The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye

by David Lagercrantz

  “The couple took him inside and ran him a hot bath. They gave him dry clothes and fed him Jansson’s temptation and Christmas ham, a little mulled wine and snaps, and slowly he began to revive. But he had no idea what he should do next. He was desperate to contact me, but he knew that Rakel Greitz had taken my mobile and was afraid that my e-mails were also being monitored. Leo’s smart, though—he’s usually one step ahead of the rest of us. He thought it would be safe to send a coded message that looked innocuous, something I might easily be getting the day before Christmas. He borrowed a mobile from the Norebrings and sent me a text:

 

  “OK,” Blomkvist said. “I think I’m beginning to understand. But what did the message mean?”

  “Well, he didn’t want to give away my American name. He chose an artist he knew I never played with, so nobody would be able to trace me that way. But above all he signed off as—”

  “Django.”

  “Right. That in itself would have been enough for the penny to drop, but on top of that: ‘Will be a Minor Swing.’ ”

  Dan paused for a moment.

  “ ‘Minor Swing’ is a piece with incredible joie de vivre. Maybe that’s not quite right. There’s a dark streak too. Django and Stéphane Grappelli wrote it together. Leo and I must have played it four, five times already. We loved it. But…”

  Blomkvist waited for him to go on.

  “After Leo sent the message, his condition deteriorated. Apparently he collapsed and the couple had him lie down on their sofa. He had difficulty breathing and his lips turned blue. I was unaware of all this. I was in Leo’s apartment, and it had gotten late. The three of us were there—Benjamin, Rakel and me. I was downing glass after glass of wine while Rakel went through the whole repulsive plan she had cooked up. Shocked as I was, I played along. I agreed to become Leo, to do exactly as she said. She told me how to order new credit cards and get new passwords, and to go and see Viveka at her hospice, Stockholms Sjukhem, as Leo. She said I had to take a sabbatical and travel, and read up on the financial markets and lose my American and my northern Swedish accents. Rakel flew around the apartment and dug up Leo’s passport and some paper so that I could practise his signature. It was unbearable. And those threats were always there, the threat that as Daniel I could be convicted for the murder of my brother, or that as Leo I could go to prison for insider trading and tax fraud. I sat there mesmerized, just looking at her. Or rather, I tried to look at her, but mostly I averted my eyes or closed them and saw in my mind’s eye Leo staggering off into the forest, disappearing in the darkness and cold. I didn’t see how he could possibly have survived. I pictured him lying in the snow, freezing to death.

  “I couldn’t imagine that Rakel really believed in her plan either. She must have seen that I’d never be able to pull it off—that I would go to pieces at the slightest suspicion. I remember how she exchanged looks with Benjamin and issued him instructions from time to time. All the while she was fussing with something, arranging pens, wiping tabletops and chairs, looking in drawers, straightening things.

  “At one point she took my phone out of her pocket and saw Leo’s text. She started grilling me about my friends, my business contacts and fellow musicians, and I answered as best I could, some of it true maybe, but mostly half-truths and lies. I don’t really know. I could hardly speak, and yet…You know, to save money I’d gotten myself a Swedish SIM card and hadn’t given the number to many people, so the text made me curious. ‘What was that message?’ I asked, as casually as I could. Rakel showed it to me and, seeing those words, I felt like I’d gotten my life back. But I must have controlled myself well. I don’t think she noticed anything. ‘That’s a gig, right?’ she said. I nodded. She told me I had to turn down those things from now on. She took back my phone and issued even more dire warnings. But I was no longer listening. I went along with everything. I think I even managed to sound a little greedy: ‘How much money am I actually going to get?’ I wanted to know. She gave me a very precise answer, which I later realized was an exaggeration, as if my decision might depend on a couple of million one way or the other. By then it was already 11:30 at night. We’d been at it for hours—I was dead tired and also pretty drunk. ‘Can we stop now?’ I said. ‘I have to get some sleep,’ and I remember Rakel hesitated. Was it safe to leave me on my own? Eventually she must have decided she had to trust me. I was so terrified she would change her mind that I didn’t dare ask for my phone back. I just stood there rooted to the spot, nodding at her threats and promises.”

  “But they left.”

  “They left, and I concentrated on one thing only—remembering the number Leo’s text had been sent from. I remembered only the last five digits. I rummaged around in drawers and coat pockets until I found Leo’s private mobile which, typical for him, needed no security code. I tried every conceivable prefix to those five numbers—I woke up quite a few people and dialled some non-existent lines. But none of them was right. I swore and cried, and I was sure that Rakel would soon get another text from him, which would be a disaster. Then I remembered the sign we passed just before the car stopped in the forest. Vidåkra, it said. I guessed Leo must have found help somewhere nearby and so—”

  “You checked Vidåkra and the five digits you’d remembered?”

  “Exactly, and I found Henrik Norebring immediately. His phone number came up with all sorts of information, including how old he was. There was even a picture of his house, and an estimate of its value compared to other properties in the area. Isn’t the Internet incredible? I remember that I hesitated—that my hands were shaking.”

