The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Trilogy Bundle Page 26

  He carried it to the kitchen table. He poured himself coffee and began going through it.

  They were photographs that had been taken on the day Harriet disappeared. The first of them was the last photograph of Harriet, at the Children’s Day parade in Hedestad. Then there were some 180 crystal-clear pictures of the scene of the accident on the bridge. He had examined the images one by one with a magnifying glass on several occasions previously. Now he turned the pages almost absent-mindedly; he knew he was not going to find anything he had not seen before. In fact he felt all of a sudden fed up with the unexplainable disappearance of Harriet Vanger and slammed the album shut.

  Restlessly he went to the kitchen window and peered out into the darkness.

  Then he turned his gaze back to the album. He could not have explained the feeling, but a thought flitted through his head, as though he were reacting to something he had just seen. It was as though an invisible creature had whispered in his ear, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

  He opened the album again. He went through it page by page, looking at all the pictures of the bridge. He looked at the younger version of an oil-soaked Henrik Vanger and a younger Harald, a man whom he had still not met. The broken railing, the buildings, the windows and the vehicles visible in the pictures. He could not fail to identify a twenty-year-old Cecilia in the midst of the onlookers. She had on a light-coloured dress and a dark jacket and was in at least twenty of the photographs.

  He felt a fresh excitement, and over the years Blomkvist had learned to trust his instincts. These instincts were reacting to something in the album, but he could not yet say what it was.

  He was still at the kitchen table at 11:00, staring one by one again at the photographs when he heard the door open.

  “May I come in?” It was Cecilia Vanger. Without waiting for an answer she sat down across from him at the table. Blomkvist had a strange feeling of déjà vu. She was dressed in a thin, loose, light-coloured dress and a greyish-blue jacket, clothes almost identical to those she was wearing in the photographs from 1966.

  “You’re the one who’s the problem,” she said.

  Blomkvist raised his eyebrows.

  “Forgive me, but you took me by surprise when you knocked on the door tonight. Now I’m so unhappy I can’t sleep.”

  “Why are you unhappy?”

  “Don’t you know?”

  He shook his head.

  “If I tell you, promise you won’t laugh.”

  “Promise.”

  “When I seduced you last winter it was an idiotic, impulsive act. I wanted to enjoy myself, that’s all. That first night I was quite drunk, and I had no intention of starting anything long-term with you. Then it turned into something else. I want you to know that those weeks with you as my occasional lover were some of the happiest in my life.”

  “I thought it was lovely too.”

  “Mikael, I’ve been lying to you and to myself the whole time. I’ve never been particularly relaxed about sex. I’ve had five sex partners in my entire life. Once when I was twenty-one and a debutante. Then with my husband, whom I met when I was twenty-five and who turned out to be a bastard. And then a few times with three guys I met several years apart. But you provoked something in me. I simply couldn’t get enough. It had something to do with the fact that you’re so undemanding.”

  “Cecilia, you don’t have to …”

  “Shh—don’t interrupt, or I’ll never be able to tell you this.”

  Blomkvist sat in silence.

  “The day you left for prison I was absolutely miserable. You were gone, as though you had never existed. It was dark here in the guest house. It was cold and empty in my bed. And there I was, an old maid of fifty-six again.”

  She said nothing for a while and looked Blomkvist in the eyes.

  “I fell in love with you last winter. I didn’t mean to, but it happened. And then I took stock and realised that you were only here temporarily; one day you’ll be gone for good, and I’ll stay here for the rest of my life. It hurt so damn much that I decided I wasn’t going to let you in again when you came back from prison.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault. When you left tonight I sat and cried. I wish I had the chance to live my life over again. Then I would decide on one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  She looked down at the table.

  “That I would have to be totally insane to stop seeing you just because you’re going to leave one day. Mikael, can we start again? Can you forget what happened earlier this evening?”

  “It’s forgotten,” he said. “But thank you for telling me.”

  She was still looking down at the table.

  “If you still want me, let’s do it.”

