“Leo had hyperacusis.”
Hjort looked at Blomkvist in surprise and said:
“Yes, that was part of it. Carl wanted to discover whether that contributed to the boy’s isolation, and whether Leo saw the world differently from the rest of us. But don’t think that Carl was being cynical. There was a bond between them which not even I understood.”
Blomkvist decided to take a chance.
“Leo was adopted, wasn’t he?” he said.
Ellenor Hjort emptied her cup of tea and glanced out at the balcony to her left.
“Maybe,” she said.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because sometimes I got the impression that there was something sensitive about his background.”
Blomkvist decided to take another gamble:
“Did Leo have traveller heritage?”
Hjort looked up, her eyes fixed in concentration.
“Funny you should say that,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because I remember … Carl invited Leo and me to lunch in Drottningholm.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing much, but I remember it all the same. Carl and I were deeply in love. But sometimes it felt as if he were keeping secrets from me – not just professional ones from his therapy work – and that was probably one of the reasons I was so jealous. That lunch was one of those occasions.”
“One of which occasions?”
“Leo was upset that someone had called him a ‘gyppo’, and instead of just coming right out and saying ‘What kind of idiot is calling you that?’, Carl held forth like a schoolteacher and explained that ‘gyppo’ was a racist term and a relic from dark times. Leo nodded as if he’d heard it all before. Even though he was a child, he already knew about the traveller community and their kinship with the Romani people, and about their oppression – forced sterilizations, lobotomizations and even ethnic cleansing in some parishes. It felt … somehow … surprising for a boy like him.”
“And so what happened?”
“Nothing happened, not a single damn thing,” she said. “Carl dismissed it when I asked afterwards. It might have been confidential because of a client–therapist relationship, but given the broader context I got the feeling he was hiding things from me. That episode still sometimes pricks me like a thorn.”
“Was it one of Alfred Ögren’s boys who called Leo a ‘gyppo’?”
“It was Ivar, the youngest, the afterthought. The only one who followed in his father’s footsteps. Do you know him?”
“A little,” he said. “He was nasty, wasn’t he?”
“Seriously nasty.”
“How come?”
“I suppose one always wonders. There certainly was rivalry from the early days onwards, not only between the boys but also between their fathers. As a means to outdo each other, Herman and Alfred pitted their sons against each other to see whose was the cleverer, or the more enterprising. Ivar always came first whenever brawn counted. Leo was best at everything that involved the intellect, and that must have caused a lot of envy. Ivar knew about Leo’s hyperacusis. But instead of being considerate about it, he would wake him during their summers in Falsterbo by turning up the stereo to insane levels. Once he bought a bag of balloons which he inflated and then burst one by one behind Leo’s back when he was least expecting it. When Carl heard about it, he took Ivar aside and slapped him. Alfred Ögren went ballistic.”
“So there was some aggression against Carl in the wider circle around the family?”
“For sure. But I will say that Leo’s parents always stood up for Carl. They knew how important he was to their boy. That’s why ultimately I came to terms with – or tried to come to terms with – the idea that the shooting was an accident. Herman Mannheimer would never have killed his son’s best friend.”
“How did Carl first come into contact with the family?”
“Through his university. The timing was perfect. Previously, schools had done nothing whatsoever for exceptionally gifted children. Singling them out was seen as being at odds with the Swedish ideal of equality. Schools also lacked the ability to identify and understand them. Many intelligent pupils were so under-stimulated that they became disruptive and were put in classes which catered for special educational needs. It seems that there was a disproportionately large number of gifted children in psychiatric care. Carl hated that, and he fought for those boys and girls. Just a few years earlier he’d been called an elitist. Then he started getting recruited onto government committees. He got to know Herman Mannheimer through his supervisor, Hilda von Kanterborg.”
Blomkvist started.
“Who is Hilda von Kanterborg?”
“She was an associate professor on the Faculty of Psychology and academic supervisor to two or three doctoral students,” Hjort said. “She was young, not much older than Carl, and was expected to have a great future ahead of her. That’s why it’s so tragic that she …”
“Is she dead?”
“Not that I know. But she ended up with a bad reputation. I heard that she became an alcoholic.”
“Why the bad reputation?”
For a moment, Hjort seemed unfocused. Then she looked straight into Blomkvist’s eyes.
“It was after Carl died, so I have no inside knowledge. But my feeling is that it was pretty unfair.”
“In what way?”
“I’m sure Hilda was no worse than any male academic with a bit of swagger. I met her a few times with Carl, and she was incredibly charismatic, you just got drawn in by her eyes. Apparently she kept having all sorts of affairs, including with two or three of her students. That wasn’t good, but they were all grown-ups and she was popular and clever and nobody much minded, not at first. Hilda was just ravenous. Ravenous for life, for new friendships – and for men. She was neither calculating nor evil, she was simply all over the place.”
“So what happened?”
“I’m not altogether sure. All I know is that the university administration produced a couple of students who claimed – or rather hinted, somewhat vaguely – that Hilda had sold herself to them. It felt so cheap – as if they could think of nothing better than to make a whore of her. What are you doing?”
