collect was mostly press cuttings and articles downloaded from the Internet. She
took the papers and dropped them in a desk drawer.
She frowned. Blomkvist’s strange behaviour in the courtroom had presented an
interesting challenge, and Salander did not like aborting an assignment once she
had started. People always have secrets. It’s just a matter of finding out what they are.
PART 2
Consequence Analyses
JANUARY 3–MARCH 17
Forty-six percent of the women in Sweden have been subjected to violence by a man.
CHAPTER 8
Friday, January 3–Sunday, January 5
When Blomkvist alighted from his train in Hedestad for the second time, the sky
was a pastel blue and the air icy cold. The thermometer on the wall of the station
said 0°F. He was wearing unsuitable walking shoes. Unlike on his previous visit,
there was no Herr Frode waiting with a warm car. Blomkvist had told them which
day he would arrive, but not on which train. He assumed there was a bus to
Hedeby, but he did not feel like struggling with two heavy suitcases and a shoulder
bag, so he crossed the square to the taxi stand.
It had snowed massively all along the Norrland coast between Christmas and New
Year’s, and judging by the ridges and piles of snow thrown up by the ploughs, the
road teams had been out in full force in Hedestad. The taxi driver, whose name,
according to his ID posted on the window, was Hussein, nodded when Blomkvist
asked whether they had been having rough weather. In the broadest Norrland
accent, he reported that it had been the worst snowstorm in decades, and he
bitterly regretted not taking his holiday in Greece over the Christmas period.