The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Trilogy Bundle Page 32

  Blomkvist restrained the urge to laugh. This was no place for laughter, in the corridor outside Vanger’s sickbed, which might also turn out to be his deathbed. But he thought of a verse from Lennart Hyland’s rhyming alphabet. It was the letter M. And all alone the moose he stood, laughing in a shot-up wood.

  In the hospital lobby he ran into Cecilia Vanger. He had tried calling her mobile a dozen times since she came back from her interrupted holiday, but she had never answered or returned his calls. And she was never home at her place on Hedeby Island whenever he walked past and knocked on the door.

  “Hi, Cecilia,” he said. “I’m so sorry about all this with Henrik.”

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “We need to talk.”

  “I’m sorry that I’ve shut you out like this. I can understand that you must be cross, but I’m not having an easy time of it these days.”

  Mikael put his hand on her arm and smiled at her.

  “Wait, you’ve got it wrong, Cecilia. I’m not cross at all. I am still hoping that we can be friends. Can we have a cup of coffee?” He nodded in the direction of the hospital cafeteria.

  Cecilia Vanger hesitated. “Not today. I need to go and see Henrik.”

  “OK, but I still need to talk to you. It’s purely professional.”

  “What does that mean?” She was suddenly alert.

  “Do you remember the first time we met, when you came to the cottage in January? I said that we were talking off the record, and that if I needed to ask you any real questions, I would tell you. It has to do with Harriet.”

  Cecilia Vanger’s face was suddenly flushed with anger.

  “You really are the fucking pits.”

  “Cecilia, I’ve found some things that I really do have to talk to you about.”

  She took a step away from him.

  “Don’t you realise that this bloody hunt for that cursed Harriet is just occupational therapy for Henrik? Don’t you see that he might be up there dying, and that the very last thing he needs is to get upset again and be filled with false hopes and …”

  “It may be a hobby for Henrik, but there is now more material to go on than anyone has had to work with in a very long time. There are questions that do now need to be answered.”

  “If Henrik dies, that investigation is going to be over awfully damned fast. Then you’ll be out on your grubby, snivelling investigative backside,” Cecilia said, and she walked away.

  Everything was closed. Hedestad was practically deserted, and the inhabitants seemed to have retreated to their Midsummer poles at their summer cottages. Blomkvist made for the Stadshotel terrace, which was actually open, and there he was able to order coffee and a sandwich and read the evening papers. Nothing of importance was happening in the world.

  He put the paper down and thought about Cecilia Vanger. He had told no-one—apart from the Salander girl—that she was the one who had opened the window in Harriet’s room. He was afraid that it would make her a suspect, and the last thing he wanted to do was hurt her. But the question was going to have to be asked, sooner or later.

  He sat on the terrace for an hour before he decided to set the whole problem aside and devote Midsummer Eve to something other than the Vanger family. His mobile was silent. Berger was away amusing herself somewhere with her husband, and he had no-one to talk to.

  He went back to Hedeby Island at around 4:00 in the afternoon and made another decision—to stop smoking. He had been working out regularly ever since he did his military service, both at the gym and by running along Söder Mälarstrand, but had fallen out of the habit when the problems with Wennerström began. It was at Rullåker Prison that he had starting pumping iron again, mostly as therapy. But since his release he had taken almost no exercise. It was time to start again. He put on his tracksuit and set off at a lazy pace along the road to Gottfried’s cabin, turned off towards the Fortress, and took a rougher course cross country. He had done no orienteering since he was in the military, but he had always thought it was more fun to run through a wooded terrain than on a flat track. He followed the fence around Östergården back to the village. He was aching all over and out of breath by the time he took the last steps up to the guest house.

  At 6:00 he took a shower. He boiled some potatoes and had open sandwiches of pickled herring in mustard sauce with chives and egg on a rickety table outside the cottage, facing the bridge. He poured himself a shot of aquavit and drank a toast to himself. After that he opened a crime novel by Val McDermid entitled The Mermaids Singing.

