Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The - Stieg Larsson [211]
By the way, you can trust her. She was telling the truth when she said that she owes a debt of gratitude to me—and believe me, she will never do anything to harm Millennium. Be her friend if you like her. She deserves respect. And she’s a hell of a businesswoman./M.
The next day Mikael received another email.
From To Hi Mikael. I’ve been trying to find time to write to you for several weeks now, but it seems there are never enough hours in the day. You left so suddenly from Hedeby that I never had a chance to say goodbye. Since my return to Sweden, my days have been filled with bewildering impressions and hard work. The Vanger Corporation is in chaos, and along with Henrik I’ve been working hard to put its affairs in order. Yesterday I visited the Millennium offices; I’ll be Henrik’s representative on the board. Henrik has filled me in on all the details of the magazine’s situation and yours. I hope that you will accept having me show up like this. If you don’t want me (or anyone else from the family) on the board, I’ll understand, but I do assure you that I’ll do all I can to support Millennium. I am in great debt to you, and I will always have the best of intentions in this regard. I met your colleague Erika Berger. I’m not sure what she thought of me, and I was surprised to hear that you hadn’t told her about what happened. I would very much like to be your friend. If you can stand to have anything more to do with the Vanger family. Best regards, Harriet P.S. I understood from Erika that you’re planning to tackle Wennerström again. Dirch Frode told me how Henrik pulled a swifty on you, as they say in Australia. What can I say? I’m sorry. If there’s anything I can do, let me know. From To Hi Harriet. I left Hedeby in a big hurry and am now working on what I really should have been spending my time on this year. You’ll be advised in plenty of time before the article goes to press, but I think I can say that the problems of the past year will soon be over. I hope you and Erika will be friends, and, of course, I have no problem with you being on Millennium’s board. I’ll tell Erika about what happened, if you think that’s wise. Henrik wanted me never to say anything to anyone. Let’s see, but right now I don’t have the time or the energy and I need a little distance first. Let’s keep in touch. Best/Mikael Salander was not especially interested in what Mikael was writing. She looked up from her book when Blomkvist said something, but at first she could not make it out. “Sorry. I was talking aloud. I said that this is horrible.” “What’s horrible?” “Wennerström had an affair with a twenty-two-year-old waitress and he got her pregnant. Have you read his correspondence with his lawyer?” “My dear Mikael—you have ten years of correspondence, emails, agreements, travel arrangements, and God knows what on that hard drive. I don’t find Wennerström so fascinating that I’d cram six gigs of garbage into my head. I read through a fraction of it, mostly to satisfy my curiosity, and that was enough to tell me that he’s a gangster.” “OK. He got her pregnant in 1997. When she wanted compensation, his lawyer got someone to try to convince her to have an abortion. I assume the intention was to offer her a sum of money, but she wasn’t interested. Then the persuading ended up with the heavy holding her underwater in a bath until she agreed to leave Wennerström in peace. And Wennerström’s idiot writes all this to the lawyer in an email—of course encrypted, but even so…It doesn’t say much for the IQ of this bunch.” “What happened to the girl?” “She had an abortion, and Wennerström was pleased.” Salander said nothing for ten minutes. Her eyes had suddenly turned dark. “One more man who hates women,” she muttered at last. She borrowed