The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Trilogy Bundle Page 16
He questioned her closely about what kind of work assignments she was given at Milton Security. She had instinctively lied about her duties. The answer she gave him was a description of her very first weeks at Milton. Bjurman got the impression that she made coffee and sorted the post—suitable enough tasks for someone who was a little slow—and seemed satisfied.
She did not know why she had lied, but she was sure it was a wise decision.
Blomkvist had spent five hours with Vanger, and it took much of the night and all of Tuesday to type up his notes and piece together the genealogy into a comprehensible whole. The family history that emerged was a dramatically different version from the one presented as the official image of the family. Every family had a few skeletons in their cupboards, but the Vanger family had an entire gallimaufry of them.
Blomkvist had had to remind himself several times that his real assignment was not to write a biography of the Vanger family but to find out what had happened to Harriet Vanger. The Vanger biography would be no more than playing to the gallery. After a year he would receive his preposterous salary—the contract drawn up by Frode had been signed. His true reward, he hoped, would be the information about Wennerström that Vanger claimed to possess. But after listening to Vanger, he began to see that the year did not have to be a waste of time. A book about the Vanger family had significant value. It was, quite simply, a terrific story.
The idea that he might light upon Harriet Vanger’s killer never crossed his mind—assuming she had been murdered, that is, and did not just die in some freak accident. Blomkvist agreed with Vanger that the chances of a sixteen-year-old girl going off of her own accord and then staying hidden for thirty-six years, despite the oversight of all the government bureaucracy, were nonexistent. On the other hand, he did not exclude the possibility that Harriet Vanger had run away, maybe heading for Stockholm, and that something had befallen her subsequently—drugs, prostitution, an assault, or an accident pure and simple.
Vanger was convinced, for his part, that Harriet had been murdered and that a family member was responsible—possibly in collaboration with someone else. His argument was based on the fact that Harriet had disappeared during the confusion in the hours when the island was cut off and all eyes were directed at the accident.
Berger had been right to say that his taking the assignment was beyond all common sense if the goal was to solve a murder mystery. But Blomkvist was beginning to see that Harriet’s fate had played a central role in the family, and especially for Henrik Vanger. No matter whether he was right or wrong, Vanger’s accusation against his relatives was of great significance in the family’s history. The accusation had been aired openly for more than thirty years, and it had coloured the family gatherings and given rise to poisonous animosities that had contributed to destabilising the corporation. A study of Harriet’s disappearance would consequently function as a chapter all on its own, as well as provide a red thread through the family history—and there was an abundance of source material. One starting point, whether Harriet Vanger was his primary assignment or whether he made do with writing a family chronicle, would be to map out the gallery of characters. That was the gist of his first long conversation that day with Vanger.
The family consisted of about a hundred individuals, counting all the children of cousins and second cousins. The family was so extensive that he was forced to create a database in his iBook. He used the NotePad programme (www.ibrium.se), one of those full-value products that two men at the Royal Technical College had created and distributed as shareware for a pittance on the Internet. Few programmes were as useful for an investigative journalist. Each family member was given his or her own document in the database.
The family tree could be traced back to the early sixteenth century, when the name was Vangeersad. According to Vanger the name may have originated from the Dutch van Geerstat; if that was the case, the lineage could be traced as far back as the twelfth century.
In modern times, the family came from northern France, arriving in Sweden with King Jean Baptiste Bernadotte in the early nineteenth century. Alexandre Vangeersad was a soldier and not personally acquainted with the king, but he had distinguished himself as the capable head of a garrison. In 1818 he was given the Hedeby estate as a reward for his service. Alexandre Vangeersad also had his own fortune, which he used to purchase considerable sections of forested land in Norrland. His son, Adrian, was born in France, but at his father’s request he moved to Hedeby in that remote area of Norrland, far from the salons of Paris, to take over the administration of the estate. He took up farming and forestry, using new methods imported from Europe, and he founded the pulp and paper mill around which Hedestad was built.
Alexandre’s grandson was named Henrik, and he shortened his surname to Vanger. He developed trade with Russia and created a small merchant fleet of schooners that served the Baltics and Germany, as well as England with its steel industry during the mid-1800s. The elder Henrik Vanger diversified the family enterprises and founded a modest mining business, as well as several of Norrland’s first metal industries. He left two sons, Birger and Gottfried, and they were the ones who laid the basis for the high-finance Vanger clan.
“Do you know anything about the old inheritance laws?” Vanger had asked. “No.”
“I’m confused about it too. According to family tradition, Birger and Gottfried fought like cats—they were legendary competitors for power and influence over the family business. In many respects the power struggle threatened the very survival of the company. For that reason their father decided—shortly before he died—to create a system whereby all members of the family would receive a portion of the inheritance—a share—in the business. It was no doubt well-intentioned, but it led to a situation in which instead of being able to bring in skilled people and possible partners from the outside, we had a board of directors consisting only of family members.”
