The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (Millennium 3)

Bublanski took off his reading glasses and tucked them into his breast pocket. "I don't know."

"No idea at all?"

"Ekstrom claims that Bjorck's report and the correspondence with Teleborian were falsified."

"Bullshit. If it were fake, then Bjorck would have said so when we brought him in."

"Ekstrom says Bjorck refused to discuss it, on the grounds that it was top secret. I was given a dressing down because I jumped the gun and brought him in."

"I'm beginning to have strong reservations about Ekstrom."

"He's getting squeezed from all sides."

"That's no excuse."

"We don't have a monopoly on the truth, Sonja. Ekstrom says he's received evidence that the report is a fake--that there is no real report with that protocol number. He also says that the forgery is a good one and that the content is a clever blend of truth and fantasy."

"Which part is truth and which part is fantasy, that's what I need to know," Modig said.

"The frame story is pretty much correct. Zalachenko is Salander's father, and he was a bastard who beat her mother. The problem is the usual one--the mother never wanted to make a complaint, so it went on for several years. Bjorck was given the job of finding out what happened when Salander tried to kill her father. He corresponded with Teleborian, but the correspondence we've seen is apparently a forgery. Teleborian did a routine psychiatric examination of Salander and concluded that she was mentally unbalanced. A prosecutor decided not to take the case any further. She needed care, and she got it at St. Stefan's."

"If it is a forgery, who did it and why?"

Bublanski shrugged. "As I understand it, Ekstrom is going to commission one more thorough evaluation of Salander."

"I can't accept that."

"It's not our case anymore."

"And Faste has replaced us. Jan, I'm going to the media if these bastards piss all over Salander one more time."

"No, Sonja. You won't. First of all, we no longer have access to the report, so you have no way of backing up your claims. You're going to look paranoid, and then your career will be over."

"I still have the report," Modig said in a low voice. "I made a copy for Curt, but I never had a chance to give it to him before the prosecutor general collected the others."

"If you leak that report, you'll not only be fired but you'll be guilty of gross misconduct."

Modig sat in silence for a moment and looked at her superior.

"Sonja, don't do it. Promise me."

"No, Jan. I can't promise that. There's something very sick about this whole story."

"You're right, it is sick. But since we don't know who the enemy is at the moment, you're not going to do anything."

Modig tilted her head to one side. "Are you going to do anything?"

"I'm not going to discuss that with you. Trust me. It's Friday night. Take a break; go home. This discussion never took place."

*

Niklas Adamsson, the Securitas guard, was studying for a test in three weeks' time. It was 1:30 on Saturday afternoon when he heard the sound of rotating brushes from the low-humming floor polisher and saw that it was the dark-skinned immigrant who walked with a limp. The man would always nod politely but never laughed if Adamsson said anything humorous. Adamsson watched as he took a bottle of cleaning fluid and sprayed the reception counter-top twice before wiping it with a rag. Then he took his mop and swabbed the corners in the reception area where the brushes of the floor polisher couldn't reach. The guard put his nose back into his book about the national economy and kept reading.

It took ten minutes for the cleaner to work his way over to Adamsson's spot at the end of the corridor. They nodded to each other. Adamsson stood to let the man clean the floor around his chair outside Salander's room, as he did almost every day since he had been posted outside the room. Adamsson couldn't remember the cleaner's name--something foreign--but he didn't feel the need to check his ID. For one thing, the man was not allowed to clean inside the prisoner's room--that was done by two cleaning women in the morning--and besides, he didn't seem to be any sort of threat.

When the cleaner had finished in the corridor, he opened the door to the room next to Salander's. Adamsson glanced his way, but this was no deviation from the daily routine. This was where the cleaning supplies were kept. In the course of the next five minutes the man emptied his bucket, cleaned the brushes, and replenished the cart with plastic bags for the wastepaper baskets. Finally he manoeuvred the cart into the cubbyhole.

Ghidi was aware of the guard in the corridor. It was a young blond man who was usually there two or three days a week, reading books. Part-time guard, part-time student. He was about as aware of his surroundings as a brick.

Ghidi wondered what Adamsson would do if someone actually tried to get into the Salander woman's room.

He also wondered what Blomkvist was really after. He had read about the eccentric journalist in the newspapers, and had made the connection to the woman in 11C, expecting that he would be asked to smuggle something in for her. But he didn't have access to her room and had never even seen her. Whatever he had expected, it wasn't this.

