Mikael carried her computer inside, set the alarm, and locked the front door before
he set out to look for her. He found her twenty minutes later on a jetty at the
marina. She was sitting there, dipping her feet in the water and smoking. She heard
him coming along the jetty, and he saw her shoulders stiffen. He stopped a couple
of paces away.
“I don’t know what I did, but I didn’t mean to upset you.”
He sat down next to her, tentatively placing a hand on her shoulder.
“Please, Lisbeth. Talk to me.”
She turned her head and looked at him.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” she said. “I’m just a freak, that’s all.”
“I’d be overjoyed if my memory was what yours is.”
She tossed the cigarette end into the water.
Mikael sat in silence for a long time. What am I supposed to say? You’re a perfectly
ordinary girl. What does it matter if you’re a little different? What kind of self-image do
you have, anyway?
“I thought there was something different about you the instant I saw you,” he said.
“And you know what? It’s been a really long time since I’ve had such a spontaneous
good impression of anyone from the very beginning.”
Some children came out of a cabin on the other side of the harbour and jumped
into the water. The painter, Eugen Norman, with whom Blomkvist still had not
exchanged a single word, was sitting in a chair outside his house, sucking on his
pipe as he regarded Blomkvist and Salander.
“I really want to be your friend, if you’ll let me,” he said. “But it’s up to you. I’m going
back to the house to put on some more coffee. Come home when you feel like it.”
He got up and left her in peace. He was only halfway up the hill when he heard her
footsteps behind him. They walked home together without exchanging a word.