role in Zalachenko's business. He might even be able to point you in the direction of Niedermann."
One of the detectives from Goteborg said: "What have we found at the farm in Gosseberga?"
"We found four revolvers. A Sig Sauer that had been dismantled and was being oiled on the kitchen table. A Polish P-83 Wanad on the floor next to the bench in the kitchen. A Colt 1911 Government - that's the pistol that Blomkvist tried to hand in to Paulsson. And finally a.22 calibre Browning, which is pretty much a toy gun alongside the others. We rather think that it was the weapon used to shoot Salander, given that she's still alive with a slug in her brain."
"Anything else?"
"We found and confiscated a bag containing about 200,000 kronor. It was in an upstairs room used by Niedermann."
"How do you know it was his room?"
"Well, he does wear a size XXL. Zalachenko is at most a medium."
"Do you have anything on Zalachenko or Bodin in your records?" Holmberg said.
Erlander shook his head.
"Of course it depends on how we interpret the confiscated weapons. Apart from the more sophisticated weaponry and an unusually sophisticated T.V. surveillance of the farm, we found nothing to distinguish it from any other farmhouse. The house itself is spartan, no frills."
Just before noon there was a knock on the door and a uniformed officer delivered a document to Spångberg.
"We've received a call," she said, "about a missing person in Alingsås. A dental nurse by the name of Anita Kaspersson left her home by car at 7.30 this morning. She took her child to day care and should have arrived at her place of work by 8.00. But she never did. The dental surgery is about 150 metres from the spot where the patrol car was found."
Erlander and Modig both looked at their wristwatches.
"Then he has a four-hour head start. What kind of car is it?"
"A dark-blue 1991 Renault. Here's the registration number."
"Send out an A.P.B. on the vehicle at once. He could be in Oslo by now, or Malmo, or maybe even Stockholm."
They brought the conference to a close by deciding that Modig and Erlander would together interrogate Zalachenko.
Cortez frowned and followed Berger with his gaze as she cut across the hall from her office to the kitchenette. She returned moments later with a cup of coffee, went back into her office and closed the door.
Cortez could not put his finger on what was wrong. Millennium was the kind of small office where co-workers were close. He had worked part-time at the magazine for four years, and during that time the team had weathered some phenomenal storms, especially during the period when Blomkvist was serving a three-month sentence for libel and the magazine almost went under. Then their colleague Dag Svensson was murdered, and his girlfriend too.
Through all these storms Berger had been the rock that nothing seemed capable of shifting. He was not surprised that she had called to wake him early that morning and put him and Lottie Karim to work. The Salander affair had cracked wide open, and Blomkvist had got himself somehow involved in the killing of a policeman in Goteborg. So far, everything was under control. Karim had parked herself at police headquarters and was doing her best to get some solid information out of someone. Cortez had spent the morning making calls, piecing together what had happened overnight. Blomkvist was not answering his telephone, but from a number of sources Cortez had a fairly clear picture of the events of the night before.
Berger, on the other hand, had been distracted all morning. It was rare for her to close the door to her office. That usually happened only when she had a visitor or was working intently on some problem. This morning she had not had a single visitor, and she was not - so far as he could judge - working. On several occasions when he had knocked on the door to relay some news, he had found her sitting in the chair by the window. She seemed lost in thought, as listlessly she watched the stream of people walking down below on Gotgatan. She had paid scant attention to his reports.
Something was wrong.
The doorbell interrupted his ruminations. He went to open it and found the lawyer Annika Giannini. Cortez had met Blomkvist's sister a few times, but he did not know her well.
"Hello, Annika," he said. "Mikael isn't here today."