Stieg Larsson - The Girl who played with Fire

When he had her in view again he saw her arm move, and a stone as big as his fist flew through the air. He ducked and it missed his head by about an inch.

He finally got out his pistol and tried to flick off the safety, but when he looked up again Salander was upon him. He saw evil in her eyes and felt for the first time a shocked terror.

“Goodnight,” Salander said.

She shoved the Taser into his crotch and fired off 50,000 volts, holding the electrodes against him for at least twenty seconds. Nieminen was transformed into a vegetable.

Salander heard a noise behind her and spun around to see Lundin laboriously getting to his knees. She looked at him with raised eyebrows. He was fumbling blindly through the burning fog of the Mace.

“I’m going to kill you!” he roared.

He was groping around, trying to locate Salander. She watched him circumspectly. Then he said:

“Fucking whore.”

Salander bent down and picked up Nieminen’s pistol, noticing that it was a Polish P-83 Wanad.

She opened the magazine and checked that it was loaded with the correct 9 mm Makarov. She cocked it. She stepped over Nieminen and went across to Lundin, took aim with both hands, and shot him in the foot. He shrieked in shock and collapsed again.

She wondered if she should bother asking about the identity of the hulk she had seen him with at Blomberg’s Café. According to Sandström, the man had murdered someone in a warehouse with Lundin’s help. Hmm. She should have waited to fire the pistol until she had asked her questions.

Lundin did not seem to be in any condition now to carry on a lucid conversation, and there was the possibility that someone had heard the shot. So she ought to leave the area right away. She could always find Lundin at some later date and ask him the question under less stressful circumstances. She secured the weapon’s safety, zipped it into her jacket pocket, and picked up her backpack.

She had gone about ten yards down the road when she stopped and turned around. She walked back slowly and studied Lundin’s motorcycle.

“Harley-Davidson,” she said. “Sweet.”

It was a beautiful spring day as Blomkvist drove Berger’s car south towards Nynäsvägen. Already there was a hint of green in the black fields, and there was real warmth in the air. It was perfect weather to forget all his problems and drive out for a few days to be at peace in his cabin in Sandhamn.

He had agreed with Björck that he would be there at 1:00, but he arrived early and stopped in Dalarö to have coffee and read the papers. He did not prepare for the meeting. Björck had something to tell him, and Blomkvist was determined that this time he would come away from Smådalarö with concrete information about Zala.

Björck met him in the driveway. He looked more self-assured, more pleased with himself than he had two days before. What sort of move are you planning? Blomkvist did not shake hands with him.

“I can give you information about Zala,” Björck said, “but I have certain conditions.”

“Let’s hear them.”

“I won’t be named in Millennium’s exposé.”

“Agreed.”

Björck looked surprised. Blomkvist had accepted straight off, without argument, the point about which Björck was expecting to have a long negotiation. That was his only card. Information about the murders in exchange for anonymity. Blomkvist had agreed, and given up the chance of a strong headline in the magazine.

“I’m serious,” Björck said. “And I want it in writing.”

“You can have it in writing, but a document like that wouldn’t be of any use to you. You’ve committed a crime that I know about and which I’m bound to report to the police. But you know things, and you’re using your position to buy my silence. I’ve thought about the matter and I accept. I won’t mention your name in Millennium. Either you take my word for it or you don’t.”

While Björck thought about it, Blomkvist said: “I have some conditions too. The price of my silence is that you tell me everything you know. If I discover that you’re hiding something, our agreement is void, and I’ll hang your name out to dry on every single news headline in Sweden, just as I did with Wennerström.”

Björck shuddered at the memory.

“OK,” he said. “I don’t have a choice. I’ll tell you who Zala is. But I’m going to need absolute confidentiality.”

He reached out his hand. Blomkvist grasped it. He had just promised to assist in covering up a crime, but it didn’t trouble him for a moment. All he had promised was that he himself and Millennium magazine would not write about Björck. Svensson had already written the whole story in his book. And the book would be published.

The call came through to the police in Strängnäs at 3:18 p.m. It came directly to the switchboard and not through the emergency services. A man named Öberg, owner of a summer cabin just east of Stallarholmen, reported that he had heard what sounded like a shot and went to see what was going on. He had found two severely wounded men. Well, one of the men may not have been so severely wounded, but he was in a lot of pain. And the cabin they were lying in front of was owned by Nils Bjurman, a lawyer. The late Nils Bjurman, that is – the man there was so much about in the papers.

The Strängnäs police had already had an eventful day with an extensive traffic check in the community. During the course of the morning the traffic assignment had been interrupted when a call came in that a middle-aged woman had been killed by her boyfriend at the house they shared in Finninge. At almost the same time a fire had spread from an outhouse into a property in Storgärdet. One body was found in the wreckage. And to top it all off, two cars had collided head-on on the Enköping highway. Accordingly, the Strängnäs police force was busy, almost to a man.

The duty officer, however, had been following the developments in Nykvarn that morning, and she deduced that this new commotion must have something to do with that Lisbeth Salander everyone was talking about. Not least since Nils Bjurman was a part of the investigation. She took action on three fronts. She requisitioned the only remaining police van and drove directly to Stallarholmen. She called her colleagues in Södertälje and asked for assistance. The Södertälje force was also spread thin since part of their manpower had been sent to dig up bodies around a burned-out warehouse south of Nykvarn, but the possible connection between Nykvarn and Stallarholmen prompted another duty officer in Södertälje to dispatch two cruisers to Stallarholmen to assist. In the end the duty officer from Strängnäs called Inspector Bublanski in Stockholm. She reached him on his mobile.

Bublanski was at Milton Security in a meeting with its CEO, Armansky, and two of his staff, Fräklund and Bohman. Hedström was conspicuous by his absence.

Bublanski immediately sent Andersson out to Bjurman’s summer cabin and told him to take Faste if he could get hold of him. After thinking for a moment, Bublanski also called Holmberg, who was near Nykvarn and therefore considerably closer to Stallarholmen.

Holmberg had some news for him too. “We’ve identified the body in the pit.”

“That’s impossible. How so fast?”

“Everything’s simple when the corpse considerately has himself buried with his wallet and laminated ID.”

“Who is it?”

“A bit of a celebrity. Kenneth Gustafsson, known as the Vagabond. Does it ring a bell?”

“Are you kidding? Downtown hooligan, pusher, petty thief, and addict? He’s lying in a hole in Nykvarn?”

“Yes, that’s the man. At least that’s the ID in the wallet. Identification will have to be confirmed by forensics, and it’s going to be like putting a puzzle together. The Vagabond was chopped into five or six pieces.”