“Wrapped in what they call gift paper and posted in a padded envelope from
Stockholm. No return address. No message.”
“You mean that...” Blomkvist made a sweeping gesture.
“Precisely. On my birthday every damn year. Do you know how that feels? It’s
directed at me, precisely as if the murderer wants to torture me. I’ve worried myself
sick over whether Harriet might have been taken away because someone wanted
to get at me. It was no secret that she and I had a special relationship and that I
thought of her as my own daughter.”
“So what is it you want me to do?” Blomkvist said.
When Salander returned the Corolla to the garage under Milton Security, she made
sure to go to the toilet upstairs in the office. She used her card key in the door and
took the lift straight up to the third floor to avoid going in through the main
entrance on the second floor, where the duty officer worked. She used the toilet
and got a cup of coffee from the espresso machine that Armansky had bought
when at long last he recognised that Salander would never make coffee just
because it was expected of her. Then she went to her office and hung her leather
jacket over the back of her chair.
The office was a 6^1 /2-by-10-foot glass cubicle. There was a desk with an old model
Dell desktop PC, a telephone, one office chair, a metal waste paper basket, and a
bookshelf. The bookshelf contained an assortment of directories and three blank
notebooks. The two desk drawers housed some ballpoints, paper clips, and a
notebook. On the window sill stood a potted plant with brown, withered leaves.
Salander looked thoughtfully at the plant, as if it were the first time she had seen it,
then she deposited it firmly in the waste paper basket.
She seldom had anything to do in her office and visited it no more than half a
dozen times a year, mainly when she needed to sit by herself and prepare a report
just before handing it in. Armansky had insisted that she have her own space. His
reasoning was that she would then feel like part of the company although she
worked as a freelancer. She suspected that Armansky hoped that this way he would
have a chance to keep an eye on her and meddle in her affairs. At first she had been
given space farther down the corridor, in a larger room that she was expected to