  She looked at him again. Then she got up and went over to the bedroom door. She dropped her jacket on the floor and pulled her dress over her head as she went.

  Blomkvist and Cecilia Vanger woke up when the front door opened and someone was walking through the kitchen. They heard the thud of something heavy being put down near the woodstove. Then Berger was standing in the bedroom doorway with a smile that rapidly changed to shock.

  “Oh, good Lord.” She took a step back.

  “Hi, Erika,” Blomkvist said.

  “Hi. I’m so sorry. I apologise a thousand times for barging in like this. I should have knocked.”

  “We should have locked the front door. Erika—this is Cecilia Vanger. Cecilia—Erika Berger is the editor in chief of Millennium.”

  “Hi,” Cecilia said.

  “Hi,” Berger said. She looked as though she could not decide whether to step forward and politely shake hands or just leave. “Uh, I … I can go for a walk …”

  “What do you say to putting on some coffee instead?” Blomkvist looked at the alarm clock on the bedside table. Just past noon.

  Berger nodded and pulled the bedroom door shut. Blomkvist and Cecilia looked at each other. Cecilia appeared embarrassed. They had made love and talked until 4:00 in the morning. Then Cecilia said she thought she’d sleep over and that in the future she wouldn’t give a tinker’s cuss who knew she was sleeping with Mikael Blomkvist. She had slept with her back to him and with his arm tucked around her breasts.

  “Listen, it’s OK,” he said. “Erika’s married and she isn’t my girlfriend. We see each other now and then, but she doesn’t care at all if you and I have something … She’s probably pretty embarrassed herself right now.”

  When they went into the kitchen a while later, Erika had set out coffee, juice, lemon marmalade, cheese, and toast. It smelled good. Cecilia went straight up to her and held out her hand.

  “I was a little abrupt in there. Hi.”

  “Dear Cecilia, I’m so sorry for stomping in like an elephant,” said a very embarrassed Erika Berger.

  “Forget it, for God’s sake. And let’s have breakfast.”

  After breakfast Berger excused herself and left them alone, saying that she had to go and say hello to Vanger. Cecilia cleared the table with her back to Mikael. He went up and put his arms around her.

  “What’s going to happen now?” Cecilia said.

  “Nothing. This is the way it is—Erika is my best friend. She and I have been together off and on for twenty years and will probably be, on and off, together for another twenty. I hope so. But we’ve never been a couple and we never get in the way of each other’s romances.”

  “Is that what we have? A romance?”

  “I don’t know what we have, but apparently we get along.”

  “Where’s she going to sleep tonight?”

  “We’ll find her a room somewhere. One of Henrik’s spare rooms. She won’t be sleeping in my bed, anyway.”

  Cecilia thought about this for a moment.

  “I don’t know if I can handle this. You and she might function that way, but I don’t know … I’ve never …” She shook her head. “I’m going back to my place. I have to think about th
is for a while.”

  “Cecilia, you asked me earlier and I told you about my relationship with Erika. Her existence can’t be any great surprise to you.”

  “That’s true. But as long as she was at a comfortable distance down in Stockholm I could ignore her.”

  Cecilia put on her jacket.

  “This situation is ludicrous,” she said with a smile. “Come over for dinner tonight. Bring Erika. I think I’m going to like her.”

  Erika had already solved the problem of where to sleep. On previous occasions when she had been up to Hedeby to visit Vanger she had stayed in one of his spare rooms, and she asked him straight out if she could borrow the room again. Henrik could scarcely conceal his delight, and he assured her that she was welcome at any time.

  With these formalities out of the way, Blomkvist and Berger went for a walk across the bridge and sat on the terrace of Susanne’s Bridge Café just before closing time.

  “I’m really pissed off,” Berger said. “I drive all the way up here to welcome you back to freedom and find you in bed with the town femme fatale.”

  “I’m sorry about that.”

  “How long have you and Miss Big Tits …” Berger waved her index finger.

  “From about the time Vanger became part owner.”

