“OK. A Russian agent.”
Blomkvist smiled weakly, only too aware of how odd his story sounded.
“A former Russian agent. I can document every one of my claims.”
“Go on.”
“Zalachenko was a top spy in the sixties and seventies. He defected and was granted asylum by Säpo. In his old age he became a gangster. As far as I understand it, it’s not a unique situation in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse.”
“OK.”
“As I said, I don’t know exactly what happened here tonight, but Lisbeth tracked down her father, whom she hadn’t seen for fifteen years. Zalachenko abused her mother so viciously that she spent most of her life in a nursing home. He tried to murder Lisbeth, and through Niedermann he was the architect of the murders of Svensson and Johansson. Plus, he was behind the kidnapping of Salander’s friend Miriam Wu—you probably heard of boxer Paolo Roberto’s title bout in Nykvarn, as a result of which Wu was rescued from certain death.”
“If Salander hit her father in the head with an axe she isn’t exactly innocent.”
“She has been shot three times. I think we could assume her actions were on some level self-defence. I wonder …”
“Yes?”
“She was so covered with dirt, with mud, that her hair was one big lump of dried clay. Her clothes were full of sand, inside and out. It looked as though she might have been buried during the night. Niedermann is known to have a habit of burying people alive. The police in Södertälje have found two graves in the place that’s owned by Svavelsjö Motorcycle Club, outside Nykvarn.”
“Three, as a matter of fact. They found one more late last night. But if Salander was shot and buried, how was she able to climb out and start wandering around with an axe?”
“Whatever went on here tonight, you have to understand that Salander is exceptionally resourceful. I tried to persuade Paulsson to bring in a dog unit—”
“It’s on its way now.”
“Good.”
“Paulsson arrested you for insulting a police officer. …”
“I will dispute that. I called him an imbecile and an incompetent fool. Under the circumstances, neither of these epithets could be considered wide of the mark.”
“Hmm. It’s not a wholly inaccurate description. But you were also arrested for possession of an illegal weapon.”
“I made the mistake of trying to hand over a weapon to him. I don’t want to say anything more about that until I talk to my lawyer.”
“All right. We’ll leave it at that. We have more serious issues to discuss. What do you know about this Niedermann?”
“He’s a murderer. And there’s something wrong with him. He’s well over six feet tall and built like a tank. Ask Paolo Roberto, who boxed with him. He suffers from a disease called congenital analgesia, which means the transmitter substance in his nerve synapses doesn’t function. He feels no pain. He’s German, was born in Hamburg, and in his teens he was a skinhead. Right now he’s on the run and he’ll be seriously dangerous to anyone he runs into.”
“Do you have an idea where he might be heading?”
“No. I only know that I had him neatly trussed, all ready to be arrested, when that idiot from Trollhättan took charge of the situation.”
Annika Giannini woke with a start. She saw that it was 5:58 a.m. She had her first client meeting at 8:00. She turned to look at her husband, Enrico, who was sleeping peacefully and probably would not be awake before 8:00. She blinked hard a few times and got up to turn on the coffeemaker before she took her shower. She dressed in black pants, a white polo shirt, and a muted brick-red jacket. She made two slices of toast with cheese, orange marmalade, and a sliced avocado, and carried her breakfast into the living room in time for the 6:30 television news. She took a sip of coffee and had just opened her mouth to take a bite of toast when she heard the headlines.
One policeman killed and another seriously wounded. Drama last night as triple murderer Lisbeth Salander is finally captured.
At first she could not make any sense of it. Was it Salander who had killed a policeman? The news item was sketchy, but bit by bit she gathered that a man was being sought for the killing. A nationwide alert had gone out for a man in his mid-thirties, as yet unnamed. Salander herself was critically injured and at Sahlgrenska hospital in Göteborg.
Annika switched to the other channel, but she learned nothing more about what had happened. She reached for her mobile and called her brother, Mikael Blomkvist. She only got his voicemail. She felt a small twinge of fear. He had called on his way to Göteborg. He had been tracking Salander. And a murderer who called himself Ronald Niedermann.
As it was growing light, an observant police officer found traces of blood on the ground behind the woodshed. A police dog followed the trail to a narrow trench in a clearing in a wood about a quarter of a mile northeast of the farmhouse.
Blomkvist went with Inspector Erlander. Grimly they studied the site. Much more blood had obviously been shed in and around the trench.
They found a damaged cigarette case that seemed to have been used as a scoop. Erlander put it in an evidence bag and labelled the find. He also gathered samples of blood-soaked clumps of dirt. A uniformed officer drew his attention to a cigarette butt—a filterless Pall Mall—some distance from the hole. This too was saved in an evidence bag and labelled. Blomkvist remembered having seen a pack of Pall Malls on the kitchen counter in Zalachenko’s house.
