CHAPTER 17
Wednesday, June 1

Blomkvist had no warning that someone was in the stairwell when he reached the landing outside his top-floor apartment at Bellmansgatan 1. It was 7:00 in the evening. He stopped short when he saw a woman with short blond curly hair sitting on the top step. He recognized her right away as Monica Figuerola of SIS from the passport photograph Karim had located.

“Hello, Blomkvist,” she said cheerfully, closing the book she had been reading. Blomkvist looked at the book and saw that it was in English, on the idea of God in the ancient world. He studied his unexpected visitor as she stood up. She was wearing a short-sleeved summer dress and had laid a brick-red leather jacket over the top stair.

“We need to talk to you,” she said.

She was tall, taller than he was, and that impression was magnified by the fact that she was standing two steps above him. He looked at her arms and then at her legs and saw that she was much more muscular than he was.

“You spend a couple of hours a week at the gym,” he said.

She smiled and took out her ID.

“My name is—”

“Monica Figuerola, born in 1969, living on Pontonjärgatan on Kungsholmen. You came from Borlänge and you’ve worked with the Uppsala police. For three years you’ve been working in SIS, Constitutional Protection. You’re an exercise fanatic and you were once a top-class athlete, almost made it onto the Swedish Olympic team. What do you want with me?”

She was surprised, but she quickly regained her composure.

“Fair enough,” she said in a low voice. “You know who I am—so you don’t have to be afraid of me.”

“I don’t?”

“There are some people who need to have a talk with you in peace and quiet. Since your apartment and mobile seem to be bugged and we have reason to be discreet, I’ve been sent to invite you.”

“And why would I go anywhere with somebody who works for Säpo?”

She thought for a moment. “Well . . . you could just accept a friendly personal invitation, or if you prefer, I could handcuff you and take you with me.” She smiled sweetly. “Look, Blomkvist. I understand that you don’t have many reasons to trust anyone from SIS. But it’s like this: not everyone who works there is your enemy, and my superiors really want to talk to you. So, which do you prefer? Handcuffed or voluntarily?”

“I’ve been handcuffed by the police once already this year. And that was enough. Where are we going?”

She had parked around the corner, down on Pryssgränd. When they were settled in her new Saab 9–5, she flipped open her mobile and pressed a speed-dial number.

“We’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

She told Blomkvist to fasten his seat belt and drove over Slussen to Östermalm and parked on a side street off Artillerigatan. She sat still for a moment and looked at him.

“This is a friendly invitation, Blomkvist. You’re not risking anything.”

Blomkvist said nothing. He was reserving judgement until he knew what this was all about. She punched in the code on the street door. They took the elevator to the fifth floor, to an apartment with the name Martinsson on the door.

“We’ve borrowed the place for tonight’s meeting,” she said, opening the door. “To your right, into the living room.”

The first person Blomkvist saw was Torsten Edklinth, which was no surprise since Säpo was deeply involved in what had happened, and Edklinth was Figuerola’s boss. The fact that the director of Constitutional Protection had gone to the trouble of bringing him in said that somebody was nervous.

Then he saw a figure by the window. The minister of justice. That was a surprise.

Then he heard a sound to his right and saw the prime minister get up from an armchair. He hadn’t for a moment expected that.

“Good evening, Herr Blomkvist,” the PM said. “Excuse us for summoning you to this meeting on such short notice, but we’ve discussed the situation and agreed that we need to talk to you. May I offer you some coffee, or something else to drink?”

Blomkvist looked around. He saw a dining-room table of dark wood that was cluttered with glasses, coffee cups, and the remnants of sandwiches. They must have been there for a couple of hours already.

“Ramlösa,” he said.

Figuerola poured him a mineral water. They sat down on the sofas as she stayed in the background.

“He recognized me and knew my name, where I live, where I work, and the fact that I’m a workout fanatic,” Figuerola said to no-one in particular.

The prime minister glanced quickly at Edklinth and then at Blomkvist. Blomkvist realized at once that he was in a position of some strength. The prime minister needed something from him and presumably had no idea how much Blomkvist knew or did not know.

“How did you know who Inspector Figuerola was?” Edklinth said.

Blomkvist looked at the director of Constitutional Protection. He could not be sure why the prime minister had set up a meeting with him in a borrowed apartment in Östermalm, but he suddenly felt inspired. There were not many ways it could have come about. It was Armansky who had set this in motion by giving information to someone he trusted. Which must have been Edklinth, or someone close to him. Blomkvist took a chance.

