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

by Stieg Larsson

  “You would have to ask my daughter. She is mentally ill.” His tone was again hostile.

  “You mean that you can’t think of any reason why Lisbeth Salander attacked you in 1991?”

  “My daughter is mentally ill. There is substantial documentation.”

  Modig cocked her head to one side. Zalachenko’s answers were much more aggressive and hostile when she asked the questions. She saw that Erlander had noticed the same thing. O.K…. Good cop, bad cop. Modig raised her voice.

  “You don’t think that her actions could have anything to do with the fact that you had beaten her mother so badly that she suffered permanent brain damage?”

  Zalachenko turned his head towards Modig.

  “That is all bullshit. Her mother was a whore. It was probably one of her punters who beat her up. I just happened to be passing by.”

  Modig raised her eyebrows. “So you’re completely innocent?”

  “Of course I am.”

  “Zalachenko … let me repeat that to see if I’ve understood you correctly. You say that you never beat your girlfriend, Agneta Sofia Salander, Lisbeth’s mother, despite the fact that the whole business is the subject of a long report, stamped top secret, written at the time by your handler at Säpo, Gunnar Björck.”

  “I was never convicted of anything. I have never been charged. I cannot help it if some idiot in the Security Police fantasizes in his reports. If I had been a suspect, they would have at the very least questioned me.”

  Modig made no answer. Zalachenko seemed to be grinning beneath his bandages.

  “So I wish to press charges against my daughter. For trying to kill me.”

  Modig sighed. “I’m beginning to understand why she felt an uncontrollable urge to slam an axe into your head.”

  Erlander cleared his throat. “Excuse me, Herr Bodin … We should get back to any information you might have about Ronald Niedermann’s activities.”

  Modig made a call to Inspector Bublanski from the corridor outside Zalachenko’s hospital room.

  “Nothing,” she said.

  “Nothing?” Bublanski said.

  “He’s lodging a complaint with the police against Salander – for G.B.H. and attempted murder. He says that he had nothing to do with the murders in Stockholm.”

  “And how does he explain the fact that Salander was buried in a trench on his property in Gosseberga?”

  “He says he had a cold and was asleep most of the day. If Salander was shot in Gosseberga, it must have been something that Niedermann decided to do.”

  “O.K. So what do we have?”

  “She was shot with a Browning, .22 calibre. Which is why she’s still alive. We found the weapon. Zalachenko admits that it’s his.”

  “I see. In other words, he knows we’re going to find his prints on the gun.”

  “Exactly. But he says that the last time he saw the gun, it was in his desk drawer.”

  “Which means that the excellent Herr Niedermann took the weapon while Zalachenko was asleep and shot Salander. This is one cold bastard. Do we have any evidence to the contrary?”

  Modig thought for a few seconds before she replied. “He’s well versed in Swedish law and police procedure. He doesn’t admit to a thing, and he has Niedermann as a scapegoat. I don’t have any idea what we can prove. I asked Erlander to send his clothes to forensics and have them examined for traces of gunpowder, but he’s bound to say that he was doing target practice two days ago.”

  Salander was aware of the smell of almonds and ethanol. It felt as if she had alcohol in her mouth and she tried to swallow, but her tongue felt numb and paralysed. She tried to open her eyes, but she could not. In the distance she heard a voice that seemed to be talking to her, but she could not understand the words. Then she heard the voice quite clearly.

  “I think she’s coming round.”

  She felt someone touch her forehead and tried to brush away the intrusive hand. At the same moment she felt intense pain in her left shoulder. She forced herself to relax.

  “Can you hear me, Lisbeth?”

  Go away.

  “Can you open your eyes?”

  Who was this bloody idiot harping on at her?

  Finally she did open her eyes. At first she just saw strange lights until a figure appeared in the centre of her field of vision. She tried to focus her gaze, but the figure kept slipping away. She felt as if she had a stupendous hangover and the bed seemed to keep tilting backwards.

