Twice since midnight the duty nurse had put her head around the door, but Salander could hear her a long way off and even before she turned the key the computer was hidden and the patient asleep.
Berger woke at 7.00. She felt far from rested, but she had slept uninterrupted for eight hours. She glanced at Blomkvist, still sleeping soundly beside her.
She turned on her mobile to check for messages. Greger Beckman, her husband, had called eleven times.
“Erika, don’t do that again. It has nothing to do with Mikael, but I’ve been worried sick all night. I was terrified that something had happened. You know you have to call and tell me if you’re not coming home. You mustn’t ever forget something like that.”
Beckman was completely O.K. with the fact that Blomkvist was his wife’s lover. Their affair was carried on with his assent. But every time she had decided to sleep at Blomkvist’s, she had called her husband to tell him.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I just collapsed in exhaustion last night.”
He grunted.
“Try not to be furious with me, Greger. I can’t handle it right now. You can give me hell tonight.”
He grunted some more and promised to scold her when she got home. “O.K. How’s Mikael doing?”
“He’s dead to the world.” She burst out laughing. “Believe it or not, we were fast asleep moments after we got here. That’s never happened.”
“This is serious, Erika. I think you ought to see a doctor.”
When she hung up she called the office and left a message for Fredriksson. Something had come up and she would be in a little later than usual. She asked him to cancel a meeting she had arranged with the culture editor.
She found her shoulder bag, ferreted out a toothbrush and went to the bathroom. Then she got back into the bed and woke Blomkvist.
“Hurry up – go and wash and brush your teeth.”
“What… huh?” He sat up and looked around in bewilderment. She had to remind him that he was at the Slussen Hilton. He nodded.
“So. To the bathroom with you.”
“Why the hurry?”
“Because as soon as you come back I need you to make love to me.” She glanced at her watch. “I’ve got a meeting at 11.00 that I can’t postpone. I have to look presentable, and it’ll take me at least half an hour to put on my face. And I’ll have to buy a new shift dress or something on the way to work. That gives us only two hours to make up for a whole lot of lost time.”
Blomkvist headed for the bathroom.
Holmberg parked his father’s Ford in the drive of former Prime Minister Thorbjorn Falldin’s house in As just outside Ramvik in Harnosand county. He got out of the car and looked around. At the age of seventy-nine, Falldin could hardly still be an active farmer, and Holmberg wondered who did the sowing and harvesting. He knew he was being watched from the kitchen window. That was the custom in the village. He himself had grown up in Halledal outside Ramvik, very close to Sandobron, which was one of the most beautiful places in the world. At any rate Holmberg thought so.
He knocked at the front door.
The former leader of the Centre Party looked old, but he seemed alert still, and vigorous.
“Hello, Thorbjorn. My name is Jerker Holmberg. We’ve met before but it’s been a few years. My father is Gustav Holmberg, a delegate for the Centre in the ’70s and ’80s.”
“Yes, I recognize you, Jerker. Hello. You’re a policeman down in Stockholm now, aren’t you? It must be ten or fifteen years since I last saw you.”
“I think it’s probably longer than that. May I come in?”
Holmberg sat at the kitchen table while Falldin poured them some coffee.
“I hope all’s well with your father. But that’s not why you came, is it?”
“No. Dad’s doing fine. He’s out repairing the roof of the cabin.”
“How old is he now?”
“He turned seventy-one two months ago.”
“Is that so?” Falldin said, joining Holmberg at the kitchen table. “So what’s this visit all about then?”
Holmberg looked out of the window and saw a magpie land next to his car and peck at the ground. Then he turned to Falldin.
“I am sorry for coming to see you without warning, but I have a big problem. It’s possible that when this conversation is over, I’ll be fired from my job. I’m here on a work issue, but my boss, Criminal Inspector Jan Bublanski of the Violent Crimes Division in Stockholm, doesn’t know I’m here.”
“That sounds serious.”
“Just to say that I’d be on very thin ice if my superiors found out about this visit.”
“I understand.”
“On the other hand I’m afraid that if I don’t do something, there’s a risk that a woman’s rights will be shockingly violated, and to make matters worse, it’ll be the second time it’s happened.”
“You’d better tell me the whole story.”
“It’s about a man named Alexander Zalachenko. He was an agent for the Soviets’ G.R.U. and defected to Sweden on Election Day in 1976. He was given asylum and began to work for Sapo. I have reason to believe that you know his story.”
Falldin regarded Holmberg attentively.
“It’s a long story,” Holmberg said, and he began to tell Falldin about the preliminary investigation in which he had been involved for the past few months.
Erika Berger finally rolled over on to her stomach and rested her head on her fists. She broke out in a big smile.
“Mikael, have you ever wondered if the two of us aren’t completely nuts?”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s true for me, at least. I’m smitten by an insatiable desire for you. I feel like a crazy teenager.”
“Oh yes?”
“And then I want to go home and go to bed with my husband.”
Blomkvist laughed. “I know a good therapist.”
She poked him in the stomach. “Mikael, it’s starting to feel like this thing with
“Nonsense. It’s a huge opportunity for you. If anyone can inject life into that dying body, it’s you.”
“Maybe so. But that’s just the problem.
“You’ve got to let things settle down.”
“I know. But the thing with Borgsjo is going to be a real problem. I don’t have the faintest idea how to handle it.”
“Nor do I. But we’ll think of something.”
She lay quiet for a moment.
“I miss you.”
“I miss you too.”
“How much would it take for you to come to
“I wouldn’t do it for anything. Isn’t what’s-his-name, Holm, the news editor?”
“Yes. But he’s an idiot.”
“You got him in one.”
