The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Trilogy Bundle

by Stieg Larsson

  “Look at it as an excavation job. We don’t have to do our own police investigation. But we do have to stay on top of what the police uncover and worm out of them what they know. It’ll be just like any other job, except that we don’t necessarily have to publish everything we find out.”

  “But if Salander is the killer, there has to be a significant connection between her and Dag and Mia. And the only connection so far is you.”

  “And in fact I’m no connection at all. I haven’t talked to Lisbeth in more than a year. How could she have known that—”

  Blomkvist suddenly stopped. Lisbeth Salander: the world-class hacker. It dawned on him that his iBook was full of correspondence with Svensson, as well as various versions of the book and a file containing Johansson’s thesis. He couldn’t know if Salander was checking his computer. But what possible reason could she have to shoot Svensson and Johansson? What they were working on was a report about violence against women, and Salander should have encouraged them in every way. If Blomkvist knew her at all.

  “You look like you’ve thought of something,” Eriksson said.

  He had no intention of telling her about Salander’s talents with computers.

  “No, I’m just tired and going a little off the rails,” he said.

  “Well, now, your Lisbeth is suspected of killing not only Dag and Mia but also her guardian, and in that case the connection is crystal clear. What do you know about him?”

  “Not a thing. I never heard his name; I didn’t even know she had a guardian.”

  “But the likelihood of someone else having murdered all three of them is negligible. Even if someone killed Dag and Mia because of their story, there wouldn’t be the slightest reason for whoever it was to kill Salander’s guardian as well.”

  “I know, and I’ve worried myself sick over it. But I can imagine one scenario, at least, where an outside person might murder Dag and Mia as well as Lisbeth’s guardian.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Let’s say that Dag and Mia were murdered because they were rooting around in the sex trade and Lisbeth had somehow gotten involved as a third party. If Bjurman was Lisbeth’s guardian, then there’s a chance that she confided in him and he thereby became a witness to or obtained knowledge of something that subsequently led to his murder.”

  “I see what you mean,” Eriksson said. “But you don’t have a grain of evidence for that theory.”

  “No, not one grain.”

  “So what do you think? Is she guilty or not?”

  Blomkvist thought for a long time.

  “You’re asking me if she is capable of murder? The answer is yes. Salander has a violent streak. I’ve seen her in action when …”

  “When she saved your life?”

  Blomkvist looked at her, then said, “I can’t tell you the circumstances. But there was a man who was going to kill me and he was just about to succeed. She stepped in and beat him senseless with a golf club.”

  “And you haven’t told the police any of this?”

  “Absolutely not. And this has to remain between you and me.” He gave her a sharp look. “Malin, I have to be able to trust you on this.”

  “I won’t tell anyone about anything we discuss. You’re not just my boss—I like you too, and I don’t want to do anything that would hurt you.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Stop apologizing.”

  He laughed and then turned serious again. “I’m convinced that if it had been necessary, she would have killed that man to protect me. But at the same time I believe she’s quite rational. Peculiar, yes, but completely rational according to her own scheme of things. She used violence because she had to, not because she wanted to. To kill someone, she would have to be exceedingly threatened or provoked.”

  He thought for a while. Eriksson watched him patiently.

  “I can’t explain the lawyer. I don’t know a thing about him. But I just can’t imagine her being threatened or provoked—at all—by Dag and Mia. It’s not possible.”

  They sat quietly for a long time. Eriksson looked at her watch and saw that it was 9:30.

  “It’s late. I have to be getting home.”

  “It’s been a long day. We can go on sifting tomorrow. No, leave the dishes. I’ll take care of it.”

  On the Saturday night before Easter, Armansky lay awake, listening to Ritva sleeping. He could not make sense of the drama. In the end he got up, put on his slippers and dressing gown, and went into the living room. The air was cool and he put a few pieces of wood in the soapstone stove, opened a beer, and sat looking out at the dark waters of the Furusund channel.

  What do I know?

  Salander was unpredictable. No doubt about that.

  Something had happened in the winter of 2003, when she stopped working for him and disappeared on her year-long sabbatical abroad. Blomkvist was somehow mixed up in her sudden departure—but he didn’t know what had happened to her either.

  She came back and had come to see him. Claimed that she was “financially independent,” which presumably meant that she had enough to get by for a while.

  She had been regularly to see Palmgren. She had not been in touch with Blomkvist.

  She had shot three people, two apparently unknown to her.

  It doesn’t make any sense.

  Armansky took a gulp of his beer and lit a cigarillo. He had a guilty conscience, and that contributed to his bad mood.

  When Bublanski had been to see him, Armansky had unhesitatingly given him as much information as he could so that Salander could be caught. He had no doubt that she had to be caught—and the sooner the better. Armansky was a realist. If the police told him that a person was suspected of murder, the chances were that it was true. So Salander was guilty.

