Millennium 03 - The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

by Stieg Larsson

  “We have to try to tone this down, so that the situation doesn’t get completely out of our control. So Salander was locked up in an asylum because she tried to kill her father … this Zalachenko. And now she has attacked him with an axe. By any interpretation that would be attempted murder. And she has to be charged with shooting Magge Lundin in Stallarholmen.”

  “You can arrest whoever you want, but I would tread carefully if I were you.”

  “There’s going to be an almighty scandal if Säpo’s involvement gets leaked.”

  Bublanski shrugged. His job was to investigate crimes, not to clean up after scandals.

  “This bastard from Säpo, this Gunnar Björck. What do you know about his role?”

  “He’s one of the major players. He’s on sick leave for a slipped disc and lives in Smådalarö at present.”

  “O.K…. we’ll keep the lid on Säpo’s involvement for the time being. The focus right now is to be on the murder of a police officer.”

  “It’s going to be hard to keep this under wraps.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I sent Andersson to bring in Björck for a formal interrogation. That should be happening …” – Bublanski looked at his watch – “… yes, about now.”

  “You what?”

  “I was rather hoping to have the pleasure of driving out to Smådalarö myself, but the events surrounding last night’s killing took precedence.”

  “I didn’t give anyone permission to arrest Björck.”

  “That’s true. But it’s not an arrest. I’m just bringing him in for questioning.”

  “Whichever, I don’t like it.”

  Bublanski leaned forward, almost as if to confide in the other man.

  “Richard … this is how it is. Salander has been subjected to a number of infringements of her rights, starting when she was a child. I do not mean for this to continue on my watch. You have the option to remove me as leader of the investigation … but if you did that I would be forced to write a harsh memo about the matter.”

  Ekström looked as if he had just swallowed something very sour.

  Gunnar Björck, on sick leave from his job as assistant chief of the Immigration Division of the Security Police, opened the door of his summer house in Smådalarö and looked up at a powerfully built, blond man with a crewcut who wore a black leather jacket.

  “I’m looking for Gunnar Björck.”

  “That’s me.”

  “Curt Andersson, County Criminal Police.” The man held up his I.D.

  “Yes?”

  “You are requested to accompany me to Kungsholmen to assist the police in their investigations into the case involving Lisbeth Salander.”

  “Uh … there must be some sort of misunderstanding.”

  “There’s no misunderstanding,” Andersson said.

  “You don’t understand. I’m a police officer myself. Save yourself making a big mistake: check it out with your superior officers.”

  “My superior is the one who wants to talk to you.”

  “I have to make a call and—”

  “You can make your call from Kungsholmen.”

  Björck felt suddenly resigned. It’s happened. I’m going to be arrested. That goddamn fucking Blomkvist. And fucking Salander.

  “Am I being arrested?” he said.

  “Not for the moment. But we can arrange for that if you like.”

  “No … no, of course I’ll come with you. Naturally I’d want to assist my colleagues in the police force.”

  “Alright, then,” Andersson said, walking into the hallway to keep a close eye on Björck as he turned off the coffee machine and picked up his coat.

  In the late morning it dawned on Blomkvist that his rental car was still at the Gosseberga farm, but he was so exhausted that he did not have the strength or the means to get out there to fetch it, much less drive safely for any distance. Erlander kindly arranged for a crime scene tech to take the car back on his way home.

  “Think of it as compensation for the way you were treated last night.”

  Blomkvist thanked him and took a taxi to City Hotel on Lorensbergsgatan. He booked in for the night for 800 kronor and went straight to his room and undressed. He sat naked on the bed and took Salander’s Palm Tungsten T3 from the inside pocket of his jacket, weighing it in his hand. He was still amazed that it had not been confiscated when Paulsson frisked him, but Paulsson presumably thought it was Blomkvist’s own, and he had never been formally taken into custody and searched. He thought for a moment and then slipped it into a compartment of his laptop case where he had also put Salander’s D.V.D. marked “Bjurman,” which Paulsson had also missed. He knew that technically he was withholding evidence, but these were the things that Salander would no doubt prefer not to have fall into the wrong hands.

