Stieg Larsson - The Girl who played with Fire

“There’s no immediate danger,” McBain said, “but we’re not taking any chances. I want you to pack your valuables in a bag and come down to the lobby. The hotel will provide coffee and sandwiches.”

Salander washed her face to wake up, pulled on some jeans, shoes, and a flannel shirt, and picked up her shoulder bag. Before she left the room she went and opened the bathroom door and turned on the light. The green lizard wasn’t there; it must have crept into some hole. Smart girl.

In the bar she settled in her usual spot and watched Ella Carmichael directing her staff and filling thermoses with hot drinks. After a while she came over to Lisbeth’s corner.

“Hi. You look like you just woke up.”

“I did sleep a little. What happens now?”

“We wait. Out at sea there’s a heavy storm, and we got a hurricane warning from Trinidad. If it gets worse and Matilda comes this way, we’ll go into the cellar. Can you lend us a hand?”

“What do you want me to do?”

“We have a hundred and sixty blankets in the lobby to be carried down. And we have a lot of things that need to be stowed.”

Salander helped carry the blankets downstairs and brought in flower vases, tables, chaises longues, and other unfixed items from around the pool. When Ella was satisfied and told her that was enough, Salander went over to the opening in the wall that faced the beach and took a few steps out into the darkness. The sea was booming menacingly and the wind tore at her so strongly that she had to brace herself to stay upright. The palm trees along the wall were swaying.

She went back inside, ordered a caffè latte, and sat with it at the bar. It was past midnight. The atmosphere among the guests and staff was anxious. People were having subdued conversations, looking towards the horizon from time to time, and waiting. There were thirty-two guests and a staff of ten at the Keys Hotel. Salander noticed Geraldine Forbes at a table by the front desk. She looked tense and was nursing a drink. Her husband was nowhere to be seen.

Salander drank her coffee and had once more started in on Fermat’s theorem when McBain came out of the office and stood in the middle of the lobby.

“May I have your attention, please? I have been informed that a hurricane-force storm has just hit Petite Martinique. I have to ask everyone to go down to the cellar at once.”

McBain stonewalled the many questions and directed his guests to the cellar stairs behind the front desk. Petite Martinique, a small island belonging to Grenada, was only a few sea miles north of the main island. Salander glanced at Ella Carmichael and pricked up her ears when the bartender went over to McBain.

“How bad is it?”

“No way of knowing. The telephone lines are down,” McBain said in a low voice.

Salander went down to the cellar and put her bag on a blanket in the corner. She thought for a moment and then headed back up against the flow to the lobby. She found Ella and asked her if there was anything else she could do to help. Ella shook her head, looking worried.

“Matilda is a bitch. We’ll just have to see what happens.”

Salander watched a group of five adults and about ten children hurrying in through the hotel entrance. McBain took charge of them too and directed them to the cellar stairs.

Salander was suddenly struck by a worrisome thought.

“I suppose everybody will be going down into their cellars about now,” she said quietly.

Ella watched the family going down the stairs.

“Unfortunately ours is one of the few cellars on Grand Anse. More people will probably be coming to seek shelter here.”

Salander gave her a sharp look.

“What will the rest do?”

“The ones who don’t have cellars?” She gave a bitter laugh. “They’ll huddle in their houses or look for shelter in a shed. They have to trust in God.”

Salander turned and ran through the lobby and out of the entrance.

George Bland.

She heard Ella call after her, but she did not stop to explain.

He lives in a fucking shack that will collapse with the first gust of wind.

As she reached the road to St.George’s she staggered in the wind that tore at her body, and then she began to jog. She was heading stubbornly into a heavy headwind that made her reel. It took almost ten minutes to cover the four hundred yards to the shack. She did not see a living soul the whole way there.

The rain came out of nowhere like an ice-cold shower from a fire hose. At the same instant, she turned in towards the shack and saw the light from his kerosene lamp swinging in the window. She was drenched in a second, and she could hardly see two yards in front of her. She hammered on his door. George Bland opened it with eyes wide.

“What are you doing here?” He shouted to be heard above the wind.

“Come on. You have to come to the hotel. They have a cellar.”

The boy looked shocked. The wind slammed the door shut and it was several seconds before he could force it open again. Salander grabbed hold of his T-shirt and dragged him out. She wiped the water from her face, then gripped his hand and began to run. He ran with her.

They took the beach path, which was about a hundred yards shorter than the main road, which looped inland. When they had gone halfway, Salander realized that this might have been a mistake. On the beach they had no protection at all. Wind and rain tore at them so hard that they had to stop several times. Sand and branches were flying through the air. There was a terrible roar. After what seemed an eternity Salander finally spied the hotel walls and picked up the pace. Just as they made it to the entrance and the promise of safety, she looked over her shoulder at the beach. She stopped short.

Through a rain squall she spotted two figures about fifty yards down the beach. Bland pulled her arm to drag her through the door. She let go of his hand and braced herself against the wall as she tried to focus on the water’s edge. For a second or two she lost sight of the figures in the rain, but then the entire sky was lit up by a flash of lightning.

She knew already that it was Richard and Geraldine Forbes. They were at about the same place where she had seen Forbes wandering back and forth the night before.

When the next flash came, Forbes appeared to be dragging his wife, who was struggling with him.

All the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. The financial dependence. The allegations of chicanery in Austin. His restless wandering and motionless hours at the Turtleback.

He’s planning to murder her. Forty million in the pot. The storm is his camouflage. This is his chance.

Salander turned and shoved Bland through the door. She looked around and found the rickety wooden chair the night watchman usually sat on, which had not been cleared away before the storm. She smashed it as hard as she could against the wall and armed herself with one of its legs. Bland screamed after her in horror as she ran towards the beach.

She was almost bowled over by the furious gusts, but she clenched her teeth and worked her way forward, step by step, into the storm. She had almost reached the couple when one more flash of lightning lit up the beach and she saw Geraldine Forbes sink to her knees by the water’s edge. Forbes stood over her, his arm raised to strike with what looked like an iron pipe in his hand. She saw his arm move in an arc towards his wife’s head. Geraldine stopped struggling.

Forbes never saw Salander coming.

She cracked the chair leg over the back of his head and he fell forward on his face.

Salander bent and took hold of Geraldine Forbes. As the rain whipped across them, she turned the body over. Her hands were suddenly bloody. Geraldine Forbes had a wound on her scalp. She was as heavy as lead, and Salander looked around desperately, wondering how she was going to pull her up to the hotel wall. Then Bland appeared at her side. He shouted something that Salander could not make out in the storm.