The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye

by David Lagercrantz

  The crash accelerated. The floor was pulled out from under the market. The Stockholm index was down by 6 percent, then 8, and fell further to minus 9 and 14 percent. At that stage it showed signs of a small recovery, then continued to fall again, as if plummeting into a black hole. It was a full-blown crash, a galloping panic, and so far nobody seemed to understand what was happening.

  There was nothing specific, no apparent trigger. People muttered: “Incomprehensible, it’s madness! What’s going on?” Soon after, when the experts were called in, all the usual explanations were trotted out: an overheated economy, low interest rates, the over-valued market, political threats from both West and East, instability in the Middle East and fascist and anti-democratic movements in Europe and the U.S.—a political witches’ cauldron reminiscent of the 1930s. But nothing new had happened that day, no development significant enough to have precipitated a disaster on this scale. The panic appeared out of nowhere and was self-sustaining.

  Blomkvist was not the only one reminded of the hacker attack on Finance Security in April. He went onto social media and was not surprised to find rumours and allegations raging, all too often gaining a foothold in the mainstream media. Blomkvist said aloud, though it sounded more as if he were talking to himself:

  “It’s not just the stock exchange that’s crashing.”

  “What do you mean?” Berger said.

  “Truth is going the same way.”

  It was as if the Internet trolls had taken over to create a fake dynamic in which lies and truth were set against each other as if they were equivalent notions. An impenetrable fog of fabrications and conspiracy theories settled over the world. Sometimes the trolls did a good job, sometimes not. For example, it was reported that financier Christer Tallgren had shot himself in his apartment in Paris, devastated by the fact that his millions—or was it billions?—had gone up in smoke. Tallgren’s own denial of the story on Twitter was not the only noteworthy thing about it; there was also the fact that it echoed Ivar Kreuger’s death by his own hand in 1932.

  A mixture of urban myths and apocryphal stories, both new and old, swirled in the air. There was talk of automated trading having run amok, about financial centres and media houses and websites having been hacked. But there were also reports that people were about to jump to their deaths from balconies and roofs in Östermalm, which not only sounded wildly melodramatic but also harked back to the 1929 stock exchange crash, when roofers working on Wall Street buildings were said to have been mistaken for ill-fated investors, and had contributed to the tumbling market merely by being up there.

  It was claimed that Handelsbanken had stopped its payments and that Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs were on the verge of bankruptcy. News came pouring in from every direction, and not even a well-trained eye like Blomkvist’s could tell the difference between what was true and what was fabricated by the organized groups of trolls in the East.

  He had no doubt, however, that Stockholm was the hardest hit. The stock market crash was not as bad in Frankfurt, London or Paris, although there was rising panic in those cities too. The American exchanges would not be opening for several hours. Even so, futures prices suggested that there would be sharp downturns on the Dow Jones and Nasdaq. Nothing seemed to help, least of all when central bank governors and ministers, economists and gurus stepped up to talk about “over-reaction,” saying that nobody should “rock the boat.” Everything was cast in a negative light and distorted. The herd was already in motion and running for its life, although nobody knew who or what had frightened it. A decision was made to suspend trading on the Stockholm Stock Exchange, perhaps too hastily because prices had begun to recover only moments before. But investigations and analyses were needed before there could be a resumption of trading.

  “Too bad about your twins story. It’ll drown in this mess.”

  Blomkvist looked up from his computer and gazed wistfully at Berger.

  “I’m touched that you’re concerned about my professional pride when the whole world has gone mad,” he said.

  “I’m thinking of Millennium.”

  “I understand. But we have to delay publication now, don’t you think? We can’t put out a new issue without addressing this too.”

  “No new print issue, I agree with that. But we have to at least publish something of this finished piece online. Otherwise someone could get out ahead of us.”

  “OK,” he said, “you’re probably right. Whatever you think best.”

  “But then you’ll have to get going again on this latest story. Can you bear to?”

  “Of course, no problem.”

  “Good,” she said, and they nodded at each other.

  It would be a hot and oppressive summer, and Blomkvist decided to take a walk before tackling the next story. He came down Götgatan towards Slussen, thinking of Holger Palmgren and his clenched fist in the bed in Liljeholmen.

  EPILOGUE

  The cathedral was packed. It was not just that it was Storkyrkan, and it was not as if the funeral was for some famous statesman. It was for an elderly lawyer who had never taken on any high-profile cases, but had rather spent his whole working life fighting on behalf of young people who had gone astray. Millennium’s recently published report into the so-called Twins Scandal may have had something to do with it though, along with the publicity around the old man’s murder.

  It was 2:00 p.m. The funeral service had been dignified and moving, with a somewhat unconventional sermon which had scarcely referred to the Almighty or to Jesus but portrayed the dead man with fine brushstrokes. It had been overshadowed, however, by the emotional eulogy delivered by Holger Palmgren’s half sister Britt-Marie Norén. Many of those sitting in the pews were deeply moved, especially a tall, stately African woman by the name of Lulu Magoro, who was weeping uncontrollably. Many others had tears in their eyes or their heads lowered respectfully—relatives, friends, former colleagues, neighbours, a number of clients who looked to have done well for themselves. Mikael Blomkvist was there, as was his sister, Annika Giannini; Chief Inspector Bublanski and his fiancée, Farah Sharif; and Inspectors Sonja Modig and Jerker Holmberg; as well as Erika Berger and many others who had been close to Holger. But there were also those who had come out of curiosity and were looking around excitedly, which did not appear to please the priest, a tall, slim woman in her sixties with snow-white hair and sharp features. She stepped forward again with her air of natural authority and nodded at a man in a black linen jacket who was sitting in the second row on the left.

