The Girl Who Lived Twice (Millennium #6) - David Lagercrantz Page 0,25

seen such evidence of hardship. Everything about him, every single sinew and muscle, speaks of a life which has been a terrible struggle. This may sound a bit like pop psychology, but I find it very hard to believe that a person like that suddenly stops fighting and stuffs himself full of pills. I don’t think we can rule out that somebody was responsible for his death.”

Blomkvist gave a start.

“You’ll have to tell them that, of course. They’ll need more people working on the investigation, not just Hans Faste.”

“And I will. But I wanted to tell you anyhow, as a sort of insurance in case the police don’t do their stuff.”

“I’m grateful for that,” he said and thought of Catrin Lindås, who Sofie had told him about.

He remembered her well-pressed suits and the mark on her jacket, and the hippie commune she had grown up in. He wondered if he should mention her name. Maybe there was something she could tell the police. But then he decided he ought to spare her Hans Faste’s attentions for the time being, and instead he said:

“And you still don’t know who he is?”

“No, no hits anywhere. No-one with those distinguishing features has been reported missing. But I wasn’t expecting that anyway. What I do have is a DNA sequence analysis from the National Forensics Lab, which has just come in. But it’s still only shallow, autosomal. I’m going to ask for an analysis of his mitochondrial DNA as well, and his Y chromosome, and then I hope that’ll get me further.”

“I’m sure there are going to be many others who remember him,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“He was someone you’d notice. It was just me being too self-absorbed this summer. The police ought to have a word with people around Mariatorget, lots of them will have seen him.”

“I’ll pass that on.”

Blomkvist was beginning to find this interesting.

“You know what? If he really was taking those tablets, he’s unlikely to have got them on prescription,” he said. “He didn’t look like someone who makes an appointment with a psychiatrist, and I know from experience that there’s a black market for drugs like that. The police are bound to have informants in those circles.”

Nyman was silent for a second or two.

“Oh, damn it,” she said.

“I’m sorry?”

“I’ve been an idiot.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“No, I have. But listen…I’m glad you remember him. It really does mean something to me.”

Blomkvist looked at his half-packed suitcase and found that he no longer wanted to go to Sandhamn after all.

* * *

—

Blomkvist had said something appreciative in return, but Fredrika had barely heard it. She ended the call and almost didn’t notice Amanda, who was standing next to her asking what was for dinner. Maybe she even apologized for having been so sulky earlier. Fredrika simply told them to order a takeaway.

“What?” they both said.

“Whatever you want. Pizza, Indian, Thai, chips, liquorice sweets…”

The girls looked at her as if she had gone off her rocker. She went into her study and closed the door, and e-mailed the forensics lab asking them to run a segmental hair analysis right away, something she should have done at the start.

Not only would that show how much eszopiclone and dextropropoxyphene had been in the man’s bloodstream when he died, it would also give her the levels for every week going back several months. In other words, she would know if he had been taking the drugs over a period of time or on only one occasion. It could become an important piece in the jigsaw, and all of that made her forget her daughters, the back pain, the lack of sleep and the feeling that life might be meaningless in the end. That puzzled her. She spent her life investigating suspicious deaths, and nowadays it was rare for her to become so emotionally involved. But she had been fascinated by this character, and perhaps she even hoped that he had had a dramatic death. It was as if his ravaged body deserved more of a story, so much so that she spent many hours looking at images of the corpse, each time noticing new details. Every so often she said to herself:

What have you been through, my old friend?

What hellish trials have you had to suffer?

* * *

—

Blomkvist sat down by his computer and googled Catrin Lindås. She was thirty-seven years old, held a master’s degree in economics and political science from Stockholm University, and had now established herself as