She saw Blomkvist glance down Tavastgatan. He knew he was being watched and he must have seen Mårtensson's Volvo, but he kept walking without showing any interest in the car. Acts calm and cool. Somebody should have opened the car door and scared the shit out of him.
The next moment he passed Figuerola's car. She was obviously trying to find an address on the map while she talked on the telephone, but she could sense Blomkvist looking at her as he passed. Suspicious of everything around him. She saw him in the wing mirror on the passenger side as he went on down towards Hornsgatan. She had seen him on T.V. a couple of times, but this was the first time she had seen him in person. He was wearing blue jeans, a T-shirt and a grey jacket. He carried a shoulder bag and he walked with a long, loose stride. A nice-looking man.
Mårtensson appeared at the corner by the Bishop's Arms and watched Blomkvist go. He had a large sports bag over his shoulder and was just finishing a call on his mobile. Figuerola expected him to follow his quarry, but to her surprise he crossed the street right in front of her car and turned down the hill towards Blomkvist's building. A second later a man in blue overalls passed her car and caught up with Mårtensson. Hello, where did you spring from?
They stopped outside the door to Blomkvist's building. Mårtensson punched in the code and they disappeared into the stairwell. They're checking the apartment. Amateur night. What the hell does he think he's doing?
Then Figuerola raised her eyes to the rear-view mirror and gave a start when she saw Blomkvist again. He was standing about ten metres behind her, close enough that he could keep an eye on Mårtensson and his buddy by looking over the crest of the steep hill down towards Bellmansgatan 1. She watched his face. He was not looking at her. But he had seen Mårtensson go in through the front door of his building. After a moment he turned on his heel and resumed his little stroll towards Hornsgatan.
Figuerola sat motionless for thirty seconds. He knows he's being watched. He's keeping track of what goes on around him. But why doesn't he react? A normal person would react, and pretty strongly at that... He must have something up his sleeve.
Blomkvist hung up and rested his gaze on the notebook on his desk. The national vehicle register had just informed him that the car he had seen at the top of Bellmansgatan with the blonde woman inside was owned by Monica Figuerola, born in 1969, and living on Pontonjargatan in Kungsholmen. Since it was a woman in the car, Blomkvist assumed it was Figuerola herself.
She had been talking on her mobile and looking at a map that was unfolded on the passenger seat. Blomkvist had no reason to believe that she had anything to do with the Zalachenko club, but he made a note of every deviation from the norm in his working day, and especially around his neighbourhood.
He called Karim in.
"Who is this woman, Lottie? Dig up her passport picture, where she works... and anything else you can find."
Sellberg looked rather startled. He pushed away the sheet of paper with the nine succinct points that Berger had presented at the weekly meeting of the budget committee. Flodin looked similarly concerned. Chairman Borgsjo appeared neutral, as always.
"This is impossible," Sellberg said with a polite smile.
"Why so?" Berger said.
"The board will never go along with this. It defies all rhyme or reason."
"Shall we take it from the top?" Berger said. "I was hired to make S.M.P. profitable again. To do that I have to have something to work with, don't you think?"
"Well, yes, but - "
"I can't wave a magic wand and conjure up the contents of a daily newspaper by sitting in my glass cage and just wishing for things."
"You don't quite understand the hard economic facts."
"That's quite possible. But I understand making newspapers. And the reality is that over the past fifteen years, S.M.P.'s personnel has been reduced by 118. Half were graphic artists and so on, replaced by new technology... but the number of reporters contributing to copy was reduced by 48 during that period."
"Those were necessary cuts. If the staff hadn't been cut, the paper would have folded long since. At least Morander understood the necessity of the reductions."
"Well, let's wait and see what's necessary and what isn't.