“A mutual friend spoke with you,” he said to Edklinth. “You sent Figuerola to find out what was going on, and she discovered that some Säpo activists are running illegal phone taps and breaking into my apartment and stealing things. This means that you have confirmed the existence of what I call the Zalachenko club. It made you so nervous that you knew you had to take the matter further, but you sat in your office for a while and didn’t know in which direction to go. So you went to the justice minister, and he in turn went to the prime minister. And now here we all are. What is it that you want from me?”

Blomkvist spoke with a confidence that suggested he had a source right at the heart of the affair and had followed every step Edklinth had taken. He knew that his guesswork was on the mark when Edklinth’s eyes widened.

“The Zalachenko club spies on me, I spy on them,” Blomkvist went on. “And you spy on the Zalachenko club. This situation makes the prime minister both angry and uneasy. He knows that at the end of this conversation awaits a scandal that the government might not survive.”

Figuerola understood that Blomkvist was bluffing, and she knew how he had been able to surprise her by knowing her name and bio.

He saw me in my car on Bellmansgatan. He took the registration number and looked me up. But the rest is guesswork.

She did not say a word.

The prime minister certainly looked uneasy now.

“Is that what awaits us?” he said. “A scandal to bring down the government?”

“The survival of the government isn’t my concern,” Blomkvist said. “My role is to expose shit like the Zalachenko club.”

The prime minister said: “And my job is to run the country in accordance with the constitution.”

“Which means that my problem is definitely the government’s problem. But not vice versa.”

“Could we stop going around in circles? Why do you think I arranged this meeting?”

“To find out what I know and what I intend to do with it.”

“Partly right. But more precisely, we’ve landed in a constitutional crisis. Let me first say that the government has absolutely no hand in this matter. We have been caught napping, without a doubt. I’ve never heard mention of this . . . what you call the Zalachenko club. The minister here has never heard a word about this matter either. Torsten Edklinth, an official high up in SIS who has worked in Säpo for many years, has never heard of it.”

“It’s still not my problem.”

“I appreciate that. What I’d like to know is when you mean to publish your article, and exactly what it is you intend to publish. And this has nothing to do with damage control.”

“Does it not?”

“Herr Blomkvist, the worst possible thing I could do in this situation would be to try to influence the shape or content of your story. Instead, I am going to propose a cooperation.”

“Please explain.”

“Since we have now had confirmation that a conspiracy exists within an exceptionally sensitive part of the administration, I have ordered an investigation.” The PM turned to the minister of justice. “Please explain what the government has directed.”

“It’s very simple,” said the minister of justice. “Torsten Edklinth has been given the task of finding out whether we can confirm this. He is to gather information that can be turned over to the prosecutor general, who in turn must decide whether charges should be brought. It is a very clear instruction. And this evening Edklinth has been reporting on how the investigation is proceeding. We’ve had a long discussion about the constitutional implications—of course we want it to be handled properly.”

“Naturally,” Blomkvist said in a tone that indicated he had scant trust in the prime minister’s assurances.

“The investigation has already reached a sensitive stage. We have not yet identified exactly who is involved. That will take time. And that’s why we sent Inspector Figuerola to invite you to this meeting.”

“It wasn’t exactly an invitation.”

The prime minister frowned and glanced at Figuerola.

“It’s not important,” Blomkvist said. “Her behaviour was exemplary. Please come to the point.”

“We want to know your publication date. This investigation is being conducted in great secrecy. If you publish before Edklinth has completed it, it could be ruined.”

“And when would you like me to publish? After the next election, I suppose?”

“You decide that for yourself. It’s not something I can influence. Just tell us, so that we know exactly what our deadline is.”

“I see. You spoke about cooperation . . .”

The PM said: “Yes, but first let me say that under normal circumstances I would not have dreamed of asking a journalist to come to such a meeting.”

“Presumably in normal circumstances you would be doing everything you could to keep journalists away from a meeting like this.”

“Yes. But I understand that you’re driven by several factors. You have a reputation for not pulling your punches when there’s corruption involved. In this case there are no differences of opinion to divide us.”

“Aren’t there?”

“No, not in the least. Or rather, the differences that exist might be of a legal nature, but we share an objective. If this Zalachenko club exists, it is not merely a criminal conspiracy—it is a threat to national security. These activities must be stopped, and those responsible must be held accountable. On that point we would be in agreement, correct?”

Blomkvist nodded.

“I understand that you know more about this story than anyone else. We suggest that you share your knowledge. If this were a regular police investigation of an ordinary crime, the leader of the preliminary investigation could decide to summon you for an interview. But, as you can appreciate, this is an extreme state of affairs.”

