Girl Who Played with Fire, The - Stieg Larsson [200]
To top it off, Bjurman had fetched his cowboy pistol to threaten him. The giant had just looked at Bjurman in surprise and had taken the gun from him. He was already wearing gloves, so fingerprints weren’t a problem. He had no choice. Bjurman had obviously flipped out.
Bjurman knew about Zala, of course. That was why he was a liability. The giant couldn’t really explain why he made Bjurman take off his clothes, except that he hated the lawyer and wanted to make that clear to him. He had almost lost it when he saw the tattoo on Bjurman’s abdomen: I AM A SADISTIC PIG, A PERVERT, AND A RAPIST.
For a moment he almost felt sorry for the man. He was such a total idiot. But he was in a business where such feelings could not be allowed to interfere with what they had to do. So he had led Bjurman into the bedroom, forced him to his knees, and used a pillow as a silencer.
He had spent five minutes searching through Bjurman’s apartment for the slightest connection to Zala. The only thing he found was his own mobile number. To be on the safe side he took Bjurman’s mobile with him.
Svensson was the next problem. When Bjurman was found dead, Svensson would inevitably call the police and tell them about his call to the lawyer to ask about Zala. Zala would then become the object of police interest.
The blond giant considered himself smart, but he had an enormous respect for Zala’s almost uncanny strategic gifts. They had been working together for nearly twelve years. It had been a successful decade, and he looked up to Zala with reverence. He could listen for hours as Zala explained human nature and its weaknesses and how one could profit from them.
But quite unexpectedly their business dealings were in trouble.
He had driven straight from Bjurman’s to Enskede and parked the white Volvo two streets away. As luck would have it, the front door of the building was not locked. He went up and rang the doorbell with the nameplate SVENSSON-JOHANSSON.
He had fired two shots—there was a woman in the apartment too. He didn’t search the apartment or take any of their papers with him. He did take a computer that was on the table in the living room. He turned on his heel, went down the stairs, and out to his car. His only mistake had been dropping the revolver on the stairs while he was trying to balance the laptop and at the same time fish out his car keys. He stopped for a second, but the gun had skittered down the stairs to the basement, and he decided it would take too much time to go down and get it. He knew he was someone people would not forget having seen, so the important thing was to get out of there before anyone laid eyes on him.
The dropped revolver had been at first a source of criticism until Zala realized its implications. They were astonished when the police began a search for Salander. His mistake had turned into an incredible stroke of luck.
It also created a new problem. Salander became the only remaining weak link. She had known Bjurman and she knew Zala. She could put two and two together. When he and Zala conferred about the matter they were in agreement. They had to find Salander and bury her somewhere. It would be ideal if she were never found. Then the murder investigation would eventually be shelved.
They had taken a chance that Miriam Wu could lead them to Salander. And then everything had gone wrong again. Paolo Roberto. Of all people. Out of nowhere. And according to the newspapers he was also friends with Salander.
The giant was dumbfounded.
After Nykvarn he had gone to Lundin’s house in Svavelsjö, only a hundred yards from Svavelsjö MC’s headquarters. Not an ideal hiding place, but he didn’t have many options. He had to find somewhere to lie low until the bruises on his face began to fade and he could make himself scarce. He fingered his broken nose and felt the lump on his neck. The swelling had begun to subside.
It had been a good move to go back and burn down the whole fucking place.
Then, suddenly, he went