The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo m(-1

by Stieg Larsson

  Since 1989, the term “legally incompetent” has no longer been applied to adults.

  There are two levels of social welfare protection – trusteeship and guardianship.

  A trustee steps in to offer voluntary help for individuals who, for various reasons, have problems managing their daily lives, paying their bills, or taking proper care of their hygiene. The person who is appointed as a trustee is often a relative or close friend. If there is no-one close to the person in question, the welfare authorities can appoint a trustee. Trusteeship is a mild form of guardianship, in which the client – the person declared incompetent – still has control over his or her assets and decisions are made in consultation with the trustee.

  Guardianship is a stricter form of control, in which the client is relieved of the authority to handle his or her own money or to make decisions regarding various matters. The exact wording states that the guardian shall take over all of the client’s legal powers. In Sweden approximately 4,000 people are under guardianship. The most common reason for a guardianship is mental illness or mental illness in conjunction with heavy abuse of alcohol or drugs. A smaller group includes those suffering from dementia. Many of the individuals under guardianship are relatively young – thirty-five or less. One of them was Lisbeth Salander.

  Taking away a person’s control of her own life – meaning her bank account – is one of the greatest infringements a democracy can impose, especially when it applies to young people. It is an infringement even if the intent may be perceived as benign and socially valid. Questions of guardianship are therefore potentially sensitive political issues, and are protected by rigorous regulations and controlled by the Guardianship Agency. This agency comes under the county administrative board and is controlled, in turn, by the Parliamentary Ombudsman.

  For the most part the Guardianship Agency carries out its activities under difficult conditions. But considering the sensitive issues handled by the authorities, remarkably few complaints or scandals are ever reported in the media.

  Occasionally there are reports that charges have been brought against some trustee or guardian who has misappropriated funds or sold his client’s co-op apartment and stuffed the proceeds into his own pockets. That those cases are relatively rare may be the result of two things: the authorities are carrying out their jobs in a satisfactory manner, or the clients have no opportunity to complain and in a credible way make themselves heard by the media or by the authorities.

  The Guardianship Agency is bound to conduct an annual review to see whether any cause exists for revoking a guardianship. Since Salander persisted in her refusal to submit to psychiatric examination – she would not even exchange a polite “good morning” with her teachers – the authorities had never found any reason to alter their decision. Consequently, a situation of status quo had resulted, and so year after year she was retained under guardianship.

  The wording of the law states, however, that the conditions of a guardianship “shall be adapted to each individual case.” Palmgren had interpreted this to mean that Salander could take charge of her own money and her own life. He had meticulously fulfilled the requirements of the authorities and submitted a monthly report as well as an annual review. In all other respects he had treated Salander like any other normal being, and he had not interfered with her choice of lifestyle or friends. He did not think it was either his business or that of society to decide whether the young lady should have a ring in her nose or a tattoo on her neck. This rather stubborn attitude vis-à-vis the district court was one of the reasons why they had got along so well.

  As long as Palmgren was her guardian, Salander had not paid much attention to her legal status.

  Salander was not like any normal person. She had a rudimentary knowledge of the law – it was a subject she had never had occasion to explore – and her faith in the police was generally exiguous. For her the police were a hostile force who over the years had put her under arrest or humiliated her. The last dealing she had had with the police was in May of the previous year when she was walking past Götgatan on her way to Milton Security. She suddenly found herself facing a visor-clad riot police officer. Without the slightest provocation on her part, he had struck her on the shoulders with his baton. Her spontaneous reaction was to launch a fierce counterattack, using a Coca-Cola bottle that she had in her hand. The officer turned on his heel and ran off before she could injure him. Only later did she find out that “Reclaim the Streets” was holding a demonstration farther down the road.

  Visiting the offices of those visor-clad brutes to file a report against Nils Bjurman for sexual assault did not even cross her mind. And besides – what was she supposed to report? Bjurman had touched her breasts. Any officer would take one look at her and conclude that with her miniature boobs, that was highly unlikely. And if it had actually happened, she should be proud that someone had even bothered. And the part about sucking his dick – it was, as he had warned her, her word against his, and generally in her experience the words of other people weighed more heavily than hers. The police were not an option.

  She left Bjurman’s office and went home, took a shower, ate two sandwiches with cheese and pickles, and then sat on the worn-out sofa in the living room to think.

  An ordinary person might have felt that her lack of reaction had shifted the blame to her – it might have been another sign that she was so abnormal that even rape could evoke no adequate emotional response.

  Her circle of acquaintances was not large, nor did it contain any members of the sheltered middle class from the suburbs. By the time she was eighteen, Salander did not know a single girl who at some point had not been forced to perform some sort of sexual act against her will. Most of these assaults involved slightly older boyfriends who, using a certain amount of force, made sure that they had their way. As far as Salander knew, these incidents had led to crying and angry outbursts, but never to a police report.

