“So what’s the problem?”
“What problem?”
“I know you, Micke. You’ve been preoccupied all evening.”
Blomkvist sat in silence for a moment.
“It’s a complicated story. I’ve got two problems right now. One is about a girl I met two years ago who helped me on the Wennerstrom affair and then just disappeared from my life with no explanation. I haven’t seen hide nor hair of her in more than a year, except for last week.”
Blomkvist told her about the attack on Lundagatan.
“Did you report it to the police?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“This girl is manically private. She was the one who was attacked. She’ll have to make the report.”
Which Blomkvist expected would not be high on Salander’s list of priorities.
“Bullheaded as usual,” Annika said, patting Blomkvist on the cheek. “What’s the second problem?”
“We’re working on a story at
Annika glanced in surprise at her brother. “Consult me?” she exclaimed. “That’d be something new.”
“The story’s about trafficking and violence against women. You deal with violence against women and you’re a lawyer. You probably don’t work with cases of freedom of the press, but I would be really grateful if you could read through the manuscript before we send it to the printer. There are magazine articles and a book, so there’s quite a bit to read.”
Annika was silent as she turned down the Hammarby industrial road and passed Sickla lock. She wound her way down side streets parallel to Nynasvagen until she could turn up Enskedevagen.
“You know, Mikael, I’ve been really mad at you only once in my whole life.”
“Is that so?” he said, surprised.
“It was when you were taken to court by Wennerstrom and sent to prison for libel. I was so furious with you that I thought I would explode.”
“Why? I only made a fool of myself.”
“You’ve made a fool of yourself many times before. But this time you needed a lawyer, and the only person you didn’t turn to was me. Instead you sat there taking shit in both the media and the courtroom. You didn’t even defend yourself. I thought I was going to die.”
“There were special circumstances. There wasn’t a thing you could have done.”
“All right, but I didn’t understand that until later, when
“There was no way we could have won that trial.”
“You’re not getting the point, big brother. I understand that it was a hopeless case. I’ve read the judgment. The point was that you didn’t come to me and ask for help. As in, hey, little sister, I need a lawyer. That’s why I never turned up in court.”
Blomkvist thought it over.
“I’m sorry. I admit it, I should have done that.”
“Yes, you should have.”
“I wasn’t functioning at all that year. I couldn’t face talking to anybody. I just wanted to lie down and die.”
“Which you didn’t do, exactly.”
“Forgive me.”
Annika Giannini gave him a big smile.
“Beautiful. An apology two years later. OK. I’ll happily read through the text. Are you in a rush?”
“Yes. We’re going to press very soon. Turn left here.”
Annika parked across the street from the building on Bjorneborgsvagen where Svensson and Johansson lived. “This’ll just take a minute,” Blomkvist said. He jogged across the street to punch in the door code. As soon as he was inside he could tell that something was wrong. He heard excited voices echoing in the stairwell and ran up the three flights to the apartment. Not until he reached their floor did he realize that the commotion was all around their apartment. Five neighbours were standing on the landing. The apartment door was ajar.
“What’s going on?” Blomkvist said, more out of curiosity than concern.
They all fell silent and looked at him. Three women, two men, all in their seventies it seemed. One of the women was wearing a nightgown.
“It sounded like shots,” said a man in a brown dressing gown, who seemed to know what he was talking about.
“Shots?”
“Just now. There was shooting in the apartment about a minute ago. The door was open.”
Blomkvist pushed forward and rang the doorbell as he walked into the apartment.
“Dag? Mia?” he called.
No answer.
Suddenly he felt an icy shiver run down his neck. He recognized the smell: cordite. Then he approached the living-room door. The first thing he saw was
Blomkvist hurried over. At the same time he pulled out his mobile and dialled 112 for emergency services. They answered right away.
“My name is Mikael Blomkvist. I need an ambulance and police.”
He gave the address.
“What is this regarding?”
“A man. He seems to have been shot in the head and is unconscious.”
Blomkvist bent down and tried to find a pulse on Svensson’s neck. Then he saw the enormous crater in the back of his head and realized that he must be standing in Svensson’s brain matter. Slowly he withdrew his hand.
No ambulance crew in the world would be able to save Dag Svensson now.
Then he noticed shards from one of the coffee cups that Johansson had inherited from her grandmother and that she was so afraid would get broken. He straightened up quickly and looked all around.
“Mia,” he yelled.
The neighbour in the brown dressing gown had come into the hall behind him. Blomkvist turned at the living-room door and held his hand up.
“Stop there,” he said. “Back out to the stairs.”
The neighbour at first looked as if he wanted to protest, but he obeyed the order. Blomkvist stood still for fifteen seconds. Then he stepped around the pool of blood and proceeded warily past Svensson’s body to the bedroom door.
Johansson lay on her back on the floor at the foot of the bed.
Blomkvist became aware that he was clutching his mobile in a death grip with the line to the emergency centre still open and that he had been holding his breath. He took air into his lungs and raised the telephone.
“We need the police. Two people have been shot. I think they’re dead. Please hurry.”
He heard the voice from emergency services say something but did not catch the words. He felt as if there was something wrong with his hearing. It was utterly silent around him. He did not hear the sound of his own voice when he tried to say something. He backed out of the apartment. When he got out to the landing he realized that his whole body was shaking and that his heart was pounding painfully. Without a word he squeezed through the petrified crowd of neighbours and sat down on the stairs. From far away he could hear the neighbours asking him questions.
