“I box once in a while.”
“You box?”
“Yeah, you know, with gloves.”
“What weight do you box in?” he said, when he emerged from the shower.
“None at all. I spar a little now and then against the guys in a club in Söder.”
Why is that no surprise? he thought. But at least she had told him something about
herself. He knew no basic facts about her. How did she come to be working for
Armansky? What sort of education did she have? What did her parents do? As soon
as Blomkvist tried to ask about her life she shut up like a clam, answered in single
syllables or ignored him.
One afternoon Salander suddenly put down a binder, frowning.
“What do you know about Otto Falk? The pastor.”
“Not much. I met the present incumbent a few times earlier in the year, and she
told me that Falk lives in some geriatric home in Hedestad. Alzheimer’s.”
“Where did he come from?”
“From Hedestad. He studied in Uppsala.”
“He was unmarried. And Harriet hung out with him.”
“Why do you ask?”
“I’m just saying that Morell went pretty easy on him in the interview.”
“In the sixties pastors enjoyed a considerably different status in society. It was
natural for him to live out here on the island, close to the power brokers, so to
speak.”
“I wonder how carefully the police searched the parsonage. In the photographs it
looks like it was a big wooden house, and there must have been plenty of places to
hide a body for a while.”