CHAPTER 14
Wednesday, May 18

Figuerola got up at 5:00 on Wednesday morning and went for an unusually short run before she showered and dressed in black jeans, a white top, and a lightweight grey linen jacket. She made coffee, poured it into a thermos, and then made sandwiches. She also strapped on a shoulder holster and took her Sig Sauer from the gun cabinet. Just after 6:00 she drove her white Saab 9–5 to Vittangigatan in Vällingby.

Mårtensson’s apartment was on the top floor of a three-storey building in the suburbs. The day before, she had assembled everything that could be found out about him in the public archives. He was unmarried, but that did not mean that he wasn’t living with someone. He had no black marks in police records, and no great fortune, and he did not seem to lead a fast life. He very seldom called in sick.

The one conspicuous thing about him was that he had licences for no fewer than sixteen weapons. Three of them were hunting rifles; the others were handguns of various types. As long as he had a licence, of course, there was no crime, but Figuerola harboured a deep scepticism about anyone who collected weapons on such a scale.

The Volvo with the registration beginning KAB was in the parking lot about thirty yards from where Figuerola herself parked. She poured black coffee into a paper cup and ate a lettuce and cheese baguette. Then she peeled an orange and sucked each segment to extinction.

At morning rounds, Salander was out of sorts and had a bad headache. She asked for a Tylenol, which she was immediately given.

After an hour the headache had grown worse. She rang for the nurse and asked for another Tylenol. That didn’t help either. By lunchtime she had such a headache that the nurse called Dr. Endrin, who examined her patient briskly and prescribed a powerful painkiller.

Salander held the tablets under her tongue and spat them out as soon as she was alone.

At 2:00 in the afternoon she threw up. This recurred at around 3:00.

At 4:00 Jonasson came up to the ward just as Dr. Endrin was about to go home. They conferred briefly.

“She feels sick and she has a strong headache. I gave her Dexofen. I don’t understand what’s going on with her. She’s been doing so well lately. It might be some sort of flu . . .”

“Does she have a fever?” asked Jonasson.

“No. She had 98.6 an hour ago.”

“I’m going to keep an eye on her overnight.”

“I’ll be going on vacation for three weeks,” Endrin said. “Either you or Svantesson will have to take over her case. But Svantesson hasn’t had much to do with her. . . .”

“I’ll arrange to be her primary care doctor while you’re on vacation.”

“Good. If there’s a crisis and you need help, do call.”

They paid a short visit to Salander’s sickbed. She was lying with the sheet pulled up to the tip of her nose, and she looked miserable. Jonasson put his hand on her forehead and felt that it was damp.

“I think we’ll have to do a quick examination.”

He thanked Dr. Endrin, and she left.

At 5:00 Jonasson discovered that Salander had developed a temperature of 100, which was noted on her chart. He visited her three times that evening and noted that her temperature had remained at 100—too high, certainly, but not so high as to present a real problem. At 8:00 he ordered a cranial X-ray.

When the X-rays came through he studied them intently. He could not see anything remarkable, but he did observe that there was a barely visible darker area immediately adjacent to the bullet hole. He wrote a carefully worded and noncommittal comment on her chart: Radiological examination gives a basis for definitive conclusions, but the condition of the patient has deteriorated steadily during the day. It cannot be ruled out that there is a minor bleed that is not visible on the images. The patient should be confined to bedrest and kept under strict observation until further notice.

Berger had received twenty-three emails by the time she arrived at SMP at 6:30 on Wednesday morning.

One of them had the address <editorial-sr@swedishradio.com>. The text was short. A single word.

She raised her index finger to delete the message. At the last moment she changed her mind. She went back to her in-box and opened the message that had arrived two days before. The sender was <centraled@smpost.se>. So . . . two emails with the word whore and a phoney sender from the world of mass media. She created a new folder called [Mediafool] and saved both messages. Then she got busy on the morning memo.

Mårtensson left home at 7:40 that morning. He got into his Volvo and drove towards the city but turned off to go across Stora Essingen and Gröndal into Södermalm. He drove down Hornsgatan and across to Bellmansgatan via Brännkyrkagatan. He turned left onto Tavastgatan at the Bishop’s Arms pub and parked at the corner.

