The Man Who Left Too Soon

by Barry Forshaw

  It has been some time since Larsson has allowed the reader into the company of Lisbeth Salander, but as usual, when he does the results are always fascinating. She has gone to bed with a woman, Mimmi, and this leads her to think about her own sexuality. She has, apparently, never thought of herself as a lesbian or even, for that matter, bisexual – this is all of a part with her rejection of labels of any kind (not a rejection her creator shares). Her problem with men has been finding those who can attend to her sexual needs but not be ‘creeps’ afterwards – a combination she is finding difficult to accept.

  Her doorbell rings, and at the door is a man who greets her cheerfully. It’s Blomkvist, who has arrived with filled bagels for her breakfast; he has researched her preferences. She screams at him, saying she doesn’t know who he is, but Blomkvist points out that she knows him better than almost anyone else – and what’s more, he knows how she does it, he knows her secrets. She tells him that he should talk to her boss, but he points out that he has already had a conversation with Armansky. He then tells her, peremptorily, to have a shower. And finally, the two central characters in the Millennium Trilogy have met.

  What follows is a fascinating colloquy between the two characters, full of interesting detail, such as the fact that Blomkvist is mildly disgusted by the less-than-hygienic fashion in which Salander lives. The dynamic of the relationship between the two is already intriguing, and while we are clearly looking at Salander through Blomkvist’s eyes (inasmuch as he is the more open ‘normal’ character), it is her response to the conversation that fascinates us – particularly as we know that her responses can, as Americans say, ‘turn on a dime’. Blomkvist asks about the job she has been employed to do and he tells her why he needs a skilled researcher for the assignment he has undertaken for Vanger. The initial commission was, she understands, for some historical research. But Blomkvist tells her – in no uncertain terms – that he wants her to help him identify a murderer.

  He tells her all the details of the Vanger case and how he has identified the ‘RJ’ from the list in the date book as Rebecka Jacobsson. She asks if he considers all the other names in the list to be murder victims, and he replies that they may be looking for a killer who was active in the 1950s (and also the 1960s) and who is in some way linked to Harriet Vanger. She agrees to help but tells him that he must sign a contract with her boss, Armansky. On returning to the island Blomkvist finds that his cottage has been ransacked.

  Salander is musing on her meeting with him. It is clear that he has to some degree got under her skin and she is reacting to him as she has done to so many males who had the upper hand in her past. But as he said, he was not there to blackmail her, only here to ask her to help. She could say ‘yes’ or ‘no’. But the partnership is now a foregone conclusion – as Larsson knows readers will want it to be.

  Blomkvist learns from Martin Vanger that Cecilia is very much against him continuing with his investigations. After he leaves, Blomkvist pours himself a drink and, as Larsson puts it, picks up his copy of a Val McDermid novel (another nod to an important influence on Larsson’s work). While Blomkvist tries to identify a car with the AC plates, he finds himself getting closer to the mystery. Salander, too, an expert in methodology, is trying to track down the identity of the individuals who may have been killed by the unknown murderer. She finds that a Magda (one of the names in the list) is a name in a grisly killing in April 1960. She also finds that the subject had been subjected to a grim sexual assault and murdered with a pitchfork – and that one of the animals at the farm on which the killing took place suffered similar stab wounds.

  Suspicion had fallen on a neighbour in the village, a young man accused of a homosexual crime, but Salander is bemused as to why a reputed homosexual would take part in a sex killing against a woman. As the duo begin to peel back more layers of the mystery, Blomkvist tells Frode that he is no longer convinced that Cecilia is central to the Harriet mystery, and is now looking at the emotionally cold Isabella. Inevitably, of course, Salander has to travel to Hedeby Island, and we are reminded once again that the novel began with an Agatha Christie-style murder in a cloistered setting. However, that was a springboard for the events that followed in which the rules of the classic English mystery have been shaken up and exploded. Now this highly unorthodox character is travelling to a crucial location. As Blomkvist sautés lamb chops for Salander, he finds himself sneaking glimpses of the tattoos on her back. Further suggestions that the relationship between the two will develop in some way.

  She gives him a series of reports on the names on the list, all of which have been identified. After the first girl, Rebecka Jacobsson, there was a prostitute who was tied up and abused, with the cause of death being strangulation – a sanitary towel had been forced down her throat. Blomkvist finds the verse in Leviticus that reads, ‘If a man lies with a woman having her sickness, and uncovers her nakedness, he has made naked her fountain, and she has uncovered the fountain of her blood; both of them shall be cut off from among their people.’ It’s clear to both Blomkvist and Salander that Harriet Vanger, in compiling the list, had made the same biblical connection. Other examples follow in which biblical allusions are found for the various murder victims. With the kind of plotting ingenuity which is characteristic of the trilogy, Larsson allows his characters to make connections between the names of the victims (and to cut a path through some obfuscation). They find a preponderance of traditional Jewish names and, of course, the Vanger family is noted for its passionate anti-Semites. Blomkvist remembers Harald Vanger standing in the road and shouting that his own daughter was a whore.

  At this point, Blomkvist tells Salander that he considers the job she was hired for is finished. But, unsurprisingly, she replies, ‘I’m not done with this.’ She is now as dedicated to the extirpation of evil and the revelation of the mystery as Blomkvist – and we have a classic detective fiction trope: the end of an investigation is not the end of the narrative. But she tells him something significant in the context of both Larsson’s preoccupation and the original Swedish title of the book: ‘It’s not an insane serial killer who read his Bible wrong. It’s just a common or garden bastard who hates women.’

  In Chapter 21, on the principle that a variety of threats and obstructions should be directed against his protagonists as a dramatic imperative, Larsson has Blomkvist subjected to a scurrilous attack on his journalism, but the journalist is more concerned by the revelation he has arrived at from the photo that he was tracking down: a blurred figure standing behind the spectators. It is a six-foot man with dark blond, long hair. The image is manipulated, but neither Blomkvist nor Salander is any closer to learning his identity. As the investigation progresses we are party to Lisbeth’s thoughts, and once again Larsson renders these as more fascinating than those of his male protagonists (there is perhaps an echo of another Swedish arts icon here – Ingmar Bergman, who frequently demonstrated more sympathy with his female characters than his male protagonists). She is totally disconcerted by the fact that her new companion has reached further into the secrets of her personality than anyone she has encountered, and although her responses to him are positive, she is not happy with this.

  Salander decides to do something which (although readers may have been coaxed into willing it by now) still slightly smacks of the wish-fulfilment element that many people have identified in the book. Salander makes her way to the room where Blomkvist is reading a novel by Sara Paretsky (one of the umpteen references to the crime fiction novelists who had inspired Larsson). She has a sheet wrapped around her body and stands in the doorway. She proceeds to the bed, takes the book from his hand and kisses him on the mouth. When he does not object, she leans across and bites him on the nipple. He tells her, pushing her away so that he can see her face, that he doesn’t consider this move to be a good idea as they are working together. She replies, ‘I want to have sex with you. And I won’t have any problem working with you, but I will have a hell of a problem with you if you kick me ou
t.’ Blomkvist tells her he has no condoms. Her reply is, ‘Screw it.’

  In the celebrated series of crime and thriller novels (featuring a highly capable male and female duo) by Peter O’Donnell – whose protagonists are alpha female Modesty Blaise and her male sidekick Willy Garvin – O’Donnell was careful never to allow his hero and heroine to sleep together, considering that this would alter the dynamics of the relationship. Readers at this point might be forgiven for thinking the same thing of Larsson, but he knows exactly what he is doing – and this dynamic is to shift again on several occasions. As if to remind us that the novel is not about pleasing sexual encounters but about the coercive ones, soon after their tryst, the couple find the body of a cat which Blomkvist assumes has been left by somebody who knows about the work they are doing – and about the progress that they are making. Salander tells him that she is going into Stockholm to buy some gadgets. She at this point demonstrates that she is more ready to deal with violent attacks – and in a forceful way – than her male journalist companion.

  The focus shifts to the pastor of the island, Otto Falk, who was 36 when Harriet Vanger vanished. He is now in his seventies, younger than the seriously ill Henrik Vanger but in a confused mental state and living in a convalescent home. When Blomkvist calls on him, Falk tells him that Harriet must read certain passages of scripture and that she needs guidance. Falk tells Blomkvist that she is looking for a forbidden truth and she is not a good Christian, before drifting off into his own confused state. Religious judgements (as in practically every crime writer, James Lee Burke apart) are, of course, a signifier of negativity and hypocrisy.

  Blomkvist and Salander begin to make biblical connections with the Apocrypha, and we are reminded that another key character, Armansky, has a concern for Salander who he sees as a perfect victim – a victim who is tracking down an insane killer in a remote place. In the meantime, Blomkvist is attempting in vain to contact Cecilia Vanger and as further evidence of the fact that the duo are getting closer to the killer, Blomkvist, while crossing a field, is shot at and throws himself to the ground. He stumbles into a bush and takes the long way home where he encounters Salander, telling her that he looks worse than he is (his face is smeared with congealed blood). Instructing her to stay where she is, Blomkvist makes his way to Cecilia Vanger’s house and begins to ask her several questions: Where was she when he was shot? Why did she open the window of Harriet’s room on the day she disappeared? She decides that she will give him answers, but tells him that it is not her in the photograph.

  By now, Salander has started to install a variety of surveillance objects around the property, as it is clear that their lives are now on the line. She tells Blomkvist that Harriet had realised that there was a serial killer, someone they knew. Of the dramatis personae they have talked about here are at least 24 possible suspects but most of them are no longer around (except for Harald Vanger, who is now 93 and unlikely to be the marksman who attacked Blomkvist). Cecilia Vanger is seen in the photographs talking to Pastor Falk, and also with one of the Vanger brothers, Greger. He has a camera in his hand. It is starting to look as if some members of the family are pulling together to conceal a serial killer who may be one of the elder generation. But why the mutilated cat, an obvious reference to the killings? Interestingly, at this point – with the pace of the book accelerating and the reader aware that the last sixth of the text will deliver the revelations – Larsson allows a discussion between Blomkvist and Salander in which the latter reveals her self-loathing, calling herself a freak. It is another example of how the author has cannily realised that the characterisation of his protagonists is quite as important as the exigencies of the plot.

  The couple make their way to Frode who is initially concerned by Blomkvist’s damaged appearance. They tell him that a possibly insane killer has realised how close they are getting to the truth and they ask about corporation archives. Blomkvist is sent to Alexander Vanger who shows him a box of unsorted photographs. There are connections to the Swedish Nazi Party apparent in the photographs (more evidence of Larsson’s own particular interests, but now comes a revelation of the kind outlawed in classical mystery solutions: the double). There is no question that Larsson would not have been aware of this stricture that crime writers placed upon themselves to avoid cheating, but he is clearly enjoying himself, bending the rules. It is not Cecilia Vanger in many of the pictures. There are two girls, and they are now seen in the same frame. It is her sister Anita, two years younger and living in London. They then identify the mysterious young man spotted earlier in the photographs. He is Martin Vanger.

  Martin Vanger, an introverted child, had been stranded on the wrong side of the bridge on the fateful afternoon and was received by Vanger himself, among other people. But if he was undoubtedly on the wrong side of the water, how could he be in the significant photographs on the other side? At the same time, Salander has discovered that Gottfried Vanger had been situated where at least five of the eight killings were committed. The problem is that Gottfried had drowned while drunk in the 1960s, before the last murder was committed. It is pitch dark when Blomkvist walks towards Harald Vanger’s house.