Blomkvist weighed the situation for a moment.

“And what do I get in return—if I do cooperate?”

“Nothing. I’m not going to haggle with you. If you want to publish tomorrow morning, then do so. I won’t get involved in any horse-trading that might be constitutionally dubious. I’m asking you to cooperate in the interests of the country.”

“In this case ‘nothing’ could be quite a lot,” Blomkvist said. “For one thing, I’m very, very angry. I’m furious at the state and the government and Säpo and all these fucking bastards who for no reason at all locked up a twelve-year-old girl in a mental hospital until she could be declared incompetent.”

“Lisbeth Salander has become a government matter,” the PM said, and smiled. “Mikael, I am personally very upset over what happened to her. Please believe me when I say that those responsible will be held accountable. But before we can do that, we have to know who they are.”

“My priority is that Salander should be acquitted and declared competent.”

“I can’t help you with that. I’m not above the law, and I can’t direct what prosecutors and the courts decide. She has to be acquitted by a court.”

“OK,” Blomkvist said. “You want my cooperation. Give me some insight into Edklinth’s investigation, and I’ll tell you when and what I plan to publish.”

“I can’t give you that insight. That would be placing myself in the same relation to you as the minister of justice’s predecessor once stood to the journalist Ebbe Carlsson.”*

“I’m not Ebbe Carlsson,” Blomkvist said calmly.

“I know that. On the other hand, Edklinth can decide for himself what he can share with you within the framework of his assignment.”

“Hmm,” Blomkvist said. “I want to know who Evert Gullberg was.”

Silence fell over the group.

“Gullberg was presumably for many years the chief of that division within SIS which you call the Zalachenko club,” Edklinth said.

The prime minister gave him a sharp look.

“I think he knows that already,” Edklinth said by way of apology.

“That’s correct,” Blomkvist said. “He started at Säpo in the fifties. In the sixties he became chief of some outfit called the Section for Special Analysis. He was the one in charge of the Zalachenko affair.”

The PM shook his head. “You know more than you ought to. I would very much like to discover how you came by all this information. But I’m not going to ask.”

“There are holes in my story,” Blomkvist said. “I need to fill them. Give me information and I won’t try to compromise you.”

“As prime minister I’m not in a position to deliver any such information. And Edklinth is on very thin ice if he does so.”

“Don’t bullshit me. I know what you want and you know what I want. If you give me information, then you’ll be my sources—with all the enduring anonymity that implies. Don’t misunderstand me. . . . I’ll tell the truth as I see it in what I publish. If you are involved, I will expose you and do everything I can to ensure that you are never re-elected. But as of yet I have no reason to believe that is the case.”

The prime minister glanced at Edklinth. After a moment he nodded. Blomkvist took it as a sign that the prime minister had just broken the law—if only of the more academic type—by giving his consent to sharing classified information with a journalist.

“This can all be solved quite simply,” Edklinth said. “I have my own investigative team, and I decide for myself which colleagues to recruit for the investigation. You can’t be employed by the investigation because that would mean you would be obliged to sign an oath of confidentiality. But I can hire you as an external consultant.”

Berger’s life had been filled with meetings and work around the clock from the minute she stepped into Morander’s shoes.

It was not until Wednesday night, almost two weeks after Blomkvist had given her Cortez’s research papers on Borgsjö, that she had time to address the issue. As she opened the folder, she realized that her procrastination also had to do with the fact that she didn’t really want to deal with the problem. She already knew that calamity was inevitable.

She arrived home in Saltsjöbaden at 7:00, unusually early, and it was only when she had to turn off the alarm in the hall that she remembered her husband was away. She had given him an especially long kiss that morning because he was flying to Paris to give some lectures and wouldn’t be back until the weekend. She had no idea where he was giving the lectures, or what they were about.

She went upstairs, ran a bath, and undressed. She took Cortez’s folder with her and spent the next half hour reading through the whole story. She couldn’t help but smile. The boy was going to be a formidable reporter. He was twenty-six years old and had been at Millennium for four years, right out of journalism school. She felt a certain pride. The story had Millennium’s stamp on it from beginning to end; every t was crossed, every i dotted.

But she also felt tremendously depressed. Borgsjö was a good man, and she liked him. He was soft-spoken, sharp-witted, and charming, and he seemed unconcerned with prestige. Besides, he was her employer. How the hell could he have been so fucking stupid?

She wondered whether there might be another explanation or some mitigating circumstances, but she already knew it would be impossible to explain this away.

She put the folder on the windowsill and stretched out in the bath to ponder the situation.

