“Crime?” said Mikael.
She gave him an urgent look, but he still didn’t understand what she was talking
about.
“I was sixteen. I was scared. I was ashamed. I was desperate. I was all alone. The only
ones who knew the truth were Anita and Martin. I had told Anita about the sexual
assaults, but I didn’t have the courage to tell her that my father was also an insane
killer of women. Anita had never known about that. But I did tell her about the
crime that I committed myself. It was so horrible that when it came down to it, I
didn’t dare tell Henrik. I prayed to God to forgive me. And I hid inside a convent for
several years.”
“Harriet, your father was a rapist and a murderer. It wasn’t your fault.”
“I know that. My father molested me for a year. I did everything to avoid...but he
was my father and I couldn’t refuse to have anything to do with him without giving
him some explanation. So I lied and played a role and tried to pretend that
everything was OK. And I made sure that someone else was always around when I
saw him. My mother knew what he was doing, of course, but she didn’t care.”
“Isabella knew?”
Harriet’s voice took on a new harshness.
“Of course she knew. Nothing ever happened in our family without Isabella
knowing. But she ignored everything that was unpleasant or showed her in a bad
light. My father could have raped me in the middle of the living room right before
her eyes and she wouldn’t have noticed. She was incapable of acknowledging that
anything was wrong in her life or mine.”
“I’ve met her. She’s not my favourite in the family.”
“She’s been like that her whole life. I’ve often wondered about my parents’
relationship. I realised that they rarely or maybe never had sex with each other after
I was born. My father had women, but for some strange reason he was afraid of
Isabella. He stayed away from her, but he couldn’t get a divorce.”
“No-one does in the Vanger family.”
She laughed for the first time.