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

by Stieg Larsson

  “You’re speaking of Alexander Zalachenko, I presume.” Ekström was leaning forward attentively.

  “That’s correct,” Palmgren said.

  Ekström said: “I would ask you to remember that we are now into a subject which is highly classified.”

  “It’s hardly a secret that Alexander Zalachenko persistently abused Lisbeth’s mother,” Giannini said.

  Teleborian raised his hand.

  “The matter is probably not quite as self-evident as Fru Giannini is presenting it.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Giannini said.

  “There is no doubt that Lisbeth Salander witnessed a family tragedy … that something triggered a serious beating in 1991. But there is no documentation to suggest that this was a situation that went on for many years, as Fru Giannini claims. It could have been an isolated incident or a quarrel that got out of hand. If truth be told, there is not even any documentation to point towards Herr Zalachenko as Lisbeth’s mother’s aggressor. We have been informed that she was a prostitute, so there could have been a number of other possible perpetrators.”

  Giannini looked in astonishment at Teleborian. She seemed to be speechless for a moment. Then her eyes bored into him.

  “Could you expand on that?” she said.

  “What I mean is that in practice we have only Lisbeth Salander’s assertions to go on.”

  “And?”

  “First of all, there were two sisters, twins in fact. Camilla Salander has never made any such claims, indeed she has denied that such a thing occurred. And if there was abuse to the extent your client maintains, then it would naturally have been noted in social welfare reports and so forth.”

  “Is there an interview with Camilla Salander that we might examine?”

  “Interview?”

  “Do you have any documentation to show that Camilla Salander was even asked about what occurred at their home?”

  Salander squirmed in her seat at the mention of her sister. She glanced at Giannini.

  “I presume that the social welfare agency filed a report—”

  “You have just stated that Camilla Salander never made any assertions that Alexander Zalachenko abused their mother, that on the contrary she denied it. That was a categorical statement. Where did you get that information?”

  Teleborian sat in silence for several seconds. Giannini could see that his eyes changed when he realized that he had made a mistake. He could anticipate what it was that she wanted to introduce, but there was no way to avoid the question.

  “I seem to remember that it appeared in the police report,” he said at last.

  “You seem to remember … I myself have searched high and low for police reports about the incident on Lundagatan during which Alexander Zalachenko was severely burned. The only ones available are the brief reports written by the officers at the scene.”

  “That’s possible—”

  “So I would very much like to know how it is that you were able to read a police report that is not available to the defence.”

  “I can’t answer that,” Teleborian said. “I was shown the report in 1991 when I wrote a forensic psychiatric report on your client after the attempted murder of her father.”

  “Was Prosecutor Ekström shown this report?”

  Ekström squirmed. He stroked his goatee. By now he knew that he had underestimated Advokat Giannini. However, he had no reason to lie.

  “Yes, I’ve seen it.”

  “Why wasn’t the defence given access to this material?”

  “I didn’t consider it of interest to the trial.”

  “Could you please tell me how you were allowed to see this report? When I asked the police, I was told only that no such report exists.”

  “The report was written by the Security Police. It’s classified.”

  “So Säpo wrote a report on a case involving grievous bodily harm on a woman and decided to make the report classified.”

  “It’s because of the perpetrator … Alexander Zalachenko. He was a political refugee.”

  “Who wrote the report?”

  Silence.

  “I don’t hear anything. What name was on the title page?”

  “It was written by Gunnar Björck from the Immigration Division of S.I.S.”

  “Thank you. Is that the same Gunnar Björck who my client claims worked with Doctor Teleborian to fabricate the forensic psychiatric report about her in 1991?”

  “I assume it is.”

  Giannini turned her attention back to Teleborian.

  “In 1991 you committed Lisbeth Salander to the secure ward of St Stefan’s children’s psychiatric clinic—”

  “That’s not correct.”

  “Is it not?”

  “No. Lisbeth Salander was sentenced to the secure psychiatric ward. This was the outcome of an entirely routine legal action in a district court. We’re talking about a seriously disturbed minor. That was not my own decision—”

  “In 1991 a district court decided to lock up Lisbeth Salander in a children’s psychiatric clinic. Why did the district court make that decision?”

  “The district court made a careful assessment of your client’s actions and mental condition – she had tried to murder her father with a petrol bomb, after all. This is not an activity that a normal teenager would engage in, whether they are tattooed or not.” Teleborian gave her a polite smile.

  “And what did the district court base their judgement on? If I’ve understood correctly, they had only one forensic medical assessment to go on. It was written by yourself and a policeman by the name of Gunnar Björck.”

  “This is about Fröken Salander’s conspiracy theories, Fru Giannini. Here I would have to—”

  “Excuse me, but I haven’t asked a question yet,” Giannini said and turned once again to Palmgren. “Holger, we were talking about your meeting Dr Teleborian’s superior, Dr Caldin.”

  “Yes. In my capacity as trustee for Lisbeth Salander. At that stage I had met her only very briefly. Like everyone else, I got the impression that she had a serious mental illness. But since it was my job, I undertook to research her general state of health.”

