The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Trilogy Bundle (35 page)

“But his wife is still alive. The one in the picture here. Her name is Mildred, and she lives in Bjursele.”

“Bjursele?”

“It's about six miles down the road to Bastuträsk. She lives in the long red house on the right-hand side as you're coming into the village. It's the third house. I know the family well.”

         

“Hi, my name is Lisbeth Salander, and I'm writing my thesis on the criminology of violence against women in the twentieth century. I'd like to visit the police district in Landskrona and read through the documents of a case from 1957. It has to do with the murder of a woman by the name of Rakel Lunde. Do you have any idea where those documents are today?”

         

Bjursele was like a poster for the Västerbotten country village. It consisted of about twenty houses set relatively close together in a semicircle at one end of a lake. In the centre of the village was a crossroads with an arrow pointing towards Hemmingen, 10½ miles, and another pointing towards Bastuträsk, 7 miles. Near the crossroads was a small bridge with a creek that Blomkvist assumed was the water, the
sel
. At the height of summer, it was as pretty as a postcard.

He parked in the courtyard in front of a Konsum that was no longer open, almost opposite the third house on the right-hand side. When he knocked on the door, no-one answered.

He took an hour-long walk along the road towards Hemmingen. He passed a spot where the stream became rushing rapids. He met two cats and saw a deer, but not a single person, before he turned around. Mildred Brännlund's door was still shut.

On a post near the bridge he found a peeling flyer announcing the BTCC, something that could be deciphered as the Bjursele Tukting Car Championship 2002. “Tukting” a car was apparently a winter sport that involved smashing up a vehicle on the ice-covered lake.

He waited until 10:00 p.m. before he gave up and drove back to Norsjö, where he had a late dinner and then went to bed to read the denouement of Val McDermid's novel.

It was grisly.

         

At 10:00 Salander added one more name to Harriet Vanger's list. She did so with some hesitation.

She had discovered a shortcut. At quite regular intervals articles were published about unsolved murders, and in a Sunday supplement to the evening newspaper she had found an article from 1999 with the headline “Many Murderers of Women Go Free.” It was a short article, but it included the names and photographs of several noteworthy murder victims. There was the Solveig case in Norrtälje, the Anita murder in Norrköping, Margareta in Helsingborg, and a number of others.

The oldest case to be recounted was from the sixties, and none of the murders matched the list that Salander had been given by Blomkvist. But one case did attract her attention.

In June 1962 a prostitute by the name of Lea Persson from Göteborg had gone to Uddevalla to visit her mother and her nine-year-old son, whom her mother was taking care of. On a Sunday evening, after a visit of several days, Lea had hugged her mother, said goodbye, and caught the train back to Göteborg. She was found two days later behind a container on an industrial site no longer in use. She had been raped, and her body had been subjected to extraordinary violence.

The Lea murder aroused a great deal of attention as a summer serial story in the newspaper, but no killer had ever been identified. There was no Lea on Harriet Vanger's list. Nor did the manner of her death fit with any of Harriet's Bible quotes.

On the other hand, there was such a bizarre coincidence that Salander's antennae instantly buzzed. About ten yards from where Lea's body was found lay a flowerpot with a pigeon inside. Someone had tied a string round the pigeon's neck and pulled it through the hole in the bottom of the pot. Then the pot was put on a little fire that had been laid between two bricks. There was no certainty that this cruelty had any connection with the Lea murder. It could have been a child playing a horrible game, but the press dubbed the murder the Pigeon Murder.

Salander was no Bible reader—she did not even own one—but that evening she went over to Högalid Church and with some difficulty she managed to borrow a Bible. She sat on a park bench outside the church and read Leviticus. When she reached Chapter 12, verse 8, her eyebrows went up. Chapter 12 dealt with the purification of women after childbirth.

And if she cannot afford a lamb
,
then she shall take two turtledoves or two young pigeons
,
one for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering; and the priest shall make atonement for her
,
and she shall be clean.

Lea could very well have been included in Harriet's date book as: Lea—31208.

Salander thought that no research she had ever done before had contained even a fraction of the scope of this assignment.

Mildred Brännlund, remarried and now Mildred Berggren, opened the door when Blomkvist knocked around 10:00 on Sunday morning. The woman was much older, of course, and had by now filled out a good deal, but he recognised her at once.

“Hi, my name is Mikael Blomkvist. You must be Mildred Berggren.”

“That's right.”

“I'm sorry for knocking on your door like this, but I've been trying to find you, and it's rather complicated to explain.” He smiled at her. “I wonder if I could come in and take up a small amount of your time.”

