The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Trilogy Bundle (96 page)

“Salander changed during that year,” Bohman said. “She stopped working for Milton and without warning, I understand, went overseas.”

“Should we assume that there's a connection there too? The message in the tattoo plainly says that Bjurman raped someone. Salander is a likely victim. And that would be a motive for murder.”

“There are other ways to interpret this, of course,” Faste said. “I can imagine a scenario where Salander and the Chinese girl are running some sort of escort service with S&M overtones. Bjurman could be one of those nuts who gets off on being whipped by small girls. He could have been in some sort of dependence relationship with Salander and things went wrong.”

“But that doesn't explain what she was doing in Enskede.”

“If Svensson and Johansson were about to expose the sex trade, they may have stumbled on Salander and Wu. That may be your motive for Salander to commit murder.”

“So far this is mere speculation,” said Modig.

The meeting went on for another hour, and also dealt with the fact that Svensson's laptop was missing. When they broke for lunch they were all frustrated. The investigation was fraught with more question marks than ever.

Berger called Magnus Borgsjö, CEO of
Svenska Morgon-Posten
, as soon as she reached the office on Tuesday morning.

“I'm interested,” she said.

“I thought you would be.”

“I meant to let you know right after the Easter holiday. But as you'll have heard, chaos has broken out here.”

“The murder of Dag Svensson. I'm so sorry. A terrible thing.”

“Then you'll understand that this is no time for me to announce my resignation.”

He was silent for a moment.

“We have a problem,” Borgsjö said. “The last time we spoke, we said that the job would start on August 1. But the thing is, our editor in chief, HÃ¥kan Morander, whom you would be replacing, is in very poor health. He has heart problems and has to cut back on work. He talked to his doctor a few days ago, and this weekend I learned that he's now planning to retire on July 1. The idea was that he would still be here until fall, and that
you could work in tandem through August and September. But the way the situation looks now, we have a crisis. Erika—we're going to need you to start on May 1, and certainly no later than May 15.”

“God. That's only weeks away.”

“Are you still interested?”

“Yes, of course … but that means I have only a month to tidy things up here at
Millennium.
”

“I know. I'm sorry to do it, Erika, but I have to rush you. A month should be enough time to straighten out affairs at a magazine with only half a dozen employees.”

“But it means leaving in the midst of a crisis.”

“You'd have to leave in any case. All we're doing is bringing forward your departure date by a few weeks.”

“I do have some conditions.”

“Let me hear them.”

“I'll have to remain on
Millennium
's board of directors.”

“That might not be appropriate.
Millennium
is much smaller, of course, and a monthly magazine besides, but technically we're competitors.”

“That can't be helped. I won't have anything to do with
Millennium
's editorial work, but I won't sell my share of the business. So I have to stay on the board.”

“OK, we can probably deal with that.”

They agreed to meet with his board during the first week of April to iron out the details and draw up a contract.

Blomkvist had a feeling of déjà vu when he studied the list of suspects that he and Eriksson had put together over the weekend. Thirty-seven names, all people Dag Svensson was leaning on hard in his book, twenty-one of whom were johns he had identified.

It reminded Blomkvist of the gallery of suspects from when he had set out to track a murderer in Hedestad two years before.

At 10:00 on Tuesday morning he asked Eriksson to come into his office at
Millennium
. He closed the door behind her. They sat for a few moments, drinking their coffee. Then he passed her the list of names.

“What should we do?” Eriksson said.

“First we have to show the list to Erika—maybe in ten minutes. Then we have to check them off one by one. It's possible, it's even probable, that one of these people has a connection to the murders.”

“And how do we check them off?”

“I'm thinking of focusing on the twenty-one johns. They have more to lose than the others. I'm thinking of following in Dag's footsteps, of going to see them one by one.”

“And what do I do?”

“Two jobs. First, there are seven people here who aren't identified. Your assignment over the next couple of days is to try and identify them. Some of the names are in Mia's thesis; there may be ways of cross-referencing that would help you work out their real identities. Second, we know very little about Nils Bjurman, Lisbeth's guardian. There was a brief CV in the papers, but my guess is that half of it is made up.”

“So I should ferret out his background.”

“Precisely. Everything you can find.”

Harriet Vanger called Blomkvist at 5:00 in the afternoon.

“Can you talk?”

“For a minute.”

“This girl the police are looking for … it's the same one who helped you track me down, isn't it?”

Harriet Vanger and Salander had never met.

“That's right,” Blomkvist said. “I'm sorry I haven't had time to call and update you. But, yes, she's the one.”

“What does it mean?”

“As far as you're concerned? Nothing, I hope.”

“But she knows everything about me and what happened.”

“Yes, she knows everything that happened.”

Harriet was quiet on the other end of the line.

“Harriet, I don't think she did it. I'm working on the assumption that she's innocent of all these murders. I trust her.”

“If I'm to believe what's in the newspapers, then—”

“But you shouldn't believe what's in the papers. And as far as it affects you, it's quite simple: she gave her word that she would keep her mouth shut. I believe she'll keep that promise for the rest of her life. Everything I know about her tells me that she is extremely principled.”

“And if she didn't do it?”

“I don't know. Harriet, I'm doing everything in my power to discover what actually happened. Don't worry.”

“I'm not worried, but I do want to be prepared for the worst. How are you holding up, Mikael?”

“So-so. We've been going nonstop.”

“Mikael … I'm in Stockholm right now. I'm flying to Australia tomorrow—I'll be gone for a month.”

