Girl Who Played with Fire, The - Stieg Larsson [221]
But she still didn’t understand the whole picture. Zalachenko had suddenly sprung to life again after all these years. He was in danger of being exposed by Svensson. Two shots. Svensson and Johansson. A gun with her fingerprints on it…
Zalachenko or whoever he sent to carry out the executions could not have known that she had found the revolver in the box in Bjurman’s desk drawer and handled it. It had been pure chance, but for her it had already been clear from the start that there had to be a connection between Bjurman and Zala.
Yet the story still did not add up. She mulled it over, trying out the pieces of the puzzle one by one.
There was only one reasonable answer.
Bjurman.
Bjurman had done his investigation into her life. He had discovered the connection. He had turned to Zalachenko.
She had the video of Bjurman raping her. That was her sword over his neck. Perhaps he dreamed that Zalachenko would force her into giving it up.
She hopped down from the window seat, opened her desk drawer, and took out the DVD with BJURMAN written on it in marker pen. She had not even put it in a plastic sleeve. She had not looked at it since she had given Bjurman his very own screening two years ago. She weighed it in her hand and put it back in the drawer.
Bjurman was a fool. If he’d only kept his distance she would have released him as soon as he’d managed to get her declaration of incompetence rescinded. He would have been transformed forever into Zalachenko’s lapdog, and that would have been a fair punishment.
Zalachenko’s network. Some of the tentacles went all the way to Svavelsjö MC.
The blond giant.
He was her key.
She had to find him and force him to tell her where Zalachenko was.
She lit another cigarette and looked out at the citadel next to Skeppsholmen. She looked across to the roller coaster at Gröna Lund. She was talking to herself. And in a voice she had heard once in a film, she said:
Daaaaddyyyyy, I’m coming to get yoooou.
At 7:30 she turned on the TV to catch up on the latest developments in the hunt for Lisbeth Salander. She was stunned by what she saw.
Bublanski finally got hold of Faste on his mobile just after 8:00 in the evening. No pleasantries were exchanged. He did not ask what Faste had been up to, but coolly gave him his instructions.
Faste had had more than he could bear of the circus at headquarters that morning and had done something he had never done before on duty. He went out on the town. He turned off his mobile and sat in the bar at Central Station and drank two beers while he boiled with rage.
Then he went home, took a shower, and went to bed.
He needed to catch up on his sleep.
He woke up in time for Rapport and his eyes almost popped out of his head when he heard the top stories. Bodies dug up in Nykvarn. Salander had shot a leader of Svavelsjö MC. Police hunt through the southern suburbs. The net was tightening.
He turned on his mobile.
Almost immediately that fucker Bublanski called. He said that the investigation was now redirecting its focus to identifying an alternative killer, and that Faste was to relieve Holmberg at the crime scene in Nykvarn. During the wrapping up of the Salander investigation Faste was supposed to be collecting cigarette butts in the woods. Other people would be hunting Salander.
What the hell did Svavelsjö MC have to do with all this?
Suppose there was something to the reasoning of that fucking dyke Modig.
It wasn’t possible.
It had to be Salander.
He wanted to be the one who caught her. He wanted to catch her so badly that it almost made his hands hurt as he held his mobile.
Palmgren calmly watched Blomkvist pace back and forth in front of the window in the small room. It was getting on towards 7:30 in the evening, and they had been talking nonstop for almost an hour. At last Palmgren tapped on the tabletop