The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets’ Nest

Martensson appeared at the corner by the Bishop’s Arms and watched Blomkvist go. He had a large sports bag over his shoulder and was just finishing a call on his mobile. Figuerola expected him to follow his quarry, but to her surprise he crossed the street right in front of her car and turned down the hill towards Blomkvist’s building. A second later a man in blue overalls passed her car and caught up with Martensson. Hello, where did you spring from?

They stopped outside the door to Blomkvist’s building. Martensson punched in the code and they disappeared into the stairwell. They’re checking the apartment. Amateur night. What the hell does he think he’s doing?

Then Figuerola raised her eyes to the rear-view mirror and gave a start when she saw Blomkvist again. He was standing about ten metres behind her, close enough that he could keep an eye on Martensson and his buddy by looking over the crest of the steep hill down towards Bellmansgatan 1. She watched his face. He was not looking at her. But he had seen Martensson go in through the front door of his building. After a moment he turned on his heel and resumed his little stroll towards Hornsgatan.

Figuerola sat motionless for thirty seconds. He knows he’s being watched. He’s keeping track of what goes on around him. But why doesn’t he react? A normal person would react, and pretty strongly at that… He must have something up his sleeve.

Blomkvist hung up and rested his gaze on the notebook on his desk. The national vehicle register had just informed him that the car he had seen at the top of Bellmansgatan with the blonde woman inside was owned by Monica Figuerola, born in 1969, and living on Pontonjargatan in Kungsholmen. Since it was a woman in the car, Blomkvist assumed it was Figuerola herself.

She had been talking on her mobile and looking at a map that was unfolded on the passenger seat. Blomkvist had no reason to believe that she had anything to do with the Zalachenko club, but he made a note of every deviation from the norm in his working day, and especially around his neighbourhood.

He called Karim in.

“Who is this woman, Lottie? Dig up her passport picture, where she works… and anything else you can find.”

Sellberg looked rather startled. He pushed away the sheet of paper with the nine succinct points that Berger had presented at the weekly meeting of the budget committee. Flodin looked similarly concerned. Chairman Borgsjo appeared neutral, as always.

“This is impossible,” Sellberg said with a polite smile.

“Why so?” Berger said.

“The board will never go along with this. It defies all rhyme or reason.”

“Shall we take it from the top?” Berger said. “I was hired to make S.M.P. profitable again. To do that I have to have something to work with, don’t you think?”

“Well, yes, but –”

“I can’t wave a magic wand and conjure up the contents of a daily newspaper by sitting in my glass cage and just wishing for things.”

“You don’t quite understand the hard economic facts.”

“That’s quite possible. But I understand making newspapers. And the reality is that over the past fifteen years, S.M.P.’s personnel has been reduced by 118. Half were graphic artists and so on, replaced by new technology… but the number of reporters contributing to copy was reduced by 48 during that period.”

“Those were necessary cuts. If the staff hadn’t been cut, the paper would have folded long since. At least Morander understood the necessity of the reductions.”

“Well, let’s wait and see what’s necessary and what isn’t. In three years, nineteen reporter jobs have disappeared. In addition, we now have a situation in which nine positions at S.M.P. are vacant and are being to some extent covered by temps. The sports desk is dangerously understaffed. There should be nine employees there, and for more than a year two positions have remained unfilled.”

“It’s a question of saving money we’re not going to have. It’s that simple.”

“The culture section has three unfilled positions. The business section has one. The legal desk does not even in practice exist… there we have a chief editor who borrows reporters from the news desk for each of his features. And so on. S.M.P. hasn’t done any serious coverage of the civil service and government agencies for at least eight years. We depend for that on freelancers and the material from the T.T. wire service. And as you know, T.T. shut down its civil service desk some years ago. In other words, there isn’t a single news desk in Sweden covering the civil service and the government agencies.”

“The newspaper business is in a vulnerable position –”

“The reality is that S.M.P. should either be shut down immediately, or the board should find a way to take an aggressive stance. Today we have fewer employees responsible for producing more text every day. The articles they turn out are terrible, superficial, and they lack credibility. That’s why S.M.P. is losing its readers.”

“You don’t understand the situation –”

“I’m tired of hearing that I don’t understand the situation. I’m not some temp. who’s just here for the bus fare.”

“But your proposal is off the wall.”

“Why is that?”

“You’re proposing that the newspaper should not be profitable.”

“Listen, Sellberg, this year you will be paying out a huge amount of money in dividends to the paper’s twenty-three shareholders. Add to this the unforgivably absurd bonuses that will cost S.M.P. almost ten million kronor for nine individuals who sit on S.M.P.’s board.

You’ve awarded yourself a bonus of 400,000 kronor for administering cutbacks. Of course it’s a long way from being a bonus as huge as the ones that some of the directors of Skandia grabbed. But in my eyes you’re not worth a bonus of so much as one single ore. Bonuses should be paid to people who do something to strengthen S.M.P. The plain truth is that your cutbacks have weakened S.M.P. and deepened the crisis we now find ourselves in.”

“That is grossly unfair. The board approved every measure I proposed.”

“The board approved your measures, of course they did, because you guaranteed a dividend each year. That’s what has to stop, and now.”

“So you’re suggesting in all seriousness that the board should decide to abolish dividends and bonuses. What makes you think the shareholders would agree to that?”

“I’m proposing a zero-profit operating budget this year. That would mean savings of almost 21 million kronor and the chance to beef up S.M.P.’s staff and finances. I’m also proposing wage cuts for management. I’m being paid a monthly salary of 88,000 kronor, which is utter insanity for a newspaper that can’t add a job to its sports desk.”

“So you want to cut your own salary? Is this some sort of wage-communism you’re advocating?”

“Don’t bullshit me. You make 112,000 kronor a month, if you add in your annual bonus. That’s off the wall. If the newspaper were stable and bringing in a tremendous profit, then pay out as much as you want in bonuses. But this is no time for you to be increasing your own bonus. I propose cutting all management salaries by half.”

“What you don’t understand is that our shareholders bought stock in the paper because they want to make money. That’s called capitalism. If you arrange that they’re going to lose money, then they won’t want to be shareholders any longer.”

“I’m not suggesting that they should lose money, though it might come to that. Ownership implies responsibility. As you yourself have pointed out, capitalism is what matters here. S.M.P.’s owners want to make a profit. But it’s the market decides whether you make a profit or take a loss. By your reasoning, you want the rules of capitalism to apply solely to the employees of S.M.P., while you and the shareholders will be