  “Aha.”

  “What do you mean, aha?”

  “Just curious.”

  “Cecilia’s a good woman. I like her.”

  “I’m not criticising. I’m just pissed off. Candy within reach and then I have to go on a diet. How was prison?”

  “Like an uneventful holiday. How are things at the magazine?”

  “Better. For the first time in a year the advertising revenue is on the rise. We’re way below this time last year, but we’ve turned the corner. Thanks to Henrik. But the weird thing is that subscriptions are going up too.”

  “They tend to fluctuate.”

  “By a couple of hundred one way or the other. But we’ve picked up three thousand in the past quarter. At first I thought it was just luck, but new subscribers keep coming in. It’s our biggest subscription jump ever. At the same time, our existing subscribers are renewing pretty consistently across the board. None of us can understand it. We haven’t run any ad campaigns. Christer spent a week doing spot checks on what sort of demographic is showing up. First, they’re all brand-new subscribers. Second, 70 percent of them are women. Normally it’s the other way around. Third, the subscribers can be described as middle-income white-collar workers from the suburbs: teachers, middle management, civil service workers.”

  “Think it’s the middle-class revolt against big capital?”

  “I don’t know. But if this keeps up, it’ll mean a significant shift in our subscriber profile. We had an editorial conference two weeks ago and decided to start running new types of material in the magazine. I want more articles on professional matters associated with TCO, the Swedish Confederation of Professional Employees, and also more investigative reporting on women’s issues, for instance.”

  “Don’t change too much,” Blomkvist said. “If we’re getting new subscribers then it means that they like what we’re running already.”

  Cecilia had also invited Vanger to dinner, possibly to reduce the risk of troublesome topics of conversation. She had made a venison stew. Berger and Vanger spent a good deal of the time discussing Millennium’s development and the new subscribers, but gradually the conversation moved on to other matters. Berger suddenly turned to Blomkvist at one point and asked him how his work was coming along.

  “I’m counting on having a draft of the family chronicle complete in a month for Henrik to look at.”

  “A chronicle in the spirit of the Addams family,” Cecilia said.

  “It does have certain historical aspects,” Blomkvist conceded.

  Cecilia glanced at Vanger.

  “Mikael, Henrik isn’t really interested in a family chronicle. He wants you to solve the mystery of Harriet’s disappearance.”

  Blomkvist did not say a word. Ever since he had begun his relationship with Cecilia he had talked fairly openly about Harriet with her. Cecilia had already deduced that this was his real assignment, even though he never formally admitted it. He had certainly never told Henrik that he and Cecilia had discussed the subject. Vanger’s bushy eyebrows drew together a bit. Erika was silent.

  “My dear Henrik,” Cecilia said. “I’m not stupid. I don’t know what sort of agreement you and Mikael have, but his stay here in Hedeby is about Harriet. It is, isn’t it?”

  Vanger nodded and glanced at Blomkvist.

  “I told you she was sharp.” He turned to Berger. “I presume that Mikael has explained to you what he’s working on here in Hedeby.”

  She nodded.

  “And I presume you think it’s a senseless undertaking. No, you don’t have to answer that. It is an absurd and senseless task. But I have to find out.”

  “I have no opinion on the matter,” Berger said diplomatically.

  “Of course you do.” He turned to Blomkvist. “Tell me. Have you found anything at all that might take us forward?”

  Blomkvist avoided meeting Vanger’s gaze. He thought instantly of the cold, unplaceable certainty he had had the night before. The feeling had been with him all day, but he had had no time to work his way through the album again. At last he looked up at Vanger and shook his head.

  “I haven’t found a single thing.”

  The old man scrutinised him with a penetrating look. He refrained from commenting.

  “I don’t know about you young people,” he said, “but for me it’s time to go to bed. Thank you for dinner, Cecilia. Good night, Erika. Do see me before you leave tomorrow.”

  When Vanger had closed the front door, silence settled over them. It was Cecilia who spoke first.

