David Lagercrantz - The Girl in the Spider's Web

Blomkvist’s fervour inspired him to bear witness to a world which was bleeding with injustice, intolerance and petty corruption. He started to imagine himself writing articles critical of society instead of tear-jerking romances. Not long after that he knocked on Millennium ’s door and asked if there was anything they would let him do — make coffee, proofread, run errands. Berger, who had seen the fire in his eyes right from the start, assigned him some minor editorial tasks: public notices, research and brief portraits. But most of all she told him to study, and he did so with the same energy he put into everything else. He read political science, mass-media communications, finance and international conflict resolution, and at the same time he helped out on temporary assignments at Millennium .

He wanted to become a heavyweight investigative journalist, like Blomkvist. But unlike so many other investigative journalists he was no tough guy. He remained a romantic. Blomkvist and Berger had both spent time trying to sort out his relationship problems. He was too open and transparent. Too good, as Blomkvist would often say.

But Berger believed that Zander was in the process of shedding that youthful vulnerability. She had been seeing the change in his journalism. That ferocious ambition to reach out and touch people, which had made his writing heavy-handed at first, had been replaced by a more effective, matter-of-fact style. She knew he would pull out all the stops now that he had been given the chance to help Blomkvist with the Balder story. The plan was for Blomkvist to write the big, central narrative, and for Zander to help with the research as well as writing some explanatory sidebars. Berger thought they made a great team.

After parking on Hökens gata she walked into the offices and found Blomkvist and Zander sitting there, deep in concentration, just as she expected. Every now and then, however, Blomkvist muttered to himself and she saw that magnificent sense of purpose in his eyes, but there was also suffering. He had hardly slept all night. The media campaign against him had not let up and in his police interviews he had had to do the very thing the press accused him of — withhold information. Blomkvist did not like it one atom.

He was in many ways a model, law-abiding citizen. But if there was anyone who could get him to cross the line, it was Lisbeth Salander. Blomkvist would rather dishonour himself than betray her, which is why he kept repeating to the police: “I assert my right to protect my sources.” No wonder he was unhappy and worried about the consequences. But, like Berger, he had far greater fears for Salander and the boy than for their own situation.

“How’s it going?” she asked, after watching him for a while.

“What?... Well... O.K. How was it out there?”

“I made up the beds and put food in the fridge.”

“Good. And the neighbours didn’t see you?”

“There wasn’t a soul there.”

“Why are they taking so long?” he said.

“I just don’t know, but I’m worried sick.”

“Let’s hope they’re resting at Lisbeth’s.”

“Let’s hope so. What else did you find out?”

“Quite a bit. But...” Blomkvist trailed off.

“Yes?’

“It’s just that... it feels as if I’m being thrown back in time, going back to places I’ve been to before.”

“You’ll have to explain better,” she said.

“I will...” Blomkvist glanced at his computer screen. “But first I have to keep on digging. Let’s speak later,” he said, and so she left him and got her things to drive home, although she would be ready to stay with him at a second’s notice.

The night turned out to be calm, alarmingly calm, and at 8.00 in the morning a brooding Bublanski stood facing his team in the meeting room. Having kicked out Faste, he felt reasonably sure that he could talk freely again. At least he felt safer in here with his colleagues than at his computer, or on his mobile.

“You all appreciate how serious the situation is,” he said. “Confidential information has been leaked. One person is dead as a result. A small boy’s life is in danger. In spite of immense efforts we still don’t know how this happened. The leak could have been at our end, or at Säpo, or at Oden’s Medical Centre, or in the group around Professor Edelman, or from the boy’s mother and her partner, Lasse Westman. We know nothing for certain, and therefore we have to be extremely circumspect, paranoid even.”

“We may also have been hacked or phonetapped,” Modig said. “We seem to be dealing with criminals whose command of new technologies is far beyond anything we’ve seen before.”

“Very true,” Bublanski said. “We need to take precautions at every level, not say anything significant relating to this investigation — or to any other — over the telephone, no matter how highly our superiors rate our new mobile-phone system.”

“They think it’s great because it cost so much to install,” Holmberg said.

“Maybe we should also be reflecting a little on our own role,” Bublanski said, ignoring him. “I was just talking to a gifted young analyst at Säpo, Gabriella Grane — you may have heard of her. She pointed out that the concept of loyalty is not as straightforward as one might think for us policemen. We have many different loyalties, don’t we? There’s the obvious one, to the law. There’s a loyalty to the public, and to one’s colleagues, but also to our bosses, and to ourselves and our careers. Sometimes, as all of you know, these interests end up competing with each other. We might choose to protect a colleague at work and thereby fail in our duty to the public, or we might be given orders from higher up, as Hans Faste was, and then that conflicts with the loyalty he should have had to us. But from now on — and I’m deadly serious — there’s only one loyalty I want to hear of, and that is to the investigation itself. We’re going to catch the murderers and we’re going to make sure that no-one else falls victim to them. Agreed? Even if the prime minister himself or the head of the C.I.A. calls and goes on about patriotism and major career opportunities, you still won’t utter a peep, will you?”

“No,” they said, as one.

“Excellent. As we all know, the person who intervened on Sveavägen was none other than Lisbeth Salander, and we’re doing everything in our power to find out where she is.”

“Which is why we’ve got to release her name to the media!” Svensson called out, somewhat heatedly. “We need help from the public.”

“We don’t all agree on this, so I’d like to raise the question again. Let’s remember that in the past Lisbeth Salander has had some very shabby treatment, from us and from the media...”

“At this point that doesn’t matter,” Svensson said.

“And it’s conceivable that people recognized her on Sveavägen and her name will come out at any moment anyway, in which case this would no longer be an issue. But before that happens, bear in mind that she saved the boy’s life.”

“No doubt about that,” Svensson said. “But then she more or less kidnapped him.”

“Our information suggests that she was determined to protect the boy at all costs,” Modig said. “Salander’s experience of public institutions has been anything but positive — her entire childhood was marred by the injustices inflicted on her by Swedish officialdom. If she suspects, as we do, that there’s a leak inside the police force, then there’s no chance she’s going to contact us. Fact.”