“Oh yes,” she said. “Decidedly you do.”
“You really have been mad at me.”
“Mikael, I’ve never felt so furious, so abandoned, and so betrayed as when you left.
I’ve never been this upset with you before.” She took a firm grip on his hair and
then shoved him farther down in the bed.
By the time Berger left Hedeby on Sunday, Blomkvist was still so annoyed with
Vanger that he did not want to risk running into either him or any other member of
his clan. Instead, on Monday he took the bus into Hedestad and spent the
afternoon walking in the town, visiting the library, and drinking coffee in a bakery.
In the evening he went to the cinema to see The Lord of the Rings, which he had
never before had time to see. He thought that orcs, unlike human beings, were
simple and uncomplicated creatures.
He ended his outing at McDonald’s in Hedestad and caught the last bus to Hedeby.
He made coffee, took out a binder, and sat at the kitchen table. He read until 4:00 in
the morning.
There were a number of questions regarding the investigation that seemed
increasingly odd the further Blomkvist went through the documents. They were
not revolutionary discoveries that he made all on his own; they were problems that
had preoccupied Inspector Morell for long periods, especially in his free time.
During the last year of her life, Harriet had changed. In some ways this change
could be explained as the change that everyone goes through in one form or
another during their teenage years. Harriet was growing up. Classmates, teachers,
and several members of the family, however, all testified that she had turned in on
herself and become uncommunicative.
The girl who, two years earlier, was a lively teenager had begun to distance herself
from everyone around her. In school she still spent time with her friends, but now
she behaved in an “impersonal” manner, as one of her friends described it. This
word was unusual enough for Morell to have made a note of it and then ask more
questions. The explanation he got was that Harriet had stopped talking about
herself, stopped gossiping, and stopped confiding in her friends.