The Man Who Left Too Soon: The Life and Works of Stieg Larsson (14 page)

It’s worth noting at this point that Larsson is also well aware of the strategy of keeping us intrigued about one of the characters. In the same way that Mikael Blomkvist might be said to be a surrogate or identification figure for the author himself, Blomkvist also fulfils this function for the reader. Right from the start of the book we are placed firmly within his consciousness and are party to most of his thoughts and motivations – not to mention the fact that we are given a fairly extensive itinerary of his days. The same is not true of Lisbeth Salander, although we are told a lot about her. She nevertheless remains something of an enigma and the reader looks upon her with a degree of wonder in rather the same way that those who have already dealt with her have done – and Blomkvist will come to do. It is this maintaining of a character’s mystique at which Larsson is particularly adroit, and his particular skill is to maintain this element of mystery about his female protagonist throughout all three books, however extreme the situations he puts her in (and the situations are certainly going to become extreme).

Salander boots up her iBook and sends an e-mail, after utilising an encryption programme. We are reminded of her computer expertise – this is not a woman who would struggle for long with the computer problems that bedevil most of us. But then she performs a rather surprising action – one that gives us a new insight into her as a character. She puts on black jeans, a polo shirt, a jacket and matching knitted gloves. She also takes the rings from her eyebrows and nostril, applies a pale pink lipstick and, by these actions, transforms herself into an ordinary-looking woman simply out for an afternoon walk. This, we are told, is appropriate camouflage and we realise that there is much more to Lisbeth – literally – than meets the eye. She makes her way to the apartment block at which one of the residents is Wennerström.

Chapter 6 utilises a mini version of the ticking clock so beloved of many crime novelists. Blomkvist has set himself the task of catching the evening train at 9.30 pm. He has looked at the scrapbook that Vanger has given him and has absorbed the available information. There has been a certain amount of interest in the missing girl for a while, but then no new facts were forthcoming, and the interest has waned. More than three decades later, the issue of what happened to Harriet Vanger appears to be of little or no interest. One explanation has been accepted: that she was drowned and lost in the sea.

Vanger asks Blomkvist what he thinks has happened to her, and the latter gives a summing up which would have done Agatha Christie proud: the island normally had some 20-odd residents, but the family reunion had meant that there were 60 on Hedeby Island on the occasion that the girl went missing, and Blomkvist discounts most of them. He suggests that the most likely solution was that a member of the family murdered Harriet and concealed her body. But Vanger is having none of this, and raises a host of objections, principally relating to the timing of the girl’s disappearance. There is a photograph, taken during the Children’s Day parade which appears to show Harriet two hours before she disappears. And there is an even more intriguing photograph: Vanger finds a picture of his brother Harald, who is seen pointing at something behind the wreckage of the car.

The evidence suggests that Harald spent the afternoon on the bridge. But then Blomkvist is shown a picture of a house, and it is pointed out to him that a window on the second floor is Harriet’s room. In the preceding pictures in the sequence it is open, then closed, and now it is open. Somebody has been in the girl’s room. Blomkvist, however, is not convinced that this is important evidence, and the conclusion is that although the whereabouts of certain people can be identified at certain times, those who were not in the photographs should be placed in the line of fire regarding suspects. A theory is advanced: the killer opened the boot of a car and put the body of the murdered girl inside. Despite all the assiduous checking of shorelines, etc, nobody was checking cars. And by the next night it would have been possible to spirit the body away. Blomkvist points out that this would have been the action of a ‘cold-blooded bastard’, to which Vanger replies that this is a fairly accurate description of several members of his family. As Vanger continues his entreaties that Blomkvist track down the killer of Harriet, it’s clear that Larsson is prepared to take his time – and risk straining reader’s patience – with regard to this piece of exposition.

