“Poor, poor Harriet. If only she had come to me.”
Blomkvist glanced at the clock. It was five minutes to four.
“Do you want to see her? She’s still afraid that you won’t want to after you found
out what she did.”
“What about the flowers?” Henrik said.
“I asked her that on the plane coming home. There was one person in the family,
apart from Anita, whom she loved, and that was you. She, of course, was the one
who sent the flowers. She said that she hoped you would understand that she was
alive and that she was doing fine, without having to make an appearance. But since
her only channel of information was Anita, who moved abroad as soon as she
finished her studies and never visited Hedestad, Harriet’s awareness about what
went on here was limited. She never knew how terribly you suffered or that you
thought it was her murderer taunting you.”
“I assume it was Anita who posted the flowers.”
“She worked for an airline and flew all over the world. She posted them from
wherever she happened to be.”
“But how did you know Anita was the one who helped her?”
“She was the one in Harriet’s window.”
“But she could have been mixed up in...she could have been the murderer instead.
How did you find out that Harriet was alive?”
Blomkvist gave Henrik a long look. Then he smiled for the first time since he had
returned to Hedestad.
“Anita was involved in Harriet’s disappearance, but she couldn’t have killed her.”
“How could you be sure of that?”
“Because this isn’t some damned locked-room mystery novel. If Anita had
murdered Harriet, you would have found the body years ago. So the only logical
thing was that she helped Harriet escape and hide. Do you want to see her?”