The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye: Continuing Stieg Larsson's Millennium Series

by David Lagercrantz

  “Why go to such lengths?” Holmberg said.

  “Here’s one factor worth bearing in mind,” Bublanski said. “Remember that Palmgren visited Salander at Flodberga. Since we know there are threats against her, a reasonable hypothesis might be that Palmgren got drawn into her problems – maybe because he found out something, or because he wanted to help. Lulu Magoro told us that she dug out a stack of papers for him on Saturday, and Palmgren read them with great concentration. Apparently he had been given them a few weeks earlier by a woman who’d had some connection to Salander.”

  “What woman?”

  “We don’t know yet, Lulu didn’t catch her name. And Salander’s saying nothing, but we have a lead. As you know, Blomkvist found some papers lying in the hall, either because Palmgren or his attacker dropped them. They appear to be case notes from St Stefan’s psychiatric clinic for children, where Salander was admitted as a girl. Peter Teleborian’s name comes up in them.”

  “That snake.”

  “That sly bastard, more like,” Modig said.

  “Has Teleborian been questioned?”

  “Amanda spoke to him today. He’s living with his wife and a German shepherd in high style on Amiralsgatan. He said he was sorry to hear about Palmgren but has no idea what might have happened. He doesn’t know anyone called Hilda von something, and he didn’t want to say anything more.”

  “We’ll probably have to circle back to him,” Bublanski said. “In the meantime we’ll go through the rest of Palmgren’s papers and belongings. But go on with Lulu, Sonja.”

  “She looked after Palmgren’s evening care four or five times a week,” Modig said. “Each time she would apply a pain-killing plaster, Norspan they’re called, and the active ingredient is … what’s it called again, Jerker?”

  Nice move, Bublanski thought. Involve them. Make them feel like they can contribute.

  “Buprenorphine,” Holmberg said. “It’s an opioid made from poppies, used as a painkiller in geriatric care. It’s also present in a drug called Subutex, which is prescribed for heroin addicts.”

  “Right. Palmgren ordinarily got a modest dose,” Modig said. “But what Blomkvist tore off his back yesterday was something entirely different: two prepared Fentanyl Actavis plasters. Together they add up to a lethal amount, isn’t that right, Jerker?”

  “Would have killed a horse.”

  “It’s amazing Palmgren survived for as long as he did, and he even managed to get out a few words.”

  “Interesting words, too,” Bublanski said.

  “They certainly are. Though anything said by a heavily drugged man in a situation like that needs to be viewed with a degree of caution. The words were: ‘Hilda von’, or rather, ‘Talk to Hilda von’. According to Blomkvist, Palmgren seemed to want to tell him something important. One can speculate as to whether that is the perpetrator’s name. As you know, we have a witness statement that yesterday evening a slim, black-haired woman of indeterminate age, wearing sunglasses, was seen hurrying down the stairs with a brown leather bag. Right now it’s impossible to judge how much value we should be attaching to it. Besides, I rather doubt that Palmgren would say ‘Talk to’ if he was referring to the person who had just hurt him. It sounds more likely that this ‘Hilda von’ is somebody with important information. Or else it could be someone completely unconnected, but whose name came into his head at the moment he died.”

  “Could be, but still, what do we have on the actual name?”

  “At first it looked promising,” Modig said. “The ‘von’ prefix is associated with aristocracy in Sweden, and that gives us a pretty limited circle. But Hilda is a common name in Germany too, and there the ‘von’ can also be a preposition simply meaning ‘from’. Therefore, if we include Germanic names, we’re talking about a much larger group. Jan and I agree that we should get a little further in the investigation before we embark on questioning all the aristocratic Hildas from the grandest families in Sweden.”

  “And what are you getting out of Salander?” Svensson said.

  “Not a lot, unfortunately.”

  “Bloody typical.”

  “Well, yes, I suppose that’s fair,” Modig said. “But we haven’t yet spoken to her ourselves, we’ve relied on our colleagues in the Örebro force. She’s a witness for them in a different case, a serious assault on Beatrice Andersson at Flodberga.”

