Salander was gone, and he took it badly. Bloody hell, Lisbeth, why are you always running away from me? Can’t you see that I need you? But he would just have to live with it, and he compensated for her absence by cursing with rage and increasing his intake of painkillers.
At times, in that no-man’s-land between night and day, he was driven to the edge of madness and, if he did manage to drop off during those hours, he would dream about the furnace in Morgonsala. How his body was gradually pushed into that sea of fire and consumed by the flames, and then, when he woke with a start or a scream, he would look down at his legs in bewilderment, to make sure that they were not burning.
He was most calm in the afternoons, when he had visitors, and sometimes he almost forgot about himself; or at least he managed to keep the memories of the glassworks at bay. And he was altogether taken by surprise when a black woman with sparkling eyes appeared, a bouquet of flowers in her arms. She was wearing a bright-blue suit with flared trousers and her hair was neatly braided. She looked like a runner or dancer and moved almost soundlessly. At first he could not think why she looked familiar, and then it dawned on him: it was Kadi Linder, the boardroom professional and psychologist whom he had met in the doorway of what was now her apartment at Fiskargatan.
Kadi had come to see if there was anything she could do to help, she said, deeply moved by what she had read about him in the newspapers, but she seemed also to want to tell him something else. Seeing her fidget and look somewhat awkward, he asked what was troubling her.
“I got an e-mail,” she said. “Actually, e-mail isn’t the right word. My screen blinked, and as if by magic there was this file about Freddy Carlsson at Formea Bank. You know, that guy who’s been getting at me and rubbishing me for years because I said he was dishonest in Veckans Affärer.”
“I vaguely remember that,” he said.
“Well, that file contained unequivocal proof that, when he was in charge of the bank’s business in the Baltic, Freddy had engaged in sophisticated money-laundering activities, and I saw that he wasn’t just casually dishonest but actually a criminal through and through.”
“Good grief.”
“But that wasn’t what surprised me the most. It was the message just below the link to the file.”
“What did it say?”
“Something like ‘I’ve been keeping an eye on the security cameras in case someone hasn’t realised I’ve moved.’ That was all, and at first I had no idea what it meant. There was no sender and no name. But then I thought of your visit and the dramatic events at Morgonsala. And the penny dropped: I’d bought Lisbeth Salander’s apartment, and that made me—”
“You don’t need to be worried,” he interrupted her.
“Worried? Oh no, my God, not at all, I was starstruck! I could see that the file on Freddy Carlsson was Salander’s way of making up for any hassle I might have because of her. Frankly, I was overwhelmed, and it made me want to help the two of you even more.”
“That’s not at all necessary,” he said. “It’s already good of you to come to see me.”
In a move so inspired that he surprised himself, Blomkvist then asked Kadi if she might consider becoming chair of the magazine’s board of directors, bearing in mind Millennium’s exposed position in the media market and all the aggressive attempts to buy them up. She lit up at that and at once said yes, and the very next day he got Erika and the others to agree to the idea.
Catrin had of course been his most frequent visitor at the hospital, not just because they were virtually a couple now, but also because he was working with her on her report. He read successive drafts and they discussed the story over and over. Both Lindberg and Engelman had been arrested, and so had Ivan Galinov. Annika Giannini, who paid the occasional sisterly visit to Blomkvist’s bedside, told him that Lindberg would in all likelihood receive a life sentence for his treason and certainly faced confiscation of his illicit gains. It looked like the end for Svavelsjö M.C., although perhaps not for Zvezda Bratva, whose protectors were too powerful.
Forsell, however, looked as if he would come out of it reasonably well, and at times Blomkvist thought that Catrin was being too easy on him. But Forsell had, after all, given them the scoop. And besides, he liked the man, so he supposed it was a concession he would have to live with. In any case it was bound to be a relief for Rebecka and the boys.
It was particularly heartening that Nima Rita had been cremated according to Buddhist custom back home in Tengboche, Nepal. There was also to be a memorial service, and Bob Carson was coming over from Denver. Fredrika Nyman would be there too. Everything seemed to be falling into place. Yet somehow none of it made him really happy. He felt that he was on the sidelines, especially now that Erika was babbling excitedly at him over the telephone. What on earth was she talking about?
“Who’s Kuznetsov?” he said.
“Have you completely lost your marbles?”
“What do you mean, my marbles?”
“You’ve hung him out to dry.”
“I have?”
“What drugs are they giving you?”
“Nowhere near enough.”
“And it’s a lousy piece of writing too.”
“I did warn you.”
“But in your usual lousy style you’ve emphasised very clearly that it was Vladimir Kuznetsov who set off this summer’s stock market crash. He was also one of the people behind the murders of homosexuals in Chechnya.”
He had no idea what she was talking about. He hobbled over to his computer and opened up his old article.
“That sounds pretty crazy.”
“Not half as crazy as your reaction to my questions.”
