Girl Who Played with Fire, The - Stieg Larsson [172]
It was a hell of a mess. Not at all the way she wanted to end her tenure at Millennium.
On Sunday evening Salander opened Asphyxia 1.3 and went into the mirrored hard drive of MikBlom/laptop. He was not online and she read through the material that had been added in the past two days.
She read Blomkvist’s research journal and wondered whether he might be writing it in such detail for her sake, and if so, what that could mean. He knew that she was accessing his computer, so it was natural to conclude that he wanted her to read what he wrote. The real question, however, was what he was not writing. Since he knew she was accessing his machine, he could manipulate the flow of information. She noted in passing that he apparently hadn’t gotten much further with Bublanski than challenging him to some sort of a duel over her innocence. This annoyed her. Blomkvist was basing his conclusions on emotion rather than on facts. What a naive idiot.
But he had also zeroed in on Zala. Good thinking, Kalle Blomkvist.
Then she noticed with mild surprise that Paolo Roberto had popped up on the scene. That was good news. She smiled. She liked that cocky fucker. He was macho to his fingertips. He used to give her a pretty good drubbing when they met in the ring. The few times he managed to connect, that is.
Then she sat up in her chair when she decrypted and read Blomkvist’s most recent email to Berger.
Gunnar Björck. Säpo. Knows about Zala.
Björck knows Bjurman.
Salander’s eyes went blurry as she sketched a triangle in her mind. Zala. Bjurman. Björck. Yes, that makes sense. She had never looked at the problem from that perspective before. Maybe Blomkvist wasn’t so dumb after all. But of course he had not worked out the connection. She had not even done that herself, even though she had a lot more insight into what had happened. She thought for a while about Bjurman and realized that the fact he knew Björck turned him into a bigger roadblock than she had previously imagined.
She also realized that she would probably have to pay a visit to Små-dalarö.
Then she went into Blomkvist’s hard drive and created a new document in the folder which she called [Ring corner]. He would see it the next time he switched on his iBook.
Keep away from Teleborian. He’s evil.
Miriam Wu has absolutely nothing to do with this.
You’re right to focus on Zala. He’s the key. But you’re not going to find him in any public records.
There’s a connection between Bjurman and Zala. I don’t know what it is, but I’m working on it. Björck?
Important. There’s a damaging police report on me from March 1991. I don’t know the file number and can’t find it. Why hasn’t Ekström given it to the media? Answer: It’s not on his computer. Conclusion: He doesn’t know about it. How can that be possible?
She thought for a moment and then added a P.S.:
P.S. Mikael, I’m not innocent. But I didn’t kill Dag and Mia—I have nothing to do with their murders. I saw them that evening—before the murders occurred—but I left them before it happened. Thanks for believing in me. Say hello to Paolo Roberto and tell him he has a wimpy left hook.
P.P.S. How did you know about the Wennerström thing?
Blomkvist found Salander’s document some three hours later. He read the message line by line at least five times. For the first time she had clearly stated that she did not murder Svensson and Johansson. He believed her and felt enormous relief. And finally she was talking to him, although as cryptically as ever.
He also noted that she denied murdering Dag and Mia, but she said nothing about Bjurman. Which Blomkvist assumed was because he had mentioned only the two of them in his message. He thought for a while and then created [Ring