It was a miracle to meet not just a twin brother, but also someone who thought and felt and heard as he did. And how much time they spent discussing the things they could hear! They became totally engrossed, two nerds enjoying the mind-boggling experience of at last being able to discuss a subject no-one else understood. Sometimes Dan too climbed onto a chair to propose a toast.
They promised to stick together. They swore to be as one. They vowed many magnificent and beautiful things—but also they vowed to work out what had happened, and why. They spoke about the people who had examined them when they were young, and about the tests and filming and questions. Dan told Leo about Hilda, and Leo told Dan about Carl Seger and Rakel Greitz, with whom he had stayed in touch over the years.
“Rakel Greitz,” Dan said. “What does she look like?”
Leo described the birthmark on her throat, and at that Dan stiffened. He knew that he too had met Greitz. That realization was a decisive moment. Eleven p.m. on Sunday, December 17. The street was dark and silent, and it was no longer snowing. Snowploughs could be heard in the distance.
“Isn’t Greitz kind of wicked?”
“She comes across as pretty cold,” Leo said.
“She gave me the creeps.”
“I didn’t care much for her either.”
“But you went on seeing her?”
“I never stood up to her as much as I perhaps should have.”
“We’re both feeble, aren’t we?” Dan said, gently.
“I suppose we are. But Rakel was also my link to Carl. She always told me nice stories about him, all the things I wanted to hear, I suppose. I’m having Christmas lunch with her next week.”
“Have you ever asked her about your background?”
“Thousands of times, and every time she’s said…”
“…that you were left at an orphanage in Gävle, but they never managed to trace your biological parents.”
“I’ve also called that bloody orphanage,” fumed Leo, “and they confirmed the information.”
“Well, what about the whole Gypsy thing, then?”
“That’s just a rumour, she says.”
“She’s lying.”
“Clearly.”
A grim look came over Leo’s face.
“Rakel seems to be the spider at the centre of the web, don’t you think?” Dan said.
“It would seem so.”
“We should nail them all!”
A wild thirst for revenge flared in the apartment on Floragatan, and as Sunday night turned into Monday morning, they agreed to lie low and not tell a soul about their meeting. Leo would cancel the reservation for Christmas lunch, call Greitz and invite her to the apartment instead, catching her with her guard down while Dan hid in an adjoining room. Greitz needed to suffer. The brothers concocted a plan.
—
Hilda had downed one glass after another, and although she did not seem drunk, she was shaky and sweating so profusely that her throat and chest were glistening.
“Lisbeth and her sister, Camilla, were included in one of the registers from the Institute of Human Genetics and were regarded as ideal candidates. No-one had much respect for Agneta, but their father was—”
“A monster.”
“A highly gifted monster, and that’s what made the children so very interesting. Rakel wanted to separate them. She became obsessed with the idea.”
“Even though the girls already had a home and a mother.”
“Please don’t think I’m trying to defend Rakel, not for one second. But…at the time she had strong arguments, even from a purely human point of view. The father, Zalachenko, was both violently abusive and an alcoholic.”
“I know about that.”
“I know you do. But I want to say it in our defence. It was a hellish home environment, Mikael. It wasn’t just the father’s rapes and assaults. The fact is, he clearly favoured Camilla, which made for a disastrous relationship between the daughters from the outset. It was as if they were born to be enemies.”
Blomkvist thought about Camilla and the murder of his colleague Andrei Zander. He gripped his glass firmly but said nothing.
“There were compelling reasons—I even thought so myself—to place Lisbeth with another family,” Hilda said.
“But she adored her mother.”
“Believe me, I know. I learned a lot about that family. Agneta may have seemed a broken woman when Zalachenko beat her black-and-blue, but when it came to her children, she was a fighter. She was offered money. She was threatened. She was sent nasty letters with all sorts of official stamps on them. But she refused to give up her child. ‘Lisbeth stays with me,’ she said. ‘I will never abandon her.’ She fought tooth and nail, and the process went on for so long that eventually it became too late to separate the girls. But for Rakel it had become a matter of principle, an obsession. I was called in to mediate.”
“What happened?”
“To begin with, I was more and more impressed with Agneta. We saw a lot of each other at the time. You could almost say that we became friends. I took up her case. I really did fight to help her keep Lisbeth. But Rakel would not let herself be beaten so easily, and one evening she showed up with Benjamin Fors, her flunky.”
“Who?”
“He’s basically a social worker, but he’s done Rakel’s dirty work for ages. Martin Steinberg arranged for him to work with her. Benjamin is more brawn than brain and he’s unswervingly loyal. Rakel has helped him through some difficult times, including when he lost his son in a car accident, and in return he’ll do anything for her. I should think he’s almost sixty by now. He’s six and a half feet tall and super-fit, and has this slightly comical, good-natured look about him, complete with bushy eyebrows. But he can turn rough, if Rakel wants, and this particular evening on Lundagatan…”
Hilda paused and swallowed some more rosé.
“Yes?”
