The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets’ Nest

shower and put on some coffee, and then he booted up Salander’s computer and pinged her I.C.Q.

– About time.

– Sorry.

– Where have you been all this time?

– In a bed with a secret agent. And hunting Jonas.

– Didn't miss the meeting?

– No. It was you, who called Erika?

– It was the only way to contact you.

– Very clever.

– Tomorrow I'll be put in jail.

– I know.

– Plague will help you with the network.

– Great.

– Then there's nothing but the end.

Mikael nodded to himself.

– Sally… Let's do what we have to do.

– I know. You are very predictable.

– And you're a charm, as always.

– Is there anything else I should know?

– No.

– In that case, I still have some work on the net.

– Okay. Have a good time.

Linder woke with a start when her earpiece beeped. Someone had just tripped the motion detector she had placed in the hall on the ground floor. She propped herself up on her elbow. It was 5.23 on Sunday morning. She slipped silently out of bed and pulled on her jeans, a T-shirt and trainers. She stuffed the Mace in her back pocket and picked up her spring-loaded baton.

She passed the door to Berger’s bedroom without a sound, noticing that it was closed and therefore locked.

She stopped at the top of the stairs and listened. She heard a faint clinking sound and movement from the ground floor. Slowly she went down the stairs and paused in the hall to listen again.

A chair scraped in the kitchen. She held the baton in a firm grip and crept to the kitchen door. She saw a bald, unshaven man sitting at the kitchen table with a glass of orange juice, reading S.M.P. He sensed her presence and looked up.

“And who the hell are you?”

Linder relaxed and leaned against the door jamb. “Greger Beckman, I presume. Hello. I’m Susanne Linder.”

“I see. Are you going to hit me over the head or would you like a glass of juice?”

“Yes, please,” Linder said, putting down her baton. “Juice, that is.”

Beckman reached for a glass from the draining board and poured some for her.

“I work for Milton Security,” Linder said. “I think it’s probably best if your wife explains what I’m doing here.”

Beckman stood up. “Has something happened to Erika?”

“Your wife is fine. But there’s been some trouble. We tried to get hold of you in Paris.”

“Paris? Why Paris? I’ve been in Helsinki, for God’s sake.”

“Alright. I’m sorry, but your wife thought you were in Paris.”

“That’s next month,” said Beckman on his way out of the door.

“The bedroom is locked. You need a code to open the door,” Linder said.

“I beg your pardon… what code?”

She told him the three numbers he had to punch in to open the bedroom door. He ran up the stairs.

At 10.00 on Sunday morning Jonasson came into Salander’s room.

“Hello, Lisbeth.”

“Hello.”

“Just thought I’d warn you: the police are coming at lunchtime.”

“Fine.”

“You don’t seem worried.”

“I’m not.”

“I have a present for you.”

“A present? What for?”

“You’ve been one of my most interesting patients in a long time.”

“You don’t say,” Salander said sceptically.

“I heard that you’re fascinated by D.N.A. and genetics.”

“Who’s been gossiping? That psychologist lady, I bet.”

Jonasson nodded. “If you get bored in prison… this is the latest thing on D.N.A. research.”

He handed her a brick of a book entitled Spirals – Mysteries of DNA, by Professor Yoshito Takamura of Tokyo University. Salander opened it and studied the table of contents.

“Beautiful,” she said.

“Someday I’d be interested to hear how it is that you can read academic texts that even I can’t understand.”

As soon as Jonasson had left the room, she took out her Palm. Last chance. From S.M.P.’s personnel department Salander had learned that Fredriksson had worked at the paper for six years. During that time he had been off sick for two extended periods: two months in 2003 and three months in 2004. From the personnel files she concluded that the reason in both instances was burnout. Berger’s predecessor Morander had on one occasion questioned whether Fredriksson should indeed stay on as assistant editor.

Yak, yak, yak. Nothing concrete to go on.

At 11.45 Plague pinged her.

– What?

– You still at Sahlgrenska?

– How do you think?

– It's him.

– Are you sure?

– He's connected to the computer at work from home half an hour ago. I took a chance and got into his home computer. He has scanned photos of Erika Berger on the hard drive.

– Thanks.

– She's pretty good.

– Plague!

– I know. Well, what do I do?

– Has he posted the photos on the net?

– As far as I know, not.

– Can you mine his computer?

– That's already done. If he tries to send photos by mail or uploads more than twenty kilobytes, the hard drive will die.

– Okay.

– I wanted to go to sleep. Did you manage it alone?

– As always.

Salander logged off from I.C.Q. She glanced at the clock and realized that it would soon be lunchtime. She rapidly composed a message that she addressed to the Yahoo group [Idiotic_Table]: