Stieg Larsson - The Girl who played with Fire

“No, not one grain.”

“So what do you think? Is she guilty or not?”

Blomkvist thought for a long time.

“You’re asking me if she is capable of murder? The answer is yes. Salander has a violent streak. I’ve seen her in action when…”

“When she saved your life?”

Blomkvist looked at her, then said, “I can’t tell you the circumstances. But there was a man who was going to kill me and he was just about to succeed. She stepped in and beat him senseless with a golf club.”

“And you haven’t told the police any of this?”

“Absolutely not. And this has to remain between you and me.” He gave her a sharp look. “Malin, I have to be able to trust you on this.”

“I won’t tell anyone about anything we discuss. You’re not just my boss – I like you too, and I don’t want to do anything that would hurt you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing.”

He laughed and then turned serious again. “I’m convinced that if it had been necessary, she would have killed that man to protect me. But at the same time I believe she’s quite rational. Peculiar, yes, but completely rational according to her own scheme of things. She used violence because she had to, not because she wanted to. To kill someone, she would have to be exceedingly threatened or provoked.”

He thought for a while. Eriksson watched him patiently.

“I can’t explain the lawyer. I don’t know a thing about him. But I just can’t imagine her being threatened or provoked – at all – by Dag and Mia. It’s not possible.”

They sat quietly for a long time. Eriksson looked at her watch and saw that it was 9:30.

“It’s late. I have to be getting home.”

“It’s been a long day. We can go on sifting tomorrow. No, leave the dishes. I’ll take care of it.”

On the Saturday night before Easter, Armansky lay awake, listening to Ritva sleeping. He could not make sense of the drama. In the end he got up, put on his slippers and dressing gown, and went into the living room. The air was cool and he put a few pieces of wood in the soapstone stove, opened a beer, and sat looking out at the dark waters of the Furusund channel.

What do I know?

Salander was unpredictable. No doubt about that.

Something had happened in the winter of 2003, when she stopped working for him and disappeared on her year-long sabbatical abroad. Blomkvist was somehow mixed up in her sudden departure – but he didn’t know what had happened to her either.

She came back and had come to see him. Claimed that she was “financially independent,” which presumably meant that she had enough to get by for a while.

She had been regularly to see Palmgren. She had not been in touch with Blomkvist.

She had shot three people, two apparently unknown to her.

It doesn’t make any sense.

Armansky took a gulp of his beer and lit a cigarillo. He had a guilty conscience, and that contributed to his bad mood.

When Bublanski had been to see him, Armansky had unhesitatingly given him as much information as he could so that Salander could be caught. He had no doubt that she had to be caught – and the sooner the better. Armansky was a realist. If the police told him that a person was suspected of murder, the chances were that it was true. So Salander was guilty.

But the police weren’t taking into account whether she might have felt that her actions were justified – or whether there might be some mitigating circumstance or a reasonable explanation for her having gone berserk. The police were required to catch her and prove that she had fired the shots, not dig into her psyche. They would be satisfied if they could find a motive, but failing that, they were ready to call it an act of insanity. He shook his head. He could not accept that she was an insane mass murderer. Salander never did anything against her will or without thinking through the consequences.

Peculiar – yes. Insane – no.

So there had to be an explanation, no matter how obscure it might appear to anyone who did not know her.

At around 2:00 in the morning he made a decision.

Armansky got up early on Sunday after hours of worrying. He padded downstairs without waking Ritva and made coffee and a sandwich. Then he opened his laptop.

He opened the report form that Milton Security used for personal investigations. He typed in as many facts as he could think of about Salander’s personality.

At 9:00 Ritva came down and poured herself coffee. She wondered what he was doing. He gave a noncommittal answer and kept writing. He was going to be a lost cause all day.

Blomkvist turned out to be wrong, probably because it was Easter weekend and police headquarters was still relatively empty. It took until Sunday morning before the media discovered that he was the one who had found Svensson and Johansson. The first to call was a reporter from Aftonbladet , an old friend.

“Hello, Blomkvist. It’s Nicklasson.”

“Hello, Nicklasson.”

“So you were the one who found the couple in Enskede.”

Blomkvist confirmed that was true.

“My source tells me they worked for Millennium.”

“Your source is part right and part wrong. Dag Svensson was doing a freelance report for Millennium. Mia Johansson wasn’t working for us.”

“Oh boy. This is a hell of a story, you’ve got to admit.”

“I know,” Blomkvist said wearily.

“Why haven’t you released a statement?”

“Dag was a colleague and a friend. We thought it would be best at least to tell his and Mia’s relatives what happened before we put out any story.”

Blomkvist knew that he wouldn’t be quoted on that point.

“That makes sense. What was Dag working on?”

“A story we commissioned.”

“What about?”

“What sort of scoop are you planning at Aftonbladet ?”

“So it was a scoop.”

“Screw you, Nicklasson.”

“Oh, come on, Blomman. You think the murders had anything to do with the story Dag Svensson was working on?”

“You call me Blomman one more time, and I’m hanging up and not talking to you for the rest of the year.”

“All right, I’m sorry. Do you think Dag was murdered because of his work as an investigative journalist?”

“I have no idea why Dag was murdered.”

“Did the story he was working on have anything to do with Lisbeth Salander?”

“No. Nothing whatsoever.”

“Did Dag know that nutcase?”

“I have no idea.”

“Dag wrote a bunch of articles on computer crime recently. Was that the type of story he was writing for Millennium?”

You just won’t give up, will you? Blomkvist thought. He was about to tell Nicklasson to piss off when he sat bolt upright in bed. He had just had two great ideas. Nicklasson started to say something else.

“Hold on, Nicklasson. Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”

Blomkvist got up and held his hand over the mouthpiece. He was suddenly on a completely different planet.

Ever since the murders, he had been racking his brains about how he could find a way to get in touch with Salander. There was a chance – a rather good chance – that she would read what he said to the newspapers, wherever she was. If he denied that he knew her, she might interpret that to mean that he had abandoned her or betrayed her. If he defended her, then other people would interpret it as meaning that he knew more about the murders than he had said. But if he made a statement in just the right way, it might give Salander an impulse to reach him.

“Sorry, I’m back. What did you say?”