The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (32 page)

“Vietnam,” Cortez said.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Eriksson said.

“They’ve been making toilets there for at least ten years. Swedish workers were already out of that race in the nineties.”

“Oh, shit.”

“But here comes my point. If you imported directly from the factory in Vietnam, the price would be in the order of 390 kronor. Guess how you can explain the price difference between Thailand and Vietnam?”

“Don’t tell me that—”

“Oh yes. Vitavara Inc. subcontracts the work to an outfit called Fong Soo Industries. They’re on the UN list of companies that use child labour—at least they were in an investigation from 2001. But the majority of the workers are convicts.”

Eriksson burst out laughing. “This is great. This is really great. I’m sure you’re going to be a journalist when you grow up. How fast can you have the story ready?”

“Two weeks. I have a lot of international trade stuff to check out. And then we need a bad guy for the story, so I’m going to see who owns Vitavara Inc.”

“Then we could run it in the June issue?”

“No problem.”

Inspector Bublanski listened to Prosecutor Ekström without expression. The meeting had lasted forty minutes, and Bublanski was feeling an intense
desire to reach out and grab the copy of
The Law of the Swedish Kingdom
that lay on the edge of Ekström’s desk and ram it down the prosecutor’s throat. He wondered what would happen if he acted on his impulse. There would certainly be headlines in the evening papers, and it would probably result in an assault charge. He pushed the thought away. The whole point of the socialized human being was to not give in to that sort of impulse, regardless of how belligerently an opponent might behave. Of course it was usually after somebody had given in to such impulses that Inspector Bublanski was called in.

“I take it we’re in agreement,” Ekström said.

“No, we are not in agreement,” Bublanski said, getting to his feet. “But you’re the leader of the preliminary investigation.”

He muttered to himself as he turned down the hall to his office, summoning Andersson and Modig as he went. They were the only colleagues available to him that afternoon, as Holmberg had regrettably opted to take a two-week vacation.

“My office,” Bublanski said. “Bring some coffee.”

After they settled in, Bublanski looked at the notes from his meeting with Ekström.

“As the situation stands, our preliminary investigation leader has dropped all charges against Lisbeth Salander relating to the murders for which she was being sought. She is no longer part of the preliminary investigation as far as we’re concerned.”

“That can be considered a step forward, at any rate,” Modig said.

Andersson, as usual, said nothing.

“I’m not so sure about that,” Bublanski said. “Salander is still suspected in connection with the events at Stallarholmen and Gosseberga. But we’re no longer involved with those investigations. We have to concentrate on finding Niedermann and working on the graves in the woods at Nykvarn. On the other hand, it’s now clear that Ekström is going to bring charges against Salander. The case has been transferred to Stockholm, and an entirely new investigation has been set up for the purpose.”

“Oh, really?” Modig said.

“And who do you think is going to investigate Salander?” Bublanski said.

“I’m fearing the worst.”

“Hans Faste is back on duty, and he’s going to assist Ekström.”

“That’s insane. Faste is grossly unsuited to investigate anything at all to do with Salander.”

“I know that. But Ekström has a good argument. Faste has been out
on sick leave, and this would be the perfect, simple case for him to focus on.”

Silence.

“The long and the short of it is that we’re to hand over all our material on Salander to him this afternoon.”

“And this story about Gunnar Björck and Säpo and the 1991 report. . . .”

“ . . . is going to be handled by Faste and Ekström.”

“I don’t like this,” Modig said.

“Nor do I. But Ekström’s the boss, and he has backing from higher up in the bureaucracy. In other words, our job is still to find the killer. Curt, what’s the situation?”

Andersson shook his head. “Niedermann seems to have been swallowed up by the earth. I have to admit that in all my years on the force I’ve never seen anything like it. We haven’t had any tip-offs, and we don’t have a single informer who knows him or has any idea where he might be.”

“That sounds fishy,” Modig said. “But he’s being sought for the police murder in Gosseberga, for aggravated assault on another officer, for the attempted murder of Salander, and for the aggravated kidnapping and assault of the dental hygienist Anita Kaspersson, as well as for the murders of Svensson and Johansson. In every instance there’s good forensic evidence.”

