place, it wouldn’t necessarily be a breakthrough. It could equally well be a trap. An attempt to draw her off. She had to be prepared for everything, but now…her eyes were fixed on the map. The car carrying Camilla was taking the same route as the ambulance had yesterday, heading north on the E4 motorway. That was promising. It had to be. Salander packed her things and went down to check out, before tearing off on her Kawasaki.
* * *
—
Catrin Lindås wrapped herself in a bathrobe and went to open the door. She found a uniformed policeman standing outside, a young man with blond, neatly parted hair, and she stammered a nervous “Good morning.”
“We want to speak to people in this hotel who may have seen or been in contact with the journalist Mikael Blomkvist,” the police officer said, and immediately she felt that he was suspicious, maybe even hostile.
His eyes beamed with confidence and he stood very straight, as if to show how tall and powerful he was.
“What’s happened?” she said, and the fear was plain in her voice.
The policeman came closer and looked her up and down in a way she recognized only too well. She had encountered it so many times when walking around town, the look that wanted both to undress her and do her harm.
“What is your name?”
That was part of the provocation. She could see that he knew perfectly well who she was.
“Catrin Lindås,” she said.
He wrote it down in a notebook. “You’ve been with him here, haven’t you? Did you spend the night together?”
What’s that got to do with it? she wanted to shout. But she was frightened, and she stepped back into the room and explained that Blomkvist had already left by the time she woke that morning.
“Did you check in using a false name?”
She tried to breathe calmly and wondered if it would even be possible to have a rational conversation with him, especially now that he had high-handedly marched into the room.
“And do you have a name?” she said.
“What?”
“I don’t seem to remember you introducing yourself.”
“Inspector Carl Wernersson, from Norrmalm police.”
“Good, Carl,” she said. “In that case you can perhaps begin by telling me what’s going on?”
“Mikael Blomkvist was attacked outside this hotel during the night and abducted, so you’ll appreciate that we’re taking this very seriously indeed.”
She felt as if the walls were closing in on her. “My God,” she said.
“So it’s of the utmost importance that you give us a truthful account of what happened before that.”
She sat down on the bed. “Is he hurt?”
“We don’t know. You haven’t answered my question,” he said.
Her heart was pounding and she fumbled for words. “He was going to an important meeting this morning, but I’ve just found out that he never showed up.”
“What sort of meeting?”
She closed her eyes. Why was she being such an idiot? She had sworn not to tell anyone about it. But she was terrified and confused, her brain was not functioning properly. “I can’t tell you, I’m protecting a source,” she said.
“So you’re refusing to cooperate?”
She was struggling to breathe and looked out of the window, groping for a way out of the situation. But then Wernersson inadvertently helped her by staring at her breasts, and that made her livid.
“I’d be happy to cooperate. But before I do, I want to speak to a person with a rudimentary knowledge of the law on informant protection, and who at least tries to show some respect for people who’ve received shocking news about someone they’re close to.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m telling you to contact your superiors and get the hell out of here.”
Wernersson looked as if he wanted to arrest her right away.
“Now,” she said, angrier by the second, and he did actually mutter “OK,” although he could not resist adding:
“But you’re staying here.”
Without answering, she opened the door to show him out, then sat on the bed in stunned silence. A buzzing from her mobile jerked her back to life. It was a news flash from Svenska Dagbladet:
CELEBRATED JOURNALIST ASSAULTED AND ABDUCTED OUTSIDE HOTEL LYDMAR IN STOCKHOLM
For a few minutes she was absorbed by the reports. There were banner headlines everywhere but precious little substance in the stories themselves, only the information that he was said to have been taken away in an ambulance, an ambulance no-one had called. It sounded…unbelievable. What the hell should she do? She wanted to scream. Then something came back to her, something she had heard in