Just as Figuerola reached the Bishop’s Arms, a van pulled out and left a parking space on Bellmansgatan at the corner with Tavastgatan. From her ideal location at the top of the hill she had an unobstructed view. She could just see the back window of Mårtensson’s Volvo. Straight ahead of her, on the steep slope down towards Pryssgränd, was Bellmansgatan 1. She was looking at the building from the side, so she could not see the front door itself, but as soon as anyone came out onto the street, she would see them. She had no doubt that this particular address was the reason for Mårtensson’s being there. It was Blomkvist’s building.

Figuerola could see that the area surrounding Bellmansgatan 1 would be a nightmare to keep under surveillance. The only spot from which the door to the building could be observed directly was from the promenade and footbridge on upper Bellmansgatan near the Maria lift and the Laurinska building. There was nowhere there to park a car, and the person doing the surveillance would stand exposed on the footbridge like a swallow perched on an old telephone wire in the country. The intersection of Bellmansgatan and Tavastgatan, where Figuerola had parked, was basically the only place where she could sit in her car and have a view of the whole. She had been incredibly lucky. Yet it was not a particularly good place because any alert observer would see her in her car. But she did not want to leave the car and start walking around the area. She was too easily noticeable. In her role as undercover officer her looks worked against her.

Blomkvist emerged at 9:10. Figuerola noted the time. She saw him look up at the footbridge on upper Bellmansgatan. He started up the hill straight towards her.

She opened her handbag and unfolded a map of Stockholm, which she placed on the passenger seat. Then she opened a notebook and took a pen from her jacket pocket. She pulled out her mobile and pretended to be talking, keeping her head bent so that the hand holding her phone hid part of her face.

She saw Blomkvist glance down Tavastgatan. He knew he was being watched and he must have seen Mårtensson’s Volvo, but he kept walking without showing any interest in the car. Acts calm and cool. Somebody should have opened the car door and scared the shit out of him.

The next moment he passed Figuerola’s car. She was obviously trying to find an address on the map while she talked on the phone, but she could sense Blomkvist looking at her as he passed. Suspicious of everything around him. She saw him in the side-view mirror on the passenger side as he went on down towards Hornsgatan. She had seen him on TV a couple of times, but this was the first time she had seen him in person. He was wearing blue jeans, a T-shirt, and a grey jacket. He carried a shoulder bag and he walked with a long, loose stride. A nice-looking man.

Mårtensson appeared at the corner by the Bishop’s Arms and watched Blomkvist go. He had a large sports bag over his shoulder and was just finishing a call on his mobile. Figuerola expected him to follow his quarry, but to her surprise he crossed the street right in front of her car and turned down the hill towards Blomkvist’s building. A second later a man in blue overalls passed her car and caught up with Mårtensson. Hello, where did you come from?

They stopped outside the door to Blomkvist’s building. Mårtensson punched in the code and they disappeared into the stairwell. They’re checking the apartment. Amateur night. What the hell does he think he’s doing?

Then Figuerola raised her eyes to the rear-view mirror and gave a start when she saw Blomkvist again. He was standing about ten yards behind her, close enough that he could keep an eye on Mårtensson and his buddy by looking over the crest of the steep hill down towards Bellmansgatan 1. She watched his face. He was not looking at her. But he had seen Mârtensson go in through the front door of his building. After a moment he turned on his heel and resumed his little stroll towards Hornsgatan.

Figuerola sat motionless for thirty seconds. He knows he’s being watched. He’s keeping track of what goes on around him. But why doesn’t he react? A normal person would react, and pretty strongly at that. . . . He must have something up his sleeve.

Blomkvist hung up and rested his gaze on the notebook on his desk. The national vehicle registry had just informed him that the car he had seen at the top of Bellmansgatan with the blonde woman inside was owned by Monica Figuerola, born in 1969, and living on Pontonjärgatan in Kungsholmen. Since it was a woman in the car, Blomkvist assumed it was Figuerola herself.

She had been talking on her mobile and looking at a map that was unfolded on the passenger seat. Blomkvist had no reason to believe that she had anything to do with the Zalachenko club, but he made a note of every deviation from the norm in his working day, and especially around his neighbourhood.