  “Pnkllrs,” she said.

  “Say that again?”

  “’diot,” she said.

  “That sounds good. Can you open your eyes again?”

  She opened her eyes to narrow slits. She saw the face of a complete stranger and memorized every detail. A blond man with intense blue eyes and a tilted, angular face about a foot from hers.

  “Hello. My name is Anders Jonasson. I’m a doctor. You’re in a hospital. You were injured and you’re waking up after an operation. Can you tell me your name?”

  “Pshalandr,” Salander said.

  “O.K. Would you do me a favour and count to ten?”

  “One two four … no … three four five six …”

  Then she passed out.

  Dr Jonasson was pleased with the response he had got. She had said her name and started to count. That meant that she still had her cognitive abilities somewhat intact and was not going to wake up a vegetable. He wrote down her wake-up time as 9.06 p.m., about sixteen hours after he had finished the operation. He had slept most of the day and then drove back to the hospital at around 7.00 in the evening. He was actually off that day, but he had some paperwork to catch up on.

  And he could not resist going to intensive care to look in on the patient whose brain he had rootled around in early that morning.

  “Let her sleep a while, but check her E.E.G. regularly. I’m worried there might be swelling or bleeding in the brain. She seemed to have sharp pain in her left shoulder when she tried to move her arm. If she wakes up again you can give her two mg. of morphine per hour.”

  He felt oddly exhilarated as he left by the main entrance of Sahlgrenska.

  Anita Kaspersson, a dental nurse who lived in Alingsås, was shaking all over as she stumbled through the woods. She had severe hypothermia. She wore only a pair of wet trousers and a thin sweater. Her bare feet were bleeding. She had managed to free herself from the barn where the man had tied her up, but she could not untie the rope that bound her hands behind her back. Her fingers had no feeling in them at all.

  She felt as if she were the last person on earth, abandoned by everyone.

  She had no idea where she was. It was dark and she had no sense of how long she had been aimlessly walking. She was amazed to be still alive.

  And then she saw a light through the trees and stopped.

  For several minutes she did not dare to approach the light. She pushed through some bushes and stood in the yard of a one-storey house of grey brick. She looked about her in astonishment.

  She staggered to the door and turned to kick it with her heel.

  Salander opened her eyes and saw a light in the ceiling. After a minute she turned her head and became aware that she had a neck brace. She had a heavy, dull headache and acute pain in her left shoulder. She closed her eyes.

  Hospital, she thought. What am I doing here?

  She felt exhausted, could hardly get her thoughts in order. Then the memories came rushing back to her. For several seconds she was seized by panic as the fragmented images of how she had dug herself out of a trench came flooding over her. Then she clenched her teeth and concentrated on breathing.

  She was alive, but she was not sure whether that was a good thing or bad.

  She could not piece together all that had happened, but she summoned up a foggy mosaic of images from the woodshed and how she had swung an axe in fury and struck her father in the face. Zalachenko. Was he alive or dead?

  She could not clearly remember what had happened with Niedermann.
She had a memory of being surprised that he had run away and she did not know why.

  Suddenly she remembered having seen Kalle Bastard Blomkvist. Perhaps she had dreamed the whole thing, but she remembered a kitchen – it must have been the kitchen in the Gosseberga farmhouse – and she thought she remembered seeing him coming towards her. I must have been hallucinating.

  The events in Gosseberga seemed already like the distant past, or possibly a ridiculous dream. She concentrated on the present and opened her eyes again.

  She was in a bad way. She did not need anyone to tell her that. She raised her right hand and felt her head. There were bandages. She had a brace on her neck. Then she remembered it all. Niedermann. Zalachenko. The old bastard had a pistol too. A .22 calibre Browning. Which, compared to all other handguns, had to be considered a toy. That was why she was still alive.

  I was shot in the head. I could stick my finger in the entry wound and touch my brain.

