Girl Who Played with Fire, The - Stieg Larsson [178]
“But Bjurman must have been the first victim, since we found the murder weapon in Enskede. That would mean that she shot Bjurman sometime after 9:34 and then drove to Enskede, where she bought her cigarettes. Was there enough time to get from Odenplan to Enskede?”
“Yes, there was. She didn’t take public transportation as we assumed earlier. She had a car. Sonny Bohman and I test-drove the route and we had plenty of time.”
“But then she waits for an hour before she shoots Svensson and Johansson? What was she doing all that time?”
“She had coffee with them. We have her prints on the cup.”
He gave her a triumphant look. Modig sighed and sat silently for a minute.
“Hans, you’re looking at this like it’s some sort of prestige thing. You can be a fucking shithead and you drive people crazy sometimes, but I actually knocked on your door to ask you to forgive me for slapping you. I was out of line.”
He looked at her for a long moment. “Modig, you might think I’m a shithead. But I think you’re unprofessional and don’t have any business being a police officer. At least not at this level.”
Modig weighed various replies, but in the end she just shrugged and stood up.
“Well, now we know where we stand.”
“We know where we stand. And believe me, you’re not going to last long here.”
Modig closed the door behind her harder than she meant to. Don’t let that fucking asshole get to you. She went down to the garage.
Faste smiled contentedly at the closed door.
Blomkvist had just gotten home when his mobile rang.
“Hi. It’s Malin. Can you talk?”
“Sure.”
“Something struck me yesterday.”
“Tell me.”
“I was going through all the clippings we have here on the hunt for Salander, and I found that spread on her time at the psychiatric clinic. What I’m wondering is why there’s such a big gap in her biography.”
“What gap?”
“There’s plenty of stuff about the trouble she was mixed up in at school. Trouble with teachers and classmates and so on.”
“I remember that. There was even a teacher who said she was afraid of Lisbeth when she was eleven.”
“Birgitta Miåås.”
“That’s the one.”
“And there are details about Lisbeth at the psychiatric clinic. Plus a lot of stuff about her with foster families during her teens and about the assault in Gamla Stan.”
“So what are you thinking?”
“She was taken into the clinic just before her thirteenth birthday.”
“Yes?”
“And there isn’t a word about why she was committed. Obviously if a twelve-year-old is committed, something has to have happened. And in Lisbeth’s case it was most likely some huge outburst that should have shown up in her biography. But there’s nothing there.”
Blomkvist frowned. “Malin, I have it from a source I trust that there’s a police report on Lisbeth dated March 1991, when she was twelve. It’s not in the file. I was at the point of asking you to dig around for it.”
“If there’s a report then it would have to be a part of her file. It would be breaking the law not to have it there. Have you really checked?”
“No, but my source says that it’s not in the file.”
Eriksson paused for a second. “And how reliable is your source?”
“Very.”
Eriksson and Blomkvist had arrived at the same conclusion simultaneously.
“Säpo,” Eriksson said.
“Björck,” Blomkvist said.
CHAPTER 24
Monday, April 4–Tuesday, April 5
Per-Åke Sandström, a freelance journalist in his late forties, came home just after midnight. He was a little drunk and felt a lump of panic lurking in his stomach. He had spent the day doing nothing. He was, quite simply, terrified.
It was almost two weeks since Svensson had been killed. Sandström had watched the TV news that night in shock. He had felt a wave of relief and hope—Svensson was dead, so maybe the book about trafficking, in which Sandström would be exposed, was history.
He hated Svensson. He had begged and pleaded, he had crawled for that fucking pig.
It was not