“I see.”

“I'm at the hotel.”

“I don't know, Harriet. I feel spread really thin. I have to work tonight and I wouldn't be very good company.”

“You don't have to be good company. Come over and relax for a while.”

Mikael got home at one in the morning. He was tired and felt like saying the hell with everything and going to bed, but instead he booted up his iBook and checked his email. There was no new mail of any interest.

He opened the folder and discovered a new document. It was named [To MikBlom], next to the document he had called [To Sally].

It was almost a physical shock to see the document on his computer.
She's here. Salander has been in my computer. Maybe she's even connected right now
. He double-clicked.

He was not sure what he had expected. A letter. An answer. A protestation of innocence. An explanation. Salander's reply was exasperatingly brief. The message consisted of one word, four letters.

Zala
.

Mikael stared at the name.

Svensson had mentioned Zala in his last phone call, three hours before he was murdered.

What is she trying to say? Is Zala the link between Bjurman and Dag and Mia? How? Why? Who is he? And how did Salander know that? How is she involved
?

He opened the document properties and saw that the text had been created not fifteen minutes before. Then he smiled. The document showed
Mikael Blomkvist
as its author. She had created the document in his computer with his own licenced Word programme. That was better than email and did not leave an IP address that could be traced, even though Blomkvist was sure that Salander in any case would be impossible to trace through the Internet. And it proved beyond all doubt that Salander had done a hostile takeover—her term—of his computer.

He stood by the window and looked out at City Hall. He couldn't shake the feeling that he was being watched at that very moment by
Salander, almost as if she were there in the room staring at him through the screen of his iBook. She could, of course, be anywhere in the world, but he suspected that she was close. Somewhere in Södermalm. Within a radius of a couple of miles from where he was.

He sat down and created a new Word document that he called [Sally-2] and placed it on the desktop. He wrote a pithy message.

She was inside Blomkvist's iBook now. The reply came within a minute. A new document appeared in the folder on his desktop, this time called [Kalle Blomkvist].

Blomkvist frowned. She was teasing him and using the nickname she knew he loathed. And she gave him not the slightest help. He wrote the document [Sally-3] and put it on his desktop.

For several hours he waited for another reply. At 4:00 a.m. he gave up and went to bed.

Blomkvist spent Wednesday combing Svensson's material for every reference to Zala. Just as Salander had done earlier, he discovered the folder on Svensson's computer and read the three documents [Irina P], [Sandström], and [Zala], and like Salander he discovered that Svensson had a police source by the name of Gulbrandsen. He traced him to the Criminal Police in Södertälje, but when he called he was told that Gulbrandsen was on a trip away from the office and would not be back until the following Monday.

He could see that Svensson had spent a great deal of time on Irina P. From the autopsy report he learned that the woman had been killed in a slow, cruel way. The murder had taken place at the end of February. The police had no leads as to who the killer might have been, but since she was a prostitute they assumed that it was one of her clients.

Blomkvist wondered why Svensson had put the [Irina P] document in the folder. Evidently he had linked Zala to Irina P., but there were no such references in the text. Presumably he had made the connection late on.

The document [Zala] looked like rough working notes. Zala (if indeed he existed) seemed almost like a phantom in the criminal world. He did not seem entirely credible, and the text lacked source references.

He closed the document and scratched his head. Solving the murders was going to be a considerably more difficult task than he had imagined. Nor could he avoid being assailed by doubt. Nothing told him unequivocally that Salander was innocent. All he had to go on was his instinct.

He knew that she was not short of funds. She had exploited her skills
as a hacker to steal a sum of several billion kronor, but she didn't know that he knew this. Apart from when he had been forced to explain her computer talents to Berger, he had never betrayed her secrets to any outsider.

He didn't want to believe that Salander was guilty of the murders. He would never be able to repay his debt to her. She had not only saved his life, she had also salvaged his career and possibly
Millennium
magazine itself by delivering Hans-Erik Wennerström's head to them on a platter.

And he felt a great loyalty to her. Whether she was guilty or not, he was going to do everything he could to help her when she eventually was caught.

But there was so much that he didn't know about her. The psychiatric assessments, the fact that she had been committed to one of the country's most highly regarded institutions, and that she had even been declared incompetent, all tended to confirm that something was wrong with her. The chief of staff at St. Stefan's Psychiatric Clinic in Uppsala, Dr. Peter Teleborian, had been widely quoted in the press. As was appropriate, he had not made statements specifically about Salander but had commented on the national collapse of mental health care. Teleborian was renowned and respected not merely in Sweden but internationally as well. He had been thoroughly convincing and had managed to convey his sympathy for the murder victims and their families while making it known that he was most anxious about Salander's well-being.

Blomkvist wondered whether he ought to get in touch with Dr. Teleborian and whether he might be able to help in some way. But he refrained. The doctor would have plenty of time to help Salander once she was caught.

Finally he went to the kitchenette and poured coffee into a cup with the logo of the Moderate Unity Party and went in to see Berger.

“I have a long list of johns and pimps I have to interview,” he said.

She looked at him with concern.

“It'll probably take a week or two to check off everyone on the list. They're dotted about from Strängnäs to Norrköping. I'll need a car.”

She opened her handbag and took out the keys to her BMW.

“Is that really all right?”

“Of course it's all right. I drive to work as rarely as I drive out to Saltsjöbaden. And if need be I can take Greger's car.”