  “And what did Dr Caldin say?”

  “She was Dr Teleborian’s patient, and Dr Caldin had not paid her any particular attention except in routine assessments and the like. It wasn’t until she had been there for more than a year that I began to discuss how she could be rehabilitated back into society. I suggested a foster family. I don’t know exactly what went on internally at St Stefan’s, but after about a year Dr Caldin began to take an interest in her.”

  “How did that manifest itself?”

  “I discovered that he had arrived at an opinion that differed from Dr Teleborian’s,” Palmgren said. “He told me once that he had decided to change the type of care she was receiving. I did not understand until later that he was referring to the strap restraints. Dr Caldin had decided that she should not be restrained. He didn’t think there was any reason for it.”

  “So he went against Dr Teleborian’s directives?”

  Ekström interrupted. “Objection. That’s hearsay.”

  “No,” Palmgren said. “Not entirely. I asked for a report on how Lisbeth Salander was supposed to re-enter society. Dr Caldin wrote that report. I still have it today.”

  He handed a document to Giannini.

  “Can you tell us what it says?”

  “It’s a letter from Dr Caldin to me dated October 1992, which is when Lisbeth had been at St Stefan’s for twenty months. Here Dr Caldin expressly writes that, I quote, My decision for the patient not to be restrained or force-fed has also produced the noticeable effect that she is now calm. There is no need for psychoactive drugs. However, the patient is extremely withdrawn and uncommunicative and needs continued supportive therapies. End quote.”

  “So he expressly writes that it was his decision,” Giannini said.

  “That is correct. It was also Dr Caldin himself who decided that Lisbet
h should be able to re-enter society by being placed with a foster family.”

  Salander nodded. She remembered Dr Caldin the same way she remembered every detail of her stay at St Stefan’s. She had refused to talk to Dr Caldin … He was a “crazy-doctor,” another man in a white coat who wanted to rootle around in her emotions. But he had been friendly and good-natured. She had sat in his office and listened to him when he explained things to her.

  He had seemed hurt when she did not want to speak to him. Finally she had looked him in the eye and explained her decision: I will never ever talk to you or any other crazy-doctor. None of you listen to what I have to say. You can keep me locked up here until I die. That won’t change a thing. I won’t talk to any of you. He had looked at her with surprise and hurt in his eyes. Then he had nodded as if he understood.

  “Dr Teleborian,” Giannini said, “we have established that you had Lisbeth Salander committed to a children’s psychiatric clinic. You were the one who furnished the district court with the report, and this report constituted the only basis for the decisions that were made. Is this correct?”

  “That is essentially correct. But I think—”

  “You’ll have plenty of time to explain what you think. When Lisbeth Salander was about to turn eighteen, you once again interfered in her life and tried to have her locked up in a clinic.”

  “This time I wasn’t the one who wrote the forensic medical report—”

  “No, it was written by Dr Jesper H. Löderman. And he just happened to be a doctoral candidate at that time. You were his supervisor. So it was your assessments that caused the report to be approved.”

  “There’s nothing unethical or incorrect in these reports. They were done according to the proper regulations of my profession.”

  “Now Lisbeth Salander is twenty-seven years old, and for the third time we are in a situation in which you are trying to convince a district court that she is mentally ill and must be committed to a secure psychiatric ward.”

  Teleborian took a deep breath. Giannini was well prepared. She had surprised him with a number of tricky questions and she had succeeded in distorting his replies. She had not fallen for his charms, and she completely ignored his authority. He was used to having people nod in agreement when he spoke.

  How much does she know?

  He glanced at Prosecutor Ekström but realized that he could expect no help from that quarter. He had to ride out the storm alone.

  He reminded himself that, in spite of everything, he was an authority.

  It doesn’t matter what she says. It’s my assessment that counts.

  Giannini picked up his forensic psychiatric report.

  “Let’s take a closer look at your latest report. You expend a great deal of energy analysing Lisbeth Salander’s emotional life. A large part deals with your interpretation of her personality, her behaviour and her sexual habits.”

  “In this report I have attempted to give a complete picture.”

  “Good. And based on this complete picture you came to the conclusion that Lisbeth suffers from paranoid schizophrenia.”

  “I prefer not to restrict myself to a precise diagnosis.”

  “But you have not reached this conclusion through conversations with my client, have you?”

  “You know very well that your client resolutely refuses to answer questions that I or any other person in authority might put to her. This behaviour is in itself particularly telling. One can conclude that the patient’s paranoid traits have progressed to such an extent that she is literally incapable of having a simple conversation with anyone in authority. She believes that everyone is out to harm her and feels so threatened that she shuts herself inside an impenetrable shell and goes mute.”

  “I notice that you’re expressing yourself very carefully. You say, for example, that one can conclude …”

  “Yes, that’s right. I am expressing myself carefully. Psychiatry is not an exact science, and I must be careful with my conclusions. At the same time it is not true that we psychiatrists sit around making assumptions that have no basis in fact.”