Millennium was going to publish the story, no question. If she had still been there, she wouldn’t have hesitated. That Millennium had leaked the story to her in advance was nothing but a courtesy; they wanted to reduce the damage to her personally. If the situation had been reversed—if SMP had made some damaging discovery about Millennium’s chairman of the board (which happened to be her)—they wouldn’t have hesitated either.

Publication would be a serious blow to Borgsjö. The damaging thing was not that his company, Vitavara Inc., had imported goods from a company on the United Nations blacklist of companies using child labour (and in this case slave labour too in the form of convicts, undoubtedly some of them political prisoners). The really damaging thing was that Borgsjö knew about all this and still went on ordering toilets from Fong Soo Industries. It was a mark of the sort of greed that did not go down well with the Swedish people in the wake of the revelations about other criminal capitalists such as Skandia’s former president.

Borgsjö would naturally claim that he did not know about the conditions at Fong Soo, but Cortez had solid evidence. If Borgsjö took that tack he would be exposed as a liar. In June 1997 Borgsjö had gone to Vietnam to sign the first contracts. He had spent ten days there on that occasion and toured the company’s factories. If he claimed not to have known that many of the workers there were only twelve or thirteen years old, he would look like an idiot.

Cortez had demonstrated that in 2001, the UN commission on child labour had added Fong Soo Industries to its list of companies that exploit child labour, and that this had then been the subject of magazine articles. Two organizations against child labour, one of them the globally recognized International Joint Effort Against Child Labour in London, had written letters to companies that had placed orders with Fong Soo. Seven letters had been sent to Vitavara Inc., and two of those were addressed to Borgsjö personally. The organization in London had been very willing to supply the evidence. And Vitavara Inc. had not replied to any of the letters.

Worse still, Borgsjö went to Vietnam twice more, in 2001 and 2004, to renew the contracts. This was the coup de grâce. It would be impossible for Borgsjö to claim ignorance.

The inevitable media storm could lead to only one thing. If Borgsjö was smart, he would apologize and resign from his positions on various boards. If he decided to fight, he would be annihilated.

Berger did not care if Borgsjö was or was not chairman of the board of Vitavara Inc. What mattered to her was that he was the CEO of SMP. At a time when the newspaper was on the edge and a campaign of rejuvenation was under way, SMP could not afford to keep him.

Berger’s decision was made.

She would go to Borgsjö, show him the document, and thereby hope to persuade him to resign before the story was published.

If he dug in his heels, she would call an emergency board meeting, explain the situation, and force the board to dismiss Borgsjö. And if they did not, she would have to resign, effective immediately.

She had been thinking for so long that the bathwater was now cold. She showered and towelled herself off and went to the bedroom to put on a bathrobe. Then she picked up her mobile and called Blomkvist. No answer. She went downstairs to put on some coffee, and for the first time since she had started at SMP, she looked to see whether there was a film on TV that she could watch to relax.

As she walked into the living room, she felt a sharp pain in her foot. She looked down and saw blood. She took another step and pain shot through her entire foot; she had to hop over to an antique chair to sit down. She lifted her foot and saw to her dismay that a shard of glass had pierced her heel. At first she felt faint. Then she steeled herself and took hold of the shard and pulled it out. The pain was appalling, and blood gushed from the wound.

She pulled open a drawer in the hall where she kept scarves, gloves, and hats. She found a scarf and wrapped it around her foot and tied it tight. That was not going to be enough, so she reinforced it with another improvised bandage. The bleeding had apparently subsided.

She looked at the bloodied piece of glass in amazement. How did this get here? Then she discovered more glass on the hall floor. Jesus Christ. She looked into the living room and saw that the picture window was shattered and the floor was covered in glass.

She went back to the front door and put on the outdoor shoes she had kicked off as she came home. That is, she put on one shoe and stuck the toes of her injured foot into the other, and hopped into the living room to take stock of the damage.

Then she found the brick in the middle of the living-room floor.

She limped over to the balcony door and went out to the garden. Someone had sprayed in three-foot-high letters on the back wall:

It was just after 9:00 in the evening when Figuerola held the car door open for Blomkvist. She went around the car and got into the driver’s seat.

“Should I drive you home, or do you want to be dropped off somewhere?”

Blomkvist stared straight ahead. “I haven’t got my bearings yet, to be honest. I’ve never had a confrontation with a prime minister before.”

Figuerola laughed. “You played your cards very well,” she said. “I would never have guessed you were such a good poker player.”

“I meant every word.”

“Of course; but what I meant was that you pretended to know a lot more than you actually do. I realized that when I worked out how you identified me.”

