Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The - Stieg Larsson [97]
If her name came up, she would be a helpless, incompetent girl with documents showing her to be mentally deficient. So it would be an advantage if Bjurman’s death occurred in such a complicated manner that it would be highly unlikely that a mentally handicapped girl could be the perpetrator.
She rejected the option of using a gun. Acquiring a gun would be no great problem, but the police were awfully good at tracking down firearms.
She considered a knife, which could be purchased at any hardware store, but decided against that too. Even if she turned up without warning and drove the knife into his back, there was no guarantee that he would die instantly and without making a sound, or that he would die at all. Worse, it might provoke a struggle, which could attract attention, and blood could stain her clothes, be evidence against her.
She thought about using a bomb of some sort, but it would be much too complicated. Building the bomb itself would not be a problem—the Internet was full of manuals on how to make the deadliest devices. It would be difficult, on the other hand, to find a place to put the bomb so that innocent passersby would not be hurt. Besides, there was again no guarantee that he would actually die.
The telephone rang.
“Hi, Lisbeth. Dragan. I’ve got a job for you.”
“I don’t have time.”
“This is important.”
“I’m busy.”
She put down the receiver.
Finally she settled on poison. The choice surprised her, but on closer consideration it was perfect.
Salander spent several days combing the Internet. There were plenty to choose from. One of them was among the most deadly poisons known to science—hydrocyanic acid, commonly known as prussic acid.
Prussic acid was used as a component in certain chemical industries, including the manufacture of dyes. A few milligrams were enough to kill a person; one litre in a reservoir could wipe out a medium-sized city.
Obviously such a lethal substance was kept under strict control. But it could be produced in almost unlimited quantities in an ordinary kitchen. All that was needed was a modest amount of laboratory equipment, and that could be found in a chemistry set for children for a few hundred kronor, along with several ingredients that could be extracted from ordinary household products. The manual for the process was on the Internet.
Another option was nicotine. From a carton of cigarettes she could extract enough milligrams of the substance and heat it to make a viscous syrup. An even better substance, although slightly more complex to produce, was nicotine sulphate, which had the property that it could be absorbed through the skin. All she would have to do was put on rubber gloves, fill a water pistol, and spray Bjurman in the face. Within twenty seconds he should be unconscious, and within a few minutes he would be dead as a door-nail.
Salander had had no idea that so many household products could be transformed into deadly weapons. After studying the subject for several days, she was persuaded that there were no technical impediments to making short work of her guardian.
There were two problems: Bjurman’s death would not of itself give her back control of her own life, and there was no guarantee that Bjurman’s successor would be an improvement. Analysis of the consequences.
What she needed was a way to control her guardian and thus her own situation. She sat on the worn sofa in her living room for one whole evening running through the situation in her mind. By the end of the night, she had scrapped the idea of murder by poison and put together a new plan.
It was not an appealing option, and it required