A basic situation that might have been set out by other authors in a much shorter time is still being treated at length. But such is Larsson’s skill that we remain gripped, even though the narrative is not advancing in any significant way. There is, of course, the issue of Salander and the other investigation being undertaken – Larsson is well aware that we will not have forgotten that. He takes us back to his female protagonist, parking a car by a railway station in Sundbyberg. It’s a car she’s borrowed from her employers, Milton Securities’ fleet of vehicles and (true to form) for which she has not requested permission.

She is calling on a contact. The door opens on a darkened apartment and she greets its occupant, saying, ‘Hi, Plague.’ The reply is ‘Wasp,’ with a sardonic remark that she only calls when she needs something. She is visiting a man three years older than herself, and consistent with her lack of social graces she points out his lack of physical freshness, commenting that the apartment smells like a monkey house. His reply that he is socially incompetent amuses her, but she hands him 5000 kronor and explains the reason she is there: she’s after an electronic cuff that he mentioned some months ago. She examines the cuff and the author knows we will be wondering what this strange object is for.

Larsson then cuts back to the island and Blomkvist’s interrogation by Vanger who tells him that in 1967, a year after Harriet disappeared, he received a flower on his birthday – a violet, which arrived in a padded envelope with no return address or message, adding that the same strange gesture has happened on his birthday every year since.

Vanger then delivers his ace-in-the-hole for persuading Blomkvist to investigate the disappearance of Harriet by offering something that the journalist wants more than anything else. He tells Blomkvist he can deliver to him his nemesis, Hans-Erik Wennerström, and points out that he can prove that he is a swindler if Blomkvist is prepared to solve the mystery of the disappearance. It’s a measure of Larsson’s skill that when he next cuts to Erika and Christer Malm discussing the future of the magazine
Millennium
with an unhappy Blomkvist present, this acrimonious discussion is as interesting as the two principal plot engines. Blomkvist is repeating that he has not given up on
Millennium
, and that the magazine is still immensely important to him. But he will, he says, be on a leave of absence. Erika though, points out that she and Christer will not be able to carry the workload, but Blomkvist counters that he is not really functioning anymore and that he is, in effect, burnt out.

It is difficult not to try to read Blomkvist’s comment as a possible reflection on Larsson’s own life. It was, after all, by common consent the view that the author’s immense workload – combined with his unhealthy lifestyle – contributed to his death, and he was too intelligent a man not to realise the necessity of recharging one’s batteries (even if he was not prepared to take that advice himself). Blomkvist tries to persuade his partners that the commission is a way of getting to Wennerström, but Erika continues to argue with him. In this discussion, Larsson reminds the reader how good he is at characterising his female protagonists: Erika is not simply there to advance the plot, but she is a plausible and well-rounded character in her own right, with her own reasons for dissuading her sometime lover from his course of action.

The first section of the book ends with a discussion between Armansky and Salander, after Lisbeth is woken by her boss at one o’clock in the afternoon from a deep sleep. He tells her that their client, the lawyer Frode, has instructed them to drop the investigation of Wennerström. She objects that she has only just begun working on the assignment, but is told that the client is no longer interested. They will be paid, but Salander asks what should be done with the material that she has gathered – which, as she admits, contains nothing significant. She is told that she can either shelve it or destroy it, and that there will be a new job for her shortly. The reader, however, will not be surprised to learn that she is not persuaded by this. She is not the kind of woman to drop an assignment she has begun, and the section ends with her conclusion (in italics) that people always have secrets – secrets that can always be ascertained.

Part Two of
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
begins with a forbidding superscription: ‘CONSEQUENCE ANALYSES’ and a telling statistic (relating to the original Swedish title of the book, changed for non-Swedish readers) that ‘46% of the women in Sweden have been subjected to violence by a man’. This is, of course, one of the most notable motivating factors in the book, and by encapsulating his rage at this situation within the context of a popular genre novel, Larsson makes his points more effectively than a dozen journalistic pieces.

