he had asked earlier. Among them, and most crucially: what was the truth surrounding Bjorck's report from 1991?
"That is a serious matter." Nystrom adopted a concerned expression. "Since this report surfaced, we have had an analysis group working almost round the clock to discover exactly what happened. We are now close to the point where we can draw conclusions. And they are most unpleasant."
"I can well imagine. That report alleges that the Security Police and the psychiatrist Peter Teleborian co-operated to place Lisbeth Salander in psychiatric care."
"If only that were the case," Nystrom said with a slight smile.
"I don't understand."
"If that was all there was to it, the matter would be simple. Then a crime would have been committed and led to a prosecution. The difficulty is that this report does not correspond with other reports that we have in our archives." Nystrom took out a blue folder and opened it. "What I have here is the report that Gunnar Bjorck actually wrote in 1991. Here too are the original documents from the correspondence between him and Teleborian. The two versions do not agree."
"Please explain."
"The appalling thing is that Bjorck has hanged himself. Presumably because of the threat of revelations about his sexual deviations. Blomkvist's magazine was intending to expose him. That drove him to such depths of despair that he took his own life."
"Well..."
"The original report is an account of Lisbeth Salander's attempt to murder her father, Alexander Zalachenko, with a petrol bomb. The first thirty pages of the report that Blomkvist discovered agree with the original. These pages, frankly, contain nothing remarkable. It's not until page thirty-three, where Bjorck draws conclusions and makes recommendations, that the discrepancy arises."
"What discrepancy?"
"In the original version Bjorck presents five well-argued recommendations. We don't need to hide the fact that they concern playing down the Zalachenko affair in the media and so forth. Bjorck proposes that Zalachenko's rehabilitation - he suffered very severe burns - be carried out abroad. And things similar. He also recommends that Salander should be offered the best conceivable psychiatric care."
"I see..."
"The problem is that a number of sentences were altered in a very subtle way. On page thirty-four there is a paragraph in which Bjorck appears to suggest that Salander be branded psychotic, so that she will not be believed if anyone should start asking questions about Zalachenko."
"And this suggestion is not in the original report."
"Precisely. Gunnar Bjorck's own report never suggested anything of the kind. Quite apart from anything else, that would have been against the law. He warmly recommended that she be given the care she quite clearly needed. In Blomkvist's copy, this was made out to be a conspiracy."
"Could I read the original?"
"Certainly you can. I have to take the report with me when I go. And before you read it, let me direct your attention to the appendix containing the subsequent correspondence between Bjorck and Teleborian. It is almost entirely fabricated. Here it's not a matter of subtle alterations, but of gross falsifications."
"Falsifications?"
"I think that's the only appropriate description. The original shows that Peter Teleborian was assigned by the district court to do a forensic psychiatric examination of Lisbeth Salander. Nothing out of the ordinary there. Salander was twelve years old and had tried to kill her father - it would have been very strange if that shocking event had not resulted in a psychiatric report."
"That's true."
"If you had been the prosecutor, I assume that you would have insisted on both social and psychiatric investigations."
"Of course."
"Even then Teleborian was a well-respected child psychiatrist who had also worked in forensic medicine. He was given the assignment, conducted a normal investigation, and came to the conclusion that the girl was mentally ill. I don't have to use their technical terms."
"No, no..."
"Teleborian wrote this in a report that he sent to Bjorck. The report was then given to the district court, which decided that Salander should be cared for at St Stefan's. Blomkvist's version is missing the entire investigation conducted by Teleborian. In its place is an exchange between Bjorck and Teleborian, which has Bjorck instructing Teleborian to falsify a mental examination."
"And you're saying that it's an invention, a forgery?"
"No question about it."
"But who would be interested in creating such a thing?"
Nystrom put down the report and frowned. "Now you're getting to the heart of the problem."
"And the answer is...?"
"We don't know. That's the question our analytical group is working very hard to answer."