David Lagercrantz - The Girl in the Spider's Web

Cautiously he looked her in the eye, and now she no longer seemed like a stroppy and somewhat insecure nobody. Now she seemed cold — like a predator eyeing its prey. He felt deeply ill at ease, as if the defeat on the chessboard were but a prelude to something much, much worse. He glanced towards the door.

“You’re not going anywhere,” she said.

“Who are you?” he said.

“Nobody special.”

“So we haven’t met before?”

“Not exactly.”

“But nearly, is that it?”

“We’ve met in your nightmares, Arvid.”

“Is this some kind of joke?”

“Not really.”

“What do you mean?”

“What do you think I mean?”

“How should I know?”

He could not understand why he was so scared.

“Frans Balder was murdered last night,” she said in a monotone.

“Well... yes... I read that,” he stammered.

“Terrible, isn’t it?”

“Awful.”

“Especially for you, right?”

“Why especially for me?”

“Because you betrayed him, Arvid. Because you gave him the kiss of Judas.”

His body froze. “That’s bullshit,” he spat out.

“As a matter of fact it’s not. I hacked your computer, cracked your encryption and saw very clearly that you sold on his technology to Solifon. And you know what?”

He was finding it hard to breathe.

“I’m sure you woke up this morning and wondered if his death was your fault. I can help you there: it was your fault. If you hadn’t been so greedy and bitter and pathetic, Frans Balder would be alive now. I should warn you that’s making me pretty fucking angry, Arvid. I’m going to hurt you badly. First of all by making you suffer the same sort of treatment you inflict on the women you find online.”

“Are you insane?”

“Probably, yes,” she said. “Empathy-deficit disorder. Excessive violence. Something along those lines.”

She gripped his hand with a force which scared him out of his wits.

“Arvid, do you know what I’m doing right now? Do you know why I seem a bit distracted?”

“No.”

“I’m sitting here trying to decide what to do with you. I’m thinking in terms of suffering of biblical proportions. That’s why I’m a bit distracted.”

“What do you want?”

“I want revenge — haven’t I made that clear?”

“You’re talking crap.”

“Definitely not, and I think you know it too. But there is a way out.”

“What do I have to do?”

He could not understand why he said it. What do I have to do? It was an admission, a capitulation, and he considered taking it back, putting pressure on her instead, to see if she had any proof or if she was bluffing. But he could not bring himself to do it. Only later did he realize that it was not just the threats she tossed out or the uncanny strength of her hands.

It was the game of chess, the queen sacrifice. He was in shock, and something in his subconscious told him that a woman who plays like that must also know his secrets.

“What do I have to do?” he said again.

“You’re going to follow me out of here and you’re going to tell me everything, Arvid. You’re going to tell me exactly what happened when you sold out Frans Balder.”

“It’s a miracle,” Bublanski said as he stood in the kitchen in Hanna Balder’s home looking at the crumpled drawing which Blomkvist had plucked out of the rubbish.

“Let’s not exaggerate,” said Modig, who was standing right next to him. She was right. It was not much more than some chess squares on a piece of paper, after all, and as Mikael Blomkvist had pointed out over the telephone there was something strangely mathematical about the work, as if the boy were more interested in the geometry than in the threatening shadow above. But Bublanski was excited all the same. He had been told over and over how mentally impaired the Balder boy was, how little he would be able to help them. Now the boy had produced a drawing which gave Bublanski more hope than anything else in the investigation. It strengthened his long-held conviction that one must never underestimate anyone or cling to preconceived ideas.

They had no way of being sure that what August was illustrating here was the moment of the murder. The shadow could, at least in theory, be associated with some other occasion, and there was no guarantee that the boy had seen the killer’s face or that he would be able to draw it. And yet deep down that was what Bublanski believed. Not just because the drawing, even in its present state, was masterful. He had studied the other drawings too, in which you could see, beyond the street crossing and the traffic light, a shabby man with thin lips who had been caught red-handed jaywalking, if you looked at it purely from a law-enforcement point of view. He was crossing the street on a red, and Amanda Flod, another officer on the team, had recognized him straight away as the out-of-work actor Roger Winter, who had convictions for drink-driving and assault.

The photographic precision of August’s eye ought to be a dream for any murder investigator. But Bublanski did realize that it would be unprofessional to set his hopes too high. Maybe the murderer had been masked at the time of the killing or his face had already faded from the child’s memory. There were many possible scenarios and Bublanski cast a glum look in the direction of Modig.

“Maybe this is just wishful thinking on my part,” he said.

“For a man who’s beginning to doubt the existence of God, you seem to have no problem hoping for miracles.”

“Well, maybe.”

“But it’s worth getting to the bottom of. I agree with that,” Modig said.

“Good, in that case let’s see the boy.”

Bublanski went out of the kitchen and nodded at Hanna Balder, who was sunk in the living-room sofa, fumbling with some tablets.

Lisbeth Salander and Arvid Wrange came out into Vasaparken arm in arm, like a pair of old friends out for a stroll. Appearances can be deceptive: Wrange was terrified as Salander steered them towards a park bench. The wind was getting up again and the temperature creeping down — it was hardly a day for feeding the pigeons — and Wrange was cold. But Salander decided that the bench would do and forced him to sit down, holding his arm in a vice-like grip.

“Right,” she said. “Let’s make this quick.”

“Will you keep my name out of it?”

“I’m promising nothing, Arvid. But your chances of being able to go back to your miserable life will increase significantly if you tell me every detail of what happened.”

“O.K.,” he said. “Do you know Darknet?”

“I know it,” she said.

No-one knew Darknet like Lisbeth Salander. Darknet was the lawless undergrowth of the Internet. The only way to access it was with especially encrypted software, and the user’s anonymity was guaranteed. No-one could Google your details or trace your activity on the web. So Darknet was full of drug dealers, terrorists, con men, gangsters, illegal arms dealers, pimps and black hats. If there was an Internet hell, then this was it.

But Darknet was not in itself evil. Salander understood that better than anyone. These days, when spy agencies and the big software companies follow every step we take online, even honest people can need a hiding place. Darknet was also a hub for dissidents, whistle-blowers and informants. Opposition forces could protest on Darknet out of reach of their government, and Salander had used it for her own more discreet investigations and attacks. She knew its sites and search engines and its old-fashioned workings far away from the known, visible net.