  However, Blomkvist encounters not Harald but Martin Vanger standing in the dark. He says he has questions. Martin replies, ‘I understand.’ He hands him a key to a door and opens it. It is at this point that one remembers that novelists such as James Patterson ensure their readers keep turning to the next chapter by the choice of a sentence which means the reader cannot put the book down. Larsson at this point comes up with such a sentence: ‘Blomkvist has opened the door to hell’. The author here takes us closest to the gruesome territory inhabited by writers such as his admired Val McDermid. It is a territory that when utilised by male writers has occasioned much criticism – and hardly less so when used by female writers such as McDermid (or even male writers with the correct feminist credentials, such as Larsson).

  The space into which Blomkvist is ushered is a private torture chamber. On the left-hand side are chains and metal eyelets in the ceiling and the floor, a table on which (the reader presumes) luckless victims are strapped to have the most appalling horrors enacted upon them. And, chillingly, there is an array of video equipment. It is a taping studio. It is perhaps at this point that the reader remembers Lisbeth Salander, and why she is particularly good at dealing with the sinister nemeses she comes up against. Blomkvist is instructed to lie on the floor on his stomach. He refuses. Martin replies, ‘Very well… Then I’ll shoot you in the kneecap.’ Blomkvist finds himself obliged to comply.

  He is constantly thinking how he will deal with the nightmare situation he is now in. What begins is a period of intense pain as he is kicked and punched trying to protect his head and take the blows in the softer parts of his body. A half hour of this torment follows before Blomkvist has a chain put around his neck and is fastened to the floor via a metal eyelet. He asks why all the punching and kicking is necessary, but the relentless Martin replies that he should have gone back to Millennium magazine. His tormentor asks Blomkvist how he tracked him down (‘You and that anorexic spook that you dragged into this’), and Blomkvist shocks his captor by telling him about murders that he knows he has committed, and attempts to bluff him that everything is over, that too many people know. Then Martin drops his bombshell: Lisbeth Salander is not going to rescue him, he knows exactly where she is, and a night watchman will tell him when she leaves.

  This abrupt ending of Part Three, of course, ensures that very few readers will be able to put the book down before Part Four, which is called ‘Hostile Takeover’. Once again a ‘violence against women’ superscription adorns the title page: ‘92% of women in Sweden who have been subjected to sexual assault have not reported the most recent violent incident to the police’. Surprisingly, Part Four picks up exactly where the preceding part ended, with Blomkvist chained to the floor by his tormentor Martin Vanger – tantalisingly Larsson perhaps guessing we’ll expect him to defer the resolution of the
climax. Blomkvist asks the murderer why he acts as he does – and why he has this chamber of horrors, indicating the torture chamber around him. Martin replies that it’s easy – that women who nobody misses, such as immigrants and prostitutes from Russia, vanish all the time. To his horror, Blomkvist realises that this is no series of murders from the past, but one which is happening today – and he has wandered right into it.

  Larsson, micro-managing the tension, shifts the scene to Lisbeth Salander, wading through the documentation, making connections. She identifies the man with the long blond hair: Martin Vanger, who is studying in Uppsala. ‘Gotcha,’ she says in a low voice – and the reader worries, knowing what she does not know. She puts on her motorcycle helmet and uses her mobile to call Blomkvist, but he cannot, of course, be reached. The reader knows why. On arriving at the Vanger house, she looks at the surveillance footage showing Martin Vanger appearing in the camera’s viewfinder and experiences a cold fear.

  We are now back in the torture chamber with Martin Vanger and Blomkvist, as the former explains his rationale as a serial killer. He is cool and dispassionate, commenting on the choices he has made and how the moral and intellectual aspects of his crimes have no significance. He points out that he has a complete life. Blomkvist mentions Harriet, which brings about a violent rage in his captor – but there is a surprising exclamation from the killer. Vanger shouts, ‘What the hell happened to her, bastard?’ Blomkvist tells him that his assumption was that he, Martin, had killed her. Then he realises that his captor is innocent of this crime. Vanger admits that he had wanted to despatch her but had not done so, which prompts a feeling in Blomkvist’s fevered brain: information overload. Vanger begins to tighten a noose around Blomkvist’s neck, leaning forward to kiss him on the lips – when at the same time a voice sounds in the room telling the would-be strangler that the situation has changed.