“That helps a bit, at least. How’s it going with the case of Svavelsjö MC’s treasurer?”

“Viktor Göransson—and his girlfriend, Lena Nygren. We have forensic evidence that ties Niedermann to the scene. Fingerprints and DNA from Göransson’s body. Niedermann must have bloodied his knuckles pretty badly during the beating.”

“Anything new on Svavelsjö MC?”

“Nieminen has taken over as club president while Lundin remains in custody, awaiting trial for the kidnapping of Miriam Wu. There’s a whisper that Nieminen has offered a big reward to anyone who can provide information on Niedermann’s whereabouts.”

“If the entire underworld is looking for him, it’s even stranger that he hasn’t been found. What about Göransson’s car?”

“Since we found Kaspersson’s car at Göransson’s place, we’re sure that Niedermann switched vehicles. But we have no trace of the car he took.”

“So we have to ask ourselves, one, is Niedermann still hiding out somewhere in Sweden? Two, if so, with whom? Three, is he out of the country? What do we think?”

“We have nothing to indicate that he’s left the country, but really that seems his most logical course.”

“Where did he ditch the car?”

Modig and Andersson shook their heads. Nine times out of ten, police work was uncomplicated when it came to looking for one specific individual. It was about initiating a logical sequence of inquiries. Who were his friends? Who had he been in prison with? Where did his girlfriend live? Who did he drink with? In what area was his mobile last used? Where was his vehicle? At the end of that sequence the fugitive would generally be found.

The problem with Niedermann was that he had no friends, no girlfriend, and no listed mobile, and he had never been in prison.

The inquiries had concentrated on finding Göransson’s car, which Niedermann was presumed to be using. They had expected the car to turn up in a matter of days, probably in some parking lot in Stockholm. But there was still no sign of it.

“If he’s out of the country, where would he be?”

“He’s a German citizen, so the obvious thing would be for him to head for Germany.”

“He seems not to have had any contact with his old friends in Hamburg.”

Andersson waved his hand. “If his plan was to go to Germany, why would he drive to Stockholm? Shouldn’t he have made for Malmö and the bridge to Copenhagen, or for one of the ferries?”

“I know. And Inspector Erlander in Göteborg has been focusing his search in that direction from day one. The Danish police have been informed about Göransson’s car, and we know for sure that he didn’t take any of the ferries.”

“But he did drive to Stockholm and to Svavelsjö, and there he murdered the club’s treasurer and—we can assume—made off with an unspecified sum of money. What would his next step be?”

“He has to get out of Sweden,” Bublanski said. “The most direct option would be to take one of the ferries across the Baltic. Göransson and his girlfriend were murdered late on the night of April 9. Niedermann could have taken the ferry the next morning. We got the alarm roughly sixteen hours after they died, and we’ve had an APB out on the car ever since.”

“If he took the morning ferry, then Göransson’s car would be parked at one of the ports,” Modig said.

“Perhaps we haven’t found the car because Niedermann drove out of
the country to the north via Haparanda? It’s a big detour around the Gulf of Bothnia, but in sixteen hours he could have been in Finland.”

“Sure, but soon after he would have had to abandon the car in Finland, and it should have been found by now.”

They sat in silence. Finally Bublanski got up and stood at the window.

“Could he have found a hiding place where he’s just lying low, a summer cabin or—”

“I don’t think it would be a summer cabin. This time of year every cabin owner is out checking their property.”

“And he wouldn’t try anywhere connected to Svavelsjö MC. They’re the last people he’d want to run into.”

“The entire underworld can be ruled out as well. . . . Any girlfriend we don’t know about?”

They could speculate, but they had no facts.

When Andersson left for the day, Modig went back to Bublanski’s office and knocked on the door jamb. He waved her in.

“Do you have a couple of minutes?” she said.

“What’s up?”

“Salander. I don’t like this business with Ekström and Faste and a new trial. You’ve read Björck’s report. I’ve read Björck’s report. Salander was unlawfully committed in 1991 and Ekström knows it. What the hell is going on?”

Bublanski took off his reading glasses and tucked them into his breast pocket. “I don’t know.”

“No idea at all?”

“Ekström claims that Björck’s report and the correspondence with Teleborian were falsified.”

“Bullshit. If it were fake, then Björck would have said so when we brought him in.”

“Ekström says Björck refused to discuss it, on the grounds that it was top secret. I was given a dressing down because I jumped the gun and brought him in.”

“I’m beginning to have strong reservations about Ekström.”

“He’s getting squeezed from all sides.”

“That’s no excuse.”

“We don’t have a monopoly on the truth, Sonja. Ekström says he’s received evidence that the report is a fake—that there is no real report with
that protocol number. He also says that the forgery is a good one and that the content is a clever blend of truth and fantasy.”

“Which part is truth and which part is fantasy, that’s what I need to know,” Modig said.

“The frame story is pretty much correct. Zalachenko is Salander’s father, and he was a bastard who beat her mother. The problem is the usual one—the mother never wanted to make a complaint, so it went on for several years. Björck was given the job of finding out what happened when Salander tried to kill her father. He corresponded with Teleborian, but the correspondence we’ve seen is apparently a forgery. Teleborian did a routine psychiatric examination of Salander and concluded that she was mentally unbalanced. A prosecutor decided not to take the case any further. She needed care, and she got it at St. Stefan’s.”

“If it is a forgery, who did it and why?”

Bublanski shrugged. “As I understand it, Ekström is going to commission one more thorough evaluation of Salander.”

“I can’t accept that.”

“It’s not our case anymore.”

“And Faste has replaced us. Jan, I’m going to the media if these bastards piss all over Salander one more time.”

“No, Sonja. You won’t. First of all, we no longer have access to the report, so you have no way of backing up your claims. You’re going to look paranoid, and then your career will be over.”

“I still have the report,” Modig said in a low voice. “I made a copy for Curt, but I never had a chance to give it to him before the prosecutor general collected the others.”

“If you leak that report, you’ll not only be fired but you’ll be guilty of gross misconduct.”

Modig sat in silence for a moment and looked at her superior.

“Sonja, don’t do it. Promise me.”

“No, Jan. I can’t promise that. There’s something very sick about this whole story.”

“You’re right, it is sick. But since we don’t know who the enemy is at the moment, you’re not going to do anything.”

Modig tilted her head to one side. “Are you going to do anything?”

“I’m not going to discuss that with you. Trust me. It’s Friday night. Take a break; go home. This discussion never took place.”

•    •    •

Niklas Adamsson, the Securitas guard, was studying for a test in three weeks’ time. It was 1:30 on Saturday afternoon when he heard the sound of rotating brushes from the low-humming floor polisher and saw that it was the dark-skinned immigrant who walked with a limp. The man would always nod politely but never laughed if Adamsson said anything humorous. Adamsson watched as he took a bottle of cleaning fluid and sprayed the reception counter-top twice before wiping it with a rag. Then he took his mop and swabbed the corners in the reception area where the brushes of the floor polisher couldn’t reach. The guard put his nose back into his book about the national economy and kept reading.

It took ten minutes for the cleaner to work his way over to Adamsson’s spot at the end of the corridor. They nodded to each other. Adamsson stood to let the man clean the floor around his chair outside Salander’s room, as he did almost every day since he had been posted outside the room. Adamsson couldn’t remember the cleaner’s name—something foreign—but he didn’t feel the need to check his ID. For one thing, the man was not allowed to clean inside the prisoner’s room—that was done by two cleaning women in the morning—and besides, he didn’t seem to be any sort of threat.

When the cleaner had finished in the corridor, he opened the door to the room next to Salander’s. Adamsson glanced his way, but this was no deviation from the daily routine. This was where the cleaning supplies were kept. In the course of the next five minutes the man emptied his bucket, cleaned the brushes, and replenished the cart with plastic bags for the wastepaper baskets. Finally he manoeuvred the cart into the cubbyhole.

Ghidi was aware of the guard in the corridor. It was a young blond man who was usually there two or three days a week, reading books. Part-time guard, part-time student. He was about as aware of his surroundings as a brick.