He called Karim in.

“Who is this woman, Lotta? Dig up her passport picture, where she works, and anything else you can find.”

Sellberg looked rather startled. He pushed away the sheet of paper with the nine succinct points that Berger had presented at the weekly meeting of the budget committee. Flodin looked similarly concerned. Borgsjö appeared neutral, as always.

“This is impossible,” Sellberg said with a polite smile.

“How so?” Berger said.

“The board will never go along with this. It defies all rhyme or reason.”

“Shall we take it from the top?” Berger said. “I was hired to make SMP profitable again. To do that I have to have something to work with, don’t you think?”

“Well, yes, but—”

“I can’t wave a magic wand and conjure up the contents of a daily newspaper by sitting in my glass cage and just wishing for things.”

“You don’t understand the hard economic facts.”

“That’s possible. But I understand making newspapers. And the reality is that over the past fifteen years, SMP’s personnel has been reduced by 118. Half were graphic artists and so on, replaced by new technology . . . but the number of reporters contributing to copy was reduced by 48 during that period.”

“Those were necessary cuts. If the staff hadn’t been cut, the paper would have folded long ago. At least Morander understood the necessity of the reductions.”

“Well, let’s wait and see what’s necessary and what isn’t. In three years, nineteen reporter jobs have disappeared. In addition, we now have a situation in which nine positions at SMP are vacant and are being to some extent covered by temps. The sports desk is dangerously understaffed. There should be nine employees there, and for more than a year two positions have remained unfilled.”

“It’s a question of saving money. It’s that simple.”

“The culture section has three unfilled positions. The business section has one. The legal desk does not even in practice exist; there we have a chief editor who borrows reporters from the news desk for each of his features. And so on. SMP hasn’t done any serious coverage of the civil service and government agencies for at least eight years. We depend for that on freelancers and the material from the TT wire service. And as you know, TT shut down its civil service desk some years ago. In other words, there isn’t a single news desk in Sweden covering the civil service and the government agencies.”

“The newspaper business is in a vulnerable position—”

“The reality is that SMP should either be shut down immediately, or the board should find a way to take an aggressive stance. Today we have fewer employees responsible for producing more copy every day. The articles they turn out are terrible, superficial, and they lack credibility. That’s why SMP is losing its readers.”

“You don’t understand the situation—”

“I’m tired of hearing that I don’t understand the situation. I’m not some temp who’s just here for the bus fare.”

“But your proposal is crazy.”

“Why is that?”

“You’re proposing that the newspaper should not be profitable.”

“Listen, Sellberg, this year you will be paying out a huge amount of money in dividends to the paper’s twenty-three stockholders. Add to this the unforgivably absurd bonuses that will cost SMP almost 10 million kronor for nine individuals who sit on SMP’s board. You’ve awarded yourself a bonus of 400,000 kronor for administering cutbacks. Of course, it’s a long way from being a bonus as huge as the ones that some of the directors of Skandia grabbed. But in my eyes you’re not worth a bonus of so much as one single öre. Bonuses should be paid to people who do something to strengthen SMP. The plain truth is that your cutbacks have weakened SMP and deepened the crisis we now find ourselves in.”

“That is grossly unfair. The board approved every measure I proposed.”

“Of course the board approved your measures, because you guaranteed a dividend each year. That’s what has to stop, and now.”

“So you’re suggesting in all seriousness that the board should decide to abolish dividends and bonuses. What makes you think the stockholders would agree to that?”

“I’m proposing a zero-profit operating budget this year. That would mean savings of almost twenty-one million kronor and the chance to beef up SMP’s staff and finances. I’m also proposing wage cuts for management. I’m being paid a monthly salary of 88,000 kronor, which is utter insanity for a newspaper that can’t add a job to its sports desk.”

“So you want to cut your own salary? Is this some sort of wage communism you’re advocating?”

“Don’t bullshit me. You make 112,000 kronor a month, if you add in your annual bonus. That’s crazy. If the newspaper were stable and bringing in a tremendous profit, then you could pay out as much as you wanted in bonuses. But this is no time for you to be increasing your own bonus. I propose cutting all management salaries by half.”

