Girl Who Played with Fire, The - Stieg Larsson [177]
Even if a motive for the murders of Svensson and Johansson was still unclear, Salander had been at the crime scene and her fingerprints were on the murder weapon.
The weapon was also directly linked to the murder of Bjurman. There was a personal connection and a possible motive—the decoration on Bjurman’s abdomen raised the possibility of some form of sexual assault or a sadomasochistic relationship between the two. It was impossible to imagine Bjurman having voluntarily submitted to such a bizarre and painful tattoo. Either he had found pleasure in the humiliation or Salander—if she was the one who had done the tattooing—had first made him powerless. How it had actually happened was not something Modig wanted to speculate about.
On the other hand, Teleborian had confirmed that Salander’s violence was directed at people whom she regarded as a threat or who had offended her.
He had seemed genuinely protective, as if he did not want his former patient to come to any harm. All the same, the investigation had been based largely on his analysis of her—as a sociopath on the border of psychosis.
But Blomkvist’s theory was attractive.
She chewed her lower lip as she tried to visualize some alternative scenario to Salander the killer, working alone. Finally she wrote a line in her notebook.
Two completely separate motives? Two murderers? One murder weapon?
She had a fleeting thought that she could not quite pin down, but it was something she intended to ask Bublanski at the morning meeting. She could not explain why she suddenly felt so uncomfortable with the theory of Salander as a killer working alone.
Then she called it a night, resolutely shut down her computer, and locked the disks in her desk drawer. She put on her jacket, turned off the desk lamp, and was just about to lock the door to her office when she heard a sound further down the corridor. She frowned. She had thought she was alone in the department. She walked down the corridor to Faste’s office. His door was ajar and she heard him talking on the phone.
“It undeniably links things together,” she heard him say.
She stood undecided for a moment before she took a deep breath and knocked on the doorjamb. Faste looked up in surprise. She waved.
“Modig is still in the building,” Faste said into the phone. He listened and nodded without releasing her from his gaze. “OK, I’ll tell her.” He hung up. “Bubble,” he said in explanation. “What do you want?”
“What is it that links things together?” she asked.
He gave her a searching look. “Were you eavesdropping?”
“No, but your door was open and I heard you say that just as I knocked.”
Faste shrugged. “I called Bubble to tell him that the NFL have finally come up with something useful.”
“What’s that?”
“Svensson had a mobile with a Comviq cash card. They’ve produced a list of calls which confirms the conversation with Mikael Blomkvist at 7:30 p.m. That’s when Blomkvist was at dinner at his sister’s house.”
“Good. But I don’t think Blomkvist has anything to do with the murders.”
“Me neither. But Svensson made another call that night. At 9:34. The call lasted three minutes.”
“And?”
“He called Nils Bjurman’s home phone. In other words, there’s a link between the two murders.”
Modig sank down into Faste’s visitor’s chair.
“Sure. Have a seat, be my guest.”
She ignored him.
“OK. What does the time frame look like? At 7:30 Svensson calls Blomkvist and sets up a meeting for later that evening. At 9:30 Svensson calls Bjurman. Just before closing time at 10:00 Salander buys cigarettes at the corner shop in Enskede. Soon after 11:00 Blomkvist and his sister arrive in Enskede and at 11:11 he calls the police.”
“That seems to be correct, Miss Marple.”
“But it isn’t correct at all. According to the pathologist, Bjurman was shot between 10:00 and 11:00 that night. By which time Salander was in Enskede. We’ve been working on the assumption that Salander shot Bjurman first and then the couple in Enskede.”
“That doesn’t mean a thing.