Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The - Stieg Larsson [64]
At the end of the hearing, Palmgren intimated that compulsory institutionalisation was in all probability not only contrary to Parliament’s decisions in similar situations, but in this particular case it might in addition be the subject of political and media reprisals. So it was in everyone’s interest to find an appropriate alternative solution. Such language was unusual for negotiations in this type of situation, and the members of the court had squirmed nervously.
The solution was also a compromise. The court concluded that Lisbeth Salander was indeed emotionally disturbed, but that her condition did not necessarily warrant internment. On the other hand, the social welfare director’s recommendation of guardianship was taken under consideration. The chairman of the court turned, with a venomous smile, to Holger Palmgren, who up until then had been her trustee, and inquired whether he might be willing to take on the guardianship. The chairman obviously thought that Palmgren would back away and try to push the responsibility on to someone else. On the contrary, Palmgren declared that he would be happy to take on the job of serving as Fröken Salander’s guardian—but on one condition: “that Fröken Salander must be willing to trust me and accept me as her guardian.”
He turned to face her. Lisbeth Salander was somewhat bewildered by the exchange that had gone back and forth over her head all day. Until now no-one had asked for her opinion. She looked at Holger Palmgren for a long time and then nodded once.
Palmgren was a peculiar mixture of jurist and social worker, of the old school. At first he had been a politically appointed member of the social welfare board, and he had spent nearly all his life dealing with problem youths. A reluctant sense of respect, almost bordering on friendship, had in time formed between Palmgren and his ward, who was unquestionably the most difficult he had ever had to deal with.
Their relationship had lasted eleven years, from her thirteenth birthday until the previous year, when a few weeks before Christmas she had gone to see Palmgren at home after he missed one of their scheduled monthly meetings.
When he did not open the door even though she could hear sounds coming from his apartment, she broke in by climbing up a drainpipe to the balcony on the fourth floor. She found him lying on the floor in the hall, conscious but unable to speak or move. She called for an ambulance and accompanied him to Söder Hospital with a growing feeling of panic in her stomach. For three days she hardly left the corridor outside the intensive care unit. Like a faithful watchdog, she kept an eye on every doctor and nurse who went in or out of the door. She wandered up and down the corridor like a lost soul, fixing her eyes on every doctor who came near. Finally a doctor whose name she never discovered took her into a room to explain the gravity of the situation. Herr Palmgren was in critical condition following a severe cerebral haemorrhage. He was not expected to regain consciousness. He was only sixty-four years old. She neither wept nor changed her expression. She stood up, left the hospital, and did not return.
Five weeks later the Guardianship Agency summoned Salander to the first meeting with her new guardian. Her initial impulse was to ignore the summons, but Palmgren had imprinted in her consciousness that every action has its consequences. She had learned to analyse the consequences and so she had come to the conclusion that the easiest way out of this present dilemma was to satisfy the Guardianship Agency by behaving as