Blomkvist turned and looked at her profile.

“You wrote down my car registration when I was parked on the hill outside your building. You made it sound as if you knew what was being discussed at the prime minister’s secretariat.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Blomkvist said.

She gave him a quick look and turned onto Grev Turegatan. “The rules of the game. I shouldn’t have picked that spot, but there wasn’t anywhere else to park. You keep a sharp eye on your surroundings, don’t you?”

“You were sitting with a map spread out on the front seat, talking on the phone. I took down your registration and ran a routine check. I check out every car that catches my attention. I usually draw a blank. In your case I discovered that you worked for Säpo.”

“I was following Mårtensson.”

“Aha. So simple.”

“Then I discovered that you were tailing him using Susanne Linder at Milton Security.”

“Armansky’s detailed her to keep an eye on what goes on around my apartment.”

“And since she went into your building I assume that Milton has put in some sort of hidden surveillance of your apartment.”

“That’s right. We have an excellent film of how they break in and go through my papers. Mårtensson carries a portable photocopier with him. Have you identified Mårtensson’s sidekick?”

“He’s unimportant. A locksmith with a criminal record who’s probably being paid to open your door.”

“Name?”

“Protected source?”

“Naturally.”

“Lars Faulsson. Forty-seven. Alias Falun. Convicted of safe-cracking in the eighties and some other minor stuff. Has a shop at Norrtull.”

“Thanks.”

“But let’s save the secrets till we meet again tomorrow.”

The meeting had ended with an agreement that Blomkvist would come to Constitutional Protection the next day to set in motion an exchange of information. Blomkvist was thinking. They were just passing Sergels Torg in the city centre.

“You know what? I’m incredibly hungry. I had a late lunch and was going to make some pasta when I got home, but I was waylaid by you. Have you eaten?”

“A while ago.”

“Take us to a restaurant where we can get some decent food.”

“All food is decent.”

He looked at her. “I thought you were a health-food fanatic.”

“No, I’m a workout fanatic. If you work out, you can eat whatever you want. Within reason.”

She braked at the Klaraberg viaduct and considered the options. Instead of turning down towards Södermalm she kept going straight to Kungsholmen.

“I don’t know what the restaurants are like in Söder, but I know an excellent Bosnian place at Fridhemsplan. Their burek is fantastic.”

“Sounds good,” Blomkvist said.

Salander tapped her way, letter by letter, through her report. She had worked an average of five hours each day. She was careful to express herself precisely. She left out all the details that could be used against her.

That she was locked up had turned out to be a blessing. She always had plenty of warning to put away her Palm when she heard the rattling of a key ring or a key being put in the lock.

There was no reason to volunteer the information that Lundin had called her a whore or that she had bent down and picked up Nieminen’s P-83 Wanad and punished Lundin by shooting him in the foot. The police could probably work that out for themselves, but it was up to them to prove it. She did not intend to make their job any easier by confessing to something that would lead to a prison sentence.

The text had grown to thirty-three pages, and she was nearing the end. In some sections she was particularly reticent about details and went to a lot of trouble not to supply any evidence that could back up in any way the many claims she was making. She went so far as to obscure some obvious evidence and instead moved on to the next link in the chain of events.

She scrolled back and read through a section where she told how Advokat Bjurman had violently and sadistically raped her. That was the part she had spent the most time on, and one of the few she had rewritten several times before she was satisfied. The section took up nineteen lines in her account. She reported in a matter-of-fact manner how he had hit her, thrown her onto her stomach on the bed, taped her mouth, and handcuffed her. She then related how he had repeatedly committed acts of sexual violence against her, including anal penetration. She went on to report how at one point during the rape he had wound a piece of clothing—her own T-shirt—around her neck and strangled her for such a long time that she temporarily lost consciousness. Then there were several lines where she identified the implements he had used during the rape, which included a short whip, an anal plug, a rough dildo, and clamps, which he attached to her nipples.

She frowned and studied the text. At last she raised the stylus and tapped out a few more lines of text.

The matter-of-fact tone gave the text such a surreal touch that it sounded like an absurd fantasy.

The story simply did not sound credible.

That was her intention.

At that moment she heard the rattle of the guard’s key ring. She turned off the Palm at once and put it in the recess at the back of the bedside table. It was Giannini. She frowned. It was 9:00 in the evening and Giannini did not usually appear this late.

“Hello, Lisbeth.”

“Hello.”

“How are you feeling?”

“I’m not finished yet.”

Giannini sighed. “Lisbeth, they’ve set the trial date for July 13.”