“What you don’t understand is that our stockholders bought stock in the paper because they want to make money. That’s called capitalism. If you arrange for them to lose money, then they won’t want to be stockholders any longer.”

“I’m not suggesting they should lose money, though it might come to that. Ownership implies responsibility. As you yourself pointed out, capitalism is what matters here. SMP’s owners want to make a profit. But it’s the market that decides whether you make a profit or take a loss. By your reasoning, you want the rules of capitalism to apply solely to the employees of SMP, while you and the stockholders will be exempt.”

Sellberg rolled his eyes and sighed. He cast an entreating glance at Borgsjö, but the CEO was intently studying Berger’s nine-point programme.

Figuerola waited for forty-nine minutes before Mårtensson and his companion in overalls came out of Bellmansgatan 1. As they started up the hill towards her, she very steadily raised her Nikon, with its 300mm telephoto lens, and took two pictures. She put the camera in the space under her seat and was just about to fiddle with her map when she happened to glance towards the Maria lift. Her eyes opened wide. At the end of upper Bellmansgatan, right next to the gate to the Maria lift, stood a dark-haired woman with a digital camera filming Mårtensson and his companion. What the hell? Is there some sort of spy convention on Bellmansgatan today?

The two men parted at the top of the hill without exchanging a word. Mårtensson went back to his car on Tavastgatan. He pulled away from the curb and disappeared from view.

Figuerola looked into her rear-view mirror, in which she could still see the back of the man in the blue overalls. She then saw that the woman with the camera had stopped filming and was heading past the Laurinska building in her direction.

Heads or tails? She already knew who Mårtensson was and what he was up to. The man in the blue overalls and the woman with the camera were unknown entities. But if she left her car, she risked being seen by the woman.

She sat still. In her rear-view mirror she saw the man in the blue overalls turn into Brännkyrkagatan. She waited until the woman reached the crossing in front of her, but instead of following the man in the overalls, the woman turned 180 degrees and went down the steep hill towards Bellmansgatan 1. Figuerola guessed that she was in her mid-thirties. She had short dark hair and was dressed in dark jeans and a black jacket. As soon as she was a little way down the hill, Figuerola pushed open her car door and ran towards Brännkyrkagatan. She could not see the blue overalls. The next second a Toyota van pulled away from the curb. Figuerola saw the man in half-profile and memorized the registration number. But if she got the registration wrong she would be able to trace him anyway. The sides of the van advertised LARS FAULSSON LOCK AND KEY SERVICE—with a phone number.

There was no need to follow the van. She walked calmly back to the top of the hill just in time to see the woman disappear through the door of Blomkvist’s building.

She got back into her car and wrote down both the registration and phone numbers for Lars Faulsson. There was a lot of mysterious traffic around Blomkvist’s address that morning. She looked up towards the roof of Bellmansgatan 1. She knew that Blomkvist’s apartment was on the top floor, but from the blueprints from the city construction office she knew that it was on the other side of the building, with dormer windows looking out on Gamla Stan and the waters of Riddarfjärden. An exclusive address in a fine old cultural quarter. She wondered whether he was an ostentatious nouveau riche.

Ten minutes later the woman with the camera came out of the building again. Instead of going back up the hill to Tavastgatan, she continued down the hill and turned right at the corner of Pryssgränd. Hmm. If she had a car parked down on Pryssgränd, Figuerola was out of luck. But if she was walking, there was only one way out of the dead end—up to Brännkyrkagatan via Pustegränd and towards Slussen.

Figuerola decided to leave her car behind and turned left in the direction of Slussen on Brännkyrkagatan. She had almost reached Pustegränd when the woman appeared, coming up towards her. Bingo. She followed her past the Hilton on Södermalmstorg and past the Stadsmuseum at Slussen. The woman walked quickly and purposefully, without once looking around. Figuerola gave her a lead of about thirty yards. When she went into Slussen tunnelbana Figuerola picked up her pace, but stopped when she saw the woman head for the Pressbyrân kiosk instead of through the turnstiles.

