Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest, The - Stieg Larsson [212]
Salander had spent the night in Kronoberg prison in a two-by-four-metre cell. The furnishings were pretty basic, but she had fallen asleep within minutes of the key being turned in the lock. Early on Monday morning she was up and obediently doing the stretching exercises prescribed for her by the physio at Sahlgrenska. Breakfast was then brought to her, and she sat on her cot and stared into space.
At 9.30 she was led to an interrogation cell at the end of the corridor. The guard was a short, bald, old man with a round face and hornrimmed glasses. He was polite and cheerful.
Giannini greeted her affectionately. Salander ignored Faste. She was meeting Prosecutor Ekström for the first time, and she spent the next half hour sitting on a chair staring stonily at a spot on the wall just above Ekström’s head. She said nothing and she did not move a muscle.
At 10.00 Ekström broke off the fruitless interrogation. He was annoyed not to be able to get the slightest response out of her. For the first time he felt uncertain as he observed the thin, doll-like young woman. How was it possible that she could have beaten up those two thugs Lundin and Nieminen in Stallarholmen? Would the court really believe that story, even if he did have convincing evidence?
Salander was brought a simple lunch at noon and spent the next hour solving equations in her head. She focused on an area of spherical astronomy from a book she had read two years earlier.
At 2.30 she was led back to the interrogation cell. This time her guard was a young woman. Salander sat on a chair in the empty cell and pondered a particularly intricate equation.
After ten minutes the door opened.
“Hello, Lisbeth.” A friendly tone. It was Teleborian.
He smiled at her, and she froze. The components of the equation she had constructed in the air before her came tumbling to the ground. She could hear the numbers and mathematical symbols bouncing and clattering as if they had physical form.
Teleborian stood still for a minute and looked at her before he sat down on the other side of the table. She continued to stare at the same spot on the wall.
After a while she met his eyes.
“I’m sorry that you’ve ended up in this situation,” Teleborian said. “I’m going to try to help you in every way I can. I hope we can establish some level of mutual trust.”
Salander examined every inch of him. The dishevelled hair. The beard. The little gap between his front teeth. The thin lips. The brand-new brown jacket. The shirt open at the neck. She listened to his smooth and treacherously friendly voice.
“I also hope that I can be of more help to you than the last time we met.”
He placed a small notebook and pen on the table. Salander lowered her eyes and looked at the pen. It was a pointed, silver-coloured tube.
Risk assessment.
She suppressed an impulse to reach out and grab the pen.
Her eyes sought the little finger of his left hand. She saw a faint white mark where fifteen years earlier she had sunk in her teeth and locked her jaws so hard that she almost bit his finger off. It had taken three guards to hold her down and prise open her jaws.
I was a scared little girl barely into my teens then. Now I’m a grown woman. I can kill you whenever I want.
Again she fixed her eyes on the spot on the wall, and gathered up the scattered numbers and symbols and began to reassemble the equation.
Teleborian studied Salander with a neutral expression. He had not become an internationally respected psychiatrist for nothing. He had a gift for reading emotions and moods. He could sense a cold shadow passing through the room, and interpreted this as a sign that the patient felt fear and shame beneath her imperturbable exterior. He assumed that she was reacting to his presence, and was pleased that her attitude towards him had not changed over the years. She’s going to hang herself in the district court.
Berger’s final act at S.M.P. was to write a memo to the staff. To begin with her mood was angry, and she filled two pages explaining why she was resigning,