The Man Who Left Too Soon: The Life and Works of Stieg Larsson (18 page)

The focus shifts to the pastor of the island, Otto Falk, who was 36 when Harriet Vanger vanished. He is now in his seventies, younger than the seriously ill Henrik Vanger but in a confused mental state and living in a convalescent home. When Blomkvist calls on him, Falk tells him that Harriet must read certain passages of scripture and that she needs guidance. Falk tells Blomkvist that she is looking for a forbidden truth and she is not a good Christian, before drifting off into his own confused state. Religious judgements (as in practically every crime writer, James Lee Burke apart) are, of course, a signifier of negativity and hypocrisy.

Blomkvist and Salander begin to make biblical connections with the Apocrypha, and we are reminded that another key character, Armansky, has a concern for Salander who he sees as a perfect victim – a victim who is tracking down an insane killer in a remote place. In the meantime, Blomkvist is attempting in vain to contact Cecilia Vanger and as further evidence of the fact that the duo are getting closer to the killer, Blomkvist, while crossing a field, is shot at and throws himself to the ground. He stumbles into a bush and takes the long way home where he encounters Salander, telling her that he looks worse than he is (his face is smeared with congealed blood). Instructing her to stay where she is, Blomkvist makes his way to Cecilia Vanger’s house and begins to ask her several questions: Where was she when he was shot? Why did she open the window of Harriet’s room on the day she disappeared? She decides that she will give him answers, but tells him that it is not her in the photograph.

By now, Salander has started to install a variety of surveillance objects around the property, as it is clear that their lives are now on the line. She tells Blomkvist that Harriet had realised that there was a serial killer, someone they knew. Of the
dramatis personae
they have talked about here are at least 24 possible suspects but most of them are no longer around (except for Harald Vanger, who is now 93 and unlikely to be the marksman who attacked Blomkvist). Cecilia Vanger is seen in the photographs talking to Pastor Falk, and also with one of the Vanger brothers, Greger. He has a camera in his hand. It is starting to look as if some members of the family are pulling together to conceal a serial killer who may be one of the elder generation. But why the mutilated cat, an obvious reference to the killings? Interestingly, at this point – with the pace of the book accelerating and the reader aware that the last sixth of the text will deliver the revelations – Larsson allows a discussion between Blomkvist and Salander in which the latter reveals her self-loathing, calling herself a freak. It is another example of how the author has cannily realised that the characterisation of his protagonists is quite as important as the exigencies of the plot.

The couple make their way to Frode who is initially concerned by Blomkvist’s damaged appearance. They tell him that a possibly insane killer has realised how close they are getting to the truth and they ask about corporation archives. Blomkvist is sent to Alexander Vanger who shows him a box of unsorted photographs. There are connections to the Swedish Nazi Party apparent in the photographs (more evidence of Larsson’s own particular interests, but now comes a revelation of the kind outlawed in classical mystery solutions: the double). There is no question that Larsson would not have been aware of this stricture that crime writers placed upon themselves to avoid cheating, but he is clearly enjoying himself, bending the rules. It is not Cecilia Vanger in many of the pictures. There are two girls, and they are now seen in the same frame. It is her sister Anita, two years younger and living in London. They then identify the mysterious young man spotted earlier in the photographs. He is Martin Vanger.

Martin Vanger, an introverted child, had been stranded on the wrong side of the bridge on the fateful afternoon and was received by Vanger himself, among other people. But if he was undoubtedly on the wrong side of the water, how could he be in the significant photographs on the other side? At the same time, Salander has discovered that Gottfried Vanger had been situated where at least five of the eight killings were committed. The problem is that Gottfried had drowned while drunk in the 1960s, before the last murder was committed. It is pitch dark when Blomkvist walks towards Harald Vanger’s house.

However, Blomkvist encounters not Harald but Martin Vanger standing in the dark. He says he has questions. Martin replies, ‘I understand.’ He hands him a key to a door and opens it. It is at this point that one remembers that novelists such as James Patterson ensure their readers keep turning to the next chapter by the choice of a sentence which means the reader cannot put the book down. Larsson at this point comes up with such a sentence: ‘Blomkvist has opened the door to hell’. The author here takes us closest to the gruesome territory inhabited by writers such as his admired Val McDermid. It is a territory that when utilised by male writers has occasioned much criticism – and hardly less so when used by female writers such as McDermid (or even male writers with the correct feminist credentials, such as Larsson).

