Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The - Stieg Larsson [225]
The money had been spread over a number of accounts, and only Wennerström personally could make withdrawals. He did not have to be present at the bank; it was enough for him to present a series of clearing codes in order to transfer the money to any bank in the world. The money had been transferred to Switzerland, where a female associate had converted the funds into anonymous private bonds. All the clearing codes were in order.
Europol had launched a search for the woman who had used a stolen British passport in the name of Monica Sholes and who was said to have lived a life of luxury at one of Zürich’s most expensive hotels. A relatively clear picture, considering that it came from a surveillance camera, showed a short woman with a blonde page-boy, wide lips, and prominent breasts wearing fashionable designer clothes and gold jewellery.
Blomkvist studied the picture, giving it first a quick glance and then looking at it with increasing suspicion. After several seconds he rummaged in his desk for a magnifying glass and tried to make out the details of the facial features in the newspaper’s screened image.
At last he put down the paper and sat there, speechless, for several minutes. Then he started laughing so hysterically that Malm stuck his head round the door to find out what was going on.
On the morning of Christmas Eve Blomkvist went out to Årsta to see his ex-wife and his daughter, Pernilla, and exchange gifts. Pernilla got the computer she wanted, which Blomkvist and Monica had bought together. Blomkvist got a tie from Monica and a detective novel by Åke Edwardson from his daughter. Unlike the previous Christmas, they were in high spirits because of the media drama that had been playing out around Millennium.
They had lunch together. Blomkvist stole a sidelong glance at Pernilla. He had not seen his daughter since she turned up to visit him in Hedestad. He realised that he had failed to discuss her mania for that sect in Skellefteå with her mother. He could not tell them that it was his daughter’s obviously profound knowledge of the Bible that had set him on the right track regarding Harriet Vanger’s disappearance. He had not talked to his daughter since then.
He was not a good father.
He kissed his daughter goodbye after the lunch and met Salander at Slussen. They went out to Sandhamn. They had not seen much of each other since the Millennium bomb exploded. They arrived late on Christmas Eve and stayed for the holidays.
Blomkvist was entertaining company, as always, but Salander had an uneasy feeling that he was looking at her with an especially odd expression when she paid back the loan with a cheque for 120,000 kronor.
They took a walk to Trovill and back (which Salander considered a waste of time), had Christmas dinner at the inn, and went back to the cabin where they lit a fire in the woodstove, put on an Elvis CD, and devoted themselves to some plain old sex. When Salander from time to time came up for air, she tried to analyse her feelings.
She had no problem with Blomkvist as a lover. There was obviously a physical attraction. And he never tried to tutor her.
Her problem was that she could not interpret her own feelings for him. Not since before reaching puberty had she lowered her guard to let another person get so close as she had with him. To be quite honest, he had a trying ability to penetrate her defences and to get her to talk about personal matters and private feelings. Even though she had enough sense to ignore most of his questions, she talked about herself in a way that she would never, even under threat of death, have imagined doing with any other person. It frightened her and made her feel naked and vulnerable to his will.
At the same time—when she looked down at his slumbering form and listened to him snoring—she felt that she had never before in her life had such a trust in another human being. She knew with absolute certainty that Mikael would never use what he knew about her to hurt her. It was not in his nature.
The only thing