“That’s OK.”

“No, it’s not OK. Time is running out, and you’re not telling me anything. I’m beginning to think that I made a colossal mistake taking this job. If we’re going to have the slightest chance, you have to trust me. We have to work together.”

Salander studied her for a long moment. Finally she leaned her head back and looked up at the ceiling.

“I know what we’re supposed to be doing. I understand Mikael’s plan. And he’s right.”

“I’m not so sure about that.”

“But I am.”

“The police want to interrogate you again. A detective named Hans Faste from Stockholm.”

“Let him interrogate me. I won’t say a word.”

“You have to hand in a statement.”

Salander gave Giannini a sharp look. “I repeat: I won’t say a word to the police. When we get to that courtroom the prosecutor won’t have a single syllable from any interrogation to fall back on. All they’ll have is the statement that I’m composing now, large parts of which will seem preposterous. And they’re going to get it a few days before the trial.”

“So when are you actually going to sit down with a pen and paper and write this statement?”

“You’ll have it in a few days. But it can’t go to the prosecutor until just before the trial.”

Giannini looked sceptical. Salander suddenly gave her a cautious smile. “You talk about trust. Can I trust you?”

“Of course you can.”

“OK. Could you smuggle me in a hand-held computer so that I can keep in touch with people online?”

“No, of course not. If it were discovered I’d be charged with a crime and lose my licence to practice.”

“But if someone else got one in, would you report it to the police?”

Giannini raised her eyebrows. “If I didn’t know about it . . .”

“But if you did know about it, what would you do?”

“I’d shut my eyes. How about that?”

“This hypothetical computer is soon going to send you a hypothetical email. When you’ve read it I want you to come again.”

“Lisbeth—”

“Wait. It’s like this. The prosecutor is dealing with a marked deck. I’m at a disadvantage no matter what I do, and the purpose of the trial is to get me committed to a secure psychiatric ward.”

“I know.”

“If I’m going to survive, I have to fight dirty.”

Finally Giannini nodded.

“When you came to see me the first time,” Salander said, “you had a message from Blomkvist. He said that he’d told you almost everything, with a few exceptions. One of those exceptions had to do with the skills he discovered I had when we were in Hedestad.”

“That’s correct.”

“He was referring to the fact that I’m extremely good with computers. So good that I can read and copy what’s on Ekström’s machine.”

Giannini went pale.

“You can’t be involved in this. And you can’t use any of that material at the trial,” Salander said.

“You’re right about that.”

“So you know nothing about it.”

“OK.”

“But someone else—your brother, let’s say—could publish selected excerpts from it. You’ll have to think about this possibility when you plan your strategy.”

“I understand.”

“Annika, this trial is going to turn on who uses the toughest methods.”

“I know.”

“I’m happy to have you as my lawyer. I trust you and I need your help.”

“Hmm.”

“But if you get difficult about the fact that I’m going to use unethical methods, then we’ll lose the trial.”

“Right.”

“And if that were the case, I need to know now. I’d have to get myself a new lawyer.”

“Lisbeth, I can’t break the law.”

“You don’t have to break any law. But you do have to shut your eyes to the fact that I am. Can you manage that?”

Salander waited patiently for almost a minute before Annika nodded.

“Good. Let me tell you the main points that I’m going to put in my statement.”

Figuerola had been right. The burek was fantastic. Blomkvist studied her carefully as she came back from the ladies’. She moved as gracefully as a ballerina, but she had a body like . . . hmm. Blomkvist could not help being fascinated. He repressed an impulse to reach out and feel her leg muscles.

“How long have you been working out?” he said.

“Since I was a teenager.”

“And how many hours a week do you do it?”

“Two hours a day. Sometimes three.”

“Why? I mean, I understand why people work out, but . . .”

“You think it’s excessive.”

“I’m not sure exactly what I think.”

She smiled and did not seem at all irritated by his questions.

“Maybe you’re just bothered by seeing a woman with muscles. Do you think it’s a turn-off, or unfeminine?”

“No, not at all. It suits you somehow. You’re very sexy.”

She laughed.

“I’m cutting back on the training now. Ten years ago I was doing rock-hard bodybuilding. It was cool. But now I have to be careful that the muscles don’t turn to fat. I don’t want to get flabby. So I lift weights once a week and spend the rest of the time doing some cross-training, or running, playing badminton, or swimming, that sort of thing. It’s exercise more than hard training.”

“I see.”

