The Girl who played with Fire

“Yes.”

Then came a question from a reporter with a deep, distinctive voice that could be heard over the crowd.

“Is she dangerous to the public?”

Ekstrom hesitated for a moment. Then he said: “We have reports which indicate that she could be considered prone to violence in stressful situations. We are issuing this statement because we want to get in touch with her as soon as possible.”

Bublanski bit his lower lip.

Criminal Inspector Sonja Modig was still in Advokat Bjurman’s apartment at 9:00 that evening. She had called home to explain the situation to her husband. After eleven years of marriage he had accepted that her job was never going to be nine to five. She was sitting at Bjurman’s desk and reading through the papers that she had found in the drawers when she heard a knock on the door and turned to see Officer Bubble balancing two cups of coffee on his notebook, with a blue bag of cinnamon rolls from the local kiosk in his other hand. Wearily she waved him in.

“What don’t you want me to touch?” Bublanski said.

“The techs have finished in here. They’re working on the kitchen and the bedroom. The body’s still in there.”

Bublanski pulled up a chair and sat down. Modig opened the bag and took out a roll.

“Thanks. I was having such caffeine withdrawal I thought I’d die.”

They munched quietly.

Modig licked her fingers and said, “I heard things didn’t go so well at Lundagatan.”

“There was nobody there. There were unopened letters for Salander, but someone called Miriam Wu lives there. We haven’t found her yet either.”

“Who is she?”

“Don’t really know. Faste is working on her background. She was added to the contract about a month ago, but she just seems to be someone who lives in the apartment. I think Salander moved without filing a change of address.”

“Maybe she planned all this.”

“What? A triple murder?” Bublanski shook his head dejectedly. “What a mess this is turning into. Ekstrom insisted on holding a press conference, and now we’re going to get it in the neck from the media. Have you found anything?”

“Apart from Bjurman’s body in the bedroom, you mean? We found the empty box for the Magnum. It’s being checked for prints. Bjurman has a file with copies of his monthly reports about Salander that he sent to the Guardianship Agency. If they are to be believed, Salander is a regular little angel, big time.”

“Not him too,” Bublanski said.

“Not him too what?”

“Another admirer of Froken Salander.”

Bublanski summed up what he had learned from Armansky and Blomkvist. Modig listened without interrupting. When he finished, she ran her fingers through her hair and rubbed her eyes.

“That sounds completely absurd,” she said.

Bublanski tugged on his lower lip. Modig glanced at him and had to suppress a smile. He had a rough- chiselled face that looked almost brutal. But when he was confused or unsure of something, his expression turned sullen. It was in those moments that she thought of him as Officer Bubble. She had never used the nickname to his face and did not know who had coined it. But it suited him perfectly.

“How sure are we?”

“The prosecutor seems sure. An APB went out nationally for Salander this evening,” Bublanski said. “She spent the past year abroad, and it’s possible she could try to leave again.”

“But how sure are we?”

He shrugged. “We’ve taken people in for a lot less.”

“Her prints were on the murder weapon in Enskede. Her guardian was murdered. Without trying to get ahead of things, I’m guessing it’s the same weapon that was used here. We’ll know tomorrow – the techs found a fairly intact bullet fragment in the bed frame.”

“Good.”

“There are some rounds for the revolver in the bottom desk drawer. Bullets with uranium cores and gold tips.”

“Very useful.”

“We have lots of paperwork that says Salander is unstable. Bjurman was her guardian and he owned the gun.”

“Mmm…,” Bublanski said glumly.

“We have a link between Salander and the couple in Enskede-Mikael Blomkvist.”

“Mmm…,” he said again.

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“I can’t get a clear line on Salander. The paperwork says one thing, but Armansky and Blomkvist say something else. According to the paperwork she is a developmentally disabled near-psychopath. According to the two men who have worked with her, she’s a skilled researcher. That’s a huge discrepancy. We have no motive for Bjurman and nothing to say that she knew the couple in Enskede.”

“How much of a motive does a psychotic nutcase need?”

“I haven’t been in the bedroom yet. How does it look?”

“I found the body prostrate against the bed. He was kneeling on the floor as if he were saying his prayers. He’s naked. Shot in the back of the neck.”

“One shot, just like in Enskede?”

“As far as I could see. It seems that Salander, if she’s the one who did it, forced him onto his knees by the bed before she fired. The bullet went up through the back of his head and exited through his face.”

“Like an execution, then.”

“Precisely.”

“I was thinking… somebody must have heard the shot.”

“His bedroom overlooks the rear courtyard, and the neighbours above and below had left for the holiday. The window was closed. Besides, she used a pillow to muffle the sound.”

“Smart thinking.”

At that moment Gunnar Samuelsson from forensics stuck his head in the door.

“Hi, Bubble,” he said, and then turned to his colleague. “Modig, we were thinking of removing the body, so we turned him over. There’s something you ought to take a look at.”

They all went into the bedroom. Bjurman’s body had been placed on its back on a wheeled stretcher, the first stop on the way to the pathologist. There was no doubt about the cause of death. His forehead bore a wound four inches across, and a large part of his skull was hanging by a flap of skin. The blood splattered across the bed and the wall told the tale.

Bublanski pouted.

“What are we supposed to be looking at?” Modig asked.

Samuelsson lifted the plastic sheet which covered Bjurman’s lower body. Bublanski put on his glasses when he and Modig stepped closer to read the text tattooed on Bjurman’s abdomen. The letters were irregular and clumsy – obviously whoever wrote them was a novice tattoo artist – but the message could not have been clearer: I AM A SADISTIC PIG, A PERVERT, AND A RAPIST.

Modig and Bublanski looked at each other in astonishment.

“Are we possibly looking at a motive?” Modig said at last.

Blomkvist bought a pasta meal from the 7-Eleven on his way home and put the paper carton in the microwave as he undressed and stood under the shower for three minutes. He got a fork and ate standing up, right out of the carton. He was hungry, but he had no appetite for food; he just wanted to take it on board as fast