Millennium 02 - The Girl Who Played with Fire Page 24

  “She lives on Lundagatan. I’ll have to look up the exact address. I have a mobile telephone number for her.”

  “We have the address. The mobile number would be helpful.”

  Armansky went to his desk and read out the number, which Bublanski wrote down.

  “She works for you?”

  “She has her own business. I gave her freelance assignments now and then from 1998 until about a year and a half ago.”

  “What sort of jobs did she do?”

  “Research.”

  Bublanski looked up from his notebook.

  “Research?” he said.

  “Personal investigations, to be more precise.”

  “Just a moment… are we talking about the same girl? The Lisbeth Salander we’re looking for didn’t finish school and was officially declared incompetent to manage her affairs.”

  “They don’t say ‘incompetent’ nowadays,” Armansky said calmly.

  “I don’t give a damn what they say nowadays. The girl we’re looking for has a record which says she is a deeply disturbed and violence-prone individual. It says in her social welfare agency file that she was a prostitute in the late nineties. There is nothing anywhere in her records to indicate that she could hold down a white-collar job.”

  “Files are one thing. People are something else.”

  “You mean that she is qualified to do personal investigations for Milton Security?”

  “Not only that. She is by far the best researcher I’ve ever had.”

  Bublanski put down his pen and frowned.

  “It sounds as though you have … respect for her.”

  Armansky looked at his hands. The question marked a fork in the road. He had always feared that Salander would end up in hot water sooner or later, but he could not conceive of her being mixed up in a double murder in Enskede—as the killer or in any other way. But what did he know about her private life? Armansky thought of her recent visit to his office in which she had cryptically explained that she had enough money to get by and did not need a job.

  The wisest thing to do at that moment would be to distance himself, and above all Milton Security, from all contact with Salander. But then Salander was probably the loneliest person he knew.

  “I have respect for her skills. You won’t find that in her school results or personal record.”

  “So you know about her background.”

  “The fact that she’s under guardianship and that she had a pretty confused upbringing, yes.”

  “And yet you trusted her.”

  “That is precisely why I trusted her.”

  “Please explain.”

  “Her previous guardian, Holger Palmgren, was old J. F. Milton’s lawyer. He took on her case when she was a teenager, and he persuaded me to give her a job. I employed her initially to sort the mail and look after the photocopier, things like that. But she turned out to have unbelievable talents. And you can forget any report that says she may have been a prostitute. That’s nonsense. Lisbeth had a difficult period in her teens and was undoubtedly a bit wild—but that’s not the same as breaking the law. Prostitution is probably the last thing in the world she would turn to.”

  “Her current guardian is a lawyer by the name of Nils Bjurman.”

  “I’ve never met him. Palmgren had a cerebral haemorrhage a couple of years ago. Lisbeth cut back on the work she did for me quite soon after that happened. The last job she did was in October a year and a half ago.”

  “Why did you stop employing her?”

  “It wasn’t my choice. She was the one who broke off contact and disappeared abroad. Without a word of explanation.”

  “Disappeared abroad?”

  “She was gone for about a year.”

  “That can’t be right. Bjurman sent in monthly reports on her for all of last year. We have copies up at Kungsholmen.”

  Armansky shrugged and smiled.

  “When was the last time you saw her?”

  “In early February. She popped up out of nowhere and paid me a social visit. She spent all of last year out of the country, travelling in Asia and the Caribbean.”

  “Forgive me, but I’m getting a little muddled here. I had the impression that this Lisbeth Salander was a mentally ill girl who hadn’t even finished school and who was under guardianship. Now you tell me that you trusted her as an exceptional researcher, that she has her own business, and that she earned enough money to take a year off and travel around the world, all without her guardian sounding the alarm. Something doesn’t add up here.”

  “There’s quite a bit that doesn’t add up regarding Fröken Salander.”

  “May I ask … what is your overall opinion of her?”

  Armansky thought for a while. Finally he said: “She’s one of the most irritating, inflexible people I’ve met in my whole life.”

  “Inflexible?”

  “She won’t do anything she doesn’t want to do. She doesn’t give a damn what other people think of her. She is tremendously skilled. And she is unlike anyone I’ve ever met.”

  “Is she unbalanced?”

  “How do you define unbalanced?”

  “Is she capable of murdering two people in cold blood?”

  Armansky was quiet for a long time. “I’m sorry. I can’t answer that question. I’m a cynic. I believe that everyone has it in them to kill another person. In desperation or hatred, or at least to defend themselves.”

  “You don’t discount the possibility, at any rate.”

  “Lisbeth Salander will not do anything unless she has a good reason for it. If she murdered someone, then she must have felt that she had a very good reason to do so. On what grounds do you suspect her of being involved in these murders?”

  Bublanski met Armansky’s gaze.

  “Can we keep this confidential?”

  “Absolutely”

  “The murder weapon belonged to her guardian. And her fingerprints were on it.”

  Armansky clenched his teeth. That was serious circumstantial evidence.

  “I’ve only heard about the murders on the radio. What was it about? Drugs?”

  “Is she mixed up with drugs?”

