“Just for a minute once on the phone. I talked to someone who said his name was Zala. Or rather, he talked to me.”
“Why?”
Sandstrom blinked. Drops of sweat were running into his eyes and he could feel snot running down his chin.
“I… they wanted me to do them another favour.”
“The story is getting annoyingly slow,” Salander said.
“They wanted me to take another trip to Tallinn and bring back a car that was prepared already. Amphetamines. I didn’t want to do it.”
“Why not?”
“It was too much. They were such gangsters. I wanted out. I had a job to get on with.”
“So you think you were just a gangster in your free time.”
“I’m not really like that.”
“Oh, right.” Her voice contained such contempt that Sandstrom closed his eyes.
“Keep going. How did Zala come into the picture?”
“It was a nightmare.”
The tears were running again. He bit his lip so hard that it began to bleed.
“Boring,” Salander said.
“Atho kept after me about it. Harry warned me and said that Atho was getting angry and that he didn’t know how it would pan out. Finally I agreed to meet Atho. That was in August of last year. I drove to Norsborg with Harry…”
His mouth kept moving but the words disappeared. Salander’s eyes narrowed. He found his voice again.
“Atho was a nutcase. He’s very brutal. You have no idea how brutal he can be. He said that it was too late for me to pull out and that if I didn’t do as he said I wouldn’t be allowed to live. He was going to give me a demonstration.”
“Oh yeah?”
“They forced me to go with them. We drove towards Sodertalje. Atho told me to put on a hood. It was a bag that he tied over my eyes. I was scared to death.”
“So you were in a car with a bag over your head. Then what happened?”
“The car stopped. I didn’t know where I was.”
“Where did they put the bag on you?”
“Just before Sodertalje.”
“And how long did it take you to get there?”
“Maybe… half an hour. They got me out of the car. It was some sort of warehouse.”
“What happened?”
“Harry and Atho led me inside. There were lights on. The first thing I saw was some poor guy lying on a cement floor. He was tied up. He’d been beaten really badly.”
“Who was it?”
“His name was Kenneth Gustafsson. But I didn’t find that out until later.”
“What happened?”
“There was a man there. He was the biggest man I’ve ever seen. Enormous. Nothing but muscle.”
“What did he look like?”
“He looked like the Devil himself. Blond.”
“Name?”
“He never said his name.”
“OK. A big blond guy. Who else?”
“There was another man. He looked stressed. Hair in a ponytail.”
“More?”
“Plus me and Harry and Atho.”
“Keep going.”
“The huge guy… he set out a chair for me. He didn’t say a word. It was Atho who did the talking. He said that the guy on the floor was a snitch. He wanted me to know what happened to people who made trouble.” Sandstrom was blubbering unrestrainedly.
“The big guy lifted the other guy off the floor and put him on another chair facing me. We were sitting a yard or so apart. I looked him in the eyes. Then the giant stood behind him and put his hands around his neck… He… he…”
“Strangled him?”
“Yeah… no… he squeezed him to death. I think he broke his neck with his bare hands. I heard the guy’s neck snap and he died right in front of me.”
Sandstrom was swaying on the rope. Tears were streaming down his face. He had never told anyone this before. Salander gave him a minute to collect himself.
“And then?”
“The other man – the one with the ponytail – started up a chain saw and sawed off the guy’s head and then his hands. After that the giant came up to me. He put his hands around my neck. I tried to pull his hands away. I pulled as hard as I could, but I couldn’t budge him an inch. But he didn’t squeeze – he just held his hands there for a long time.
Meanwhile Atho took out his mobile and made a call in Russian. Then he said that Zala wanted to talk to me and held the phone to my ear.”
“What did Zala say?”
“He just asked whether I still wanted to pull out. I promised to go to Tallinn and get the car with the amphetamines. What else could I do?”
Salander sat without speaking for a long time. She contemplated the snuffling journalist on the rope and seemed to be thinking about something.
“Describe his voice.”
“It… sounded normal.”
“Deep voice, high voice?”
“Deep. Ordinary. Gruff.”
“What language did he speak?”
“Swedish.”
“Accent?”
“Yeah, maybe a little. But good Swedish. He and Atho spoke Russian.”
“Do you understand Russian?”
“A little. Not fluent. Just a little.”
“What did Atho say to him?”
“He just said that the demonstration was over.”
“Have you told anyone else about this?”
“No.”
“Svensson?”
“No… no.”
“Svensson visited you.”
Sandstrom nodded.
“I can’t hear you.”
“Yes.”
“How come?”
“He knew that I had… the whores.”
“What did he ask?”
“He wanted to know… about Zala. He asked about Zala. That was the second visit.”
