“Thank you. Do you drink?”
“Sometimes.”
“I’ve got a craving for something fruity with gin in it. Want some?”
“Sure.”
She wrapped a sheet around herself and went downstairs. Blomkvist was standing
naked, looking at her bookshelves when she returned with a carafe of iced water
and two glasses of gin and lime. They drank a toast.
“Why did you come over here?” she asked.
“No special reason. I just...”
“You were sitting at home, reading through Henrik’s investigation. And then you
came over here. A person doesn’t need to be super intelligent to know what you’re
brooding about.”
“Have you read the investigation?”
“Parts of it. I’ve lived my entire adult life with it. You can’t spend time with Henrik
without being affected by the mystery of Harriet.”
“It’s actually a fascinating case. What I believe is known in the trade as a locked-
room mystery, on an island. And nothing in the investigation seems to follow
normal logic. Every question remains unanswered, every clue leads to a dead end.”
“It’s the kind of thing people can get obsessed about.”
“You were on the island that day.”
“Yes. I was here, and I witnessed the whole commotion. I was living in Stockholm at
the time, studying. I wish I had stayed at home that weekend.”
“What was she really like? People seem to have completely different views of her.”
“Is this off the record or...?”
“It’s off the record.”