  “Not that I know of. But, as I said, she went through a bad time in her teens, and she was arrested a few times for being drunk. Her record will tell you whether drugs were involved.”

  “We don’t have a motive for the murders. They were a conscientious couple. She was a criminologist and was just about to get her doctorate. He was a journalist. Dag Svensson and Mia Johansson. Do those names ring any bells?”

  Armansky shook his head.

  “We’re trying to find a connection between them and Lisbeth Salander.”

  “I’ve never heard of them.”

  Bublanski stood up. “Thanks for your time. It’s been a fascinating conversation. I don’t know how much the wiser I am for it, but I hope we can keep all of this between ourselves.”

  “Of course.”

  “I’ll get back to you if necessary. And of course, if Salander should get in touch …”

  “Certainly,” Armansky said.

  They shook hands. Bublanski was on his way out the door when he stopped.

  “You don’t happen to know anyone that Salander associates with, do you? Friends, acquaintances …”

  Armansky shook his head.

  “I don’t know a single thing about her private life. Except that her old guardian meant something to her. Holger Palmgren. He’s in a nursing home in Ersta. She might have made contact with him since she came back.”

  “She never had visitors when she was working here? Would there be a record of that?”

  “No. She worked from home mainly and came in only to present her reports. With a few exceptions, she never even met the clients. Possibly …” Armansky was struck by a thought.

  “What?”

  “There is just possibly one other person she may have got in touch with, a journalist she knew a couple of years ago. He was looking for he
r when she was out of the country.”

  “A journalist?”

  “His name is Mikael Blomkvist. Do you remember the Wennerström affair?”

  Bublanski came slowly back into Armansky’s office.

  “It was Blomkvist who discovered the couple in Enskede. You’ve just established a link between Salander and the murder victims.”

  Armansky again felt the solid pain of the lump in his stomach.

  CHAPTER 14

  Maundy Thursday, March 24

  Modig tried three times in half an hour to reach Nils Bjurman on his mobile. Each time she got the message that the subscriber could not be reached.

  At 3:30 p.m. she drove to Odenplan and rang his doorbell. Once more, no answer. She spent the next twenty minutes knocking on doors in the apartment building to see if any of Bjurman’s neighbours knew where he might be.

  In eleven of the nineteen apartments no-one was there. It was obviously the wrong time of day to be knocking on doors, and it would not get any better over the Easter weekend. In the eight apartments that were occupied, everyone was helpful. Five of them knew who Bjurman was—a polite, well-mannered gentleman on the fifth floor. No-one could provide any information as to his whereabouts. She managed to ascertain that Bjurman might be visiting one of his closest neighbours, a businessman named Sjöman. But nobody answered the door there either.

  Frustrated, Modig took out her mobile and called Bjurman’s answering machine once again. She gave her name, left her number, and asked him to please contact her as soon as he could.

  She went back to Bjurman’s door and wrote him a note asking him to call her. She got out a business card and dropped that through the mail slot as well. Just as she closed the flap, she heard a telephone ring inside the apartment. She leaned down and listened intently as it rang four times. She heard the answering machine click on, but she could not hear any message.

  She closed the flap on the mail slot and stared at the door. Exactly what impulse made her reach out and touch the handle she could not have said, but to her great surprise the door was unlocked. She pushed it open and peered into the hall.

  “Hello!” she called cautiously and listened. There was no sound.

  She took a step into the hall and then hesitated. She had no warrant to search the premises and no right to be in the apartment, even if the door was unlocked. She looked to her left and got a glimpse of the living room. She had just decided to back out of the apartment when her glance fell on the hall table. She saw a box for a Colt Magnum pistol.

  Modig suddenly had a strong sense of unease. She opened her jacket and drew her service weapon, which she had rarely done before.

  She clicked off the safety catch and aimed the gun at the floor as she went to the living room and looked in. She saw nothing untoward, but her apprehension increased. She backed out and peered into the kitchen. Empty. She went down the corridor and pushed open the bedroom door.

  Bjurman’s naked body lay half stretched out on the bed. His knees were on the floor. It was as though he had knelt to say his prayers.

  Even from the door Modig could tell that he was dead. Half of his forehead had been blown away by a shot to the back of his head.

  Modig closed the apartment door behind her. She still had her service revolver in her hand as she flipped open her mobile and called Inspector Bublanski. She could not reach him. Next she called Prosecutor Ekström. She made a note of the time. It was 4:18.

  Faste looked at the entrance door to the building on Lundagatan. He looked at Andersson and then at his watch. 4:10.

  After obtaining the entry code from the caretaker, they had already been inside the building and listened at the door with the nameplate SALANDER-WU. They had heard no sound from the apartment, and nobody had answered the bell. They returned to their car and parked where they could keep watch on the door.

  From the car they had ascertained by phone that the person in Stockholm whose name had been recently added to the contract for the apartment on Lundagatan was Miriam Wu, born in 1974 and previously living at St. Eriksplan.

  They had a passport photograph of Salander taped above the car radio. Faste muttered out loud that she looked like a bitch.