  “Who the hell was brave enough to attack Benito?” Holmberg burst out.

  “The warden in the maximum security unit, Alvar Olsen. He says he had no choice. I’ll get to that.”

  “I hope he’s got bodyguards,” Holmberg said.

  “Security in the unit has been stepped up and Benito’s being transferred to another prison as soon as she’s fit to be moved. Right now, she’s in hospital in Örebro.”

  “That won’t be enough, I can promise you that,” Holmberg said. “Do you have the slightest idea what sort of person Benito is? Have you ever seen the state of her victims? Trust me, she won’t give up until Olsen’s had his throat cut – slowly.”

  “Both we and the prison management know the situation is serious,” Modig said, slightly irritated. “But we see no acute danger for the time being. May I continue? Our colleagues in Örebro didn’t get much out of Salander, as I said. We have to hope that you, Jan – she trusts you – will do better. All of us – that’s right, isn’t it? – have a feeling that Salander is a key person here. According to Blomkvist, Palmgren was worried about her and told Blomkvist on the telephone a day or so ago that he’d done something rash or stupid because of it, and that’s interesting. What did he mean? And how rash can an infirm eighty-nine-year-old possibly be?”

  “I would suggest we’re talking about a telephone call, or an impetuous search on his computer,” Flod said.

  “I agree. But we’re not finding anything helpful. Plus, his mobile seems to have vanished into thin air.”

  “That sounds suspicious,” Flod said.

  “Indeed. And there’s something else I think we should talk about. It’s better if you take over here, Jan,” Modig said.

  Bublanski squirmed as if he would rather not. Then he took them through the story of Faria Kazi, which he himself had learned that morning.

  “As you’ve heard, Salander didn’t want to talk to the Örebro police about her meeting with Palmgren,” he said. “She didn’t want to say much about the assault on Benito either. But there was one thing she did want to discuss, and that was the investigation into the death of Jamal Chowdhury, the refugee from Bangladesh. She thinks it was very badly handled, and I have to say I agree.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “The haste with which it was determined to be a suicide. If this had been just another case of some poor wretch jumping in front of a Tunnelbana train, I might understand it. But this was no ordinary incident. There was a fatwa against Chowdhury, and you cannot make light of that. There’s a small group in Stockholm which has been radicalized through the influence of extremist elements in Bangladesh, and which seems prepared to kill at the drop of a hat. Since Chowdhury first arrived in Sweden, we should have been suspicious if he’d so much as slipped on a banana skin. But then he falls in love with Faria Kazi – whose brothers want to marry her off to a rich Islamist in Dhaka. You can imagine how furious they must have been when Faria ran away, into the arms of Chowdhury, of all people. Not only is Chowdhury the man who destroys the family’s honour. He’s also a religious and political enemy. Then all of a sudden he goes and falls in front of a train, and what do our colleagues do? They write it off as a suicide, as easily as they’d investigate a domestic burglary in Vällingby, when in fact there’s a long list of strange circumstances surrounding the events. On top of that, what happens the day after Chowdhury’s death? Faria Kazi has a fit of rage and shoves her brother Ahmed out through a window in Sickla. I find it very hard to believe that has nothing to do with the incident in the Tunnelbana.”

  “O.K., I get that, and it doesn’t sound to
o good. But in what way is it connected to Palmgren’s death?” Svensson said.

  “Maybe it isn’t, but still – Faria Kazi ends up in the maximum security unit at Flodberga with Salander and, like her, is the target of serious threats. There are major concerns that her brothers will want their revenge, and today we’ve had confirmation from Säpo that they’ve been in touch with none other than Benito. The brothers call themselves believers, but they have more in common with Benito than with Muslims in general, and if it’s revenge they’re after, Benito is the ideal weapon.”

  “I can imagine,” Holmberg said.

  “It also seems that Benito has taken an interest in both Kazi and Salander.”

  “How do we know that?”

