of Monday doing a half-hearted double-check of some of her assertions. Even
before he began he knew that her information would prove to be accurate.
Armansky was bewildered and also angry with himself for having so obviously
misjudged her. He had taken her for stupid, maybe even retarded. He had not
expected that a girl who had cut so many classes in school that she did not
graduate could write a report so grammatically correct. It also contained detailed
observations and information, and he quite simply could not comprehend how she
could have acquired such facts.
He could not imagine that anyone else at Milton Security would have lifted
excerpts from the confidential journal of a doctor at a women’s crisis centre. When
he asked her how she had managed that, she told him that she had no intention of
burning her sources. It became clear that Salander was not going to discuss her
work methods, either with him or with anyone else. This disturbed him—but not
enough for him to resist the temptation to test her.
He thought about the matter for several days. He recalled Holger Palmgren’s saying
when he had sent her to him, “Everyone deserves a chance.” He thought about his
own Muslim upbringing, which had taught him that it was his duty to God to help
the outcasts. Of course he did not believe in God and had not been in a mosque
since he was a teenager, but he recognised Lisbeth Salander as a person in need of
resolute help. He had not done much along these lines over the past few decades.
Instead of giving Salander the boot, he summoned her for a meeting in which he
tried to work out what made the difficult girl tick. His impression was confirmed
that she suffered from some serious emotional problem, but he also discovered
that behind her sullen facade there was an unusual intelligence. He found her
prickly and irksome, but much to his surprise he began to like her.
Over the following months Armansky took Salander under his wing. In truth, he
took her on as a small social project. He gave her straightforward research tasks
and tried to give her guidelines on how to proceed. She would listen patiently and
then set off to carry out the assignment just as she saw fit. He asked Milton’s
technical director to give her a basic course in IT science. They sat together all
afternoon until he reported back that she seemed to have a better understanding
of computers than most of the staff.