“You killed her.”
“I wanted to kill her. I thought about it, but I arrived too late. I couldn’t get over to
the island.”
Blomkvist’s brain was with difficulty trying to absorb this information, but it felt as if
a message had popped up with the words INFORMATION OVERLOAD. Martin
Vanger did not know what had happened to his sister.
All of a sudden Martin pulled his mobile telephone out of his pocket, glanced at the
display, and put it on the chair next to the pistol.
“It’s time to stop all this. I have to dispose of your anorexic bitch tonight too.”
He took out a narrow leather strap from a cupboard and slipped it around
Blomkvist’s neck, like a noose. He loosened the chain that held him shackled to the
floor, hauled him to his feet, and shoved him towards the wall. He slipped the
leather strap through a loop above Blomkvist’s head and then tightened it so that
he was forced to stand on tiptoes.
“Is that too tight? Can you breathe?” He loosened it a notch and locked the other
end of the strap in place, further down the wall. “I don’t want you to suffocate all at
once.”
The noose was cutting so hard into Blomkvist’s throat that he was incapable of
uttering a word. Martin looked at him attentively.
Abruptly he unzipped Blomkvist’s trousers and tugged them down, along with his
boxer shorts. As he pulled them off, Blomkvist lost his foothold and dangled for a
second from the noose before his toes again made contact with the floor. Martin
went over to a cupboard and took out a pair of scissors. He cut off Blomkvist’s T-
shirt and tossed the bits on the floor. Then he took up a position some distance
away from Mikael and regarded his victim.
“I’ve never had a boy in here,” Martin said in a serious voice. “I’ve never touched
another man, as a matter of fact...except for my father. That was my duty.”
Blomkvist’s temples were pounding. He could not put his weight on his feet
without being strangled. He tried to use his fingers to get a grip on the concrete
wall behind him, but there was nothing to hold on to.