Blomkvist arrives at Hedestad for the second time to a pastel blue sky and a freezing cold atmosphere. This time there is no heated car to greet him and he is obliged to manhandle his two ungainly suitcases to a taxi stand. Everything is covered in snow, and the non-Scandinavian reader is firmly within the territory that they associate with crime fiction from this part of the world – that’s to say, a certain frigidity, both physical and (in the case of many of the characters) emotional.

Vanger greets Blomkvist dressed in a heavy fur coat. The journalist is told that he has to be a little more prepared for the weather in this part of the world, and an interesting tactic is employed by Larsson here: although Blomkvist is the same nationality as those around him, he has become a visitor to this part of society and is now something of a conduit for the reader. He is shown the guesthouse, which is comfortable and well-equipped, although he is warned that it can be very cold. A telephone has been ordered for him, to be installed shortly. It’s then pointed out that Blomkvist’s neighbour is Gunnar Nilsson, the caretaker (although the latter is more of a superintendent for all the buildings on the island and even some on the nearby islands). Blomkvist is reminded that the explanation for his presence is that he is here to write Vanger’s autobiography, and that the actual assignment will remain a secret between Blomkvist, Vanger and Dirch Frode.

Vanger takes him to a nearby crossroads and gestures towards an ancient fishing harbour now used by non-fishing boats. Blomkvist is by now extremely cold, but listens attentively as the various inhabitants are described to him, including the elderly painter Eugen Norman, whom Vanger portrays as a painter of rather kitschy canvases. As the various houses in the village are pointed out, the reader is obliged to pay attention, as so often in the
Millennium Trilogy –
it’s clear that information imparted here will become significant later. The house which is closest to the Vanger estate belongs to Henrik’s brother Harald, and it initially appears to have no occupants, although footprints in the snow give the lie to that impression. Blomkvist is told that Harald is reclusive and has always been at loggerheads with his brother.

In fact, it appears that the two brothers have hardly spoken to each other for the last six decades – Harald is 92 and the only one of Vanger’s four brothers still alive. They find each other abhorrent. The house adjoining Harald’s is that of Isabella, the mother of the missing girl, Harriet. Isabella, Blomkvist is told, will be 75 this year but is still strikingly soignée, and as conscious of her looks as ever. The journalist enquires about her relationship with her daughter, and Vanger says that the two women were not close, but were not opposed.

Once again we have the post-modern take on the crime novel (of the kind we are reading) signalled by the fact that Vanger points out that the women are obliged to be included among the suspects. Isabella’s neighbour is Cecilia, who is the reclusive Harald’s daughter, separated from her husband and given the house by Vanger. She is a teacher, and Vanger’s indulgence towards her is underlined by the fact that she only occasionally speaks to her father. She was 20 on the day that Harriet disappeared, and Vanger says that she is the one of his relatives of whom he is most fond. Blomkvist, ever inquisitive, asks if this means that Vanger considers her to be above suspicion, but he is told that Blomkvist must make up his own mind. Finally, Blomkvist is shown the house where Harriet’s brother Martin lives. Martin, we are reminded, is the CEO of the Vanger Corporation.

In the final building on the east side of the road resides Gerda Vanger, the widow of Henrik’s brother Greger, and her son Alexander. She is described as sickly and suffering from rheumatism. At this point (as often in the sequence of the book) the reader is struggling to take in the host of information that has been imparted, and – no doubt sensing this – Larsson has Blomkvist say that he is prepared to write the autobiography but he wants Vanger to remember that he is not a private detective. The reply is that nothing is expected, but neither the reader, nor Blomkvist, believes this. Vanger is reminded that prison is an option for the disgraced writer, but that Blomkvist will be prepared to work on the book (and his actual assignment) in prison but he points out to Vanger that he is the part owner of
Millennium
which is now in something of a crisis. Vanger demonstrates both sides of his personality by offering to help out on the magazine, but reminding Blomkvist in no uncertain fashion that if he discovers he is not doing the work he is being paid for he will consider it a breach of contract.