  “From the investigation carried out by the prison into how Benito got her stiletto into the unit. They went through everything, absolutely everything, including the rubbish in the visitors’ section in H Block. A crumpled note was found in one of the waste bins there, with some very disturbing information in Benito’s handwriting. Not only the address of the school to which Olsen’s nine-year-old daughter was moved some months ago, but also the particulars of Faria’s aunt, Fatima, the only one in the family she’s still close to. And, most noteworthy, details about people close to Salander: Mikael Blomkvist, a lawyer by the name of Jeremy MacMillan in Gibraltar – no, I still don’t know who that is – and Holger Palmgren.”

  “Oh no, really?” Flod said.

  “Unfortunately. It feels almost uncanny to see Palmgren’s name there and to know it was written before he died. Not only his name, but his address, door code and telephone number.”

  “Not good,” Holmberg said.

  “No. It’s not necessarily linked to his murder, or what we believe to be his murder. But it is striking, isn’t it?”

  Blomkvist was walking along Hantverkargatan on Kungsholmen when his mobile rang. It was Sofie Melker at the office. She wanted to know how he was. “So-so,” he answered, and he thought that was the end of it. Melker was the eighth person that day to call and extend condolences. There was nothing wrong with that, but he would rather be left alone. He wanted to deal with the situation the way he normally dealt with death – through hard work.

  He had been in Uppsala that morning and read the file for the investigation of the Rosvik finance director who had been involved in the accidental shooting of psychologist Carl Seger. Now he was on his way to meet Ellenor Hjort, the woman who had been engaged to Seger at the time.

  “Thanks, Sofie,” he said. “Speak later. I’m going into a meeting now.”

  “O.K., we can deal with it later.”

  “Deal with what?”

  “Erika asked me to check something for you.”

  “Oh yes. Did you find anything?”

  “Depends.”

  “What do you mean, depends?”

  “There’s nothing untoward in Herman and Viveka Mannheimer’s personal files.”

  “I’d have been surprised if there had been. I’m more interested in Leo’s file. He might have been adopted, or maybe there was something sensitive or out-of-the-ordinary in his background.”

  “In fact his documents look neat and tidy. They state clearly that he was born in Västerled parish, where his parents lived at the time of his birth. Column 20, headed ‘Adoptive parents or children etc.’, is blank. There’s nothing redacted or declared confidential. Everything seems normal. Each parish he lived in while growing up is neatly listed. There’s nothing that stands out at all.”

  “But didn’t you say ‘depends’?”

  “Let me put it this way: I thought it could be fun to take a look at my own personal file, since I was down at the City Archives anyway, so I asked for it and paid the eight kronor, which I’ve decided not to claim back from Millennium.”

  “How very generous of you.”

  “The thing is, I’m only three years older than Leo. But my file looks totally different,” she said.

  “In what way?”

  “It’s not as tidy. Reading it made me feel really old. There’s one column, column 19, where dates and other details have been recorded from whenever I moved and was transferred to another parish. I don’t know who writes those entries, civil servants I would guess. But they’re an absolute mess. Sometimes the notes are written by hand, sometimes they’re typed. Some of the information has been stamped in, and then it’s not always straight, as if they’d had difficulty lining it up properly. But in Leo’s file it’s all perfect, everything is consistent, filled in on the same kind of machine or computer.”

  “As if someone had reconstituted it?”

  “Well …” Sofie said. “If someone else had asked me or if I’d just happened to see his file, the thought would never have occurred to me. But you make us all a bit paranoid, you know, Mikael. With you, we smell a rat. So yes, with all that in mind, I wouldn’t rule out that the file was rewritten after the fact. What’s all this about?”

  “I don’t know yet. You didn’t say who you were, did you, Sofie?”

  “I took advantage of my right to remain anonymous, as Erika suggested, and fortunately I’m not a celebrity like you.”

  “Great. Take care now, and thanks!”

  He ended the call and looked gloomily over Kungsholms torg. It was a glorious day, which only made things worse. He carried on down to the address he had been given – Norr Mälarstrand 32 – where Carl Seger’s former fiancée Ellenor Hjort lived with her fifteen-year-old daughter. These days she was a manager at Bukowskis’ auction rooms, fifty-two years old, divorced for three years and active in a number of non-profit organizations. She also coached her daughter’s basketball team. Clearly an active woman.

