“Harriet went missing sometime around 3:00 that afternoon. At about 2:55 she was
seen by Pastor Falk, who was hurrying to the bridge. At almost exactly the same
time a photographer arrived from the local paper, and for the next hour he took a
great number of pictures of the drama. We—the police, I mean—examined the
photographs and confirmed that Harriet was not in any one of them; but every
other person in town was seen in at least one, apart from very small children.”
Vanger took out another album and placed it on the table.
“These are pictures from that day. The first one was taken in Hedestad during the
Children’s Day parade. The same photographer took it around 1:15 p.m., and
Harriet is there in it.”
The photograph was taken from the second floor of a building and showed a street
along which the parade—clowns on trucks and girls in bathing suits—had just
passed. Spectators thronged the pavements. Vanger pointed at a figure in the
crowd.
“That’s Harriet. It’s about two hours before she will disappear; she’s with some of
her schoolfriends in town. This is the last picture taken of her. But there’s one more
interesting shot.”
Vanger leafed through the pages. The album contained about 180 pictures—five
rolls—from the crash on the bridge. After having heard the account, it was almost
too much to suddenly see it in the form of sharp black-and-white images. The
photographer was a professional who had managed to capture the turmoil
surrounding the accident. A large number of the pictures focused on the activities
around the overturned tanker truck. Blomkvist had no problem identifying a
gesticulating, much younger Henrik Vanger soaked with heating oil.
“This is my brother Harald.” The old man pointed to a man in shirtsleeves bending
forward and pointing at something inside the wreck of Aronsson’s car. “My brother
Harald may be an unpleasant person, but I think he can be eliminated from the list
of suspects. Except for a very short while, when he had to run back here to the farm
to change his shoes, he spent the afternoon on the bridge.”
Vanger turned some more pages. One image followed another. Focus on the
tanker truck. Focus on spectators on the foreshore. Focus on Aronsson’s car.
General views. Close-ups with a telephoto lens.