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

"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 started the engine. She let Salander direct her to the address. They stopped short of the building.

"OK," Giannini said. "We'll give it a try. Here are my conditions. I agree to represent you. When I call 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 do 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 acting 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 via 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. OK, 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 almost vulnerable.

"That's all right, 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, July 16-Friday, October 7

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 mail 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 quart 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. 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 Djurgarden. 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 Fucking Blomkvist. And maybe even Erika Fucking Berger with the dimples and the expensive clothes and all that self-assurance.

But it was over. Giannini had said so 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 TV and probably win some fucking 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 pants, 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 rode out to Arlanda Airport and arrived just before 6:00. She studied the departure board and booked a ticket for the morning flight to Malaga. 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 landed in Malaga in the blazing midday heat. She stood inside the terminal building for a moment, feeling uncertain. Then 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 1,398-foot 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 mangoes 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 onto a wall next 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 it was OK.

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.