“And that applies today?”
“Precisely. If a family member wishes to sell his shares, they have to stay within the family. Today the annual shareholders’ meeting consists of 50 percent family members. Martin holds more than 10 percent of the shares; I have 5 percent after selling some of my shares, to Martin among others. My brother Harald owns 7 percent, but most of the people who come to the shareholders’ meeting have only one or half a percent.”
“It sounds medieval in some ways.”
“It’s ludicrous. It means that today, if Martin wants to implement some policy, he has to waste time on a lobbying operation to ensure support from at least 20 percent to 25 percent of the shareholders. It’s a patchwork quilt of alliances, factions, and intrigues.”
Vanger resumed the history:
“Gottfried Vanger died childless in 1901. Or rather, may I be forgiven, he was the father of four daughters, but in those days women didn’t really count. They owned shares, but it was the men in the family who constituted the ownership interest. It wasn’t until women won the right to vote, well into the twentieth century, that they were even allowed to attend the shareholders’ meetings.”
“Very liberal.”
“No need to be sarcastic. Those were different times. At any rate—Gottfried’s brother, Birger Vanger, had three sons: Johan, Fredrik, and Gideon Vanger. They were all born towards the end of the nineteenth century. We can ignore Gideon; he sold his shares and emigrated to America. There is still a branch of the family over there. But Johan and Fredrik Vanger made the company the modern Vanger Corporation.”
Vanger took out a photograph album and showed Blomkvist pictures from the gallery of characters as he talked. The photographs from the early 1900s showed two men with sturdy chins and plastered-down hair who stared into the camera lens without a hint of a smile.
“Johan Vanger was the genius of the family. He trained as an engineer, and he developed the manufacturing industry with several new inventions, which he patented. Steel and iron became the basis of the firm, but the business also expanded into
other areas, including textiles. Johan Vanger died in 1956 and had three daughters: Sofia, Märit, and Ingrid, who were the first women automatically to win admittance to the company’s shareholders’ meetings.
“The other brother, Fredrik Vanger, was my father. He was a businessman and industry leader who transformed Johan’s inventions into income. My father lived until 1964. He was active in company management right up until his death, although he had turned over daily operations to me in the fifties.
“It was exactly like the preceding generation—but in reverse. Johan had only daughters.” Vanger showed Blomkvist pictures of big-busted women with wide-brimmed hats and carrying parasols. “And Fredrik—my father—had only sons. We were five brothers: Richard, Harald, Greger, Gustav, and myself.”
Blomkvist had drawn up a family tree on several sheets of A4 paper taped together. He underlined the names of all those on Hedeby Island for the family meeting in 1966 and thus, at least theoretically, who could have had something to do with Harriet Vanger’s disappearance.
He left out children under the age of twelve—he had to draw the line somewhere. After some pondering, he also left out Henrik Vanger. If the patriarch had had anything to do with the disappearance of his brother’s granddaughter, his actions over the past thirty-six years would fall into the psychopathic arena. Vanger’s mother, who in 1966 was already eighty-one, could reasonably also be eliminated. Remaining were twenty-three family members who, according to Vanger, had to be included in the group of “suspects.” Seven of these were now dead, and several had now reached a respectable old age.
Blomkvist was not willing to share Vanger’s conviction that a family member was behind Harriet’s disappearance. A number of others had to be added to the list of suspects.
Dirch Frode began working for Vanger as his lawyer in the spring of 1962. And aside from the family, who were the servants when Harriet vanished? Gunnar Nilsson—alibi or not—was nineteen years old, and his father, Magnus, was in all likelihood present on Hedeby Island, as were the artist Norman and the pastor Falk. Was Falk married? The Östergården farmer Aronsson, as well as his son Jerker Aronsson, lived on the island, close enough to Harriet Vanger while she was growing up—what sort of relationship did they have? Was Aronsson still married? Did other people live at that time on the farm?
As Blomkvist wrote down all the names, the list had grown to forty people. It was 3:30 in the morning and the thermometer read -6°F. He longed for his own bed on Bellmansgatan.
He was awoken by the workman from Telia. By 11:00 he was hooked up and no longer felt quite as professionally handicapped. On the other hand, his own telephone remained stubbornly silent. He was starting to feel quite pig-headed and would not call the office.
He switched on his email programme and looked rapidly through the nearly 350 messages sent to him over the past week. He saved a dozen; the rest were spam or mailing lists that he subscribed to. The first email was from
He wrote to
“I’ve been serving Vangers for thirty-five years, and I know most of the gossip about that family,” she said, and sashayed off to the kitchen. With children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren—whom he had not bothered to include—the brothers Fredrik and Johan Vanger had approximately fifty living offspring today. The family had a tendency to live to a ripe old age. Fredrik Vanger lived to be seventy-eight, and his brother Johan to seventy-two. Of Fredrik’s sons who were yet alive, Harald was ninety-two and Henrik was eighty-two.