Erlander glanced up at the lowering rain clouds. The storm that had ravaged Göteborg earlier in the night had obviously passed to the south of the Nossebro area, but it was only a matter of time before the rain came. He instructed one of his men to get a tarpaulin to cover the trench and its immediate surroundings.
“I think you’re right,” Erlander said to Blomkvist as they walked back to the farmhouse. “An analysis of the blood will probably establish that Salander was shot and buried here, and I’m beginning to expect that we’ll find her fingerprints on the cigarette case. Somehow she managed to survive and dig herself out and—”
“And somehow get back to the farm and swing an axe into Zalachenko’s skull,” Blomkvist finished for him. “She can be a moody bitch.”
“But how on earth did she handle Niedermann?”
Blomkvist shrugged. He was as bewildered as Erlander on that score.
CHAPTER 2
Friday, April 8
Modig and Holmberg arrived at Göteborg Central Station just after 8:00 a.m. Bublanski had called to give them new instructions. They could forget about finding a car to take them to Gosseberga. They were to take a taxi to police headquarters on Ernst Fontells Plats, the seat of the County Criminal Police in western Götaland. They waited for almost an hour before Inspector Erlander arrived from Gosseberga with Blomkvist. Blomkvist said hello to Modig, having met her before, and shook hands with Holmberg, whom he did not know. One of Erlander’s colleagues joined them with an update on the hunt for Niedermann. It was a brief report.
“We have a team working under the auspices of the County Criminal Police. An APB has gone out, of course. The missing patrol car was found in Alingsås early this morning. The trail ends there for the moment. We have to suppose that he switched vehicles, but we’ve had no report of a car being stolen thereabouts.”
“Media?” Modig asked, with an apologetic glance at Blomkvist.
“It’s a police killing and the press is out in force. We’ll be holding a press conference at 10:00.”
“Does anyone have any information on Lisbeth Salander’s condition?” Blomkvist said. He felt strangely uninterested in everything to do with the hunt for Niedermann.
“She was operated on during the night. They removed a bullet from her head. She hasn’t regained consciousness yet.”
“Is there any prognosis?”
“As I understand it, we won’t know anything until she wakes up. But the surgeon says he has high hopes that she’ll survive, barring unforeseen complications.”
“And Zalachenko?”
“Who?” Erlander’s colleague said. He had not yet been brought up to date with all the details.
“Karl Axel Bodin.”
“I see … yes, he was operated on last night too. He had a very deep gash across his face, and another just below one kneecap. He’s in bad shape, but the injuries aren’t life-threatening.”
Blomkvist absorbed this news.
“You look tired,” Modig said.
“You got that right. I’m into my third day with hardly any sleep.”
“Believe it or not, he actually slept in the car coming down from Nossebro,” Erlander said.
“Could you manage to tell us the whole story from the beginning?” Holmberg said. “It feels to us as though the score between the private investigators and the police investigators is about three to nothing.”
Blomkvist gave him a wan smile. “That’s a line I’d like to hear from Officer Bubble.”
They made their way to the police cafeteria to have breakfast. Blomkvist spent half an hour explaining step by step how he had pieced together the story of Zalachenko. When he had finished, the detectives sat in silence.
“There are a few holes in your account,” Holmberg said at last.
“That’s possible,” Blomkvist said.
“You didn’t say, for example, how you came to be in possession of the top secret Säpo report on Zalachenko.”
“I found it yesterday at Lisbeth Salander’s apartment when I finally worked out where she was. She probably found it in Bjurman’s summer cabin.”
“So you’ve discovered Salander’s hideout?” Modig said.
Blomkvist nodded.
“And?”
“You’ll have to find out for yourselves where it is. Salander put a lot of effort into establishing a secret address for herself, and I have no intention of revealing its whereabouts.”
Modig and Holmberg exchanged an anxious look.
“Mikael … this is a murder investigation,” Modig said.
“You still don’t get it, do you? Lisbeth Salander is in fact innocent and the police have destroyed her reputation in unprecedented ways. ‘Lesbian Satanist gang’ … Where the hell do you get this stuff? Not to mention her being sought in connection with three murders she had nothing to do with. If she wants to tell you where she lives, then I’m sure she will.”
“But there’s another gap I don’t really understand,” Holmberg said. “How does Bjurman come into the story in the first place? You say he was the one who started the whole thing by contacting Zalachenko and asking him to kill Salander. Why would he do that?”
“My guess is that he hired Zalachenko to get rid of Salander. The plan was for her to end up in that warehouse in Nykvarn.”
“He was her guardian. What motive would he have had to get rid of her?”
“It’s complicated.”
“I can do complicated.”
“He had a hell of a good motive. He had done something that Salander knew about. She was a threat to his entire future and well-being.”
“What had he done?”