  In her world, this was the natural order of things. As a girl she was legal prey, especially if she was dressed in a worn black leather jacket and had pierced eyebrows, tattoos, and zero social status.

  There was no point whimpering about it.

  On the other hand, there was no question of Advokat Bjurman going unpunished. Salander never forgot an injustice, and by nature she was anything but forgiving.

  But her legal status was difficult. For as long as she could remember, she was regarded as cunning and unjustifiably violent. The first reports in her casebook came from the files of the school nurse from elementary school. Salander had been sent home because she hit a classmate and shoved him against a coat peg and drew blood. She still remembered her victim with annoyance – an overweight boy by the name of David Gustavsson who used to tease her and throw things at her; he would grow up to be an arch bully. In those days she did not know what the word “harassment” meant, but when she came to school the next day, the boy had threatened revenge. So she had decked him with a right jab fortified with a golf ball – which led to more bloodshed and a new entry in her casebook.

  The rules for social interaction in school had always baffled her. She minded her own business and did not interfere with what anyone around her did. Yet there was always someone who absolutely would not leave her in peace.

  In middle school she had several times been sent home after getting into violent fights with classmates. Much stronger boys in her class soon learned that it could be quite unpleasant to fight with that skinny girl. Unlike the other girls in the class, she never backed down, and she would not for a second hesitate to use her fists or any weapon at hand to protect herself. She went around with the attitude that she would rather be beaten to death than take any shit.

  And she always got revenge.

  Salander once found herself in a fight with a much bigger and stronger boy. She was no match for him physically. At first he amused himself shoving her to the ground several times, then he slapped her when she tried to fight back. But nothing did any good; n
o matter how much stronger he was, the stupid girl kept attacking him, and after a while even his classmates began to realise that things had gone too far. She was so obviously defenceless it was painful to watch. Finally the boy punched her in the face; it split open her lip and made her see stars. They left her on the ground behind the gym. She stayed at home for two days. On the morning of the third day she waited for her tormentor with a baseball bat, and she whacked him over the ear with it. For that prank she was sent to see the head teacher, who decided to report her to the police for assault, which resulted in a special welfare investigation.

  Her classmates thought she was crazy and treated her accordingly. She also aroused very little sympathy among the teachers. She had never been particularly talkative, and she became known as the pupil who never raised her hand and often did not answer when a teacher asked her a direct question. No-one was sure whether this was because she did not know the answer or if there was some other reason, which was reflected in her grades. No doubt that she had problems, but no-one wanted to take responsibility for the difficult girl, even though she was frequently discussed at various teachers’ meetings. That was why she ended up in the situation where the teachers ignored her and allowed her to sit in sullen silence.

  She left middle school and moved to another, without having a single friend to say goodbye to. An unloved girl with odd behaviour.

  Then, as she was on the threshold of her teenage years, All The Evil happened, which she did not want to think about. The last outburst set the pattern and prompted a review of the casebook entries from elementary school. After that she was considered to be legally… well, crazy. A freak. Salander had never needed any documents to know that she was different. But it was not something that bothered her for as long as her guardian was Holger Palmgren; if the need arose, she could wrap him around her little finger.

  With the appearance of Nils Bjurman, the declaration of incompetence threatened to become a troublesome burden in her life. No matter who she turned to, pitfalls would open up; and what would happen if she lost the battle? Would she be institutionalised? Locked up? There was really no option.

  Later that night, when Cecilia Vanger and Blomkvist were lying peacefully with their legs intertwined and Cecilia’s breasts resting against his side, she looked up at him.

  “Thank you. It’s been a long time. And you’re not bad.”

  He smiled. That sort of flattery was always childishly satisfying.

  “It was unexpected, but I had fun.”

  “I’d be happy to do it again,” Cecilia said. “If you feel like it.”

  He looked at her.

  “You don’t mean that you’d like to have a lover, do you?”

  “An occasional lover,” Cecilia said. “But I’d like you to go home before you fall asleep. I don’t want to wake up tomorrow morning and find you here before I manage to do my exercises and fix my face. And it would be good if you didn’t tell the whole village what we’ve been up to.”

  “Wouldn’t think of it,” Blomkvist said.

  “Most of all I don’t want Isabella to know. She’s such a bitch.”

  “And your closest neighbour… I’ve met her.”

  “Yes, but luckily she can’t see my front door from her house. Mikael, please be discreet.”

  “I’ll be discreet.”

  “Thank you. Do you drink?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “I’ve got a craving for something fruity with gin in it. Want some?”

  “Sure.”

  She wrapped a sheet around herself and went downstairs. Blomkvist was standing naked, looking at her bookshelves when she returned with a carafe of iced water and two glasses of gin and lime. They drank a toast.

  “Why did you come over here?” she asked.

  “No special reason. I just…”

  “You were sitting at home, reading through Henrik’s investigation. And then you came over here. A person doesn’t need to be super intelligent to know what you’re brooding about.”

  “Have you read the investigation?”

