The Girl Who Lived Twice (Millennium #6) - David Lagercrantz Page 0,124

had been said seemed true and real, as if in fact it were a part of me, and I couldn’t handle it anymore. I just lay in bed on Sandön, paralyzed.”

“And yet I heard you yelling into the telephone,” Rebecka said. “You still seemed prepared to fight.”

“That’s true, I did want to fight. I had rung Janek here, and told him, and often I had the telephone in my hand and was on the point of calling the prime minister and the head of police. I was getting ready to take some sort of action. At least that’s what I’d like to believe. And it must have worried Lindberg when I took time off. He came out to Sandön. Looking back on it, I wonder if he didn’t do that just to keep an eye on me.”

“Why do you say that?” Lindås said.

“Because one morning, when Becka had gone shopping, he turned up unannounced and we stood on the beach and talked. That’s when he showed me the dossier. It was all fake, but it was quite uncanny how well it had been put together, with pictures of women who’d been beaten black and blue and witness statements, copies of reports to the police and supporting evidence, certificates which looked like proper scientific or technical proof. It was a comprehensive set of documents, clearly the work of professionals, and I realized at once that enough people would be taken in by it for long enough to cause irreparable damage. I remember walking back into the house and looking around. Every object in there—every kitchen knife, the upstairs windows, the electric sockets—had turned into something with which to injure myself. At that moment, I wanted only to die.”

“Not quite, I don’t think, Johannes,” Kowalski said. “You still had some fight left in you. You called me again and told me everything.”

“That’s true, I did.”

“And you provided enough information for us to be able to confirm that Svante Lindberg had been recruited by Zvezda Bratva early in the 2000s. Not only did we realize that he was corrupt through and through, we also finally understood what had really happened.”

“That he drugged Grankin and Klara Engelman?”

“We knew exactly what his motives were all along. Just like Stan Engelman, he was deeply concerned about what Klara and Viktor could reveal. We don’t believe that Grankin knew about Lindberg’s role in the syndicate, but that’s not so important. Once you’ve been sucked into an organization like that, you do as you’re told. By this time, Zvezda Bratva had every reason to get rid of Viktor and Klara.”

“I’m beginning to understand,” Lindås said.

“Then you’ll appreciate that Lindberg had more than one reason to leave Klara up there to die—it wasn’t only to help a friend.”

“He wanted to silence her.”

“Her rising from the dead meant that the syndicate was once again in danger. But the sad thing was that we were so focused on the material we had, we forgot to keep Johannes in the picture.”

“You left him in the lurch,” Rebecka said.

“We forgot to give him the support he deserved, and that pains me deeply.”

“I should hope so.”

“You’re absolutely right. It was very regrettable and unfair, and I hope that’s what you think too, Catrin, having listened to all this.”

“What?” she said.

“That all along, Johannes was only trying to do the right thing.”

Lindås did not answer. She was staring at a news flash on her mobile.

“Has something happened?” Rebecka said.

“There’s a police operation going on in Morgonsala, it may be something to do with Mikael,” she said.

* * *

—

Salander’s head banged against the brick wall, and she could feel the rush of heat from the furnace. She knew she had to get a grip on herself, and not only for her own sake. What the hell was her problem? She could burn men with irons. She could tattoo words onto their bellies. She could go completely wild. But she could not shoot her sister—not if her own life depended on it.

She had hesitated once more, and now, in the midst of the whirling madness around them, Camilla grabbed hold of her injured arm and tried to drag her towards the furnace. Her hair hissed as the fire singed it, and she was close to falling into the flames. But she stayed upright and saw how one man, Jorma she thought it was, was aiming a pistol at her from across the room. She shot back and hit him in the chest. There was movement