Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The - Stieg Larsson [185]
“Let’s say that it started when she was fourteen, in 1964. She defended herself—couldn’t accept it, as Martin put it. That was what she was threatening to tell Henrik about. Martin undoubtedly had nothing to say in this connection; he just did what his father told him. But he and Gott fried had formed some sort of…pact, and they tried to initiate Harriet into it too.”
Salander said: “In your notes you wrote that Henrik had let Harriet move into his house in the winter of 1964.”
“Henrik could see there was something wrong in her family. He thought it was the bickering and friction between Gottfried and Isabella that was the cause, and he took her in so that she could have some peace and quiet and concentrate on her studies.”
“An unforeseen obstacle for Gottfried and Martin. They couldn’t get their hands on her as easily or control her life. But eventually…Where did the assault take place?”
“It must have been at Gottfried’s cabin. I’m almost positive that these pictures were taken there—it should be possible to check. The cabin is in a perfect location, isolated and far from the village. Then Gottfried got drunk one last time and died in a most banal way.”
“So Harriet’s father had attempted to have sex with her, but my guess is that he didn’t initiate her into the killing.”
Blomkvist realised that this was a weak point. Harriet had made note of the names of Gottfried’s victims, pairing them up with Bible quotes, but her interest in the Bible did not emerge until the last year, and by then Gottfried was already dead. He paused, trying to come up with a logical explanation.
“Sometime along the way Harriet discovered that Gottfried had not only committed incest, but he was also a serial sex murderer,” he said.
“We don’t know when she found out about the murders. It could have been right before Gottfried drowned. It might also have been after he drowned, if he had a diary or had saved press cuttings about them. Something put her on his track.”
“But that wasn’t what she was threatening to tell Henrik,” Blomkvist said.
“It was Martin,” Salander said. “Her father was dead, but Martin was going on abusing her.”
“Exactly.”
“But it was a year before she took any action.”
“What would you do if you found out that your father was a murderer who had been raping your brother?”
“I’d kill the fucker,” Salander said in such a sober tone that Blomkvist believed her. He remembered her face as she was attacking Martin Vanger. He smiled joylessly.
“OK, but Harriet wasn’t like you. Gottfried died before she managed to do anything. That also makes sense. When Gottfried died, Isabella sent Martin to Uppsala. He might have come home for Christmas or other holidays, but during that following year he didn’t see Harriet very often. She was able to get some distance from him.”
“And she started studying the Bible.”
“And in light of what we now know, it didn’t have to be for any religious reasons. Maybe she simply wanted to know what her father had been up to. She brooded over it until the Children’s Day celebration in 1966. Then suddenly she sees her brother on Järnvägsgatan and realises that he’s back. We don’t know if they talked to each other or if he said anything. But no matter what happened, Harriet had an urge to go straight home and talk to Henrik.”
“And then she disappeared.”
After they had gone over the chain of events, it was not hard to understand what the rest of the puzzle must have looked like. Blomkvist and Salander packed their bags. Before they left, Blomkvist called Frode and told him that he and Salander had to go away for a while, but that he absolutely wanted to see Henrik Vanger before they left.
Blomkvist needed to know what Frode had told Henrik. The man sounded so stressed on the telephone that Blomkvist felt concerned for him. Frode said that he had only told him that Martin had died in a car accident.
It was thundering again when Blomkvist parked outside Hedestad Hospital, and the sky was filled once more with heavy rain clouds. He hurried across the car park