Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The - Stieg Larsson [31]
Blomkvist reached into his jacket pocket and turned on a tape recorder. He had no idea what Vanger wanted, but after the past twelve months of havoc with Wennerström he needed a precise record of all strange occurrences anywhere near him, and an unlooked-for invitation to Hedestad came into that category.
Vanger patted Frode on the shoulder in farewell and closed the front door before turning his attention to Blomkvist.
“I’ll get right to the point in that case. This is no game. I ask you to listen to what I have to say and then make up your mind. You’re a journalist, and I want to give you a freelance assignment. Anna has served coffee upstairs in my office.”
The office was a rectangle of more than 1,300 square feet. One wall was dominated by a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf thirty feet long containing a remarkable assortment of literature: biographies, history, business and industry, and A4 binders. The books were arranged in no apparent order. It looked like a bookshelf that was used. The opposite wall was dominated by a desk of dark oak. On the wall behind the desk was a large collection of pressed flowers in neat meticulous rows.
Through the window in the gable the desk had a view of the bridge and the church. There was a sofa and coffee table where the housekeeper had set out a thermos, rolls, and pastries.
Vanger gestured towards the tray, but Blomkvist pretended not to see; instead he made a tour of the room, first studying the bookshelf and then the wall of framed flowers. The desk was orderly, only a few papers in one heap. At its edge was a silver-framed photograph of a dark-haired girl, beautiful but with a mischievous look; a young woman on her way to becoming dangerous, he thought. It was apparently a confirmation portrait that had faded over the years it had been there.
“Do you remember her, Mikael?” Vanger said.
“Remember?”
“Yes, you met her. And actually you have been in this room before.”
Blomkvist turned and shook his head.
“No, how could you remember? I knew your father. I hired Kurt first as an installer and machinist several times in the fifties and sixties. He was a talented man. I tried to persuade him to keep studying and become an engineer. You were here the whole summer of 1963, when we put new machinery in the paper mill in Hedestad. It was hard to find a place for your family to live, so we solved it by letting you live in the wooden house across the road. You can see it from the window.”
Vanger picked up the photograph.
“This is Harriet Vanger, granddaughter of my brother Richard. She took care of you many times that summer. You were two, going on three. Maybe you were already three then—I don’t recall. She was thirteen.”
“I am sorry, but I don’t have the least recollection of what you’re telling me.” Blomkvist could not even be sure that Vanger was telling the truth.
“I understand. But I remember you. You used to run around everywhere on the farm with Harriet in tow. I could hear your shrieks whenever you fell. I remember I gave you a toy once, a yellow, sheet-metal tractor that I had played with myself as a boy. You were crazy about it. I think that was the colour.”
Blomkvist felt a chill inside. The yellow tractor he did remember. When he was older it had stood on a shelf in his bedroom.
“Do you remember that toy?”
“I do. And you will be amused to know that the tractor is still alive and well, at the Toy Museum in Stockholm. They put out a call for old original toys ten years ago.”
“Really?” Vanger chuckled with delight. “Let me show you…”
The old man went over to the bookshelf and pulled a photograph album from one of the lower shelves. Blomkvist noticed that he had difficulty bending over and had to brace himself on the bookshelf when he straightened up. He laid the album on the coffee table. He knew what he was looking for: a black-and-white snapshot in which the photographer’s shadow showed in the bottom left corner. In the foreground was a fair-haired