"Dr Teleborian, the reality is that it's none of your business who Lisbeth Salander wants to have sex with. It's none of your business which gender her partner is or how they conduct their sexual relations. And yet in her case you pluck out details from her life and use them as the basis for saying that she is sick."
"Lisbeth Salander's whole life - from the time she was in junior school - is a document of unprovoked and violent outbursts of anger against teachers and other pupils."
"Just a moment." Giannini's voice was suddenly like an ice scraper on a car window. "Look at my client."
Everyone looked at Salander.
"My client grew up in abominable family circumstances. Over a period of years her father persistently abused her mother."
"That's - "
"Let me finish. Lisbeth Salander's mother was mortally afraid of Alexander Zalachenko. She did not dare to protest. She did not dare to go to a doctor. She did not dare to go to a women's crisis centre. She was ground down and eventually beaten so badly that she suffered irreversible brain damage. The person who had to take responsibility, the only person who tried to take responsibility for the family long before she reached her teens even, was Lisbeth Salander. She had to shoulder that burden all by herself, since Zalachenko the spy was more important to the state and its social services than Lisbeth's mother."
"I cannot - "
"The result, excuse me, was a situation in which society abandoned Lisbeth's mother and her two children. Are you surprised that Lisbeth had problems at school? Look at her. She's small and skinny. She has always been the smallest girl in her class. She was introverted and eccentric and she had no friends. Do you know how children tend to treat fellow pupils who are different?"
Teleborian sighed.
Giannini continued. "I can go back to her school records and examine one situation after another in which Lisbeth turned violent. They were always preceded by some kind of provocation. I can easily recognize the signs of bullying. Let me tell you something."
"What?"
"I admire Lisbeth Salander. She's tougher than I am. If I had been strapped down for a year when I was thirteen, I would probably have broken down altogether. She fought back with the only weapon she had available - her contempt for you."
Her nervousness was long gone. She felt that she was in control.
"In your testimony this morning you spoke a great deal about fantasies. You stated, for instance, that Lisbeth's Salander's account of her rape by Advokat Bjurman is a fantasy."
"That's correct."
"On what do you base your conclusion?"
"On my experience of the way she usually fantasizes."
"On your experience of the way she usually fantasizes? How do you decide when she is fantasizing? When she says that she was strapped to a bed for 380 days and nights, then in your opinion it's a fantasy, despite the fact that your very own records tell us that this was indeed the case."
"This is something entirely different. There is not a shred of evidence that Bjurman committed rape against Lisbeth Salander. I mean, needles through her nipples and such gross violence that she unquestionably should have been taken by ambulance to hospital? It's obvious that this could not have taken place."
Giannini turned to Judge Iversen. "I asked to have a projector available today..."
"It's in place," the judge said.
"Could we close the curtains, please?"
Giannini opened her PowerBook and plugged in the cables to the projector. She turned to her client.
"Lisbeth. We're going to look at the film. Are you ready for this?"
"I've lived through it," Salander said dryly.
"And I have your approval to show it here?"
Salander nodded. She fixed her eyes on Teleborian.
"Can you tell us when the film was made?"
"On 7 March, 2003."
"Who shot the film?"
"I did. I used a hidden camera, standard equipment at Milton Security."
"Just one moment," Prosecutor Ekstrom shouted. "This is beginning to resemble a circus act."
"What is it we are about to see?" Judge Iversen said with a sharp edge to his voice.
"Dr Teleborian claims that Lisbeth Salander's account of her rape by Advokat Bjurman is a fantasy. I am going to show you evidence to the contrary. The film is ninety minutes long, but I will only show a few short excerpts. I warn you that it contains some very unpleasant scenes."
"Is this some sort of trick?" Ekstrom said.
"There's a good way to find out," said Giannini and started the D.V.D.