He couldn't see anything illegal about his task. He looked through the crack in the doorway at Adamsson, who was once more reading his book. He checked that nobody else was in the corridor. He reached into the pocket of his smock and took out a Sony Ericsson Z600 mobile. Ghidi had seen in an advertisement that it cost around 3,500 kronor and had all the latest features.

He took a screwdriver from his pocket, stood on tiptoe, and unscrewed the three screws in the round white cover of a vent in the wall of Salander's room. He pushed the phone as far into the vent as he could, just as Blomkvist had asked him to. Then he screwed the cover back on.

It took him forty-five seconds. The next day it would take less. He was supposed to get down the mobile, change the batteries, and put it back in the vent. He would then take the used batteries home and recharge them overnight.

That was all Ghidi had to do.

But this wasn't going to be any help to Salander. On her side of the wall there was presumably a similar screwed-on cover. She would never be able to get at the phone, unless she had a screwdriver and a ladder.

"I know that," Blomkvist had said. "But she doesn't have to reach the phone."

Ghidi was to do this every day until Blomkvist told him it was no longer necessary.

And for this job Ghidi would be paid 1,000 kronor a week, straight into his pocket. And he could keep the phone when the job was over.

He knew, of course, that Blomkvist was up to some sort of funny business, but he couldn't work out what it was. Putting a mobile into an air vent inside a locked cleaning supplies room, turned on but not uplinked, was so crazy that Ghidi couldn't imagine what use it could be. If Blomkvist wanted a way of communicating with the patient, he would be better off bribing one of the nurses to smuggle the phone in to her.

On the other hand, he had no objection to doing Blomkvist this favour. He was better off not asking any questions.

Jonasson slowed his pace when he saw a man with a briefcase leaning on the wrought-iron gates outside his apartment building on Hagagatan. He looked somehow familiar.

"Dr. Jonasson?" he said.

"Yes?"

"Apologies for bothering you on the street outside your home. It's just that I didn't want to track you down at work, and I do need to talk to you."

"What's this about, and who are you?"

"My name is Blomkvist, Mikael Blomkvist. I'm a journalist, and I work at Millennium magazine. It's about Lisbeth Salander."

"Oh, now I recognize you. You were the one who called the paramedics. Was it you who put duct tape on her wounds?"

"Yes."

"That was a smart thing to do. But I don't discuss my patients with journalists. You'll have to speak to the PR department at Sahlgrenska, like everyone else."

"You misunderstand me. I don't want information, and I'm here in a c

ompletely private capacity. You don't have to say a word or give me any information. Quite the opposite: I want to give you some."

Jonasson frowned.

"Please hear me out," Blomkvist said. "I don't go around accosting surgeons on the street, but what I have to tell you is very important. Can I buy you a cup of coffee?"

"Tell me what it's about."

"It's about Lisbeth Salander's future and well-being. I'm a friend."

Jonasson thought that if it had been anyone other than Blomkvist he would have refused. But Blomkvist was a man in the public eye, and Jonasson couldn't imagine that this would be some sort of monkey business.

"I won't under any circumstances be interviewed, and I won't discuss my patient."

"Perfectly understood," Blomkvist said.

Jonasson accompanied Blomkvist to a nearby cafe.

"So what's this all about?" he said when they had gotten their coffee.

"First of all, I'm not going to quote you, or even mention you in anything I write. And as far as I'm concerned this conversation never took place. That said, I am here to ask you a favour. But I have to explain why, so that you can decide whether you can or you can't do it."

"I don't like the sound of this."

"All I ask is that you hear me out. It's your job to take care of Lisbeth's physical and mental health. As her friend, it's my job to do the same. I can't poke around in her skull and extract bullets, but I have another skill that is as crucial to her welfare."

"Which is?"

"I'm an investigative journalist, and I've found out the truth about what happened to her."

"OK."

"I can tell you in general terms what it's about and you can come to your own conclusions."

"All right."

"I should also say that Annika Giannini, Lisbeth's lawyer--you've met her, I think--is my sister, and I'm the one paying her to defend Salander."

"I see."

"I can't, obviously, ask Annika to do this favour. She has to keep her conversations with Lisbeth confidential. I assume you've read about Lisbeth in the newspapers."

Jonasson nodded.

"She's been described as psychotic, and as a mentally ill lesbian mass murderer. All that is nonsense. Lisbeth Salander is not psychotic. She is probably as sane as you and I. And her sexual preferences are nobody's business."