The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

Page 9

"Hello, Micke," Magnusson said.
"Hello," Blomkvist said.
"In the kitchen."
Malm was serving up freshly made waffles with cloudberry jam and coffee. Blomkvist's appetite was revived even before he sat down. Malm wanted to know what had happened in Gosseberga. Blomkvist gave him a succinct account. He was into his third waffle before he remembered to ask what was going on.
"We had a little problem at Millennium while you were away Blomkvisting in Goteborg."
Blomkvist looked at Malm intently.
"What was that?"
"Oh, nothing serious. Erika has taken the job of editor-in-chief at Svenska Morgon-Posten. She finished at Millennium yesterday."
It was several seconds before he could absorb the whole impact of the news. He sat there stunned, but did not doubt the truth of it.
"Why didn't she tell anyone before?" he said at last.
"Because she wanted to tell you first, and you've been running around being unreachable for several weeks now, and because she probably thought you had your hands full with the Salander story. She obviously wanted to tell you first, so she couldn't tell the rest of us, and time kept slipping by... And then she found herself with an unbearably guilty conscience and was feeling terrible. And not one of us had noticed a thing."
Blomkvist shut his eyes. "Goddamnit," he said.
"I know. Now it turns out that you're the last one in the office to find out. I wanted to have the chance to tell you myself so that you'd understand what happened and not think anyone was doing anything behind your back."
"No, I don't think that. But, Jesus... it's wonderful that she got the job, if she wants to work at S.M.P..., but what the hell are we going to do?"
"Malin's going to be acting editor-in-chief starting with the next issue."
"Eriksson?"
"Unless you want to be editor-in-chief..."
"Good God, no."
"That's what I thought. So Malin's going to be editor-in-chief."
"Have you appointed an assistant editor?"
"Henry. It's four years he's been with us. Hardly an apprentice any longer."
"Do I have a say in this?"
"No," Malm said.
Blomkvist gave a dry laugh. "Right. We'll let it stand the way you've decided. Malin is tough, but she's unsure of herself. Henry shoots from the hip a little too often. We'll have to keep an eye on both of them."
"Yes, we will."
Blomkvist sat in silence, cradling his coffee. It would be damned empty without Berger, and he wasn't sure how things would turn out at the magazine.
"I have to call Erika and  - "
"No, better not."
"What do you mean?"
"She's sleeping at the office. Go and wake her up or something."
Blomkvist found Berger sound asleep on the sofa-bed in her office. She had been up until all hours emptying her desk and bookshelves of all personal belongings and sorting papers that she wanted to keep. She had filled five packing crates. He looked at her for a while from the doorway before he went in and sat down on the edge of the sofa and woke her.
"Why in heaven's name don't you go over to my place and sleep if you have to sleep on the job," he said.
"Hi, Mikael," she said.
"Christer told me."
She started to say something, but he bent down and kissed her on the cheek.
"Are you livid?"
"Insanely," he said.
"I'm sorry. I couldn't turn it down. But it feels wrong, to leave all of you in the lurch in such a bad situation."
"I'm hardly the person to criticize you for abandoning ship. I left you in the lurch in a situation that was much worse than this."
"The two have nothing to do with each other. You took a break. I'm leaving for good and I didn't tell anybody. I'm so sorry."
Blomkvist gave her a wan smile.
"When it's time, it's time." Then he added in English, "A woman's gotta do what a woman's gotta do and all that crap."
Berger smiled. Those were the words she had said to him when he moved to Hedeby. He reached out his hand and mussed her hair affectionately.
"I can understand why you'd want to quit this madhouse... but to be the head of Sweden's most turgid old-boy newspaper... that's going to take some time to sink in."
"There are quite a few girls working there nowadays."
"Rubbish. Check the masthead. It's status quo all the way. You must be a raving masochist. Shall we go and have some coffee?"
Berger sat up. "I have to know what happened in Goteborg."
