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 this esoteric thought she closed her eyes and fell asleep again.
She had been dozing only a few minutes when she became 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 Sahlgrenska hospital in Goteborg. 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 positive. 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 a.m. He had slept fifteen hours straight.
He got up and went to the bathroom. He would not be able to get back to sleep. He took a long shower. Then he put on his jeans and sweatshirt. 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 pate sandwich. He bought the Goteborgs-Posten. The arrest of Lisbeth Salander was front-page news. He took his breakfast back to his room and read the paper. The reports 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 several 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 sixty-five-year-old landowner from Gosseberga, and apparently the media had taken him for an innocent victim.
When Blomkvist finished reading, he flipped open his mobile and saw that he had twenty new 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 had been sent at 7:06 the night before. 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 gotten to know her through police reports and press releases and the headlines in the evening papers. She is twenty-six years old and not even five feet 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.
He checked the clock and 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 Goteborg 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 sat down at his table, and by now maybe a hundred other reporters had 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 Malmo 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 aggravated assault and 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 answers to all our questions. I'm convinced 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 Goteborg's problem. I would guess that somebody in Stockholm will be assigned to compile all the material for a prosecution."
"I see. What do you think the odds are that the investigation will be transferred to Sapo?"
Modig shook her head.
Just before they reached Alingsas, Blomkvist leaned towards her. "Sonja, I think you understand how things stand. If the Zalachenko story gets out, there'll be a massive scandal. Sapo conspired with a psychiatrist to lock Salander up in an asylum. The only thing they can do now is to stonewall and go on claiming that Salander is mentally ill, and that committing her in 1991 was justified."
Modig nodded.
"I'm going to do everything I can to counter any such claims. I believe that Salander is as sane as you or I. Odd, certainly, but her intellectual gifts are undeniable." He paused to let what he had said sink in. "I'm going to need somebody on the inside I can trust."
She met his gaze. "I'm not competent to judge whether or not Salander is mentally ill."
"But you are competent to say whether or not she was the victim of a miscarriage of justice."