From the archives Salander could see that Gottfried Vanger’s position within the firm had changed over the years. At the age of twenty in 1947, he met Isabella and immediately got her pregnant; Martin Vanger was born in 1948, and with that there was no question but that the young people would marry.
When Gottfried was twenty-two, he was brought into the main office of the Vanger Corporation by Henrik Vanger. He was obviously talented and they may have been grooming him to take over. He was promoted to the board at the age of twenty-five, as the assistant head of the company’s development division. A rising star.
Sometime in the mid-fifties his star began to plummet. He drank. His marriage to Isabella was on the rocks. The children, Harriet and Martin, were not doing well. Henrik drew the line. Gottfried’s career had reached its zenith. In 1956 another appointment was made, another assistant head of development. Two assistant heads: one who did the work while Gottfried drank and was absent for long periods of time.
But Gottfried was still a Vanger, as well as charming and eloquent. From 1957 on, his work seemed to consist of travelling around the country to open factories, resolve local conflicts, and spread an image that company management really did care. We’re sending out one of our own sons to listen to your problems. We do take you seriously.
Salander found a second connection. Gottfried Vanger had participated in a negotiation in Karlstad, where the Vanger Corporation had bought a timber company. On the following day a farmer’s wife, Magda Lovisa Sjöberg, was found murdered.
Salander discovered the third connection just fifteen minutes later. Uddevalla, 1962. The same day that Lea Persson disappeared, the local paper had interviewed Gottfried Vanger about a possible expansion of the harbour.
When Fru Lindgren had wanted to close up and go home at 5:30, Salander had snapped at her that she was a long way from finished yet. She could go home as long as she left the key, and Salander would lock up. By that time the archives manager was so infuriated that a girl like this one could boss her around that she called Herr Frode. Frode told her that Salander could stay all night if she wanted to. Would Fru Lindgren please notify security at the office so that they could let Salander out when she wanted to leave?
Three hours later, getting on for 8:30, Salander had concluded that Gottfried Vanger had been close to where at least five of the eight murders were committed, either during the days before or after the event. She was still missing information about the murders in 1949 and 1954. She studied a newspaper photograph of him. A slim, handsome man with dark blond hair; he looked rather like Clark Gable in Gone with the Wind.
In 1949 Gottfried was twenty-two years old. The first murder took place in his home territory. Hedestad. Rebecka Jacobsson, who worked at the Vanger Corporation. Where did the two of you meet? What did you promise her?
Salander bit her lip. The problem was that Gottfried Vanger had drowned when he was drunk in 1965, while the last murder was committed in Uppsala in February 1966. She wondered if she was mistaken when she had added Lena Andersson, the seventeen-year-old schoolgirl, to the list. No. It might not be the same signature, but it was the same Bible parody. They must be connected.
By 9:00 it was getting dark. The air was cool and it was drizzling. Mikael was sitting in the kitchen, drumming his fingers on the table, when Martin Vanger’s Volvo crossed the bridge and turned out towards the point. That somehow brought matters to a head.
He did not know what he should do. His whole being was burning with a desire to ask questions—to initiate a confrontation. It was certainly not a sensible attitude to have if he suspected Martin Vanger of being an insane murderer who had killed his sister and a girl in Uppsala, and who had also very nearly succeeded in killing him too. But Martin was also a magnet. And he did not know that Blomkvist knew; he could go and see him with the pretext that…well, he wanted to return the key to Gottfried Vanger’s cabin. Blomkvist locked the door behind him and strolled out to the point.
Harald Vanger’s house was pitch dark, as usual. In Henrik’s house the lights were off except in one room facing the courtyard. Anna had gone to bed. Isabella’s house was dark. Cecilia wasn’t at home. The lights were on upstairs in Alexander’s house, but they were off in the two houses occupied by people who were not members of the Vanger family. He did not see a soul.
He paused irresolutely outside Martin Vanger’s house, took out his mobile, and punched in Salander’s number. Still no answer. He turned off his mobile so that it would not start ringing.
There were lights on downstairs. Blomkvist walked across the lawn and stopped a few yards from the kitchen window, but he could see no-one. He continued on around the house, pausing at each window, but there was no sign of Martin. On the other hand, he did discover that the small side door into the garage was slightly open. Don’t be a damn fool. But he could not resist the temptation to look.
