Stieg Larsson - The Girl who played with Fire

“OK, we can probably deal with that.”

They agreed to meet with his board during the first week of April to iron out the details and draw up a contract.

Blomkvist had a feeling of déjà vu when he studied the list of suspects that he and Eriksson had put together over the weekend. Thirty-seven names, all people Dag Svensson was leaning on hard in his book, twenty-one of whom were johns he had identified.

It reminded Blomkvist of the gallery of suspects from when he had set out to track a murderer in Hedestad two years before.

At 10:00 on Tuesday morning he asked Eriksson to come into his office at Millennium. He closed the door behind her. They sat for a few moments, drinking their coffee. Then he passed her the list of names.

“What should we do?” Eriksson said.

“First we have to show the list to Erika – maybe in ten minutes. Then we have to check them off one by one. It’s possible, it’s even probable, that one of these people has a connection to the murders.”

“And how do we check them off?”

“I’m thinking of focusing on the twenty-one johns. They have more to lose than the others. I’m thinking of following in Dag’s footsteps, of going to see them one by one.”

“And what do I do?”

“Two jobs. First, there are seven people here who aren’t identified. Your assignment over the next couple of days is to try and identify them. Some of the names are in Mia’s thesis; there may be ways of cross-referencing that would help you work out their real identities. Second, we know very little about Nils Bjurman, Lisbeth’s guardian. There was a brief CV in the papers, but my guess is that half of it is made up.”

“So I should ferret out his background.”

“Precisely. Everything you can find.”

Harriet Vanger called Blomkvist at 5:00 in the afternoon.

“Can you talk?”

“For a minute.”

“This girl the police are looking for… it’s the same one who helped you track me down, isn’t it?”

Harriet Vanger and Salander had never met.

“That’s right,” Blomkvist said. “I’m sorry I haven’t had time to call and update you. But, yes, she’s the one.”

“What does it mean?”

“As far as you’re concerned? Nothing, I hope.”

“But she knows everything about me and what happened.”

“Yes, she knows everything that happened.”

Harriet was quiet on the other end of the line.

“Harriet, I don’t think she did it. I’m working on the assumption that she’s innocent of all these murders. I trust her.”

“If I’m to believe what’s in the newspapers, then –”

“But you shouldn’t believe what’s in the papers. And as far as it affects you, it’s quite simple: she gave her word that she would keep her mouth shut. I believe she’ll keep that promise for the rest of her life. Everything I know about her tells me that she is extremely principled.”

“And if she didn’t do it?”

“I don’t know. Harriet, I’m doing everything in my power to discover what actually happened. Don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried, but I do want to be prepared for the worst. How are you holding up, Mikael?”

“So-so. We’ve been going nonstop.”

“Mikael… I’m in Stockholm right now. I’m flying to Australia tomorrow – I’ll be gone for a month.”

“I see.”

“I’m at the hotel.”

“I don’t know, Harriet. I feel spread really thin. I have to work tonight and I wouldn’t be very good company.”

“You don’t have to be good company. Come over and relax for a while.”

Mikael got home at one in the morning. He was tired and felt like saying the hell with everything and going to bed, but instead he booted up his iBook and checked his email. There was no new mail of any interest.

He opened the folder and discovered a new document. It was named [To MikBlom], next to the document he had called [To Sally].

It was almost a physical shock to see the document on his computer. She’s here. Salander has been in my computer. Maybe she’s even connected right now. He double-clicked.

He was not sure what he had expected. A letter. An answer. A protestation of innocence. An explanation. Salander’s reply was exasperatingly brief. The message consisted of one word, four letters.

Zala.

Mikael stared at the name.

Svensson had mentioned Zala in his last phone call, three hours before he was murdered.

What is she trying to say? Is Zala the link between Bjurman and Dag and Mia? How? Why? Who is he? And how did Salander know that? How is she involved?

He opened the document properties and saw that the text had been created not fifteen minutes before. Then he smiled. The document showed Mikael Blomkvist as its author. She had created the document in his computer with his own licenced Word programme. That was better than email and did not leave an IP address that could be traced, even though Blomkvist was sure that Salander in any case would be impossible to trace through the Internet. And it proved beyond all doubt that Salander had done a hostile takeover – her term – of his computer.

He stood by the window and looked out at City Hall. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched at that very moment by Salander, almost as if she were there in the room staring at him through the screen of his iBook. She could, of course, be anywhere in the world, but he suspected that she was close. Somewhere in Södermalm. Within a radius of a couple of miles from where he was.

He sat down and created a new Word document that he called [Sally-2] and placed it on the desktop. He wrote a pithy message.

Lisbeth,

You damn troublesome person. Who the hell is Zala? Is he the link? Do you know who murdered Dag & Mia? If so, tell me so we can solve this mess and go to sleep. Mikael.

She was inside Blomkvist’s iBook now. The reply came within a minute. A new document appeared in the folder on his desktop, this time called [Kalle Blomkvist].

You’re the journalist. Find out.

Blomkvist frowned. She was teasing him and using the nickname she knew he loathed. And she gave him not the slightest help. He wrote the document [Sally-3] and put it on his desktop.

Lisbeth,

A journalist finds out things by asking questions of people who know. I’m asking you. Do you know why Dag and Mia were murdered and who killed them? If you do, please tell me. Give me something to go on. Mikael.

For several hours he waited for another reply. At 4:00 a.m. he gave up and went to bed.

Blomkvist spent Wednesday combing Svensson’s material for every reference to Zala. Just as Salander had done earlier, he discovered the folder on Svensson’s computer and read the three documents [Irina P], [Sandström], and [Zala], and like Salander he discovered that Svensson had a police source by the name of Gulbrandsen. He traced him to the Criminal Police in Södertälje, but when he called he was told that Gulbrandsen was on a trip away from the office and would not be back until the following Monday.

He could see that Svensson had spent a great deal of time on Irina P. From the autopsy report he learned that the woman had been killed in a slow, cruel way. The murder had taken place at the end of February. The police had no leads as to who the killer might have been, but since she was a prostitute they assumed that it was one of her clients.

Blomkvist wondered why Svensson had put the [Irina P] document in the folder. Evidently he had linked Zala to Irina P., but there were no such references in the text. Presumably he had made the connection late on.

The document [Zala] looked like rough working notes. Zala (if indeed he existed) seemed almost like a phantom in the criminal world. He did not seem entirely credible, and the text lacked source references.