two men who followed Blomkvist out of the cafe and past the Kvarter cinema.
One of the men looked to be in his late thirties or early forties and had blond hair. The other seemed a bit older, with thinning reddish-blond hair and sunglasses. Both were dressed in jeans and leather jackets.
They parted company at the grey Volvo. The older man got in, and the younger one followed Blomkvist towards Hornstull tunnelbana station.
Malm lowered the camera. Blomkvist had given him no good reason for insisting that he patrol the neighbourhood near the Copacabana on Sunday afternoon looking for a grey Volvo with a registration beginning KAB. Blomkvist told him to position himself where he could photograph whoever got into the car, probably just after 3.00. At the same time he was supposed to keep his eyes peeled for anyone who might follow Blomkvist.
It sounded like the prelude to a typical Blomkvist adventure. Malm was never quite sure whether Blomkvist was paranoid by nature or if he had paranormal gifts. Since the events in Gosseberga his colleague had certainly become withdrawn and hard to communicate with. Nothing unusual about this, though. But when Blomkvist was working on a complicated story - Malm had observed the same obsessive and secretive behaviour in the weeks before the Wennerstrom story broke - it became more pronounced.
On the other hand, Malm could see for himself that Blomkvist was indeed being tailed. He wondered vaguely what new nightmare was in the offing. Whatever it was, it would soak up all of Millennium's time, energy and resources. Malm did not think it was a great idea for Blomkvist to set off on some wild scheme just when the magazine's editor-in-chief had deserted to the Big Daily, and now Millennium's laboriously reconstructed stability was suddenly hanging once again in the balance.
But Malm had not participated in any parade - apart from Gay Pride - in at least ten years. He had nothing better to do on this May Day Sunday than humour his wayward publisher. He sauntered after the man tailing Blomkvist even though he had not been instructed to do so, but he lost sight him on Långholmsgatan.
One of the first things Blomkvist did when he realized that his mobile was bugged was to send Cortez out to buy some used handsets. Cortez bought a job lot of Ericsson T10s for a song. Blomkvist then opened some anonymous cash-card accounts on Comviq and distributed the mobiles to Eriksson, Cortez, Giannini, Malm and Armansky, also keeping one for himself. They were to be used only for conversations that absolutely must not be overheard. Day-to-day stuff they could and should do on their own mobiles. Which meant that they all had to carry two mobiles with them.
Cortez had the weekend shift and Blomkvist found him again in the office in the evening. Since the murder of Zalachenko, Blomkvist had devised a 24/7 roster, so that Millennium's office was always staffed and someone slept there every night. The roster included himself, Cortez, Eriksson and Malm. Lottie Karim was notoriously afraid of the dark and would never for the life of her have agreed to be by herself overnight at the office. Nilsson was not afraid of the dark, but she worked so furiously on her projects that she was encouraged to go home when the day was done. Magnusson was getting on in years and as advertising manager had nothing to do with the editorial side. He was also about to go on holiday.
"Anything new?"
"Nothing special," Cortez said. "Today is all about May 1, naturally enough."
"I'm going to be here for a couple of hours," Blomkvist told him. "Take a break and come back around 9.00."
After Cortez left, Blomkvist got out his anonymous mobile and called Daniel Olsson, a freelance journalist in Goteborg. Over the years Millennium had published several of his articles and Blomkvist had great faith in his ability to gather background material.
"Hi, Daniel. Mikael Blomkvist here. Can you talk?"
"Sure."
"I need someone for a research job. You can bill us for five days, and you don't have to produce an article at the end of it. Well, you can write an article on the subject if you want and we'll publish it, but it's the research we're after."
"Fine. Tell me."
"It's sensitive. You can't discuss this with anyone except me, and you can communicate with me only via hotmail. You must not even mention that you're doing research for Millennium."
"This sounds fun.