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By Root 6420 0

when he was put on probation and in institutional care for assault and battery and theft. Over the next ten years he was convicted on five counts of theft, one of aggravated theft, two of unlawful intimidation, two narcotics offences, extortion, assault on a civil servant, two counts of possessing an illegal weapon, one criminal weapons charge, driving under the influence, and six counts of assault. He had been sentenced according to a scale that was incomprehensible to Salander: probation, fines, and repeated stints of thirty to sixty days in jail, until 1989 when he was put away for ten months for aggravated assault and robbery. He was out a few months later and kept his nose clean until October 1990. Then he got into a fight in a bar in Södertälje and ended up with a conviction for manslaughter and a six-year prison sentence. He was out by 1995.

In 1996 he was arrested as an accessory to an armed robbery. He had provided three of the robbers with weapons. He was sentenced to four years and released in 1999. According to a newspaper article from 2001 in which Nieminen was not named—but where the details of the suspect were such that he was effectively identified—he looked more than likely to have played his part in the murder of a member of a rival gang.

Salander downloaded the mug shots of Nieminen and Lundin. Nieminen had a photogenic face with dark curly hair and dangerous eyes. Lundin just looked like a complete idiot, and was without doubt the man who had met the giant at Blomberg’s Café. Nieminen was the man waiting in McDonald’s.

Via the national vehicle register she traced the white Volvo to the car rental firm Auto-Expert in Eskilstuna. She dialled their number and spoke to a Refik Alba:

“My name is Gunilla Hansson. My dog was run over yesterday by someone who just drove off. The bastard was driving a car from your firm—I could tell from the licence plate. A white Volvo.” She gave the number.

“I’m so sorry.”

“That’s not enough, I’m afraid. I want the name of the driver so that I can sue him.”

“Have you reported the matter to the police?”

“No, I’d like to settle it directly.”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t give out the names of our clients unless a police report has been filed.”

Salander’s voice darkened. She asked whether it was good practice to oblige her to report the company’s clients to the police force instead of resolving matters with much less trouble. Refik Alba apologized once more and repeated that he was powerless to circumvent company rules.

• • •

The name Zala was another dead end. With two breaks for Billy’s Pan Pizza, Salander spent most of the day at her computer with only a big bottle of Coca-Cola for company.

She found hundreds of Zalas—from an Italian athlete to a composer in Argentina. But she did not find the one she was looking for.

She tried Zalachenko, but that was a dead end too.

Frustrated, she stumbled into bed and slept for twelve hours straight. When she woke it was 11:00 a.m. She put on some coffee and ran a bath in the Jacuzzi. She poured in bubble bath and brought coffee and sandwiches for breakfast. She wished that she had Mimmi to keep her company, but she still had not even told her where she lived.

At noon she got out of the bath, towelled herself dry, and put on a bathrobe. She turned on the computer again.

The names Dag Svensson and Mia Johansson yielded better results. Via Google’s search engine she was able to quickly put together a brief summary of what they had been up to in recent years. She downloaded copies of some of Svensson’s articles and found a photographic byline of him. No great surprise that he was the man she had seen with Blomkvist at Kvarnen. The name had been given a face, and vice versa.

She found several texts about or by Mia Johansson. She had first come to the media’s attention with a report on the different treatment received by men and women at the hands of the law. There had been a number of editorials and articles in women’s organizations’ newsletters. Johansson herself had written several more articles. Salander read attentively. Some