exactly the same spot where he had run into Cecilia on his previous visit. They said
hello and shook hands.
“Have you been up to see Henrik?”
“No, I just happened to meet Dirch Frode.”
Martin looked tired and hollow-eyed. It occurred to Mikael that he had aged
appreciably during the six months since he had met him.
“How are things going with you, Mikael?” he said.
“More interesting with every day that passes. When Henrik is feeling better I hope
to be able to satisfy his curiosity.”
Birger Vanger’s was a white-brick terrace house a five-minute walk from the
hospital. He had a view of the sea and the Hedestad marina. No-one answered
when Blomkvist rang the doorbell. He called Cecilia’s mobile number but got no
answer there either. He sat in the car for a while, drumming his fingers on the
steering wheel. Birger Vanger was the wild card in the deck; born in 1939 and so
ten years old when Rebecka Jacobsson was murdered; twenty-seven when Harriet
disappeared.
According to Henrik, Birger and Harriet hardly ever saw each other. He had grown
up with his family in Uppsala and only moved to Hedestad to work for the firm. He
jumped ship after a couple of years and devoted himself to politics. But he had
been in Uppsala at the time Lena Andersson was murdered.
The incident with the cat gave him an ominous feeling, as if he were about to run
out of time.
Otto Falk was thirty-six when Harriet vanished. He was now seventy-two, younger
than Henrik Vanger but in a considerably worse mental state. Blomkvist sought him
out at the Svalan convalescent home, a yellow-brick building a short distance from
the Hede River at the other end of the town. Blomkvist introduced himself to the
receptionist and asked to be allowed to speak with Pastor Falk. He knew, he
explained, that the pastor suffered from Alzheimer’s and enquired how lucid he