“How does it feel?” she said when she hung up.
“I think I’m happy,” he said.
She laughed. “The Section is going to be a sensation. Every newsroom is going crazy for it. Do you feel like appearing on Aktuellt at 9.00 for an interview?”
“I think not.”
“I suspected as much.”
“We’re going to be talking about this for several months. There’s no rush.”
She nodded.
“What are you doing later this evening?” Berger said.
“I don’t know.” He bit his lip. “Erika … I …”
“Figuerola,” Berger said with a smile.
He nodded.
“So it’s serious?”
“I don’t know.”
“She’s terribly in love with you.”
“I think I’m in love with her too,” he said.
“I promise I’ll keep my distance until, you know … well, maybe,” she said.
At 8.00 Armansky and Linder appeared at Millennium’s offices. They thought the occasion called for champagne, so they had brought over a crate from the state liquor store. Berger hugged Linder and introduced her to everyone. Armansky took a seat in Blomkvist’s office.
They drank their champagne. Neither of them said anything for quite a while. It was Armansky who broke the silence.
“You know what, Blomkvist? The first time we met, on that job in Hedestad, I didn’t much care for you.”
“You don’t say.”
“You came over to sign a contract when you hired Lisbeth as a researcher.”
“I remember.”
“I think I was jealous of you. You’d known her only for a couple of hours, yet she was laughing with you. For some years I’d tried to be Lisbeth’s friend, but I have never once made her smile.”
“Well … I haven’t really been that successful either.”
They sat in silence once again.
“Great that all this is over,” Armansky said.
“Amen to that,” Blomkvist said, and they raised their glasses in salute.
Inspectors Bublanski and Modig conducted the formal interview with Salander. They had both been at home with their families after a particularly taxing day but were immediately summoned to return to police headquarters.
Salander was accompanied by Giannini. She gave precise responses to all the questions that Bublanski and Modig asked, and Giannini had little occasion to comment or intervene.
Salander lied consistently on two points. In her description of what had happened in Stallarholmen, she stubbornly maintained that it was Nieminen who had accidentally shot “Magge” Lundin in the foot at the instant that she nailed him with the taser. Where had she got the taser? She had confiscated it from Lundin, she explained.
Bublanski and Modig were both sceptical, but there was no evidence and no witnesses to contradict her story. Nieminen was no doubt in a position to protest, but he refused to say anything about the incident; in fact he had no notion of what had happened in the seconds after he was stunned with the taser.
As far as Salander’s journey to Gosseberga was concerned, she claimed that her only objective had been to convince her father to turn himself in to the police.
Salander looked completely guileless; it was impossible to say whether she was telling the truth or not. Giannini had no reason to arrive at an opinion on the matter.
The only person who knew for certain that Salander had gone to Gosseberga with the intention of terminating any relationship she had with her father once and for all was Blomkvist. But he had been sent out of the courtroom shortly after the proceedings were resumed. No-one knew that he and Salander had carried on long conversations online by night while she was confined to Sahlgrenska.
*
The media missed altogether her release from custody. If the time of it had been known, a huge contingent would have descended on police headquarters. But many of the reporters were exhausted after the chaos and excitement that had ensued when Millennium reached the news-stands and certain members of the Security Police were arrested by other Security Police officers.
The presenter of She at T.V.4 was the only journalist who knew what the story was all about. Her hour-long broadcast became a classic, and some months later she won the award for Best T. V. News Story of the Year.
Modig got Salander away from police headquarters by very simply taking her and Giannini down to the garage and driving them to Giannini’s office on Kungholm’s Kyrkoplan. There they switched to Giannini’s car. When Modig had driven away, Giannini headed for Södermalm. As they passed the parliament building she broke the silence.
“Where to?” she said.
Salander thought for a few seconds.
“You can drop me somewhere on Lundagatan.”
“Miriam isn’t there.”
Salander looked at her.
“She went to France quite soon after she came out of hospital. She’s staying with her parents if you want to get hold of her.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You never asked. She said she needed some space. This morning Mikael gave me these and said you’d probably like to have them back.”
She handed her a set of keys. Salander took it and said: “Thanks. Could you drop me somewhere on Folkungagatan instead?”
“You don’t even want to tell me where you live?”
“Later. Right now I want to be left in peace.”
“O.K.”
Giannini had switched on her mobile when they left police headquarters. It started beeping as they were passing Slussen. She looked at the display.
“It’s Mikael. He’s called every ten minutes for the past couple of hours.”
“I don’t want to talk to him.”
“Tell me … Could I ask you a personal question?”
“Yes.”
“What did Mikael do to you that you hate him so much? I mean, if it weren’t for him, you’d probably be back on a secure ward tonight.”
“I don’t hate Mikael. He hasn’t done anything to me. I just don’t want to see him right now.”
Giannini glanced across at her client. “I don’t mean to pry, but you fell for him, didn’t you?”
Salander looked out of the window and did not answer.
