Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest, The - Stieg Larsson [136]
“Don’t bullshit me. You make 112,000 kronor a month, if you add in your annual bonus. That’s off the wall. If the newspaper were stable and bringing in a tremendous profit, then pay out as much as you want in bonuses. But this is no time for you to be increasing your own bonus. I propose cutting all management salaries by half.”
“What you don’t understand is that our shareholders bought stock in the paper because they want to make money. That’s called capitalism. If you arrange that they’re going to lose money, then they won’t want to be shareholders any longer.”
“I’m not suggesting that they should lose money, though it might come to that. Ownership implies responsibility. As you yourself have pointed out, capitalism is what matters here. S.M.P.’s owners want to make a profit. But it’s the market decides whether you make a profit or take a loss. By your reasoning, you want the rules of cap italism to apply solely to the employees of S.M.P., while you and the shareholders will be exempt.”
Sellberg rolled his eyes and sighed. He cast an entreating glance at Borgsjö, but the chairman of the board was intently studying Berger’s nine-point program.
Figuerola waited for forty-nine minutes before Mårtensson and his companion in overalls came out of Bellmansgatan 1. As they started up the hill towards her, she very steadily raised her Nikon with its 300mm telephoto lens and took two pictures. She put the camera in the space under her seat and was just about to fiddle with her map when she happened to glance towards the Maria lift. Her eyes opened wide. At the end of upper Bellmansgatan, right next to the gate to the Maria lift, stood a dark-haired woman with a digital camera filming Mårtensson and his companion. What the hell? Is there some sort of spy convention on Bellmansgatan today?
The two men parted at the top of the hill without exchanging a word. Mårtensson went back to his car on Tavastgatan. He pulled away from the curb and disappeared from view.
Figuerola looked into her rear-view mirror, where she could still see the back of the man in the blue overalls. She then saw that the woman with the camera had stopped filming and was heading past the Laurinska building in her direction.
Heads or tails? She already knew who Mårtensson was and what he was up to. The man in the blue overalls and the woman with the camera were unknown entities. But if she left her car, she risked being seen by the woman.
She sat still. In her rear-view mirror she saw the man in the blue overalls turn into Brännkyrkagatan. She waited until the woman reached the crossing in front of her, but instead of following the man in the overalls, the woman turned 180 degrees and went down the steep hill towards Bellmansgatan 1. Figuerola reckoned that she was in her mid-thirties. She had short dark hair and was dressed in dark jeans and a black jacket. As soon as she was a little way down the hill, Figuerola pushed open her car door and ran towards Brännkyrkagatan. She could not see the blue overalls. The next second a Toyota van pulled away from the kerb. Figuerola saw the man in half-profile and memorized the registration number. But if she got the registration wrong she would be able to trace him anyway. The sides of the van advertised Lars Faulsson Lock and Key Service – with a telephone number.
There was no need to follow the van. She walked calmly back to the top of the hill just in time to see the woman disappear through the entrance door of Blomkvist’s building.
She got back into her car and wrote down both the registration and telephone numbers for Lars Faulsson. There was a lot of mysterious traffic around Blomkvist’s address that morning. She looked up towards the roof of Bellmansgatan 1. She knew that Blomkvist’s apartment was on the top floor, but on the blueprints from the city construction office she knew that it was on the other side of the building, with dormer windows looking out on Gamla Stan and the waters of Riddarfjärden. An exclusive address in a fine old cultural quarter. She wondered whether he was an ostentatious