Without realizing it, Blomkvist had got to his feet and was searching on his mobile.
“I have a Hilda von Kanterborg living on Rutger Fuchsgatan, do you think that’s her?”
“There can’t be many with that name. Why are you so interested in her, all of a sudden?”
“Because …” Blomkvist said. He trailed off. “It’s complicated. But you’ve been very helpful.”
“Does that mean you’re off now?”
“Yes, all of a sudden I’m in a hurry. I have a feeling that …”
He did not finish that sentence either. Then Malin called, sounding at least as agitated as he was. He said he would call her back. He shook Ellenor Hjort’s hand, thanked her and ran down the stairs. Out on the street he called Hilda von Kanterborg.
December, a year and a half earlier
What can be forgiven, and what can not? Leo Mannheimer and Carl Seger had often discussed this. These were questions important to both of them, but in different ways. For the most part their position was generous: most things could be forgiven, even Ivar’s bullying. For the time being Leo was reconciled with him. Ivar didn’t know any better, he was malicious in the same way that others are shy or unmusical. He had as little understanding of other people’s feelings as someone with a tin ear has of tones and melodies. Leo indulged him, and occasionally he would be rewarded by a friendly pat on the shoulder, a look of complicity. Ivar often asked him for advice, maybe out of self-interest, but still … Sometimes he paid him a back-handed compliment: “You’re not so stupid after all, Leo!”
Ivar’s marriage to Madeleine Bard destroyed all that. It pitched Leo into a hatred which no amount of therapy could cure or check. Nor did he resist it. He welcomed it as a fever, a storm. It was worst at night or
in the small hours. That was when a thirst for revenge pounded in his temples and his heart. He fantasized about shootings and other accidents, social humiliation, sicknesses, hideous skin rashes. He even pricked holes in photographs and used the power of thinking to try to get Ivar to fall from balconies and terraces. He teetered on the edge of madness. But nothing came of it, except that Ivar became vigilant and anxious and possibly started planning something himself. Time passed and the situation sometimes got better, sometimes worse.
It was snowing and exceptionally cold. His mother was on her deathbed. He sat with her three or four times a week and tried to be a good, comforting son. But it was not easy. Her illness had not made her any milder. The morphine had peeled off yet another layer of restraint, and on two separate occasions she called him weak:
“You have always been a disappointment, Leo,” she said.
He did not answer her when his mother was like this, but he did dream of leaving the country for good. He was not seeing many people other than Malin Frode, who was getting a divorce and was about to leave the firm. Leo never believed that she loved him, but it was nice just to be with her. They helped each other through a difficult time and they laughed together, even if the anger and the fantasies did not disappear even then. At times Leo became genuinely frightened of Ivar. He imagined that he was being followed, spied on. He no longer had any illusions. Ivar was capable of just about anything.
Leo felt that he too was capable of just about anything. Maybe one day he would hurl himself at Ivar and do him a terrible injury. Either that or he would get ambushed. He tried to dismiss it all as paranoia and foolishness, but the feeling would not go away. He kept hearing footsteps behind him, and felt eyes on his back. He imagined shadow-like figures in alleyways and on street corners, and a few times in Humlegården he found himself suddenly turning to look, but he never saw anything unusual.
On Friday, December 15 it was snowing harder than ever. The Christmas decorations were sparkling in the streets and he went home early. He changed into jeans and a woollen jumper and put a glass of red wine on the grand piano. It was a Bösendorfer Imperial with ninety-seven keys. He tuned it himself every Monday. The piano stool was a black-leather Jansen and he sat down and played a new composition which he began in a Dorian flat mode, and at the end of every phrase landed on the seventh tone, producing a sound which was both ominous and mournful. He played for a good while and heard nothing else, not even the footsteps in the stairwell. He was deep in concentration. But then he registered something so peculiar that for a while he thought it was a figment of his own heated imagination, the result of his hyper-sensitive hearing. Yet it really did sound as if someone were accompanying him on a guitar. He stopped playing and went to the front door. He thought about calling out through the letterbox.
Instead he unlocked and opened the door, and then it was as if he had cut himself loose from reality.
CHAPTER 11
20.vi
In the maximum security unit the prisoners had finished their supper and left the dining hall. Some had headed off to work out. Two or three were smoking and gossiping in the exercise yard. Others were glued to a film – “Ocean’s Eleven”. The rest were wandering up and down the corridor and the recreation rooms, or talking in hushed voices in each other’s cells with the doors wide open. It could have been almost any day. But nothing would ever be the same again.
Not only were there more guards than usual, but there was also a ban on visits and telephone calls and it was hotter and more close than before. Rikard Fager, the governor, had been doing the rounds and the guards, already affected by the atmosphere among the inmates, became even more apprehensive.
The air was vibrating with a feeling of liberation. People walked and smiled with a new sense of freedom. The general hubbub was now lighter and more lively, no longer fraught with fear and anxiety. On the other hand there was uncertainty, and evidence of a power vacuum. It was as if a tyrant had fallen. A few – and Tine Grönlund was one – seemed fearful of being attacked from behind. Everywhere people were discussing what had happened and what would happen next.
