Stieg Larsson - The Girl who played with Fire

It was an unusual, if not unique, arrangement. Sivarnandan had thought hard for several days about whether there was anything unethical about the situation. He decided that there was not and accordingly hired Johanna Karolina Oskarsson as Holger Palmgren’s personal assistant and trainer. She was thirty-nine, a certified physical therapist with a degree in psychology and with extensive experience in rehabilitation care. To Sivarnandan’s surprise her first month’s salary was paid to the hospital in advance, as soon as her employment contract was signed. Until then he had vaguely worried that this might be some sort of hoax.

Within a month Palmgren’s coordination and overall condition had markedly improved. This could be seen from the tests he underwent every week. How much the improvement was due to the training and how much was thanks to Salander, Sivarnandan could only wonder. There was no doubt that Palmgren was making great efforts and looked forward to her visits with the enthusiasm of a child. It even seemed to amuse him that he was regularly pummelled at the chessboard.

Dr. Sivarnandan had kept them company on one occasion. Palmgren was playing white and had opened the Sicilian quite correctly. He had pondered each move long and hard. Whatever his physical handicap as a result of the stroke, there was nothing wrong now with his intellectual acuity.

Salander sat there reading a book on the frequency calibration of radio telescopes in a weightless state. She was sitting on a cushion, the better to be level with the table. When Palmgren made his move she glanced up and moved her piece, apparently without studying the board, and went back to her book. Palmgren resigned after the twenty-seventh move. Salander looked up and with a frown inspected the board for perhaps fifteen seconds.

“No,” she said. “You have a chance for a stalemate.”

Palmgren sighed and spent five minutes studying the board. At last he narrowed his gaze at Salander.

“Prove it.”

She turned the board around and took over his pieces. She forced a stalemate on the thirty-ninth move.

“Good Lord,” Sivarnandan said.

“That’s the way she is. Don’t ever play with her for money,” Palmgren said.

Sivarnandan had played chess himself since he was a boy, and as a teenager he was in the school tournament in Åbo, and came in second. He regarded himself as a competent amateur. Salander, he could see, was an uncanny chess player. She had obviously never played for a club, and when he mentioned that the game seemed to have been a variant of a classic game by Lasker, she gave him an uncomprehending look. She had never heard of Emanuel Lasker. He could not help wondering whether her talent was innate, and if so, whether she had other talents that might interest a psychologist.

But he did not say a word. He could see that his patient was feeling better than he ever had since coming to Ersta.

Bjurman arrived home late in the evening. He had spent four whole weeks at his summer cabin outside Stallarholmen, but he was dispirited. Nothing had happened to change his situation except that the giant had informed him that his people were interested in the proposal and that it would cost him 100,000 kronor.

Mail was piled up on the doormat. He put it all on the kitchen table. He was less and less interested in everything to do with work and the outside world, and he did not look at the letters until later in the evening. Then he shuffled through them absentmindedly.

One was from Handelsbanken. It was a statement for the withdrawal of 9,312 kronor from Lisbeth Salander’s savings account.

She was back.

He went into his office and put the document on his desk. He looked at it with hate-filled eyes for more than a minute as he collected his thoughts. He was forced to look up the telephone number. Then he lifted the receiver and dialled the number of a mobile with a prepaid calling card.

The blond giant answered with a slight accent: “Yes?”

“It’s Nils Bjurman.”

“What do you want?”

“She’s back in Sweden.”

There was a brief silence at the other end.

“That’s good. Don’t call this number again.”

“But –”

“You will be notified shortly.”

Then, to his considerable irritation, the connection was cut. Bjurman swore to himself. He went over to the drinks cabinet and poured himself a triple measure of Kentucky bourbon. He swallowed the drink in two gulps. I’ve got to go easy on the booze , he thought. Then he poured one more measure and took the glass back to his desk, where he looked at the statement from Handelsbanken again.

Mimmi was massaging Salander’s back and neck. She had been kneading intently for twenty minutes while Salander mainly enjoyed herself and uttered an occasional groan of pleasure. A massage from Mimmi was a fantastic experience, and she felt like a kitten who just wanted to purr and wave its paws around.

She stifled a sigh of disappointment when Mimmi slapped her on the backside and said that should do it. For a while she lay still in the vain hope that Mimmi would go on, but when she heard her pick up her wineglass, Salander rolled onto her back.

“Thank you,” she said.

“You’re sitting in front of your computer all day. That’s why your back hurts.”

“I just pulled a muscle.”

They were lying naked in Mimmi’s bed on Lundagatan, drinking red wine and feeling silly. Since Salander had resumed her friendship with Mimmi, it was as if she couldn’t get enough of her. It had become a bad habit to call her every day – much too often. She looked at Mimmi and reminded herself not to get too close to anyone again. It might end with someone getting hurt.

Mimmi leaned over the edge of the bed and opened the drawer of her bedside table. She took out a small flat package wrapped in flowered paper with a gold bow and tossed it into Lisbeth’s lap.

“What’s this?”

“Your birthday present.”

“My birthday’s more than a month away.”

“It’s your present from last year, but I couldn’t find you.”

“Should I open it?”

“If you feel like it.”

She put down her wineglass, shook the package, and opened it carefully. She drew out a beautiful cigarette case with a lid of blue and black enamel and some tiny Chinese characters as decoration.

“You really should stop smoking,” Mimmi said. “But if you won’t, at least you can keep your cigarettes in a pretty box.”

“Thank you,” Salander said. “You’re the only person who ever gives me birthday presents. What do the characters mean?”

“How on earth would I know that? I don’t understand Chinese. I just found it at the flea market.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“It’s just some cheap nothing, but it looked as if it was made for you. We’ve run out of wine. You want to go out and get a beer?”

“Does that mean we have to leave the bed and get dressed?”

“I’m afraid so. But what’s the point of living in Söder if you can’t go to a bar now and then?”

Salander sighed.

“Come on,” Mimmi said, pointing at the jewel in Salander’s navel. “We can come back here afterwards.”

Salander sighed again, but she put one foot on the floor and reached for her underwear.

Svensson was working late at the desk he had been assigned in a corner of the Millennium offices when he heard the rattle of a key in the door. He looked at the clock and saw that it was past 9:00 p.m. Blomkvist seemed surprised to find someone still working there.

“The lamp of diligence and all that, Mikael. I’m fine – tuning the book and I lost track of time. What are you doing here?”

“Just stopped by to pick up a file I forgot. Is everything going well?”