Girl Who Played with Fire, The - Stieg Larsson [46]
“And all three of you are agreed?” she said.
Three heads nodded. Vanger lifted her pen and signed. She shoved the cheque back across the table, and Blomkvist tore it up.
The partners of Millennium had dinner together at Samir’s Cauldron on Tavastgatan. It was a quiet party—to celebrate the new arrangement—with good wine and couscous with lamb. The conversation was relaxed, and Vanger was noticeably dazed. It felt a little like an uncomfortable first date: something is going to happen, but no-one knows exactly what it might be.
Vanger had to leave at 7:30. She excused herself by saying that she had to go to her hotel and get an early night. Berger was heading home to her husband and walked with her some of the way. They parted at Slussen. Blomkvist and Malm stayed on for a while before Malm excused himself and said that he too had to get home.
Vanger took a taxi to the Sheraton and went straight to her room on the eighth floor. She got undressed and had a bath and put on the hotel’s robe. Then she sat at the window and looked out towards Riddarholmen. She took a pack of Dunhills from her bag. She smoked three or four cigarettes a day, so few that she could consider herself a nonsmoker and still enjoy it without a guilty conscience.
At 9:00 there was a knock at the door. She opened it and let Blomkvist in.
“You scoundrel,” she said.
He smiled and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
“I really thought you guys were going to kick me out.”
“We never would have done it like that. Do you understand why we wanted to rewrite the contract?”
“Of course. It makes perfect sense.”
Blomkvist opened her robe and put a hand on her breast, caressing it cautiously.
“You scoundrel,” she said again.
Salander stopped at the door with a nameplate that said WU. She had seen a light from the street, and now she could hear music coming from inside. So Miriam Wu still lived here in the studio apartment on Tomtebogatan near St. Eriksplan. It was Friday evening, and Salander had half hoped that Mimmi would be out having fun somewhere. The only questions that remained to be answered were whether Mimmi still wanted to have anything to do with her and whether she was alone and available.
She rang the bell.
Mimmi opened the door and her eyebrows lifted in surprise. Then she leaned against the doorjamb and put her hand on her hip.
“Salander. I thought you were dead or something.”
“Or something.”
“What do you want?”
“There are many answers to that question.”
Miriam Wu looked around the stairwell before she again fixed her eyes on Salander.
“Try one.”
“Well, I just wanted to see whether you’re still single and might want some company tonight.”
Mimmi looked astonished for a few seconds and then laughed out loud.
“I know only one person who would even dream of ringing my bell after a year and a half’s silence to ask me if I wanted to fuck.”
“Do you want me to leave?”
Mimmi stopped laughing. She was quiet for a few seconds.
“Lisbeth … Jesus, you’re serious.”
Salander waited.
Finally Mimmi sighed and opened the door wide.
“Come on, then. I can at least offer you a coffee.”
Salander followed her in and sat on one of two stools by a small table in the hall. The apartment was about 250 square feet: one cramped room and a hall. The kitchen was little more than a niche for cooking in a corner of the hall. Mimmi had fixed a hose to the sink from the bathroom.
Mimmi’s mother was from Hong Kong, her father from Boden. Salander knew that her parents lived in Paris. Mimmi was studying sociology in Stockholm, and she had an older sister studying anthropology in the States. Her mother’s genes were visible in Mimmi’s raven black hair, cut short, and her slightly Asian features. Her father had given her the clear blue eyes. She had a wide mouth and dimples that did not come from either of her parents.
Mimmi was thirty-one. She liked to dress up in leather and go to clubs where they did performance art—sometimes she appeared in the shows. Salander had not been to a club