Even if much of it was myth and hearsay, the prisoners still had more information than the guards. Everyone knew that it was Salander who had smashed Benito’s jaw, and they all knew that her life was very much in danger. There were rumours that relatives of Salander had already been murdered and that the revenge would be terrible, especially because Benito was said to have been disfigured for life. It was common knowledge that there was a price on Faria Kazi’s head and there were whispers that the reward was being put up by rich Islamists, by sheiks even.
They all knew Benito was being transferred to a new prison straight from hospital, as soon as she was fit to be moved, and that major changes were in store. The mere fact that the governor was on the scene suggested as much. Fager was the most detested person in the place – if you discounted the women in C Block who had murdered their own children. But for once the prisoners regarded him not only with hostility, but also with a degree of hope. Who knows, maybe things would ease up now that Benito was gone?
Fager looked at his watch and waved away one of the inmates who came to complain about the heat. Fager was forty-nine years old and good-looking, but with an unyielding, blank expression. He was wearing a grey suit, red tie and polished Alden shoes. Even though prison management tended to dress down to avoid provocation, he did the exact opposite so as to reinforce his authority. Today he regretted it. Sweat ran down his forehead and he was uncomfortable in his close-fitting jacket. His trouser legs were sticking to his thighs. He took a call on the intercom.
Afterwards, he gave a tight-lipped nod and went up to acting head guard Lindfors and whispered something in her ear. Then he walked off in the direction of cell number seven, where Salander had been in isolation since the previous evening.
Salander was at her desk doing some calculations on a particular aspect of so-called Wilson loops, which had become increasingly central to her efforts to formulate loop quantum gravity, when Fager and Lindfors walked into her cell. But she saw no reason to look up or interrupt her work. She did not notice that the governor prodded Lindfors, prompting her to announce his arrival.
“The governor is here to talk to you,” Lindfors said in a stern voice and with a look of distaste. Only then did Salander turn. She noted that Fager was brushing at something on his jacket sleeves, as if fearing that he had already picked up some dirt in the cell.
His lips moved almost imperceptibly and he narrowed his eyes. It looked as if he was trying to suppress a grimace. Clearly he didn’t like her, and that suited her just fine. She did not care for him either. She had read too many of his e-mails.
“I’ve got good news,” he said.
Salander said nothing.
“Good news,” he said again.
Still she said nothing, and that seemed to irritate Fager.
“Are you deaf or something?” he said.
“No.”
She looked down at the floor.
“Ah, O.K., well that’s good,” he said. “Listen, you’ve got another nine days to go. But we’re going to release you tomorrow morning. You’ll be questioned shortly by Chief Inspector Jan Bublanski from Stockholm police, and we’d like you to be cooperative.”
“You don’t want me in here anymore?”
“It’s got nothing to do with what we do or don’t want, we have our instructions, and also the staff have confirmed …”
Fager seemed to be having difficulty getting the words out.
“… that you’ve conducted yourself well, and that’s enough for an early release.”
“I have not conducted myself well,” she said.
“Haven’t you, so? I’ve had reports …”
“Bullshit window dressing, I’m sure. Like your own reports.”
“What do you know about my reports?”
Salander was still looking at the floor and her answer was matter-of-fact, as if she were read
ing it out:
“I know that they’re badly written and wordy. You often use the wrong prepositions and your style is stilted. But above all they’re ingratiating and ignorant, and sometimes untruthful. You withhold information which you’ve obviously received. You’ve persuaded the board of the Prison Service that the maximum security unit is a great place, and that’s a serious matter, Rikard. It’s one of the factors that’s made Faria Kazi’s time here a living hell. It just about cost her her life, and that makes me fucking angry.”
Fager gaped and his mouth twitched. The blood drained from his face. But still he managed to clear his throat and said incoherently:
“What are you saying, girl? What do you mean? Did you see some official documents, then?”
“Some of them may have been official, yes.”
Fager hardly seemed conscious of what he was saying:
“You’re lying!”
“I’m not lying. I’ve read them and it’s none of your business how.”
His whole body was shaking.
“You are …”
“What?”
Fager did not seem able to come up with anything fitting.
“Just remember that the decision to release you can be revoked at any time,” he barked instead.
“Go ahead then, revoke it. There’s only one thing I care about.”
Sweat broke out on Fager’s upper lip.
“And what might that be?” he said guardedly.
“For Faria Kazi to get support and help and be kept in absolute safety until her lawyer, Annika Giannini, can get her out of here. After that she’ll need witness protection.”
Fager roared, “You’re not in a position to ask for anything!”
“That’s where you’re wrong. You, on the other hand, shouldn’t be in any position at all,” she said. “You’re a liar and a hypocrite, and you’ve allowed a gangster to take over the most critical unit in your prison.”
“I don’t think you know what you’re talking about,” he spluttered.
The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye: Continuing Stieg Larsson's Millennium Series Page 16