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

by David Lagercrantz

  She noticed a man coming her way. Dressed in a blue suit, and with slicked-back dark-blonde hair, he sat down next to her and looked with exaggerated concern at her split lip and bruised face: “My God, who did you manage to upset?” He risked at least a withering look, but at that moment her mobile buzzed. Blomkvist sent her an encrypted message which set her even more on edge. She got up, tossed some hundred-kronor notes onto the bar and gave the man a shove on her way out.

  The city was shimmering and music was playing in the distance. It was a glorious summer’s evening for anyone in the mood for it. Salander noticed none of that. She looked ready to kill. She searched the name she had been given on her mobile and soon realized that Rakel Greitz had protected identity status. That in itself was not a problem. We all leave traces, like when we buy things online and are careless about giving out our addresses. But as she crossed Strömbron on her way to Gamla Stan, she was unable to do anything, not even hack a site where Rakel Greitz might have bought a book. Instead, she thought about dragons.

  She thought about how, as a little girl, she had run shoeless through Stockholm until she got to the Royal Palace and hurried past a tall pillar towards a cathedral which was lit up in the darkness. That was Storkyrkan. She knew nothing about it then, she was simply drawn to it. She was freezing cold, her socks were soaked through and she needed to get some rest and warmth. She ran into an inner courtyard and walked through the side doors of the cathedral. The ceiling was so high that it seemed to reach to the sky. She remembered how she had gone further in so that people would stop staring at her. And that’s when she saw the statue. Only later did she realize that it was famous, said to represent St George killing a dragon and rescuing a damsel in distress. But that was not something Salander knew then or would even have cared about. She saw something entirely different in the statue that evening – an assault. The dragon – she still remembered it so clearly – was on its back with a spear through its body, while a man with an indifferent, blank expression struck the animal with his sword. The dragon was defenceless and alone, and that had made Salander think of her mother.

  She saw her mother in the dragon, and with every muscle in her body she felt that she wanted to save her. Or better still, she wanted to be the dragon herself and fight back, and breathe fire, and pull the rider down from his horse and kill him. Because the knight was clearly none other than Zala, her father. He was the evil destroying their lives.

  But that was not all. There was another figure depicted in the statue, a woman one could easily miss because she was standing to one side. She wore a crown on her head and was holding out her hands, as if reading a book. The strangest thing was that she was so calm, as if she were looking out over a meadow or an ocean rather than a slaughter. At the time, Salander could not recognize the woman as the maiden being rescued. In her eyes, the woman was ice cold and indifferent. She looked exactly like the woman with the birthmark from whom she had just escaped and who, like all the others, was allowing the violence and the abuse to continue at her home.

  That was how she saw it. Not only were her mother and the dragon being tormented, but the world was looking on heartlessly. Salander felt a deep revulsion for the knight and the woman in the statue, and she had run back out into the rain and the storm, shaking with cold and fury. It was all so long ago and yet remarkably present. Now, many years later, as she crossed the bridge to Gamla Stan on her way home, she muttered the name to herself: Rakel Greitz.

  This was her link to the Registry. She had been looking for it ever since Palmgren came to visit her at Flodberga.

  Hilda opened a beer. By now her left eye was wandering a little. At times she lost her train of thought and seemed gripped by remorse, at others she was astonishingly focused, as if the alcohol had merely sharpened her wits.

  “I don’t know what Lisbeth did after she ran out of Storkyrkan, only that she managed to beg some money at Central Station the next day and pinched a pair of over-sized shoes and a down jacket at Åhléns. Agneta was beside herself with worry, of course, and I … I was furious and told Rakel that she would jeopardize the whole project if she went through with her plan. In the end, she gave in. She left Lisbeth alone. But she never stopped hating her. I think she was involved when Lisbeth was locked up at St Stefan’s.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because her good friend Peter Teleborian worked at the clinic.”

  “They were friends?”

  “Rakel was Teleborian’s psychoanalyst. They shared a belief in repressed memory and other similarly ridiculous theories, and he was very loyal to her. But the interesting thing is that Rakel not only hated Lisbeth, she also became more and more frightened of her. I believe she recognized, long before anyone else did, just what Lisbeth was capable of.”

  “Do you think Rakel had anything to do with Holger Palmgren’s death?”

  Hilda glanced down at her shoes. Voices could be heard outside on the quay.

  “She’s merciless. I can vouch for that more than anyone. The rumour mill she set in motion when I decided to leave the Registry just about did me in. But murder? I’m not sure. I would find that hard to believe. At least I’d rather not believe it, still less …”

  Hilda pulled a face. Blomkvist waited for her to continue.

  “… still less can I believe it about Daniel Brolin. He’s such a vulnerable, gifted boy. He would never harm anyone, least of all his twin brother. They were made to be together.”

