Girl Who Played with Fire, The - Stieg Larsson [118]
“But how sure are we?”
He shrugged. “We’ve taken people in for a lot less.”
“Her prints were on the murder weapon in Enskede. Her guardian was murdered. Without trying to get ahead of things, I’m guessing it’s the same weapon that was used here. We’ll know tomorrow—the techs found a fairly intact bullet fragment in the bed frame.”
“Good.”
“There are some rounds for the revolver in the bottom desk drawer. Bullets with uranium cores and gold tips.”
“Very useful.”
“We have lots of paperwork that says Salander is unstable. Bjurman was her guardian and he owned the gun.”
“Mmm …,” Bublanski said glumly.
“We have a link between Salander and the couple in Enskede—Mikael Blomkvist.”
“Mmm …,” he said again.
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“I can’t get a clear line on Salander. The paperwork says one thing, but Armansky and Blomkvist say something else. According to the paperwork she is a developmentally disabled near-psychopath. According to the two men who have worked with her, she’s a skilled researcher. That’s a huge discrepancy. We have no motive for Bjurman and nothing to say that she knew the couple in Enskede.”
“How much of a motive does a psychotic nutcase need?”
“I haven’t been in the bedroom yet. How does it look?”
“I found the body prostrate against the bed. He was kneeling on the floor as if he were saying his prayers. He’s naked. Shot in the back of the neck.”
“One shot, just like in Enskede?”
“As far as I could see. It seems that Salander, if she’s the one who did it, forced him onto his knees by the bed before she fired. The bullet went up through the back of his head and exited through his face.”
“Like an execution, then.”
“Precisely.”
“I was thinking … somebody must have heard the shot.”
“His bedroom overlooks the rear courtyard, and the neighbours above and below had left for the holiday. The window was closed. Besides, she used a pillow to muffle the sound.”
“Smart thinking.”
At that moment Gunnar Samuelsson from forensics stuck his head in the door.
“Hi, Bubble,” he said, and then turned to his colleague. “Modig, we were thinking of removing the body, so we turned him over. There’s something you ought to take a look at.”
They all went into the bedroom. Bjurman’s body had been placed on its back on a wheeled stretcher, the first stop on the way to the pathologist. There was no doubt about the cause of death. His forehead bore a wound four inches across, and a large part of his skull was hanging by a flap of skin. The blood splattered across the bed and the wall told the tale.
Bublanski pouted.
“What are we supposed to be looking at?” Modig asked.
Samuelsson lifted the plastic sheet which covered Bjurman’s lower body. Bublanski put on his glasses when he and Modig stepped closer to read the text tattooed on Bjurman’s abdomen. The letters were irregular and clumsy—obviously whoever wrote them was a novice tattoo artist—but the message could not have been clearer: I AM A SADISTIC PIG, A PERVERT, AND A RAPIST.
Modig and Bublanski looked at each other in astonishment.
“Are we possibly looking at a motive?” Modig said at last.
Blomkvist bought a pasta meal from the 7-Eleven on his way home and put the paper carton in the microwave as he undressed and stood under the shower for three minutes. He got a fork and ate standing up, right out of the carton. He was hungry, but he had no appetite for food; he just wanted to take it on board as fast as he could. When it was finished he opened a Vestfyn Pilsner beer and drank it straight from the bottle.
Without turning on a lamp he stood by the window overlooking Gamla Stan for more than twenty minutes, while he tried to stop thinking.
Twenty-four hours ago he had been at his sister’s house when Svensson had called him on his mobile. He and Johansson had still been alive.
Blomkvist had not slept for thirty-six hours, and the days when he could skip a night’s sleep with impunity were long gone. And he knew that he would not be able to sleep without thinking