Wednesday, 4.v Three days after Berger started as acting editor-in-chief of S.M.P., Editor-in-Chief Morander died at lunchtime. He had been in the glass cage all morning, while Berger and assistant editor Peter Fredriksson met the sports editors so that she could get to know her colleagues and find out how they worked. Fredriksson was forty-five years old and also relatively new to the paper. He was taciturn but pleasant, with a broad experience. Berger had already decided that she would be able to depend on Fredriksson’s insights when she took command of the ship. She was spending a good part of her time evaluating the people she might be able to count on and could then make part of her new regime. Fredriksson was definitely a candidate. When they got back to the news desk they saw Morander get up and come over to the door of the glass cage. He looked startled. Then he leaned forward, grabbed the back of a chair and held on to it for a few seconds before he collapsed to the floor. He was dead before the ambulance arrived. There was a confused atmosphere in the newsroom throughout the afternoon. Chairman of the Board Borgsj? arrived at 2.00 and gathered the employees for a brief memorial to Morander. He spoke of how Morander had dedicated the past fifteen years of his life to the newspaper, and the price that the work of a newspaperman can sometimes exact. Finally he called for a minute’s silence. Berger realized that several of her new colleagues were looking at her. The unknown quantity. She cleared her throat and without being invited to, without knowing what she would say, took half a step forward and spoke in a firm voice: “I knew H?kan Morander for all of three days. That’s too short a time, but from even the little I managed to know of him, I can honestly say that I would have wanted very much to know him better.” She paused when she saw out of the corner of her eye that Borgsj? was staring at her. He seemed surprised that she was saying anything at all. She took another pace forward. “Your editor-in-chief’s untimely departure will create problems in the newsroom. I was supposed to take over from him in two months, and I was counting on having the time to learn from his experience.” She saw that Borgsj? had opened his mouth as if to say something himself. “That won’t happen now, and we’re going to go through a period of adjustment. But Morander was editor-in-chief of a daily newspaper, and this paper will come out tomorrow too. There are now nine hours left before we go to press and four before the front page has to be resolved. May I ask … who among you was Morander’s closest confidant?” A brief silence followed as the staff looked at each other. Finally Berger heard a voice from the left side of the room. “That would probably be me.” It was Gunnar Magnusson, assistant editor of the front page who had worked on the paper for thirty-five years. “Somebody has to write an obit. I can’t do it … that would be presumptuous of me. Could you possibly write it?” Magnusson hesitated a moment but then said, “I’ll do it.” “We’ll use the whole front page and move everything else back.” Magnusson nodded. “We need images.” She glanced to her right and met the eye of the pictures editor, Lennart Torkelsson. He nodded. “We have to get busy on this. Things might be a bit rocky at first. When I need help making a decision, I’ll ask your advice and I’ll depend on your skill and experience. You know how the paper is made and I have a while to go on the school bench.” She turned to Fredriksson. “Peter, Morander put a great deal of trust in you. You will have to be something of a mentor to me for the time being, and carry a heavier load than usual. I’m asking you to be my adviser.” He nodded. What else could he do? She returned to the subject of the front page. “One more thing. Morander was writing his editorial this morning. Gunnar, could you get into his computer and see whether he finished it? Even if it’s not quite rounded out, we’ll publish it. It was his last editorial and it would be a crying shame not to print it. The paper we’re making today is still H?kan Morander’s paper.” Silence. “If any of you need a little personal time, or want to take a break to think for a while, do it, please. You all know our deadlines.” Silence. She noticed that some people were nodding their approval. “Go to work, boys and girls,” she said in English in a low voice. Holmberg threw up his hands in a helpless gesture. Bublanski and Modig looked dubious. Andersson’s expression was neutral. They were scrutinizing the results of the preliminary investigation that Holmberg had completed that morning. “Nothing?” Modig said. She sounded surprised. “Nothing,” Holmberg said, shaking his head. “The pathologist’s final report arrived this morning. Nothing to indicate anything but suicide by hanging.” They looked once more at the photographs taken in the living room of the summer cabin in Sm?dalar?. Everything pointed to the conclusion that Gunnar Bj?rck, assistant chief of the Immigration Division of the Security Police, had climbed on to a stool, tied a rope to the lamp hook, placed it around his neck, and then with great resolve kicked the stool across the room. The pathologist was unable to supply the exact time of death, but he had established that it occurred on the afternoon of April 12. The body had been discovered on April 19 by none other than Inspector Andersson. This happened because Bublanski had repeatedly tried to get hold of Bj?rck. Annoyed, he finally sent Andersson to bring him in. Sometime during that week, the lamp hook in the ceiling came away and Bj?rck’s body fell to the floor. Andersson had seen the body through a window and called in the alarm. Bublanski and the others who arrived at the summer house had treated it as a crime scene from the word go, taking it for