  Blomkvist was about to answer that this is exactly what people say when their friends or acquaintances commit the most heinous crimes. “We just don’t understand”, “It’s not possible”, “Not him/not her, surely?” And yet it happens. We have the highest opinion of someone and then that person is blinded by rage and the unthinkable happens. He said nothing and tried not to jump to conclusions. There were any number of possible scenarios. They talked for a while longer and then ran through a few practical details including how they would communicate over the coming days. He urged her to take every care and to look after herself, and then he checked his mobile to see if there was a late train back to Stockholm. He had fifteen minutes. He packed away his voice recorder, gave her a hug and rushed off. On his way to the station he tried once more to reach Salander. He both needed to see her, and he wanted to. It had been too long.

  In the train he looked at a shaky video his sister had sent him, in which a furious Bashir Kazi appeared to confess to being behind the murder of Jamal Chowdhury.

  Not only had the video gone viral, it had also triggered a flurry of activity in police headquarters on Bergsgatan. This was intensified when, soon after, two sophisticated hand movement analyses were sent to Bublanski on the murder squad of the Violent Crimes Division. Those analyses were also the reason why a young man with a runner’s physique and a lost look in his eyes was slumped in one of the interview rooms on the seventh floor, together with his imam, Hassan Ferdousi.

  Bublanski had known Ferdousi reasonably well for some time now. Ferdousi and Bublanski’s fiancée, Farah Sharif, had been students together. He was also one of those leaders who worked to encourage closer interaction between the various religious communities in the face of the country’s rising anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. Bublanski did not always see eye to eye with Ferdousi, especially over the question of Israel, but he had great respect for him, and he had greeted the imam with a reverential bow.

  He heard that Ferdousi had helped to bring about a breakthrough in the investigation into Jamal Chowdhury’s death, and he was grateful but also dejected. It revealed the extent of his colleagues’ incompetence and Bublanski was overloaded with work as it was. Fru Torell at last got in touch to say that someone had indeed come to see her in connection with the papers she had handed over to Holger Palmgren. A certain Professor Martin Steinberg – a respected citizen, apparently, who had worked for both the social services and the government. Steinberg had told her that some individuals had already got themselves into difficulties b
ecause of those papers, and made her swear before God and the late Professor Caldin that she would never again talk about them, nor should she mention Steinberg’s visit, “for the safety and well-being of our former patients”.

  Steinberg had taken away her back-up, a U.S.B. stick. Torell did not remember what had been on it, other than the medical notes on Salander. But Bublanski was uneasy about it, especially since he had not been able to get in touch with Steinberg. Bublanski wanted to spend more time trying to unravel the mystery, but he would have to simply forget about it all for a while. He had been asked to handle this interview, even though he hardly had the time for it.

  He looked at his watch. It was 8.45 a.m. Another glorious day that would mostly pass him by. He looked at the young man sitting quietly next to the imam, waiting for his court-appointed defence lawyer. His name was Khalil Kazi and he had apparently confessed to murdering Jamal Chowdhury out of love for his sister. Out of love? It was incomprehensible. But that was Bublanski’s unhappy lot in life. People did terrible things and it was his responsibility to understand why and to bring them to justice. He looked at the imam and the young man, and for some reason he thought of the ocean.

  Blomkvist woke up in Salander’s double bed on Fiskargatan. It had not exactly been his plan, but it was his own fault. He had turned up on her doorstep and had been let in with a silent nod. Admittedly, at first they had just worked and shared information. But for both of them it had been a very eventful day, and in the end Blomkvist could no longer keep his mind on what they were doing. He wiped the dried blood from her lip and asked about the dragon in Storkyrkan. It was 1.30 in the morning and the summer sky was already brightening as they sat on her sofa.

  “Was that the reason you had the dragon tattooed on your back?”

  “No,” she said.

  Clearly she did not want to talk about it and he had no wish to press her. He was tired and was getting up to go home when Salander pulled him onto the sofa again and placed a hand on his chest.

  “I had it done because it helped me,” she said.

  “Helped you? How?”

  “I thought about the dragon when I was strapped down to the bed at St Stefan’s.”

  “What were you thinking?”

  “That it looked helpless with the spear stuck in its body, but that one day it would rise up, breathe fire and destroy its enemies. That’s what kept me going.” Her eyes were dark and apprehensive.

  She and Blomkvist looked at each other, they might have been about to kiss. But Salander seemed miles away and she turned to gaze out over the city and at a train which was rolling into Central Station. She said that she had tracked down Rakel Greitz via an online store in Sollentuna which sold disinfectants. Blomkvist murmured his appreciation, although it worried him. Soon afterwards, the heat having gone out of the moment, his head started to droop and he asked if he could lie down for a while on her bed. Salander had no objection. She went to bed herself a little while later and soon fell asleep.

  Now, in the morning, Blomkvist heard sounds from the kitchen. He dragged himself out of bed and turned on the coffee machine. He watched Salander retrieve a Hawaiian pizza from the microwave and sit at the kitchen table. He rummaged around in her refrigerator, and swore because there was nothing else to eat. Then he remembered that she had just got out of prison, and there had been more than enough for her to do on her first day of freedom. He contented himself with coffee and tuned in to P1 on the kitchen radio. He caught the end of the daily news bulletin and listened to the forecast of record temperatures for the Stockholm area. He said good morning to Salander, who muttered something in return. She was wearing jeans and a black T-shirt, no make-up, and her swollen lip and the bruises on her face looked excruciatingly painful. Shortly afterwards they went down to the street together, talking briefly about their plans. They went their separate ways at Slussen. He told her to take it easy and she nodded.

