The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest Page 0,103

is a fake - that there is no real report with that protocol number. He also says that the forgery is a good one and that the content is a clever blend of truth and fantasy."

"Which part was truth and which part was fantasy, that's what I need to know," Modig said.

"The outline story is pretty much correct. Zalachenko is Salander's father, and he was a bastard who beat her mother. The problem is the familiar one - the mother never wanted to make a complaint so it went on for several years. Bjorck was given the job of finding out what happened when Salander tried to kill her father. He corresponded with Teleborian - but the correspondence in the form we've seen it is apparently a forgery. Teleborian did a routine psychiatric examination of Salander and concluded that she was mentally unbalanced. A prosecutor decided not to take the case any further. She needed care, and she got it at St Stefan's."

"And if it is a forgery... who did it and why?"

Bublanski shrugged. As I understand it, Ekstrom is going to commission one more thorough evaluation of Salander."

"I can't accept that."

"It's not our case any more."

"And Faste has replaced us. Jan, I'm going to the media if these bastards piss all over Salander one more time."

"No, Sonja. You won't. First of all, we no longer have access to the report, so you have no way of backing up your claims. You're going to look like a paranoid, and then your career will be over."

"I still have the report," Modig said in a low voice. "I made a copy for Curt but I never had a chance to give it to him before the Prosecutor General collected the others."

"If you leak that report, you'll not only be fired but you'll be guilty of gross misconduct."

Modig sat in silence for a moment and looked at her superior.

"Sonja, don't do it. Promise me."

"No, Jan. I can't promise that. There's something very sick about this whole story."

"You're right, it is sick. But since we don't know who the enemy is, you're not going to do anything for the moment."

Modig tilted her head to one side. "Are you going to do anything?"

"I'm not going to discuss that with you. Trust me. It's Friday night. Take a break, go home. And... this discussion never took place."

Niklas Adamsson, the Securitas guard, was studying for a test in three weeks' time. It was 1.30 on Saturday afternoon when he heard the sound of rotating brushes from the low-humming floor polisher and saw that it was the dark-skinned immigrant who walked with a limp. The man would always nod politely but never laughed if he said anything humorous. Adamsson watched as he took a bottle of cleaning fluid and sprayed the reception counter-top twice before wiping it with a rag. Then he took his mop and swabbed the corners in the reception area where the brushes of the floor polisher could not reach. The guard put his nose back into his book about the national economy and kept reading.

It took ten minutes for the cleaner to work his way over to Adamsson's spot at the end of the corridor. They nodded to each other. Adamsson stood to let the man clean the floor around his chair outside Salander's room. He had seen him almost every day since he had been posted outside the room, but he could not remember his name - some sort of foreign name - but Adamsson did not feel the need to check his I.D. For one thing, the nigger was not allowed to clean inside the prisoner's room - that was done by two cleaning women in the morning - and besides, he did not feel that the cripple was any sort of threat.

When the cleaner had finished in the corridor, he opened the door to the room next to Salander's. Adamsson glanced his way, but this was no deviation from the daily routine. This was where the cleaning supplies were kept. In the course of the next five minutes he emptied his bucket, cleaned the brushes, and replenished the cart with plastic bags for the wastepaper baskets. Finally he manoeuvred the cart into the cubbyhole.

Ghidi was aware of the guard in the corridor. It was a young blond man who was usually there two or three days a week, reading books. Part-time guard, and part-time student. He was