“Not at all. We’ll have our own Lapps, dog teams and all the gear. When are you
coming?”
“Friday evening, OK?”
Apart from the narrow shovelled path to the door, there was about three feet of
snow covering the property. Blomkvist gave the shovel a long, critical look and
then went over to Nilsson’s house to ask whether Berger could park her BMW there.
That was no problem; they had room in the double garage, and they even had
engine heaters.
Berger drove through the afternoon and arrived around 6:00. They stared at each
other warily for several seconds and then hugged each other for much longer.
There was not much to see in the darkness except for the illuminated church, and
both Konsum and Susanne’s Bridge Café were closing up. So they hurried home.
Blomkvist cooked dinner while Berger poked around in his house, making remarks
about the issues of Rekordmagasinet from the fifties that were still there, and
getting engrossed in his files in the office.
They had lamb cutlets with potatoes in cream sauce and drank red wine. Blomkvist
tried to take up the thread of their earlier conversation, but Berger was in no mood
to discuss Millennium. Instead they talked for two hours about what Blomkvist was
doing up there and how he and Vanger were getting on. Later they went to see if
the bed was big enough to hold both of them.
Her third meeting with Advokat Nils Bjurman was rescheduled, and finally set for
5:00 on that same Friday afternoon. At the previous meetings, Salander was
greeted by a middle-aged woman who smelled of musk and worked as his
secretary. This time she had left for the day, and Bjurman smelled faintly of drink.
He waved Salander to a visitor’s chair and leafed distractedly through the
documents on his desk until he seemed suddenly to become aware of her
presence.
It turned out to be another interrogation. This time he asked Salander about her
sex life—which she had no intention of discussing with anyone.