“I really need a research assistant with the patience to go through old newspaper
archives to find ‘Magda’ and ‘Sara’ and the other names. If I’m right in thinking that
Rebecka wasn’t the only victim.”
“You mean you want to let someone else in on...”
“There’s a lot of work that has to be done and in a hurry. If I were a police officer
involved in an active investigation, I could divide up the hours and resources and
get people to dig for me. I need a professional who knows archive work and who
can be trusted.”
“I understand.... Actually I believe I know of an expert researcher,” said Frode, and
before he could stop himself, he added, “She was the one who did the background
investigation on you.”
“Who did what?” Blomkvist said.
“I was thinking out loud,” Frode said. “It’s nothing.” I’m getting old, he thought.
“You had someone do an investigation on me?”
“It’s nothing dramatic, Mikael. We wanted to hire you, and we just did a check on
what sort of person you were.”
“So that’s why Henrik always seems to know exactly where he has me. How
thorough was this investigation?”
“It was quite thorough.”
“Did it look into Millennium’s problems?”
Frode shrugged. “It had a bearing.”
Blomkvist lit a cigarette. It was his fifth of the day.
“A written report?”
“Mikael, it’s nothing to get worked up about.”
“I want to read the report,” he said.