Salander braked. She saw the trailer start to jackknife across her lane. At the speed
she was going, it took two seconds for her to cover the distance up to the accident
site. She accelerated and steered on to the hard shoulder, avoiding the hurtling
back of the truck by two yards as she flew past. Out of the corner of her eye she saw
flames coming from the front of the truck.
She rode on, braking and thinking, for another 150 yards before she stopped and
turned around. She saw the driver of the truck climb out of his cab on the
passenger side. Then she accelerated again. At Åkerby, about a mile south, she
turned left and took the old road back north, parallel to the E4. She went up a hill
past the scene of the crash. Two cars had stopped. Big flames were boiling out of
the wreckage of Martin’s car, which was wedged underneath the truck. A man was
spraying the flames with a small fire extinguisher.
She was soon rolling across the bridge at a low speed. She parked outside the
cottage and walked back to Martin Vanger’s house.
Mikael was still fumbling with the handcuffs. His hands were so numb that he could
not get a grip on the key. Salander unlocked the cuffs for him and held him tight as
the blood began to circulate in his hands again.
“Martin?” he said in a hoarse voice.
“Dead. He drove slap into the front of a truck a couple of miles south on the E4.”
Blomkvist stared at her. She had only been gone a few minutes.
“We have to...call the police,” he whispered. He began coughing hard.
“Why?” Salander said.
For ten minutes Blomkvist was incapable of standing up. He was still on the floor,
naked, leaning against the wall. He massaged his neck and lifted the water bottle
with clumsy fingers. Salander waited patiently until his sense of touch started to
return. She spent the time thinking.
“Put your trousers on.”