She watched the woman as she stood in line at the kiosk. She was about five foot seven and looked to be in pretty good shape. She was wearing running shoes. Seeing her with both feet planted firmly as she stood by the window of the kiosk, Figuerola suddenly had the feeling that she was a policewoman. She bought a tin of Catch Dry snuff and went back out onto Södermalmstorg and turned right across Katarinavägen.

Figuerola followed her. She was almost certain the woman had not seen her. The woman turned the corner at McDonald’s and Figuerola hurried after her, but when she got to the corner, the woman had vanished without a trace. Figuerola stopped short in consternation. Shit. She walked slowly past the entrances to the buildings. Then she caught sight of a brass plate that read MILTON SECURITY.

Figuerola walked back to Bellmansgatan.

She drove to Götgatan, where the offices of Millennium were, and spent the next half hour walking around the streets in the area. She did not see Mårtensson’s car. At lunchtime she returned to police headquarters in Kungsholmen and spent two hours thinking as she pumped iron in the gym.

“We have a problem,” Cortez said.

Eriksson and Blomkvist looked up from the manuscript of the book about the Zalachenko case. It was 1:30 in the afternoon.

“Take a seat,” Eriksson said.

“It’s about Vitavara Inc., the company that makes the 1,700 kronor toilets in Vietnam.”

“What’s the problem?” Blomkvist said.

“Vitavara Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Svea Construction Inc.”

“I see. That’s a very large firm.”

“Yes, it is. The chairman of the board is Magnus Borgsjö, a professional board member. He’s also the CEO of Svenska Morgon-Posten and owns about 10 percent of it.”

Blomkvist gave Cortez a sharp look. “Are you sure?”

“Yep. Berger’s boss is a fucking crook, a man who exploits child labour in Vietnam.”

Assistant Editor Fredriksson looked to be in a bad mood as he knocked on the door of Berger’s glass cage at 2:00 in the afternoon.

“What is it?”

“Well, this is a little embarrassing, but somebody in the newsroom got an email from you.”

“From me? So? What does it say?”

He handed her some printouts of emails addressed to Eva Carlsson, a twenty-six-year-old temp on the culture pages. According to the headers the sender was <erika.berger@smpost.se>:

And then two emails on the following days:

“All right,” Berger said. “And now she’s wondering if I really sent these to her, is that it?”

“Not exactly . . . I mean . . . geez.”

“Peter, please speak up.”

“She sort of halfway believed the first email, although she was surprised by it. But she realized this isn’t exactly your style and then . . .”

“Then?”

“Well, she thinks it’s embarrassing and doesn’t know what to do. Part of it is probably that she’s very impressed by you and likes you a lot . . . as a boss, I mean. So she came to me and asked for my advice.”

“And what did you tell her?”

“I said that someone had faked your address and is obviously harassing her. Or possibly both of you. I said I’d talk to you about it.”

“Thank you. Could you please ask her to come to my office in ten minutes?”

In the meantime Berger composed her own email.

She printed a copy of the email and then pressed Send so that the message went out to all employees in the company. At that moment, Eva Carlsson knocked on the door.

“Hello. Have a seat,” Berger said. “Peter told me that you got an email from me.”

“Well, I didn’t really think it came from you.”

“Thirty seconds ago you did get an email from me. I wrote it all by myself and sent it to everyone in the company.”

She handed Carlsson the printout.

“OK. I get it,” the girl said.

“I’m really sorry that somebody decided to target you for this ugly campaign.”

“You don’t have to apologize for the actions of some asshole.”

“I just want to make sure that you don’t have any lingering suspicions that I had anything to do with these emails.”

“I never believed you sent them.”

“Thanks,” Berger said with a smile.

Figuerola spent the afternoon gathering information. She started by ordering passport photographs of Faulsson. Then she ran a check in the criminal records and got a hit at once.

Lars Faulsson, forty-seven years old and known by the nickname Falun, had begun his criminal career stealing cars at seventeen. In the seventies and eighties he was arrested twice and charged with breaking and entering, burglary, and receiving stolen goods. The first time, he was given a light prison sentence; the second time, he got three years. At that time he was regarded as “up and coming” in criminal circles and had been questioned as a suspect in three other burglaries, one of which was a relatively complicated and widely reported safe-cracking heist at a department store in Västerås. When he got out of prison in 1984 he kept his nose clean—or at least he did not pull any jobs that got him arrested and convicted again. But he had retrained himself to be a locksmith (of all professions), and in 1987 he started his own company, Lars Faulsson Lock and Key Service, with an address near Norrtull in Stockholm.

