or so, let's say two, you will initiate negotiations in the district court to have my declaration of incompetence rescinded. You will use your faked reports from our meetings as the basis for your proposal. You will find a shrink who will swear under oath that I am completely normal. You're going to have to make an effort. You will do precisely everything in your power to ensure that I am declared competent.”

He nodded.

“Do you know why you're going to do your very best? Because you have a fucking good reason. If you fail I'm going to make this video extremely public.”

He listened to every syllable Salander was saying. His eyes were burning with hatred. He decided she had made a mistake by letting him live.
You're going to wind up eating this
,
you fucking cunt. Sooner or later I'm going to crush you.
But he continued nodding as vigorously as he could in reply to every question.

“The same applies if you try to contact me.” She mimed a throat-slitting motion. “Goodbye to this elegant lifestyle and your fine reputation and your millions in that offshore account.”

His eyes widened involuntarily when she mentioned the money.
How the fucking hell did she know that … 

She smiled and took out another cigarette.

“I want your spare set of keys to this apartment and your office.” He frowned. She leaned forward and smiled sweetly.

“In the future I'm going to have control over
your
life. When you least expect it, when you're in bed asleep probably, I'm going to appear in the bedroom with this in my hand.” She held up the taser. “I'll be checking up on you. If I ever find out you have been with a girl again—and it doesn't matter if she's here of her own free will—if I ever find you with any woman at all …” Salander made the throat-slitting motion again.

“If I should die … if I should fall victim to an accident and be run over by a car or something … then copies of the video will automatically be posted to the newspapers. Plus a report in which I describe what it's like to have you as a guardian.

“One more thing.” She leaned forward again so that her face was only a couple of inches from his. “If you ever touch me again I will kill you. And that's a promise.”

Bjurman absolutely believed her. There was not a vestige of bluff in her eyes.

“Keep it in mind that I'm crazy, won't you?”

He nodded.

She gave him a thoughtful look. “I don't think you and I are going to be good friends,” Salander said. “Right now you're lying there congratulating yourself that I'm dim enough to let you live. You think you have control even though you're my prisoner, since you think the only thing I can do if I don't kill you is to let you go. So you're full of hope that you can somehow recover your power over me right away. Am I right?”

He shook his head. He was beginning to feel very ill indeed.

“You're going to get a present from me so you'll always remember our agreement.”

She gave him a crooked smile and climbed on to the bed and knelt between his legs. Bjurman had no idea what she intended to do, but he felt a sudden terror.

Then he saw the needle in her hand.

He flopped his head back and forth and tried to twist his body away until she put a knee on his crotch and pressed down in warning.

“Lie rather still because this is the first time I've used this equipment.”

She worked steadily for two hours. When she was finished he had stopped whimpering. He seemed to be almost in a state of apathy.

She got down from the bed, cocked her head to one side, and regarded her handiwork with a critical eye. Her artistic talents were limited. The letters looked at best impressionistic. She had used red and blue ink. The message was written in caps over five lines that covered his belly, from his nipples to just above his genitals: I AM A SADISTIC PIG, A PERVERT, AND A RAPIST.

She gathered up the needles and placed the ink cartridges in her rucksack. Then she went to the bathroom and washed. She felt a lot better when she came back in the bedroom.

“Goodnight,” she said.

She unlocked one of the handcuffs and put the key on his stomach before she left. She took her DVD and his bundle of keys with her.

         

It was as they shared a cigarette some time after midnight that he told her they could not see each other for a while. Cecilia turned her face to him in surprise.

“What do you mean?”

He looked ashamed. “On Monday I have to go to prison for up to three months.”

No other explanation was necessary. Cecilia lay in silence for a long time. She felt like crying.

         

Dragan Armansky was suspicious when Salander knocked at his door on Monday afternoon. He had seen no sign of her since he called off the investigation of the Wennerström affair in early January, and every time he tried to reach her she either did not answer or hung up saying she was busy.

“Have you got a job for me?” she asked without any greeting.

“Hi. Great to see you. I thought you died or something.”

“There were things I had to straighten out.”

“You often seem to have things to straighten out.”

“This time it was urgent. I'm back now. Have you got a job for me?”

Armansky shook his head. “Sorry. Not at the moment.”

Salander looked at him calmly. After a while he started talking.

“Lisbeth, you know I like you and I like to give you jobs. But you've been gone for two months and I've had tons of jobs. You're simply not reliable. I've had to pay other people to cover for you, and right now I actually don't have a thing.”

“Could you turn up the volume?”

“What?”

“On the radio.”

 … the magazine
Millennium
. The news that veteran industrialist Henrik Vanger will be part owner and will have a seat on the board of directors of
Millennium
comes the same day that the former CEO and publisher Mikael Blomkvist begins serving his three-month sentence for the libel of businessman Hans-Erik Wennerström.
Millennium
's editor in chief Erika Berger announced at a press conference that Blomkvist will resume his role as publisher when his sentence is completed.