“The reason I work out is that it feels great. That’s a normal phenomenon among people who do extreme training. The body produces a pain-suppressing chemical and you become addicted to it. If you don’t run every day, you get withdrawal symptoms after a while. You feel an enormous sense of well-being when you give something your all. It’s almost as powerful as good sex.”

Blomkvist laughed.

“You should start working out yourself,” she said. “You’re getting a little thick in the waist.”

“I know,” he said. “I have a constant guilty conscience. Sometimes I start running regularly and lose a few pounds. Then I get involved in something and don’t get time to do it again for a month or two.”

“You’ve been pretty busy these last few months. I’ve been reading a lot about you. You beat the police by several lengths when you tracked down Zalachenko and identified Niedermann.”

“Lisbeth Salander was faster.”

“How did you find out Niedermann was in Gosseberga?”

Blomkvist shrugged. “Routine research. I wasn’t the one who found him. It was our managing editor—well, now our editor in chief—Malin Eriksson who managed to dig him up through the corporate records. He was on the board of Zalachenko’s company, KAB Import.”

“That simple . . .”

“And why did you become a Säpo activist?” he said.

“Believe it or not, I’m something as old-fashioned as a democrat. I mean, the police are necessary, and a democracy needs a political safeguard. That’s why I’m proud to be working at Constitutional Protection.”

“Is it really something to be proud of?” said Blomkvist.

“You don’t like the Security Police.”

“I don’t like institutions that are beyond normal parliamentary scrutiny. It’s an invitation to abuse of power, no matter how noble the intentions. Why are you so interested in the religion of antiquity?”

Figuerola looked at Blomkvist.

“You were reading a book about it on my staircase,” he said.

“The subject fascinates me.”

“I see.”

“I’m interested in a lot of things. I’ve studied law and political science while I’ve worked for the police. Before that I studied both philosophy and the history of ideas.”

“Do you have any weaknesses?”

“I don’t read fiction, I never go to the cinema, and I watch only the news on TV. How about you? Why did you become a journalist?”

“Because there are institutions like Säpo that lack parliamentary oversight and which have to be exposed from time to time. I don’t really know. I suppose my answer to that is the same one you gave me: I believe in a constitutional democracy and sometimes it has to be protected.”

“The way you did with Hans-Erik Wennerström?”

“Something like that.”

“You’re not married. Are you and Erika Berger together?”

“Erika Berger’s married.”

“So all the rumours about you two are nonsense. Do you have a girlfriend?”

“No-one steady.”

“So the rumours might be true after all.”

Blomkvist smiled.

Malin Eriksson worked at her kitchen table at home in Årsta until the small hours. She sat bent over spreadsheets of Millennium’s budget and was so engrossed that Anton, her boyfriend, eventually gave up trying to have a conversation with her. He washed the dishes, made a late snack, and put on some coffee. Then he left her in peace and sat down to watch a repeat of CSI.

Malin had never before had to cope with anything more complex than a household budget, but she had worked alongside Berger balancing the monthly books, and she understood the principles. Now she was suddenly editor in chief, and with that role came responsibility for the budget. Sometime after midnight she decided that, whatever happened, she was going to have to get an accountant to help her. Ingela Oskarsson, who did the bookkeeping two days a week, had no responsibility for the budget and was not at all helpful when it came to making decisions about how much a freelancer should be paid or whether they could afford to buy a new laser printer that was not already included in the sum earmarked for capital investments or IT upgrades. It was a ridiculous situation—Millennium was making a profit, but that was because Berger had always managed to balance an extremely tight budget. Instead of investing in something as fundamental as a new colour laser printer for 45,000 kronor, they would have to settle for a black-and-white printer for 8,000 instead.

For a moment she envied Berger. At SMP she had a budget in which such a cost would be considered pin money.

Millennium’s financial situation had been healthy at the last annual general meeting, but the surplus in the budget was primarily made up of the profits from Blomkvist’s book about the Wennerström affair. The revenue that had been set aside for investment was shrinking alarmingly fast. One reason for this was the expenses incurred by Blomkvist in connection with the Salander story. Millennium did not have the resources to keep any employee on an open-ended budget with all sorts of expenses in the form of rental cars, hotel rooms, taxis, the purchase of research material and new mobiles and the like.

Eriksson signed an invoice from Daniel Olsson in Göteborg. She sighed. Blomkvist had approved a sum of 14,000 kronor for a week’s research on a story that was not going to be published. Payment to an Idris Ghidi went into the budget under fees to sources who could not be named, which meant that the accountant would remonstrate about the lack of an invoice or receipt and insist that the matter have the board’s approval. Millennium had paid a fee to Advokat Giannini which was supposed to come out of the general fund, but she had also invoiced Millennium for train tickets and other costs.

