Hedeby looked to be a relatively well-to-do area for Hedestad’s decision-makers
and civil servants.
When he returned to the bridge, the assault on the café had ebbed, but Susanne
was still clearing dishes from the tables.
“The Sunday rush?” he said in greeting.
She nodded as she tucked a lock of hair behind one ear. “Hi, Mikael.”
“So you remember my name.”
“Hard to forget,” she said. “I followed your trial on TV.”
“They have to fill up the news with something,” he muttered, and drifted over to
the corner table with a view of the bridge. When he met Susanne’s eyes, she
smiled.
At 3:00 Susanne announced that she was closing the café for the day. After the
church rush, only a few customers had come and gone. Blomkvist had read more
than a fifth of the first binder of the police investigation. He stuck his notebook into
his bag and walked briskly home across the bridge.
The cat was waiting on the steps. He looked around, wondering whose cat it was.
He let it inside all the same, since the cat was at least some sort of company.
He made one more vain attempt to reach Berger. Obviously she was furious with
him still. He could have tried calling her direct line at the office or her home
number, but he had already left enough messages. Instead, he made himself
coffee, moved the cat farther along the kitchen bench, and opened the binder on
the table.
He read carefully and slowly, not wanting to miss any detail. By late evening, when
he closed the binder, he had filled several pages of his own notebook—with
reminders and questions to which he hoped to find answers in subsequent binders.
The material was all arranged in chronological order. He could not tell whether
Vanger had reorganised it that way or whether that was the system used by the
police at the time.