“It was in October, and cold,” she said. “Carl Seger had just been killed, and I was away attending a memorial service, which was probably no coincidence. The operation had been carefully planned. Camilla was sleeping over at a friend’s; only Agneta and Lisbeth were at home. Lisbeth must have been six. Their birthday’s in April, right? She and Agneta were in the kitchen, having tea and toast. There was a storm blowing outside on Skinnarviksberget.”
“How do you know all these details?”
“I’ve heard it from three different sources: our own official report—which is no doubt the least reliable—and also Agneta’s version. We talked for hours after it happened.”
“And the third?”
“Lisbeth herself.”
Blomkvist looked at her in surprise. He knew how secretive Salander was about her own life. He had certainly never heard a word about the episode, not even from Holger Palmgren.
“When was that?” he said.
“About ten years ago now,” she said. “It was a time in Lisbeth’s life when she wanted to know more about her mother, and I told her what I knew. I told her that Agneta had been strong and intelligent, and I saw that made Lisbeth happy. We spent a long time chatting at my place in Skanstull, and in the end she told me this story. It was like a punch to the gut.”
“Did Lisbeth know you belonged to the Registry?”
Hilda reached for the third bottle of rosé.
“No. She didn’t even know Rakel’s name. She thought it was just some compulsory measure imposed by the social services. She had no idea about the twins project, and I…”
Hilda fingered her glass.
“You held back the truth.”
“There were people watching me, Mikael. I was bound by professional secrecy; I knew what had happened to Carl.”
“I understand,” he said, and to a degree he really did. It could not have been easy for Hilda, and it was brave of her to be sitting there talking openly with him. There was no cause for him to judge her.
“Please go on,” he said.
“That evening on Lund
agatan, there was a storm, as I said. Zalachenko had been there the previous day and Agneta was covered in bruises and had pains in her stomach and between her legs. She was in the kitchen drinking tea with Lisbeth. They were enjoying a quiet moment together. Then the doorbell rang, and as you can imagine they were terrified. They thought the father was back.”
“But it was Rakel.”
“It was Rakel and Benjamin, which was not much better. They solemnly announced that under the terms of such and such a law, they had come to fetch Lisbeth, for her own protection. Then things turned nasty.”
“In what way?”
“Lisbeth must have felt terribly betrayed. She was only a little girl, after all, and when Rakel had first come and given her different tests to do, she had also given her hope. Say what you will about Rakel, but she does have an aura of authority about her. She’s even a bit regal, with her straight back and that fiery birthmark on her throat. I think Lisbeth had dreamed that she would be able to help them keep her father away from their home. But that evening she realized that Rakel was like all the rest—”
“Another person who did nothing to stop the abuse and the violence.”
“And now on top of it all Rakel was going to take Lisbeth away for her own safety. Her safety! Rakel even had a syringe filled with Stesolid. She meant to sedate the girl and carry her off. Lisbeth went crazy. She bit Rakel’s finger, climbed on a table in the living room, managed to open the window and just threw herself out. They were only one floor up, but it was still an eight-foot drop to the ground and Lisbeth was a skinny little thing. She had no shoes, just socks, jeans and some sort of sweater, and there was a full-blown storm raging outside. She landed in a crouch, fell forward and banged her head, but she jumped to her feet and ran off into the darkness. She ran and ran, all the way down towards Slussen and into Gamla Stan, until she got to Mynttorget and the Royal Palace, frozen and soaked through. I think she slept in a stairwell that night. She stayed away for two days.” Hilda fell silent. “Could I ask you…”
“What?”
“I’m feeling so miserable today. Could you run down to reception and bring back some cold beers? I need something cooler than this dishwater,” she said, pointing at the bottles.
Blomkvist looked at her with concern. But he nodded and went down to reception. To his surprise, he not only bought six cold bottles of Carlsberg, he also sent off an encrypted message, which may not have been such a good idea. But he felt that he owed it to her.
Then he carried the beers up to Hilda and listened to the rest of the story.
CHAPTER 17
June 21–22
Salander was in the Opera Bar, trying to celebrate her release from prison. It was not going well. A group of silly, giggling girls with wreaths in their hair, probably a bachelorette party, were at a table behind her. Their laughter cut right through her as she looked out at Kungsträdgården. A man walked by outside with a black dog.
She had chosen the place because of its cocktails, and maybe also for the atmosphere and bustle, but it was not really doing it for her. Occasionally her eyes scanned the faces in the room; she could bring someone back to her place—maybe a man, possibly a woman.
All sorts of things went through her mind, and she kept looking at her mobile. She had had an e-mail from Hanna Balder, August’s mother. August, the autistic boy with the photographic memory who had witnessed the murder of his father, was now back in the country after a long stay abroad, and according to Hanna was “doing well, all things considered.” That sounded promising, although Salander could not help thinking about his gaze, those glazed eyes which had not only seen much more than they should, but also seemed to be retreating into a shell. She reflected, not without pain, that certain things are seared into your brain. You can never shake them off, you have to live with them. She remembered how, when they were hiding in that small house on Ingarö, the boy had banged his head over and over on the kitchen table in a fit of wild frustration. For a fleeting moment she felt like doing the same: smashing her head against the bar counter. But all she did was clench her jaw.