The only exception was Gustav, who died of lung disease at the age of thirty-seven. Vanger had explained that Gustav had always been sickly and had gone his own way, never really fitting in with the rest of the family. He never married and had no children.
The others who had died young had succumbed to other factors than illness. Richard Vanger was killed in the Winter War, only thirty-three years old. Gottfried Vanger, Harriet’s father, had drowned the year before she disappeared. And Harriet herself was only sixteen. Mikael made note of the strange symmetry in that particular branch of the family—grandfather, father, and daughter had all been struck by misfortune. Richard’s only remaining descendant was Martin Vanger who, at fifty-four, was still unmarried. But Vanger had explained that his nephew was a veritable hermit with a woman who lived in Hedestad.
Blomkvist noted two factors in the family tree. The first was that no Vanger had ever divorced or remarried, even if their spouse had died young. He wondered how common that was, in terms of statistics. Cecilia Vanger had been separated from her husband for years, but apparently, they were still married.
The other peculiarity was that whereas Fredrik Vanger’s descendants, including Henrik, had played leading roles in the business and lived primarily in or near Hedestad, Johan Vanger’s branch of the family, which produced only daughters, had married and dispersed to Stockholm, Malmö, and Göteborg or abroad. And they only came to Hedestad for summer holidays or the more important meetings. The single exception was Ingrid Vanger, whose son, Gunnar Karlman, lived in Hedestad. He was the editor in chief of the Hedestad Courier.
Thinking as a private detective might, Vanger thought that the underlying motive for Harriet’s murder might be found in the structure of the company—the fact that early on he had made it known that Harriet was special to him; the motive might have been to harm Vanger himself, or perhaps Harriet had discovered some sensitive information concerning the company and thereby became a threat to someone. These were mere speculations; nevertheless, in this manner he had identified a circle consisting of thirteen individuals whom he considered to be of potential interest.
Blomkvist’s conversation with Vanger the day before had been illuminating on one other point. From the start the old man had talked to Blomkvist about so many members of his family in a contemptuous and denigrating manner. It struck him as odd. Blomkvist wondered whether the patriarch’s suspicions about his family had warped his judgement in the matter of Harriet’s disappearance, but now he was starting to realise that Vanger had made an amazingly sober assessment.
The image that was emerging revealed a family that was socially and financially successful, but in all the more ordinary aspects was quite clearly dysfunctional.
Henrik Vanger’s father had been a cold, insensitive man who sired his children and then let his wife look after their upbringing and welfare. Until the children reached the age of sixteen they barely saw their father except at special family gatherings when they were expected to be present but also invisible. Henrik could not remember his father ever expressing any form of love, even in the smallest way. On the contrary, the son was often told that he was incompetent and was the target of devastating criticism. Corporal punishment was seldom used; it wasn’t necessary. The only times he had won his father’s respect came later in life, through his accomplishments within the Vanger Corporation.
The oldest brother, Richard, had rebelled. After an argument—the reason for which was never discussed in the family—the boy had moved to Uppsala to study. There had been sown the seeds of the the Nazi career which Vanger had already mentioned, and which would eventually lead to the Finnish trenches. What the old man had not mentioned previously was that two other brothers had had similar careers.
In 1930 Harald and Greger had followed in Richard’s footsteps to Uppsala. The two had been c
lose, but Vanger was not sure to what extent they had spent time with Richard. It was quite clear that the brothers all joined Per Engdahl’s fascist movement, The New Sweden. Harald had loyally followed Per Engdahl over the years, first to Sweden’s National Union, then to the Swedish Opposition group, and finally The New Swedish Movement after the war. Harald continued to be a member until Engdahl died in the nineties, and for certain periods he was one of the key contributors to the hibernating Swedish fascist movement.
Harald Vanger studied medicine in Uppsala and landed almost immediately in circles that were obsessed with race hygiene and race biology. For a time he worked at the Swedish Race Biology Institute, and as a physician he became a prominent campaigner for the sterilisation of undesirable elements in the population.
Quote, Henrik Vanger, tape 2, 02950:
Harald went even further. In 1937 he co-authored—under a pseudonym, thank God—a book entitled The People’s New Europe. I didn’t find this out until the seventies. I have a copy that you can read. It must be one of the most disgusting books ever published in the Swedish language. Harald argued not only for sterilisation but also for euthanasia—actively putting to death people who offended his aesthetic tastes and didn’t fit his image of the perfect Swedish race. In other words, he was appealing for wholesale murder in a text that was written in impeccable academic prose and contained all the required medical arguments. Get rid of those who are handicapped. Don’t allow the Saami people to spread; they have a Mongolian influence. People who are mentally ill would regard death as a form of liberation, wouldn’t they? Loose women, vagrants, gypsies, and Jews—you can imagine. In my brother’s fantasies, Auschwitz could have been located in Dalarna.