Identifying the woman who had filmed Mårtensson and Faulsson proved to be easier than she had anticipated. She simply called Milton Security and explained that she was looking for a female employee she had met a while ago and whose name she had forgotten. She could give a good description of the woman. The switchboard told her that it sounded like Susanne Linder, and put her through. When Linder answered the phone, Figuerola apologized and said she must have dialled the wrong number.

The public registry listed eighteen Susanne Linders in Stockholm county, three of them around thirty-five years old. One lived in Norrtälje, one in Stockholm, and one in Nacka. She requisitioned their passport photographs and identified at once the woman she had followed from Bellmansgatan as the Susanne Linder who lived in Nacka.

She set out her day’s work in a memo and went in to see Edklinth.

Blomkvist closed Cortez’s research folder and pushed it away with distaste. Malm put down the printout of his article, which he had read four times. Cortez sat on the sofa in Eriksson’s office looking guilty.

“Coffee,” Eriksson said, getting up. She came back with four mugs and the coffeepot.

“This is a great sleazy story,” Blomkvist said. “First-class research. Documentation to the hilt. Perfect dramaturgy with a bad guy who swindles Swedish tenants through the system—which is legal—but who is so greedy and so fucking stupid that he outsources to this company in Vietnam.”

“Very well written too,” Malm said. “The day after we publish this, Borgsjö is going to be persona non grata. TV is going to pick this up. He’s going to be right up there with the directors of Skandia. A genuine scoop for Millennium. Well done, Henry.”

“But this thing with Erika is a real fly in the ointment,” Blomkvist said.

“Why should that be a problem?” Eriksson said. “Erika isn’t the villain. We have to be free to examine any chairman of the board or CEO, even if he happens to be her boss.”

“It’s a hell of a dilemma,” Blomkvist said.

“Erika hasn’t completely left Millennium,” Malm said. “She owns 30 percent and sits on our board. In fact, she’s chairman of the board until we can elect Harriet Vanger at the next board meeting, and that won’t be until August. Plus, Erika is working at SMP and you’re about to expose her boss.”

Glum silence.

“So what the hell are we going to do?” Cortez said. “Do we kill the article?”

Blomkvist looked Cortez straight in the eye. “No, Henry. We’re not going to kill the article. That’s not the way we do things at Millennium. But this is going to take some legwork. We can’t just dump it on Erika’s desk as a newspaper headline.”

Malm waved a finger in the air. “We’re really putting Erika on the spot. She’ll have to sell her share of Millennium and leave our board . . . or in the worst case, she could get fired by SMP. Either way she would have a terrible conflict of interest. Honestly, Henry, I agree with Mikael that we should publish the story, but we may have to postpone it for a month.”

“Because we’re facing a conflict of loyalties too,” Blomkvist said.

“Should I call her?”

“No, Christer,” Blomkvist said. “I’ll call her and arrange to meet. Tonight.”

Figuerola gave a summary of the circus that had sprung up around Blomkvist’s building on Bellmansgatan. Edklinth felt the floor sway slightly beneath his chair.

“An employee of SIS goes into Blomkvist’s building with an ex-safebreaker, now retrained as a locksmith.”

“Correct.”

“What do you think they did in the stairwell?”

“I don’t know. But they were in there for forty-nine minutes. My guess is that Faulsson opened the door and Mårtensson spent the time in Blomkvist’s apartment.”

“And what did they do there?”

“It couldn’t have been to plant bugs, because that takes only a minute or so. Mårtensson must have been looking through Blomkvist’s papers or whatever else he keeps at his place.”

“But Blomkvist has already been warned . . . they stole Björck’s report from there.”

“Right. He knows he’s being watched, and he’s watching the ones who are watching him. He’s calculating.”

“Calculating what?”

“I mean, he has a plan. He’s gathering information and is going to expose Mårtensson. That’s the only reasonable explanation.”

“And this Linder woman?”

“Susanne Linder, former police officer.”

“Police officer?”

