The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets’ Nest

“I see. What do you think the odds are that the investigation will be transferred to Sapo?”

Modig shook her head.

Just before they reached Alingsas, Blomkvist leaned towards her. “Sonja… I think you understand how things stand. If the Zalachenko story gets out, there’ll be a massive scandal. Sapo people conspired with a psychiatrist to lock Salander up in an asylum. The only thing they can do now is to stonewall and go on claiming that Salander is mentally ill, and that committing her in 1991 was justified.”

Modig nodded.

“I’m going to do everything I can to counter any such claims. I believe that Salander is as sane as you or I. Odd, certainly, but her intellectual gifts are undeniable.” He paused to let what he had said sink in. “I’m going to need somebody on the inside I can trust.”

She met his gaze. “I’m not competent to judge whether or not Salander is mentally ill.”

“But you are competent to say whether or not she was the victim of a miscarriage of justice.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“I’m only asking you to let me know if you discover that Salander is being subjected to another miscarriage of justice.”

Modig said nothing.

“I don’t want details of the investigation or anything like that. I just need to know what’s happening with the charges against her.”

“It sounds like a good way for me to get booted off the force.”

“You would be a source. I would never, ever mention your name.”

He wrote an email address on a page torn from his notebook.

“This is an untraceable hotmail address. You can use it if you have anything to tell me. Don’t use your official address, obviously, just set up your own temporary hotmail account.”

She put the address into the inside pocket of her jacket. She did not make him any promises.

Inspector Erlander woke at 7.00 on Saturday morning to the ringing of his telephone. He heard voices from the T.V. and smelled coffee from the kitchen where his wife was already about her morning chores. He had returned to his apartment in Molndal at 1.00 in the morning having being on duty for twenty-two hours, so he was far from wide awake when he reached to answer it.

“Rikardsson, night shift. Are you awake?”

“No,” Erlander said. “Hardly. What’s happened?”

“News. Anita Kaspersson has been found.”

“Where?”

“Outside Seglora, south of Boras.”

Erlander visualized the map in his head.

“South,” he said. “He’s taking the back roads. He must have driven up the 180 through Boras and swung south. Have we alerted Malmo?”

“Yes, and Helsingborg, Landskrona, and Trelleborg. And Karlskrona. I’m thinking of the ferry to the east.”

Erlander rubbed the back of his neck.

“He has almost a 24-hour head start now. He could be clean out of the country. How was Kaspersson found?”

“She turned up at a house on the outskirts of Seglora.”

“She what?”

“She knocked –”

“You mean she’s alive?”

“I’m sorry, I’m not expressing myself clearly enough. The Kaspersson woman kicked on the door of a house at 3.10 this morning, scaring the hell out of a couple and their kids, who were all asleep. She was barefoot and suffering from severe hypothermia. Her hands were tied behind her back. She’s at the hospital in Boras, reunited with her husband.”

“Amazing. I think we all assumed she was dead.”

“Sometimes you can be surprised. But here’s the bad news: Assistant County Police Chief Spangberg has been here since 5.00 this morning. She’s made it plain that she wants you up and over to Boras to interview the woman.”

It was Saturday morning and Blomkvist assumed that the Millennium offices would be empty. He called Malm as the train was coming into Stockholm and asked him what had prompted the tone of his text message.

“Have you had breakfast?” Malm said.

“On the train.”

“O.K. Come over to my place and I’ll make you something more substantial.”

“What’s this about?”

“I’ll tell you when you get here.”

Blomkvist took the tunnelbana to Medborgarplatsen and walked to Allhelgonagatan. Malm’s boyfriend, Arnold Magnusson, opened the door to him. No matter how hard Blomkvist tried, he could never rid himself of the feeling that he was looking at an advertisement for something. Magnusson was often onstage at the Dramaten, and was one of Sweden’s most popular actors. It was always a shock to meet him in person. Blomkvist was not ordinarily impressed by celebrity, but Magnusson had such a distinctive appearance and was so familiar from his T.V. and film roles, in particular for playing the irascible but honest Inspector Frisk in a wildly popular T.V. series that aired in ninety-minute episodes. Blomkvist always expected him to behave just like Gunnar Frisk.

“Hello, Micke,” Magnusson said.

“Hello,” Blomkvist said.

“In the kitchen.”

Malm was serving up freshly made waffles with cloudberry jam and coffee. Blomkvist’s appetite was revived even before he sat down. Malm wanted to know what had happened in Gosseberga. Blomkvist gave him a succinct account. He was into his third waffle before he remembered to ask what was going on.

“We had a little problem at Millennium while you were away Blomkvisting in Goteborg.”

Blomkvist looked at Malm intently.

“What was that?”

“Oh, nothing serious. Erika has taken the job of editor-in-chief at Svenska Morgon- Posten. She finished at Millennium yesterday.”

It was several seconds before he could absorb the whole impact of the news. He sat there stunned, but did not doubt the truth of it.

“Why didn’t she tell anyone before?” he said at last.

“Because she wanted to tell you first, and you’ve been running around being unreachable for several weeks now, and because she probably thought you had your hands full with the Salander story. She obviously wanted to tell you first, so she couldn’t tell the rest of us, and time kept slipping by… And then she found herself with an unbearably guilty conscience and was feeling terrible. And not one of us had noticed a thing.”

Blomkvist shut his eyes. “Goddamnit,” he said.

“I know. Now it turns out that you’re the last one in the office to find out. I wanted to have the chance to tell you myself so that you’d understand what happened and not think anyone was doing anything behind your back.”

“No, I don’t think that. But, Jesus… it’s wonderful that she got the job, if she wants to work at S.M.P…, but what the hell are we going to do?”

“Malin’s going to be acting editor-in-chief starting with the next issue.”

“Eriksson?”

“Unless you want to be editor-in-chief…”

“Good God, no.”