“Yes, we have. I am Mikael Blomkvist. You were my babysitter one summer when I
was three years old. You were twelve or thirteen at the time.”
It took a few seconds for her puzzled expression to clear, and then he saw that she
remembered. She looked surprised.
“What do you want?”
“Harriet, I’m not your enemy. I’m not here to make trouble for you. But I need to talk
with you.”
She turned to Jeff and told him to takeover, then signalled to Blomkvist to follow
her. They walked a few hundred feet over to a group of white canvas tents in a
grove of trees. She motioned him to a camp stool at a rickety table and poured
water into a basin. She rinsed her face, dried it, and went inside the tent to change
her shirt. She got two beers out of a cooler.
“So. Talk.”
“Why are you shooting the sheep?”
“We have a contagious epidemic. Most of these sheep are probably healthy, but we
can’t risk it spreading. We’re going to have to slaughter more than six hundred in
the coming week. So I’m not in a very good mood.”
Blomkvist said: “Your brother crashed his car into a truck a few days ago. He must
have died instantaneously.”
“I heard that.”
“From Anita, who called you.”
She scrutinised him for a long moment. Then she nodded. She knew that it was
pointless to deny the fact.
“How did you find me?”
“We tapped Anita’s telephone.” Blomkvist did not think there was any reason to lie.
“I saw your brother a few minutes before he died.”