She crossed the threshold, out of the apartment, and turned to face him. Her body
looked fragile and her face was swollen from crying, and he almost recoiled when
he met her eyes. Never in his life had he seen such naked, smouldering hatred.
Salander looked just as deranged as her casebook indicated.
“No,” she said, so quietly that he barely heard the word. “I can get home on my
own.”
He put a hand on her shoulder.
“Are you sure?”
She nodded. His grip on her shoulder tightened.
“Remember what we agreed. You’ll come back here next Saturday.”
She nodded again. Cowed. He let her go.
CHAPTER 14
Saturday, March 8–Monday, March 17
Salander spent the week in bed with pain in her abdomen, bleeding from her
rectum, and less visible wounds that would take longer to heal. What she had gone
through was very different from the first rape in his office; it was no longer a matter
of coercion and degradation. This was systematic brutality.
She realised much too late that she had utterly misjudged Bjurman.
She had assumed he was on a power trip and liked to dominate, not that he was an
all-out sadist. He had kept her in handcuffs half the night. Several times she
believed he meant to kill her, and at one point he had pressed a pillow over her
face until she thought she was going to pass out.
She did not cry.
Apart from the tears of pure physical pain she shed not a single tear. When she left
the apartment she made her way with difficulty to the taxi stand at Odenplan. With