David Lagercrantz - The Girl in the Spider's Web

“And yet that’s precisely what he’s doing now.”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“And where does that leave your fancy psychological theory?”

“I underestimated the power of opportunism. As you saw, Levin and Serner’s behaviour was exemplary before this campaign against you got going, but since then...”

“He’s been taking advantage of it.”

“No, no, somebody else has. Somebody who wanted to get at him. I realized only later that Levin didn’t have an easy time persuading the others to support him in buying a stake in the magazine. As you might imagine, not everybody at Serner suffers from a journalistic inferiority complex. Most of them are just ordinary businessmen; they despise all talk of standing up for things that matter. They were irritated by what they described as Levin’s ‘fake idealism’, and in the campaign against you they saw an opportunity to put the squeeze on him.”

“Dear, oh dear.”

“You have no idea. At first it looked O.K. We were to adapt somewhat to the market, and, as you know, I thought some of that sounded pretty good. I have, after all, spent a fair amount of time wondering how we could reach a younger readership. I really thought that Levin and I were having a productive dialogue so I didn’t worry too much about his presentation today.”

“I noticed that.”

“But that was before all hell broke loose.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The uproar when you sabotaged his presentation.”

“I didn’t sabotage anything, Erika. I just left.”

Berger lay in the bath, took a sip of her wine and then she smiled a wistful smile.

“When will you learn that you’re Mikael Blomkvist?” she said.

“I thought I was beginning to get the hang of that.”

“Apparently not, because otherwise you’d have realized that when Mikael Blomkvist walks out in the middle of a presentation about his own magazine it’s a big deal, whether Mikael Blomkvist intends it to be or not.”

“In that case I apologize for my sabotage.”

“I’m not blaming you, not any more. Now I’m the one saying sorry, as you can see. I’m the one who’s put us in this position. It probably would have gone pear-shaped anyway, whether you’d walked out or not. They were just waiting for an excuse to take a swing at us.”

“What actually happened?”

“After you disappeared we all felt deflated, and Levin, whose self-esteem had taken yet another knock, no longer gave a damn about his presentation. ‘There’s no point,’ he said. He rang his boss to report back, and he probably laid it on a bit thick. I suspect that the envy on which I had been pinning my hopes had changed into something petty and spiteful. He was back again after an hour or so and said that the group was prepared to give Millennium its full backing and use all its channels to market the magazine.”

“You didn’t like the sound of that.”

“No, and I knew before he’d even said one word about it. You could tell by the look on his face. It radiated a mixture of fear and triumph and at first he couldn’t find the right words. He was mostly waffling and said that the group wanted to have more insight into the business, plus content aimed at a younger readership, plus more celebrity news. But then...”

Berger shut her eyes, drew her hand through her wet hair, then knocked back the last of her wine.

“Yes?”

“He said that he wanted you off the editorial team.”

“He what ?”

“Of course neither he nor the group could say it straight out, still less could they afford to get headlines like ‘Serner sacks Blomkvist’, so Ove put it neatly by saying that he wanted you to have a freer rein and be allowed to concentrate on what you’re best at: writing reportage. He suggested a strategic relocation to London and a generous stringer arrangement.”

“London?”

“He said that Sweden’s too small for a guy of your calibre, but you get what this is about.”

“They think they can’t push through their changes if I stay on the editorial team?”

“Something like that. Still, I don’t think any of them was surprised when Christer, Malin and I just said no, that it wasn’t even negotiable. Not to mention Andrei’s reaction.”

“What did he do?”

“I’m almost embarrassed to tell you. Andrei stood up and said that it was the most shameful thing he’d heard in his whole life. That you were one of the best things we had in this country, a source of pride for democracy and journalism, and that the whole Serner Group should hang their heads in shame. He said that you were a great man.”

“He does tend to exaggerate.”

“But he’s a good kid.”

“He really is. What did the Serner people do then?”

“Levin was prepared for it, of course. ‘You’re always welcome to buy us out,’ he said. ‘It’s just—’”

“That the price has gone up,” Blomkvist completed the sentence.

“Exactly. He claimed that whichever basis you use for valuing the business would show that any price for Serner’s interest should be at least double what it was when the group went in, given the additional value and goodwill they’ve created.”

“Goodwill! Have they gone mad?”

“Not at all, apparently, but they’re bright, and they want to mess us about. And I wonder if they’re not trying to kill two birds with one stone: pull off a good deal and get rid of a competitor by breaking us financially, all in one go.”

“What the hell should we do?”

“What we’re best at, Mikael: slug it out. I’ll take some of my own money and we’ll buy them out and fight to make this northern Europe’s best magazine.”

“Sure, Erika, but then what? We’ll end up with a lousy financial situation which even you won’t be able to do anything about.”

“I know, but it’ll be O.K. We’ve come through more difficult situations than this. You and I can waive our salaries for a while. We can manage, can’t we?”

“Everything has to end some time, Erika.”

“Don’t say that! Ever!”

“Not even if it’s true?”

“Especially not then.”

“Right.”

“Don’t you have anything in the pipeline?” she said. “Something, anything that will stun Sweden’s media?”

Blomkvist hid his face in his hands and for some reason he thought of Pernilla, his daughter. She had said that unlike him she was going to write “for real”, whatever it was that was not “real” about his writing.

“I don’t think so,” he said.

Berger smacked her hand hard on the bath water so that it splashed out onto his socks.

“Jesus, you must have something. There’s no-one in this country who gets as many tip-offs as you do.”

“Most of it’s junk,” he said. “But maybe... I was just in the process of checking something.”

Berger sat up in the tub.

“What?”

“No, it’s nothing,” he backtracked. “It’s just wishful thinking.”

“In a situation like this we have to think wishfully.”

“Yes, but it’s just a load of smoke and nothing you can prove.”

“Yet there’s something inside you that believes in it, isn’t there?”

“Maybe, but that’s because of one little detail which doesn’t have anything to do with the story itself.”