The space into which Blomkvist is ushered is a private torture chamber. On the left-hand side are chains and metal eyelets in the ceiling and the floor, a table on which (the reader presumes) luckless victims are strapped to have the most appalling horrors enacted upon them. And, chillingly, there is an array of video equipment. It is a taping studio. It is perhaps at this point that the reader remembers Lisbeth Salander, and why she is particularly good at dealing with the sinister nemeses she comes up against. Blomkvist is instructed to lie on the floor on his stomach. He refuses. Martin replies, ‘Very well… Then I’ll shoot you in the kneecap.’ Blomkvist finds himself obliged to comply.

He is constantly thinking how he will deal with the nightmare situation he is now in. What begins is a period of intense pain as he is kicked and punched trying to protect his head and take the blows in the softer parts of his body. A half hour of this torment follows before Blomkvist has a chain put around his neck and is fastened to the floor via a metal eyelet. He asks why all the punching and kicking is necessary, but the relentless Martin replies that he should have gone back to
Millennium
magazine. His tormentor asks Blomkvist how he tracked him down (‘You and that anorexic spook that you dragged into this’), and Blomkvist shocks his captor by telling him about murders that he knows he has committed, and attempts to bluff him that everything is over, that too many people know. Then Martin drops his bombshell: Lisbeth Salander is not going to rescue him, he knows exactly where she is, and a night watchman will tell him when she leaves.

This abrupt ending of Part Three, of course, ensures that very few readers will be able to put the book down before Part Four, which is called ‘Hostile Takeover’. Once again a ‘violence against women’ superscription adorns the title page: ‘92% of women in Sweden who have been subjected to sexual assault have not reported the most recent violent incident to the police’. Surprisingly, Part Four picks up exactly where the preceding part ended, with Blomkvist chained to the floor by his tormentor Martin Vanger – tantalisingly Larsson perhaps guessing we’ll expect him to defer the resolution of the climax. Blomkvist asks the murderer why he acts as he does – and why he has this chamber of horrors, indicating the torture chamber around him. Martin replies that it’s easy – that women who nobody misses, such as immigrants and prostitutes from Russia, vanish all the time. To his horror, Blomkvist realises that this is no series of murders from the past, but one which is happening today – and he has wandered right into it.

Larsson, micro-managing the tension, shifts the scene to Lisbeth Salander, wading through the documentation, making connections. She identifies the man with the long blond hair: Martin Vanger, who is studying in Uppsala. ‘Gotcha,’ she says in a low voice – and the reader worries, knowing what she does not know. She puts on her motorcycle helmet and uses her mobile to call Blomkvist, but he cannot, of course, be reached. The reader knows why. On arriving at the Vanger house, she looks at the surveillance footage showing Martin Vanger appearing in the camera’s viewfinder and experiences a cold fear.

We are now back in the torture chamber with Martin Vanger and Blomkvist, as the former explains his rationale as a serial killer. He is cool and dispassionate, commenting on the choices he has made and how the moral and intellectual aspects of his crimes have no significance. He points out that he has a complete life. Blomkvist mentions Harriet, which brings about a violent rage in his captor – but there is a surprising exclamation from the killer. Vanger shouts, ‘What the hell happened to her, bastard?’ Blomkvist tells him that his assumption was that he, Martin, had killed her. Then he realises that his captor is innocent of this crime. Vanger admits that he had wanted to despatch her but had not done so, which prompts a feeling in Blomkvist’s fevered brain: information overload. Vanger begins to tighten a noose around Blomkvist’s neck, leaning forward to kiss him on the lips – when at the same time a voice sounds in the room telling the would-be strangler that the situation has changed.