  He turned on his mobile and saw that the battery was low, so he plugged in the charger. He made a call to his sister, Advokat Giannini.

  “Hi, Annika.”

  “What did you have to do with the policeman’s murder last night?” she asked him at once.

  He told her succinctly what had happened.

  “O.K., so Salander is in intensive care.”

  “Correct, and we won’t know the extent or severity of her injuries until she regains consciousness, but now she’s really going to need a lawyer.”

  Giannini thought for a moment. “Do you think she’d want me for her lawyer?”

  “Probably she wouldn’t want any lawyer at all. She isn’t the type to ask anyone for help.”

  “Mikael … I’ve said this before, it sounds like she might need a criminal lawyer. Let me look at the documentation you have.”

  “Talk to Erika and ask her for a copy.”

  As soon as Blomkvist disconnected, he called Berger himself. She did not answer her mobile, so he tried her number at the Millennium offices. Henry Cortez answered.

  “Erika’s out somewhere,” he said.

  Blomkvist briefly explained what had happened and asked Cortez to pass the information to Millennium’s editor-in-chief.

  “Will do. What do you want us to do?” Cortez said.

  “Nothing today,” Blomkvist said. “I have to get some sleep. I’ll be back in Stockholm tomorrow if nothing else comes up. Millennium will have an opportunity to present its version of the story in the next issue, but that’s almost a month away.”

  He flipped his mobile shut and crawled into bed. He was asleep within thirty seconds.

  Assistant County Police Chief Carina Spångberg tapped her pen against her glass of water and asked for quiet. Nine people were seated around the conference table in her office at police headquarters. Three women and six men: the head of the Violent Crimes Division and his assistant head; three criminal inspectors including Erlander and the Göteborg police press officers; preliminary investigation leader Agneta Jervas from the prosecutor’s office, and lastly Inspectors Modig and Holmberg from the Stockholm police. They were included as a sign of goodwill and to demonstrate that Göteborg wished to co-operate with their colleagues from the capital. Possibly also to show them how a real police investigation should be run.

  Spångberg, who was frequently the lone woman in a male landscape, had a reputation for not wasting time on formalities or mere courtesies. She explained that the county police chief was at the Europol conference in Madrid, that he had broken off his trip as soon as he knew that one of his police officers had been murdered, but that he was not expected back before late that night. Then she turned directly to the head of the Violent Crimes Division, Anders Pehrzon, and asked him to brief the assembled company.

  “It’s been about ten hours since our colleague was murdered on Nossebrovägen. We know the name of the killer, Ronald Niedermann, but we still don’t have a picture of him.”

  “In Stockholm we have a photograph of him that’s about twenty years old. Paolo Roberto got it through a boxing club in Germany, but it’s almost unusable,” Holmberg said.

  “Alri
ght. The patrol car that Niedermann is thought to have driven away was found in Alingsås this morning, as you all know. It was parked on a side street 350 metres from the railway station. We haven’t had a report yet of any car thefts in the area this morning.”

  “What’s the status of the search?”

  “We’re keeping an eye on all trains arriving in Stockholm and Malmö. There is a nationwide A.P.B. out and we’ve alerted the police in Norway and Denmark. Right now we have about thirty officers working directly on the investigation, and of course the whole force is keeping their eyes peeled.”

  “No leads?”

  “No, nothing yet. But someone with Niedermann’s distinctive appearance is not going to go unnoticed for long.”

  “Does anyone know about Torstensson’s condition?” asked one of the inspectors from Violent Crime.

  “He’s at Sahlgrenska. His injuries seem to be similar to those of a car crash victim – it’s hardly credible that anyone could do such damage with his bare hands: a broken leg, ribs crushed, cervical vertebrae injured, plus there’s a risk that he may be paralysed.”

  They all took stock of their colleague’s plight for a few moments until Spångberg turned to Erlander.

