“Karl Axel Bodin.”
“I see… yes, he was operated on last night too. He had a very deep gash across his face and another just below one kneecap. He’s in bad shape, but the injuries aren’t life-threatening.”
Blomkvist absorbed this news.
“You look tired,” Modig said.
“You got that right. I’m into my third day with hardly any sleep.”
“Believe it or not, he actually slept in the car coming down from Nossebro,” Erlander said.
“Could you manage to tell us the whole story from the beginning?” Holmberg said. “It feels to us as though the score between the private investigators and the police investigators is about 3–0.”
Blomkvist gave him a wan smile. “That’s a line I’d like to hear from Officer Bubble.”
They made their way to the police canteen to have breakfast. Blomkvist spent half an hour explaining step by step how he had pieced together the story of Zalachenko. When he had finished, the detectives sat in silence.
“There are a few holes in your account,” Holmberg said at last.
“That’s possible,” Blomkvist said.
“You didn’t say, for example, how you came to be in possession of the Top Secret Säpo report on Zalachenko.”
“I found it yesterday at Lisbeth Salander’s apartment when I finally worked out where she was. She probably found it in Bjurman’s summer cabin.”
“So you’ve discovered Salander’s hideout?” Modig said.
Blomkvist nodded.
“And?”
“You’ll have to find out for yourselves where it is. Salander put a lot of effort into establishing a secret address for herself, and I have no intention of revealing its whereabouts.”
Modig and Holmberg exchanged an anxious look.
“Mikael… this is a murder investigation,” Modig said.
“You still haven’t got it, have you? Lisbeth Salander is in fact innocent and the police have violated her and destroyed her reputation in ways that beggar belief. ‘Lesbian Satanist gang’… where the hell do you get this stuff? Not to mention her being sought in connection with three murders she had nothing to do with. If she wants to tell you where she lives, then I’m sure she will.”
“But there’s another gap I don’t really understand,” Holmberg said. “How does Bjurman come into the story in the first place? You say he was the one who started the whole thing by contacting Zalachenko and asking him to kill Salander. Why would he do that?”
“I reckon he hired Zalachenko to get rid of Salander. The plan was for her to end up in that warehouse in Nykvarn.”
“He was her guardian. What motive would he have had to get rid of her?”
“It’s complicated.”
“I can do complicated.”
“He had a hell of a good motive. He had done something that Salander knew about. She was a threat to his entire future and well-being.”
“What had he done?”
“I think it would be best if you gave Salander a chance to explain the story herself.” He looked Holmberg steadily in the eye.
“Let me guess,” Modig said. “Bjurman subjected his ward to some sort of sexual assault…”
Blomkvist shrugged and said nothing.
“You don’t know about the tattoo Bjurman had on his abdomen?”
“What tattoo?” Blomkvist was taken aback.
“An amateurish tattoo across his belly with a message that said: I am a sadistic pig, a pervert and a rapist. We’ve been wondering what that was about.”
Blomkvist burst out laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
“I’ve always wondered what she did to get her revenge. But listen… I don’t want to discuss this for the same reason I’ve already given. She’s the real victim here. She’s the one who has to decide what she is willing to tell you. Sorry.”
He looked almost apologetic.
“Rapes should always be reported to the police,” Modig said.
“I’m with you on that. But this rape took place two years ago, and Lisbeth still hasn’t talked to the police about it. Which means that she doesn’t intend to. It doesn’t matter how much I disagree with her about the matter; it’s her decision. Anyway…”
“Yes?”
“She had no good reason to trust the police. The last time she tried explaining what a pig Zalachenko was, she was locked up in a mental hospital.”
Richard Ekström, the leader of the preliminary investigation, had butterflies in his stomach as he asked his team leader Inspector Bublanski to take a seat opposite him. Ekström straightened his glasses and stroked his well-groomed goatee. He felt that the situation was chaotic and ominous. For several weeks they had been hunting Lisbeth Salander. He himself had proclaimed her far and wide to be mentally imbalanced, a dangerous psychopath. He had leaked information that would have backed him up in an upcoming trial. Everything had looked so good.
There had been no doubt in his mind that Salander was guilty of three murders. The trial should have been a straightforward matter, a pure media circus with himself at centre stage. Then everything had gone haywire, and he found himself with a completely different murderer and a chaos that seemed to have no end in sight. That bitch Salander.
“Well, this is a fine mess we’ve landed in,” he said. “What have you come up with this morning?”
“A nationwide A.P.B. has been sent out on this Ronald Niedermann, but there’s no sign of him. At present he’s being sought only for the murder of Officer Gunnar Ingemarsson, but I anticipate we’ll have grounds for charging him with the three murders here in Stockholm. Maybe you should call a press conference.”
Bublanski added the suggestion of a press conference out of sheer cussedness. Ekström hated press conferences.
“I think we’ll hold off on the press conference for the time being,” he snapped.
Bublanski had to stop himself from smiling.
“In the first instance, this is a matter for the Göteborg police,” Ekström said.
“Well, we do have Modig and Holmberg on the scene in Göteborg, and we’ve begun to co-operate –”
“We’ll hold off on the press conference until we know more,” Ekström repeated in a brittle tone. “What I want to know is: how certain are you that Niedermann really is involved in the murders in Stockholm?”
“My gut feeling? I’m 100 per cent convinced. On the other hand, the case isn’t exactly rock solid. We have no witnesses to the murders, and there is no satisfactory forensic evidence. Lundin and Nieminen of the Svavelsjö M.C. are refusing to say anything – they’re claiming they’ve never heard of Niedermann. But he’s going to go to prison for the murder of Officer Ingemarsson.”
“Precisely,” said Ekström. “The killing of the police officer is the main thing right now. But tell me this: is there anything at all to even suggest that Salander might be involved in some way in the murders? Could she and Niedermann have somehow committed the murders together?”
“I very much doubt it, and if I were you I wouldn’t voice that theory in public.”
“So how is she involved?”
“This is an intricate story, as Mikael Blomkvist claimed from the very beginning. It revolves around this Zala… Alexander Zalachenko.”
Ekström flinched at the mention of the name Blomkvist.
“Go on,” he said.
“Zala is a Russian hit man – apparently without a grain of conscience – who defected in the ’70s, and Lisbeth Salander was unlucky enough to have him as her father. He was sponsored or supported by a faction within Säpo that tidied up after any crimes he committed. A police officer attached to Säpo also saw to it that Salander was locked up in a children’s psychiatric clinic. She was twelve and had threatened to blow Zalachenko’s identity, his alias, his whole cover.”
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