  “But you called, didn’t you?”

  “I did. Do you mind if we take a break?”

  Blomkvist nodded, his face grim, and he put a hand on Dan’s shoulder. Then he went into the galley kitchen, switched on his mobile and washed up the glasses while he waited. In almost no time the phone began to beep and buzz, and he looked at his messages to see what was going on. There was one from Bublanski:

 

  He swore and rushed back into the studio.

  “Whatever may have happened, Dan, I hope you appreciate that we have to make this public as quickly as possible—not least for your sake,” he said. “I’m sorry we don’t have time to go through the rest now, but I have to rush off. Given the circumstances, it’s important that you stay here in the studio. I’ll arrange for my colleague—my boss, in fact—Erika Berger, to come and keep you company. Would that be OK? She’s a good and reliable person; you’ll like her. I have to go now.”

  Dan nodded and for a moment looked so confused and helpless that Blomkvist gave him a quick, rough hug. He handed over the keys to the studio and thanked him.

  “It was brave of you to tell me. I look forward to hearing the rest.”

  As he raced down the stairs he called Erika on an encrypted line. She agreed to drive over right away, just as he had expected. Next he made several attempts to get hold of Salander. No response, so he tried Bublanski.

  CHAPTER 23

  June 22

  Bublanski had every reason to be satisfied. He had arrested Bashir and his brother Razan Kazi. Plus the notorious Benito Andersson, and a member of the Svavelsjö M.C. gang. Instead he was upset and disappointed. Officers from both the Uppsala and Stockholm police forces had been searching the woods around Vadabosjö, but they had found no trace of Salander apart from bloodstains in the van and signs of a break-in at a holiday home further up the hill where they had come across bloody footprints from child-sized sneakers. What on earth was she thinking? Salander obviously needed medical attention. There were ambulances heading their way, but she had chosen to plunge into the forest, a couple of miles off any main road. Maybe she just ran for her life, with no time to realize that help was at hand. But if a vital organ had been perforated by Benito’s dagger, Salander would be
in trouble, maybe even dying. Why was she not like other people?

  Bublanski had reached police headquarters on Bergsgatan and was just walking into his office when his mobile rang. It was Blomkvist, at last, and the Chief Inspector gave him a broad-brush account of what had been happening. It was clear that his words hit home. Blomkvist asked a whole string of questions and only then did he say that he was beginning to understand why Holger Palmgren had been murdered. He promised to come back to Bublanski with more as soon as he could, but right now he had no time to talk. Bublanski sighed and had no option but to acquiesce.

  DECEMBER, ONE AND A HALF YEARS EARLIER

  It was ten past midnight. Christmas Eve, finally. Heavy wet snow lay on the window ledge, and the sky was a canvas of black and grey. The city lay silent, save for the occasional car on Karlavägen.

  Dan stood at the window, shaking all over, and dialled the number for Henrik Norebring in Vidåkra. The ring tone echoed in his ear. No answer. Then he heard a recorded message that ended with a repetitive: “Hope you’re good, hope you’re well.” Dan looked around the apartment in desperation. There was no sign of the drama that had only recently taken place there, but instead an unfamiliar clinical tidiness prevailed, plus a smell of disinfectant.

  He escaped into the guest room where he had been sleeping for the past week and tried the number again and again. He cursed—he was beside himself. He could see that Greitz had been at it in here as well. What on earth had she been up to? She seemed to have cleaned and wiped down every surface. He had the urge to create chaos and disorder, rip the sheets off the bed, throw books at the wall, anything to rid himself of every trace of her. Instead he looked out the window and heard music playing from a radio on the floor below.

  Perhaps a minute or two passed before he picked up Leo’s mobile again. Just then it rang in his hand. He answered eagerly. On the other end was the very same voice from the voicemail greeting. But now it no longer sounded so chirpy; it was serious and composed, as if something terrible had happened.

  “Is Leo there?” Dan gasped.

  For a while there was no answer. Just a silence which seemed to confirm the worst, and which also brought back the terrifying reality of the forest. He remembered the chill of Leo’s lips, the absence of any light in his eyes, the lack of response from his lungs.

  “Is he there? Is he alive?”

  “Wait,” the voice said.

  There was a crackling in the receiver. He could hear footsteps. It took time, so much time. Then suddenly life returned and, with it, the world and its colours.

  “Dan?” said a voice which could have been his own.

  “Leo,” he whispered. “You’re alive.”

  “I’m OK. The cramps came back, but Stina here, she’s a nurse, she sorted me out.”

  He told Dan he was lying on a sofa with two blankets over him. His voice sounded weak yet steady, and he was clearly unsure as to what he could say in front of whoever was there with him. But he did mention Django and “Minor Swing.”

  “You saved my life,” Leo said.

  “I think I did.”

  “That’s pretty major.”

  “You mean it was swing.”

  “It doesn’t get more swing than that, brother.”

  Dan did not answer.

  “Contra mundum,” Leo said.

  “What’s that?” Dan said.

  “The two of us against the world, my friend. You and me.”

