“Henrik, forgive me for saying this, but I can’t be sure that a year from now you’ll be
alive.”
Vanger sighed and cast a thoughtful gaze over the fishing harbour.
“Fair enough. I’ll talk to Frode and see if we can work something out. But as far
as Millennium is concerned, I might be able to help in another way. As I understand
it, the advertisers have begun to pull out.”
“The advertisers are the immediate problem, but the crisis goes deeper than that.
It’s a matter of trust. It doesn’t matter how many advertisers we have if no-one
wants to buy the magazine.”
“I realise that. I’m still on the board of directors of quite a large corporation, albeit in
a passive role. We have to place advertisements somewhere. Let’s discuss the
matter at some stage. Would you like to have dinner...”
“No. I want to get settled, buy some groceries, and take a look around. Tomorrow
I’ll go to Hedestad and shop for winter clothes.”
“Good idea.”
“I’d like the files about Harriet to be moved over to my place.”
“They need to be handled...”
“With great care—I understand.”
Blomkvist returned to the guest house. His teeth were chattering by the time he
got indoors. The thermometer outside the window said 5°F, and he couldn’t
remember ever feeling so cold as after that walk, which had lasted barely twenty
minutes.
He spent an hour settling himself into what was to be his home for the coming
year. He put his clothes in the wardrobe in the bedroom, his toiletries went in the
bathroom cabinet. His second suitcase was actually a trunk on wheels. From it he
took books, CDs and a CD player, notebooks, a Sanyo tape recorder, a Microtek
scanner, a portable ink-jet printer, a Minolta digital camera, and a number of other
items he regarded as essential kit for a year in exile.