“Two minutes,” the nurse said.
“Next time we’ll have a long talk.”
Birger Vanger was waiting for him when he came out. He stopped him by laying a
hand on his shoulder.
“I don’t want you bothering Henrik any more. He’s very ill, and he’s not supposed to
be upset or disturbed.”
“I understand your concern, and I sympathise. And I’m not going to upset him.”
“Everyone knows that Henrik hired you to poke around in his little hobby...Harriet.
Dirch said that Henrik became very upset after a conversation you had with him
before he had the heart attack. He even said that you thought you had caused the
attack.”
“I don’t think so any more. Henrik had severe blockages in his arteries. He could
have had a heart attack just by having a pee. I’m sure you know that by now.”
“I want full disclosure into this lunacy. This is my family you’re mucking around in.”
“I told you, I work for Henrik, not for the family.”
Birger Vanger was apparently not used to having anyone stand up to him. For a
moment he stared at Blomkvist with an expression that was presumably meant to
instil respect, but which made him look more like an inflated moose. Birger turned
and went into Vanger’s room.
Blomkvist restrained the urge to laugh. This was no place for laughter, in the
corridor outside Vanger’s sickbed, which might also turn out to be his deathbed.
But he thought of a verse from Lennart Hyland’s rhyming alphabet. It was the
letter M. And all alone the moose he stood, laughing in a shot-up wood.
In the hospital lobby he ran into Cecilia Vanger. He had tried calling her mobile a
dozen times since she came back from her interrupted holiday, but she had never
answered or returned his calls. And she was never home at her place on Hedeby
Island whenever he walked past and knocked on the door.