“Do you remember her, Mikael?” Vanger said.
“Remember?”
“Yes, you met her. And actually you have been in this room before.”
Blomkvist turned and shook his head.
“No, how could you remember? I knew your father. I hired Kurt first as an installer
and machinist several times in the fifties and sixties. He was a talented man. I tried
to persuade him to keep studying and become an engineer. You were here the
whole summer of 1963, when we put new machinery in the paper mill in Hedestad.
It was hard to find a place for your family to live, so we solved it by letting you live
in the wooden house across the road. You can see it from the window.”
Vanger picked up the photograph.
“This is Harriet Vanger, granddaughter of my brother Richard. She took care of you
many times that summer. You were two, going on three. Maybe you were already
three then—I don’t recall. She was thirteen.”
“I am sorry, but I don’t have the least recollection of what you’re telling me.”
Blomkvist could not even be sure that Vanger was telling the truth.
“I understand. But I remember you. You used to run around everywhere on the
farm with Harriet in tow. I could hear your shrieks whenever you fell. I remember I
gave you a toy once, a yellow, sheet-metal tractor that I had played with myself as a
boy. You were crazy about it. I think that was the colour.”
Blomkvist felt a chill inside. The yellow tractor he did remember. When he was
older it had stood on a shelf in his bedroom.
“Do you remember that toy?”
“I do. And you will be amused to know that the tractor is still alive and well, at the
Toy Museum in Stockholm. They put out a call for old original toys ten years ago.”
“Really?” Vanger chuckled with delight. “Let me show you...”
The old man went over to the bookshelf and pulled a photograph album from one
of the lower shelves. Blomkvist noticed that he had difficulty bending over and had