Stieg Larsson - The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets’ Nest

When Blomkvist had finished reading, he flipped open his mobile and saw that he had twenty unread messages. Three were messages to call Berger. Two were from his sister Annika. Fourteen were from reporters at various newspapers who wanted to talk to him. One was from Malm, who had sent him the brisk advice: It would be best if you took the first train home .

Blomkvist frowned. That was unusual, coming from Malm. The text was sent at 7.06 in the evening. He stifled the impulse to call and wake someone up at 3.00 in the morning. Instead he booted up his iBook and plugged the cable into the broadband jack. He found that the first train to Stockholm left at 5.20, and there was nothing new in Aftonbladet online.

He opened a new Word document, lit a cigarette, and sat for three minutes staring at the blank screen. Then he began to type.

Her name is Lisbeth Salander. Sweden has got to know her through police reports and press releases and the headlines in the evening papers. She is twenty-seven years old and one metre fifty centimetres tall. She has been called a psychopath, a murderer, and a lesbian Satanist. There has been almost no limit to the fantasies that have been circulated about her. In this issue, Millennium will tell the story of how government officials conspired against Salander in order to protect a pathological murderer…

He wrote steadily for fifty minutes, primarily a recapitulation of the night on which he had found Dag Svensson and Mia Johansson and why the police had focused on Salander as the suspected killer. He quoted the newspaper headlines about lesbian Satanists and the media’s apparent hope that the murders might have involved S.&M. sex.

When he checked the clock he quickly closed his iBook. He packed his bag and went down to the front desk. He paid with a credit card and took a taxi to Göteborg Central Station.

Blomkvist went straight to the dining car and ordered more coffee and sandwiches. He opened his iBook again and read through his text. He was so absorbed that he did not notice Inspector Modig until she cleared her throat and asked if she could join him. He looked up, smiled sheepishly, and closed his computer.

“On your way home?”

“You too, I see.”

She nodded. “My colleague is staying another day.”

“Do you know anything about how Salander is? I’ve been sound asleep since I last saw you.”

“She had an operation soon after she was brought in and was awake in the early evening. The doctors think she’ll make a full recovery. She was incredibly lucky.”

Blomkvist nodded. It dawned on him that he had not been worried about her. He had assumed that she would survive. Any other outcome was unthinkable.

“Has anything else of interest happened?” he said.

Modig wondered how much she should say to a reporter, even to one who knew more of the story than she did. On the other hand, she had joined him at his table, and maybe a hundred other reporters had by now been briefed at police headquarters.

“I don’t want to be quoted,” she said.

“I’m simply asking out of personal interest.”

She told him that a nationwide manhunt was under way for Ronald Niedermann, particularly in the Malmö area.

“And Zalachenko? Have you questioned him?”

“Yes, we questioned him.”

“And?”

“I can’t tell you anything about that.”

“Come on, Sonja. I’ll know exactly what you talked about less than an hour after I get to my office in Stockholm. And I won’t write a word of what you tell me.”

She hesitated for a while before she met his gaze.

“He made a formal complaint against Salander, that she tried to kill him. She risks being charged with grievous bodily harm or attempted murder.”

“And in all likelihood she’ll claim self-defence.”

“I hope she will,” Modig said.

“That doesn’t sound like an official line.”

“Bodin… Zalachenko is as slippery as an eel and he has an answer to all our questions. I’m persuaded that things are more or less as you told us yesterday, and that means that Salander has been subjected to a lifetime of injustice – since she was twelve.”

“That’s the story I’m going to publish,” Blomkvist said.

“It won’t be popular with some people.”

Modig hesitated again. Blomkvist waited.

“I talked with Bublanski half an hour ago. He didn’t go into any detail, but the preliminary investigation against Salander for the murder of your friends seems to have been shelved. The focus has shifted to Niedermann.”

“Which means that…” He let the question hang in the air between them.

Modig shrugged.

“Who’s going to take over the investigation of Salander?”

“I don’t know. What happened in Gosseberga is primarily Göteborg’s problem. I would guess that somebody in Stockholm will be assigned to compile all the material for a prosecution.”

“I see. What do you think the odds are that the investigation will be transferred to Säpo?”

Modig shook her head.

Just before they reached Alingsås, Blomkvist leaned towards her. “Sonja… I think you understand how things stand. If the Zalachenko story gets out, there’ll be a massive scandal. Säpo people conspired with a psychiatrist to lock Salander up in an asylum. The only thing they can do now is to stonewall and go on claiming that Salander is mentally ill, and that committing her in 1991 was justified.”

Modig nodded.

“I’m going to do everything I can to counter any such claims. I believe that Salander is as sane as you or I. Odd, certainly, but her intellectual gifts are undeniable.” He paused to let what he had said sink in. “I’m going to need somebody on the inside I can trust.”

She met his gaze. “I’m not competent to judge whether or not Salander is mentally ill.”

“But you are competent to say whether or not she was the victim of a miscarriage of justice.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“I’m only asking you to let me know if you discover that Salander is being subjected to another miscarriage of justice.”

Modig said nothing.

“I don’t want details of the investigation or anything like that. I just need to know what’s happening with the charges against her.”

“It sounds like a good way for me to get booted off the force.”

“You would be a source. I would never, ever mention your name.”

He wrote an email address on a page torn from his notebook.

“This is an untraceable hotmail address. You can use it if you have anything to tell me. Don’t use your official address, obviously, just set up your own temporary hotmail account.”

She put the address into the inside pocket of her jacket. She did not make him any promises.

Inspector Erlander woke at 7.00 on Saturday morning to the ringing of his telephone. He heard voices from the T.V. and smelled coffee from the kitchen where his wife was already about her morning chores. He had returned to his apartment in Mölndal at 1.00 in the morning having being on duty for twenty-two hours, so he was far from wide awake when he reached to answer it.

“Rikardsson, night shift. Are you awake?”

“No,” Erlander said. “Hardly. What’s happened?”

“News. Anita Kaspersson has been found.”

“Where?”

“Outside Seglora, south of Borås.”

Erlander visualized the map in his head.

“South,” he said. “He’s taking the back roads. He must have driven up the 180 through Borås and swung south. Have we alerted Malmö?”

“Yes, and Helsingborg, Landskrona, and Trelleborg. And Karlskrona. I’m thinking of the ferry to the east.”

Erlander rubbed the back of his neck.

“He has almost a 24-hour head start now. He could be clean out of the country. How was Kaspersson found?”