  But the police weren’t taking into account whether she might have felt that her actions were justified—or whether there might be some mitigating circumstance or a reasonable explanation for her having gone berserk. The police were required to catch her and prove that she had fired the shots, not dig into her psyche. They would be satisfied if they could find a motive, but failing that, they were ready to call it an act of insanity. He shook his head. He could not accept that she was an insane mass murderer. Salander never did anything against her will or without thinking through the consequences.

  Peculiar—yes. Insane—no.

  So there had to be an explanation, no matter how obscure it might appear to anyone who did not know her.

  At around 2:00 in the morning he made a decision.

  CHAPTER 17

  Easter Sunday, March 27–Tuesday, March 29

  Armansky got up early on Sunday after hours of worrying. He padded downstairs without waking Ritva and made coffee and a sandwich. Then he opened his laptop.

  He opened the report form that Milton Security used for personal investigations. He typed in as many facts as he could think of about Salander’s personality.

  At 9:00 Ritva came down and poured herself coffee. She wondered what he was doing. He gave a noncommittal answer and kept writing. He was going to be a lost cause all day.

  Blomkvist turned out to be wrong, probably because it was Easter weekend and police headquarters was still relatively empty. It took until Sunday morning before the media discovered that he was the one who had found Svensson and Johansson. The first to call was a reporter from Aftonbladet, an old friend.

  “Hello, Blomkvist. It’s Nicklasson.”

  “Hello, Nicklasson.”

  “So you were the one who found the couple in Enskede.”

  Blomkvist confirmed that was true.

  “My source tells me they worked for Millennium.”

  “Your source is part right and part wrong. Dag Svensson was doing a freelance report for Millennium. Mia Johansson wasn’t working for us.”

  “Oh boy. This is a hell of a story, you’ve got to admit.”

  “I know,” Blomkvist said wearily.

  “Why haven’t you released a
statement?”

  “Dag was a colleague and a friend. We thought it would be best at least to tell his and Mia’s relatives what happened before we put out any story.”

  Blomkvist knew that he wouldn’t be quoted on that point.

  “That makes sense. What was Dag working on?”

  “A story we commissioned.”

  “What about?”

  “What sort of scoop are you planning at Aftonbladet?”

  “So it was a scoop.”

  “Screw you, Nicklasson.”

  “Oh, come on, Blomman. You think the murders had anything to do with the story Dag Svensson was working on?”

  “You call me Blomman one more time, and I’m hanging up and not talking to you for the rest of the year.”

  “All right, I’m sorry. Do you think Dag was murdered because of his work as an investigative journalist?”

  “I have no idea why Dag was murdered.”

  “Did the story he was working on have anything to do with Lisbeth Salander?”

  “No. Nothing whatsoever.”

  “Did Dag know that nutcase?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Dag wrote a bunch of articles on computer crime recently. Was that the type of story he was writing for Millennium?”

  You just won’t give up, will you? Blomkvist thought. He was about to tell Nicklasson to piss off when he sat bolt upright in bed. He had just had two great ideas. Nicklasson started to say something else.

  “Hold on, Nicklasson. Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”

  Blomkvist got up and held his hand over the mouthpiece. He was suddenly on a completely different planet.

  Ever since the murders, he had been racking his brains about how he could find a way to get in touch with Salander. There was a chance—a rather good chance—that she would read what he said to the newspapers, wherever she was. If he denied that he knew her, she might interpret that to mean that he had abandoned her or betrayed her. If he defended her, then other people would interpret it as meaning that he knew more about the murders than he had said. But if he made a statement in just the right way, it might give Salander an impulse to reach him.

  “Sorry, I’m back. What did you say?”

  “Was Dag writing about computer crime?”

  “If you want a sound bite from me, I’ll give you one.”

  “Go for it.”

  “Only if you quote me word for word.”

  “How else would I quote you?”

  “I’d rather not answer that question.”

  “So what do you want to say?”

  “I’ll email it to you in fifteen minutes.”

  “What?”

  “Check your email,” Blomkvist said and hung up. He went over to his desk and booted up his iBook. He opened Word and sat there concentrating for two minutes before he started writing.

  Millennium’s editor in chief, Erika Berger, is deeply shaken by the murder of freelance journalist and colleague Dag Svensson. She hopes that the murders will soon be solved.

  It was Millennium’s publisher, Mikael Blomkvist, who discovered Dag Svensson and his girlfriend murdered last Wednesday night.

  “Dag Svensson was a fantastically gifted journalist and a person I liked a lot. He had proposed several ideas for articles. Among other things, he was working on a major investigation into illegal computer hacking,” Mikael Blomkvist tells Aftonbladet.

  Neither Blomkvist nor Berger will speculate about who might be guilty of the murders, or what motive might lie behind them.

  Blomkvist picked up the telephone and called Berger.

  “Hi, Ricky. You’ve just been interviewed by Aftonbladet.”

  “Do tell.”

  He read her the quote.

  “How come?”

  “Every word is true. Dag has worked freelance for ten years, and one of his specializations was computer security. I discussed it with him many times, and we were considering running an article by him on it when we finished the trafficking story. And do you know anyone else who is interested in hacking?”

  Berger realized what he was trying to do.

  “Smart, Micke. Damned smart. OK. Run it.”

