cabinet.
The gap between the floor and the cabinet was about twenty centimetres. With all the strength he could muster he toppled the cabinet on to its back. Salander looked up at him with big eyes and an offended expression. She aimed the nail gun and fired it from a distance of fifty centimetres. The nail hit him in the middle of his shin.
The next instant she dropped the nail gun, rolled fast as lightning away from him and got to her feet beyond his reach. She backed up several feet and stopped.
Niedermann tried to move and again lost his balance, swaying backwards and forwards with his arms flailing. He steadied himself and bent down in rage.
This time he managed to grab hold of the nail gun. He pointed it at Salander and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened. He looked in dismay at the nail gun and then at Salander again. She looked back at him blankly and held up the plug. In fury he threw the nail gun at her. She dodged to the side.
Then she plugged in the cord again and hauled in the nail gun.
He met Salander’s expressionless eyes and was amazed. She had defeated him. She’s supernatural. Instinctively he tried to pull one foot from the floor. She’s a monster. He could lift his foot only a few millimetres before his boot hit the heads of the nails. They had been driven into his feet at different angles, and to free himself he would have to rip his feet to shreds. Even with his almost superhuman strength he was unable to pull himself loose. For several seconds he swayed back and forth as if he were swimming. He saw a pool of blood slowly forming between his shoes.
Salander sat down on a stool and watched for signs that he might be able to tear his feet loose. Since he could not feel pain, it was a matter of whether he was strong enough to pull the heads of the nails straight through his feet. She sat stock still and observed his struggle for ten minutes. The whole time her eyes were frozen blank. After a while she stood up and walked behind him and held the nail gun to his spine, just below the nape of his neck.
Salander was thinking hard. This man had transported, drugged, abused and sold women both retail and wholesale. He had murdered at least eight people, including a policeman in Gosseberga and a member of Svavelsjo M.C. and his wife. She had no idea how many other lives her half-brother might have on his account, if not his conscience, but thanks to him she had been hunted all over Sweden like a mad dog, suspected of three of the murders he had committed.
Her finger rested heavily on the trigger.
He had murdered the journalist Dag Svensson and his partner Mia Johansson.
With Zalachenko he had also murdered her and buried her in Gosseberga. And now he had resurfaced to murder her again.
You could get pretty angry with less provocation.
She saw no reason to let him live any longer. He hated her with a passion that she could not even fathom. What would happen if she turned him over to the police? A trial? A life sentence? When would he be granted parole? How soon would he escape? And now that her father was finally gone – how many years would she have to look over her shoulder, waiting for the day when her brother would suddenly turn up again? She felt the heft of the nail gun. She could end this thing once and for all.
Risk assessment.
She bit her lip.
Salander was afraid of no-one and nothing. She realized that she lacked the necessary imagination – and that was evidence enough that there was something wrong with her brain.
Niedermann hated her and she responded with an equally implacable hatred towards him. He joined the ranks of men like Magge Lundin and Martin Vanger and Zalachenko and dozens of other creeps who in her estimation had absolutely no claim to be among the living. If she could put them all on a desert island and set off an atomic bomb, then she would be satisfied.
But murder? Was it worth it? What would happen to her if she killed him? What were the odds that she would avoid discovery? What would she be ready to sacrifice for the satisfaction of firing the nail gun one last time?
She could claim self-defence… no, not with his feet nailed to the floorboards.
She suddenly thought of Harriet Fucking Vanger, who had also been tormented by her father and her brother. She recalled the exchange she had had with Mikael Bastard Blomkvist in which she cursed Harriet Vanger in the harshest possible terms. It was Harriet Vanger’s fault that her brother Martin had been allowed to go on murdering women year after year.
“What would you do?” Blomkvist had said.
“I’d kill the fucker,” she had said with a conviction that came from the depths of her cold soul.
And now she was standing in exactly the same position in which Harriet Vanger had found herself. How many more women would Niedermann kill if she let him go? She had the legal right of a citizen and was socially responsible for her actions. How many years of her life did she want to sacrifice? How many years had Harriet Vanger been willing to sacrifice?
Suddenly the nail gun felt too heavy for her to hold against his spine, even with both hands.
She lowered the weapon and felt as though she had come back to reality. She was aware of Niedermann muttering something incoherent. He was speaking German. He was talking about a devil that had come to get him.
She knew that he was not talking to her. He seemed to see somebody at the other end of the room. She turned her head and followed his gaze. There was nothing there. She felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck.
She turned on her heel, grabbed the iron rod, and went to the outer room to find her shoulder bag. As she bent to retrieve it she caught sight of the knife. She still had her gloves on, and she picked up the weapon.
She hesitated a moment and then placed it in full view in the centre aisle between the stacks of packing crates. With the iron rod she spent three minutes prising loose the padlock so that she could get outside.
She sat in her car and thought for a long time. Finally she flipped open her mobile. It took her two minutes to locate the number for Svavelsjo M.C.’s clubhouse.
“Yeah?”
“Nieminen,” she said.
“Wait.”
She waited for three minutes before Sonny Nieminen came to the telephone.
“Who’s this?”
“None of your bloody business,” Salander said in such a low voice that he could hardly make out the words. He could not even tell whether it was a man or a woman.
“Alright, so what do you want?”
“You want a tip about Niedermann?”
“Do I?”
“Don’t give me shit. Want to know where he is or not?”
“I’m listening.”
Salander gave him directions to the brickworks outside Norrtalje. She said that he would be there long enough for Nieminen to find him if he hurried.
She closed her mobile, started the car and drove up to the O.K. petrol station across the road. She parked so that she had a clear view of the brickworks.
She had to wait for more than two hours. It was just before 1.30 in the afternoon when she saw a van drive slowly past on the road below her. It stopped at the turning off the main road, stood there for five minutes, and then drove down to the brickworks. On this December day, twilight was setting in.
She opened the glove box and took out a pair of Minolta 16 ? 50 binoculars and watched as the van parked. She identified Nieminen and Waltari with three men she did not recognize. New blood. They had to rebuild their operation.
When Nieminen and his pals had found the open door at the end of the building, she opened her mobile again. She composed a message and sent it to the police station in Norrtalje.
POLICE MURDERER R. NIEDERMANN IN OLD BRICKWORKS BY THE O.K. STATION OUTSIDE SKEDERID.