  “Shit, the whores are looking worse all the time. You’d have to be pretty desperate to pick her up.”

  Andersson kept his mouth shut.

  At 4:20 they were called by Bublanski, who told them he was on his way from Armansky’s to the Millennium offices. He asked Faste and Andersson to maintain their watch at Lundagatan. Salander would have to be brought in for questioning, but they should be aware that the prosecutor did not think she could be linked to the killings in Enskede.

  “All right,” Faste said. “According to Bubble the prosecutor wants to have a confession before they arrest anybody.”

  Andersson said nothing. Listlessly they watched people moving through the neighbourhood.

  At 4:40, Prosecutor Ekström called Faste’s mobile.

  “Things are happening. We found Bjurman shot in his apartment. He’s been dead for at least twenty-four hours.”

  Faste sat up in his seat. “Got it. What should we do?”

  “I’m going to issue an alert on Salander. She’s being sought as a suspect in three murders. We’ll send it out county-wide. We have to consider her dangerous and very possibly armed.”

  “Got it.”

  “I’m sending a van to Lundagatan. They’ll go in and secure the apartment.”

  “Understood.”

  “Have you been in touch with Bublanski?”

  “He’s at Millennium.”

  “And seems to have turned off his phone. Could you try to reach him and let him know?”

  Faste and Andersson looked at each other.

  “The question is, what do we do if she turns up?” Andersson said.

  “If she’s alone and things look good, we’ll pick her up. This girl is as crazy as hell and obviously on a killing spree. There may be more weapons in the apartment.”

  Blomkvist was dead tired when he laid the pile of manuscript pages on Berger’s desk and slumped into the chair by the window overlooking Götgatan. He had spent the whole afternoon trying to make up his mind what they ought to do with Svensson’s unfinished book.

  Svensson had been dead only a few hours, and already his publisher was debating what to do with the work he had left behind. An outsider might think it cynical and coldhearted, but Blomkvist did not see it that way. He felt as if he were in an almost weightless state. It was a sensation that every reporter or newspaper editor knew well, and it kicked in at moments of direst crisis.

  When other people are grieving, the newspaperman turns efficient. And despite the numbing shock that afflicted the members of the Millennium team who were there that Maundy Thursday morning, professionalism took over and was rigorously channelled into work.

  For Blomkvist this went without saying. He and Svensson were two of a kind, and Svensson would have done the same himself if their roles had been reversed. He would have asked himself what he could do for Blomkvist. Svensson had left a legacy in the form of a manuscript with an explosive story. He had worked on it for four years; he had put his soul into a task which he would now never complete.

  And he had chosen to work at Millennium.

  The murders of Dag Svensson and Mia Johansson were not a national trauma on the scale of the murder of Olof Palme, and the investigation would not be minutely followed by a grieving nation. But for employees of Millennium the shock was perhaps greater—they were affected personally—and Svensson had a broad network of contacts in the media who were going to demand answers to their questions.

  But now it was Blomkvist’s and Berger’s duty to finish Svensson’s book, and to answer the questions Who killed them? And why?

  “I can reconstruct the unfinished text,” Blomkvist said. “Malin and I have to go through the unedited chapters line by line and see where more work still needs to be done. For most of it, all we have to do is fol
low Dag’s notes, but we do have a problem in chapters four and five, which are largely based on Mia’s interviews. Dag didn’t fill in who the sources were, but with one or two exceptions I think we can use the references in her thesis as a primary source.”

  “What about the last chapter?”

  “I have Dag’s outline, and we talked it through so many times that I know more or less exactly what he wanted to say. I propose that we lift the summary and use it as an afterword, where I can also explain his reasoning.”

  “Fair enough, but I want to approve it. We can’t be putting words in his mouth.”

  “No danger of that. I’ll write the chapter as my personal reflection and sign it. I’ll describe how he came to write and research the book and say what sort of person he was. I’ll conclude by recapping what he said in at least a dozen conversations over the past few months. There’s plenty in his draft that I can quote. I think I can make it sound dignified.”

  “I want this book published more than ever,” Berger said.

  Blomkvist understood exactly what she meant.

  Berger put her reading glasses on the desk and shook her head. She got up and poured two cups of coffee from the thermos and sat down opposite Blomkvist.

  “Christer and I have a layout for the replacement issue. We’ve taken two articles earmarked for the issue after this one and we’re going to fill the gaps with freelance material. But it’ll be a bit of this and a bit of that, an issue without any real focus.”

  They sat quietly for a moment.

  “Have you listened to the news?” Berger asked.

  “No. I know what they’re going to say.”

  “It’s the top story on every radio station. The second-place story is a political move by the Centre Party.”

  “Which means that absolutely nothing else is happening in the country.”

  “The police haven’t released their names yet. They’re being described as a ‘conscientious couple.’ No-one’s mentioned that it was you who found them.”

  “I’ll bet the police will do all they can to keep it quiet. At least that’s to our advantage.”

  “Why would the police want to do that?”

  “Because detectives basically hate a media circus. I would guess something will leak out sometime tonight or early tomorrow morning.”