Mildred's husband and a son who was about thirty-five were home, and without much hesitation she invited Blomkvist to come and sit in their kitchen. He shook hands with each of them. He had drunk more coffee during the past twenty-four hours than at any time in his life, but by now he had learned that in Norrland it was rude to say no. When the coffee cups were on the table, Mildred sat down and asked with some curiosity how she could help him. It was obvious that he did not easily understand her Norsjö dialect, so she switched to standard Swedish.

Blomkvist took a deep breath. “This is a long and peculiar story,” he said. “In September 1966 you were in Hedestad with your then husband, Gunnar Brännlund.”

She looked surprised. He waited for her to nod before he laid the photograph from Järnvägsgatan on the table in front of her.

“When was this picture taken? Do you remember the occasion?”

“Oh, my goodness,” Mildred Berggren said. “That was a lifetime ago.”

Her present husband and son came to stand next to her to look at the picture.

“We were on our honeymoon. We had driven down to Stockholm and Sigtuna and were on our way home and happened to stop somewhere. Was it in Hedestad, you said?”

“Yes, Hedestad. This photograph was taken at about 1:00 in the afternoon. I've been trying to find you for some time now, and it hasn't been a simple task.”

“You see an old photograph of me and then actually track me down. I can't imagine how you did it.”

Blomkvist put the photograph from the car park on the table.

“I was able to find you thanks to this picture, which was taken a little later in the day.” He explained how, via the Norsjö Carpentry Shop, he had found Burman, who in turn had led him to Henning Forsman in Norsjövallen.

“You must have a good reason for this long search.”

“I do. This girl standing close to you in this photograph is called Harriet. That day she disappeared, and she was never seen or heard of again. The general assumption is that she fell prey to a murderer. Can I show you some more photographs?”

He took out his iBook and explained the circumstances while the computer booted up. Then he played her the series of images showing how Harriet's facial expression changed.

“It was when I went through these old images that I found you, standing with a camera right behind Harriet, and you seem to be taking a picture in the direction of whatever it is she's looking at, whatever caused her to react in that way. I know that this is a really long shot, but the reason I've been looking for you is to ask you if by any miracle you still have the pictures from that day.”

He was prepared for Mildred Berggren to dismiss the idea and tell him that the photographs had long since vanished. Instead she looked at him with her clear blue eyes and said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, that of course she still had her old honeymoon pictures.

She went to another room and came back after several minutes with a box in which she had stored a quantity of pictures in various albums. It took a while to find the honeymoon ones. She had taken three photographs in Hedestad. One was blurry and showed the main street. Another showed her husband at the time. The third showed the clowns in the parade.

Blomkvist eagerly leaned forward. He could see a figure on the other side of the street behind a clown. But the photograph told him absolutely nothing.

The first thing Blomkvist did the morning he returned to Hedestad was to go to Frode's house to ask about Vanger's condition. He learned to his delight that the old man had improved quite a bit during the past week. He was weak still, and fragile, but now he could sit up in bed. His condition was no longer regarded as critical.

“Thank God,” he said. “I realised that I actually like him.”

Frode said: “I know that. And Henrik likes you too. How was Norrland?”

“Successful yet unsatisfying. I'll explain a little later. Right now I have a question.”

“Go ahead.”

“What realistically will happen to your interest in
Millennium
if Henrik dies?”

“Nothing at all. Martin will take his place on the board.”

“Is there any risk, hypothetically speaking, that Martin might create problems for
Millennium
if I don't put a stop to the investigation of Harriet's disappearance?”

Frode gave him a sharp look.

“What's happened?”

“Nothing, actually.” Mikael told him about the conversation he had had with Martin Vanger on Midsummer Eve. “When I was in Norsjö Erika told me that Martin had called her and said that he thought I was very much needed back at the office.”

“I understand. My guess is that Cecilia was after him. But I don't think that Martin would put pressure on you like that on his own. He's much too savvy. And remember, I'm also on the board of the little subsidiary we formed when we bought into
Millennium
.”

“But what if a ticklish situation came up—how would you act then?”

“Contracts exist to be honoured. I work for Henrik. Henrik and I have been friends for forty-five years, and we are in complete agreement in such matters. If Henrik should die it is in point of fact I—not Martin—who would inherit Henrik's share in the subsidiary. We have a contract in which we have undertaken to back
Millennium
for three years. Should Martin wish to start any mischief—which I don't believe he will—then theoretically he could put the brakes on a small number of new advertisers.”

“The lifeblood of
Millennium
's existence.”

“Yes, but look at it this way—worrying about such trivia is a waste of time. Martin is presently fighting for his industrial survival and working fourteen hours a day. He doesn't have time for anything else.”