  At around 7:00 Frode drove up and sat heavily in the chair across from him. Blomkvist poured him a shot of Skåne aquavit.

  “You stirred up some rather lively emotions today,” Frode said.

  “I could see that.”

  “Birger is a conceited fool.”

  “I know that.”

  “But Cecilia is not a conceited fool, and she’s furious.”

  Mikael nodded.

  “She has instructed me to see that you stop poking around in the family’s affairs.”

  “I see. And what did you say to her?”

  Frode looked at his glass of Skåne and downed the liquor in one gulp.

  “My response was that Henrik has given me clear instructions about what he wants you to do. As long as he doesn’t change those instructions, you will continue to be employed under the terms of your contract. I expect you to do your best to fulfil your part of the contract.”

  Blomkvist looked up at the sky, where rain clouds had begun to gather.

  “Looks like a storm is brewing,” Frode said. “If the winds get too strong, I’ll have to back you up.”

  “Thank you.”

  They sat in silence for a while.

  “Could I have another drink?”

  Only minutes after Frode had gone home, Martin Vanger drove up and parked his car by the road in front of the cottage. He came over and said hello. Mikael wished him a happy Midsummer and asked if he’d like a drink.

  “No, it’s better if I don’t. I’m just here to change my clothes and then I’m going to drive back to town to spend the evening with Eva.”

  Blomkvist waited.

  “I’ve talked to Cecilia. She’s a little traumatised just now—she and Henrik have always been close. I hope you’ll forgive her if she says anything … unpleasant.”

  “I’m very fond of Cecilia.”

  “I know that. But she can be difficult. I just want you to know that she’s very much against your going on digging into our past.”

  Blomkvist sighed. Everyone in Hedestad seemed to know why Vanger had hired him.

  “What’s your feeling?”

  “This thing with Harriet has been Henrik’s obsession for decades. I don’t know … Harriet was my sister, but somehow it feels all so far away. Dirch says that you have a contract that only Henrik can break, and I’m afraid that in his present condition it would do more harm than good.”

  “So you want me to continue?”

  “Have you made any progress?”

  “I’m sorry, Martin, but it would be a breach of that contract if I told you anything without Henrik’s permission.”

  “I understand.” Suddenly he smiled. “Henrik is a bit of a conspiracy fanatic. But above all, I don’t want you to get his hopes up unnecessarily.”

  “I won’t do that.”

  “Good … By the way, to change the subject, we now have another contract to consider as well. Given that Henrik is ill and can’t in the short term fulfil his obligations on the Millennium board, it’s my responsibility to take his place.”

  Mikael waited.

  “I suppose we should have a board meeting to look at the situation.”

  “That’s a good idea. But as far as I know, it’s been decided that the next board meeting won’t be held until August.”

  “I know that, but maybe we should hold it earlier.”

  Blomkvist smiled politely.

  “You’re really talking to the wron
g person. At the moment I’m not on the board. I left in December. You should get in touch with Erika Berger. She knows that Henrik has been taken ill.”

  Martin Vanger had not expected this response.

  “You’re right, of course. I’ll talk to her.” He patted Blomkvist on the shoulder to say goodbye and was gone.

  Nothing concrete had been said, but the threat hung in the air. Martin Vanger had set Millennium on the balance tray. After a moment Blomkvist poured himself another drink and picked up his Val McDermid.

  The mottled brown cat came to say hello and rubbed on his leg. He lifted her up and scratched behind her ears.

  “The two of us are having a very boring Midsummer Eve, aren’t we?” he said.

  When it started to rain, he went inside and went to bed. The cat preferred to stay outdoors.

  Salander got out her Kawasaki on Midsummer Eve and spent the day giving it a good overhaul. A lightweight 125cc might not be the toughest bike in the world, but it was hers, and she could handle it. She had restored it, one nut at a time, and she had souped it up just a bit over the legal limit.

