The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

by Stieg Larsson

  They exchanged Hotmail addresses.

  Salander was lying on her back on the floor when Nurse Marianne came in.

  "Hmm," she said, thereby indicating her doubts about the wisdom of this style of conduct in the intensive care unit. But it was, she accepted, her patient's only exercise space.

  Salander was sweating. She had spent thirty minutes trying to do arm lifts, stretches, and sit-ups on the recommendation of her physical therapist. She had a long list of the movements she was to perform each day to strengthen the muscles in her shoulder and hip in the wake of her operation three weeks earlier. She was breathing hard and felt wretchedly out of shape. She tired easily, and her left shoulder was tight and hurt at the very least effort. But she was on the path to recovery. The headaches that had tormented her after surgery had subsided and came back only sporadically.

  She realized that she was sufficiently recovered now that she could have walked out of the hospital, or at any rate hobbled out, if that had been possible, but it was not. First of all, the doctors had not yet declared her fit, and second, the door to her room was always locked and guarded by a fucking hit man from Securitas, who sat on his chair in the corridor.

  She was healthy enough to be moved to a normal rehabilitation ward, but after going back and forth about this, the police and hospital administration had agreed that Salander should remain in room 18 for the time being. The room was easier to guard, there was round-the-clock staff close by, and the room was at the end of an L-shaped corridor. And in corridor 11C the staff were security-conscious after the killing of Zalachenko; they were familiar with her situation. Better not to move her to a new ward with new routines.

  Her stay at Sahlgrenska was in any case going to come to an end in a few more weeks. As soon as the doctors discharged her, she would be transferred to Kronoberg prison in Stockholm to await trial. And the person who would decide when it was time for that was Dr. Jonasson.

  It was ten days after the shooting in Gosseberga before Dr. Jonasson gave permission for the police to conduct their first real interview, which Giannini viewed as being to Salander's advantage. Unfortunately, Dr. Jonasson had made it difficult even for Giannini to have access to her client, and that was annoying.

  After the tumult of Zalachenko's murder and Gullberg's attempted suicide, Jonasson had done an evaluation of Salander's condition. He took into account that Salander must be under a great deal of stress as the suspect for three murders plus the near fatal assault on her late father. Jonasson had no idea whether she was guilty or innocent, and as a doctor he was not the least bit interested in the answer to that question. He simply concluded that Salander was suffering from stress, that she had been shot three times, and that one bullet had entered her brain and almost killed her. She had a fever that would not abate, and she had severe headaches.

  He had played it safe. Murder suspect or not, she was his patient, and his job was to make sure she got well. So he filled out a "no visitors" form that had no connection whatsoever to the one that was set in place by the prosecutor. He prescribed various medications and complete bedrest.

  But Jonasson also realized that isolation was an inhumane way of punishing people; in fact, it bordered on torture. No-one felt good when they were separated from all their friends, so he decided that Salander's lawyer should serve as a proxy friend. He had a serious talk with Giannini and explained that she could have access to Salander for one hour a day. During this hour she could talk with her or just sit quietly and keep her company, but their conversations should not deal with Salander's problems or impending legal battles.

  "Lisbeth Salander was shot in the head and was very seriously injured," he explained. "I think she's out of danger, but there is always a risk of bleeding or some other complication. She needs to rest, and she has to have time to heal. Only when that has happened can she begin to confront her legal problems."

  Giannini understood Dr. Jonasson's reasoning. She had some general conversations with Salander and hinted at the outline of the strategy that she and Blomkvist had planned, but Salander was simply so drugged and exhausted that she would fall asleep while Giannini was speaking.

  Armansky studied Malm's photographs of the men who had followed Blomkvist from the Copacabana. They were in sharp focus.

  "No," he said. "Never seen them before."

  Blomkvist nodded. They were in Armansky's office on Monday morning. Blomkvist had come into the building via the garage.

