Girl Who Played with Fire, The - Stieg Larsson [109]
“Which you haven’t done?”
“I haven’t spoken to her since the day after Christmas a year ago.”
“Why did your—if relationship is the right word—why did it end?”
Blomkvist’s eyes darkened.
“I don’t know. She broke off contact with me—it happened practically overnight.”
“Did something happen between you?”
“No, not if you mean an argument or anything like that. One day we were good friends. The next day she didn’t answer her telephone. Then she melted into thin air and was gone from my life.”
Bublanski contemplated Blomkvist’s explanation. It sounded honest and was supported by the fact that Armansky had described her disappearance from Milton Security in similar terms. Something had apparently happened to Salander during the winter a year earlier. He turned to Berger.
“Do you know Salander too?”
“I met her once. Could you tell us why you’re asking questions about her in connection with Enskede?” she said.
Bublanski shook his head. “She has been linked to the crime scene. That’s all I can say. But I have to admit that the more I hear about Lisbeth Salander the more surprised I am. What is she like as a person?”
“In what respect?” Blomkvist said.
“How would you describe her?”
“Professionally—one of the best fact finders I have ever come across.”
Berger glanced at Blomkvist and bit her lower lip. Bublanski was convinced that some piece of the puzzle was missing and that they knew something they were unwilling to tell him.
“And privately?”
Blomkvist paused for a long moment before he spoke.
“She is a very lonely and odd person,” Blomkvist said. “Socially introverted. Doesn’t like talking about herself. At the same time she’s a person with a strong will. She has morals.”
“Morals?”
“Yes. Her own particular moral standards. You can’t talk her into doing anything against her will. In her world, things are either right or wrong, so to speak.”
Again Blomkvist had described her in the same terms as Armansky had. Two men who knew her, and the same evaluation.
“Do you know Dragan Armansky?”
“We’ve met a few times. I took him out for a beer once last year when I was trying to find out where Lisbeth had got to.”
“And you say that she was a competent researcher?”
“The best,” Blomkvist said.
Bublanski drummed his fingers on the table and looked down at the flow of people on Götgatan. He felt strangely torn. The psychiatric reports that Faste had retrieved from the Guardianship Agency claimed that Salander was a deeply disturbed and possibly violent person who was for all intents and purposes mentally handicapped. What Armansky and Blomkvist had told him painted a very different picture from the one established by medical experts over several years of study. Both men conceded that Salander was an odd person, but both held her in high regard professionally.
Blomkvist had also said that he had been “seeing her” for a period—which indicated a sexual relationship. Bublanski wondered what rules applied for individuals who had been declared incompetent. Could Blomkvist have implicated himself in some form of abuse by exploiting a person in a position of dependency?
“And how did you perceive her social handicap?” he asked.
“What handicap?”
“The guardianship and her psychiatric problems.”
“Guardianship?”
“What psychiatric problems?” Berger said.
Bublanski looked in astonishment from Blomkvist to Berger and back. They didn’t know. They really did not know. Bublanski was suddenly angry at both Armansky and Blomkvist, and especially at Berger with her elegant clothes and her fashionable office looking down on Götgatan. Here she sits, telling people what to think. But he directed his annoyance at Blomkvist.
“I don’t understand what’s wrong with you and Armansky,” he said.
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Lisbeth Salander has been in and out of psychiatric units since she was a teenager. A psychiatric assessment and a judgment in the district court determined