David Lagercrantz - The Girl in the Spider's Web

“I’ll get a taxi right away,” she said.

It was a while before she appeared, and out of boredom he went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. He had certainly seen better days. His hair was dishevelled and needed a cut and he had bags under his eyes. That was basically Elizabeth George’s fault. He swore and left the bathroom to set about cleaning up.

That was one thing at least that Berger would not be able to complain about. However long they had known each other, and however interwoven their lives, he still suffered a complex when it came to tidiness. He was a labourer’s son and a bachelor, she the upper-class married woman with the perfect home in Saltsjöbaden. In any case it could do no harm for his place to look a little respectable. He filled the dishwasher, wiped the sink and put out the rubbish.

He even had time to vacuum the living room, water the flowers on the windowsill and tidy up the bookshelf and magazine rack before the doorbell rang. There was both a ring and an impatient knock. When he opened up he was horrified. Berger was frozen stiff.

She shook like a leaf, and not just because of the weather. She was not even wearing a hat. The wind had ruined her neat hairstyle and there was something that looked like a graze on her right cheek, which had not been there that morning.

“Ricky!” he said. “Are you alright?”

“I’ve frozen off that beautiful bum of mine. Couldn’t get a taxi.”

“What happened to your face?”

“I slipped and fell. Three times, I think.”

He looked down at her dark-red high-heeled Italian boots.

“You’ve got perfect snow boots on too.”

“Yes. Ideal. Not to mention my decision to go without thermals this morning. Brilliant!”

“Come on in and I’ll warm you up.”

She fell into his arms and shook even more as he hugged her close.

“I’m sorry,” she said again.

“What for?”

“For everything. For Serner. I’ve been a fool.”

“Don’t exaggerate now, Ricky.”

He brushed the snowflakes from her hair and forehead and took a careful look at her cheek.

“No, no, I’ll tell you everything,” she said.

“But first get your clothes off and climb into a hot bath. Would you like a glass of red?”

She would, and she stayed in the bath for a long while with her glass, which he refilled two or three times. He sat on the lid of the toilet listening to her story, and despite all the ominous news there was something of a reconciliation about their conversation, as if they were steadily breaking through a wall they had lately been building up between them.

“I know you thought I was being a fool right from the start,” she said. “No, don’t argue, I know you too well. But you have to understand that Christer, Malin and I could see no other solution. We had recruited Emil and Sofie, and we were so proud of that. They were just about the hottest reporters around, weren’t they? It was incredibly prestigious for us. It showed that Millennium was on the move and there was a great buzz, with really positive coverage in Resumé and Dagens Media . It was like the good old days, and personally I felt strongly about the fact that I had promised both Sofie and Emil a secure future at the magazine. ‘Our finances are stable,’ I said. ‘We have Harriet Vanger behind us. We’re going to have the money for fantastic, in-depth reporting.’ You know, I really believed it too. But then...”

“Then the sky fell in.”

“Exactly, and it wasn’t just the newspaper crisis, or the collapse of the advertising market. There was also that whole situation at the Vanger Group. I’m not sure you realize what a mess it was. Sometimes I see it almost as a political coup. All those reactionary old men in the family, and women too for that matter — well, you know them better than anyone. The old racists and regressives got together and stabbed Harriet in the back. I’ll never forget that call from her. I’ve been rolled over, she said. Crushed. Of course it was her efforts to revive and modernize the group which had annoyed them, and then her decision to appoint David Goldman to the board, the son of Rabbi Viktor Goldman. But we were also part of the picture, as you know; Andrei had just written his report on beggars in Stockholm, which we all thought was the best thing he’d ever done, and which was quoted everywhere, even abroad. But which the Vanger people—”

“Thought was lefty rubbish.”

“Worse than that, Mikael — propaganda for ‘lazy buggers who can’t even be bothered to get themselves a job’.”

“Is that what they said?”

“Something along those lines. My guess is that the story itself was irrelevant, it was just their excuse, a pretext for further undermining Harriet’s role within the group. They wanted to put a stop to everything that Henrik and Harriet had stood for.”

“Idiots.”

“My God, yes, but that didn’t exactly help us. I remember those days. It was as if the rug had been pulled from under our feet, and I know, I know — I should have involved you more. But I thought that we’d all benefit if we left you to concentrate on your stories.”

“And still I didn’t deliver anything decent.”

“You tried, Mikael, you really tried. But what I’m coming to is that it was then, when it seemed as if we’d hit rock bottom, that Levin rang.”

“Someone had presumably tipped him off about what had happened.”

“Without a doubt, and I don’t even need to tell you that I was sceptical at first. Serner felt like the trashiest sort of tabloid. But Levin gave it the works, with his usual torrent of words, and invited me down to his big new villa in Cannes.”

“What?”

“Yes, I’m sorry, I didn’t tell you that either. I suppose I felt ashamed. But I was going down to the film festival in any case, to do a profile on the Iranian film director. You know, the one being persecuted because she made the documentary about nineteen-year-old Sara, who had been stoned, and I didn’t think it would do any harm if Serner helped us with the travel costs. In any event, Levin and I sat up all night and talked and I remained sceptical. He was absurdly boastful and came on with all this sales talk. But eventually I began to listen to him, and do you know why?”

“He was a fantastic lay?”

“Ha, no, it was his relationship to you.”

“Did he want to sleep with me, then?”

“He has boundless admiration for you.”

“Bullshit.”

“No, Mikael, that’s where you’re wrong. He loves his power and his money and his villa in Cannes. But more than that, it bugs him that he’s not as cool as you. If we’re talking cred, he’s poor and you’re stinking rich. Deep down he wants to be like you, I felt that right away, and, yes, I should have realized that that sort of envy can become dangerous. You do know what the campaign against you is all about, don’t you? Your uncompromising attitude makes people feel pathetic. Your very existence reminds them just how much they’ve sold out, and the more you’re acclaimed, the punier they themselves appear. When it’s like that, the only way they can fight back is by dragging you down. The bullshit gives them back a little bit of dignity — at least that’s what they imagine.”

“Thanks, Erika, but I really couldn’t care less about that campaign.”

“I know, at least I hope that’s right. But what I realized was that Levin really wanted to be in with us, and feel like one of us. He wanted some of our reputation to rub off on him and I thought that was a good incentive. If his ambition was to be cool like you, then it would be devastating for him to turn Millennium into a run-of-the-mill commercial Serner product. If he became known as the man who destroyed one of the most fabled magazines in Sweden, any cred he might still have would be scuppered for good. That’s why I really believed him when he said that both he and the group needed a prestigious magazine, and that he only wanted to help us produce the kind of journalism we believed in. Admittedly he did want to be involved in the magazine, but I put that down to vanity, that he wanted to be able to show off and say to his yuppie friends that he was our spin doctor or something. I never thought he would dare to have a go at the magazine’s soul.”