  She was surprised to be alive. Yet she felt indifferent. If death was the black emptiness from which she had just woken up, then death was nothing to worry about. She would hardly notice the difference. With which esoteric thought she closed her eyes and fell asleep again.

  She had been dozing only a few minutes when she was aware of movement and opened her eyelids to a narrow slit. She saw a nurse in a white uniform bending over her. She closed her eyes and pretended to be asleep.

  “I think you’re awake,” the nurse said.

  “Mmm,” Salander said.

  “Hello, my name is Marianne. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  Salander tried to nod, but her head was immobilized by the brace.

  “No, don’t try to move. You don’t have to be afraid. You’ve been hurt and had surgery.”

  “Could I have some water?” Salander whispered.

  The nurse gave her a beaker with a straw to drink water through. As she swallowed the water she saw another person appear on her left side.

  “Hello, Lisbeth. Can you hear me?”

  “Mmm.”

  “I’m Dr Helena Endrin. Do you know where you are?”

  “Hospital.”

  “You’re at the Sahlgrenska in Göteborg. You’ve had an operation and you’re in the intensive care unit.”

  “Umm-hmm.”

  “There is no need to be afraid.”

  “I was shot in the head.”

  Endrin hesitated for a moment, then said, “That’s right. So you remember what happened.”

  “The old bastard had a pistol.”

  “Ah … yes, well someone did.”

  “A .22.”

  “I see. I didn’t know that.”

  “How badly hurt am I?”

  “Your prognosis is good. You were in pretty bad shape, but we think you have a good chance of making a full recovery.”

  Salander weighed this information. Then she tried to fix her eyes on the doctor. Her vision was blurred.

  “What happened to Zalachenko?”

  “Who?”

  “The old bastard. Is he alive?”

  “You must mean Karl Axel Bodin.”

  “No, I don’t. I mean Alexander Zalachenko. That’s his real name.”

  “I don’t know anything about that. But the elderly man who came in at the same time as you is critical but out of danger.”

  Salander’s heart sank. She considered the doctor’s words.

  “Where is he?”

  “He’s down the hall. But don’t worry about him for the time being. You have to concentrate on getting well.”

  Salander closed her eyes. She wondered whether she could manage to get out of bed, find something to use as a weapon, and finish the job. But she could scarcely keep her eyes open. She thought, He’s going to get away again. She had missed her chance to kill Zalachenko.

  “I’d like to examine you for a moment. Then you can go back to sleep,” Dr Endrin said.

  Blomkvist was suddenly awake and he did not know why. He did not know where he was, and then he remembered that he had booked himself a room in City Hotel. It was as dark as coal. He fumbled to turn on the bedside lamp and looked at the clock. 2.00. He had slept through fifteen hours.

  He got up and went to the bathroom. He would not be able to get back to sleep. He shaved and took a long shower. Then he put on some jeans and the maroon sweatshirt that needed washing. He called the front desk to ask if he could get coffee and a sandwich at this early hour. The night porter said that was possible.

  He put on his sports jacket and went downstairs. He ordered a coffee and a cheese and liver pâté sandwich. He bought the Göteborgs-Posten. The arrest of Lisbeth Salander was front-page news. He took his breakfast back to his room and read the paper. The reports at the time of going to press were somewhat confused, but they were on the right track. Ronald Niedermann, thirty-five, was being sought for the killing of a policeman. The police wanted to question him also in connection with the murders in Stockholm. The police had released nothing about Salander’s condition, and the name Zalachenko was not mentioned. He was referred to only as a 66-year-old landowner from Gosseberga, and apparently the media had taken him for an innocent victim.

  When Blomkvist had finished reading, he flipped open his mobile and saw that he had twenty unread messages. Three were messages to call Berger. Two were from his sister Annika. Fourteen were from reporters at various newspapers who wanted to talk to him. One was from Malm, who had sent him the brisk advice: It would be best if you took the first train home.