  “Parts of it. I’ve lived my entire adult life with it. You can’t spend time with Henrik without being affected by the mystery of Harriet.”

  “It’s actually a fascinating case. What I believe is known in the trade as a locked-room mystery, on an island. And nothing in the investigation seems to follow normal logic. Every question remains unanswered, every clue leads to a dead end.”

  “It’s the kind of thing people can get obsessed about.”

  “You were on the island that day.”

  “Yes. I was here, and I witnessed the whole commotion. I was living in Stockholm at the time, studying. I wish I had stayed at home that weekend.”

  “What was she really like? People seem to have completely different views of her.”

  “Is this off the record or…?”

  “It’s off the record.”

  “I haven’t the least idea what was going on inside Harriet’s head. You’re thinking of her last year, of course. One day she was a religious crackpot. The next day she put on make-up like a whore and went to school wearing the tightest sweater she possessed. Obviously she was seriously unhappy. But, as I said, I wasn’t here and just picked up the gossip.”

  “What triggered the problems?”

  “Gottfried and Isabella, obviously. Their marriage was totally haywire. They either partied or they fought. Nothing physical – Gottfried wasn’t the type to hit anyone, and he was almost afraid of Isabella. She had a horrendous temper. Sometime in the early sixties he moved more or less permanently to his cabin, where Isabella never set foot. There were periods when he would turn up in the village, looking like a vagrant. And then he’d sober up and dress neatly again and try to tend to his job.”

  “Wasn’t there anyone who wanted to help Harriet?”

  “Henrik, of course. In the end she moved into his house. But don’t forget that he was preoccupied playing the role of the big industrialist. He was usually off travelling somewhere and didn’t have a lot of time to spend with Harriet and Martin. I missed a lot of this because I was in Uppsala and then in Stockholm – and let me tell you, I didn’t have an easy childhood myself with Harald as my father. In hindsight I’ve realised that the problem was that Harriet never confided in anyone. She tried hard to keep up appearances and pretend that they were one big happy family.”

  “Denial.”

  “Yes. But she changed when her father drowned. She could no longer pretend that everything was OK. Up until then she was… I don’t know how to explain it: extremely gifted and precocious, but on the whole a rather ordinary teenager. During the last year she was still brilliant, getting top marks in every exam and so on, but it seemed as if she didn’t have any soul.”

  “How did her father drown?”

  “In the most prosaic way possible. He fell out of a rowing boat right below his cabin. He had his trousers open and an extremely high alcohol content in his blood, so you can just imagine how it happened. Martin was the one who found him.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “It’s funny. Martin has turned out to be a really fine person. If you had asked me thirty-five years ago, I would have said that he was the one in the family who needed psychiatric care.”

  “Why so?”

  “Harriet wasn’t the only one who suffered ill effects from the situation. For many years Martin was so quiet and introverted that he was effectively antisocial. Both children had a rough time of it. I mean, we all did. I had my own problems with my father – I assume you realise that he’s stark raving mad. My sister, Anita, had the same problem, as did Alexander, my cousin. It was tough being young in the Vanger family.”

  “What happened to your sister?”

  “She lives in London. She went there in the seventies to work in a Swedish travel agency, and she stayed. She married someone, never even introduced him to the family, and anon they separated. Today she’s a senior manager of British Airways. She and
I get along fine, but we are not much in contact and only see each other every other year or so. She never comes to Hedestad.”

  “Why not?”

  “An insane father. Isn’t that explanation enough?”

  “But you stayed.”

  “I did. Along with Birger, my brother.”

  “The politician.”

  “Are you making fun of me? Birger is older than Anita and me. We’ve never been very close. In his own eyes he’s a fantastically important politician with a future in Parliament and maybe ministerial rank, if the conservatives should win. In point of fact he’s a moderately talented local councillor in a remote corner of Sweden, which will probably be both the high point and the whole extent of his career.”

  “One thing that tickles me about the Vanger family is that you all have such low opinions of each other.”

  “That’s not really true. I’m very fond of Martin and Henrik. And I always got on well with my sister, for all that we seldom see each other. I detest Isabella and can’t abide Alexander. And I never speak to my father. So that’s about fifty-fifty in the family. Birger is… well, more of a pompous fathead than a bad person. But I see what you mean. Look at it this way: if you’re a member of the Vanger family, you learn early on to speak your mind. We do say what we think.”

  “Oh yes, I’ve noticed that you all get straight to the point.” Blomkvist stretched out his hand to touch her breast. “I wasn’t here fifteen minutes before you attacked me.”

  “To be honest, I’ve been wondering how you would be in bed ever since I first saw you. And it felt right to try it out.”

  For the first time in her life Salander felt a strong need to ask someone for advice. The problem was that asking for advice meant that she would have to confide in someone, which in turn would mean revealing her secrets. Who should she tell? She was simply not very good at establishing contact with other people.

  After going through her address book in her mind, she had, strictly speaking, ten people who might be considered her circle of acquaintances.