granted that Bj?rck had been garrotted by someone. Later that day the forensic team found the lamp hook. Holmberg had been tasked to work out how Bj?rck had died. “There’s nothing whatsoever to suggest a crime, or that Bj?rck was not alone at the time,” Holmberg said. “The lamp?” “The ceiling lamp has fingerprints from the owner of the cabin – who put it up two years ago – and Bj?rck himself. Which says that he took the lamp down.” “Where did the rope come from?” “From the flagpole in the garden. Someone cut off about two metres of rope. There was a Mora sheath knife on the windowsill outside the back door. According to the owner of the house, it’s his knife. He normally keeps in a tool drawer underneath the draining board. Bj?rck’s prints were on the handle and the blade, as well as the tool drawer.” “Hmm,” Modig said. “What sort of knots?” Andersson said. “Granny knots. Even the noose was just a loop. It’s probably the only thing that’s a bit odd. Bj?rck was a sailor, he would have known how to tie proper knots. But who knows how much attention a person contemplating suicide would pay to the knots on his own noose?” “What about drugs?” “According to the toxicology report, Bj?rck had traces of a strong painkiller in his blood. That medication had been prescribed for him. He also had traces of alcohol, but the percentage was negligible. In other words, he was more or less sober.” “The pathologist wrote that there were graze wounds.” “A graze over three centimetres long on the outside of his left knee. A scratch, really. I’ve thought about it, but it could have come about in a dozen different ways … for instance, if he walked into the corner of a table or a bench, whatever.” Modig held up a photograph of Bj?rck’s distorted face. The noose had cut so deeply into his flesh that the rope itself was hidden in the skin of his neck. The face was grotesquely swollen. “He hung there for something like twenty-four hours before the hook gave way. All the blood was either in his head – the noose having prevented it from running into his body – or in the lower extremities. When the hook came out and his body fell, his chest hit the coffee table, causing deep bruising there. But this injury happened long after the time of death.” “Hell of a way to die,” said Andersson. “I don’t know. The noose was so thin that it pinched deep and stopped the blood flow. He was probably unconscious within a few seconds and dead in one or two minutes.” Bublanski closed the preliminary report with distaste. He did not like this. He absolutely did not like the fact that Zalachenko and Bj?rck had, so far as they could tell, both died on the same day. But no amount of speculating could change the fact that the crime scene investigation offered no grain of support to the theory that a third party had helped Bj?rck on his way. “He was under a lot of pressure,” Bublanski said. “He knew that the whole Zalachenko affair was in danger of being exposed and that he risked a prison sentence for sex-trade crimes, plus being hung out to dry in the media. I wonder which scared him more. He was sick, had been suffering chronic pain for a long time … I don’t know. I wish he had left a letter.” “Many suicides don’t.” “I know. O.K. We’ll put Bj?rck to one side for now. We have no choice.” Berger could not bring herself to sit at Morander’s desk right away, or to move his belongings aside. She arranged for Magnusson to talk to Morander’s family so that the widow could come herself when it was convenient, or send someone to sort out his things. Instead she had an area cleared off the central desk in the heart of the newsroom, and there she set up her laptop and took command. It was chaotic. But three hours after she had taken the helm of S.M.P. in such appalling circumstances, the front page went to press. Magnusson had put together a four-column article about Morander’s life and career. The page was designed around a black-bordered portrait, almost all of it above the fold, with his unfinished editorial to the left and a frieze of photographs along the bottom edge. The layout was not perfect, but it had a strong moral and emotional impact. Just before 6.00, as Berger was going through the headlines on page two and discussing the texts with the head of revisions, Borgsj? approached and touched her shoulder. She looked up. “Could I have a word?” They went together to the coffee machine in the canteen. “I just wanted to say that I’m really very pleased with the way you took control today. I think you surprised us all.” “I didn’t have much choice. But I may stumble a bit before I really get going.” “We understand that.” “We?” “I mean the staff and the board. The board especially. But after what happened today I’m more than ever persuaded that you were the ideal choice. You came here in the nick of time, and you took charge in a very difficult situation.” Berger almost blushed. But she had not done that since she was fourteen. “Could I give you a piece of advice?” “Of course.” “I heard that you had a disagreement about a headline with Anders Holm.” “We didn’t agree on the angle in the article about the government’s tax proposal. He inserted an opinion into the headline in the news section, which is supposed to be neutral. Opinions should be reserved for the editorial page. And while I’m on this topic … I’ll be writing editorials from time to time, but as I told you I’m not active in any political party, so we have to solve the problem of who’s going to be in charge of the editorial section.” “Magnusson can take over for the time being,” said Borgsj?. Erika shrugged. “It makes no difference to me who you appoint. But it should be somebody who clearly stands for the newspaper’s views. That’s where they should be aired … not in the news section.” “Quite right. What I wanted to say was that you’ll probably have to