  In the afternoon she put on her helmet and leather suit and drove to Äppelviken Nursing Home, where she spent the evening in the park with her mother. She felt a pang of concern and guilt. Her mother seemed more remote than ever before. During three hours they exchanged only a few words, and when they did speak, her mother did not seem to know who she was talking to.

  Blomkvist wasted several days trying to identify the car with the AC plates. After a lot of trouble and finally by consulting a retired mechanic in Hedestad, he came to the conclusion that the car was a Ford Anglia, a model that he had never heard of before. Then he contacted a clerk at the motor vehicle department and enquired about the possibility of getting a list of all the Ford Anglias in 1966 that had a licence plate beginning AC3. He was eventually told that such an archaeological excavation in the records presumably could be done, but that it would take time and it was beyond the boundaries of what could be considered public information.

  Not until several days after Midsummer did Blomkvist get into his borrowed Volvo and drive north on the E4. He drove at a leisurely pace. Just short of the Härnösand Bridge he stopped to have coffee at the Vesterlund pastry shop.

  The next stop was Umeå, where he pulled into an inn and had the daily special. He bought a road atlas and continued on to Skellefteå, where he turned towards Norsjö. He arrived around 6:00 in the evening and took a room in the Hotel Norsjö.

  He began his search early the next morning. The Norsjö Carpentry Shop was not in the telephone book. The Polar Hotel desk clerk, a girl in her twenties, had never heard of the business.

  “Who should I ask?”

  The clerk looked puzzled for a few seconds until her face lit up and she said that she would call her father. Two minutes later she came back and explained that the Norsjö Carpentry Shop closed in the early eighties. If he needed to talk to someone who knew more about the business, he should go and see a certain Burman, who had been the foreman and who now lived on a street called Solvändan.

  Norsjö was a small town with one main street, appropriately enough called Storgatan, that ran through the whole community. It was lined with shops with residential side streets off it. At the east end there was a small industrial area and a stable; at the western end stood an uncommonly beautiful wooden church. Blomkvist noted that the village also had a Missionary church and a Pentecostal church. A poster on a bulletin board at the bus station advertised a hunting museum and a skiing museum. A leftover flyer announced that Veronika would sing at the fair-grounds at Midsummer. He could walk from one end of the village to the other in less than twenty minutes.

  The street called Solvändan consisted of single-family homes and was about five minutes from the hotel. There was no answer when Blomkvist rang the bell. It was 9:30, and he assumed that Burman had left for work or, if he was retired, was out on an errand.

  His next stop was the hardware store on Storgatan. He reasoned that anyone living in Norsjö would sooner or later pay a visit to the hardware store. There were two sales clerks in the shop. Blomkvist chose the older one, maybe fifty or so.

  “Hi. I’m looking for a couple who probably lived in Norsjö in the sixties. The man might have worked for the Norsjö Carpentry Shop. I don’t know their name, but I have two pictures that were taken in 1966.”

  The clerk studied the photographs for a long time but finally shook his head, saying he could not recognise either the man or the woman.

  At lunchtime he had a burger at a hot-dog stand near the bus station. He had given up on the shops and had made his way through the municipal office, the library, and the pharmacy. The police station was empty, and he had started approaching older people at random. Early in the afternoon he asked two young women: they did not recognise the couple in the photographs, but they did have a good idea.

  “If the pictures were taken in 1966, the people would have to be in their sixties today. Why don’t you go over to the retirement home on Solbacka and ask there?”

  Blomkvist introduced himself to a woman at the front desk of the retirement home, explaining what he wanted to know. She glared at him suspiciously but finally allowed herself to be persuaded. She led him to the day room, where he spent half an hour showing the pictures to a group of elderly people. They were very helpful, but none of them could identify the couple.

