Blomkvist turned the page and felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. It
was as if a cold gust of wind passed through the room.
There were pictures taken the next day, when the search for Harriet had begun. A
young Inspector Morell was giving instructions to a search party consisting of two
uniformed police officers and ten men wearing boots who were about to set out.
Vanger was wearing a knee-length raincoat and a narrow-brimmed English hat.
On the left of the photograph stood a young, slightly stout young man with light,
longish hair. He had on a dark padded jacket with a red patch at the shoulder. The
image was very clear. Blomkvist recognised him at once—and the jacket—but, just
to make sure, he removed the photograph and went down to ask Anna if she
recognised the man.
“Yes, of course, that’s Martin.”
Salander ploughed through year after year of press cuttings, moving in
chronological order. She began in 1949 and worked her way forward. The archive
was huge. The company was mentioned in the media nearly every day during the
relevant time period—not only in the local press but also in the national media.
There were financial analyses, trade union negotiations, the threat of strikes,
factory openings and factory closings, annual reports, changes in managers, new
products that were launched...There was a flood of news. Click. Click. Click. Her
brain was working at high speed as she focused and absorbed the information
from the yellowing pages.
After several hours she had an idea. She asked the archives manager if there was a
chart showing where the Vanger Corporation had factories or companies during
the fifties and sixties.
Bodil Lindgren looked at Salander with undisguised coldness. She was not at all
happy giving a total stranger permission to enter the inner sanctum of the firm’s
archives, being obliged to allow her to look through whatever documents she
liked. And besides, this girl looked like some sort of half-witted fifteen-year-old
anarchist. But Herr Frode had given her instructions that could not be
misinterpreted. This slip of a girl was to be free to look at anything she pleased. And
it was urgent. She brought out the printed annual reports for the years that