“You haven’t understood what happened.”

Up to this point Blomkvist had only referred to Gottfried’s sexual assault on Martin, leaving Harriet’s role out of it.

“Gottfried molested Martin,” he said cautiously. “I suspect that he also molested you.”

Harriet Vanger did not move a muscle. Then she took a deep breath and buried her face in her hands. It took five seconds before Jeff was beside her, asking if everything was all right. Harriet looked at him and gave him a faint smile. Then she astonished Blomkvist by standing up and giving her studs manager a hug and a kiss on the cheek. She turned to Blomkvist with her arm around Jeff’s shoulder.

“Jeff, this is Mikael, an old…friend from the past. He’s brought problems and bad news, but we’re not going to shoot the messenger. Mikael, this is Jeff Cochran, my oldest son. I also have another son and a daughter.”

Blomkvist stood up to shake hands with Jeff, saying that he was sorry to have brought bad news which had upset his mother. Harriet exchanged a few words with Jeff and then sent him away. She sat down again and seemed to have made a decision.

“No more lies. I accept that it’s all over. In some sense I’ve been waiting for this day since 1966. For years I was terrified that someone might come up to me and say my name. But you know what? All of a sudden I don’t care any more. My crime falls outside the statute of limitations. And I don’t give a shit what people think about me.”

“Crime?” said Mikael.

She gave him an urgent look, but he still didn’t understand what she was talking about.

“I was sixteen. I was scared. I was ashamed. I was desperate. I was all alone. The only ones who knew the truth were Anita and Martin. I had told Anita about the sexual assaults, but I didn’t have the courage to tell her that my father was also an insane killer of women. Anita had never known about that. But I did tell her about the crime that I committed myself. It was so horrible that when it came down to it, I didn’t dare tell Henrik. I prayed to God to forgive me. And I hid inside a convent for several years.”

“Harriet, your father was a rapist and a murderer. It wasn’t your fault.”

“I know that. My father molested me for a year. I did everything to avoid…but he was my father and I couldn’t refuse to have anything to do with him without giving him some explanation. So I lied and played a role and tried to pretend that everything was OK. And I made sure that someone else was always around when I saw him. My mother knew what he was doing, of course, but she didn’t care.”

“Isabella knew?”

Harriet’s voice took on a new harshness.

“Of course she knew. Nothing ever happened in our family without Isabella knowing. But she ignored everything that was unpleasant or showed her in a bad light. My father could have raped me in the middle of the living room right before her eyes and she wouldn’t have noticed. She was incapable of acknowledging that anything was wrong in her life or mine.”

“I’ve met her. She’s not my favourite in the family.”

“She’s been like that her whole life. I’ve often wondered about my parents’ relationship. I realised that they rarely or maybe never had sex with each other after I was born. My father had women, but for some strange reason he was afraid of Isabella. He stayed away from her, but he couldn’t get a divorce.”

“No-one does in the Vanger family.”

She laughed for the first time.

“No, they don’t. But the point is that I couldn’t bring myself to say anything. The whole world would have found out. My schoolmates, all my relatives…”

“Harriet, I’m so sorry.”

“I was fourteen when he raped me the first time. And during the next year he would take me out to his cabin. Many times Martin came along. He forced both me and Martin to do things with him. And he held my arms while Martin…had his way with me. When my father died, Martin was ready to take over his role. He expected me to become his lover and he thought it was perfectly natural for me to submit to him. At that time I no longer had any choice. I was forced to do what Martin said. I was rid of one tormentor only to land in the clutches of another, and the only thing I could do was to make sure there was never an occasion when I was alone with him…”

“Henrik would have…”

“You still don’t understand.”

She raised her voice. Blomkvist saw that several of the men at the next tent were looking at him. She lowered her voice again and leaned towards him.

“All the cards are on the table. You’ll have to work out the rest.”

She stood up and got two more beers. When she came back, Mikael said a single word to her.

“Gottfried.”

She nodded.

“On August 7, 1965, my father forced me to go out to his cabin. Henrik was away. My father was drinking, and he tried to force himself on me. But he couldn’t get it up and he flew into a drunken rage. He was always…rough and violent towards me when we were alone, but this time he crossed the line. He urinated on me. Then he started telling me what he was going to do to me. That night he told me about the women he had killed. He was bragging about it. He quoted from the Bible. This went on for an hour. I didn’t understand half of what he was saying, but I realised that he was totally, absolutely sick.”

She took a gulp of her beer.

“Sometime around midnight he had a fit. He was totally insane. We were up in the sleeping loft. He put a T-shirt around my neck and pulled it as tight as he could. I blacked out. I don’t have the slightest doubt that he really was trying to kill me, and for the first time that night he managed to complete the rape.”

Harriet looked at Blomkvist. Her eyes entreated him to understand.

“But he was so drunk that somehow I managed to get away. I jumped down from the loft and fled. I was naked and I ran without thinking, and ended up on the jetty by the water. He came staggering after me.”

Blomkvist suddenly wished that she would not tell him anything more.

“I was strong enough to shove an old drunk into the water. I used an oar to hold him under until he wasn’t struggling any more. It didn’t take long.”

When she stopped, the silence was deafening.

“And when I looked up, there stood Martin. He looked terrified, but at the same time he was grinning. I don’t know how long he was outside the cabin, spying on us. From that moment I was at his mercy. He came up to me, grabbed me by the hair, and led me back to the cabin-to Gottfried’s bed. He tied me up and raped me while our father was still floating in the water. And I couldn’t even offer any resistance.”

Blomkvist closed his eyes. He was terribly ashamed and wished that he had left Harriet Vanger in peace. But her voice had taken on a new force.

“From that day on, I was in his power. I did what he told me to do. I felt paralysed, and the only thing that saved my sanity was that Isabella-or maybe it was Uncle Henrik-decided that Martin needed a change of scenery after his father’s tragic death, so she sent him to Uppsala. Of course this was because she knew what he was doing to me, and it was her way of solving the problem. You can bet that Martin was disappointed. During the next year he was home only for the Christmas holiday. I managed to keep away from him. I went with Henrik on a trip to Copenhagen between Christmas and New Year’s. And during the summer holiday, Anita was there. I confided in her, and she stayed with me the whole time, making sure that he didn’t come near me.”

“Until you saw him on Järnvägsgatan.”

“I was told that he wouldn’t be coming to the family gathering, that he was staying in Uppsala. But obviously he changed his mind, and suddenly there he was on the other side of the street, staring at me. He smiled at me. It felt like a hideous dream. I had murdered my father, and I realised that I would never be free of my brother. Up until then, I had thought about killing myself. I chose instead to flee.” She gave Blomkvist what was almost a look of relief. “It feels fantastic to tell the truth. So now you know.”