She noticed a man coming her way. Dressed in a blue suit and with slicked-back dark-blond hair, he sat down next to her and looked with exaggerated concern at her split lip and bruised face: “My God, who did you manage to upset?” He would have received a withering look at the least, but at that moment her mobile buzzed. It was an encrypted message from Blomkvist which set her even more on edge. She got up, tossed some hundred-kronor notes onto the bar and gave the man a shove on her way out.
The city was shimmering and music was playing in the distance. It was a glorious summer evening for anyone in the mood for it. Salander noticed none of that. She looked ready to kill. She searched on her mobile for the name she had been given and soon realized that Rakel Greitz had protected-identity status. That in itself was not a problem. We all leave traces, for example when we buy things online and are careless about giving out our addresses. But as she crossed Strömbron on her way to Gamla Stan, she was unable to do anything, not even hack a site where Rakel Greitz might have bought a book. Instead, she thought about dragons.
She thought about how, as a little girl, she had run shoeless through Stockholm until she got the Royal Palace and hurried past a tall pillar towards a cathedral which was lit up in the darkness. That was Storkyrkan. She knew nothing about it then, she was simply drawn to it. She was freezing cold, her socks were soaked through and she needed to get some rest and warmth. She ran into an inner courtyard and walked through the side doors of the cathedral. The ceiling was so high that it seemed to reach to the sky. She remembered how she had gone further in so that people would stop staring at her. And that’s when she saw the statue. Only later did she realize that it was famous, said to represent Saint George killing a dragon and rescuing a damsel in distress. But that was not something Salander knew then or would even have cared about. She saw something entirely different in the statue that evening: an assault.
The dragon—she still remembered it clearly—was on its back with a spear through its body, while a man with an indifferent, blank expression struck the animal with his sword. The dragon was defenceless and alone, and that had made Salander think of her mother. With every muscle in her body she felt that she wanted to save her. Or better still, she wanted to be the dragon herself and fight back, and breathe fire, and pull the rider down from his horse and kill him. Because the knight was clearly none other than Zala, her father. He was the evil destroying their lives.
But that was not all. There was another figure depicted in the statue, a woman one could easily miss because she was standing to one side. She wore a crown on her head and was holding out her hands, as if reading a book. The strangest thing was that she was so calm, as if she was looking out over a meadow or an ocean rather than a slaughter. At the time, Salander could not recognize the woman as the maiden being rescued. In her eyes, the woman was ice cold and indifferent. She looked exactly like the woman with the birthmark from whom she had just escaped and who, like all the others, was allowing the violence and the abuse to continue at her home.
That was how she saw it. Not only were her mother and the dragon being tormented, but the world was looking on heartlessly. Salander felt a deep revulsion for the knight and the woman in the statue, and she had run back out into the rain and the storm, shaking with cold and fury. It was all so long ago and yet remarkably present.
Now, many years later, as she crossed the bridge to Gamla Stan on her way home, she muttered the name to herself: Rakel Greitz. This was her link to the Registry. She had been looking for it ever since Palmgren came to visit her at Flodberga.
—
Hilda opened a beer. By now her left eye was wandering a little. At times she lost her train of thought and seemed grip
ped by remorse, at others she was astonishingly focused, as if the alcohol had merely sharpened her wits.
“I don’t know what Lisbeth did after she ran out of Storkyrkan, only that she managed to beg some money at Central Station the next day and pinched a pair of over-sized shoes and a down jacket at Åhléns. Agneta was beside herself with worry, of course, and I…I was furious and told Rakel that she would jeopardize the whole project if she went through with her plan. In the end, she gave in. She left Lisbeth alone. But she never stopped hating her. I think she was involved when Lisbeth was locked up at St. Stefan’s.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because her good friend Peter Teleborian worked at the clinic.”
“They were friends?”
“Rakel was Teleborian’s psychoanalyst. They shared a belief in repressed memory and other similarly ridiculous theories, and he was very loyal to her. But the interesting thing is that Rakel not only hated Lisbeth, she also became more and more frightened of her. I believe she recognized, long before anyone else did, just what Lisbeth was capable of.”
“Do you think Rakel had anything to do with Holger Palmgren’s death?”
Hilda glanced down at her shoes. Voices could be heard outside on the quay.
“She’s merciless. I can vouch for that more than anyone. The rumour mill she set in motion when I decided to leave the Registry just about did me in. But murder? I’m not sure. I would find that hard to believe. At least I’d rather not believe it, still less…”
Hilda pulled a face. Blomkvist waited for her to continue.
“…still less can I believe it about Daniel Brolin. He’s such a vulnerable, gifted boy. He would never harm anyone, least of all his twin brother. They were made to be together.”
Blomkvist was about to answer that this is exactly what people say when their friends or acquaintances commit the most heinous crimes. “We just don’t understand.” “It’s not possible.” “Not him/not her, surely?” And yet it happens. We have the highest opinion of someone and then that person is blinded by rage and the unthinkable happens.
The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye Page 26