The first thing he saw on the carpenter’s bench was an open box of ammunition for a moose rifle. Then he saw two gasoline cans on the floor under the bench. Preparations for another nocturnal visit, Martin?
“Come in, Mikael. I saw you on the road.”
Blomkvist’s heart skipped a beat. Slowly he turned his head and saw Martin Vanger standing in the dark by a door leading into the house.
“You simply couldn’t stay away, could you?”
His voice was calm, almost friendly.
“Hi, Martin,” Blomkvist said.
“Come in,” Martin repeated. “This way.”
He took a step forward and to the side, holding out his left hand in an inviting gesture. He raised his right hand, and Blomkvist saw the reflection of dull metal.
“I have a Glock in my hand. Don’t do anything stupid. At this distance I won’t miss.”
Blomkvist slowly moved closer. When he reached Martin, he stopped and looked him in the eye.
“I had to come here. There are so many questions.”
“I understand. Through the door.”
Blomkvist entered the house. The passage led to the hall near the kitchen, but before he got that far, Martin Vanger stopped him by putting a hand lightly on Blomkvist’s shoulder.
“No, not that way. To your right. Open the door.”
The basement. When Blomkvist was halfway down the steps, Martin Vanger turned a switch and the lights went on. To the right of him was the boiler room. Ahead he could smell the scents of laundry. Martin guided him to the left, into a storage room with old furniture and boxes, at the back of which was a steel security door with a deadbolt lock.
“Here,” Martin said, tossing a key ring to Blomkvist. “Open it.”
He opened the door.
“The switch is on the left.”
Blomkvist had opened the door to hell.
Around 9:00 Salander went to get some coffee and a plastic-wrapped sandwich from the vending machine in the corridor outside the archives. She kept on paging through old documents, looking for any trace of Gottfried Vanger in Kalmar in 1954. She found nothing.
She thought about calling Blomkvist, but decided to go through the staff newsletters before she called it a day.
The space was approximately ten by twenty feet. Blomkvist assumed that it was situated along the north side of the house.
Martin Vanger had contrived his private torture chamber with great care. On the left were chains, metal eyelets in the ceiling and floor, a table with leather straps where he could restrain his victims. And then the video equipment. A taping studio. In the back of the room was a steel cage for his guests. To the right of the door was a bench, a bed, and a TV corner with videos on a shelf.
As soon as they entered the room, Martin Vanger aimed the pistol at Blomkvist and told him to lie on his stomach on the floor. Blomkvist refused.
“Very well,” Martin said. “Then I’ll shoot you in the kneecap.”
He took aim. Blomkvist capitulated. He had no choice.
He had hoped that Martin would relax his guard just a tenth of a second—he knew he would win any sort of fight with him. He had had half a chance in the passage upstairs when Martin put his hand on his shoulder, but he had hesitated. After that Martin had not come close. With a bullet in his kneecap he would have lost his chance. He lay down on the floor.
Martin approached from behind and told him to put his hands on his back. He handcuffed him. Then he kicked Mikael in the crotch and punched him viciously and repeatedly.
What happened after that seemed like a nightmare. Martin swung between rationality and pure lunacy. For a time quite calm, the next instant he would be pacing back and forth like an animal in a cage. He kicked Blomkvist several times. All Blomkvist could do was try to protect his head and take the blows in the soft parts of his body.
For the first half hour Martin did not say a word, and he appeared to be incapable of any sort of communication. After that he seemed to recover control. He put a chain round Blomkvist’s neck, fastening it with a padlock to a metal eyelet on the floor. He left Blomkvist alone for about fifteen minutes. When he returned, he was carrying a litre bottle of water. He sat on a chair and looked at Blomkvist as he drank.
“Could I have some water?” Blomkvist said.
Martin leaned down and let him take a good long drink from the bottle. Blomkvist swallowed greedily.
“Thanks.”
“Still so polite, Kalle Blomkvist.”
“Why all the punching and kicking?” Blomkvist said.
“Because you make me very angry indeed. You deserve to be punished. Why didn’t you just go home? You were needed at Millennium. I was serious—we could have made it into a great magazine. We could have worked together for years.”
Blomkvist grimaced and tried to shift his body into a more comfortable position. He was defenceless. All he had was his voice.
“I assume you mean that the opportunity has passed,” Blomkvist said.
Martin Vanger laughed.
“I’m sorry, Mikael. But, of course, you know perfectly well that you’re going to die down here.”