  At 5:00 he went back to Solvändan and knocked on Burman’s door. This time he had better luck. The Burmans, both the man and the wife, were retired, and they had been out all day. They invited Blomkvist into their kitchen, where his wife promptly made coffee while Mikael explained his errand. As with all his other attempts that day, he again drew a blank. Burman scratched his head, lit a pipe, and then concluded after a moment that he did not recognise the couple in the photographs. The Burmans spoke in a distinct Norsjö dialect to each other, and Blomkvist occasionally had difficulty understanding what they were saying. The wife meant “curly hair” when she remarked that the woman in the picture had knövelhära.

  “But you’re quite right that it’s a sticker from the carpentry shop,” her husband said. “That was clever of you to recognise it. But the problem was that we handed out those stickers left and right. To contractors, people who bought or delivered timber, joiners, machinists, all sorts.”

  “It’s turning out to be harder to find this couple than I thought.”

  “Why do you want to find them?”

  Blomkvist had decided to tell the truth if anyone asked him. Any attempt to make up a story about the couple in the pictures would just sound false and create confusion.

  “It’s a long story. I’m investigating a crime that occurred in Hedestad in 1966, and I think there’s a possibility, although a very small one, that the people in the photographs might have seen what happened. They’re not in any way under suspicion, and I don’t think they’re even aware that they might have information that could solve the crime.”

  “A crime? What kind of crime?”

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you any more than that. I know it sounds bizarre that someone would come here almost forty years later, trying to find this couple, but the crime is still unsolved, and it’s only lately that new facts have come to light.”

  “I see. Yes, this is certainly an unusual assignment that you’re on.”

  “How many people worked at the carpentry shop?”

  “The normal work force was forty or so. I worked there from the age of seventeen in the mid-fifties until the shop closed. Then I became a contractor.” Burman thought for a moment. “This much I can tell you. The guy in your pictures never worked there. He might have been a contractor, but I think I’d recognise him if he was. But there is one other possibility. Maybe his father or some other relative worked at the shop and that’s not his car.”

  Mikael nodded. “I realise there are lots of possibilities. Can you suggest anyone I could talk to?”

 
“Yes,” said Burman, nodding. “Come by tomorrow morning and we’ll go and have a talk with some of the old guys.”

  Salander was facing a methodology problem of some significance. She was an expert at digging up information on just about anybody, but her starting point had always been a name and a social security number for a living person. If the individual was listed in a computer file, which everyone inevitably was, then the subject quickly landed in her spider’s web. If the individual owned a computer with an Internet connection, an email address, and maybe even a personal website, which nearly everyone did who came under her special type of research, she could sooner or later find out their innermost secrets.

  The work she had agreed to do for Blomkvist was altogether different. This assignment, in simple terms, was to identify four social security numbers based on extremely vague data. In addition, these individuals most likely died several decades ago. So probably they would not be on any computer files.

  Blomkvist’s theory, based on the Rebecka Jacobsson case, was that these individuals had fallen victim to a murderer. This meant that they should be found in various unsolved police investigations. There was no clue as to when or where these murders had taken place, except that it had to be before 1966. In terms of research, she was facing a whole new situation.

  So, how do I go about this?

  She pulled up the Google search engine, and typed in the keywords [Magda] + [murder]. That was the simplest form of research she could do. To her surprise, she made an instant breakthrough in the investigation. Her first hit was the programme listings for TV Värmland in Karlstad, advertising a segment in the series “Värmland Murders” that was broadcast in 1999. After that she found a brief mention in a TV listing in Värmlands Folkblad.

  In the series “Värmland Murders” the focus now turns to Magda Lovisa Sjöberg in Ranmoträsk, a gruesome murder mystery that occupied the Karlstad police several decades ago. In April 1960, the 46-year-old farmer’s wife was found murdered in the family’s barn. The reporter Claes Gunnars describes the last hours of her life and the fruitless search for the killer. The murder caused a great stir at the time, and many theories have been presented about who the guilty party was. A young relative will appear on the show to talk about how his life was destroyed when he was accused of the murder. 8:00 p.m.