  "The older one is Goran Martensson, who owns the Volvo. He followed me like a guilty conscience for at least a week, but it could have been longer."

  "And you reckon that he's Sapo."

  Blomkvist referred to Martensson's CV. Armansky hesitated.

  You could take it for granted that the Security Police invariably made fools of themselves. That was the natural order of things, not for Sapo alone but probably for intelligence services all over the world. The French secret police had sent frogmen to New Zealand to blow up the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior, for God's sake. That had to be the most idiotic intelligence operation in the history of the world, with the possible exception of President Nixon's lunatic break-in at Watergate. With such cretinous leadership it was no wonder that scandals occurred. Their successes were never reported. But the media jumped all over the Security Police whenever anything improper or foolish came to light, and with all the wisdom of hindsight.

  On the one hand, the media regarded Sapo as an excellent news source, and almost any political blunder gave rise to headlines: "Sapo suspects that . . ." A Sapo statement carried a lot of weight in a headline.

  On the other hand, politicians of various affiliations, along with the media, were particularly diligent in condemning exposed Sapo agents if they had spied on Swedish citizens. Armansky found this entirely contradictory. He did not have anything against the existence of Sapo. Someone had to take responsibility for preventing national-Bolshevist crackpots--who had read too much Bakunin or whoever the hell these neo-Nazis read--from patching together a bomb made of fertilizer and oil and parking it in a van outside Rosenbad. Sapo was necessary, and Armansky did not think a little discreet surveillance was such a bad thing, so long as its objective was to safeguard the security of the nation.

  The problem, of course, was that an organization assigned to spy on citizens must remain under strict public scrutiny. There had to be a high level of constitutional oversight. But it was almost impossible for members of Parliament to have oversight of Sapo, even when the prime minister appointed a special investigator who, on paper at least, was supposed to have access to everything. Armansky had Blomkvist's copy of Lidbom's book An Assignment, and he was reading it with gathering astonishment. If this were the United States, a dozen or so senior Sapo hands would have been arrested for obstruction of justice and forced to appear before a public committee in Congress. In Sweden, apparently, they were untouchable.

  The Salander case demonstrated that something was out of joint inside the organization. But when Blomkvist came over to give him a secure mobile, Armansky's first thought was that the man was paranoid. It was only when he heard the details and studied Malm's photographs that he reluctantly admitted that Blomkvist had good reason to be suspicious. It did not bode well, but rather indicated that the conspiracy that had tried to eliminate Salander fifteen years earlier was not a thing of the past.

  There were simply too many incidents for this to be coincidence. Never mind that Zalachenko had supposedly been murdered by a maniac. It had happened at the same time that both Blomkvist and Giannini were robbed of the document that was the cornerstone in the burden of proof. That was a shattering misfortune. And then the key witness, Gunnar Bjorck, had gone and hanged himself.

  "Are we agreed that I pass this on to my contact?" Armansky said, gathering up Blomkvist's documentation.

  "And this is a person that you say you can trust?"

  "An individual of the highest moral standing."

  "Inside Sapo?" Blomkvist said with u
ndisguised scepticism.

  "We have to be of one mind. Both Holger and I have accepted your plan and are cooperating with you. But we can't clear this matter up all by ourselves. We have to find allies within the bureaucracy if this is not going to end in calamity."

  "OK." Blomkvist nodded reluctantly. "I've never had to give out information on a story before it's published."

  "But in this case you already have. You've told me, your sister, and Holger."

  "True enough."

  "And you did it because even you recognize that this is far more than just a scoop in your magazine. For once you're not an objective reporter, but a participant in unfolding events. And as such, you need help. You're not going to win on your own."

  Blomkvist gave in. He had not, in any case, told the whole truth, either to Armansky or to his sister. He still had one or two secrets that he shared only with Salander.

  He shook hands with Armansky.

