The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Trilogy Bundle (81 page)

“I'd like to speak with both of you.”

Svensson automatically looked at the clock. Johansson was curious and came into the hall to stand behind her boyfriend.

“It's a bit late for a visit,” Svensson said.

“I'd like to talk about the book you're planning on publishing at
Millennium.
”

Svensson and Johansson looked at each other.

“And who are you?”

“I'm interested in the subject. May I come in, or shall we discuss it here on the landing?”

Svensson hesitated for a second. The girl was a total stranger, and the
time of her visit was odd, but she seemed harmless enough, so he held the door open. He showed her to the table in the living room.

“Would you like some coffee?” Johansson said.

“How about first telling us who you are,” Svensson said.

“Yes, please. To the coffee, I mean. My name is Lisbeth Salander.”

Johansson shrugged and opened the table thermos. She had already set out cups in anticipation of Blomkvist's visit. “And what makes you think I'm publishing a book at
Millennium
?” Svensson said.

He was suddenly deeply suspicious, but the girl ignored him and turned instead to Johansson. She made a face that could have been a crooked smile.

“Interesting thesis,” she said.

Johansson looked shocked.

“How could you know anything about my thesis?”

“I happened to get hold of a copy,” the girl said cryptically.

Svensson's annoyance grew. “Now you're really going to have to explain who you are and what you want.”

The girl's eyes met his. He suddenly noticed that her irises were so dark that in this light her eyes might be raven black. And perhaps he had underestimated her age.

“I'd like to know why you're going around asking questions about Zala. Alexander Zala,” Salander said. “And above all I'd like to know exactly what you know about him already.”

Alexander Zala
, Svensson thought in shock. He had never known the first name.

The girl lifted her coffee cup and took a sip without releasing him from her gaze. Her eyes had no warmth at all. He suddenly felt vaguely uneasy.

Unlike Blomkvist and the other adults at the dinner party (and despite the fact that she was the birthday girl), Annika Giannini had drunk only light beer and refrained from any wine or aquavit with the meal. So at 10:30 she was stone-cold sober. Since in some respects she took her big brother for a complete idiot who needed to be looked after, she generously offered to drive him home via Enskede. She had already planned to drive him to the bus stop on Värmdövägen, and it wouldn't take that much longer to go into the city.

“Why don't you get your own car?” she complained anyway as Blomkvist fastened his seat belt.

“Because unlike you I live within walking distance of my work and need a car about once a year. Besides, I wouldn't have been able to drive anyway after your husband started serving spirits from SkÃ¥ne.”

“He's becoming Swedish. Ten years ago it would have been grappa.”

They spent the ride talking as brothers and sisters do. Apart from a persistent paternal aunt, two less persistent maternal aunts, two distant cousins, and one second cousin, Mikael and Annika had only each other for family. The three-year age difference meant that they had not had much in common during their teens. But they had become closer as adults.

Annika had studied law, and Blomkvist thought of her as a great deal more talented than he was. She sailed through university, spent a few years in the district courts, and then became the assistant to one of the better-known lawyers in Sweden. Then she started her own practice. She had specialized in family law, which gradually developed into work on equal rights. She became an advocate for abused women, wrote a book on the subject, and became a respected name. To top it off, she had become involved politically for the Social Democrats, which prompted Blomkvist to tease her about being an apparatchik. Blomkvist himself had decided early on that he could not combine party membership with journalistic credibility. He never willingly voted, and on the occasions when he felt absolutely obliged to vote he refused to talk about his choices, even with Berger.

“How are you doing?” Annika said as they crossed Skurubron.

“Oh, I'm doing fine.”

“So what's the problem?”

“What problem?”

“I know you, Micke. You've been preoccupied all evening.”

Blomkvist sat in silence for a moment.

“It's a complicated story. I've got two problems right now. One is about a girl I met two years ago who helped me on the Wennerström affair and then just disappeared from my life with no explanation. I haven't seen hide nor hair of her in more than a year, except for last week.”

Blomkvist told her about the attack on Lundagatan.

“Did you report it to the police?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“This girl is manically private. She was the one who was attacked. She'll have to make the report.”

Which Blomkvist expected would not be high on Salander's list of priorities.

“Bullheaded as usual,” Annika said, patting Blomkvist on the cheek. “What's the second problem?”

“We're working on a story at
Millennium
that's going to make headlines. I've been sitting all evening wondering whether I should consult you. As a lawyer, I mean.”

Annika glanced in surprise at her brother. “Consult me?” she exclaimed. “That'd be something new.”

“The story's about trafficking and violence against women. You deal with violence against women and you're a lawyer. You probably don't work with cases of freedom of the press, but I would be really grateful if you could read through the manuscript before we send it to the printer. There are magazine articles and a book, so there's quite a bit to read.”

Annika was silent as she turned down the Hammarby industrial road and passed Sickla lock. She wound her way down side streets parallel to Nynäsvägen until she could turn up Enskedevägen.

“You know, Mikael, I've been really mad at you only once in my whole life.”

“Is that so?” he said, surprised.

“It was when you were taken to court by Wennerström and sent to prison for libel. I was so furious with you that I thought I would explode.”

“Why? I only made a fool of myself.”

“You've made a fool of yourself many times before. But this time you needed a lawyer, and the only person you didn't turn to was me. Instead you sat there taking shit in both the media and the courtroom. You didn't even defend yourself. I thought I was going to die.”

“There were special circumstances. There wasn't a thing you could have done.”

“All right, but I didn't understand that until later, when
Millennium
got back on its feet and mopped the floor with Wennerström. Until that happened I was so damn disappointed in you.”

“There was no way we could have won that trial.”