“May I ask—I know it's none of my business—what is the general condition of the corporation?”

Frode looked grave.

“We have problems.”

“Yes, even a common financial reporter like myself can see that. I mean, how serious is it?”

“Off the record?”

“Between us.”

“We've lost two large orders in the electronics industry in the past few weeks and are about to be ejected from the Russian market. In September we're going to have to lay off 1,600 employees in Örebro and Trollhättan. Not much of a reward to give to people who've worked for the company for many years. Each time we shut down a factory, confidence in the company is further undermined.”

“Martin is under pressure.”

“He's pulling the load of an ox and walking on eggshells.”

         

Blomkvist went back to his cottage and called Berger. She was not at the office, so he spoke to Malm.

“Here's the deal: Erika called when I was in Norsjö. Martin Vanger has been after her and has, how shall I put it, encouraged her to propose that I start to take on editorial responsibility.”

“I think you should too,” Malm said.

“I know that. But the thing is, I have a contract with Henrik Vanger that I can't break, and Martin is acting on behalf of someone up here who wants me to stop what I am doing and leave town. So his proposal amounts to an attempt to get rid of me.”

“I see.”

“Say hi to Erika and tell her I'll come back to Stockholm when I'm finished here. Not before.”

“I understand. You're stark raving mad, of course, but I'll give her the message.”

“Christer. Something is going on up here, and I have no intention of backing out.”

Blomkvist knocked on Martin Vanger's door. Eva Hassel opened it and greeted him warmly.

“Hi. Is Martin home?”

As if in reply to the question, Martin Vanger came walking out with a briefcase in his hand. He kissed Eva on the cheek and said hello to Mikael.

“I'm on my way to the office. Do you want to talk to me?”

“We can do it later if you're in a hurry.”

“Let's hear it.”

“I won't be going back to
Millennium
's editorial board before I'm finished with the assignment that Henrik gave me. I'm informing you of this now so that you won't count on me being on the board before New Year's.”

Martin Vanger teetered back and forth for a bit.

“I see. You think I want to get rid of you.” He paused. “Mikael, we'll have to talk about this later. I don't really have time to devote to my hobby on
Millennium
's board, and I wish I'd never agreed to Henrik's proposal. But believe me—I'm going to do my best to make sure that
Millennium
survives.”

“I've never had any doubt about that,” Blomkvist said.

“If we make an appointment for sometime next week we can go over the finances and I can give you my views on the matter. But my basic attitude is that
Millennium
cannot actually afford to have one of its key people sitting up here on Hedeby Island twiddling his thumbs. I like the magazine and I think we can make it stronger together, but you're crucial to that task. I've wound up in a conflict of loyalties here. Either I follow Henrik's wishes or carry out my job on
Millennium
's board.”

         

Blomkvist changed into his tracksuit and went for a run out to the Fortress and down to Gottfried's cabin before he headed home at a slower pace along the water. Frode was sitting at the garden table. He waited patiently as Mikael drank a bottle of water and towelled the sweat from his face.

“That doesn't look so healthy in this heat.”

“Oh, come on,” Blomkvist said.

“I was wrong. Cecilia isn't the main person who's after Martin. It's Isabella. She's busy mobilising the Vanger clan to tar and feather you and possibly burn you at the stake too. She's being backed up by Birger.”

“Isabella?”

“She's a malicious, petty woman who doesn't like other people in general. Right now it seems that she detests you in particular. She's spreading stories that you're a swindler who duped Henrik into hiring you, and that you got him so worked up that he had a heart attack.”

“I hope no-one believes that?”

“There's always someone willing to believe malicious rumours.”

“I'm trying to work out what happened to her daughter—and she hates me. If Harriet were my daughter, I would have reacted a bit differently.”

         

At 2:00 in the afternoon, his mobile rang.

“Hello, my name is Conny Torsson and I work at the
Hedestad Courier
. Do you have time to answer a few questions? We got a tip that you're living here in Hedeby.”

“Well, Herr Torsson, your tip machine is a little slow. I've been living here since the first of the year.”

“I didn't know that. What are you doing in Hedestad?”

“Writing. And taking a sort of sabbatical.”

“What are you working on?”

“You'll find out when I publish it.”

“You were just released from prison …”

“Yes?”

“Do you have a view on journalists who falsify material?”

“Journalists who falsify material are idiots.”

“So in your opinion you're an idiot?”

“Why should I think that? I've never falsified material.”

“But you were convicted of libel.”

“So?”

Torsson hesitated long enough that Blomkvist had to give him a push.

“I was convicted of libel, not of falsifying material.”

“But you published the material.”

“If you're calling to discuss the judgement against me, I have no comment.”

“I'd like to come out and do an interview with you.”

“I have nothing to say to you on this topic.”

“So you don't want to discuss the trial?”

“That's correct,” he said, and hung up. He sat thinking for a long time before he went back to his computer.

         

Salander followed the instructions she had received and drove her Kawasaki across the bridge to Hedeby Island. She stopped at the first little house on the left. She was really out in the sticks. But as long as her employer was paying, she did not mind if she went to the North Pole. Besides, it was great to give her bike its head on a long ride up the E4. She put the bike on its stand and loosened the strap that held her overnight duffel bag in place.

Blomkvist opened the door and waved to her. He came out and inspected her motorcycle with obvious astonishment.

He whistled. “You're riding a motorbike!”

Salander said nothing, but she watched him intently as he touched the handlebars and tried the accelerator. She did not like anyone touching her stuff. Then she saw his childlike, boyish smile, which she took for a redeeming feature. Most people who were into motorcycles usually laughed at her lightweight bike.

“I had a motorbike when I was nineteen,” he said, turning to her. “Thanks for coming up. Come in and let's get you settled.”

He had borrowed a camp bed from the Nilssons. Salander took a tour around the cabin, looking suspicious, but she seemed to relax when she could find no immediate signs of any insidious trap. He showed her where the bathroom was.

“In case you want to take a shower and freshen up.”

“I have to change. I am not going to wander around in my leathers.”

“OK, while you change I'll make dinner.”

He sautéed lamb chops in red wine sauce and set the table outdoors in the afternoon sun while Salander showered and changed. She came out barefoot wearing a black camisole and a short, worn denim skirt. The food smelled good, and she put away two stout helpings. Fascinated, Blomkvist sneaked a look at the tattoos on her back.

         

“Five plus three,” Salander said. “Five cases from your Harriet's list and three cases that I think should have been on the list.”

“Tell me.”

“I've only been on this for eleven days, and I haven't had a chance to dig up all the reports. In some cases the police reports had been put in the national archive, and in others they're still stored in the local police district. I made three day trips to different police districts, but I didn't have time to get to all of them. The five are identified.”

Salander put a solid heap of paper on the kitchen table, around 500 pages. She quickly sorted the material into different stacks.

“Let's take them in chronological order.” She handed Blomkvist a list.

         

1949—
REBECKA JACOBSSON
,
Hedestad
(30112)

1954—
MARI HOLMBERG
,
Kalmar
(32018)

1957—
RAKEL LUNDE
,
Landskrona
(32027)

1960—(
MAGDA
)
LOVISA SJÖBERG
,
Karlstad
(32016)

1960—
LIV GUSTAVSSON
,
Stockholm
(32016)

1962—
LEA PERSSON
,
Uddevalla
(31208)

1964—
SARA WITT
,
Ronneby
(32109)

1966—
LENA ANDERSSON
,
Uppsala
(30112)

         

“The first case in this series is Rebecka Jacobsson, 1949, the details of which you already know. The next case I found was Mari Holmberg, a thirty-two-year-old prostitute in Kalmar who was murdered in her apartment in October 1954. It's not clear exactly when she was killed, since her body wasn't found right away, probably nine or ten days later.”

“And how do you connect her to Harriet's list?”

“She was tied up and badly abused, but the cause of death was strangulation. She had a sanitary towel down her throat.”

Blomkvist sat in silence for a moment before he looked up the verse that was Leviticus 20:18.

“If a man lies with a woman having her sickness
,
and uncovers her nakedness
,
he has made naked her fountain
,
and she has uncovered the fountain of her blood; both of them shall be cut off from among their people.”

Salander nodded.

“Harriet Vanger made the same connection. OK. Next?”

“May 1957, Rakel Lunde, forty-five. She worked as a cleaning woman and was a bit of a happy eccentric in the village. She was a fortune-teller and her hobby was doing Tarot readings, palms, et cetera. She lived outside Landskrona in a house a long way from anywhere, and she was murdered there some time early in the morning. She was found naked and tied to a laundry-drying frame in her back garden, with her mouth taped shut. Cause of death was a heavy rock being repeatedly thrown at her. She had countless contusions and fractures.”

“Jesus Christ. Lisbeth, this is fucking disgusting.”

“It gets worse. The initials R.L. are correct—you found the Bible quote?”

“Overly explicit.
A man or a woman who is a medium or a wizard shall be put to death; they shall be stoned with stones
,
their blood shall be upon them.
”

“Then there's Sjöberg in Ranmo outside Karlstad. She's the one Harriet listed as Magda. Her full name was Magda Lovisa, but people called her Lovisa.”