  He was on his way to Alfred Ögren Securities.

  She was going to track down Rakel Greitz.

  While Khalil Kazi was being questioned in the interview room, his defence lawyer, Harald Nilsson, sat poking nervously at the table with his pen. There were moments when Bublanski could hardly bear to listen. Khalil should have had a bright future; instead he had ruined everything.

  It had been at the beginning of October, almost two years before.

  After Faria had run away from the apartment in Sickla, she managed secretly to keep in touch with Khalil and told him that she intended to sever all links with the family. They arranged to meet at a café on Norra Bantorget so that she could say goodbye to her youngest brother. Khalil swore that he had not said a word to anybody, but the brothers must have tailed him. They dragged their sister into a car and took her back to Sickla. Faria spent the first few days tied up. They put duct tape over her mouth and a piece of cardboard across her chest saying “WHORE”. Bashir and Ahmed beat her. They spat on her and let other men who came to the apartment do the same.

  Khalil realized that Faria was no longer regarded as a sister, even a human being. Her body was no longer hers, and he was afraid he could guess what was in store for her. She would be taken to some remote place, beyond the reach of the police, where her blood would be shed to cleanse the family’s honour. Occasionally, they talked about how she might be saved through marriage to Qamar, but Khalil did not believe that. She had already been defiled. And how would they get her out of the country while keeping her under control?

  Khalil was sure that Faria was facing certain death. He too had had his telephone taken away and was effectively a prisoner, so there was no way he could raise the alarm. In his despair he could only hope for a miracle. A small miracle did occur, or at least a measure of relief: They untied Faria’s hands and got rid of the sign, and she was allowed to shower, eat in the kitchen and move around in the apartment without a veil. Presents were handed out, and it seemed as if Faria were to be given compensation for her suffering instead of harsher punishment.

  The brothers gave her a radio and for Khalil they found a second-hand StairMaster, driven over by an acquaintance in Huddinge. That built up his strength. He had been missing his running – his freedom of movement, the power of his stride – and now he trained for hours on end. He began to see light at the end of the tunnel, even though he still expected the worst. Some days later Bashir and Ahmed came into his room and sat on the bed. Bashir was holding a pistol, but even so, the brothers did not appear angry. Both were wearing freshly ironed shirts in the same shade of blue. They smiled at him.

  “We’ve got good news!” Bashir said.

  Faria would be allowed to live, or rather she would be allowed to live as long as someone paid the price. Anything else would bring down the wrath of Allah, their honour would not be avenged and the stain would spread and poison them all. Khalil was given a choice: he could either die, together with his sister – or he must murder Jamal and thereby save the two of them. Khalil did not understand at first. He did not want to understand, he said. He just kept up his stepping on his StairMaster. So they put the choice to him again.

  “But why me?” Khalil said. “I could never hurt anybody.” He was utterly distraught.

  Bashir explained that, of all the brothers, only Khalil was not known to the police. He had a good reputation. Above all by doing this Khalil could atone for having failed the family. At some point he must have answered yes, he would kill Jamal. He was desperate, caught in an impossible situation.

  He loved his sister, and his life was threatened.

  But there was one detail Bublanski did not understand: Why had Khalil not called the police when he was let out of the apartment to carry out the murder? Khalil claimed he had planned to do exactly that. He was going to reveal everything and seek protection. But then he was bewildered and paralysed, he said, by the precision with which the operation had been prepared. Others were also involved, Islamists who never let him out of their sight, and who missed no opportunity to tell him what
a despicable person Jamal was. Jamal had a fatwa against him. He had been condemned to death by devout people in Bangladesh. He was worse than swine, and Jews and rats that spread the plague. He had besmirched the family’s honour and that of his sister. Slowly but surely, Khalil was drawn into the darkness and driven to do the unthinkable. He pushed Jamal in front of the train. He was certainly not alone, but it was he who had run onto the platform and pushed him.

  “I killed him,” he said.

  Faria Kazi was in the visitors’ room in H Block of Flodberga. Inspector Sonja Modig and Annika Giannini were sitting facing her. The proceedings were tense and halting as Giannini replayed the poor-quality video in which Bashir appeared to confess to having been involved in Jamal Chowdhury’s murder. Giannini explained hand movement analyses, and told her that Khalil had made a detailed statement confessing that he pushed Jamal under the train.

  “He thought it was the only way to save you, Faria – and to save himself. He says he loves you.”

  Faria did not respond. She knew all of this already and she wanted to scream “Loves me? I hate him.” She really did hate him. Khalil was the reason she had kept her mouth shut for so long. However much Khalil may have hurt her, she still felt protective towards him. Mostly for their mother’s sake, she thought. Once upon a time Faria had promised her that she would look after Khalil. But now there wasn’t any family left to protect, was there? She steeled herself, then looked at the women and said:

  “Is that Lisbeth Salander’s voice in the film?”

  “It is, yes.”

  “Is she O.K.?”