But quite unexpectedly their business dealings were in trouble.

He had driven straight from Bjurman’s to Enskede and parked the white Volvo two streets away. As luck would have it, the front door of the building was not locked. He went up and rang the doorbell with the nameplate SVENSSON-JOHANSSON.

He had fired two shots-there was a woman in the apartment too. He didn’t search the apartment or take any of their papers with him. He did take a computer that was on the table in the living room. He turned on his heel, went down the stairs, and out to his car. His only mistake had been dropping the revolver on the stairs while he was trying to balance the laptop and at the same time fish out his car keys. He stopped for a second, but the gun had skittered down the stairs to the basement, and he decided it would take too much time to go down and get it. He knew he was someone people would not forget having seen, so the important thing was to get out of there before anyone laid eyes on him.

The dropped revolver had been at first a source of criticism until Zala realized its implications. They were astonished when the police began a search for Salander. His mistake had turned into an incredible stroke of luck.

It also created a new problem. Salander became the only remaining weak link. She had known Bjurman and she knew Zala. She could put two and two together. When he and Zala conferred about the matter they were in agreement. They had to find Salander and bury her somewhere. It would be ideal if she were never found. Then the murder investigation would eventually be shelved.

They had taken a chance that Miriam Wu could lead them to Salander. And then everything had gone wrong again. Paolo Roberto. Of all people. Out of nowhere. And according to the newspapers he was also friends with Salander.

The giant was dumbfounded.

After Nykvarn he had gone to Lundin’s house in Svavelsjö, only a hundred yards from Svavelsjö MC’s headquarters. Not an ideal hiding place, but he didn’t have many options. He had to find somewhere to lie low until the bruises on his face began to fade and he could make himself scarce. He fingered his broken nose and felt the lump on his neck. The swelling had begun to subside.

It had been a good move to go back and burn down the whole fucking place.

Then, suddenly, he went ice cold.

Bjurman. He had met Bjurman once at his summer cabin. In early February-when Zala had accepted the job of taking care of Salander. Bjurman had had a file about Salander that he had leafed through. How could he have forgotten that? It could lead to Zala.

He went down to the kitchen and told Lundin to get himself to Stallarholmen as fast as he could and start another fire.

Bublanski spent his lunch break trying to put in order the investigation he knew was about to collapse. He spent time with Andersson and Bohman, who brought him up to date on the hunt for Salander. Tips had come in from Göteborg and Norrköping. Göteborg they ruled out right away, but the Norrköping sighting had potential. They informed their colleagues, and a cautious stakeout was put on an address where a girl who looked a little like Salander had been seen.

He tried to find Faste, but he was not in the building and did not answer his mobile. After the stormy meeting, Faste had vanished.

Bublanski then went to see Ekström to try to defuse the problem with Modig. He set out all his reasons for thinking the decision to take her off the case was foolhardy. Ekström would not listen, and Bublanski decided to file a complaint after the weekend. It was an idiotic situation.

Just after 3:00 he stepped into the corridor and saw Hedström coming out of Modig’s office, where he was still supposed to be combing through Svensson’s hard drive. Bublanski thought it was now a meaningless exercise, since no real detective was looking over his shoulder to check what he might have missed. He decided that Hedström should be with Andersson for the rest of the week.

Before he had a chance to say anything, Hedström disappeared into the toilet at the far end of the corridor. Bublanski went over to Modig’s empty office to wait for him to return.

Then his eye fell on Hedström’s mobile, which lay forgotten on the shelf behind his desk.

Bublanski glanced at the door to the toilet, still closed. On pure impulse he stepped into the office, stuffed Hedström’s mobile into his pocket, walked rapidly back to his own office, and closed the door. He clicked up the list of calls.

At 9:57, five minutes after the morning meeting was over, Hedström had called a number with an 070 area code. Bublanski lifted the receiver of his desk telephone and dialled the number. Tony Scala answered.

He hung up and stared at Hedström’s mobile. Then he got up with an expression like a thundercloud. He had taken two steps towards the door when his telephone rang. He went back to pick it up and shouted his name into the receiver.

“It’s Jerker. I’m back at the warehouse outside Nykvarn.”

“What did you find?”

“The fire is out. We’ve been busy the last two hours. The Södertälje police brought a corpse-sniffing dog to check the area in case there was someone in the wreckage.”

“Was there?”

“There was not. But we took a break so the dog could rest his nose for a while. The handler says it’s necessary since the smells at an arson site are really strong.”

“Get to the point, Jerker. I’m a bit pressed here.”

“Well, he took a walk and let the dog loose away from the site of the fire. The dog signalled a spot about seventy-five yards into the woods behind the warehouse. We started digging. Ten minutes ago we found a human leg with a shoe. It seems to be a man’s shoe. It was buried fairly shallow.”

“Oh shit. Jerker, you’ve got to-”

“I’ve already taken command of the site and put a stop to the digging. I want to get forensics out here and proper techs before we proceed.”

“Very well done.”

“But that’s not all. Five minutes ago the dog marked another spot some eighty yards from the first.”

Salander had made coffee on Bjurman’s stove and eaten another apple. She spent two hours reading through Bjurman’s notes on her, page by page. She was actually impressed. He had put quite a lot of effort into the task and systematized the information. He had found material about her that she didn’t even know existed.

She read Palmgren’s journal with mixed feelings. It took up two black notebooks. He had started keeping a diary about her when she was fifteen. She had just run away from her third set of foster parents, an elderly couple in Sigtuna; he was a sociologist and she was an author of children’s books. Salander had stayed with them for twelve days and could tell that they were tremendously proud of making a social contribution by taking her in, and that they expected her constantly to express gratitude. She had finally had enough when her foster mother, boasting to a neighbour, started expounding about how important it was that someone took care of young people who had obvious problems. I’m not a fucking social project, she wanted to scream. On the twelfth day she stole 100 kronor from their food money and took the bus to Upplands-Väsby and the shuttle train to Stockholm Central. The police found her six weeks later in the house of a sixty-seven-year-old man in Haninge.

He had been an OK guy. He provided her with food and a place to live. She did not have to do much in return. He wanted to look at her when she was naked. He never touched her. She knew he would be considered a pedophile, but she had never felt the least threat from him. She thought him an introverted and socially handicapped person. She even came to experience a feeling of kinship when she thought about him. They were both outsiders.

Someone had finally spotted her and called the police. A social worker did her best to persuade her to report the man for sexual assault. She had obstinately refused to say that anything untoward had occurred, and in any case she was fifteen and legal. Fuck you. Then Palmgren had intervened and signed for her. He started a diary in what appeared to be a frustrated attempt to allay and resolve his own doubts. The first entries were written in December 1993: