David Lagercrantz - The Girl in the Spider's Web

“What?’

“The girls’ bedroom was quite small. However hard they tried to get away from each other, the beds were still close and, while the abuse went on, each one usually sat on her own mattress, facing the other. They hardly ever said anything, and usually avoided eye contact. On this day Lisbeth was staring through the window at Lundagatan — that’s probably why she talked about the sunlight and the children out there. But then she looked at her sister, and that’s when she saw it.”

“She saw what?”

“Camilla’s right hand, beating against her mattress. It could have been a sign of nervous or compulsive behaviour. That’s what Lisbeth thought at first. But then she noticed that the hand was beating in time to the blows from the bedroom, and at that she looked up at Camilla’s face. Her sister’s eyes were glowing with excitement, and the eeriest thing was: Camilla looked just like Zala himself and she was smiling. She was suppressing a smirk, and in that instant Lisbeth realized that Camilla was not only trying to ingratiate herself with her father. She was also right behind his violence. She was cheering him on.”

“That’s sick.”

“But that’s how it was. Do you know what Lisbeth did? She remained perfectly calm. She sat down next to Camilla and took her hand almost tenderly. Perhaps Camilla thought her sister was looking for some comfort or closeness. Stranger things have happened. Then Lisbeth rolled up her sister’s shirt sleeve and dug her fingernails into Camilla’s wrist — down to the bone — gouging open a terrible wound. Blood streamed onto the bed. Lisbeth dragged Camilla to the floor and swore she would kill both her and her father if the beatings and the rapes did not stop.”

“Jesus!”

“You can imagine the hatred between the sisters. Both Agneta and the social services were so worried that something even more serious would happen that they were kept apart. For a while they arranged a home elsewhere for Camilla. But sooner or later they would have clashed again. In the end, as you know, things did not turn out like that. I believe the sisters only saw each other once after Lisbeth was locked up — several years later, when a disaster was narrowly averted — but I know none of the details. I haven’t heard anything of Camilla for a long time now. The last people to have had contact with her are the foster family with whom she lived in Uppsala, people called Dahlgren. I can get you the number. But ever since Camilla was eighteen or nineteen and she packed a bag and left the country she hasn’t been heard from. That’s why I was astonished when you said that you had met her. Not even Lisbeth, with her famous ability to track people down, has been able to find her.”

“So she has tried?”

“Oh yes. As far as I know, the last time was when her father’s estate was to be apportioned.”

“I had no idea.”

“Lisbeth mentioned it in passing. She didn’t want a single penny from that will — to her it was blood money — but she could tell that there was something strange about it. There were assets of four million kronor: the farm in Gosseberga, some securities and also a run-down industrial site in Norrtälje, a cottage somewhere, and various other bits and pieces. Not insignificant by any means, and yet...”

“He should have been worth much more.”

“Yes, Lisbeth was aware that he ran a vast criminal empire. Four million would have been small change in that context.”

“So you’re saying that she may have wondered if Camilla inherited the lion’s share.”

“I think that’s what she’s been trying to find out. The mere thought that her father’s fortune was going on to do harm after his death was torture to her. But she got nowhere.”

“Camilla had obviously concealed her new identity well.”

“I assume so.”

“Do you have any reason to think Camilla might have taken over her father’s trafficking business?”

“Maybe, maybe not. She may have struck out into something altogether different.”

“Such as?”

Palmgren closed his eyes and took a long sip of his brandy.

“I can’t be sure of this, Mikael. But when you told me about Professor Balder, I had a thought. Do you have any idea why Lisbeth is so good with computers? Do you know how it all started?”

“I have no idea.”

“Then I’ll tell you. I wonder if the key to your story doesn’t lie there.”

When Salander came in from the terrace and saw August huddled in a stiff and unnatural position by the round table, she realized that the boy reminded her of herself as a child.

That is exactly how she had felt at Lundagatan, until one day it became clear to her that she had to grow up far too soon, to take revenge on her father. It was a burden no child should have to bear. But it had at least been the beginning of a real life, a more dignified life. No bastard should be allowed to do what Zalachenko had done with impunity. She went to August and said solemnly, as if giving an important order, “You’re going to go to bed now. When you wake up I want you to do the drawing that will nail your father’s killer. Do you get that?” The boy nodded and shuffled into his bedroom while Salander opened her laptop and started to look for information about Lasse Westman and his circle of friends.

“I don’t think Zalachenko himself was much use with computers,” Palmgren said. “He wasn’t of that generation. But perhaps his dirty business grew to such a scale that he had to use a computer program to keep his accounts, and to keep them away from his accomplices. One day he came to Lundagatan with an I.B.M. machine which he installed on the desk next to the window. Nobody in the family had seen a computer before. Zalachenko promised that if anyone so much as touched the machine he would flay them alive. For all I know that was telling, from a purely psychological point of view. It increased the temptation.”

“Forbidden fruit.”

“Lisbeth was around eleven at the time. It was before she tore into Camilla’s right arm, and before she went for her father with knives and petrol bombs. You could say it was just before she became the Lisbeth we know today. She lacked stimulation. She had no friends to speak of, partly because Camilla had made sure that nobody came anywhere near her at school, but partly because she really was different. I don’t know if she realized it herself yet. Her teachers and those around her didn’t. But she was an extremely gifted child. Her talent alone set her apart. School was deadly boring for her. Everything was obvious and easy. She needed only to take a quick look at things to understand them, and during lessons she sat there daydreaming. I do believe, however, that by then she had managed to find some things in her free time which interested her — advanced maths books, that sort of thing. But basically she was bored stiff. She spent a lot of time reading her Marvel comics, which were way below her intellectual level but possibly fulfilled another, therapeutic function.”

“In what sense?”

“To be honest I’m reluctant to try to play the shrink with Lisbeth. She would hate it if she could hear me. But those comics are full of superheroes fighting against supervillains, taking matters into their own hands to exact revenge and see to it that justice is done. For all I know, that may have been the perfect sort of reading material. Perhaps those stories, with their black-and-white view of the world, helped her to gain some clarity.”

“You mean that she understood she had to grow up and become a superhero herself.”