Girl Who Played with Fire, The - Stieg Larsson [99]
Bublanski had an unexpected breakthrough in the investigation just after 10:00 a.m., when he was called by Lennart Granlund of the National Forensics Laboratory in Linköping:
“It’s about the killings in Enskede.”
“So soon?”
“We received the weapon early this morning, and I’m not quite done with the analysis, but I have some information that might interest you.”
“Good. Tell me what you’ve come up with,” Bublanski said.
“The weapon is a Colt .45 Magnum, made in the USA in 1981. We have fingerprints and possible DNA—but that analysis will take a little time. We’ve also looked at the bullets that the couple were shot with. Not surprisingly, they appear to have been fired from that weapon. That’s usually the case when we find a gun in the stairwell at a crime scene. The bullets are badly fragmented, but we have a piece to use for comparison. It’s most likely that this is the murder weapon.”
“An illegal weapon, I suppose. Do you have a serial number?”
“The weapon is quite legal. It belongs to a lawyer, Nils Erik Bjurman, and was bought in 1983. He’s a member of the police shooting club. He lives on Upplandsgatan near Odenplan.”
“What on earth are you saying?”
“We also found, as I mentioned, a number of prints on the weapon. Prints from at least two different people. We may expect that one set belongs to Bjurman, insofar as the weapon was not reported stolen or sold—but I have no information on that.”
“Aha. In other words, we have a lead.”
“We have a hit in the register for the second set. Prints from the right thumb and forefinger.”
“Who is it?”
“A woman born on April 30, 1978. Arrested for an assault in Gamla Stan in 1995, when the prints were taken.”
“Does she have a name?”
“Yes. Her name is Lisbeth Salander.”
Bublanski wrote down the name and a social security number that Granlund gave him.
When Blomkvist returned to work after his late lunch, he went straight to his office and closed the door, making it clear that he did not want to be disturbed. He had not had time to deal with all the peripheral information in Svensson’s email and notes. He would have to settle down and read through the book and the articles with completely new eyes, keeping in mind now that the author was dead and unable to answer any difficult questions that might need to be asked.
He had to decide whether the book could still be published. And he had to make up his mind whether there was anything in the material that might hint at a motive for murder. He switched on his computer and set to work.
Bublanski made a brief call to Ekström, to tell him what had developed at NFL. It was decided that Bublanski and Modig would pay a call on Advokat Bjurman. It could be for a talk, an interrogation, or even an arrest. Faste and Andersson would track down this Lisbeth Salander and ask her to explain how her fingerprints came to be on a murder weapon. The search for Bjurman at first presented no difficulty. His address was listed in the tax records, the weapons registry, and the vehicle licencing database; it was even in the telephone book. Bublanski and Modig drove to Odenplan and managed to get into the building on Upplandsgatan when a young man came out just as they arrived.
After that it was trickier. When they rang Bjurman’s doorbell, no-one answered. They drove to his office at St. Eriksplan, but got the same result there.
“Maybe he’s in court,” Modig said.
“Maybe he got on a plane to Brazil after shooting two people in Enskede,” Bublanski said.
Modig glanced at her colleague. She enjoyed his company. She would not have had anything against flirting with him but for the fact that she was a mother of two and she and Bublanski were both happily married. From the brass nameplates on Bjurman’s floor they noted that his nearest neighbours were a dentist, Dr. Norman, a company called N-Consulting, and Rune Håkansson, a lawyer.
They started with Håkansson.
“Hello, my name is Modig and this is Inspector Bublanski. We’re from the police and have business with Nils Erik Bjurman, your colleague from next door. Do you know where we might