“It’s a good thing that I’m signing it while he’s still alive. Could you put it in the
letter box at Konsum on your way home?”
Blomkvist was in bed by midnight, but he could not sleep. Until now his work on
Hedeby Island had seemed like research on a historical curiosity. But if someone
was sufficiently interested in what he was doing to break into his office, then the
solution had to be closer to the present than he had thought.
Then it occurred to him that there were others who might be interested in what he
was working on. Vanger’s sudden appearance on the board of Millennium had not
gone unnoticed by Wennerström. Or was this paranoia?
Mikael got out of bed and went to stand naked at the kitchen window, gazing at
the church on the other side of the bridge. He lit a cigarette.
He couldn’t figure out Lisbeth Salander. She was altogether odd. Long pauses in
the middle of the conversation. Her apartment was messy, bordering on chaotic.
Bags filled with newspapers in the hall. A kitchen that had not been cleaned or
tidied in years. Clothes were scattered in heaps on the floor. She had obviously
spent half the night in a bar. She had love bites on her neck and she had clearly had
company overnight. She had heaven knows how many tattoos and two piercings
on her face and maybe in other places. She was weird.
Armansky assured him that she was their very best researcher, and her report on
him was excruciatingly thorough. A strange girl.
Salander was sitting at her PowerBook, but she was thinking about Mikael
Blomkvist. She had never in her adult life allowed anyone to cross her threshold
without an express invitation, and she could count those she had invited on one
hand. Blomkvist had nonchalantly barged into her life, and she had uttered only a
few lame protests.
Not only that, he had teased her.