7:00 the next morning. Henrik Vanger called in part of the morning shift,
numbering fifty men, from the paper mill. He also arranged for food and drink for
them all.
Blomkvist could vividly imagine the scenes played out at the Vanger estate during
those days. The accident on the bridge had certainly contributed to the confusion
during the first hours—by making it difficult to bring in reinforcements, and also
because people somehow thought that these two dramatic events happening at
the same place and close to the same time must in some way have been
connected. When the tanker truck was hoisted away, Inspector Morell went down
to the bridge to be sure that Harriet Vanger had not, by some unlikely turn of
events, ended up under the wreck. That was the only irrational action that Mikael
could detect in the inspector’s conduct, since the missing girl had unquestionably
been seen on the island after the accident had occurred.
During those first confused twenty-four hours, their hopes that the situation would
come to a swift and happy resolution sank. Instead, they were gradually replaced
by two theories. In spite of the obvious difficulties in leaving the island unnoticed,
Morell refused to discount the possibility that she had run away. He decided that
an all-points bulletin should be sent out for Harriet Vanger, and he gave
instructions for the patrol officers in Hedestad to keep their eyes open for the
missing girl. He also sent a colleague in the criminal division to interview bus
drivers and staff at the railway station, to find out whether anyone might have seen
her.
As the negative reports came in, it became increasingly likely that Harriet Vanger
had fallen victim to some sort of misfortune. This theory ended up dominating the
investigative work of the following days.
The big search party two days after her disappearance was apparently, as far as
Blomkvist could tell, carried out effectively. Police and firefighters who had
experience with similar operations had organised the search. Hedeby Island did
have some parts that were almost inaccessible, but it was nevertheless a small area,
and the island was searched with a fine-tooth comb in one day. A police boat and
two volunteer Pettersson boats did what they could to search the waters around
the island.