“Well, isn't that something,” Salander said so quietly that Armansky only saw her lips move. She stood up and headed for the door.

“Wait. Where are you going?”

“Home. I want to check some stuff. Call me when you've got something.”

         

The news that
Millennium
had acquired reinforcements in the form of Henrik Vanger was a considerably bigger event than Lisbeth Salander had expected.
Aftonbladet
's evening edition was already out, with a story from the TT wire service summing up Vanger's career and stating that it was the first time in almost twenty years that the old industrial magnate had made a public appearance. The news that he was becoming part owner of
Millennium
was viewed as just as improbable as Peter Wallenberg or Erik Penser popping up as part owners of
ETC
or sponsors of
Ordfront
magazine.

The story was so big that the 7:30 edition of
Rapport
ran it as its third lead and gave it a three-minute slot. Erika Berger was interviewed at a conference table in
Millennium
's office. All of a sudden the Wennerström affair was news again.

“We made a serious mistake last year which resulted in the magazine being prosecuted for libel. This is something we regret … and we will be following up this story at a suitable occasion.”

“What do you mean by ‘following up the story'?” the reporter said.

“I mean that we will eventually be telling our version of events, which we have not done thus far.”

“You could have done that at the trial.”

“We chose not to do so. But our investigative journalism will continue as before.”

“Does that mean you're holding to the story that prompted the indictment?”

“I have nothing more to say on that subject.”

“You sacked Mikael Blomkvist after the verdict was delivered.”

“That is inaccurate. Read our press release. He needed a break. He'll be back as CEO and publisher later this year.”

The camera panned through the newsroom while the reporter quickly recounted background information on
Millennium
's stormy history as an original and outspoken magazine. Blomkvist was not available for comment. He had just been shut up in Rullåker Prison, about an hour from Östersund in Jämtland.

Salander noticed Dirch Frode at the edge of the TV screen passing a doorway in the editorial offices. She frowned and bit her lower lip in thought.

         

That Monday had been a slow news day, and Vanger got a whole four minutes on the 9:00 news. He was interviewed in a TV studio in Hedestad. The reporter began by stating that after two decades of having stood back from the spotlight the industrialist Henrik Vanger was back. The segment began with a snappy biography in black-and-white TV images, showing him with Prime Minister Erlander and opening factories in the sixties. The camera then focused on a studio sofa where Vanger was sitting perfectly relaxed. He wore a yellow shirt, narrow green tie, and comfortable dark-brown suit. He was gaunt, but he spoke in a clear, firm voice. And he was also quite candid. The reporter asked Vanger what had prompted him to become a part owner of
Millennium
.

“It's an excellent magazine which I have followed with great interest for several years. Today the publication is under attack. It has enemies who are organising an advertising boycott, trying to run it into the ground.”

The reporter was not prepared for this, but guessed at once that the already unusual story had yet more unexpected aspects.

“What's behind this boycott?”

“That's one of the things that
Millennium
will be examining closely. But I'll make it clear now that
Millennium
will not be sunk with the first salvo.”

“Is this why you bought into the magazine?”

“It would be deplorable if the special interests had the power to silence those voices in the media that they find uncomfortable.”

Vanger acted as though he had been a cultural radical espousing freedom of speech all his life. Blomkvist burst out laughing as he spent his first evening in the TV room at Rullåker Prison. His fellow inmates glanced at him uneasily.

Later that evening, when he was lying on the bunk in his cell—which reminded him of a cramped motel room with its tiny table, its one chair, and one shelf on the wall, he admitted that Vanger and Berger had been right about how the news would be marketed. He just knew that something had changed in people's attitude towards
Millennium
.

Vanger's support was no more or less than a declaration of war against Wennerström. The message was clear: in the future you will not be fighting with a magazine with a staff of six and an annual budget corresponding to the cost of a luncheon meeting of the Wennerström Group. You will now be up against the Vanger Corporation, which may be a shadow of its former greatness but still presents a considerably tougher challenge.

The message that Vanger had delivered on TV was that he was prepared to fight, and for Wennerström, that war would be costly.

Berger had chosen her words with care. She had not said much, but her saying that the magazine had not told its version created the impression that there was something to tell. Despite the fact that Blomkvist had been indicted, convicted, and was now imprisoned, she had come out and said—if not in so many words—that he was innocent of libel and that another truth existed. Precisely because she had not used the word “innocent,” his innocence seemed more apparent than ever. The fact that he was going to be reinstated as publisher emphasised that
Millennium
felt it had nothing to be ashamed of. In the eyes of the public, credibility was no problem—everyone loves a conspiracy theory, and in the choice between a filthy rich businessman and an outspoken and charming editor in chief, it was not hard to guess where the public's sympathies would lie. The media, however, were not going to buy the story so easily—but Berger may have disarmed a number of critics.