share with a colleague. But since she was never there Armansky finally moved her
into the cubbyhole at the end of the corridor.
Salander took out the cuff. She looked at it, meditatively biting her lower lip.
It was past 11:00 and she was alone on the floor. She suddenly felt excruciatingly
bored.
After a while she got up and walked to the end of the hall and tried the door to
Armansky’s office. Locked. She looked around. The chances of anyone turning up in
the corridor around midnight on December 26 were almost nonexistent. She
opened the door with a pirate copy of the company’s card key, which she had
taken the trouble to make several years before.
Armansky’s office was spacious: in front of his desk were guest chairs, and a
conference table with room for eight people was in the corner. It was impeccably
neat. She had not snooped in his office for quite some time, but now that she was
here...She spent a while at his desk to bring herself up to date regarding the search
for a suspected mole in the company, which of her colleagues had been planted
undercover in a firm where a theft ring was operating, and what measures had
been taken in all secrecy to protect a client who was afraid her child was in danger
of being kidnapped by the father.
At last she put the papers back precisely the way they were, locked Armansky’s
door, and walked home. She felt satisfied with her day.
“I don’t know whether we’ll find out the truth, but I refuse to go to my grave
without giving it one last try,” the old man said. “I simply want to commission you
to go through all the evidence one last time.”
“This is crazy,” Blomkvist said.
“Why is it crazy?”