  “What you are being very precise about is protecting yourself. The literal fact is that you have not exchanged one single word with my client since the night of her thirteenth birthday because she has refused to talk to you.”

  “Not only to me. She appears unable to have a conversation with any psychiatrist.”

  “This means that, as you write here, your conclusions are based on experience and on observations of my client.”

  “That’s right.”

  “What can you learn by studying a girl who sits on a chair with her arms crossed and refuses to talk to you?”

  Teleborian sighed as though he thought it was irksome to have to explain the obvious. He smiled.

  “From a patient who sits and says nothing, you can learn only that this is a patient who is good at sitting and saying nothing. Even this is disturbed behaviour, but that’s not what I’m basing my conclusions upon.”

  “Later this afternoon I will call upon another psychiatrist. His name is Svante Brandén and he’s senior physician at the Institute of Forensic Medicine and a specialist in forensic psychiatry. Do you know him?”

  Teleborian felt confident again. He had expected Giannini to call upon another psychiatrist to question his own conclusions. It was a situation for which he was ready, and in which he would be able to dismiss every objection without difficulty. Indeed, it would be easier to handle an academic colleague in a friendly debate than someone like Advokat Giannini who had no inhibitions and was bent on distorting his words. He smiled.

  “He is a highly respected and skilled forensic psychiatrist. But you must understand, Fru Giannini, that producing a report of this type is an academic and scientific process. You yourself may disagree with my conclusions, and another psychiatrist may interpret an action or an event in a different way. You may have dissimilar points of view, or perhaps it would be a question purely of how well one doctor or another knows the patient. He might arrive at a very different conclusion about Lisbeth Salander. That is not at all unusual in psychiatry.”

  “That’s not why I’m calling him. He has not met or examined Lisbeth Salander, and he will not be making any evaluations about her mental condition.”

  “Oh, is that so?”

  “I have asked him to read your report and all the documentation you have produced on Lisbeth Salander and to look at her medical records from St Stefan’s. I have asked him to make an assessment, not about the state of my client’s health, but about whether, from a purely scientific point of view, there is adequate foundation for your conclusions in the material you recorded.”

  Teleborian shrugged.

  “With all due respect, I think I have a better understanding of Lisbeth Salander than any other psychiatrist in the country. I have followed her development since she was twelve, and regrettably my conclusions were always confirmed by her actions.”

  “Very well,” Giannini said. “Then we’ll take a look at your conclusions. In your statement you write that her treatment was interrupted when she was placed with a foster family at the age of fifteen.”

  “That’s correct. It was a serious mistake. If we had been allowed to complete the treatment we might not be here in this courtroom today.”

  “You mean that if you had had the opportunity to keep her in restraints for another year she might have become more tractable?”

  “That is unworthy.”

  “I do beg your pardon. You cite extensively the report that your doctoral candidate Jesper Löderman put together when she was about to turn eighteen. You write that, quote, Lisbeth Salander’s self-destructive and antisocial behaviour is confirmed by drug abuse and the promiscuity which she has exhibited since she was discharged from St Stefan’s, unquote. What did you mean by this statement?”

  Teleborian sat in silence for several seconds.

  “Well … now I’ll have to go back a bit. After Lisbeth Salander was di
scharged from St Stefan’s she developed, as I had predicted, problems with alcohol and drug abuse. She was repeatedly arrested by the police. A social welfare report also determined that she had had profligate sexual relations with older men and that she was very probably involved in prostitution.”

  “Let’s analyse this. You say that she abused alcohol. How often was she intoxicated?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Was she drunk every day from when she was released until she turned eighteen? Was she drunk once a week?”

  “Naturally I can’t answer that.”

  “But you have just stated that she had problems with alcohol abuse.”

  “She was a minor and arrested repeatedly by the police for drunkenness.”

  “That’s the second time you have said that she was arrested repeatedly. How often did this occur? Was it once a week or once every other week?”

  “No, it’s not a matter of so many individual occasions …”

  “Lisbeth Salander was arrested on two occasions for drunkenness, once when she was sixteen, once when she was seventeen. On one of those occasions she was so blind drunk that she was taken to hospital. These are the repeatedly you refer to. Was she intoxicated on more than these occasions?”

  “I don’t know, but one might fear that her behaviour was—”

  “Excuse me, did I hear you correctly? You do not know whether she was intoxicated on more than two occasions during her teenage years, but you fear that this was the case. And yet you write reports maintaining that Lisbeth Salander was engaged in repeated alcohol and drug abuse?”

  “That is the social service’s information, not mine. It has to do with Lisbeth Salander’s whole lifestyle. Not surprisingly her prognosis was dismal after her treatment was interrupted, and her life became a round of alcohol abuse, police intervention, and uncontrolled promiscuity.”

  “You say ‘uncontrolled promiscuity’.”

  “Yes. That’s a term which indicates that she had no control over her own life. She had sexual relations with older men.”