  Nicklasson called back a minute after he got Blomkvist’s email.

  “That’s not much of a sound bite.”

  “That’s all you’re getting, and it’s more than any other paper will get. You run the whole quote or nothing.”

  Blomkvist went back to his iBook. He thought for a minute and then wrote:

  Dear Lisbeth,

  I’m writing this letter and leaving it on my hard drive knowing that sooner or later you’ll read it. I remember the way you took over Wennerström’s hard drive two years ago and suspect that you also made sure to hack my machine. It’s clear that you don’t want to have anything to do with me now. I don’t intend to ask why and you don’t have to explain.

  The events of the past few days have linked us again, whether you like it or not. The police are saying that you murdered two people I was very fond of. I was the one who discovered Dag and Mia minutes after they were shot. I don’t think it was you who shot them. I certainly hope it wasn’t. The police claim you’re a psychotic killer, but that would mean that I totally misjudged you or that you’ve changed dramatically over the past year. And if you’re not the murderer, then the police are chasing the wrong person.

  In this situation I should probably urge you to turn yourself in to the police, but I suspect I’d be wasting my breath. Sooner or later you’re going to be found, and when that happens you’re going to need a friend. You may not want to have anything to do with me, but I have a sister called Annika Giannini and she’s a lawyer. The best. She’s willing to represent you if you get in touch with her. You can trust her.

  As far as Millennium is concerned, we’ve begun our own investigation into why Dag and Mia were murdered. What I’m doing right now is putting together a list of the people who had reason to want to silence Dag. I don’t know if I’m on the right track, but I’m going to check the list one person at a time.

  One problem I have is that I don’t understand how Nils Bjurman fits into the picture. He isn’t mentioned anywhere in Dag’s material, and I can’t fathom any connection between him and Dag and Mia.

  Help me. Please. What’s the connection?

  Mikael.

  P.S. You should get a new passport photo. That one doesn’t do you justice.

  He named the document [To Sally]. Then he created a folder that he named and put an icon for it on the desktop of his iBook.

  On Tuesday morning Armansky called a meeting in his office at Milton Security. He had brought in three people.

  Johan Fräklund, a former criminal inspector with the Solna police, was the chief of Milton’s operations unit. He had overall responsibility for planning and analysis. Armansky had recruited him ten years earlier and had come to regard him, now in his early sixties, as one of the company’s most valuable assets.

  Armansky also called in Sonny Bohman and Niklas Hedström. Bohman too was a former policeman. He had received his training in the Norrmalm armed response squad in the eighties and then moved to the violent crimes division, where he had led a dozen dramatic investigations. During the rampage of the “Laser Man” sniper in the early nineties, Bohman had been one of the key players, and in 1997 he had moved to Milton only after a great deal of persuasion and the offer of a significantly higher salary.

  Niklas Hedström was regarded as a rookie. He had been trained at the police academy, but just before he was due to take his final exams he learned that he had a congenital heart defect. This not only required a major operation but also meant that his police career was already at an end.

  Fräklund, who had been a contemporary of Hedström’s father, had suggested to Armansky that they give him a chance. Since there was a position free in the analysis unit, Armansky approved the recruitment, and he had never had cause to regret it. Hedström had worked for Milton for five y
ears. He might lack field experience, but he stood out as a sharp-witted intellectual asset.

  “Good morning, everyone. Take a seat and start reading,” Armansky said. He handed out three folders with some fifty photocopied pages of press cuttings about the hunt for Salander, along with Armansky’s three-page summary of her background. Hedström finished reading first and put the folder down. Armansky waited until Bohman and Fräklund were done.

  “I presume none of you gentlemen has missed seeing the headlines in the papers over the weekend.”

  “Lisbeth Salander,” Fräklund said in a gloomy voice.

  Bohman shook his head.

  Hedström stared into space with an inscrutable expression and the hint of a sad smile.

  Armansky gave the trio a searching look.

  “One of our employees,” he said. “How well did you get to know her when she worked here?”

  “I tried a little light banter with her once,” Hedström said, again with a hint of a smile. “It didn’t go so well. I thought she was going to bite my head off. She was a first-class sourpuss, and I hardly exchanged ten sentences with her.”

  “I found her seriously odd,” Fräklund said.

  Bohman shrugged. “She was a real pain to deal with. I knew she was weird, but not that she was this fucking crazy.”

  “She did things her own way,” Armansky said. “She wasn’t easy to handle. But I trusted her because she was the best researcher I’ve ever come across. She delivered results beyond expectation every time.”

  “I never understood that,” Fräklund said. “I couldn’t figure out how she could be so incredibly skilled and at the same time so hopeless socially.”

  “The explanation, of course, lies in her mental state,” Armansky said, poking at one of the folders. “She was declared incompetent.”

  “I didn’t have a clue about that,” Hedström said. “I mean, she didn’t wear a sign on her back. And you never said anything.”

  “No,” Armansky said. “I didn’t think she needed to be any more stigmatized than she already was. Everybody deserves a chance.”