The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Trilogy Bundle (83 page)

Berger sat down on the stairs.

“I didn't want you to have to hear it on the morning news,” Blomkvist said.

It was 6:59 a.m. on Maundy Thursday as Blomkvist and Berger let themselves into the
Millennium
offices. Berger had woken Malm and Eriksson with the news that Svensson and Johansson had been killed the night before. They lived much closer and had already arrived for the meeting. The coffeemaker was going in the kitchenette.

“What the hell is happening?” Malm wanted to know.

Eriksson shushed him and turned up the volume on the 7:00 a.m. news.

“That was pretty succinct,” Eriksson said and turned the volume down. Then she started to cry. Berger put an arm around her shoulders. “Jesus Christ,” Malm said to no-one in particular. “Sit down, everyone,” Berger said in a firm voice. “Mikael …” Blomkvist told them what he knew of what had happened. He spoke
in a dull monotone and sounded like the radio reporter when he described how he had found Svensson and Johansson.

“Jesus Christ,” Malm said again. “This is crazy.”

Eriksson was once more overwhelmed by emotion. She began weeping again and made no attempt to hide her tears.

“I'm sorry,” she said.

“I feel the same way,” said Malm.

Blomkvist wondered why he could not cry. He felt only a huge emptiness, almost as if he were anesthetized.

“What we know this morning doesn't amount to very much,” Berger said. “We have to discuss two things: first, we're three weeks from going to press with Dag's material; should we still publish it? Can we publish it? That's one thing. The other is a question that Mikael and I discussed on the way here.”

“We don't know the motive for the murders,” Blomkvist said. “It could be something to do with Dag and Mia's private life, or it could be a purely senseless act, but we can't rule out that it may have had something to do with what they were working on.”

A long silence settled around the table.

At last Blomkvist cleared his throat. “As I said, we're about to publish a story in which we name people who are extremely anxious not to be identified in this connection. Dag started with the confrontations several weeks ago. I'm thinking that if one of them—”

“Wait,” Eriksson said. “We're exposing three policemen, at least one of whom works for Säpo and another on the vice squad. Then there are several lawyers, one prosecutor, one judge, and a couple of dirty-old-men journalists. Could one of them have killed two people to prevent the publication?”

“Well, I don't know the answer to that,” Blomkvist said. “They all have a hell of a lot to lose, but they're damn stupid if they thought they could quash a story like this by murdering a journalist. But we're also exposing a number of pimps, and even if we use fictitious names it wouldn't be hard to figure out who they are. Some of them already have records for violent crimes.”

“OK,” Malm said. “But you're making the murders out to be executions. If I'm reading Svensson's story correctly, we're not talking about very bright people. Are they up to pulling off a double murder and getting away with it?”

“How bright do you have to be to fire two shots?” Eriksson said.

“We're speculating here about something we know practically nothing
about,” Berger broke in. “But we do have to ask the question. If suppressing Dag's articles—or Mia's dissertation, for that matter—was the motive for the murders, then we have to beef up security here in the office.”

“And a third question,” Eriksson said. “Should we go to the police with the names? What did you tell the police last night, Mikael?”

“I told them what Dag was working on, but they didn't ask for details and I didn't give any names.”

“We probably should,” Berger said.

“It's not quite that simple,” Blomkvist said. “We could give them a list of names, but what do we do if the police start asking questions about how we got hold of them? We can't reveal any source who wants to remain anonymous. And that's certainly true of several of the girls Mia talked to.”

“What a fucking mess,” Berger said. “We're back to the original question—should we publish?”

Blomkvist held up his hand. “Wait. We could take a vote on this, but I happen to be the publisher who's responsible, and for the first time I think I'll make a decision all on my own. The answer is no. We can't publish this material in the next issue. It's unreasonable for us simply to go ahead according to plan.”

Silence descended over the table.

“I really want to publish, obviously, but we are going to have to rewrite quite a bit. It was Dag and Mia who had the documentation, and the story was based on the fact that Mia intended to file a police report against the people we were going to name. She had expert knowledge. Have we got any information on this?”

The front door slammed and Cortez stood in the doorway.

“Is it Dag and Mia?” he asked, out of breath.

They all nodded.

“Christ. This is crazy.”

“How did you hear about it?” Blomkvist said.

“I was on my way home with my girlfriend when we heard it on a taxi radio. The police have been asking for information on fares going to their street. I didn't recognize the address. I had to come in.”

Cortez looked so shaken that Berger got up and gave him a hug and asked him to join them at the table.

“I think Dag would want us to publish his story,” she said.

“And I agree that we should. Definitely the book. But under the circumstances, we'll have to push back the publication date.”

“So what do we do?” Eriksson said. “It's not just one article that has to be switched—it's a whole themed issue. The whole magazine has to be remade.”

Berger was quiet for a moment, then gave her first tired smile of the day.

“Had you planned to take Easter off, Malin?” she said. “Well, forget it. This is what we'll do … Malin, you and I—and Christer—will sit down and plan a new issue without Dag's material. We'll have to see if we can pry loose a few articles that we'd planned for June. Mikael, how much material did you get from Dag?”

“I've got final versions of nine out of twelve chapters. I have drafts of chapters ten and eleven. Dag was going to email me the final versions—I'll check my inbox—but I only have an outline of chapter twelve. That's the summary and the conclusions.”

“But you and Dag had talked through every one of the chapters, right?”

“Yes, and I know what he was planning to write in the last chapter, if that's what you mean.”

“OK, you'll have to sit down with the manuscripts—both the book and the articles. I want to know how much is missing and whether we can write whatever Dag didn't manage to deliver. Could you do an objective assessment today?”

Blomkvist nodded.