“I think it would be best if you gave Salander a chance to explain the story herself.” He looked Holmberg steadily in the eye.
“Let me guess,” Modig said. “Bjurman subjected his ward to some sort of sexual assault.”
Blomkvist shrugged and said nothing.
“You don’t know about the tattoo Bjurman had on his abdomen?”
“What tattoo?” Blomkvist was taken aback.
“An amateurish tattoo across his belly with a message that said: ‘I am a sadistic pig, a pervert, and a rapist.’ We’ve been wondering what that was about.”
Blomkvist burst out laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
“I’ve always wondered what she did to get her revenge. But listen, I don’t want to discuss this for the same reason I’ve already given. She’s the real victim here. She’s the one who has to decide what she is willing to tell you. Sorry.”
He looked almost apologetic.
“Rapes should always be reported to the police,” Modig said.
“I’m with you on that. But this rape took place two years ago, and Lisbeth still hasn’t talked to the police about it. Which means that she doesn’t intend to. It doesn’t matter how much I disagree with her about the matter; it’s her decision. Anyway …”
“Yes?”
“She had no good reason to trust the police. The last time she tried explaining what a pig Zalachenko was, she was locked up in a mental hospital.”
• • •
Richard Ekström, the leader of the preliminary investigation, had butterflies in his stomach as he asked his team leader, Inspector Bublanski, to take a seat across from him. Ekström straightened his glasses and stroked his well-groomed goatee. He felt that the situation was chaotic and ominous. For several weeks they had been hunting Lisbeth Salander. He himself had proclaimed her far and wide to be mentally imbalanced, a dangerous psychopath. He had leaked information that would have backed him up in an upcoming trial. Everything had looked so good.
There had been no doubt in his mind that Salander was guilty of three murders. The trial should have been a straightforward matter, a pure media circus with himself at centre stage. Then everything had gone haywire, and he found himself with a completely different murderer and a chaos that seemed to have no end in sight. That bitch Salander.
“Well, this is a fine mess we’ve landed in,” he said. “What have you come up with this morning?”
“A nationwide APB has been sent out on this Ronald Niedermann, but there’s no sign of him. At present he’s being sought only for the murder of a police officer, but I anticipate we’ll have grounds for charging him with the three murders here in Stockholm. Maybe you should call a press conference.”
Bublanski added the suggestion of a press conference out of sheer spite. Ekström hated press conferences.
“I think we’ll hold off on the press conference for the time being,” he snapped.
Bublanski had to stop himself from smiling.
“In the first place, this is a matter for the Göteborg police,” Ekström said.
“Well, we do have Modig and Holmberg on the scene in Göteborg, and we’ve begun to cooperate—”
“We’ll hold off on the press conference until we know more,” Ekström repeated in a brittle tone. “What I want to know is: how certain are you that Niedermann really is involved in the murders in Stockholm?”
“My gut feeling? I’m 100 percent convinced. On the other hand, the case isn’t exactly rock solid. We have no witnesses to the murders, and there is no satisfactory forensic evidence. Magge Lundin and Sonny Nieminen of the Svavelsjö MC are refusing to say anything—they’re claiming they’ve never heard of Niedermann. But he’s going to go to prison for the murder of a policeman.”
“Precisely,” said Ekström. “The killing of the officer is the main thing right now. But tell me this: is there anything at all to even suggest that Salander might be involved in some way in the murders? Could she and Niedermann have committed the murders together?”
“I very much doubt it, and if I were you I wouldn’t voice that theory in public.”
“So how is she involved?”
“This is an intricate story, as Mikael Blomkvist claimed from the very beginning. It revolves around this Zala … Alexander Zalachenko.”
Ekström flinched at the mention of the name Blomkvist.
“Go on,” he said.
“Zala is a Russian hit man—apparently without a grain of conscience—who defected in the seventies, and Lisbeth Salander was unlucky enough to have him as her father. He was sponsored or supported by a faction within Säpo that tidied up after any crimes he committed. A police officer attached to Säpo also saw to it that Salander was locked up in a children’s psychiatric clinic. She was twelve and had threatened to blow Zalachenko’s identity, his alias, his whole cover.”
“This i
s a bit difficult to digest. It’s hardly a story we can make public. If I understand the matter correctly, all this stuff about Zalachenko is highly classified.”
“Nevertheless, it’s the truth. I have documentation.”
“May I see it?”
Bublanski pushed across the desk a folder containing a police report dated 1991. Ekström surreptitiously scanned the stamp, which indicated that the document was top secret, and the registration number, which he at once identified as belonging to the Security Police. He leafed rapidly through the hundred or so pages, reading paragraphs here and there. Eventually he put the folder aside.
“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 whomever you want, but I would tread carefully if I were you.”
“There’s going to be an enormous 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 disk and lives in Smådalarö at present.”
“OK … 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.”
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