Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest, The - Stieg Larsson [200]
At 10.00 on Sunday morning Jonasson came into Salander’s room.
“Hello, Lisbeth.”
“Hello.”
“Just thought I’d warn you: the police are coming at lunchtime.”
“Fine.”
“You don’t seem worried.”
“I’m not.”
“I have a present for you.”
“A present? What for?”
“You’ve been one of my most interesting patients in a long time.”
“You don’t say,” Salander said sceptically.
“I heard that you’re fascinated by D.N.A. and genetics.”
“Who’s been gossiping? That psychologist lady, I bet.”
Jonasson nodded. “If you get bored in prison … this is the latest thing on D.N.A. research.”
He handed her a brick of a book entitled Spirals – Mysteries of DNA, by Professor Yoshito Takamura of Tokyo University. Salander opened it and studied the table of contents.
“Beautiful,” she said.
“Someday I’d be interested to hear how it is that you can read academic texts that even I can’t understand.”
As soon as Jonasson had left the room, she took out her Palm. Last chance. From S.M.P.’s personnel department Salander had learned that Fredriksson had worked at the paper for six years. During that time he had been off sick for two extended periods: two months in 2003 and three months in 2004. From the personnel files she concluded that the reason in both instances was burnout. Berger’s predecessor Morander had on one occasion questioned whether Fredriksson should indeed stay on as assistant editor.
Yak, yak, yak. Nothing concrete to go on.
At 11.45 Plague pinged her.
Salander logged off from I.C.Q. She glanced at the clock and realized that it would soon be lunchtime. She rapidly composed a message that she addressed to the Yahoo group [Idiotic_Table]:
Mikael. Important. Call Berger right away and tell her Fredriksson is Poison Pen.
The instant she sent the message she heard movement in the corridor. She polished the screen of her Palm Tungsten T3 and then switched it off and placed it in the recess behind the bedside table.
“Hello, Lisbeth.” It was Giannini in the doorway.
“Hello.”
“The police are coming for you in a while. I’ve brought you some clothes. I hope they’re the right size.”
Salander looked distrustfully at the selection of neat, dark-coloured linen trousers and pastel-coloured blouses.
Two uniformed Göteborg policewomen came to get her. Giannini was to go with them to the prison.
As they walked from her room down the corridor, Salander noticed that several of the staff were watching her with curiosity. She gave them a friendly nod, and some of them waved back. As if by chance, Jonasson was standing by the reception desk. They looked at each other and nodded. Even before they had turned the corner Salander noticed that he was heading for her room.
During the entire procedure of transporting her to the prison, Salander did not say a word to the police.
Blomkvist had closed his iBook at 7.00 on Sunday morning. He sat for a moment at Salander’s desk listless, staring into space.
Then he went to her bedroom and looked at her gigantic, king-size bed. After a while he went back to her office and flipped open his mobile to call Figuerola.
“Hi. It’s Mikael.”
“Hello there. Are you already up?”
“I’ve just finished working and I’m on my way to bed. I just wanted to call and say hello.”
“Men who just want to call and say hello generally have ulterior motives.”
He laughed.
“Blomkvist … you could come here and sleep if you like.”
“I’d be wretched company.”
“I’ll get used to it.”
He took a taxi to Pontonjärgatan.
Berger spent Sunday in bed with her husband. They lay there talking and dozing. In the afternoon they got dressed and went for a walk down to the steamship dock.
“S.M.P. was a mistake,” Berger said when they got home.
“Don’t say that. Right now it’s tough, but you knew it would be. Things will calm down after you’ve been there a while.”
“It’s not the job. I can handle that. It’s the atmosphere.”
“I see.”
“I don’t like it there, but on the other hand I can’t walk out after a few weeks.”
She sat at the kitchen table and stared morosely into space.