being committed. There was no time to act.”
“What’s the killer’s name?”
“We will not give out that information until his next of kin have been notified.”
“What sort of background does he have?”
“As far as I understand, he previously worked as an accountant and tax lawyer. He has been retired for fifteen years. The investigation is still under way, but as you can appreciate from the letters he sent, it is a tragedy that could have been prevented if there had been more support within society.”
“Did he threaten anyone else?”
“I have been advised that he did, yes, but I do not have any details to pass on to you.”
“What will this mean for the case against Salander?”
“For the moment, nothing. We have Karl Axel Bodin’s own testimony from the officers who interviewed him, and we have extensive forensic evidence against her.”
“What about the reports that Bodin tried to murder his daughter?”
“That is under investigation, but there are strong indications that he did indeed attempt to kill her. As far as we can determine at the moment, it was a case of deep antagonism in a tragically dysfunctional family.”
Cortez scratched his ear. He noticed that the other reporters were taking notes as feverishly as he was.
Gunnar Bjorck felt an almost unquenchable panic when he heard the news about the shooting at Sahlgrenska hospital. He had terrible pain in his back.
It took him an hour to make up his mind. Then he picked up the telephone and tried to call his old protector in Laholm. There was no answer.
He listened to the news and heard a summary of what had been said at the press conference. Zalachenko had been shot by a 78-year-old tax specialist.
He tried again to call Gullberg, but again in vain.
Finally his uneasiness took the upper hand. He could not stay in the borrowed summer cabin in Smadalaro. He felt vulnerable and exposed. He needed time and space to think. He packed clothes, painkillers, and his wash bag. He did not want to use his own telephone, so he limped to the telephone booth at the grocer’s to call Landsort and book himself a room in the old ships’ pilot lookout. Landsort was the end of the world, and few people would look for him there. He booked the room for two weeks.
He glanced at his watch. He would have to hurry to make the last ferry. He went back to the cabin as fast as his aching back would permit. He made straight for the kitchen and checked that the coffee machine was turned off. Then he went to the hall to get his bag. He happened to look into the living room and stopped short in surprise.
At first he could not grasp what he was seeing.
In some mysterious way the ceiling lamp had been taken down and placed on the coffee table. In its place hung a rope from a hook, right above a stool that was usually in the kitchen.
Bjorck looked at the noose, failing to understand.
Then he heard movement behind him and felt his knees buckle.
Slowly he turned to look.
Two men stood there. They were southern European, by the look of them. He had no will to react when calmly they took him in a firm grip under both arms, lifted him off the ground, and carried him to the stool. When he tried to resist, pain shot like a knife through his back. He was almost paralysed as he felt himself being lifted on to the stool.
Sandberg was accompanied by a man who went by the nickname of Falun and who in his youth had been a professional burglar. He had, in time, retrained as a locksmith. Hans von Rottinger had first hired Falun for the Section in 1986 for an operation that involved forcing entry into the home of the leader of an anarchist group. After that, Falun had been hired from time to time until the mid-’90s, when there was less demand for this type of operation. Early that morning Clinton had revived the contact and given Falun an assignment. Falun would make 10,000 kronor tax-free for a job that would take about ten minutes. In return he had pledged not to steal anything from the apartment that was the target of the operation. The Section was not a criminal enterprise, after all.
Falun did not know exactly what interests Clinton represented, but he assumed it had something to do with the military. He had read Jan Guillou’s books, and he did not ask any questions. But it felt good to be back in the saddle again after so many years of silence from his former employer.
His job was to open the door. He was expert at breaking and entering. Even so, it still took five minutes to force the lock to Blomkvist’s apartment. Then Falun waited on the landing as Sandberg went in.
“I’m in,” Sandberg said into a handsfree mobile.
“Good,” Clinton said into his earpiece. “Take your time. Tell me what you see.”
“I’m in the hall with a wardrobe and hat-rack on my right. Bathroom on the left. Otherwise there’s one very large room, about fifty square metres. There’s a small kitchen alcove at the far end on the right.”
“Is there any desk or…”
“He seems to work at the kitchen table or sitting on the living-room sofa… wait.”
Clinton waited.
“Yes. Here we are, a folder on the kitchen table. And Bjorck’s report is in it. It looks like the original.”
“Very good. Anything else of interest on the table?”
“Books. P.G. Vinge’s memoirs.
“Is there a computer?”
“No.”
“Any safe?”
“No… not that I can see.”
“Take your time. Go through the apartment centimetre by centimetre. Martensson reports that Blomkvist is still at the office. You’re wearing gloves, right?”
“Of course.”
Erlander had a chat with Giannini in a brief interlude between one or other or both of them talking on their mobiles. He went into Salander’s room and held out his hand to introduce himself. Then he said hello to Salander and asked her how she was feeling. Salander looked at him, expressionless. He turned to Giannini.
“I need to ask some questions.”
“Alright.”
“Can you tell me what happened this morning?”
Giannini related what she had seen and heard and how she had reacted up until the moment she had barricaded herself with Salander in the bathroom. Erlander glanced at Salander and then back to her lawyer.
“So you’re sure that he came to the door of this room?”
“I heard him trying to push down the door handle.”
“And you’re perfectly sure about that? It’s not difficult to imagine things when you’re scared or excited.”
“I definitely heard him at the door. He had seen me and pointed his pistol at me, he knew that this was the room I was in.”
“Do you have any reason to believe that he had planned, beforehand that is, to shoot you too?”
“I have no way of knowing. When he took aim at me I pulled my head back in and blockaded the door.”
“Which was the sensible thing to do. And it was even more sensible of you to carry your client to the bathroom. These doors are so thin that the bullets would have gone clean through them if he had fired. What I’m trying to figure out is whether he wanted to attack you personally or whether he was just reacting to the fact that you were looking at him. You were the person nearest to him in the corridor.”
“Apart from the two nurses.”