  “Marcus … tell us what really happened at Gosseberga.”

  “Thomas Paulsson happened at Gosseberga.”

  A ripple of groans greeted this response.

  “Can’t someone give that man early retirement? He’s a walking catastrophe.”

  “I know all about Paulsson,” Spångberg interrupted. “But I haven’t heard any complaints about him in the last … well, not for the past two years. In what way has he become harder to handle?”

  “The police chief up there is an old friend of Paulsson’s, and he’s probably been trying to protect him. With all good intentions, of course, and I don’t mean to criticize him. But last night Paulsson’s behaviour was so bizarre that several of his people mentioned it to me.”

  “In what way bizarre?”

  Erlander glanced at Modig and Holmberg. He was embarrassed to be discussing flaws in their organization in front of the visitors from Stockholm.

  “As far as I’m concerned, the strangest thing was that he detailed one of the techs to make an inventory of everything in the woodshed – where we found the Zalachenko guy?”

  “An inventory of what in the woodshed?” Spångberg wanted to know.

  “Yes … well … he said he needed to know exactly how many pieces of wood were in there. So that the report would be accurate.”

  There was a charged silence around the conference table before Erlander went on.

  “And this morning it came out that Paulsson has been taking at least two different antidepressants. He should have been on sick leave, but no-one knew about his condition.”

  “What condition?” Spångberg said sharply.

  “Well, obviously I don’t know what’s wrong with him – patient’s confidentiality and all that – but the drugs he’s taking are strong ataractics on the one hand, and stimulants. He was high as a kite all night.”

  “Good God,” said Spångberg emphatically. She looked like the thundercloud that had swept over Göteborg that morning. “I want Paulsson in here for a chat. Right now.”

  “He collapsed this morning and was admitted to the hospital suffering from exhaustion. It was just our bad luck that he happened to be on rotation.”

  “May I ask … Paulsson, did he arrest Mikael Blomkvist last night?”

  “He wrote a report citing offensive behaviour, aggressive resistance to police officers, and illegal possession of a weapon. That’s what he put in the report.”

  “What does Blomkvist say?”

  “He concedes that he was insulting, but he claims it was in self-defence. He says that the resistance consisted of a forceful verbal attempt to prevent Torstensson and Ingemarsson from going to pick up Niedermann alone, without back-up.”

  “Witnesses?”

  “Well, there is Torstensson. I don’t believe Paulsson’s claim of aggressive resistance for a minute. It’s a typical pre-emptive retaliation to undermine potential complaints from Blomkvist.”

  “But Blomkvist managed to overpower Niedermann all by himself, did he not?” Prosecutor Jervas said.

  “By holding a gun to him.”

  “So Blomkvist had a gun. Then there was some basis for his arrest after all. Where did he get the weapon?”

  “Blomkvist won’t discuss it without his lawyer being there. And Paulsson arrested Blomkvist when he was trying to hand in the weapon to the police.”

  “Could I make a small, informal suggestion?” Modig said cautiously.

  Everyone turned to her.

  “I have met Mikael Blomkvist on several occasions in the course of this investigation. I have found him quite likeable, even though he is a journalist. I suppose you’re the one who has to make the decision about charging him …” She looked at Jervas, who nodded. “All this stuff about insults and aggressive resistance is just nonsense. I assume you will ignore it.”

  “Probably. Illegal weapons are more serious.”

  “I would urge you to wait and see. Blomkvist has put the pieces of this puzzle together all by himself; he’s way ahead of us on the police force. It will be to our advantage to stay on good terms with him and ensure his co-operation, rather than unleash him to condemn the entire police force in his magazine and elsewhere in the media.”

  After a few seconds, Erlander cleared his throat. If Modig dared to stick her neck out, he could do the same.

  “I agree with Sonja. I too think Blomkvist is a man we could work with. I’ve apologized to him for the way he was treated last night. He seems ready to let bygones be bygones. Besides, he has integrity. He somehow tracked down where Salander was living but he won’t give us the address. He’s not afraid to get into a public scrap with the police … and he’s most certainly in a position where his voice will carry just as much weight in the media as any report from Paulsson.”

