his work is kitsch, but he’s rather well known as a landscape painter. You might call
him the obligatory eccentric in the village.”
Vanger guided Blomkvist out towards the point, identifying one house after the
other. The village consisted of six buildings on the west side of the road and four
on the east. The first house, closest to Blomkvist’s guest house and the Vanger
estate, belonged to Henrik Vanger’s brother Harald. It was a rectangular, two-storey
stone building which at first glance seemed unoccupied. The curtains were drawn
and the path to the front door had not been cleared; it was covered with a foot and
a half of snow. On second glance, they could see the footprints of someone who
had trudged through the snow from the road up to the door.
“Harald is a recluse. He and I have never seen eye to eye. Apart from our
disagreements over the firm—he’s a shareholder—we’ve barely spoken to each
other in nearly 60 years. He’s ninety-two now, and the only one of my four brothers
still alive. I’ll tell you the details later, but he trained to be a doctor and spent most
of his professional life in Uppsala. He moved back to Hedeby when he turned
seventy.”
“You don’t care much for each other, and yet you’re neighbours.”
“I find him detestable, and I would have rather he’d stayed in Uppsala, but he owns
this house. Do I sound like a scoundrel?”
“You sound like someone who doesn’t much like his brother.”
“I spent the first twenty-five years of my life apologising for people like Harald
because we’re family. Then I discovered that being related is no guarantee of love
and I had few reasons to defend Harald.”
The next house belonged to Isabella, Harriet Vanger’s mother.
“She’ll be seventy-five this year, and she’s still as stylish and vain as ever. She’s also
the only one in the village who talks to Harald, and occasionally visits him, but they
don’t have much in common.”
“How was her relationship with Harriet?”
“Good question. The women have to be included among the suspects. I told you
that she mostly left the children to their own devices. I can’t be sure, but I think her
heart was in the right place; she just wasn’t capable of taking responsibility. She