  Blomkvist frowned. That was unusual, coming from Malm. The text was sent at 7.06 in the evening. He stifled the impulse to call and wake someone up at 3.00 in the morning. Instead he booted up his iBook and plugged the cable into the broadband jack. He found that the first train to Stockholm left at 5.20, and there was nothing new in Aftonbladet online.

  He opened a new Word document, lit a cigarette, and sat for three minutes staring at the blank screen. Then he began to type.

  Her name is Lisbeth Salander. Sweden has got to know her through police reports and press releases and the headlines in the evening papers. She is twenty-seven years old and one metre fifty centimetres tall. She has been called a psychopath, a murderer, and a lesbian Satanist. There has been almost no limit to the fantasies that have been circulated about her. In this issue, Millennium will tell the story of how government officials conspired against Salander in order to protect a pathological murderer …

  He wrote steadily for fifty minutes, primarily a recapitulation of the night on which he had found Dag Svensson and Mia Johansson and why the police had focused on Salander as the suspected killer. He quoted the newspaper headlines about lesbian Satanists and the media’s apparent hope that the murders might have involved S. & M. sex.

  When he checked the clock he quickly closed his iBook. He packed his bag and went down to the front desk. He paid with a credit card and took a taxi to Göteborg Central Station.

  Blomkvist went straight to the dining car and ordered more coffee and sandwiches. He opened his iBook again and read through his text. He was so absorbed that he did not notice Inspector Modig until she cleared her throat and asked if she could join him. He looked up, smiled sheepishly, and closed his computer.

  “On your way home?”

  “You too, I see.”

  She nodded. “My colleague is staying another day.”

  “Do you know anything about how Salander is? I’ve been sound asleep since I last saw you.”

  “She had an operation soon after she was brought in and was awake in the early evening. The doctors think she’ll make a full recovery. She was incredibly lucky.”

  Blomkvist nodded. It dawned on him that he had not been worried about her. He had assumed that she would survive. Any other outcome was unthinkable.

  “Has anything else of interest happened?” he said.

  Modig wondered how much she should say to a reporter, even to one who knew more of the story than she did. On the other hand, she had joined hi
m at his table, and maybe a hundred other reporters had by now been briefed at police headquarters.

  “I don’t want to be quoted,” she said.

  “I’m simply asking out of personal interest.”

  She told him that a nationwide manhunt was under way for Ronald Niedermann, particularly in the Malmö area.

  “And Zalachenko? Have you questioned him?”

  “Yes, we questioned him.”

  “And?”

  “I can’t tell you anything about that.”

  “Come on, Sonja. I’ll know exactly what you talked about less than an hour after I get to my office in Stockholm. And I won’t write a word of what you tell me.”

  She hesitated for a while before she met his gaze.

  “He made a formal complaint against Salander, that she tried to kill him. She risks being charged with grievous bodily harm or attempted murder.”

  “And in all likelihood she’ll claim self-defence.”

  “I hope she will,” Modig said.

  “That doesn’t sound like an official line.”

  “Bodin … Zalachenko is as slippery as an eel and he has an answer to all our questions. I’m persuaded that things are more or less as you told us yesterday, and that means that Salander has been subjected to a lifetime of injustice – since she was twelve.”

  “That’s the story I’m going to publish,” Blomkvist said.

  “It won’t be popular with some people.”

  Modig hesitated again. Blomkvist waited.

  “I talked with Bublanski half an hour ago. He didn’t go into any detail, but the preliminary investigation against Salander for the murder of your friends seems to have been shelved. The focus has shifted to Niedermann.”

  “Which means that …” He let the question hang in the air between them.

  Modig shrugged.

  “Who’s going to take over the investigation of Salander?”

  “I don’t know. What happened in Gosseberga is primarily Göteborg’s problem. I would guess that somebody in Stockholm will be assigned to compile all the material for a prosecution.”