• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

First she walked to the marina, where lights were still on in the cabins, but there was no sign of him. She followed the path along the water where they usually took their evening walks. Martin Vanger’s house was dark and already looked abandoned. She went out to the rocks at the point where they had often sat talking, and then she went back home. He still had not returned.

She went to the church. Still no sign. She was at a loss to know what to do. Then she went back to her motor cycle and got a flashlight from the saddlebag and set off along the water again. It took her a while to wind her way along the half-overgrown road, and even longer to find the path to Gottfried’s cabin. It loomed out of the darkness behind some trees when she had almost reached it. He was not on the porch and the door was locked.

She had turned towards the village when she stopped and went back, all the way out to the point. She caught sight of Blomkvist’s silhouette in the darkness on the end of the jetty where Harriet Vanger had drowned her father. She sighed with relief.

He heard her as she came out on to the jetty, and he turned around. She sat down next to him without a word. At last he broke the silence.

“Forgive me. I had to be alone for a while.”

“I know.”

She lit two cigarettes and gave him one. Blomkvist looked at her. Salander was the most asocial human being he had ever met. Usually she ignored any attempt on his part to talk about anything personal, and she had never accepted a single expression of sympathy. She had saved his life, and now she had tracked him out here in the night. He put an arm around her.

“Now I know what my price is,” he said. “We’ve forsaken those girls. They’re going to bury the whole story. Everything in Martin’s basement will be vacuumed into oblivion.”

Salander did not answer.

“Erika was right,” he said. “I would have done more good if I’d gone to Spain for a month and then come home refreshed and taken on Wennerström. I’ve wasted all these months.”

“If you’d gone to Spain, Martin Vanger would still be operating in his basement.”

They sat together for a long time before he suggested that they go home.

Blomkvist fell asleep before Salander. She lay awake listening to him breathe. After a while she went to the kitchen and sat in the dark on the kitchen bench, smoking several cigarettes as she brooded. She had taken it for granted that Vanger and Frode might con him. It was in their nature. But it was Blomkvist’s problem, not hers. Or was it?

At last she made a decision. She stubbed out her cigarette and went into the bedroom, turned on the lamp, and shook Mikael awake. It was 2:30 in the morning.

“What?”

“I’ve got a question. Sit up.”

Blomkvist sat up, drunk with sleep.

“When you were indicted, why didn’t you defend yourself?”

Blomkvist rubbed his eyes. He looked at the clock.

“It’s a long story, Lisbeth.”

“I’ve got time. Tell me.”

He sat for a long while, pondering what he should say. Finally he decided on the truth.

“I had no defence. The information in the article was wrong.”

“When I hacked your computer and read your email exchange with Berger, there were plenty of references to the Wennerström affair, but you two kept discussing practical details about the trial and nothing about what actually happened. What was it that went wrong?”

“Lisbeth, I can’t let the real story get out. I fell into a trap. Erika and I are quite clear that it would damage our credibility even further if we told anyone what really happened.”

“Listen, Kalle Blomkvist, yesterday afternoon you sat here preaching about friendship and trust and stuff. I’m not going to put the story on the Net.”

Blomkvist protested. It was the middle of the night. He could not face thinking about the whole thing now. She went on stubbornly sitting there until he gave in. He went to the bathroom and washed his face and put the coffeepot on. Then he came back to the bed and told her about how his old schoolfriend Robert Lindberg, in a yellow Mälar-30 in the guest