David Lagercrantz - The Girl in the Spider's Web

Rebecka Mattson did not look like your typical Millennium reader. But there was no reason to be prejudiced, even against rich expatriate Swedes.

“Do you work there?” he said.

“I’m a widow.”

“I see.”

“Sometimes I get so bored. Were you going somewhere?”

“I was thinking of having a drink and a bite to eat,” he said, at once regretting his reply. It was too inviting, too predictable. But it was at least true.

“May I keep you company?” she asked.

“That would be nice,” he said, sounding unsure. Then she touched his hand — unintentionally, at least that is what he wanted to believe. She still seemed bashful. They walked slowly up Hornsgatspuckeln, past a row of galleries.

“How nice to be strolling here with you,” she said.

“It’s a bit unexpected.”

“So true. It’s not what I was thinking when I woke up this morning.”

“What were you thinking?”

“That the day would be as dreary as ever.”

“I don’t know if I’ll be such good company,” he said. “I’m pretty much immersed in a story.”

“Are you working too hard?”

“Maybe so.”

“Then you need a little break,” she said, giving him a bewitching smile, filled with longing or some sort of promise. At that moment he thought she seemed familiar, as if he had seen that smile before, but in another form, distorted somehow.

“Have we met before?” he said.

“I don’t think so. Except that I’ve seen you a thousand times in pictures, and on T.V.”

“So you’ve never lived in Stockholm?”

“When I was a little girl.”

“Where did you live then?”

She pointed vaguely up Hornsgatan.

“Those were good times,” she said. “Our father took care of us. I often think about him. I miss him.”

“Is he no longer alive?”

“He died much too young.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Thank you. Where are we headed?”

“Well,” he said, “there’s a pub just up Bellmansgatan, the Bishops Arms. I know the owner. It’s quite a nice place.”

“I’m sure...”

Once again she had that diffident, shy look on her face, and once again her hand happened to brush against his fingers — this time he wasn’t so sure it was accidental.

“Perhaps it isn’t fancy enough?”

“Oh, I’m sure it’s fine,” she said apologetically. “It’s just that people tend to stare at me. I’ve come across so many bastards in pubs.”

“I can believe that.”

“Wouldn’t you...?”

“What?”

She looked down at the ground again and blushed. At first he thought he was seeing things. Surely adults don’t blush like that? But Rebecka Mattson from Switzerland, who looked like seven million dollars, went red like a little schoolgirl.

“Wouldn’t you like to invite me to your place instead, for a glass of wine or two?” she said. “That would be nicer.”

“Well...” He hesitated.

He badly needed to sleep, to be in good shape for tomorrow. Yet he said:

“Of course. I’ve got a bottle of Barolo in the wine rack,” and for a second he thought something exciting might be about to happen after all, as if he were about to embark on an adventure.

But his uncertainty would not abate. At first he could not understand why. He did not normally have a problem with this kind of situation — he had more success than most when it came to women flirting with him. This particular encounter had developed very quickly, but he was not unused to that either. So it was something about the woman herself, wasn’t it?

Not only was she young and exceptionally beautiful and should have had better things to do than chase after burned-out, middle-aged journalists. It was something in her expression, and in the way she switched between bold and shy, and the physical contact. Everything he had at first found spontaneous increasingly seemed to him to be affected.

“How lovely, and I won’t stay long. I don’t want to spoil your story,” she said.

“I’ll take full responsibility for any spoiled stories,” he said, and tried to smile back.

It was a forced smile and in that instant he caught a strange twitch in her eyes, a sudden icy chill which in a second turned into its very opposite, full of affection and warmth, like an acting exercise. He became more convinced that there was something wrong. But he had no idea what, and did not want his suspicions to show, at least not yet. What was going on? He wanted to understand.

They continued on up Bellmansgatan — not that he was thinking of taking her back to his place any longer, but he needed time to figure her out. He looked at her again. She really was gorgeous. Yet it occurred to him that it was not her beauty which had first captivated him. It was something else, something more elusive. Just then he saw Rebecka Mattson as a riddle to which he ought to have the answer.

“A nice part of town, this,” she said.

“It’s not bad.” He looked up towards the Bishops Arms.

Diagonally across from the pub, just a bit higher up by the crossroads with Tavastgatan, a scrawny, lanky man in a black cap was standing under a streetlight studying a map. A tourist. He had a brown suitcase in his other hand and white sneakers and a black leather jacket with its fur collar turned up, and under normal circumstances Blomkvist would not have given him a second glance.

But now he observed that the man’s movements were nervous and unnatural. Perhaps Blomkvist was suspicious to begin with, but the distracted way he was handling the map seemed more and more contrived. Now he raised his head and stared straight at Blomkvist and the woman, studying them for a brief second. Then he looked down at his map again, seeming ill at ease, almost trying to hide his face under the cap. The bowed, almost timid head reminded Blomkvist of something, and again he looked into his companion’s dark eyes.

His look was persistent and intense. She gazed at him with affection, but he did not reciprocate; instead he scrutinized her. Then her expression froze. Only in that moment did Blomkvist smile.

He smiled because suddenly the penny had dropped.

Salander got up from the table. She did not want to pester August any longer. The boy was under enough pressure as it was and her idea had been crazy from the start.

One always expects too much of these poor savants, and what August had done was already impressive. She went out onto the terrace again and gingerly felt the area around the bullet wound, which was still aching. She heard a sound behind her, a hasty scratching on paper, so she turned and went back inside. When she saw what August had written, she smiled:

She sat down and said, without looking at him this time, “O.K.! I’m impressed. But let’s make this a little harder. Have a go at 18,206,927.”

August was hunched over the table and Salander thought it might have been unkind to throw an eight-digit figure at him right away. But if they were to stand any chance of getting what she needed they would need to go much higher than that. She was not surprised to see August begin to sway nervously back and forth. But after a few seconds he leaned forward and wrote on his paper: 9419 × 1933.