  “Mikael, what was all that about?”

  “It means that Henrik is as sensitive to people’s reactions as a seismograph. Last night when you came to the cottage I was looking through an album.”

  “Yes?”

  “I saw something. I don’t know what it was yet. It was something that almost became an idea, but I missed it.”

  “So what were you thinking about?”

  “I just can’t tell you. And then you arrived.”

  Cecilia blushed. She avoided Berger’s gaze and went out to put on some coffee.

  It was a warm and sunny day. New green shoots were appearing, and Blomkvist caught himself humming the old song of spring, “Blossom Time Is Coming.” It was Monday and Berger had left early.

  When he had gone to prison in mid-March, snow still covered the land. Now the birches were turning green and the lawn around his cabin was lush. For the first time he had a chance to look around all of Hedeby Island. At 8:00 he went over and asked to borrow a thermos from Anna. He spoke briefly with Vanger, who was just up, and was given his map of the island. He wanted to get a closer look at Gottfried’s cabin. Vanger told him that the cabin was owned by Martin Vanger now but that it had stood mostly vacant over the years. Occasionally some relative would borrow it.

  Blomkvist just managed to catch Martin before he left for work. He asked if he might borrow the key. Martin gave him an amused smile.

  “I presume the family chronicle has now reached the chapter about Harriet.”

  “I just want to take a look …”

  Martin came back with the key in a minute.

  “Is it OK then?”

  “As far as I’m concerned, you can move in there if you want. Except for the fact that it’s stuck right at the other end of the island, it’s actually a nicer spot than the cottage you’re in.”

  Blomkvist made coffee and sandwiches. He filled a bottle with water before he set off, stuffing his picnic lunch in a rucksack he slung over one shoulder. He followed a narrow, partially overgrown path that ran along the bay on the north side of Hedeby Island. Gottfried’s cabin was on a point about one and a half miles from the village, and it took him only half an hou
r to cover the distance at a leisurely pace.

  Martin Vanger had been right. When Blomkvist came around the bend of the narrow path, a shaded area by the water opened up. There was a marvellous view of the inlet to the Hede River, Hedestad marina to the left, and the industrial harbour to the right.

  He was surprised that no-one had wanted to move into Gottfried’s cabin. It was a rustic structure made of horizontal dark-stained timber with a tile roof and green frames, and with a small porch at the front door. The maintenance of the cabin had been neglected. The paint around the doors and windows was flaking off, and what should have been a lawn was scrub a yard high. Clearing it would take one whole day’s hard work with scythe and saw.

  Blomkvist unlocked the door and unscrewed the shutters over the windows from the inside. The framework seemed to be an old barn of less than 1,300 square feet. The inside was finished with planks and consisted of one room with big windows facing the water on either side of the front door. A staircase led to an open sleeping loft at the rear of the cabin that covered half the space. Beneath the stairs was a niche with a propane gas stove, a counter, and a sink. The furnishings were basic; built into the wall to the left of the door there was bench, a rickety desk, and above it a bookcase with teak shelves. Farther down on the same side was a broad wardrobe. To the right of the door was a round table with five wooden chairs; a fireplace stood in the middle of the side wall.

  The cabin had no electricity; instead there were several kerosene lamps. In one window was an old Grundig transistor radio. The antenna was broken off. Blomkvist pressed the power button but the batteries were dead.

  He went up the narrow stairs and looked around the sleeping loft. There was a double bed with a bare mattress, a bedside table, and a chest of drawers.

  Blomkvist spent a while searching through the cabin. The bureau was empty except for some hand towels and linen smelling faintly of mould. In the wardrobe there were some work clothes, a pair of overalls, rubber boots, a pair of worn tennis shoes, and a kerosene stove. In the desk drawers were writing paper, pencils, a blank sketchpad, a deck of cards, and some bookmarks. The kitchen cupboard contained plates, mugs, glasses, candles, and some packages of salt, tea bags, and the like. In a drawer in the table there were eating utensils.