It is Salander, and Blomkvist hears her voice through a fog. He shouts out, telling her to run, but she is like a beast of prey, moving with lightning speed and striking Martin Vanger in the ribs again and again. As Blomkvist is passing out, he sees the knife on the floor – Vanger is trying to crawl away from Salander, one arm hanging. She uses the knife to cut Blomkvist free just as Vanger is disappearing through the door. She grabs the pistol and vanishes. What follows is tense thriller writing of a rare order as Salander stalks Martin Vanger, who is trying to drive away. The chase ends in a terrible crash and a conflagration. She returns to Blomkvist and begins to remove all evidence that the couple have been present in the torture chamber – and at the death of the killer. Blomkvist tries weakly to protest, but she tells him that if he goes on nagging she will drag him back to Martin’s torture chamber and tie him up again. At that he falls asleep.

Chapter 25 is another measure of Larsson’s skills – a recapitulation of what we heard before, but with all the detail satisfyingly filled in. Frode is apprised of the facts, i.e. that Martin has been kidnapping and murdering women, but that the bodies are gone. The latter’s death is the top story on the 9 o’clock news. Salander, ever the survivor, persuades Blomkvist that it’s best to cover up his involvement in the case as he does not wish to be celebrated as the journalist who was stripped nude by a vicious serial killer. The other members of the Vanger family (such as Gottfried), filled with a kind of poisonous evil, are discussed by Blomkvist and Salander and their religious motivation is talked about along with speculation regarding the building of the house and torture chamber. Blomkvist finds, unsurprisingly, that he is no longer welcome with such Vanger family members as Anita, who slams the door in his face.

As the first novel in the
Millennium Trilogy
winds down, we follow Blomkvist and Salander to London, walking from Covent Garden through Soho and having a coffee on Old Compton Street. They realise, however, that their lives in Sweden are burdened with unfinished business. They have to return. Blomkvist visits a member of the Vanger family who has been important to the novel when she was, apparently, a dead woman. It is Harriet, no less – who has hidden herself from unwanted family attention by feigning death. And Blomkvist discusses with her the reason for her assumed death. She talks about the horrors of her family and how she was tied up and raped by Martin. Blomkvist begins to be ashamed that he has not allowed her to maintain her anonymity and that he has disturbed her peace. But she had realised that the way to escape was to disappear. There is more business involving the tying up of loose ends concerning the Vanger family, and it’s to Larsson’s credit that this remains interesting, although we are past the point of violence and revelations.

Inevitably, the relationship between Blomkvist and Salander comes up again and he protests that, although she has said she likes having sex with him, he is old enough to be her father. She replies that she doesn’t ‘give a shit about his age’, but he points out that the age difference cannot be ignored. He tells her that all the ramifications of the Vanger murders are being tied up and they begin to discuss his discrediting over the Wennerström business. This affair has now moved back to centre stage and Blomkvist has decided that he will discover the truth about the man who has discredited him. Salander, meanwhile, has returned to Stockholm to do a new job for Armansky. She stays with Blomkvist, and begins to feel relaxed for what might be the first time in her life.

However, the novel has issues to resolve, and it involves Salander travelling to Zurich and equipping herself with a pair of fake breasts made of latex. In this masquerade, she continues her part of the investigation into Wennerström and, needless to say, nails the essential information. All that is left for the novel is an epilogue (subtitled ‘Final Audit’) which details
Millennium
’s special report on Hans Erik that takes up 46 pages of the magazine and has a seismic effect when published. The by-line of the story is that of Mikael Blomkvist and Erika Berger. The revelations in the story concerning Wennerström’s guilt (and,
inter alia
, Blomkvist’s innocence) are picked up by other news media, and a typical headline is ‘Convicted journalist accuses financier of serious crime’. The affair is so serious that there are even discussions of Sweden’s economy heading for a crash.

When Blomkvist appears on TV, it seems that he has been finally exonerated and the truth about Wennerström is discovered. The latter disappears, but is seen, it seems, getting into a car in the capital of Barbados. Finally, Blomkvist’s opponent is found dead in a Marbella apartment in Spain where he has been living under the name (playfully chosen by Larsson) of ‘Victor Fleming’ (the director of the film
The Wizard of Oz
– in which a plucky girl overcomes insuperable odds).