The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest Page 0,133

lost control. Therefore Niedermann was obliged to kill him. Blomkvist did not speculate about Bjurman's motives.

Kalle Bloody Blomkvist was complicating life for her.

At 2.00 in the morning she opened the word processing program on her Palm. She clicked on New Document, took out the stylus and began to tap on the letters on the digital keypad.

My name is Lisbeth Salander. I was born on 30 April 1978. My mother was Agneta Sofia Salander. She was seventeen when I was born. My father was a psychopath, a killer and wife beater whose name was Alexander Zalachenko. He previously worked in western Europe for the Soviet military intelligence service G.R.U.

It was a slow process, writing with the stylus on the keypad. She thought through each sentence before she tapped it in. She did not make a single revision to the text she had written. She worked until 4.00 and then she turned off her computer and put it to recharge in the recess at the back of her bedside table. By that time she had produced a document corresponding to two single-spaced A4 pages.

Twice since midnight the duty nurse had put her head around the door, but Salander could hear her a long way off and even before she turned the key the computer was hidden and the patient asleep.

Berger woke at 7.00. She felt far from rested, but she had slept uninterrupted for eight hours. She glanced at Blomkvist, still sleeping soundly beside her.

She turned on her mobile to check for messages. Greger Beckman, her husband, had called eleven times. Shit. I forgot to call. She dialled the number and explained where she was and why she had not come home. He was angry.

"Erika, don't do that again. It has nothing to do with Mikael, but I've been worried sick all night. I was terrified that something had happened. You know you have to call and tell me if you're not coming home. You mustn't ever forget something like that."

Beckman was completely O.K. with the fact that Blomkvist was his wife's lover. Their affair was carried on with his assent. But every time she had decided to sleep at Blomkvist's, she had called her husband to tell him.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I just collapsed in exhaustion last night."

He grunted.

"Try not to be furious with me, Greger. I can't handle it right now. You can give me hell tonight."

He grunted some more and promised to scold her when she got home. "O.K. How's Mikael doing?"

"He's dead to the world." She burst out laughing. "Believe it or not, we were fast asleep moments after we got here. That's never happened."

"This is serious, Erika. I think you ought to see a doctor."

When she hung up she called the office and left a message for Fredriksson. Something had come up and she would be in a little later than usual. She asked him to cancel a meeting she had arranged with the culture editor.

She found her shoulder bag, ferreted out a toothbrush and went to the bathroom. Then she got back into the bed and woke Blomkvist.

"Hurry up - go and wash and brush your teeth."

"What... huh?" He sat up and looked around in bewilderment. She had to remind him that he was at the Slussen Hilton. He nodded.

"So. To the bathroom with you."

"Why the hurry?"

"Because as soon as you come back I need you to make love to me." She glanced at her watch. "I've got a meeting at 11.00 that I can't postpone. I have to look presentable, and it'll take me at least half an hour to put on my face. And I'll have to buy a new shift dress or something on the way to work. That gives us only two hours to make up for a whole lot of lost time."

Blomkvist headed for the bathroom.

Holmberg parked his father's Ford in the drive of former Prime Minister Thorbjorn Falldin's house in Ås just outside Ramvik in Harnosand county. He got out of the car and looked around. At the age of seventy-nine, Falldin could hardly still be an active farmer, and Holmberg wondered who did the sowing and harvesting. He knew he was being watched from the kitchen window. That was the custom in the village. He himself had grown up in Halledal outside Ramvik, very close to Sandobron, which was one of the most beautiful places in the world. At any rate Holmberg thought so.

He knocked at the front door.

The former leader of the Centre Party looked old,