Blomkvist nodded.
“How the hell did you find me, you and that anorexic spook that you dragged into this?”
“You lied about what you were doing on the day that Harriet disappeared. You were in Hedestad at the Children’s Day parade. You were photographed there, looking at Harriet.”
“Was that why you went to Norsjö?”
“To get the picture, yes. It was taken by a honeymoon couple who happened to be in Hedestad.”
He shook his head.
“That’s a crass lie,” Martin said.
Blomkvist thought hard: what to say to prevent or postpone his execution.
“Where’s the picture now?”
“The negative? It’s in a safe-deposit box at Handelsbanken here in Hedestad…You didn’t know that I have a safe-deposit box?” He lied easily. “There are copies in various places. In my computer and in the girl’s, on the server at Millennium, and on the server at Milton Security, where the girl works.”
Martin waited, trying to work out whether or not Blomkvist was bluffing.
“How much does the girl know?”
Blomkvist hesitated. Salander was right now his only hope of rescue. What would she think when she came home and found him not there? He had put the photograph of Martin Vanger wearing the padded jacket on the kitchen table. Would she make the connection? Would she sound the alarm? She is not going to call the police. The nightmare was that she would come to Martin Vanger’s house and ring the bell, demanding to know where Blomkvist was.
“Answer me,” Martin said, his voice ice-cold.
“I’m thinking. She knows almost as much as I do, maybe even a little more. Yes, I would reckon she knows more than I do. She’s bright. She’s the one who made the link to Lena Andersson.”
“Lena Andersson?” Martin sounded perplexed.
“The girl you tortured and killed in Uppsala in 1966. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But for the first time he sounded shaken. It was the first time that anyone had made that connection—Lena Andersson was not included in Harriet’s date book.
“Martin,” Blomkvist said, making his voice as steady as he could. “It’s over. You can kill me, but it’s finished. Too many people know.”
Martin started pacing back and forth again.
I have to remember that he’s irrational. The cat. He could have brought the cat down here, but he went to the family crypt. Martin stopped.
“I think you’re lying. You and Salander are the only ones who know anything. You obviously haven’t talked to anyone, or the police would have been here by now. A nice little blaze in the guest cottage and the proof will be gone.”
“And if you’re wrong?”
“If I’m wrong, then it really is over. But I don’t think it is. I’ll bet that you’re bluffing. And what other choice do I have? I’ll give that some thought. It’s that anorexic little cunt who’s the weak link.”
“She went to Stockholm at lunchtime.”
Martin laughed.
“Bluff away, Mikael. She has been sitting in the archives at the Vanger Corporation offices all evening.”
Blomkvist’s heart skipped a beat. He knew. He’s known all along.
“That’s right. The plan was to visit the archive and then go to Stockholm,” Blomkvist said. “I didn’t know she stayed there so long.”
“Stop all this crap, Mikael. The archives manager rang to tell me that Dirch had let the girl stay there as late as she liked. Which means she’ll certainly be home. The night watchman is going to call me when she leaves.”
PART 4
Hostile Takeover
JULY 11 TO DECEMBER 30
Ninety-two percent of women in Sweden who have been subjected to sexual assault have not reported the most recent violent incident to the police.
CHAPTER 24
Friday, July 11–Saturday, July 12
Martin Vanger bent down and went through Mikael’s pockets. He took the key.
“Smart of you to change the lock,” he said. “I’m going to take care of your girlfriend when she gets back.”
Blomkvist reminded himself that Martin was a negotiator experienced from many industrial battles. He had already seen through one bluff.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why all of this?” Blomkvist gestured vaguely at the space around him.
Martin bent down and put one hand under Blomkvist’s chin, lifting his head so their eyes met.
“Because it’s so easy,” he said. “Women disappear all the time. Nobody misses them. Immigrants. Whores from Russia. Thousands of people pass through Sweden every year.”
He let go of Blomkvist’s head and stood up.
Martin’s words hit Blomkvist like a punch in the face.
Christ Almighty. This is no historical mystery. Martin Vanger is murdering women today. And I wandered right into it…
“As it happens, I don’t have a guest right now. But it might amuse you to know that while you and Henrik sat around babbling this winter and spring, there was a girl down here. Irina from Belarus. While you sat and ate dinner with me, she was locked up in the cage down here. It was a pleasant evening as I remember, no?”