  “But he refuses to give the police any information about Salander.”

  “He says that we’ll have to ask her ourselves, if that time ever comes. He says he absolutely won’t discuss a person who is not only innocent but who also has had her rights so severely violated.”

  “What kind of weapon is it?” Jervas said.

  “It’s a Colt 1911 Government. Serial number unknown. Forensics have it, and we don’t know yet whether it is connected to any known crime in Sweden. If it is, that will put the matter in a rather different light.”

  Spångberg raised her pen.

  “Agneta … it’s up to you to decide whether you want to initiate a preliminary investigation against Blomkvist. But I advise that you wait for the report from forensics. So let’s move on. This character Zalachenko … what can our colleagues from Stockholm tell us about him?”

  “The truth is,” Modig said, “that until yesterday afternoon we had never heard of either Zalachenko or Niedermann.”

  “I thought you were busy looking for a lesbian Satanist gang in Stockholm. Was I wrong?” one of the Göteborg policemen said. His colleagues all frowned. Holmberg was studying his fingernails. Modig had to take the question.

  “Within these four walls, I can tell you that we have our equivalent of Inspector Paulsson, and all that stuff about a lesbian Satanist gang is probably a smokescreen originating mainly from him.”

  Modig and Holmberg then described in detail the investigation as it had developed. When they had finished there was a long silence around the table.

  “If all this about Gunnar Björck is true and it comes out, Säpo’s ears are going to be burning,” the assistant chief of the Violent Crimes Division concluded.

  Jervas raised her hand. “It sounds to me as though your suspicions are for the most part based on assumptions and circumstantial evidence. As a prosecutor I would be uneasy about the lack of unassailable evidence.”

  “We’re aware of that,” Holmberg said. “We think w
e know what happened in broad outline, but there are questions that still have to be answered.”

  “I gather you’re still busy with excavations in Nykvarn,” Spångberg said. “How many killings do you reckon this case involves?”

  Holmberg rubbed his eyes wearily. “We started with two, then three murders in Stockholm. Those are the ones that prompted the hunt for Salander: the deaths of Advokat Bjurman, the journalist Dag Svensson, and Mia Johansson, an academic. In the area around the warehouse in Nykvarn we have so far found three graves, well, three bodies. We’ve identified a known dealer and petty thief who was found dismembered in one trench. We found a woman’s body in a second trench – she’s still unidentified. And we haven’t dug up the third yet. It appears to be older than the others. Furthermore, Blomkvist has made a connection to the murder several months ago of a prostitute in Södertälje.”

  “So, with Gunnar Ingemarsson dead in Gosseberga, we’re talking about at least eight murders. That’s a horrendous statistic. Do we suspect this Niedermann of all of them? If so, he has to be treated as a madman, a mass murderer.”

  Modig and Holmberg exchanged glances. It was now a matter of how far they wanted to align themselves with such assertions. Finally Modig spoke up.

  “Even though crucial evidence is lacking, my superior, Inspector Bublanski, and I are tending towards the belief that Blomkvist is correct in claiming that the first three murders were committed by Niedermann. That would require us to believe that Salander is innocent. With respect to the graves in Nykvarn, Niedermann is linked to the site through the kidnapping of Salander’s friend Miriam Wu. There is a strong likelihood that she too would have been his victim. But the warehouse is owned by a relative of the president of Svavelsjö Motorcycle Club, and until we’re able to identify the remains, we won’t be able to draw any conclusions.”

  “That petty thief you identified …”

  “Kenneth Gustafsson, forty-four, dealer, and delinquent in his youth. Offhand I would guess it’s to do with an internal shake-up of some sort. Svavelsjö M.C. is mixed up in several kinds of criminal activity, including the distribution of methamphetamine. Nykvarn may be a cemetery in the woods for people who crossed them, but …”