“What do you mean?”
“Armansky tells me you’re 100 percent reliable. But I still want to ask you the question. Can I tell you confidential things without your telling them to anyone else, by any means, ever?”
“Wait a minute. You’ve talked to Dragan? Is he the one who sent you here?” I’m going to kill you, you fucking stupid Armenian.
“Not exactly. You’re not the only one who can find out someone’s address; I did that all on my own. I looked you up in the national registry. There are three Lisbeth Salanders, and the other two weren’t a good match. But I had a long talk with Armansky yesterday. He too thought that I wanted to make trouble over your ferreting around in my private life. In the end I convinced him that I had a legitimate purpose.”
“Which is what?”
“As I told you, Frode’s employer hired me to do a job. I’ve reached a point where I need a skilled researcher. Frode told me about you and said that you were pretty good. He hadn’t meant to identify you, it just slipped out. I explained to Armansky what I wanted. He OK’d the whole thing and tried to call you. And here I am. Call him if you want.”
It took Salander a minute to find her mobile among the clothes that Mimmi had pulled off her. Blomkvist watched her embarrassed search with interest as he patrolled the apartment. All her furniture seemed to be strays. She had a state-of-the-art PowerBook on an apology for a desk in the living room. She had a CD player on a shelf. Her CD collection was a pitiful total of ten CDs by groups he had never heard of, and the musicians on the covers looked like vampires from outer space. Music was probably not her big interest.
Salander saw that Armansky had called her seven times the night before and twice this morning. She punched in his number while Blomkvist leaned against the door frame and listened to the conversation.
“It’s me…sorry…yes…it was turned off…I know, he wants to hire me…no, he’s standing in the middle of my fucking living room, for Christ’s sake…” She raised her voice. “Dragan, I’m hung over and my head hurts, so please, no games, did you OK this job or not?…Thanks.”
Salander looked through the door to the living room at Blomkvist pulling out CDs and taking books off the bookshelf. He had just found a brown pill bottle that was missing its label, and he was holding it up to the light. He was about to unscrew the top, so she reached out and took the bottle from him. She went back to the kitchen and sat down on a chair, massaging her forehead until he joined her.
“The rules are simple,” she said. “Nothing that you discuss with me or with Armansky will be shared with anyone at all. There will be a contract which states that Milton Security pledges confidentiality. I want to know what the job is about before I decide whether I want to work for you or not. That also means that I agree to keep to myself everything you tell me, whether I take the job or not, provided that you’re not conducting any sort of serious criminal activity. In which case, I’ll report it to Dragan, who in turn will report it to the police.”
“Fine.” He hesitated. “Armansky may not be completely aware of what I want to hire you for…”
“Some historical research, he said.”
“Well, yes, that’s right. I want you to help me to identify a murderer.”
It took Blomkvist an hour to explain all the intricate details in the Harriet Vanger case. He left nothing out. He had Frode’s permission to hire her, and to do that he had to be able to trust her completely.
He told her everything about Cecilia Vanger and that he had found her face in Harriet’s window. He gave Salander as good a description of her character as he could. She had moved high up on the list of suspects, his list. But he was still far from believing that she could be in any way associated with a murderer who was active when she was still a young woman.
He gave Salander a copy of the list in the date book: “Magda-32016; Sara-32109; R.J.-30112; R.L.-32027; Mari-32018.” And he gave her a copy of the verses from Leviticus.
“What do you want me to do?”
“I’ve identified the R.J., Rebecka Jacobsson.” He told her what the five-figure numbers stood for. “If I’m right, then we’re going to find four more victims-Magda, Sara, Mari, and R.L.”
“You think they’re all murdered?”
“What I think is that we are looking for someone who-if the other numbers and initials also prove to be shorthand for four more killings-is a murderer who was active in the fifties and maybe also in the sixties. And who is in some way linked to Harriet Vanger. I’ve gone through back issues of the Hedestad Courier. Rebecka’s murder is the only grotesque crime that I could find with a connection to Hedestad. I want you to keep digging, all over Sweden if necessary, until you make sense of the other names and verses.”
Salander thought in expressionless silence for such a long time that Blomkvist began to grow impatient. He was wondering whether he had chosen the wrong person when she at last raised her head.
“I’ll take the job. But first you have to sign a contract with Armansky.”
Armansky printed out the contract that Blomkvist would take back to Hedestad for Frode’s signature. When he returned to Salander’s office, he saw how she and Blomkvist were leaning over her PowerBook. He had his hand on her shoulder-he was touching her-and pointing. Armansky paused in the corridor.
Blomkvist said something that seemed to surprise Salander. Then she laughed out loud.
Armansky had never once heard her laugh before, and for years he had been trying to win her trust. Blomkvist had known her for five minutes and she was practically giggling with him. He felt such a loathing for Blomkvist at that moment that he surprised himself. He cleared his throat as he stood in the doorway and put down the folder with the contract.
Blomkvist paid a quick visit to the Millennium office in the afternoon. It was his first time back. It felt very odd to be running up those familiar stairs. They had not changed the code on the door, and he was able to slip in unnoticed and stand for a moment, looking around.
Millennium’s offices were arranged in an L shape. The entry was a hall that took up a lot of space without being able to be put to much use. There were two sofas there, so it was by way of being a reception area. Beyond was a lunchroom kitchenette, then cloakroom/toilets, and two storage rooms with bookshelves and filing cabinets. There was also a desk for an intern. To the right of the entry was the glass wall of Malm’s studio, which took up about 500 square feet, with its own entrance from the landing. To the left was the editorial office, encompassing about 350 square feet, with the windows facing Götgatan.
Berger had designed everything, putting in glass partitions to make separate quarters for three of the employees and an open plan for the others. She had taken the largest room at the very back for herself, and given Blomkvist his own room at the opposite end. It was the only room that you could look into from the entry. No-one had moved into it, it seemed.
The third room was slightly apart from the others, and it was occupied by Sonny Magnusson, who had been for several years Millennium’s most successful advertising salesman. Berger had handpicked him; she offered him a modest salary and a commission. Over the past year, it had not made any difference how energetic he was as a salesman, their advertising income had taken a beating and Magnusson’s income with it. But instead of looking elsewhere, he had tightened his belt and loyally stayed put. Unlike me, who caused the whole landslide, Blomkvist thought.
He gathered his courage and walked into the office. It was almost deserted. He could see Berger at her desk, telephone pressed to her ear. Monika Nilsson was at her desk, an experienced general reporter specialising in political coverage; she could be the most jaded cynic he had ever met. She’d been at Millennium for nine years and was thriving. Henry Cortez was the youngest employee on the editorial staff. He had come as an intern straight out of JMK two years ago, saying that he wanted to work at Millennium and nowhere else. Berger had no budget to hire him, but she offered him a desk in a corner and soon took him on as a permanent dogsbody, and anon as a staff reporter.