“She graduated from the police academy and worked for six years on the Södermalm crime team. She resigned abruptly. There’s nothing in her file that says why. She was out of a job for several months before she was hired by Milton Security.”

“Armansky,” Edklinth said thoughtfully. “How long was she in the building?”

“Nine minutes.”

“Doing what?”

“Since she was filming Mårtensson and Faulsson on the street I’m guessing that she’s documenting their activities. That means that Milton Security is working with Blomkvist and has placed surveillance cameras in his apartment or in the stairwell. She probably went in to collect the film.”

Edklinth sighed. The Zalachenko story was beginning to get tremendously complicated.

“Thank you. You go home. I have to think about this.”

Figuerola went to the gym at St. Eriksplan.

Blomkvist used his second mobile when he punched in Berger’s number at SMP. He interrupted a discussion she was having with her editors about what angle to give an article on international terrorism.

“Oh, hello, it’s you . . . wait a second.”

Berger put her hand over the mouthpiece.

“I think we’re done,” she said, and gave them one last instruction. When she was alone she said: “Hello, Mikael. Sorry not to have been in touch. I’m just so swamped here. There are a thousand things I have got to learn. How’s the Salander stuff going?”

“Good. But that’s not why I called. I have to see you. Tonight.”

“I wish I could, but I have to be here until 8:00. And I’m dead tired. I’ve been at it since dawn. What’s it about?”

“I’ll tell you when I see you. But it’s not good.”

“I’ll come to your place at 8:30.”

“No. Not at mine. It’s a long story, but my apartment is unsuitable for the time being. Let’s meet at Samir’s Cauldron for a beer.”

“I’m driving.”

“Then we’ll have a light beer.”

Berger was slightly annoyed when she walked into Samir’s Cauldron. She was feeling guilty because she had not contacted Blomkvist even once since the day she had walked into SMP.

Blomkvist waved from a corner table. She stopped in the doorway. For a second he seemed a stranger. Who’s that over there? God, I’m so tired. Then he stood and kissed her on the cheek, and she realized to her dismay that she had not even thought about him for several weeks and that she missed him terribly. It was as though her time at SMP had been a dream and she might suddenly wake up on the sofa at Millennium. It felt unreal.

“Hello, Mikael.”

“Hello, editor in chief. Have you eaten?”

“It’s 8:30. I don’t have your disgusting eating habits.”

Samir came over with the menu and she realised she was hungry. She ordered a beer and a small plate of calamari with Greek potatoes. Blomkvist ordered couscous and a beer.

“How are you?” she said.

“These are interesting times we’re living in. I’m swamped too.”

“And Salander?”

“She’s part of what makes it so interesting.”

“Micke, I’m not going to steal your story.”

“I’m not trying to evade your question. The truth is that right now everything is a little confused. I’d love to tell you the whole thing, but it would take half the night. How do you like being editor in chief?”

“It’s not exactly Millennium. I fall asleep like a blown-out candle as soon as I get home, and when I wake up, I see spreadsheets before my eyes. I’ve missed you. Can’t we go back to your place and sleep? I don’t have the energy for sex, but I’d love to curl up and sleep next to you.”

“I’m sorry, Ricky. The apartment isn’t a good place right now.”

“Why not? Has something happened?”

“Well, some spooks have bugged the place and they listen, presumably, to every word I say. I’ve had cameras installed to record what happens when I’m not home. I don’t think we should let the state archives have footage of your naked posterior.”

“Are you kidding?”

“No. But that wasn’t why I had to see you tonight.”

“What is it? Tell me.”

“Well, I’ll be very direct. We’ve come across a story that will sink your CEO. It’s about using child labour and exploiting political prisoners in Vietnam. We’re looking at a conflict of interest.”

Berger put down her fork and stared at him. She saw at once that he was not being funny.

“This is how things stand,” he said. “Borgsjö is chairman and majority stockholder of a company called Svea Construction, which in turn is sole owner of a subsidiary called Vitavara Inc. They make toilets at a factory in Vietnam which has been condemned by the UN for using child labour.”

“Run that by me again.”