“It must be …”
He did not finish his sentence, but then he did not have to either. The same thought had occurred to Erika.
“Is this something to do with Lisbeth?”
“I honestly don’t know, Erika,” he said, shocked. “But tell me now. Kuznetsov, you say.”
“You’ll have to read it yourself. Irina is busy translating the documents and the evidence that was attached. But it’s an absolutely mind-boggling story. Kuznetsov’s the one the Crazy Sisters sing about in ‘Killing the World with Lies’.”
“In what?”
“Sorry, I keep forgetting that you lost touch somewhere around Tina Turner.”
“Pack it in.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“At least give me a chance to look into it.”
“I’ll pop over this evening and we can talk about it.”
He thought about Catrin, who was meant to be coming over late that afternoon.
“Let’s meet up tomorrow, that’ll give me time to get my head around a bit more of this.”
“O.K. And how are you feeling, by the way?”
He gave it some thought. And decided that she deserved a serious answer.
“It’s been pretty tough.”
“I can imagine.”
“But now …”
“What?”
“I’ve just begun to feel alive again.”
He was in a hurry to hang up.
“I have to …” he went on.
“Get in touch with a certain person.”
“Something like that.”
“Take care then,” she said.
He ended the call and tried again what he had tried to do countless times from hospital – get hold of Salander. He had not seen a single sign of life since she had vanished, had heard nothing at all of her except that she had sent that message to Kadi Linder, and he was worried. It was part of his general anxiety, a creeping unease which was always worst at night and early in the morning. He was afraid that she was unable to stop; that she would seek out new shadows from her past, and that eventually she would run out of luck. It was – he could not get the thought out of his mind – as if she were predestined for a violent end, and he could not bear the thought.
He picked up his mobile. What would he write this time? The cl
ouds were rolling in outside. The wind was picking up and rattling the windowpanes and he felt his heart beat in his chest. Memories of the gaping furnace in Morgonsala washed over him and he toyed with the idea of making his message sound quite strict: she must get in touch. Otherwise, he would go mad.
But in the end it was light-hearted – as if he were afraid to show how worried he was.
But there was no answer. The hours passed and day turned to night and Catrin came. They kissed and shared a bottle of wine, and for a while he forgot his troubles. They didn’t stop talking until they both fell asleep at around eleven, entwined in each other’s arms. He woke up three hours later with a feeling of impending doom and nervously picked up his mobile. But there was nothing from Salander. He reached for his crutches, limped into the kitchen and sat there until dawn, thinking about her.
EPILOGUE
The sky was heavy with a gathering storm when Inspector Artur Delov parked on the gravel road outside the charred remains of a house in Gorodishche, north-west of Volgograd. He simply could not understand why the fire had caused such a commotion.
No-one had been injured and it had not been much of a house. The whole neighbourhood was poor and run-down and nobody had even laid claim to the building. Yet there were V.I.P.s out there, intelligence people, gangsters too, he thought, and also a number of small boys who should really be in school or at home with their mothers. He shooed them away and surveyed the ruins. About the only thing left was an old iron stove and a toppled chimney. Everything else had been destroyed and burned to the ground, there were not even any glowing embers. The entire plot was a black, desolate scene, and there was a gaping hole in the middle of it all, like a hatch leading down into the underworld. Some scorched, ghost-like trees were standing next to the site, their branches sticking out like charred fingers.
Gusts of wind whipped up ashes and soot from the ground and made it hard to breathe. There was a feeling of poison in the air, and Artur’s chest tightened. But he shook it off and turned to his colleague Anna Mazurova, who was standing there, looking down at the debris from the fire.
“What’s this all about?” he said.
Anna had flakes of soot in her hair.
“We think it’s a statement.”
“What do you mean?”
“The house was bought a week ago through a law firm in Stockholm,” she said. “The family who lived here moved to new and better accommodation in Volgograd. And yesterday evening, when the last of the furniture had been carried out, explosions were heard from inside. The house burst into flames and burned to the ground.”
“And why are people concerned about that?” he said.
“Alexander Zalachenko, the man who created Zvezda Bratva – the ‘Star Mob’ syndicate – spent the first years of his life here. After his parents died, he was moved to a children’s home in Sverdlovsk in the Urals. That property burned down the day before yesterday, which seemed to worry some of the bigwigs, especially since it coincides with a number of other setbacks for the syndicate.”
“So it looks as if there’s someone who’s determined to put the very roots of evil to the torch,” he said, looking pensive.
There was a rumbling in the sky. A squall swept by, pulling with it ashes and soot from the ruins and carrying them past the trees and away from the neighbourhood. Soon the rain began to fall, a liberating shower which seemed to purify the air, and Artur Delov felt the pressure release across his chest.
Not long after that, Salander landed in Munich, and in the taxi going into town she looked at her mobile and saw a series of text messages from Blomkvist. She decided at last to answer.
The reply came back straight away.
The Girl Who Lived Twice Page 32
