David Lagercrantz - The Girl in the Spider's Web

“I imagine you want to interview the boy in some way.”

“Not exactly,” Bublanski said, not quite so amiably. “I have to emphasize first of all that what I’m saying now must remain strictly between us. It’s a question of security.”

“Confidentiality is a given for us. We have no loose lips here,” Lindén said, in such a way as to imply that it was the opposite with the police.

“My only concern is for the boy’s safety,” Bublanski said sharply.

“So that’s your priority?”

“As a matter of fact, yes,” the policeman said with even greater severity. “And that is why nothing of what I’m about to tell you must be passed on in any way — least of all by email or by telephone. Can we sit somewhere private?”

Sonja Modig did not think much of the place. But then she was probably affected by the crying. Somewhere nearby a little girl was sobbing relentlessly. They were sitting in a room which smelled of detergent and also of something else, maybe a lingering trace of incense. A cross hung on the wall and there was a worn teddy bear lying on the floor. There was not much else to make the place cosy or attractive, and since Bublanski, usually so good-natured, was about to lose his temper, she took matters into her own hands and gave a calm, factual account of what had taken place.

“We are given to understand,” she said, “that your colleague, Einar Forsberg, said that August should not be allowed to draw.”

“That was his professional judgement and I agree with it. It doesn’t do the boy any good,” Lindén said.

“Well, I don’t see how anything could do him much good under these circumstances. He probably saw his father being killed.”

“But we don’t want to make things any worse, do we?”

“True. But the drawing August was not allowed to finish could lead to a breakthrough in the investigation and therefore I’m afraid we must insist. You can of course ensure there are people present with the necessary expertise.”

“I still have to say no.”

Modig could hardly believe her ears.

“With all due respect for your work,” Lindén went on doggedly, “here at Oden’s we help vulnerable children. That’s our job and our calling. We’re not an extension of the police force. That’s how it is, and we’re proud of it. For as long as the children are here, they should feel confident that we put their interests first.”

Modig laid a restraining hand on Bublanski’s thigh.

“We can easily get a court order,” she said, “but we’d prefer not to go that route.”

“Wise of you.”

“Let me ask you something,” she said. “Are you and Forsberg so absolutely sure what’s best for August, or for the girl crying over there, for that matter? Couldn’t it be instead that we all need to express ourselves? You and I can talk or write, or even go out and get a lawyer. August doesn’t have those means of communication. But he can draw, and he seems to want to tell us something. Shouldn’t we let him give form to something which must be tormenting him?”

“In our judgement—”

“No,” she cut him off. “Don’t tell us about your judgement. We’re in contact with the person who knows more than anyone else in this country about this particular condition. His name is Charles Edelman, he’s a professor of neurology and he’s on his way here from Hungary to meet the boy.”

“We can of course listen to him,” Lindén said reluctantly.

“Not just listen. We let him decide.”

“I promise to engage in a constructive dialogue, between experts.”

“Fine. What’s August doing now?”

“He’s sleeping. He was exhausted when he came to us.”

Modig could tell that nothing good would come of it were she to suggest that the boy be woken up.

“In that case we’ll come back tomorrow morning with Professor Edelman, and I am sure we will all be able to work together on this matter.”

Gabriella Grane buried her face in her hands. She had not been to bed for forty hours and she was racked by a deep sense of guilt, only made worse by the lack of sleep. Yet she had been working hard all day long. Since this morning she had been part of a team at Säpo — a sort of shadow unit — which was investigating in secret every detail of the Frans Balder murder, under cover of looking into broader domestic policy implications.

Superintendent Mårten Nielsen was formally leading the team and had recently returned from a year of study at the University of Maryland in the U.S. He was undoubtedly intelligent and well informed, but too right-wing for Grane’s tastes. It was rare to find a well-educated Swede who was also a wholehearted supporter of the American Republican Party — he even expressed some sympathy for the Tea Party movement. He was passionate about military history and lectured at the Military Academy. Although still young — thirty-nine — he was believed to have extensive international contacts.

He often had trouble, however, asserting himself in the group, and in practice the real leader was Ragnar Olofsson, who was older and cockier and could silence Nielsen with one peevish little sigh or a displeased wrinkle above his bushy eyebrows. Nor was Nielsen’s life made any easier by the fact that Detective Inspector Lars Åke Grankvist was also on the team.

Before joining the Security Service, Grankvist had been a semi-legendary investigator in the Swedish police’s National Murder Squad, at least in the sense that he was said to be able to drink anybody else under the table and to manage, with a sort of boisterous charm, to keep a lover in every town. It was not an easy team in which to hold one’s own, and Grane kept an ever lower profile as the afternoon wore on. But this was due less to the men and their macho rivalry than to a growing sense of uncertainty.

Sometimes she wondered if she knew even less now than before. She realized, for example, that there was little or no proof to support the theory of the suspected data breach. All they had was a statement from Stefan Molde at the N.D.R.E., and not even he had been sure of what he was saying. In her view his analysis was more or less rubbish. Balder seemed to have relied primarily on the female hacker he had turned to for help, the woman not even named in the investigation, but whom his assistant, Linus Brandell, had described in such vivid terms. It was likely that Balder had been withholding a lot from Grane before he left for America.

For example, was it a coincidence that he had found a job at Solifon?

The uncertainty gnawed at her and she was indignant that no help was coming from Fort Meade. She could not get hold of Alona Casales, and the N.S.A. was once again a closed door, and so she in turn was no longer passing on any news. Just like Nielsen and Grankvist, she found herself overshadowed by Olofsson. He kept getting information from his source at the Violent Crimes Division and immediately passing it on to Helena Kraft.

Grane did not like it, and in vain she had pointed out that this traffic not only increased the risk of a leak but also seemed to be costing them their independence. Instead of searching their own channels, they were all too slavishly relying on the information which flowed in from Bublanski’s team.

“We’re like people cheating in an exam, waiting for someone to whisper the answer instead of thinking for ourselves,” she had said to the whole team, and this had not made her popular.