“You're not getting the point, big brother. I understand that it was a hopeless case. I've read the judgment. The point was that you didn't come to me and ask for help. As in, hey, little sister, I need a lawyer. That's why I never turned up in court.”

Blomkvist thought it over.

“I'm sorry. I admit it, I should have done that.”

“Yes, you should have.”

“I wasn't functioning at all that year. I couldn't face talking to anybody. I just wanted to lie down and die.”

“Which you didn't do, exactly.”

“Forgive me.”

Annika Giannini gave him a big smile.

“Beautiful. An apology two years later. OK. I'll happily read through the text. Are you in a rush?”

“Yes. We're going to press very soon. Turn left here.”

Annika parked across the street from the building on Björneborgsvägen where Svensson and Johansson lived. “This'll just take a minute,” Blomkvist said. He jogged across the street to punch in the door code. As soon as he was inside he could tell that something was wrong. He heard excited voices echoing in the stairwell and ran up the three flights to the apartment. Not until he reached their floor did he realize that the commotion was all around their apartment. Five neighbours were standing on the landing. The apartment door was ajar.

“What's going on?” Blomkvist said, more out of curiosity than concern.

They all fell silent and looked at him. Three women, two men, all in their seventies it seemed. One of the women was wearing a nightgown.

“It sounded like shots,” said a man in a brown dressing gown, who seemed to know what he was talking about.

“Shots?”

“Just now. There was shooting in the apartment about a minute ago. The door was open.”

Blomkvist pushed forward and rang the doorbell as he walked into the apartment.

“Dag? Mia?” he called.

No answer.

Suddenly he felt an icy shiver run down his neck. He recognized the smell: cordite. Then he approached the living-room door. The first thing he saw was
HolyMotherofGod
Svensson slumped beside the dining-room chairs in a pool of blood a yard across.

Blomkvist hurried over. At the same time he pulled out his mobile and dialled 112 for emergency services. They answered right away.

“My name is Mikael Blomkvist. I need an ambulance and police.”

He gave the address.

“What is this regarding?”

“A man. He seems to have been shot in the head and is unconscious.”

Blomkvist bent down and tried to find a pulse on Svensson's neck. Then he saw the enormous crater in the back of his head and realized that he must be standing in Svensson's brain matter. Slowly he withdrew his hand.

No ambulance crew in the world would be able to save Dag Svensson now.

Then he noticed shards from one of the coffee cups that Johansson had inherited from her grandmother and that she was so afraid would get broken. He straightened up quickly and looked all around.

“Mia,” he yelled.

The neighbour in the brown dressing gown had come into the hall behind him. Blomkvist turned at the living-room door and held his hand up.

“Stop there,” he said. “Back out to the stairs.”

The neighbour at first looked as if he wanted to protest, but he obeyed the order. Blomkvist stood still for fifteen seconds. Then he stepped around the pool of blood and proceeded warily past Svensson's body to the bedroom door.

Johansson lay on her back on the floor at the foot of the bed.
NonononotMiatooforGodssake
. She had been shot in the face. The bullet had entered below her jaw by her left ear. The exit wound in her temple was as big as an orange and her right eye socket gaped empty. The flow of blood was if possible even greater than that from her partner. The force of the bullet had been such that the wall above the head of the bed, several yards away, was covered with blood splatter.

Blomkvist became aware that he was clutching his mobile in a death grip with the line to the emergency centre still open and that he had been holding his breath. He took air into his lungs and raised the telephone.

“We need the police. Two people have been shot. I think they're dead. Please hurry.”

He heard the voice from emergency services say something but did not catch the words. He felt as if there was something wrong with his hearing. It was utterly silent around him. He did not hear the sound of his own voice when he tried to say something. He backed out of the apartment. When he got out to the landing he realized that his whole body was shaking and that his heart was pounding painfully. Without a
word he squeezed through the petrified crowd of neighbours and sat down on the stairs. From far away he could hear the neighbours asking him questions.
What happened? Are they hurt? Did something happen
? The sound of their voices echoed as if coming through a tunnel.

Blomkvist felt numb. He knew that he was in shock. He leaned his head down between his knees. Then he began to think.
Good God—they've been murdered. They were shot just a few minutes ago. The killer could still be in the apartment … no
,
I would have seen him
. He couldn't stop shaking. The sight of Johansson's shattered face could not be erased from his retina.

Suddenly his hearing came back, as if someone had turned up a volume control. He got up quickly and looked at the neighbour in the dressing gown.

“You,” he said. “Stay here and make sure nobody goes inside the apartment. The police and an ambulance are on their way. I'll go down and let them in.”

Blomkvist took the stairs three at a time. On the ground floor he glanced at the cellar stairs and stopped short. He took a step towards the cellar. Halfway down the stairs lay a revolver in plain sight. Blomkvist thought it looked like a Colt .45 Magnum—the kind of weapon used to murder Olof Palme.
^∗

He suppressed the impulse to pick up the weapon. Instead he went and opened the front door and stood in the night air. It was not until he heard the brief honk of a car horn that he remembered his sister was waiting for him. He walked across the street.

Annika opened her mouth to say something sarcastic about her brother's tardiness. Then she saw the expression on his face.

“Did you see anyone while you were waiting?” Blomkvist asked. His voice sounded hoarse and unnatural.

“No. Who would that be? What happened?”

Blomkvist was silent for a few seconds while he looked left and right. Everything was quiet on the street. He reached into his jacket pocket and found a crumpled pack with one cigarette left. As he lit it he could hear sirens approaching in the distance. He looked at his watch. It was 11:17 p.m.

“Annika—this is going to be a long night,” he said without looking at her as the police car turned up the street.

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