Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest, The - Stieg Larsson [15]
“What’s the status of the search?”
“We’re keeping an eye on all trains arriving in Stockholm and Malmö. There is a nationwide A.P.B. out and we’ve alerted the police in Norway and Denmark. Right now we have about thirty officers working directly on the investigation, and of course the whole force is keeping their eyes peeled.”
“No leads?”
“No, nothing yet. But someone with Niedermann’s distinctive appearance is not going to go unnoticed for long.”
“Does anyone know about Torstensson’s condition?” asked one of the inspectors from Violent Crime.
“He’s at Sahlgrenska. His injuries seem to be similar to those of a car crash victim – it’s hardly credible that anyone could do such damage with his bare hands: a broken leg, ribs crushed, cervical vertebrae injured, plus there’s a risk that he may be paralysed.”
They all took stock of their colleague’s plight for a few moments until Spångberg turned to Erlander.
“Marcus … tell us what really happened at Gosseberga.”
“Thomas Paulsson happened at Gosseberga.”
A ripple of groans greeted this response.
“Can’t someone give that man early retirement? He’s a walking catastrophe.”
“I know all about Paulsson,” Spångberg interrupted. “But I haven’t heard any complaints about him in the last … well, not for the past two years. In what way has he become harder to handle?”
“The police chief up there is an old friend of Paulsson’s, and he’s probably been trying to protect him. With all good intentions, of course, and I don’t mean to criticize him. But last night Paulsson’s behaviour was so bizarre that several of his people mentioned it to me.”
“In what way bizarre?”
Erlander glanced at Modig and Holmberg. He was embarrassed to be discussing flaws in their organization in front of the visitors from Stockholm.
“As far as I’m concerned, the strangest thing was that he detailed one of the techs to make an inventory of everything in the woodshed – where we found the Zalachenko guy?”
“An inventory of what in the woodshed?” Spångberg wanted to know.
“Yes … well … he said he needed to know exactly how many pieces of wood were in there. So that the report would be accurate.”
There was a charged silence around the conference table before Erlander went on.
“And this morning it came out that Paulsson has been taking at least two different antidepressants. He should have been on sick leave, but no-one knew about his condition.”
“What condition?” Spångberg said sharply.
“Well, obviously I don’t know what’s wrong with him – patient’s confidentiality and all that – but the drugs he’s taking are strong ataractics on the one hand, and stimulants. He was high as a kite all night.”
“Good God,” said Spångberg emphatically. She looked like the thundercloud that had swept over Göteborg that morning. “I want Paulsson in here for a chat. Right now.”
“He collapsed this morning and was admitted to the hospital suffering from exhaustion. It was just our bad luck that he happened to be on rotation.”
“May I ask … Paulsson, did he arrest Mikael Blomkvist last night?”
“He wrote a report citing offensive behaviour, aggressive resistance to police officers, and illegal possession of a weapon. That’s what he put in the report.”
“What does Blomkvist say?”
“He concedes that he was insulting, but he claims it was in self-defence. He says that the resistance consisted of a forceful verbal attempt to prevent Torstensson and Ingemarsson from going to pick up Niedermann alone, without back-up.”
“Witnesses?”
“Well, there is Torstensson. I don’t believe Paulsson’s claim of aggressive resistance for a minute. It’s a typical pre-emptive retaliation to undermine potential complaints from Blomkvist.”
“But Blomkvist managed to overpower Niedermann all by himself, did he not?” Prosecutor Jervas said.
“By holding a gun to him.”
“So Blomkvist had a gun. Then there was some basis for his arrest after all. Where did he get the weapon?”
“Blomkvist won’t discuss it without his lawyer being there. And Paulsson arrested Blomkvist when he was trying to hand in the weapon