that had set him on the right track regarding Harriet Vanger’s disappearance. He
had not talked to his daughter since then.
He was not a good father.
He kissed his daughter goodbye after the lunch and met Salander at Slussen. They
went out to Sandhamn. They had not seen much of each other since
the Millennium bomb exploded. They arrived late on Christmas Eve and stayed for
the holidays.
Blomkvist was entertaining company, as always, but Salander had an uneasy
feeling that he was looking at her with an especially odd expression when she paid
back the loan with a cheque for 120,000 kronor.
They took a walk to Trovill and back (which Salander considered a waste of time),
had Christmas dinner at the inn, and went back to the cabin where they lit a fire in
the woodstove, put on an Elvis CD, and devoted themselves to some plain old sex.
When Salander from time to time came up for air, she tried to analyse her feelings.
She had no problem with Blomkvist as a lover. There was obviously a physical
attraction. And he never tried to tutor her.
Her problem was that she could not interpret her own feelings for him. Not since
before reaching puberty had she lowered her guard to let another person get so
close as she had with him. To be quite honest, he had a trying ability to penetrate
her defences and to get her to talk about personal matters and private feelings.
Even though she had enough sense to ignore most of his questions, she talked
about herself in a way that she would never, even under threat of death, have
imagined doing with any other person. It frightened her and made her feel naked
and vulnerable to his will.
At the same time—when she looked down at his slumbering form and listened to
him snoring—she felt that she had never before in her life had such a trust in
another human being. She knew with absolute certainty that Mikael would never
use what he knew about her to hurt her. It was not in his nature.
The only thing they never discussed was their relationship to each other. She did
not dare, and Blomkvist never broached the subject.