He arranged the books and the CDs on the bookshelf in the office alongside two
binders containing research material on Hans-Erik Wennerström. The material was
useless, but he could not let it go. Somehow he had to turn those two folders into
building blocks for his continuing career.
Finally he opened his shoulder bag and put his iBook on the desk in the office.
Then he stopped and looked about him with a sheepish expression. The benefits of
living in the countryside, forsooth. There was nowhere to plug in the broadband
cable. He did not even have a telephone jack to connect an old dial-up modem.
Blomkvist called the Telia telephone company from his mobile. After a slight hassle,
he managed to get someone to find the order that Vanger had placed for the guest
house. He wanted to know whether the connection could handle ADSL and was
told that it would be possible by way of a relay in Hedeby, and that it would take
several days.
It was after 4:00 by the time Blomkvist was done. He put on a pair of thick socks and
the borrowed boots and pulled on an extra sweater. At the front door he stopped
short; he had been given no keys to the house, and his big-city instincts rebelled at
the idea of leaving the front door unlocked. He went back to the kitchen and began
opening drawers. Finally he found a key hanging from a nail in the pantry.
The temperature had dropped to -1°F. He walked briskly across the bridge and up
the hill past the church. The Konsum store was conveniently located about three
hundred yards away. He filled two paper bags to overflowing with supplies and
then carried them home before returning across the bridge. This time he stopped
at Susanne’s Bridge Café. The woman behind the counter was in her fifties. He
asked whether she was Susanne and then introduced himself by saying that he was
undoubtedly going to be a regular customer. He was for the time being the only
customer, and Susanne offered him coffee when he ordered sandwiches and
bought a loaf of bread. He picked up a copy of the Hedestad Courier from the
newspaper rack and sat at a table with a view of the bridge and the church, its
facade now lit up. It looked like a Christmas card. It took him about four minutes to
read the newspaper. The only news of interest was a brief item explaining that a
local politician by the name of Birger Vanger (Liberal) was going to invest in “IT
TechCent”—a technology development centre in Hedestad. Mikael sat there until
the café closed at 6:00.