“I also need you to think about what we're going to tell the police. What is within limits and at what point do we risk breaking our confidentiality agreement with our sources. Nobody at
Millennium
should say anything to anyone outside the magazine without your approval.”

“That sounds good,” Blomkvist said.

“How likely do you think it is that Dag's book was the motive for the murders?”

“Or Mia's dissertation … I don't know. But we can't rule it out.”

“No, we can't. You'll have to keep it together.”

“Keep what together?”

“The investigation.”

“What investigation?”

“Our investigation, damn it.” Berger suddenly raised her voice. “Dag was a journalist and he was working for
Millennium
. If he was killed because of his job, I want to know about it. So we—as an editorial team—are going to have to dig into what happened. You'll take care of that part, looking for a motive for the murders in all the material Dag
gave us.” She turned to Eriksson. “Malin, if you help me outline a new issue today, then Christer and I will do the draft layout. But you've worked a lot with Dag and on other articles in the themed issue. I want you to keep an eye on developments in the murder investigation alongside Mikael.”

Eriksson nodded.

“Henry … can you work today?”

“Sure.”

“Start by calling the rest of our staff and tell them what's going on. Then go to the police and find out what's happening. Ask them if there's going to be a press conference or anything. We have to stay on top of the news.”

“I'll call everyone first. Then I'll run home and take a shower. I'll be back in forty-five minutes.”

“Let's stay in touch all day.”

“Right,” Blomkvist said. “Are we finished? I have to make a call.”

Harriet Vanger was having breakfast on the glass veranda of Henrik Vanger's house in Hedeby when her mobile rang. She answered without looking at the display.

“Good morning, Harriet,” said Blomkvist.

“Good heavens. I thought you were one of those people who never gets up before eight.”

“I don't, as long as I have a chance to go to bed. Which I didn't last night.”

“Has something happened?”

“You didn't listen to the news?” Blomkvist gave her a report of the events of the night.

“That's terrible. How are you holding up?”

“Thanks for asking. I've felt better. But the reason I'm calling is that you're on
Millennium
's board and should be informed. I'm guessing that some reporter will discover soon enough that I was the one who found Dag and Mia, and that will give rise to certain speculations, and when it leaks out that Dag was working on a massive exposé for
Millennium
, questions are going to be asked.”

“And you think I ought to be prepared. So, what should I say?”

“Tell the truth. You've been told what happened. You're shocked about the murders, but you are not privy to the editorial work, so you
cannot comment on any speculation. It's the police's job to investigate the murders, not
Millennium
's.”

“Thanks for the warning. Is there anything I can do?”

“Not right now. But if I think of something I'll let you know.”

“Good. And Mikael … keep me informed, please.”

The responsibility of leading the preliminary investigation into the double homicide in Enskede landed officially on Prosecutor Richard Ekström's desk at 7:00 on the morning of Maundy Thursday. The duty prosecutor of the night before, a relatively young and inexperienced lawyer, had realized that the Enskede murders could turn into a media sensation. He called and woke up the assistant county prosecutor, who in turn woke up the assistant county chief of police. Together they decided to pass the ball to a diligent and experienced prosecutor: Richard Ekström.

Ekström was a thin, vital man five feet six inches tall, forty-two years old, with thinning blond hair and a goatee. He was always impeccably dressed and he wore shoes with slightly raised heels. He had begun his career as the assistant prosecutor in Uppsala, until he was recruited as an investigator by the Ministry of Justice, where he worked on bringing Swedish law into accord with that of the EU, and he acquitted himself so well that for a time he was appointed division chief. He attracted attention with his report on organizational deficiencies within legal security, where he made a case for increased efficiency rather than complying with the requests for increased resources demanded by certain police authorities. After four years at the Ministry of Justice, he moved to the prosecutor's office in Stockholm, where he handled a number of cases involving high-profile robberies and violent crimes.

Within the administration he was taken for a Social Democrat, but in reality Ekström was uninterested in party politics. Even as he started to attract attention in the media, people in high places had begun to keep
their eye on him. He was definitely a candidate for higher office, and thanks to his presumed party affiliation he had a broad network of contacts in political and police circles. Within the police force opinion was divided as to Ekström's ability. His investigations had not found support among those who were advocating that the best way to promote law and order was to recruit more police. On the other hand, he had excelled at not being afraid of getting his hands dirty when he drove a case to trial.

Ekström got a briefing from the criminal duty officer about the events in Enskede, and at once concluded that this was a case which would without a doubt create a stir in the media. The two victims were a criminologist and a journalist—the latter a calling Ekström either loved or hated, depending on the situation.

He had a rapid telephone conversation with the county chief of police. At 7:15 he picked up the phone again and woke Criminal Inspector Jan Bublanski, known to his colleagues as Officer Bubble. Bublanski was off duty over Easter week due to a mountain of overtime he had accumulated during the past year, but he was asked to interrupt his time off and come to police headquarters at once to run the investigation of the Enskede killings.

Bublanski was fifty-two and had been on the force since he was twenty-three. He had spent six years in patrol cars and served in both the weapons division and the burglary division before he took additional courses and advanced to the violent crimes division of the county criminal police. By all accounts, he had taken part in thirty-three murder or manslaughter investigations in the last ten years. He had been in charge of seventeen of these investigations, of which fourteen were solved and two were considered closed, which meant that the police knew who the killer was but there was insufficient evidence to bring the individual to trial. In the one remaining case, now six years old, Bublanski and his colleagues had failed. The case concerned a well-known alcoholic and troublemaker who was stabbed to death in his home in Bergshamra. The crime scene was a nightmare of fingerprints and DNA traces left over a period of years by several dozen people who had gotten drunk or been beat up in the apartment. Bublanski and his colleagues were convinced that the killer could be found among the man's prodigious network of fellow alcoholics and drug addicts, but despite their intensive work whoever it was had continued to elude the police.