only thing that doesn't quite fit is that he seems to be an evangelical and was a member of the Word of Life in the '90s."
"Where did you find that out?"
"I had a word with my old chief in Uppsala. He remembers Sandberg quite well."
"A Christian frogman with two weapons and offspring in Sodertalje. More?"
"We only I.D.'d him about three hours ago. This is pretty fast work, you have to admit."
"Fair enough. What do we know about the building on Artillerigatan?"
"Not a lot yet. Stefan went to chase someone up from the city building office. We have blueprints of the building. A housing association block since the 1890s. Six floors with a total of twenty-two apartments, plus eight apartments in a small building in the courtyard. I looked up the tenants, but didn't find anything that stood out. Two of the people living in the building have police records."
"Who are they?"
"Lindstrom on the second floor, sixty-three. Convicted of insurance fraud in the '70s. Wittfelt on the fourth floor, forty-seven. Twice convicted for beating his ex-wife. Otherwise what sounds like a cross-section of middle-class Sweden. There's one apartment that raises a question mark though."
"What?"
"It's on the top floor. Eleven rooms and apparently a bit of a snazzy joint. It's owned by a company called Bellona Inc."
"And what's their stated business?"
"God only knows. They do marketing analyses and have annual sales of around thirty million kronor. All the owners live abroad."
"Aha."
"Aha what?"
"Nothing. Just 'aha'. Do some more checks on Bellona."
At that moment the officer Blomkvist knew only as Stefan entered the room.
"Hi, chief," he greeted Edklinth. "This is really cool. I checked out the story behind the Bellona apartment."
"And?" Figuerola said.
"Bellona Inc. was founded in the '70s. They bought the apartment from the estate of the former owner, a woman by the name of Kristina Cederholm, born in 1917, married to Hans Wilhelm Francke, the loose cannon who quarrelled with P.G. Vinge at the time S.I.S. was founded."
"Good," Edklinth said. "Very good. Monica, we want surveillance on that apartment around the clock. Find out what telephones they have. I want to know who goes in and who comes out, and what vehicles drop anyone off at that address. The usual."
Edklinth turned to Blomkvist. He looked as if he wanted to say something, but he restrained himself. Blomkvist looked at him expectantly.
"Are you satisfied with the information flow?" Edklinth said at last.
"Very satisfied. Are you satisfied with Millennium's contribution?"
Edklinth nodded reluctantly. "You do know that I could get into very deep water for this."
"Not because of me. I regard the information that I receive here as source-protected. I'll report the facts, but I won't mention how or where I got them. Before I go to press I'm going to do a formal interview with you. If you don't want to give me an answer to something, you just say 'No comment'. Or else you could expound on what you think about the Section for Special Analysis. It's up to you."
"Indeed," Edklinth nodded.
Blomkvist was happy. Within a few hours the Section had taken on tangible form. A real breakthrough.
To Modig's great frustration the meeting in Ekstrom's office was lasting a long time. Mercifully someone had left a full bottle of mineral water on the conference table. She had twice texted her husband to tell him that she was still held up, promising to make it up to him as soon as she could get home. She was starting to get restless and felt like an intruder.
The meeting did not end until 7.30. She was taken completely by surprise when the door opened and Faste came out. And then Dr Teleborian. Behind them came an older, grey-haired man Modig had never seen before. Finally Prosecutor Ekstrom, putting on a jacket as he switched off the lights and locked the door to his office.
Modig held up her mobile to the gap in the curtains and took two low-res photographs of the group outside Ekstrom's door. Seconds later they had set off down the corridor.
She held her breath until they were some distance from the conference room in which she was trapped. She was in a cold sweat by the time she heard the door to the stairwell close. She stood up, weak at the knees.
Bublanski called Figuerola just after 8.00.
"You wanted to know if Ekstrom had a meeting."
"Correct," Figuerola said.
"It just ended. Ekstrom met with Dr Peter Teleborian and my former colleague Criminal Inspector Faste, and an older gentleman we didn't recognize."