The Girl who played with Fire m(-2

by Stieg Larsson

  “A single shot fired by someone used to handling guns,” Faste said.

  “More than that: there were no footprints to indicate that the killer went into the bedroom to check that she was dead. He knew he had hit his mark and he left the apartment. So, two shots, two bodies, and then out. We’ll have to wait for forensics, but I’m guessing that the killer used hunting ammunition. Death would have been instantaneous. There were ghastly wounds in both victims.”

  The team considered this summary in silence. It was a debate that none of them needed to be reminded of. There are two types of ammunition: hard, full-metal-jacketed bullets that go straight through the body and cause comparatively modest damage, and soft ammunition that expands in the body on impact and does enormous damage. There is a vast difference between hitting a person with a bullet that’s nine millimetres in diameter and a bullet that expands to a couple of centimetres or more in diameter. The latter type is called hunting ammunition, and its objective is to cause massive bleeding. It is considered more humane when hunting moose, since the aim is to put down the prey as quickly and painlessly as possible. But hunting ammunition is forbidden for use in war by international law, because a soldier hit by an expanding bullet almost always dies, no matter where the point of entry.

  In its wisdom, however, the Swedish police had introduced hollow-body hunting ammunition to the police arsenal two years earlier. Exactly why was unclear, but it was quite clear that if, for example, the demonstrator Hannes Westberg, who was hit in the stomach during the World Trade Organization riots in Göteborg in 2001, had been shot with hunting ammo, he would not have survived.

  “So the purpose, unquestionably, was to kill,” Andersson said.

  He was speaking of the murders in Enskede, but he was also voicing his opinion in the silent debate going on around the table.

  Nyberg and Mårtensson agreed.

  “Then we have this improbable time frame,” Bublanski said.

  “Exactly. Immediately after the fatal shots were fired, the killer leaves the apartment, goes down the stairs, drops the weapon, and vanishes into the night. Shortly thereafter – it can only have been a matter of seconds – Blomkvist and his sister drive up and park outside. One possibility is that the killer left through the basement. There’s a side entrance he could have used – into the back courtyard and across a lawn to the street that runs parallel. But he would have had to have a key to the basement door.”

  “Is there any sign at all that the killer left that way?”

  “No.”

  “So, no description to go on,” Modig said. “But why did he ditch the weapon? If he had taken it with him – or if he had flung it away some distance from the building – we wouldn’t have found it for a while.”

  It was a question that no-one could answer.

  “What should we think about Blomkvist?” Faste said.

  “No question he was in shock,” Mårtensson said. “But he acted sensibly. He seemed clearheaded, and I thought he was trustworthy. His sister, a lawyer, confirmed the phone call and the drive there by car. I don’t think he was involved.”

  “He’s a celebrity journalist,” Modig said.

  “So this is going to turn into a media circus,” Bublanski said. “All the more reason to wrap it up as fast as we can. OK… Jerker, you’ll deal with the crime scene, of course, and the neighbours. Faste, you and Curt investigate the victims. Who were they, what were they working on, who was in their circle of friends, who might have had a motive to kill them? Sonja, you and I will go over the witness statements from that night. Then you’ll make a schedule of what Svensson and Johansson were doing all day yesterday before they were killed. We’ll meet here at 2:00 this afternoon.”

  Blomkvist began his working day at Svensson’s desk. He sat quite still for a long while, as if he did not feel up to taking on the task.

  Svensson had his own laptop and had initially worked mostly from home. He had usually spent two days a week in the office; more in the last weeks. At Millennium he had access to an older PowerMac G3, a computer that lived on his desk and could be used by any of the staff. Blomkvist turned on the G3 and found much of the material Svensson had been working on. He had primarily used the G3 to search the Net, but there were various folders that he had copied over from his laptop. He also had a complete backup on two disks that he kept locked in the desk drawer. Usually he had backed up new and updated material every day, but since he had not been in the office for a few days, the latest copy was from Sunday night. Three days were missing.

  Blomkvist made a copy of the Zip disk and locked it in the safe in his office. Then he spent forty-five minutes going through the contents of the original disk. It contained around thirty folders and countless sub-folders. Four years of Svensson’s research on trafficking. He read the document names and looked for ones that might contain the most sensitive material – the names of sources that Svensson was protecting. He had clearly been very careful with his sources – all such material was in a folder labelled. The folder contained 134 documents, most of them quite small. Blomkvist highlighted all the documents and deleted them. He dragged them to an icon for the Burn programme, which did not simply delete the documents but eradicated them byte by byte.

  Then he tackled Svensson’s email. He had been given his own email address at Millennium, which he used both at the office and on his laptop. He had his own password, but that did not present a problem, since Blomkvist had administrator rights and was able to access the entire mail server. He downloaded a copy of Svensson’s email and burned it to a CD.

  Finally he turned his attention to the mountain of paper made up of reference material, notes, press clippings, court judgments, and all the correspondence that Svensson had accumulated. He played it safe and made copies of everything that looked important. That came to two thousand pages and took him three hours.

  He set to one side all the material that might in any way be connected to a confidential source. It was a stack of about forty pages, mainly notes from two A4 pads that Svensson had locked in his desk. Blomkvist put this material in an envelope and took it into his office. Then he carried all the other material that was part of Svensson’s project to his desk.

  When he was finished he took a deep breath and went down to the 7-Eleven, where he had a coffee and a slice of pizza. He mistakenly assumed that the police would arrive at any moment to go through Svensson’s desk.

  Bublanski had an unexpected breakthrough in the investigation just after 10:00 a.m., when he was called by Lennart Granlund of the National Forensics Laboratory in Linköping:

  “It’s about the killings in Enskede.”

  “So soon?”

  “We received the weapon early this morning, and I’m not quite done with the analysis, but I have some information that might interest you.”

  “Good. Tell me what you’ve come up with,” Bublanski said.

  “The weapon is a Colt.45 Magnum, made in the USA in 1981. We have fingerprints and possible DNA – but that analysis will take a little time. We’ve also looked at the bullets that the couple were shot with. Not surprisingly, they appear to have been fired from that weapon. That’s usually the case when we find a gun in the stairwell at a crime scene. The bullets are badly fragmented, but we have a piece to use for comparison. It’s most likely that this is the murder weapon.”

  “An illegal weapon, I suppose. Do you have a serial number?”

  “The weapon is quite legal. It belongs to a lawyer, Nils Erik Bjurman, and was bought in 1983. He’s a member of the police shooting club. He lives on Upplandsgatan near Odenplan.”

  “What on earth are you saying?”

  “We also found, as I mentioned, a number of prints on the weapon. Prints from at least two different people. We may expect that one set belongs to Bjurman, insofar as the weapon was not reported stolen or sold – but I have no information on that.”

  “Aha. In other words, we have a lead.”

  “We have a hit in the reg
ister for the second set. Prints from the right thumb and forefinger.”

  “Who is it?”

  “A woman born on April 30, 1978. Arrested for an assault in Gamla Stan in 1995, when the prints were taken.”

  “Does she have a name?”

  “Yes. Her name is Lisbeth Salander.”

  Bublanski wrote down the name and a social security number that Granlund gave him.

  When Blomkvist returned to work after his late lunch, he went straight to his office and closed the door, making it clear that he did not want to be disturbed. He had not had time to deal with all the peripheral information in Svensson’s email and notes. He would have to settle down and read through the book and the articles with completely new eyes, keeping in mind now that the author was dead and unable to answer any difficult questions that might need to be asked.

  He had to decide whether the book could still be published. And he had to make up his mind whether there was anything in the material that might hint at a motive for murder. He switched on his computer and set to work.

  Bublanski made a brief call to Ekström, to tell him what had developed at NFL. It was decided that Bublanski and Modig would pay a call on Advokat Bjurman. It could be for a talk, an interrogation, or even an arrest. Faste and Andersson would track down this Lisbeth Salander and ask her to explain how her fingerprints came to be on a murder weapon. The search for Bjurman at first presented no difficulty. His address was listed in the tax records, the weapons registry, and the vehicle licencing database; it was even in the telephone book. Bublanski and Modig drove to Odenplan and managed to get into the building on Upplandsgatan when a young man came out just as they arrived.

  After that it was trickier. When they rang Bjurman’s doorbell, no-one answered. They drove to his office at St.Eriksplan, but got the same result there.

  “Maybe he’s in court,” Modig said.

  “Maybe he got on a plane to Brazil after shooting two people in Enskede,” Bublanski said.

  Modig glanced at her colleague. She enjoyed his company. She would not have had anything against flirting with him but for the fact that she was a mother of two and she and Bublanski were both happily married. From the brass nameplates on Bjurman’s floor they noted that his nearest neighbours were a dentist, Dr. Norman, a company called N-Consulting, and Rune Håkansson, a lawyer.

  They started with Håkansson.

  “Hello, my name is Modig and this is Inspector Bublanski. We’re from the police and have business with Nils Erik Bjurman, your colleague from next door. Do you know where we might find him?”

  Håkansson shook his head. “I haven’t seen much of him lately. He was seriously ill two years ago, and has more or less shut down his practice. I only see him about once every two months.”

  “Seriously ill?” Bublanski said.

  “I’m not sure what with. He was always working flat out, and then he was taken ill. Cancer, I assumed. I hardly know him.”

  “Do you think or do you know that he got cancer?” Modig said.

  “Well… No, I’m not sure. He had a secretary, Britt Karlsson, or Nilsson, something like that. An older woman. He let her go, and she was the one who told me that he was ill. That was in the spring of 2003. I didn’t see him again until December of that year. He looked ten years older, gaunt and grey-haired. I drew my own conclusions.”

  They went back to the apartment. Still no answer. Bublanski took out his mobile and dialled Bjurman’s mobile number. He got an automated message: The subscriber you are calling cannot be reached at present. Please try again later.

  He tried the number at the apartment. On the landing they could hear a faint ringing from the other side of the door before an answering machine clicked on and asked the caller to leave a message.

  It was 1:00 p.m.

  “Coffee?”

  “I need a burger.”

  At Burger King on Odenplan Modig had a Whopper and Bublanski a veggie burger. Then they returned to police headquarters.

  ***

  Prosecutor Ekström called the meeting to order at the conference table in his office at 2:00. Bublanski and Modig took seats next to each other by the wall near the window. Andersson arrived two minutes later and sat down opposite them. Holmberg came in with a tray of coffee in paper cups. He had paid a brief visit to Enskede and intended to return later in the afternoon when the techs were finished.

  “Where’s Faste?” Ekström asked.

  “He’s with the social welfare agency. He called five minutes ago and said he’d be a little late,” Svensson said.

  “We’ll get started anyway. What have we got?” Ekström began without ceremony. He pointed first to Bublanski.

  “We’ve been looking for Nils Bjurman, the registered owner of what is probably the murder weapon. He isn’t at home or at his office. According to another lawyer in the same building, he fell ill two years ago and has more or less shut down his practice.”

  Modig said: “Bjurman is fifty-five, not listed in the criminal register. He is mainly a business lawyer. I haven’t had time to research his background beyond that.”

  “But he does own the gun that was used in Enskede.”

  “That’s correct. He has a licence for it and he’s a member of the police shooting club,” Bublanski said. “I talked to Gunnarsson in weapons – he’s the chairman of the club and knows Bjurman well. He joined in 1978 and was treasurer from 1984 to 1992. Gunnarsson describes Bjurman as an excellent shot with a pistol, calm and collected, and no funny stuff.”

  “A gun freak?”

  “Gunnarsson thinks Bjurman was more interested in club life than in the shooting itself. He liked to compete, but he didn’t stand out, at least not as a gun fanatic. In 1983 he participated in the Swedish championships and came in thirteenth. For the past ten years he’s cut back on shooting practice and just shows up for annual meetings and such.”

  “Does he own any other weapons?”

  “He has had licences for four handguns since he joined the shooting club. In addition to the Colt, he’s had a Beretta, a Smith&Wesson, and a competition pistol made by Rapid. The other three were sold within the club ten years ago, and the licences were transferred to other members.”

  “And we have no idea where he is.”

  “That’s correct. But we’ve only been looking for him since 10:00 this morning. He may be out walking in Djurgården or in hospital or whatever.”

  At that moment Faste burst in. He seemed out of breath.

  “Sorry I’m late. May I jump right in?”

  Ekström motioned “be my guest.”

  “Lisbeth Salander is a very interesting character. I’ve spent the morning at the social welfare agency and the Guardianship Agency.” He took off his leather jacket and hung it over the back of his chair before he sat down and opened a notebook.

  “The Guardianship Agency?” Ekström said with a frown.

  “This is one very disturbed lady,” Faste said. “She was declared incompetent and put under guardianship. Guess who’s her guardian.” He paused for effect. “Nils Bjurman, the owner of the weapon that was used in Enskede.”

  This announcement certainly had the effect Faste had anticipated. It took him fifteen more minutes to brief the group on all he had learned about Salander.

  “To sum up,” Ekström said when Faste was finished, “we have fingerprints on the probable murder weapon from a woman who during her teens was in and out of psychiatric units, who is understood to make her living as a prostitute, who was declared incompetent by the district court, and who has been documented as having violent tendencies. We should be asking what the hell she’s doing out on the streets at all.”

  “She’s had violent tendencies since she was in elementary school,” said Faste. “She seems to be a real psycho.”

  “But so far we have nothing to link her to the couple in Enskede.” Ekström drummed his fingertips on the tabletop. “This double murder may not be so hard to solve after all. Have we got an address for
Salander?”

  “On Lundagatan in Södermalm. Tax records show that she declared periodic income from Milton Security.”

  “And what in God’s name was she doing for them?”

  “I don’t know. It’s a pretty modest annual income for several years. Maybe she’s a cleaning woman or something.”

  “Hmm,” Ekström said. “We’ll have that checked out. Right now we have to find her.”

  “We’ll have to work out the details gradually,” Bublanski said. “But now we have a suspect. Hans, you and Curt go down to Lundagatan and pick up Salander. Be careful – we don’t know if she has other weapons, and we don’t really know how dangerous she may be.”

  “OK.”

  “Bubble,” Ekström said, “the head of Milton Security is Dragan Armansky. I met him on a case a few years ago. He’s reliable. Go to his office and have a private talk with him about Salander. You’d better get there before he leaves for the day.”

  Bublanski was visibly annoyed, partly because Ekström had used his nickname, partly because he had formulated his request as an order.

  “Modig,” Bublanski said, “keep looking for Bjurman. Knock on all the neighbours’ doors. I think it’s just as important to find him.”

  “OK.”

  “We have to find the connection between Salander and the couple in Enskede. And we have to place Salander down in Enskede at the time of the murders. Jerker, get some pictures of her and check with everyone who lives in the apartment building. Knock on doors this evening. Get some uniforms to help you out.”

  Bublanski paused and scratched the back of his neck.

  “Damn, with a little luck we could tie up this mess tonight – and I thought this was going to be a long, drawn – out affair.”

  “One more thing,” Ekström said. “The media are obviously pressuring us. I’ve promised them a press conference at 3:00 p.m. I can handle it provided I get somebody from the press office to help out. I’m guessing that a number of journalists will call you directly as well. We’ll say nothing at all about Salander and Bjurman for as long as need be.”