  They decided to meet mid-morning at Hotel Amaranten on Kungsholmsgatan, not far from Rådhuset, where Leo was certain they would not bump into anyone he knew. Dan sent a taxi to bring him into the city, and the brothers spent those hours on Christmas Eve in a room on the fourth floor, talking and making plans with the curtains drawn. They renewed their alliance and their pact and, just before the shops closed for the holidays at 2:00 p.m., Dan bought two mobiles with prepaid SIM cards, so that they would be able to communicate.

  He headed to Floragatan, and when Greitz rang on the landline he repeated in grave tones that he had decided to do as she suggested. He spoke to a nurse at Stockholms Sjukhem who said that his mother was under sedation and would not live long. He wished all of them on the ward a Happy Christmas, and asked them to kiss Viveka on the forehead for him. He said he would visit soon.

  That afternoon he returned to the Amaranten and told Leo as much as he could about the file Greitz said she had compiled on insider trading deals and tax fraud carried out in his name. There was depthless rage in his brother’s eyes, a terrifying hatred, and Dan listened in silence as Leo went on about how they would take revenge on Ivar and Rakel and all the rest of them. He put a hand on Leo’s shoulder to share his pain, but his own thoughts were less about revenge and more about Greitz’s insistence on the mighty powers that stood behind her. He also remembered the car journey in the dark and the grave in the forest by the old pine tree. His whole body told him that he did not have the courage to retaliate, not right away. Perhaps—it occurred to him later—this had something to do with his background. Unlike Leo, he did not have the confidence to believe he could win against the establishment. Or perhaps it was simply that he had his eyes opened to the ruthlessness with which this group operated.

  “Absolutely, we’ll crush them,” Dan said. “But this has to be planned meticulously, don’t you think? We need evidence. We have to prepare the ground. Why don’t we look at it as an opportunity to start afresh, try something new?”

  He didn’t know what he was trying to say. He was just floating an idea. But gradually it took hold and an hour later, after much discussion, they were forging plans, tentatively at first, then more and more seriously. They knew they would have to act quickly, before Greitz and her organization, whatever it was, would see that they had been duped.

  On Christmas Day Leo made the first of what would be many transfers to Dan Brody’s bank account. Then he bought a ticket to Boston for the following day, in Dan’s name. But it was Leo who made the journey with Dan’s American passport and papers. Dan stayed in Leo’s apartment, where Greitz came to see him on the evening of December 26, to draw up guidelines for his new life. He played the part well, and if at times he did not look as disconsolate as he should have, Greitz seemed to interpret that as a sign that he was enjoying his new existence already. “You see your own evil in others,” as Leo said later on the telephone.

  On December 28, Dan was sitting at Leo’s mother’s bedside at Stockholms Sjukhem. He did not say much, and none of the staff appeared to suspect anything, which boosted his confidence. He tried to look upset yet composed, and sometimes he was genuinely moved, even though he was with a person he had never met before. Viveka was emaciated and pale, bird-like. She was sleeping with her mouth open, and her breathing was weak. Someone had combed her hair and applied a little make-up, and she had been propped up on two pillows. At one point—he felt it would be expected—he stroked her shoulder and arm. She opened her eyes and looked at him critically, which made him feel uncomfortable but not worried. She was heavily sedated with morphine, so it was probably safe to assume that nothing she could say would be taken seriously.

  “Who are you?” she said.

  Something harsh and judgmental surfaced in her delicate, pointed features.

  “It’s me, Mamma. Leo.”

  She appeared to be reflecting on this. She swallowed and gathered some strength.

  “You never turned out as we had hoped, Leo,” she said. “You were a disappointment to Pappa and me.”

  Dan closed his eyes and remembered everything Leo had told him about his mother. It was astonishingly easy to reply—maybe precisely because the woman was a stranger.

  “You were never what I’d hoped for either. You never understood me. It was you who let me down.”

  She looked at him, surprised and confused.

  “You let Leo down,” he said. “You let us both down—all of you did.”

  He walked out and went back home through the city. The following day, De
cember 29, Viveka Mannheimer died. The director of Stockholms Sjukhem telephoned to let him know, and Dan put the announcements and the funeral arrangements into the hands of an undertaker recommended by the hospice. They could organize it however they thought best, he told them, a week or so into the New Year. He himself would not be attending. When he told Ivar Ögren that he needed a long sabbatical, he got in return only coarse language and foul comments about how irresponsible he was. He did not bother to answer. On January 4, he too left the country, with Greitz’s approval.

  He flew to New York and met his brother in Washington, D.C. They stayed together for a week before going their separate ways.

  Leo—as Dan—cautiously got to know the musicians on the Boston jazz scene. He explained he had started playing piano, but was nervous about performing in public. His Swedish accent worried him and he was homesick, until he decided to move to Toronto, where he met Marie Denver. She was a young interior designer with dreams of becoming an artist, and she was considering setting up a business together with her sister. She was not sure if she dared to take the plunge. Leo invested some capital and took a seat on the board. Not long after, the couple bought a house in Hoggs Hollow. He played the piano regularly with a small group of talented amateur musicians, all of whom were doctors.