Blomkvist was reading a novel by Sara Paretsky when he heard the door handle turn and looked up to see Salander. She had a sheet wrapped round her body and stood in the doorway for a moment.

“You OK?” he said.

She shook her head.

“What is it?”

She went over to his bed, took the book, and put it on the bedside table. Then she bent down and kissed him on the mouth. She quickly got into his bed and sat looking at him, searching him. She put her hand on the sheet over his stomach. When he did not protest she leaned over and bit him on the nipple.

Blomkvist was flabbergasted. He took her shoulders and pushed her away a little so that he could see her face.

“Lisbeth…I don’t know if this is such a good idea. We have to work together.”

“I want to have sex with you. And I won’t have any problem working with you, but I will have a hell of a problem with you if you kick me out.”

“But we hardly know each other.”

She laughed, an abrupt laugh that sounded almost like a cough.

“You’ve never let anything like that stand in your way before. In fact, as I didn’t say in my background report, you’re one of these guys who can’t keep his hands off women. So what’s wrong? Aren’t I sexy enough for you?”

Blomkvist shook his head and tried to think of something clever to say. When he couldn’t she pulled the sheet off him and sat astride him.

“I don’t have any condoms,” he said.

“Screw it.”

When he woke up, he heard her in the kitchen. It was not yet 7:00. He may only have slept for two hours, and he stayed in bed, dozing.

This woman baffled him. At absolutely no point had she even with a glance indicated that she was the least bit interested in him.

“Good morning,” she said from the doorway. She even had the hint of a smile.

“Hi.”

“We are out of milk. I’ll go to the petrol station. They open at seven.” And she was gone.

He heard her go out of the front door. He shut his eyes. Then he heard the front door open again and seconds later she was back in the doorway. This time she was not smiling.

“You’d better come and look at this,” she said in a strange voice.

Blomkvist was on his feet at once and pulled on his jeans.

During the night someone had been to the cottage with an unwelcome present. On the porch lay the half-charred corpse of a cat. The cat’s legs and head had been cut off, then the body had been flayed and the guts and stomach removed, flung next to the corpse, which seemed to have been roasted over a fire. The cat’s head was intact, on the saddle of Salander’s motorcycle. He recognised the reddish-brown fur.

CHAPTER 22. Thursday, July 10

They ate breakfast in the garden in silence and without milk in their coffee. Salander had taken out a Canon digital camera and photographed the macabre tableau before Blomkvist got a rubbish sack and cleaned it away. He put the cat in the boot of the Volvo. He ought to file a police report for animal cruelty, possibly intimidation, but he did not think he would want to explain why the intimidation had taken place.

At 8:30 Isabella Vanger walked past and on to the bridge. She did not see them or at least pretended not to.

“How are you doing?” Blomkvist said.

“Oh, I’m fine.” Salander looked at him, perplexed. OK, then. He expects me to be upset. “When I find the motherfucker who tortured an innocent cat to death just to send us a warning, I’m going to clobber him with a baseball bat.”

“You think it’s a warning?”

“Have you got a better explanation? It definitely means something.”

“Whatever the truth is in this story, we’ve worried somebody enough for that person to do something really sick. But there’s another problem too.”

“I know. This is an animal sacrifice in the style of 1954 and 1960 and it doesn’t seem credible that someone active fifty years ago would be putting tortured animal corpses on your doorstep today.”

Blomkvist agreed.

“The only ones who could be suspected in that case are Harald Vanger and Isabella Vanger. There are a number of older relatives on Johan Vanger’s side, but none of them live in the area.”

Blomkvist sighed.

“Isabella is a repulsive bitch who could certainly kill a cat, but I doubt she was running around killing women in the fifties. Harald Vanger…I don’t know, he seems so decrepit he can hardly walk, and I can’t see him sneaking over here last night, catching a cat, and doing all this.”

“Unless it was two people. One older, one younger.”

Blomkvist heard a car go by and looked up and saw Cecilia driving away over the bridge. Harald and Cecilia, he thought, but they hardly spoke. Despite Martin Vanger’s promise to talk to her, Cecilia had still not answered any of his telephone messages.

“It must be somebody who knows we’re doing this work and that we’re making progress,” Salander said, getting up to go inside. When she came back out she had put on her leathers.

“I’m going to Stockholm. I’ll be back tonight.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Pick up some gadgets. If someone is crazy enough to kill a cat in that disgusting way, he or she could attack us next time. Or set the cottage on fire while we’re asleep. I want you to go into Hedestad and buy two fire extinguishers and two smoke alarms today. One of the fire extinguishers has to be halon.”

Without another word, she put on her helmet, kick-started the motorcycle, and roared off across the bridge.

Blomkvist hid the corpse and the head and guts in the rubbish bin beside the petrol station before he drove into Hedestad to do his errands. He drove to the hospital. He had made an appointment to meet Frode in the cafeteria, and he told him what had happened that morning. Frode blanched.

“Mikael, I never imagined that this story could take this turn.”

“Why not? The job was to find a murderer, after all.”

“But this is disgusting and inhuman. If there’s a danger to your life or to Fröken Salander’s life, we are going to call it off. Let me talk to Henrik.”

“No. Absolutely not. I don’t want to risk his having another attack.”

“He asks me all the time how things are going with you.”

“Say hello from me, please, and tell him I’m moving forward.”

“What is next, then?”

“I have a few questions. The first incident occurred just after Henrik had his heart attack and I was down in Stockholm for the day. Somebody went through my office. I had printed out the Bible verses, and the photographs from Järnvägsgatan were on my desk. You knew and Henrik knew. Martin knew a part of it since he organised for me to get into the Courier offices. How many other people knew?”

“Well, I don’t know who Martin talked to. But both Birger and Cecilia knew about it. They discussed your hunting in the pictures archive between themselves. Alexander knew about it too. And, by the way, Gunnar and Helena Nilsson did too. They were up to say hello to Henrik and got dragged into the conversation. And Anita Vanger.”

“Anita? The one in London?”

“Cecilia’s sister. She came back with Cecilia when Henrik had his heart attack but stayed at a hotel; as far as I know, she hasn’t been out to the island. Like Cecilia, she doesn’t want to see her father. But she flew back when Henrik came out of intensive care.”

“Where’s Cecilia living? I saw her this morning as she drove across the bridge, but her house is always dark.”

“She’s not capable of doing such a thing, is she?”

“No, I just wonder where she’s staying.”

“She’s staying with her brother, Birger. It’s within walking distance to visit Henrik.”

“Do you know where she is right now?”

“No. She’s not visiting Henrik, at any rate.”

“Thanks,” Blomkvist said, getting up.