Stieg Larsson - The Girl who played with Fire

“The three of us have discussed the matter and we have arrived at a decision,” Berger said. She looked Harriet in the eye. “But before we explain our reasoning we would like to know what you think.”

Harriet Vanger glanced at them in turn. Her gaze lingered on Blomkvist, but she could not read anything from their expressions.

“If you want to buy the family out it will cost around three million kronor plus interest. Can you afford to buy us out?” she asked mildly.

“Yes, we can,” Blomkvist said with a smile.

He had been paid five million kronor by Henrik Vanger for the work he had done for the old industrial tycoon. Part of that work, ironically, had been to find out what had happened to Harriet, his niece.

“In that case, the decision is in your hands,” Harriet said. “The agreement stipulates that you can cancel the Vanger shareholding as of today. I would never have written a contract as sloppy as the one Henrik signed.”

“We can buy you out if we have to,” Berger said. “But the real question is what you want to do. You’re the CEO of a substantial industrial concern – two concerns, actually. Our annual budget might correspond to what you turn over during a coffee break. Why would you give your time to a business as marginal as Millennium?”

Harriet Vanger looked calmly at the chair of the board, saying nothing for a long moment. Then she turned to Blomkvist and replied:

“I’ve been the owner of something or other since the day I was born. And I spend my days running a corporation that has more intrigues than a four-hundred-page romance novel. When I first joined your board it was to fulfil obligations that I could not neglect. But you know what? During the past eighteen months I’ve realized that I’m having more fun on this board than on all the others put together.”

Blomkvist absorbed this thoughtfully. Vanger now turned to Malm.

“The problems you face at Millennium are small and manageable. Naturally the company wants to operate at a profit – that’s a given. But all of you have another goal – you want to achieve something.”

She took a sip from her glass of water and fixed her eyes on Berger.

“Exactly what that something is remains a bit unclear to me. The objective is hazy. You aren’t a political party or a special-interest group. You have no loyalties to consider except your own. But you pinpoint flaws in society, and you don’t mind entering into battles with public figures. Often you want to change things and make a real difference. You all pretend to be cynics and nihilists, but it’s your own morality that steers the magazine, and several times I’ve noticed that it’s quite a special sort of morality. I don’t know what to call it, except to say that Millennium has a soul. This is the only board I’m proud to be a part of.”

She fell silent for so long that Berger had to laugh.

“That sounds good. But you still haven’t answered the question.”

“This has been some of the wackiest, most absurd stuff I’ve ever been involved with, but I enjoy your company and I’ve had a great time. If you want me to stay on I gladly will.”

“OK,” Malm said. “We’ve been back and forth and we’re all agreed. We’ll buy you out.”

Vanger’s eyes widened. “You want to get rid of me?”

“When we signed the contract we had our heads on the block waiting for the axe. We had no choice. From the start we were counting the days until we could buy out your uncle.”

Berger opened a file, laid some papers on the table, and pushed them over to Vanger, together with a cheque for exactly the sum due. Vanger read through the papers and without a word she signed them.

“All right, then,” Berger said. “That was fairly painless. I want to put on record our gratitude to Henrik Vanger for all he did for Millennium. I hope you will convey this to him.”

“I will,” Harriet Vanger said in a neutral tone, betraying nothing of what she felt. She was both hurt and deeply disappointed that they had let her say that she wanted to stay and then had simply kicked her out.

“And now let me see if I can interest you in a completely different contract,” Berger said.

She took out another set of papers and slid them across the table.

“We were wondering if you personally had any interest in being a partner at Millennium. The price would be the same as the sum you’ve just received. The agreement has no time limits or exception clauses. You would be a full partner with the same responsibilities as the rest of us.”

Vanger raised her eyebrows. “Why this roundabout process?”

“It had to be done sooner or later,” Malm said. “We could have renewed the old agreement a year at a time or until the board had an argument and put you out. But it was always a contract that would have to be dissolved.”

Harriet leaned on her elbow and gave him a searching glance. She looked at Blomkvist and then at Berger.

“We signed our agreement with Henrik when we were in financial straits,” Berger said. “We’re offering you this agreement because we want to. And unlike the old one, it won’t let us boot you out so easily in the future.”

“That’s a very big difference for us,” Blomkvist said in a low voice, and that was his only contribution to the discussion.

“The fact is that we believe you add something to Millennium besides the financial underpinning implied by the name of Vanger,” Berger said.

“You’re smart and sensible and you come up with constructive solutions. Until now you’ve kept a low profile, almost like a guest visiting us once a quarter, but you represent for this board a stability and direction that we’ve never had before. You know business. Once you asked if you could trust me, and I wondered the same thing about you. By now we both know the answer. I like you and I trust you – we all do. We don’t want you to be a part of us by way of some complicated legal mumbo jumbo. We want you as a partner and a real shareholder.”

Harriet reached for the contract and spent five minutes reading through it. Finally she looked up.

“And all three of you are agreed?” she said.

Three heads nodded. Vanger lifted her pen and signed. She shoved the cheque back across the table, and Blomkvist tore it up.

The partners of Millennium had dinner together at Samir’s Cauldron on Tavastgatan. It was a quiet party – to celebrate the new arrangement – with good wine and couscous with lamb. The conversation was relaxed, and Vanger was noticeably dazed. It felt a little like an uncomfortable first date: something is going to happen, but no-one knows exactly what it might be.

Vanger had to leave at 7:30. She excused herself by saying that she had to go to her hotel and get an early night. Berger was heading home to her husband and walked with her some of the way. They parted at Slussen. Blomkvist and Malm stayed on for a while before Malm excused himself and said that he too had to get home.

Vanger took a taxi to the Sheraton and went straight to her room on the eighth floor. She got undressed and had a bath and put on the hotel’s robe. Then she sat at the window and looked out towards Riddarholmen. She took a pack of Dunhills from her bag. She smoked three or four cigarettes a day, so few that she could consider herself a nonsmoker and still enjoy it without a guilty conscience.

At 9:00 there was a knock at the door. She opened it and let Blomkvist in.

“You scoundrel,” she said.

He smiled and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

“I really thought you guys were going to kick me out.”

“We never would have done it like that. Do you understand why we wanted to rewrite the contract?”