“What is it?”
“My mother died. I have to go home.”
Salander looked so unhappy that he put his arms around her. She pushed him
away.
They sat in the hotel bar. When Blomkvist said that he would cancel the
reservations to Australia and go back to Stockholm with her, she shook her head.
“No,” she said. “We can’t screw up the job now. You’ll have to go by yourself.”
They parted outside the hotel, each of them making for a different airport.
CHAPTER 26
Tuesday, July 15–Thursday, July 17
Blomkvist flew from Melbourne to Alice Springs. After that he had to choose either
to charter a plane or to rent a car for the remaining 250-mile trip north. He chose to
go by car.
An unknown person with the biblical signature of Joshua, who was part of Plague’s
or possibly Trinity’s mysterious international network, had left an envelope for him
at the central information desk at Melbourne airport.
The number that Anita had called belonged to a place called Cochran Farm. It was a
sheep station. An article pulled off the Internet gave a snapshot guide.
Australia: population of 18 million; sheep farmers, 53,000; approx. 120 million head
of sheep. The export of wool approx. 3.5 billion dollars annually. Australia exports
700 million tons of mutton and lamb, plus skins for clothing. Combined meat and
wool production one of the country’s most important industries...
Cochran Farm, founded 1891 by Jeremy Cochran, Australia’s fifth largest
agricultural enterprise, approx 60,000 Merino sheep (wool considered especially