Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The - Stieg Larsson [149]
She held up another finger.
“These murders were committed over a very long period of time and all over the country. Two occurred close together in 1960, but the circumstances were quite different—a farmer’s wife in Karlstad and a twenty-two-year-old in Stockholm.”
Three fingers.
“There is no immediately apparent pattern. The murders were carried out at different places and there is no real signature, but there are certain things that do recur. Animals. Fire. Aggravated sexual assault. And, as you pointed out, a parody of Biblical quotations. But it seems that not one of the investigating detectives interpreted any of the murders in terms of the Bible.”
Blomkvist was watching her. With her slender body, her black camisole, the tattoos, and the rings piercing her face, Salander looked out of place, to say the least, in a guest cottage in Hedeby. When he tried to be sociable over dinner, she was taciturn to the point of rudeness. But when she was working she sounded like a professional to her fingertips. Her apartment in Stockholm might look as if a bomb had gone off in it, but mentally Salander was extremely well organised.
“It’s hard to see the connection between a prostitute in Uddevalla who’s killed in an industrial yard and a pastor’s wife who is strangled in Ronneby and has her house set on fire. If you don’t have the key that Harriet gave us, that is.”
“Which leads to the next question,” Salander said.
“How on earth did Harriet get mixed up in all this? A sixteen-year-old girl who lived in a really sheltered environment.”
“There’s only one answer,” Salander said. “There must be some connection to the Vanger family.”
By 11:00 that night they had gone over the series of murders and discussed the conceivable connections and the tiny details of similarity and difference so often that Blomkvist’s head was spinning. He rubbed his eyes and stretched and asked Salander if she felt like a walk. Her expression suggested that she thought such practices were a waste of time, but she agreed. Blomkvist advised her to change into long trousers because of the mosquitoes.
They strolled past the small-boat harbour and then under the bridge and out towards Martin Vanger’s point. Blomkvist pointed out the various houses and told her about the people who lived in them. He had some difficulty when they came to Cecilia Vanger’s house. Salander gave him a curious look.
They passed Martin Vanger’s motor yacht and reached the point, and there they sat on a rock and shared a cigarette.
“There’s one more connection,” Blomkvist said suddenly. “Maybe you’ve already thought of it.”
“What?”
“Their names.”
Salander thought for a moment and shook her head.
“They’re all Biblical names.”
“Not true,” she said. “Where is there a Liv or Lena in the Bible?”
“They are there. Liv means to live, in other words Eva. And come on—what’s Lena short for?”
Salander grimaced in annoyance. He had been quicker than she was. She did not like that.
“Magdalena,” she said.
“The whore, the first woman, the Virgin Mary…they’re all there in this group. This is so freaky it’d make a psychologist’s head spin. But there’s something else I thought of with regard to the names.”
Salander waited patiently.
“They’re obviously all traditional Jewish names. The Vanger family has had more than its share of fanatical anti-Semites, Nazis, and conspiracy theorists. The only time I met Harald Vanger he was standing in the road snarling that his own daughter was a whore. He certainly has problems with women.”
When they got back to the cabin they made a midnight snack and heated up the coffee. Mikael took a look at the almost 500 pages that Dragan Armansky’s favourite researcher had produced for him.
“You’ve done a fantastic job of digging up these facts in such a short time,” he said. “Thanks. And thanks also for being nice enough to come up here and report on it.”