Salander had no difficulty understanding the agitated debate that had followed in
the trade publication The Journalist, certain financial newspapers, and on the front
pages and in the business sections of the daily papers. Even though only a few
reporters were mentioned by name in the book, Salander guessed that the field
was small enough that everyone would know exactly which individuals were being
referred to when various newspapers were quoted. Blomkvist had made himself
some bitter enemies, which was also reflected in the malicious comments to the
court in the Wennerström affair.
She closed the book and looked at the photograph on the back. Blomkvist’s dark
blond shock of hair fell a bit carelessly across his forehead, as if caught in a gust of
wind. Or (and this was more plausible) as if Christer Malm had posed him. He was
looking into the camera with an ironic smile and an expression perhaps aiming to
be charming and boyish. A very good-looking man. On his way to do three months in
the slammer.
“Hello, Kalle Blomkvist,” she said to herself. “You’re pretty pleased with yourself,
aren’t you?”
At lunchtime Salander booted up her iBook and opened Eudora to write an email.
She typed: “Have you got time?” She signed it Wasp and sent it to the address
[email protected] To be on the safe side, she ran the message
through her PGP encryption programme.
Then she put on black jeans, heavy winter boots, a warm polo shirt, a dark pea
jacket and matching knitted gloves, cap, and scarf. She took the rings out of her
eyebrows and nostril, put on a pale pink lipstick, and examined herself in the
bathroom mirror. She looked like any other woman out for a weekend stroll, and
she regarded her outfit as appropriate camouflage for an expedition behind enemy
lines. She took the tunnelbana from Zinkensdamm to Östermalmstorg and walked
down towards Strandvägen. She sauntered along the central reserve reading the
numbers on the buildings. She had almost got to Djurgårds Bridge when she
stopped and looked at the door she had been searching for. She crossed the street
and waited a few feet from the street door.
She noticed that most people who were out walking in the cold weather on the day
after Christmas were walking along the quay; only a few were on the pavement
side.