Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The - Stieg Larsson [200]
He sat in silence for a long time. Then he nodded his assent.
“So be it,” Frode said. “And with regard to Henrik’s offer for financial compensation…”
“He can shove it up his backside, and Dirch, I want you to leave now. I understand your position, but right now I’m so furious with you and Henrik and Harriet that if you stay any longer we might not be friends any more.”
Frode made no move to go.
“I can’t leave yet. I’m not done. I have another message to deliver, and you’re not going to like this one either. Henrik is insisting that I tell you tonight. You can go up to the hospital and flay him tomorrow morning if you wish.”
Blomkvist looked up and stared at him.
Frode went on. “This has got to be the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. But I think that only complete candour with all the cards on the table can save the situation now.”
“So it’s candour at last, is it?”
“When Henrik convinced you to take the job last Christmas,” Dirch said, ignoring his sarcasm, “neither he nor I thought that anything would come of it. That was exactly what he said, but he wanted to give it one last try. He had analysed your situation, particularly with the help of the report that Fröken Salander put together. He played on your isolation, he offered good pay, and he used the right bait.”
“Wennerström.”
Frode nodded.
“You were bluffing?”
“No, no,” Frode said.
Salander raised an eyebrow with interest.
“Henrik is going to make good on everything he promised. He’s arranging an interview and is going public with a direct assault on Wennerström. You can have all the details later, but roughly the situation is this: when Wennerström was employed in the finance department of the Vanger Corporation, he spent several million kronor speculating on foreign currency. This was long before foreign exchange futures became the rage. He did this without authority. One deal after another went bad, and he was sitting there with a loss of seven million kronor that he tried to cover up. Partly by cooking the books and partly by speculating even harder. It inevitably came to light and he was sacked.”
“Did he make any profit himself?”
“Oh yes, he made off with about half a million kronor, which ironically enough became the seed money for the Wennerström Group. We have documentation for all of this. You can use the information however you like, and Henrik will back up the accusations publicly. But…”
“But, and it’s a big but, Dirch, the information is worthless,” Blomkvist said, slamming his fist on the table. “It all happened thirty-plus years ago and it’s a closed book.”
“You’ll get confirmation that Wennerström is a crook.”
“That will annoy Wennerström when it comes out, but it won’t damage him any more than a direct hit from a peashooter. He’s going to shuffle the deck by putting out a press release saying that Henrik Vanger is an old has-been who’s still trying to steal some business from him, and then he’ll probably claim that he was acting on orders from Henrik. Even if he can’t prove his innocence, he can lay down enough smoke screens that no-one will take the story seriously.”
Frode looked unhappy.
“You conned me,” Blomkvist said.
“That wasn’t our intention.”
“I blame myself. I was grasping at straws, and I should have realised it was something like that.” He laughed abruptly. “Henrik is an old shark. He was selling a product and told me what I wanted to hear. It’s time you went, Dirch.”
“Mikael…I’m sorry that…”
“Dirch. Go.”
Salander did not know whether to go over to Blomkvist or to leave him in peace. He solved the problem for her by picking up his jacket without a word and slamming the door behind him.
For more than an hour she waited restlessly in the kitchen. She felt so bad that she cleared the table and washed the dishes—a role she usually left to Blomkvist. She went regularly to the window to see if there was any sign of him. Finally she was