give Holm some concessions. He’s worked at S.M.P. a long time and he’s been news chief for fifteen years. He knows what he’s doing. He can be surly sometimes, but he’s irreplaceable.” “I know. Morander told me. But when it comes to policy he’s going to have to toe the line. I’m the one you hired to run the paper.” Borgsj? thought for a moment and said: “We’re going to have to solve these problems as they come up.” Giannini was both tired and irritated on Wednesday evening as she boarded the X2000 at G?teborg Central Station. She felt as if she had been living on the X2000 for a month. She bought a coffee in the restaurant car, went to her seat, and opened the folder of notes from her last conversation with Salander. Who was also the reason why she was feeling tired and irritated. She’s hiding something. That little fool is not telling me the truth. And Micke is hiding something too. God knows what they’re playing at. She also decided that since her brother and her client had not so far communicated with each other, the conspiracy – if it was one – had to be a tacit agreement that had developed naturally. She did not understand what it was about, but it had to be something that her brother considered important enough to conceal. She was afraid that it was a moral issue, and that was one of his weaknesses. He was Salander’s friend. She knew her brother. She knew that he was loyal to the point of foolhardiness once he had made someone a friend, even if the friend was impossible and obviously flawed. She also knew that he could accept any number of idiocies from his friends, but that there was a boundary and it could not be infringed. Where exactly this boundary was seemed to vary from one person to another, but she knew he had broken completely with people who had previously been close friends because they had done something that he regarded as beyond the pale. And he was inflexible. The break was for ever. Giannini understood what went on in her brother’s head. But she had no idea what Salander was up to. Sometimes she thought that there was nothing going on in there at all. She had gathered that Salander could be moody and withdrawn. Until she met her in person, Giannini had supposed it must be some phase, and that it was a question of gaining her trust. But after a month of conversations – ignoring the fact that the first two weeks had been wasted time because Salander was hardly able to speak – their communication was still distinctly one-sided. Salander seemed at times to be in a deep depression and had not the slightest interest in dealing with her situation or her future. She simply did not grasp or did not care that the only way Giannini could provide her with an effective defence would be if she had access to all the facts. There was no way in the world she was going to be able to work in the dark. Salander was sulky and often just silent. When she did say something, she took a long time to think and she chose her words carefully. Often she did not reply at all, and sometimes she would answer a question that Giannini had asked several days earlier. During the police interviews, Salander had sat in utter silence, staring straight ahead. With rare exceptions, she had refused to say a single word to the police. The exceptions were on those occasions when Inspector Erlander had asked her what she knew about Niedermann. Then she looked up at him and answered every question in a perfectly matter-of-fact way. As soon as he changed the subject, she lost interest. On principle, she knew, Salander never talked to the authorities. In this case, that was an advantage. Despite the fact that she kept urging her client to answer questions from the police, deep inside she was pleased with Salander’s silence. The reason was simple. It was a consistent silence. It contained no lies that could entangle her, no contradictory reasoning that would look bad in court. But she was astonished at how imperturbable Salander was. When they were alone she had asked her why she so provocatively refused to talk to the police. “They’ll twist what I say and use it against me.” “But if you don’t explain yourself, you risk being convicted anyway.” “Then that’s how it’ll have to be. I didn’t make all this mess. And if they want to convict me, it’s not my problem.” Salander had in the end described to her lawyer almost everything that had happened at Stallarholmen. All except for one thing. She would not explain how Magge Lundin had ended up with a bullet in his foot. No matter how much she asked and nagged, Salander would just stare at her and smile her crooked smile. She had also told Giannini what happened in Gosseberga. But she had not said anything about why she had run her father to ground. Did she go there expressly to murder him – as the prosecutor claimed – or was it to make him listen to reason? When Giannini raised the subject of her former guardian, Nils Bjurman, Salander said only that she was not the one who shot him. And that particular murder was no longer one of the charges against her. And when Giannini reached the very crux of the whole chain of events, the role of Dr Teleborian in the psychiatric clinic in 1991, Salander lapsed into such inexhaustible silence that it seemed she might never utter a word again. This is getting us nowhere, Giannini decided. If she won’t trust me, we’re going to lose the case. Salander sat on the edge of her bed, looking out of the window. She could see the building on the other side of the car park. She had sat undisturbed and motionless for an hour, ever since Giannini had stormed out and slammed the door behind her. She had a headache again, but it was mild and it was distant. Yet she felt uncomfortable. She was irritated with Giannini. From a practical point of view she could see why her lawyer kept going on and on about............