Stieg Larsson - The Girl who played with Fire

“Was Dag writing about computer crime?”

“If you want a sound bite from me, I’ll give you one.”

“Go for it.”

“Only if you quote me word for word.”

“How else would I quote you?”

“I’d rather not answer that question.”

“So what do you want to say?”

“I’ll email it to you in fifteen minutes.”

“What?”

“Check your email,” Blomkvist said and hung up. He went over to his desk and booted up his iBook. He opened Word and sat there concentrating for two minutes before he started writing.

Millennium’s editor in chief, Erika Berger, is deeply shaken by the murder of freelance journalist and colleague Dag Svensson. She hopes that the murders will soon be solved.

It was Millennium’s publisher, Mikael Blomkvist, who discovered Dag Svensson and his girlfriend murdered last Wednesday night.

“Dag Svensson was a fantastically gifted journalist and a person I liked a lot. He had proposed several ideas for articles. Among other things, he was working on a major investigation into illegal computer hacking,” Mikael Blomkvist tells Aftonbladet.

Neither Blomkvist nor Berger will speculate about who might be guilty of the murders, or what motive might lie behind them.

Blomkvist picked up the telephone and called Berger.

“Hi, Ricky. You’ve just been interviewed by Aftonbladet.”

“Do tell.”

He read her the quote.

“How come?”

“Every word is true. Dag has worked freelance for ten years, and one of his specializations was computer security. I discussed it with him many times, and we were considering running an article by him on it when we finished the trafficking story. And do you know anyone else who is interested in hacking?”

Berger realized what he was trying to do.

“Smart, Micke. Damned smart. OK. Run it.”

Nicklasson called back a minute after he got Blomkvist’s email.

“That’s not much of a sound bite.”

“That’s all you’re getting, and it’s more than any other paper will get. You run the whole quote or nothing.”

Blomkvist went back to his iBook. He thought for a minute and then wrote:

Dear Lisbeth,

I’m writing this letter and leaving it on my hard drive knowing that sooner or later you’ll read it. I remember the way you took over Wennerström’s hard drive two years ago and suspect that you also made sure to hack my machine. It’s clear that you don’t want to have anything to do with me now. I don’t intend to ask why and you don’t have to explain.

The events of the past few days have linked us again, whether you like it or not. The police are saying that you murdered two people I was very fond of. I was the one who discovered Dag and Mia minutes after they were shot. I don’t think it was you who shot them. I certainly hope it wasn’t. The police claim you’re a psychotic killer, but that would mean that I totally misjudged you or that you’ve changed dramatically over the past year. And if you’re not the murderer, then the police are chasing the wrong person.

In this situation I should probably urge you to turn yourself in to the police, but I suspect I’d be wasting my breath. Sooner or later you’re going to be found, and when that happens you’re going to need a friend. You may not want to have anything to do with me, but I have a sister called Annika Giannini and she’s a lawyer. The best. She’s willing to represent you if you get in touch with her. You can trust her.

As far as Millennium is concerned, we’ve begun our own investigation into why Dag and Mia were murdered. What I’m doing right now is putting together a list of the people who had reason to want to silence Dag. I don’t know if I’m on the right track, but I’m going to check the list one person at a time.

One problem I have is that I don’t understand how Nils Bjurman fits into the picture. He isn’t mentioned anywhere in Dag’s material, and I can’t fathom any connection between him and Dag and Mia.

Help me. Please. What’s the connection?

Mikael.

P.S. You should get a new passport photo. That one doesn’t do you justice.

He named the document [To Sally]. Then he created a folder that he named and put an icon for it on the desktop of his iBook.

On Tuesday morning Armansky called a meeting in his office at Milton Security. He had brought in three people.

Johan Fräklund, a former criminal inspector with the Solna police, was the chief of Milton’s operations unit. He had overall responsibility for planning and analysis. Armansky had recruited him ten years earlier and had come to regard him, now in his early sixties, as one of the company’s most valuable assets.

Armansky also called in Sonny Bohman and Niklas Hedström. Bohman too was a former policeman. He had received his training in the Norrmalm armed response squad in the eighties and then moved to the violent crimes division, where he had led a dozen dramatic investigations. During the rampage of the “Laser Man” sniper in the early nineties, Bohman had been one of the key players, and in 1997 he had moved to Milton only after a great deal of persuasion and the offer of a significantly higher salary.

Niklas Hedström was regarded as a rookie. He had been trained at the police academy, but just before he was due to take his final exams he learned that he had a congenital heart defect. This not only required a major operation but also meant that his police career was already at an end.

Fräklund, who had been a contemporary of Hedström’s father, had suggested to Armansky that they give him a chance. Since there was a position free in the analysis unit, Armansky approved the recruitment, and he had never had cause to regret it. Hedström had worked for Milton for five years. He might lack field experience, but he stood out as a sharp-witted intellectual asset.

“Good morning, everyone. Take a seat and start reading,” Armansky said. He handed out three folders with some fifty photocopied pages of press cuttings about the hunt for Salander, along with Armansky’s three-page summary of her background. Hedström finished reading first and put the folder down. Armansky waited until Bohman and Fräklund were done.

“I presume none of you gentlemen has missed seeing the headlines in the papers over the weekend.”

“Lisbeth Salander,” Fräklund said in a gloomy voice.

Bohman shook his head.

Hedström stared into space with an inscrutable expression and the hint of a sad smile.

Armansky gave the trio a searching look.

“One of our employees,” he said. “How well did you get to know her when she worked here?”

“I tried a little light banter with her once,” Hedström said, again with a hint of a smile. “It didn’t go so well. I thought she was going to bite my head off. She was a first-class sourpuss, and I hardly exchanged ten sentences with her.”

“I found her seriously odd,” Fräklund said.

Bohman shrugged. “She was a real pain to deal with. I knew she was weird, but not that she was this fucking crazy.”

“She did things her own way,” Armansky said. “She wasn’t easy to handle. But I trusted her because she was the best researcher I’ve ever come across. She delivered results beyond expectation every time.”

“I never understood that,” Fräklund said. “I couldn’t figure out how she could be so incredibly skilled and at the same time so hopeless socially.”

“The explanation, of course, lies in her mental state,” Armansky said, poking at one of the folders. “She was declared incompetent.”

“I didn’t have a clue about that,” Hedström said. “I mean, she didn’t wear a sign on her back. And you never said anything.”