"I'm writing the story now," Blomkvist said. "And there's going to be war when we publish it. We'll put it out in at the same time as the trial. I hope you're not thinking of taking the story with you to S.M.P. The fact is I need you to write something on the Zalachenko story before you leave here."
"Micke... I..."
"Your very last editorial. Write it whenever you like. It almost certainly won't be published before the trial, whenever that might be."
"I'm not sure that's such a good idea. What do you think it should be about?"
"Morality," Blomkvist said. "And the story of why one of our colleagues was murdered because the government didn't do its job fifteen years ago."
Berger knew exactly what kind of editorial he wanted. She had been at the helm when Svensson was murdered, after all. She suddenly felt in a much better mood.
"O.K.," she said. "My last editorial."
CHAPTER 4
SATURDAY, 9.IV  -  SUNDAY, 10.IV
By 1.00 on Saturday afternoon, Prosecutor Fransson in Sodertalje had finished her deliberations. The burial ground in the woods in Nykvarn was a wretched mess, and the Violent Crimes Division had racked up a vast amount of overtime since Wednesday, when Paolo Roberto had fought his boxing match with Niedermann in the warehouse there. They were dealing with at least three murders with the bodies found buried on the property, along with the kidnapping and assault of Salander's friend Miriam Wu, and on top of it all, arson.
The incident in Stallarholmen was connected with the discoveries at Nykvarn, and was actually located within the Strangnas police district in Sodermanland county. Carl-Magnus Lundin of the Svavelsjo Motorcycle Club was a key player in the whole thing, but he was in hospital in Sodertalje with one foot in a cast and his jaw wired shut. Accordingly, all of these crimes came under county police jurisdiction, which meant that Stockholm would have the last word.
On Friday the court hearing was held. Lundin was formally charged in connection with Nykvarn. It had eventually been established that the warehouse was owned by the Medimport Company, which in turn was owned by one Anneli Karlsson, a 52-year-old cousin of Lundin who lived in Puerto Banus, Spain. She had no criminal record.
Fransson closed the folder that held all the preliminary investigation papers. These were still in the early stages and there would need to be another hundred pages of detailed work before they were ready to go to trial. But right now she had to make decisions on several matters. She looked up at her police colleagues.
"We have enough evidence to charge Lundin with participating in the kidnapping of Miriam Wu. Paolo Roberto has identified him as the man who drove the van. I'm also going to charge him with probable involvement in arson. We'll hold back on charging him with the murders of the three individuals we dug up on the property, at least until each of them has been identified."
The officers nodded. That was what they had been expecting.
"What'll we do about Sonny Nieminen?"
Fransson leafed through to the section on Nieminen in the papers on her desk.
"This is a man with an impressive criminal history. Robbery, possession of illegal weapons, assault, G.B.H., manslaughter and drug crime. He was arrested with Lundin at Stallarholmen. I'm convinced that he's involved, but we don't have the evidence to persuade a court."
"He says he's never been to the Nykvarn warehouse and that he just happened to be out with Lundin on a motorcycle ride," said the detective responsible for Stallarholmen on behalf of the Sodertalje police. "He claims he had no idea what Lundin was up to in Stallarholmen."
Fransson wondered whether she could somehow arrange to hand the entire business over to Prosecutor Ekstrom in Stockholm.
"Nieminen refuses to say anything about what happened," the detective went on, "but he vehemently denies being involved in any crime."
"You'd think he and Lundin were themselves the victims of a crime in Stallarholmen," Fransson said, drumming her fingertips in annoyance. "Lisbeth Salander," she added, her voice scored with scepticism. "We're talking about a girl who looks as if she's barely entered puberty and who's only one metre fifty tall. She doesn't look as though she has the tonnage to take on either Nieminen or Lundin, let alone both of them."
"Unless she was armed. A pistol would compensate for her physique."
"But that doesn't quite fit with our reconstruction of what happened."
"No. She used Mace and kicked Lundin in the balls and face with such aggression that she crushed one of his testicles and then broke his jaw. The shot in Lundin's foot must have happened after she kicked him. But I can't swallow the scenario that says she was the one who was armed."
"The lab has identified the weapon used on Lundin. It's a Polish P-83 Wanad using Makarova ammo. It was found in Gosseberga outside Goteborg and it has Salander's prints on it. We can pretty much assume that she took the pistol with her to Gosseberga."
"Sure. But the serial number shows that the pistol was stolen four years ago in the robbery of a gun shop in orebro. The thieves were eventually caught, but they had ditched the gun. It was a local thug with a drug problem who hung out around Svavelsjo M.C. I'd much rather place the pistol with either Lundin or Nieminen."
"It could be as simple as Lundin carrying the pistol and Salander disarming him. Then a shot was fired accidentally that hit him in the foot. I mean, it can't have been her intention to kill him, since he's still alive."
"Or else she shot him in the foot out of sheer sadism. Who's to know? But how did she deal with Nieminen? He has no visible injuries."
"He does have one, or rather two, small burn marks on his chest."
"What sort of burns?"
"I'm guessing a taser."
"So Salander was supposedly armed with a taser, a Mace canister and a pistol. How much would all that stuff weigh? No, I'm quite sure that either Lundin or Nieminen was carrying the gun, and she took it from them. We're not going to be sure how Lundin came to get himself shot until one or other of the parties involved starts talking."
"Alright."
"As things now stand, Lundin has been charged for the reasons I mentioned earlier. But we don't have a damned thing on Nieminen. I'm thinking of turning him loose this afternoon."
Nieminen was in a vile mood when he left the cells at Sodertalje police station. His mouth was dry so his first stop was a corner shop where he bought a Pepsi. He guzzled it down on the spot. He bought a pack of Lucky Strike and a tin of Goteborg's Rape snuff. He flipped open his mobile and checked the battery, then dialled the number of Hans-Åke Waltari, thirty-three years old and number three in Svavelsjo M.C.'s hierarchy. It rang four times before Waltari picked up.
"Nieminen. I'm out."
"Congrats."
"Where are you?"
"Nykoping."
"What the fuck are you doing in Nykoping?"
"We decided to lay low when you and Magge were busted  -  until we knew the lay of the land."
"So now you know the lay of the land. Where is everybody?"
Waltari told him where the other five members of Svavelsjo M.C. were located. The news neither pleased Nieminen nor made him any calmer.
"So who the fuck is minding the store while all of you hide away like a bunch of girls?"
"That's not fair. You and Magge take off on some fucking job we know nothing about, and all of a sudden you're mixed up in a shootout with that slut the law are after, Magge gets shot and you're busted. Then they start digging up bodies at our warehouse in Nykvarn."
"So?"
"So? So we were starting to wonder if maybe you and Magge were hiding something from the rest of us."
"And what the fuck would that be? We're the ones who took the job for the sake of the club."
"Well, no-one ever told me that the warehouse was doubling up as a woodland cemetery. Who were those dead bodies?"
Nieminen had a vicious retort on the tip of his tongue, but he stopped himself. Waltari may be an idiot, but this was no time to start an argument. The important thing right now was to consolidate their forces. After stonewalling his way through five police interrogations, it was not a good idea to start boasting that he actually knew something on a mobile less than two hundred metres from a police station.
"Forget the bodies," he said. "I don't know anything about that. But Magge is in deep shit. He's going to be in the slammer for a while, and while he's gone, I'm running the club."
"O.K. What happens now?" Waltari said.
"Who's keeping an eye on the property?"
"Benny stayed at the clubhouse to hold the fort. They searched the place the day you were arrested. They didn't find anything."
"Benny Karlsson?" Nieminen yelled. "Benny K.'s hardly dry behind the ears."