Blomkvist told her the details of the story that Cortez had compiled. He opened his laptop bag and took out a copy of the documentation. Berger read slowly through the article. Finally she looked up and met Blomkvist’s eyes. She felt unreasoning panic mixed with disbelief.

“Why the hell is it that the first thing Millennium does after I leave is to start running background checks on SMP’s board members?”

“That’s not what happened, Ricky.” He explained how the story had developed.

“And how long have you known about this?”

“Since today; since this afternoon. I feel deeply uncomfortable about how this has unfolded.”

“And what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. We have to publish. We can’t make an exception just because it deals with your boss. But not one of us wants to hurt you.” He threw up his hands. “We’re all extremely unhappy about the situation. Henry especially.”

“I’m still a member of Millennium’s board. I’m a part owner. It’s going to be viewed as—”

“I know exactly how it’s going to be viewed. You’re going to land in a shitload of trouble at SMP.”

Berger felt weariness settling over her. She clenched her teeth and stifled an impulse to ask Blomkvist to sit on the story.

“Goddamnit,” she said. “And there’s no doubt in your mind . . . ?”

Blomkvist shook his head. “I spent the whole afternoon going over Henry’s documentation. We have Borgsjö ready for the slaughter.”

“So what are you planning, and when?”

“What would you have done if we’d uncovered this story two months ago?”

Berger looked intently at her friend, who had also been her lover over the past twenty years. Then she lowered her eyes.

“You know what I would have done.”

“This is a disastrous coincidence. None of it is directed at you. I’m terribly, terribly sorry. That’s why I insisted on seeing you at once. We have to decide what to do.”

“We?”

“Listen, the story was slated to run in the June issue. I’ve killed that idea. The earliest it could come out is August, and it can be postponed further if you need more time.”

“I understand.” Her voice took on a bitter tone.

“I suggest we don’t decide anything now. Take the documentation and go home and think it over. Don’t do anything until we can agree on a common strategy. We have time.”

“A common strategy?”

“You either have to resign from Millennium’s board before we publish, or resign from SMP. You can’t wear both hats.”

She nodded. “I’m so linked to Millennium that no-one will believe I didn’t have a hand in this, whether I resign or not.”

“There is an alternative. You could take the story to SMP and confront Borgsjö and demand his resignation. I’m quite sure Henry would agree to that. But don’t do anything until we all agree.”

“So I start by getting the person who recruited me fired.”

“I’m sorry.”

“He isn’t a bad person.”

“I believe you. But he’s greedy.”

Berger got up. “I’m going home.”

“Ricky, I—”

She interrupted him. “I’m just dead tired. Thanks for warning me. I’ll let you know.”

She left without kissing him, and he had to pay the bill.

Berger had parked 200 yards from the restaurant and was halfway to her car when she felt such strong heart palpitations that she had to stop and lean against a wall. She felt sick.

She stood for a long time breathing in the mild May air. She had been working fifteen hours a day since May 1. That was almost three weeks. How would she feel after three years? Was that how Morander had felt before he dropped dead in the newsroom?

After ten minutes she went back to Samir’s Cauldron and ran into Blomkvist as he was coming out the door. He stopped in surprise.

“Erika . . .”

“Mikael, don’t say a word. We’ve been friends so long—nothing can destroy that. You’re my best friend, and this feels exactly like the time you disappeared to Hedestad two years ago, only vice versa. I feel stressed out and unhappy.”

He put his arms around her. She felt tears in her eyes.

“Three weeks at SMP have already done me in,” she said.

“Now, now. It takes more than that to do in Erika Berger.”

“Your apartment is compromised. And I’m too tired to drive home. I’d fall asleep at the wheel and die in a crash. I’ve decided. I’m going to walk to the Scandic Crown and book a room. Come with me.”

“It’s called the Hilton now.”

“Same difference.”

They walked the short distance without talking. Blomkvist had his arm around her shoulder. Berger glanced at him and saw that he was just as tired as she was.

They went straight to the front desk, took a double room, and paid with Berger’s credit card. When they got to the room, they undressed, showered, and crawled into bed. Berger’s muscles ached as though she had just run the Stockholm marathon. They cuddled for a while and then both fell asleep in seconds.

Neither of them had noticed the man in the lobby who was watching them as they stepped into the elevator.