Eriksson put down her pen and looked at the totals. Blomkvist had blown 150,000 kronor on the Salander story, way beyond their budget. Things could not go on this way.

She was going to have to have a talk with him.

Berger spent the evening not on her sofa watching TV, but in the ER at Nacka hospital. The shard of glass had penetrated so deeply that the bleeding would not stop. It turned out that one piece had broken off and was still in her heel, and would have to be removed. She was given a local anaesthetic and the wound was sewn up with three stitches.

Berger cursed the whole time she was at the hospital, and she kept trying to call her husband or Blomkvist. Neither chose to answer the phone. By 10:00 she had her foot wrapped in a thick bandage. She was given crutches and took a taxi home.

She spent a while limping around the living room, sweeping up the floor. She called Emergency Glass to order a new window. She was in luck. It had been a quiet evening and they arrived within twenty minutes. But the living-room window was so big that they did not have the glass in stock. The glazier offered to board up the window with plywood for the time being, and she accepted gratefully.

As the plywood was being put up, she called the duty officer at Nacka Integrated Protection and asked why the hell their expensive burglar alarm had not gone off when someone threw a brick through her biggest window.

Someone from NIP came out to look at the damage. It turned out that whoever had installed the alarm several years before had neglected to connect the leads from the windows in the living room.

Berger was furious.

The man from NIP said they would fix it first thing in the morning. Berger told him not to bother. Instead she called the duty officer at Milton Security and explained her situation. She said that she wanted to have a complete alarm package installed the next morning. “I know I have to sign a contract, but tell Armansky that Erika Berger called and make damn sure someone comes around in the morning.”

Then, finally, she called the police. She was told that there was no car available to come and take her statement. She was advised to contact her local station in the morning. Thank you. Fuck off.

Then she sat and fumed for a long time until her adrenaline level dropped, and it began to sink in that she was going to have to sleep alone in a house without an alarm while somebody was running around the neighbourhood calling her a whore and smashing her windows.

She wondered whether she ought to go into the city to spend the night at a hotel, but Berger was not the kind of person who liked to be threatened. And she liked giving in to threats even less.

But she did take some elementary safety precautions.

Blomkvist had told her once how Salander had put paid to the serial killer Martin Vanger with a golf club. So she went to the garage and spent several minutes looking for her golf bag, which she had hardly even thought about for fifteen years. She chose an iron that she thought had a certain heft to it and laid it within easy reach of her bed. She left a putter in the hall and an 8-iron in the kitchen. She took a hammer from the tool box in the basement and put that in the master bathroom.

She put the canister of Mace from her shoulder bag on her bedside table. Finally she found a rubber doorstop and wedged it under the bedroom door. And then she almost hoped that the moron who had called her a whore and destroyed her window would be stupid enough to come back that night.

By the time she felt sufficiently entrenched it was 1:00. She had to be at SMP at 8:00. She checked her calendar and saw that she had four meetings, the first at 10:00. Her foot was aching badly. She undressed and crept into bed.

Then, inevitably, she lay awake and worried.

Whore.

She had received nine emails, all of which had contained the word whore, and they all seemed to come from sources in the media. The first had come from her own newsroom, but the source was a fake.

She got out of bed and took out the new Dell laptop that she had been given when she had started at SMP.

The first email—which was also the most crude and intimidating, with its suggestion that she would be fucked with a screwdriver—had come on May 16, a couple of weeks ago.

Email number two had arrived two days later, on May 18.

Then a week went by before the emails started coming again, now at intervals of about twenty-four hours. Then the attack on her home. Again, whore.

During that time Carlsson on the culture pages had received an ugly email purportedly sent by Berger. And if Carlsson had received an email like that, it was entirely possible that the emailer had been busy elsewhere too—that other people had gotten mail apparently from her that she did not know about.

It was an unpleasant thought.

The most disturbing was the attack on her house.

Someone had taken the trouble to find out where she lived, drive out here, and throw a brick through the window. It was obviously premeditated—the attacker had brought his can of spray paint. The next moment she froze when she realized that she could add another attack to the list. All four of her tyres had been slashed when she spent the night with Blomkvist at the Slussen Hilton.

The conclusion was just as unpleasant as it was obvious. She was being stalked.

Someone, for some unknown reason, had decided to harass her.

The fact that her home had been subject to an attack was understandable—it was where it was and impossible to disguise. But if her car had been damaged on some random street in Södermalm, her stalker must have been somewhere nearby when she parked it. He must have been following her.