The Girl who played with Fire

“It’s been two years since Holger Palmgren had his stroke. You haven’t once visited him,” Armansky went on relentlessly.

Salander stared at Armansky, shocked. “Palmgren is alive?”

“You don’t even know if he’s alive or dead.”

“The doctors said that he –”

“The doctors said a lot about him,” Armansky interrupted. “He was in a very bad way and couldn’t communicate with anyone. But in the last year he’s recovered quite a bit. He doesn’t articulate too well – you have to listen carefully to understand what he’s saying. He needs help with a lot of things, but he can go to the toilet by himself. People who care about him call in to spend time with him.”

Salander sat dumbfounded. She was the one who had found Palmgren after he had his stroke two years earlier. She had called the ambulance and the doctors had shaken their heads and said that the prognosis was not encouraging. She had lived at the hospital for three days until a doctor told her that Palmgren was in a coma and it was extremely unlikely that he would come out of it. She had stood up and left the hospital without looking back. And obviously without checking to find out what had happened.

She frowned. She had had Nils Bjurman foisted on her at the same time, and he had absorbed a lot of her attention. But nobody, not even Armansky, had told her that Palmgren was still alive, or that he was getting better. She had never considered that possibility.

Her eyes filled with tears. Never in her life had she felt like such a selfish shit. And never had she been savaged in such a furious manner. She bowed her head.

They sat in silence until Armansky said, “How are you doing?”

Salander shrugged.

“How are you making a living? Do you have work?”

“No, I don’t, and I don’t know what kind of work I want. But I’ve got a certain amount of money, so I’m getting by.”

Armansky scrutinized her with searching eyes.

“I just came by to say hello… I’m not looking for a job. I don’t know… maybe I’d do a job for you if you need me sometime, but it would have to be something that interests me.”

“I don’t suppose you want to tell me what happened up in Hedestad last year.”

Salander did not answer.

“Well, something happened. Martin Vanger drove his car into a truck after you’d been back here to borrow surveillance gear, and somebody threatened you. And his sister came back from the dead. It was a sensation, to put it mildly.”

“I’ve given my word I wouldn’t talk about it.”

“And you don’t want to tell me what role you played in the Wennerstrom affair either.”

“I helped Kalle Blomkvist with research.” Her voice was suddenly much cooler. “That was all. I didn’t want to get involved.”

“Blomkvist has been looking for you high and low. He’s called here once a month to ask if I’ve heard anything from you.”

Salander remained silent, but Armansky saw that her lips were now pressed into a tight line.

“I can’t say that I like him,” Armansky said. “But he cares about you too. I met him once last autumn. He didn’t want to talk about Hedestad either.”

Salander did not want to discuss Blomkvist. “I just came to say hello and tell you that I’m back. I don’t know if I’ll be staying. This is my mobile number and my new email address if you need to get hold of me.”

She handed Armansky a piece of paper and stood up. She was already at the door when he called after her.

“Wait a second. What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to say hello to Holger Palmgren.”

“OK. But I mean… what kind of work will you be doing?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you have to make a living.”

“I told you, I have enough to get by.”

Armansky leaned back in his chair. He was never quite sure how to interpret her words.

“I’ve been so fucking angry that you vanished without a word that I almost decided never to trust you again.” He made a face. “You’re so unreliable. But you’re a damned good researcher. I might have a job coming up that would be a good fit for you.”

She shook her head, but she came back to his desk.

“I don’t want a job from you. I mean, I don’t need one. I’m serious. I’m financially independent.”

Armansky frowned.

“OK, you’re financially independent, whatever that means. I’ll take your word for it. But when you need a job…”

“Dragan, you’re the second person I’ve visited since I got home. I don’t need your work. But for several years now you’ve been one of the few people that I respect.”

“Everybody has to make a living.”

“Sorry, but I’m no longer interested in doing personal investigations. Let me know if you run into a really interesting problem.”

“What sort of problem?”

“The kind you can’t make heads or tails of. If you get stuck and don’t know what to do. If I’m going to do a job for you, you’ll have to come up with something special. Maybe on the operations side.”

“Operations side? You? But you disappear without a trace whenever you feel like it.”

“I’ve never skipped out on a job that I agreed to do.”

Armansky looked at her helplessly. The term operations was jargon, but it meant field work. It could be anything from bodyguard duty to surveillance assignments for art exhibitions. His operations personnel were confident, stable veterans, many of them with a police background, and 90 percent of them were men. Salander was the polar opposite of all the criteria he had set out for personnel in the operations unit of Milton Security.

“Well…” he said dubiously, but she had vanished out the door. Armansky shook his head. She’s weird. She’s really weird.

The next second Salander was back in the doorway.

“Oh, by the way… You’ve had two guys spending a month protecting that actress Christine Rutherford from the nutcase who writes her threatening letters. You think it’s an inside job because the letter writer knows so many details about her.”

Armansky stared at Salander. An electric shock went through him. She’s done it again. She’s flung out a line about a case she absolutely cannot know a thing about.

“So…?”

“It’s a fake. She and her boyfriend have been writing the letters as a publicity stunt. She’s going to get another letter in the next few days, and they’ll leak it to the media next week. They’ll probably accuse Milton of leaking it. Cross her off your client list now.”

Before Armansky could say anything she was gone. He stared at the empty doorway. She could not possibly have known a single detail of the case. She must have an insider at Milton who kept her updated. But only four or five people apart from himself knew about it – the operations chief and the few people who reported on the threats – and they were all stable pros. Armansky rubbed his chin.

He looked down at his desk. The Rutherford file was locked inside it. The office had a burglar alarm. He glanced at the clock again and realized that Harry Fransson, chief of the technical department, would have finished for the day. He started up his email and sent a message asking Fransson to come to his office the following morning to install a surveillance camera.

Salander walked straight home to Mosebacke. She hurried because she had a feeling it was urgent.

She called the hospital in Soder and after some stalling from the switchboard managed to find out Palmgren’s whereabouts. For the past fourteen months he had been in a rehabilitation home in Ersta. All of a