At 7:30 he called Berger, but was advised that the party at that number was not
available. He sat on the kitchen bench and tried to read a novel which, according to
the back cover text, was the sensational debut of a teenage feminist. The novel was
about the author’s attempt to get a handle on her sex life during a trip to Paris, and
Blomkvist wondered whether he could be called a feminist if he wrote a novel
about his own sex life in the voice of a high-school student. Probably not. He had
bought the book because the publisher had hailed the first-time novelist as “a new
Carina Rydberg.” He quickly ascertained that this was not the case in either style or
content. He put the book aside for a while and instead read a Hopalong Cassidy
story in an issue of Rekordmagasinet from the mid-fifties.
Every half hour he heard the curt, muted clang of the church bell. Lights were
visible in the windows at the home of the caretaker across the road, but Blomkvist
could not see anyone inside the house. Harald Vanger’s house was dark. Around
9:00 a car drove across the bridge and disappeared towards the point. At midnight
the lights on the facade of the church were turned off. That was apparently the full
extent of the entertainment in Hedeby on a Friday night in early January. It was
eerily quiet.
He tried again to call Berger and got her voicemail, asking him to leave his name
and a message. He did so and then turned off the light and went to bed. The last
thing he thought about before he fell asleep was that he was going to run a high
risk of going stir-crazy in Hedeby.
It was strange to awake to utter silence. Blomkvist passed from deep sleep to total
alertness in a fraction of a second, and then lay still, listening. It was cold in the
room. He turned his head and looked at his wristwatch on a stool next to the bed. It
was 7:08—he had never been much of a morning person, and it used to be hard for
him to wake up without having at least two alarm clocks. Today he had woken all
by himself, and he even felt rested.
He put some water on for coffee before getting into the shower. He was suddenly
amused at his situation. Kalle Blomkvist—on a research trip in the back of beyond.
The shower head changed from scalding to ice-cold at the slightest touch. There
was no morning paper on the kitchen table. The butter was frozen. There was no
cheese slicer in the drawer of kitchen utensils. It was still pitch dark outside. The
thermometer showed 6 below zero. It was Saturday.