  CHAPTER 9

  Wednesday, May 4

  Three days after Berger started as acting editor in chief of SMP, current Editor in Chief Hakan Morander died at lunchtime. He had been in the glass cage all morning, while Berger and assistant editor Peter Fredriksson met the sports editors so that she could get to know her colleagues and find out how they worked. Fredriksson was forty-five years old and also relatively new to the paper. He was taciturn but pleasant, with broad experience. Berger had already decided that she would be able to depend on Fredriksson's insights when she took command of the ship. She was spending a good part of her time evaluating the people she might be able to count on and could then make part of her new regime. Fredriksson was definitely a candidate.

  When they got back to the news desk they saw Morander get up and come over to the door of the glass cage. He looked startled.

  Then he leaned forward, grabbed the back of a chair, and held on to it for a few seconds before he collapsed to the floor.

  He was dead before the ambulance arrived.

  There was a confused atmosphere in the newsroom throughout the afternoon. CEO Borgsjo arrived at 2:00 and gathered the employees for a brief memorial to Morander. He spoke of how Morander had dedicated more than a decade of his life to the newspaper, and the price that the work of a newspaperman can sometimes exact. Finally he called for a minute's silence.

  Berger realized that several of her new colleagues were looking at her. The unknown quantity.

  She cleared her throat, and without being invited to, without knowing what she would say, took half a step forward and spoke in a firm voice: "I knew Hakan Morander for all of three days. That's too short a time, but from even the little I managed to know of him, I can honestly say that I would have wanted very much to know him better."

  She paused when she saw out of the corner of her eye that Borgsjo was staring at her. He seemed surprised that she was saying anything at all. She took another pace forward.

  "Your editor in chief's untimely departure will create problems in the newsroom. I was supposed to take over from him in two months, and I was counting on having the time to learn from his experience."

  She saw that Borgsjo had opened his mouth as if to say something himself.

  "That won't happen now, and we're going to go through a period of adjustment. But Morander was editor in chief of a daily newspaper, and this paper will come out tomorrow too. There are now nine hours left before we go to press and four before the front page has to be resolved. May I ask . . . who among you was Morander's closest confidant?"

  A brief silence followed as the staff looked at one another. Finally Berger heard a voice from the left side of the room.

  "That would probably be me."

  It was Gunnar Magnusson, assistant editor of the front page, who had worked on the paper for thirty-five years.

  "Somebody has to write an obit. I can't do it . . . that would be presumptuous of me. Could you possibly write it?"

  Magnusson hesitated a moment but then said, "I'll do it."

  "We'll use the whole front page and move everything else back."

  Magnusson nodded.

  "We need images." She glanced to her right and met the eye of the photo editor, Lennart Torkelsson. He nodded.

  "We have to get busy on this. Things might be a bit rocky at first. When I need help making a decision, I'll ask your advice and I'll depend on your skill and experience. You know how the paper is made, and I still have a lot to learn."

  She turned to Fredriksson.

  "Peter, Morander put a great deal of trust in you. You will have to be something of a mentor to me for the time being, and carry a heavier load than usual. I'm asking you to be my adviser."

  He nodded. What else could he do?

  She returned to the subject of the front page.

  "One more thing. Morander was writing his editorial this morning. Gunnar, could you get into his computer and see whether he finished it? Even if it's not quite rounded out, we'll publish it. It was his last editorial, and it would be a crying shame not to print it. The paper we're making today is still Hakan Morander's paper."

  Silence.

  "If any of you need a little personal time, or want to take a break to think for a while, do it, please. You all know our deadlines."

  Silence. She noticed that some people were nodding their approval.

  "Go to work, boys and girls," she said in English in a low voice.

  Holmberg threw up his hands in a helpless gesture. Bublanski and Modig looked dubious. Andersson's expression was neutral. They were scrutinizing the results of the preliminary investigation that Holmberg had completed that morning.

  "Nothing?" Modig said. She sounded surprised.

  "Nothing," Holmberg said, shaking his head. "The pathologist's final report arrived this morning. Nothing to indicate anything but suicide by hanging."

  They looked once more at the photographs taken in the living room of the summer cabin in Smadalaro. Everything pointed to the conclusion that Gunnar Bjorck, assistant chief of the immigration division of the Security Police, had climbed onto a stool, tied a rope to the lamp hook, placed it around his neck, and then with great resolve kicked the stool across the room. The pathologist was unable to supply the exact time of death, but he had established that it occurred on the afternoon of April 12. The body had been discovered on April 19 by none other than Inspector Andersson. This happened because Bublanski had repeatedly tried to get ahold of Bjorck. Annoyed, he finally sent Andersson to bring him in.

  Sometime during that week, the lamp hook in the ceiling came away and Bjorck's body fell to the floor. Andersson had seen the body through a window and called in the alarm. Bublanski and the others who arrived at the summer house had treated it as a crime scene from the word go, taking it for granted that Bjorck had been garrotted by someone. Later that day the forensic team found the lamp hook. Holmberg had been assigned to work out how Bjorck had died.

  "There's nothing whatsoever to suggest a crime, or that Bjorck was not alone at the time," Holmberg said.

  "The lamp?"

  "The ceiling lamp has fingerprints from the owner of the cabin--who put it up two years ago--and Bjorck himself. Which indicates that he took the lamp down."

  "Where did the rope come from?"

  "From the flagpole in the garden. Someone cut off about six feet of rope. There was a Mora sheath knife on the windowsill outside the back door. According to the owner of the house, it's his knife. He normally keeps it in a tool drawer under the kitchen counter. Bjorck's prints were on the handle and the blade, as well as on the tool drawer."

  "Hmm," Modig said.

  "What sort of knots?" Andersson said.

  "Granny knots. Even the noose was just a loop. It's probably the only thing that's a bit odd. Bjorck was a sailor; he would have known how to tie proper knots. But who knows how much attention a person contemplating suicide would pay to the knots on his own noose?"

  "What about drugs?"

  "According to the toxicology report, Bjorck had traces of a
strong painkiller in his blood. That medication had been prescribed for him. He also had traces of alcohol, but the percentage was negligible. In other words, he was more or less sober."

  "The pathologist wrote that there were graze wounds."

  "A graze over an inch long on the outside of his left knee. A scratch, really. I've thought about it, but it could have come about in a dozen different ways . . . for instance, if he walked into the corner of a table or a bench."

  Modig held up a photograph of Bjorck's distorted face. The noose had cut so deeply into his flesh that the rope itself was hidden in the skin of his neck. The face was grotesquely swollen.

  "He hung there for something like twenty-four hours before the hook gave way. All the blood was either in his head--the noose having prevented it from running into his body--or in the lower extremities. When the hook came out and his body fell, his chest hit the coffee table, causing deep bruising there. But this injury happened long after the time of death."

  "Hell of a way to die," said Andersson.

  "I don't know. The noose was so thin that it pinched deep and stopped the blood flow. He was probably unconscious within a few seconds, and dead in one or two minutes."

  Bublanski closed the preliminary report with distaste. He did not like this. He absolutely did not like the fact that Zalachenko and Bjorck had, so far as they could tell, both died on the same day. But no amount of speculating could change the fact that the crime scene investigation offered no grain of support to the theory that a third party had helped Bjorck on his way.

  "He was under a lot of pressure," Bublanski said. "He knew that the whole Zalachenko affair was in danger of being exposed and that he risked a prison sentence for sex-trade crimes, plus being hung out to dry in the media. I wonder which scared him more. He was sick, had been suffering chronic pain for a long time. . . . I don't know. I wish he had left a letter."

  "Many suicides don't."

  "I know. OK. We'll put Bjorck to one side for now. We have no choice."

  Berger could not bring herself to sit at Morander's desk right away, or to move his belongings aside. She arranged for Magnusson to talk to Morander's family so that the widow could come herself when it was convenient, or send someone to sort out his things.