Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The - Stieg Larsson [115]
He went up the narrow stairs and looked around the sleeping loft. There was a double bed with a bare mattress, a bedside table, and a chest of drawers.
Blomkvist spent a while searching through the cabin. The bureau was empty except for some hand towels and linen smelling faintly of mould. In the wardrobe there were some work clothes, a pair of overalls, rubber boots, a pair of worn tennis shoes, and a kerosene stove. In the desk drawers were writing paper, pencils, a blank sketchpad, a deck of cards, and some bookmarks. The kitchen cupboard contained plates, mugs, glasses, candles, and some packages of salt, tea bags, and the like. In a drawer in the table there were eating utensils.
He found the only traces of any intellectual interests on the bookcase above the desk. Mikael brought over a chair and got up on it to see what was on the shelves. On the lowest shelf lay issues of Se, Rekordmagasinet, Tidsfördriv, and Lektyr from the late fifties and early sixties. There were several Bildjournalen from 1965 and 1966, Matt Livs Novell, and a few comic books: The 91, Phantomen, and Romans. He opened a copy of Lektyr from 1964 and smiled to see how chaste the pin-up was.
Of the books, about half were mystery paperbacks from Wahlström’s Manhattan series: Mickey Spillane with titles like Kiss Me, Deadly with the classic covers by Bertil Hegland. He found half a dozen Kitty books, some Famous Five novels by Enid Blyton, and a Twin Mystery by Sivar Ahlrud—The Metro Mystery. He smiled in recognition. Three books by Astrid Lindgren: The Children of Noisy Village, Kalle Blomkvist and Rasmus, and Pippi Longstocking. The top shelf had a book about short-wave radio, two books on astronomy, a bird guidebook, a book called The Evil Empire on the Soviet Union, a book on the Finnish Winter War, Luther’s catechism, the Book of Hymns, and the Bible.
He opened the Bible and read on the inside cover: Harriet Vanger, May 12, 1963. It was her Confirmation Bible. He sadly put it back on the shelf.
Behind the cabin there were a wood and tool shed with a scythe, rake, hammer, and a big box with saws, planes, and other tools. He took a chair on to the porch and poured coffee from his thermos. He lit a cigarette and looked across Hedestad Bay through the veil of undergrowth.
Gottfried’s cabin was much more modest than he had expected. Here was the place to which Harriet and Martin’s father had retreated when his marriage to Isabella was going to the dogs in the late fifties. He had made this cabin his home and here he got drunk. And down there, near the wharf, he had drowned. Life at the cabin had probably been pleasant in the summer, but when the temperature dropped to freezing it must have been raw and wretched. According to what Vanger told him, Gottfried continued to work in the Vanger Corporation—interrupted by periods when he was on wild binges—until 1964. The fact that he was able to live in the cabin more or less permanently and still appear for work shaven, washed, and in a jacket and tie spoke of a surviving personal discipline.
And here was also the place that Harriet had been to so often that it was one of the first in which they looked for her. Vanger had told him that during her last year, Harriet had gone often to the cabin, apparently to be in peace on weekends or holidays. In her last summer she had lived here for three months, though she came into the village every day. Anita Vanger, Cecilia’s sister, spent six weeks with her here.
What had she done out here all alone? The magazines Mitt Livs Novell and Romans, as well as a number of books about Kitty, must have been hers. Perhaps the sketchpad had been hers. And her Bible was here.
She had wanted to be close to her lost father—was it a period of mourning she needed to get through? Or did it have to do with her religious brooding? The cabin was spartan—was she pretending to live in a convent?
Blomkvist followed the shoreline to the southeast, but the way