Girl Who Played with Fire, The - Stieg Larsson [213]
“Our theory is that the murders were committed to prevent some part of Dag’s exposé from reaching the light of day. But we don’t know who the killer was. Mikael is focusing on someone who goes by the name of Zala.”
Modig turned to look at Millennium’s editor in chief. Berger held out two mugs of coffee. They were decorated with the logos of the civil service union HTF and the Christian Democratic Party, respectively. Berger smiled sweetly and went back to her office.
She came out again three minutes later.
“Inspector Modig, your boss has just called. Your mobile is off. He wants you to call him.”
An APB was sent out to say that Lisbeth Salander had at last surfaced. The bulletin indicated that she was probably riding a Harley-Davidson and contained the warning that she was armed and had shot someone at a summer cabin in the vicinity of Stallarholmen.
The police set up roadblocks on routes into Strängnäs, Mariefred, and Södertälje. Every commuter train between Södertälje and Stockholm was searched that evening. But no-one answering to Salander’s description was found.
At around 7:00 p.m. a police patrol found the Harley-Davidson outside the fairground in Älvsjö, and that shifted the focus of the search from Södertälje to Stockholm. The report from Älvsjö said that part of a leather jacket with the insignia of Svavelsjö MC had also been found. News of the find made Inspector Bublanski push his glasses up on his head and peer glumly at the darkness outside his office on Kungsholmen.
The day’s developments had led to nothing but bafflement. The kidnapping of Salander’s girlfriend, the inexplicable involvement of the boxer Paolo Roberto, the arson near Södertälje, and bodies buried in the woods there. And finally this bizarre business in Stallarholmen.
Bublanski went out to the main office and looked at the map of Stockholm and its environs. He found Stallarholmen, Nykvarn, Svavelsjö, and finally Älvsjö, the four places that for apparently different reasons were of current interest. He moved his gaze to Enskede and sighed. He had the unpleasant feeling that the police investigation was many miles behind the unfolding events. Whatever the Enskede murders had been about, it was much more complicated than they had supposed.
Blomkvist was unaware of the drama at Stallarholmen. He left Små-dalarö around 3:00 in the afternoon. He stopped at a gas station and had some coffee as he tried to make sense of what he had discovered.
He was surprised that Björck had given him so many details, but the man had absolutely refused to give him the last piece of the puzzle: Zalachenko’s Swedish identity.
“We had a deal,” Blomkvist said.
“And I’ve fulfilled my part of it. I’ve told you who Zalachenko is. If you want more than that we’ll have to make a new agreement. I’ll need guarantees that my name will be taken out of all your research material. And I’ll need guarantees that you won’t write about me at all in connection with the Zalachenko story.”
Blomkvist was willing to go so far as to treat Björck as an anonymous source in connection with the background story, but he could not guarantee that Björck would not be identified by anyone else—the police, for example.
“I’m not worried about the police,” Björck said.
They agreed in the end to think about everything for a day or so before resuming their conversation.
As Blomkvist sat drinking his coffee, he felt that there was something right in front of his nose that he wasn’t seeing. He was so close that he could sense shapes, but he couldn’t bring the picture into focus. Then it came to him that there was another person who might be able to shed some light on the story. He was quite close to the rehabilitation home in Ersta. He checked his watch. He would go to see Holger Palmgren.
After the meeting Björck was exhausted. His back hurt worse than ever. He took three painkillers and had to stretch out on the sofa in