“My brother is completely irresponsible when it comes to relationships. He screws his way through life and doesn’t seem to grasp how much it can hurt those women who think of him as more than a casual affair.”
Salander met her gaze. “I don’t want to discuss Mikael with you.”
“Right,” Giannini said. She pulled into the kerb just before the junction with Erstagatan. “Is this O.K.?”
“Yes.”
They sat in silence for a moment. Salander made no move to open the door. Then Giannini turned off the engine.
“What happens now?” Salander said at last.
“What happens now is that as from today you are no longer under guardianship. You can live your life however you want. Even though we won in the district court, there’s still a whole mass of red tape to get through. There will be reports on accountability within the guardianship agency and the question of compensation and things like that. And the criminal investigation will continue.”
“I don’t want any compensation. I want to be left in peace.”
“I understand. But what you want won’t play much of a role here. This process is beyond your control. I suggest that you get yourself a lawyer to represent you.”
“Don’t you want to go on being my lawyer?”
Giannini rubbed her eyes. After all the stress of the day she felt utterly drained. She wanted to go home and have a shower. She wanted her husband to massage her back.
“I don’t know. You don’t trust me. And I don’t trust you. I have no desire to be drawn into a long process during which I encounter nothing but frustrating silence when I make a suggestion or want to discuss something.”
Salander said nothing for
a long moment. “I … I’m not good at relationships. But I do trust you.”
It sounded almost like an apology.
“That may be. And it needn’t be my problem if you’re bad at relationships. But it does become my problem if I have to represent you.”
Silence.
“Would you want me to go on being your lawyer?”
Salander nodded. Giannini sighed.
“I live at Fiskargatan 9. Above Mosebacke Torg. Could you drive me there?”
Giannini looked at her client and then she started the engine. She let Salander direct her to the address. They stopped short of the building.
“O.K.,” Giannini said. “We’ll give it a try. Here are my conditions. I agree to represent you. When I need to get hold of you I want you to answer. When I need to know what you want me to do, I want clear answers. If I call you and tell you that you have to talk to a policeman or a prosecutor or anything else that has to do with the criminal investigation, then I have already decided that it’s necessary. You will have to turn up at the appointed place, on time, and not make a fuss about it. Can you live with that?”
“I can.”
“And if you start playing up, I stop being your lawyer. Understood?”
Salander nodded.
“One more thing. I don’t want to get involved in a big drama between you and my brother. If you have a problem with him, you’ll have to work it out. But, for the record, he’s not your enemy.”
“I know. I’ll deal with it. But I need some time.”
“What do you plan to do now?”
“I don’t know. You can reach me on email. I promise to reply as soon as I can, but I might not be checking it every day—”
“You won’t become a slave just because you have a lawyer. O.K., that’s enough for the time being. Out you get. I’m dead tired and I want to go home and sleep.”
Salander opened the door and got out. She paused as she was about to close the car door. She looked as though she wanted to say something but could not find the words. For a moment she appeared to Giannini almost vulnerable.
“That’s alright, Lisbeth,” Giannini said. “Go and get some sleep. And stay out of trouble for a while.”
Salander stood at the curb and watched Giannini drive away until her tail lights disappeared around the corner.
“Thanks,” she said at last.
CHAPTER 29
Saturday, 16.vii – Friday, 7.x
Salander found her Palm Tungsten T3 on the hall table. Next to it were her car keys and the shoulder bag she had lost when Lundin attacked her outside the door to her apartment building on Lundagatan. She also found both opened and unopened post that had been collected from her P.O. Box on Hornsgatan. Mikael Blomkvist.
She took a slow tour through the furnished part of her apartment. She found traces of him everywhere. He had slept in her bed and worked at her desk. He had used her printer, and in the wastepaper basket she found drafts of the manuscript of The Section along with discarded notes.
He had bought a litre of milk, bread, cheese, caviar and a jumbo pack of Billy’s Pan Pizza and put them in the fridge.
On the kitchen table she found a small white envelope with her name on it. It was a note from him. The message was brief. His mobile number. That was all.
She knew that the ball was in her court. He was not going to get in touch with her. He had finished the story, given back the keys to her apartment, and he would not call her. If she wanted something then she could call him. Bloody pig-headed bastard.
She put on a pot of coffee, made four open sandwiches, and went to sit in her window seat to look out towards Djurgården. She lit a cigarette and brooded.
It was all over, and yet now her life felt more claustrophobic than ever.
Miriam Wu had gone to France. It was my fault that you almost died. She had shuddered at the thought of having to see Mimmi, but had decided that that would be her first stop when she was released. But she had gone to France.
All of a sudden she was in debt to people.
Palmgren. Armansky. She ought to contact them to say thank you. Paolo Roberto. And Plague and Trinity. Even those damned police officers, Bublanski and Modig, who had so obviously been in her corner. She did not like feeling beholden to anyone. She felt like a chess piece in a game she could not control.
Kalle Bloody Blomkvist. And maybe even Erika Bloody Berger with the dimples and the expensive clothes and all that self-assurance.