  Blomkvist looked down towards Lake Mälaren, which was lying wind-still, and across to his own apartment on the other side of the water. It was oppressively hot and he felt sticky and heavy as he keyed in the code and took the lift to the top floor. He rang the doorbell and did not have to wait long.

  Ellenor Hjort looked surprisingly young. She had short hair, beautiful dark-brown eyes and a small scar just below the hairline. She was dressed in a black jacket and grey trousers, and her home was filled with books and paintings. As she served Blomkvist tea and biscuits she seemed nervous. The cups and saucers rattled as she set them down on a table between a light-blue sofa and matching armchairs. Blomkvist made himself comfortable in one of them, beneath a rather garish oil painting of Venice.

  “I must say, I’m surprised you should bring up this story again after all these years,” she said.

  “I do understand, and I’m sorry if I’m opening old wounds. But I would like to know a little bit more about Carl.”

  “Why is he of interest all of a sudden?”

  Blomkvist hesitated and decided to be honest:

  “I wish I could say. Perhaps there’s more to his death than meets the eye. Something feels not quite right.”

  “What do you mean, more specifically?”

  “It’s still mostly a gut instinct. I went to Uppsala and read all the witness statements, and there’s actually nothing inconsistent or odd about them except, well, precisely that there is nothing odd about them. If I’ve learned anything over the years, it’s that the truth is generally a little unexpected, or even illogical, since we humans aren’t entirely rational. Whereas lies, as a rule, tend to be consistent and comprehensive and often sound like a cliché – especially if the liars aren’t very good.”

  “So the investigation into Carl’s death is a cliché,” she said. “Is that it?”

  “The whole thing hangs together a little too well,” Blomkvist said. “There aren’t enough inconsistencies, and too few details that really stand out.”

  “Do you have anything to tell me that I don’t already know?”

  Ellenor Hjort sounded almost sarcastic.

  “I could add that the man who was supposed to have fired the shot, Per Fält—”

  Hjort interrupted and assured him that she had every respect for
his profession and his powers of observation. But when it came to this investigation, there was nothing he could teach her.

  “I’ve read through it a hundred times,” she said. “All the things you’re talking about I’ve felt like stabs in the back. Don’t you think I’ve shouted and screamed at Herman and Alfred Ögren – ‘What are you bastards hiding!?’ Of course I did!”

  “And what answer did you get?”

  “Indulgent smiles and kind words. ‘We understand it can’t be easy. We’re so very sorry …’ But after a while, when I wouldn’t give up, they threatened me. They told me to watch my step. They were powerful men and my insinuations were lies and slander, and they knew good lawyers and all that. I was too weak and too grief-stricken to keep arguing. Carl had been my life. I was devastated and I couldn’t study, or work, or cope with the most day-to-day routines.”

  “I understand.”

  “But the strange thing was – and it’s also the reason that I’m sitting here with you today, in spite of it all – who do you think comforted me more than anyone else, more than my father and mother and my sisters and friends?”

  “Leo?”

  “Exactly, lovely little Leo. He was as inconsolable as I was. We sat in the house Carl and I shared on Grönviksvägen and wept and ranted against the world and those bloody bastards in the forest, and when I screamed and sobbed ‘There’s only half of me now’, he said the same thing. He was only a child. But we were united in our grief.”

  “Why did Carl matter so much to him?”

  “They saw each other every week in Carl’s consulting rooms. But there was more to it than that, of course. Leo looked upon Carl not just as a therapist, but also as a friend, maybe the only person in the whole world who understood him, and for his part Carl wanted to …” She trailed off.

  “What?”

  “To help Leo, and to get him to understand that he was an immensely gifted boy with extraordinary potential, and then of course … I’m not going to pretend this wasn’t a factor too: Leo became important for Carl’s research, for his doctoral thesis.”