  The man—Dragan Armansky, the owner of the company Milton Security—shook his head. It was his turn to speak, but he no longer wanted to. It was not obvious why. The priest accepted his apology and prepared for the mourners to file past the coffin, giving a signal to the musicians above.

  At that moment a young woman stood up at the back of the church and called out: “Stop. Wait.” It took a while before people realized it was Lisbeth Salander. That may have been because she was wearing a black tailored suit which made her look like a young boy, although she had still managed to forget to do something about her hair. It was as messy and spiky as ever. She made no effort to approach the coffin in a way appropriate to the occasion either. There was something aggressive about the way she moved, and yet—in a curious paradox—she appeared oddly indecisive. When she reached the altar she stared at the floor, refusing to meet the eye of anyone in the congregation. For a moment it looked as though she might go and sit down again.

  “Would you like to say a few words?” the priest said.

  She nodded.

  “Please, go ahead. I understand you were close to Holger.”

  “I was,” she said.

  Then she fell silent. There was nervous muttering in the church. It was impossible to decipher her body language, although most thought she seemed angry, or stunned. When finally she began to speak, she was barely audible even to those in the first row.

  “Louder!” somebody shouted.

  Sh
e raised her eyes and looked lost.

  “Holger was…a pain,” she said. “Tiresome. He wouldn’t accept it if people didn’t want to talk and preferred to be left alone. He didn’t know when to give up. He just barged right in and got all sorts of disturbed freaks to open up. He was dumb enough to believe in people, even in me—and there weren’t too many people who shared that opinion. He was a proud old fool who refused to accept help, however bad the pain, and he always did everything he could to unearth the truth, never for himself. So naturally…”

  She closed her eyes.

  “…there was every reason for them to murder him. They killed a defenceless old man in his bed and that makes me mad, really mad, especially since Holger and I…”

  She never finished the sentence. She stared blankly to one side. Then she straightened up and looked directly out at the congregation.

  “The last time we saw each other, we talked about that statue over there,” she said. “He wanted to know why I was so fascinated by it. I told him that I had never seen it as a monument to a heroic deed, but rather as a representation of a terrible assault. He understood immediately, and asked, ‘What about the fire the dragon is breathing?’ I said it was the same fire that burns inside everyone who is being trampled on. The same fire that can turn us into ashes and waste, but which sometimes—if some old fool like Holger spots us, plays chess with us and talks to us, and just takes an interest—can become something totally different: a force which allows us to strike back. Holger knew that you can still get back on your feet, even with a spear sticking through your body, and that’s why he kept on nagging and was such a pain,” she said, and then fell silent again.

  She turned and bowed to the coffin, her movements stiff and angular, and said, “Thanks,” and “Sorry.” She caught a look from Mikael Blomkvist, who smiled at her. She may have smiled back, it was hard to tell.

  The church erupted with murmuring and whispers, and the priest had difficulty restoring order for the procession past the coffin. Hardly anybody noticed Salander as she stole along the rows of benches and disappeared through the church door, into the square outside and the narrow lanes of Gamla Stan.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My heartfelt thanks to my agent, Magdalena Hedlund, and to my publishers Eva Gedin and Susanna Romanus.

  A big thanks, too, to my editor, Ingemar Karlsson; to Stieg Larsson’s father and brother, Erland and Joakim Larsson; to my friends Johan and Jessica Norberg; and to David Jacoby, senior security researcher at Kaspersky Lab.

  Thanks also to my British publisher, Christopher MacLehose; Jessica Bab Bonde at Hedlund Agency; Nancy Pedersen, professor of genetic epidemiology at the Swedish Twin Registry; Ulrica Blomgren, assistant prison governor at Hall Prison; Svetlana Bajalica Lagercrantz, consultant and associate professor at Karolinska University Hospital; Hedvig Kjellström, professor of computer science at K.T.H. Royal Institute of Technology; Agneta Geschwind, deputy head of department at the Stockholm City Archives; Mats Galvenius, deputy managing director at Insurance Sweden; my neighbour Joachim Hollman; Danica Kragić Jensfelt, professor of information technology at K.T.H. Royal Institute of Technology; and Linda Altrov Berg and Catherine Mörk at Norstedts Agency.

  And always, always to my Anne.

  A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  David Lagercrantz is an acclaimed writer and journalist. He is the author of the best-selling I Am Zlatan Ibrahimović, and Fall of Man in Wilmslow, a novel inspired by the life and death of Alan Turing. The Girl in the Spider’s Web, his continuation of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy, was published in 2015. It became a global best seller, and a major film is in production.

  A NOTE ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

  George Goulding was born in Stockholm, educated in England, and spent his legal career working for a London-based law firm. He is now a translator of Swedish fiction into English.

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