But it was over, Giannini had said as they left police headquarters. Right. The trial was over. It was over for Giannini. And it was over for Blomkvist. He had published his book and would end up on T. V. and probably win some bloody prize too.
But it was not over for Lisbeth Salander. This was only the first day of the rest of her life.
At 4.00 in the morning she stopped thinking. She discarded her punk outfit on the floor of her bedroom and went to the bathroom and took a shower. She cleaned off all the make-up she had worn in court, put on loose, dark linen trousers, a white top and a thin jacket. She packed an overnight bag with a change of underwear and a couple of tops and put on some simple walking shoes.
She picked up her Palm and called a taxi to collect her from Mosebacke Torg. She drove out to Arlanda Airport and arrived just before 6.00. She studied the departure board and booked a ticket to the first place that took her fancy. She used her own passport in her own name. She was surprised that nobody at the ticket desk or at the check-in counter seemed to recognize her or react to her name.
She had a seat on the morning flight to Málaga and landed in the blazing midday heat. She stood inside the terminal building for a moment, feeling uncertain. At last she went and looked at a map and thought about what she might do now that she was in Spain. A minute later she decided. She did not waste time trying to figure out bus routes or other means of transportation. She bought a pair of sunglasses at an airport shop, went out to the taxi stand and climbed into the back seat of the first taxi.
“Gibraltar. I’m paying with a credit card.”
The trip took three hours via the new motorway along the coast. The taxi dropped her off at British passport control and she walked across the border and over to the Rock Hotel on Europa Road, partway up the slope of the 425-metre monolith. She asked if they had a room and was told there was a double room available. She booked it for two weeks and handed over her credit card.
She showered and sat on the balcony wrapped up in a bath towel, looking out over the Straits of Gibraltar. She could see freighters and a few yachts. She could just make out Morocco in the haze on the other side of the straits. It was peaceful.
After a while she went in and lay down and slept.
The next morning Salander woke at 5.00. She got up, showered and had a coffee in the hotel bar on the ground floor. At 7.00 she left the hotel and set out to buy mangos and apples. She took a taxi to the Peak and walked over to the apes. She was so early that few tourists had yet appeared, and she was practically alone with the animals.
She liked Gibraltar. It was her third visit to the strange rock that housed an absurdly densely populated English town on the Mediterranean. Gibraltar was a place that was not like anywhere else. The town had been isolated for decades, a colony that obstinately refused to be incorporated into Spain. The Spaniards protested the occupation, of course. (But Salander thought that the Spaniards should keep their mouths shut on that score so long as they occupied the enclave of Ceuta on Moroccan territory across the straits.) It was a place that was comically shielded from the rest of the world, consisting of a bizarre rock, about three quarters of a square mile of town and an airport that began and ended in the sea. The colony was so small that every square inch of it was used, and any expansion had to be over the sea. Even to get into the town, visitors had to walk across the landing strip at the airport.
Gibraltar gave the concept of “compact living” a whole new meaning.
Salander watched a big male ape climb up on to a wall n
ext to the path. He glowered at her. He was a Barbary ape. She knew better than to try to stroke any of the animals.
“Hello, friend,” she said. “I’m back.”
The first time she visited Gibraltar she had not even heard about these apes. She had gone up to the top just to look at the view, and she was surprised when she followed some tourists and found herself in the midst of a group of apes climbing and scrambling on both sides of the pathway.
It was a peculiar feeling to be walking along a path and suddenly have two dozen apes around you. She looked at them with great wariness. They were not dangerous or aggressive, but they were certainly capable of giving you a bad bite if they got agitated or felt threatened.
She found one of the guards and showed him her bag of fruit and asked if she could give it to the apes. He said that it was O.K.
She took out a mango and put it on the wall a little way away from the male ape.
“Breakfast,” she said, leaning against the wall and taking a bite of an apple.
The male ape stared at her, bared his teeth, and contentedly picked up the mango.
In the middle of the afternoon five days later, Salander fell off her stool in Harry’s Bar on a side street off Main Street, two blocks from her hotel. She had been drunk almost continuously since she left the apes on the rock, and most of her drinking had been done with Harry O’Connell, who owned the bar and spoke with a phoney Irish accent, having never in his life set foot in Ireland. He had been watching her anxiously.
When she had ordered her first drink several days earlier, he had asked to see her I.D. Her name was Lisbeth, he knew, and he called her Liz. She would come in after lunch and sit on a high stool at the far end of the bar with her back leant against the wall. Then she would drink an impressive number of beers or shots of whisky.
When she drank beer she did not care about what brand or type it was; she accepted whatever he served her. When she ordered whisky she always chose Tullamore Dew, except on one occasion when she studied the bottles behind the bar and asked for Lagavulin. When the glass was brought to her, she sniffed at it, stared at it for a moment, and then took a tiny sip. She set down her glass and stared at it for a minute with an expression that seemed to indicate that she considered its contents to be a mortal enemy.
Millennium 03 - The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest Page 62