Stieg Larsson - The Girl who played with Fire

Above all, the prime suspect had proven to be impossible to locate, despite the fact that she was no taller than a hand’s breadth and had tattoos all over her body. It had been almost two weeks since the murders and there wasn’t so much as a whisper as to where she might be hiding.

Björck had had a wretched day since Blomkvist stepped across his threshold. He had a continuous dull ache in his back, but he paced back and forth in his borrowed house, incapable either of relaxing or of taking any initiative. He couldn’t make any sense of the story. The pieces of the puzzle would not fall into place.

When he’d first heard the news about Bjurman’s murder, he was aghast. But he hadn’t been surprised when Salander was almost immediately identified as the prime suspect and then the hue and cry for her began. He had followed every report on TV, and he bought all the daily papers he could get hold of and read every word written about the case.

He didn’t doubt for a second that Salander was mentally ill and capable of killing. He had no reason to question her guilt or the assumptions of the police – on the contrary, everything he knew about Salander told him that she really was a psychotic madwoman. He had been just about to call in and offer his advice to the investigation, or at least check that the case was being handled properly, but then he realized that it actually no longer concerned him. Besides, a call from him might attract the sort of attention that he wanted to avoid. Instead he kept following the breaking news developments with absentminded interest.

Blomkvist’s visit had turned his peace and quiet upside down. Björck never had any inkling that Salander’s orgy of murder might involve him personally – that one of her victims had been a media swine who was about to expose him to the whole of Sweden.

He had even less of an idea that the name Zala would crop up in the story like a hand grenade with its pin pulled, and least of all that the name would be known to a journalist like Blomkvist. It defied all common sense.

The day after Blomkvist’s visit Björck telephoned his former boss, who was seventy-eight years old and living in Laholm. He had to try to worm out the context without letting on that he was calling for any reason other than pure curiosity and professional concern. It was a relatively short conversation.

“This is Björck. I assume you’ve read the papers.”

“I have. She’s popped up again.”

“And she doesn’t seem to have changed much.”

“It’s no longer our concern.”

“You don’t think that –”

“No, I don’t. All that is dead and buried. There’s no connection.”

“But Bjurman, of all people. I presume it wasn’t by chance that he became her guardian.”

There were several seconds of silence on the line.

“No, it was no accident. It seemed like a good idea two years ago. Who could have predicted this?”

“How much did Bjurman know?”

His former boss chuckled. “You know quite well what Bjurman was like. Not the most talented actor.”

“I mean… did he know about the connection? Could there be something among his papers or personal effects that would lead anyone to – ”

“No, of course not. I understand what you’re getting at, but don’t worry. Salander has always been the loose cannon in this story. We arranged it so that Bjurman got the assignment, but that was only so we’d have someone we could check up on. Better that than an unknown quantity. If she had started blabbing, he would have come to us. Now this will all work out for the best.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, after this, Salander is going to be sitting in a psychiatric ward for a long, long time.”

“That makes sense.”

“Don’t worry. Go and enjoy your sick leave in peace and quiet.”

But that was exactly what Björck was unable to do. Blomkvist had seen to that. He sat at the kitchen table and looked out over Jungfrufjärden as he tried to sum up his own situation. He was being threatened from two flanks.

Blomkvist was going to hang him out to dry as a john. There was a serious risk that he would end his police career by being convicted of breaking the sex-trade law.

But even more serious was the fact that Blomkvist was trying to track down Zalachenko. Somehow he was mixed up in the story too. And Zala would lead him back to Björck’s front door.

His former boss had apparently been assured that there was nothing among Bjurman’s personal effects that could provide a further lead. But there was. The report from 1991. And Bjurman had gotten it from Björck.

He tried to visualize the meeting with Bjurman more than three months earlier. They had met in Gamla Stan. Bjurman had called him one afternoon at work and suggested they have a beer. They talked about the shooting club and everything under the sun, but Bjurman had sought him out for a particular reason. He needed a favour. He had asked about Zalachenko…

Björck got up and stood by the kitchen window. He had been a little tipsy at the meeting. In fact he was quite drunk. What had Bjurman asked him?

“Speaking of which… I’m in the middle of doing something for an old acquaintance who’s popped up…”

“Oh yeah, who’s that?”

“Alexander Zalachenko. Do you remember him?”

“Are you kidding? He’s not an easy man to forget.”

“Whatever happened to him?”

Technically, it was none of Bjurman’s business. In fact there was good reason to put Bjurman under the microscope just for having asked… but he was Salander’s guardian. He said he needed the old report. And I gave it to him.

Björck had made a serious mistake. He had assumed that Bjurman had already been informed – anything else would have seemed unthinkable. And Bjurman had presented the matter as though he was only trying to take a shortcut through the plodding bureaucratic procedure in which everything was stamped “confidential” and hush-hush and could drag on for months. In particular anything that had to do with Zalachenko.

I gave him the report. It was still stamped “confidential,” but it was for a good and understandable reason, and Bjurman was not someone who would spill the beans. He was stupid, but he had never been a gossip. What could it hurt? It was so many years ago.

Bjurman had made a fool of him. The more Björck thought about it, the more convinced he was that Bjurman had chosen his words deliberately, very cautiously.

But what the fuck was Bjurman after? And why would Salander have murdered him?

Blomkvist went to the apartment in Lundagatan four more times on Saturday in the hope of finding Miriam Wu, but she was never there.

He spent a good part of the day at the Kaffebar on Hornsgatan with his iBook, rereading the emails that Svensson had received at his Millennium address and the contents of the folder named. In the weeks before he was murdered, Svensson had spent more and more time researching Zala.

Blomkvist wished he could phone Svensson and ask him why the document about Irina P. was in the folder. The only reasonable conclusion was that Svensson had suspected Zala of murdering her.

At 5:00 p.m. Bublanski called and gave him Miriam Wu’s phone number. He didn’t know what had made the detective change his mind, but now that he had the number he tried it about once every half hour. Not until 11:00 p.m. did she answer. It was a short conversation.

“Hello, Miriam. My name is Mikael Blomkvist.”

“And who the hell are you?”

“I’m a journalist and I work at a magazine called Millennium.”

Miriam Wu expressed her feelings in a pithy way. “Ah yes. That Blomkvist. Go to hell, journalist creep.”