Blomkvist got help with the third jigsaw piece from an unexpected quarter.
After working on the images practically all night he slept heavily until well into the
afternoon. He awoke with a headache, took a shower, and walked to Susanne’s for
breakfast. He ought to have gone to see Vanger and report what he had
discovered. Instead, when he came back, he went to Cecilia’s house and knocked
on the door. He needed to ask her why she had lied to him about being in Harriet’s
room. No-one came to the door.
He was just leaving when he heard: “Your whore isn’t home.”
Gollum had emerged from his cave. He was once tall, almost six foot six, but now so
stooped with age that his eyes were level with Blomkvist’s. His face and neck were
splotched with dark liver spots. He was in his pyjamas and a brown dressing gown,
leaning on a cane. He looked like a Central Casting nasty old man.
“What did you say?”
“I said that your whore isn’t home.”
Blomkvist stepped so close that he was almost nose to nose with Harald Vanger.
“You’re talking about your own daughter, you fucking pig.”
“I’m not the one who comes sneaking over here in the night,” Harald said with a
toothless smile. He smelled foul. Blomkvist sidestepped him and went down the
road without looking back. He found Vanger in his office.
“I’ve just had the pleasure of meeting your brother,” Mikael said.
“Harald? Well, well, so, he’s ventured out. He does that a couple of times a year.”
“I was knocking on Cecilia’s door when this voice behind me said, quote, Your
whore isn’t home, unquote.”
“That sounds like Harald,” Vanger said calmly.
“He called his own daughter a whore, for God’s sake.”
“He’s been doing that for years. That’s why they don’t talk much.”