waved her off at the harbour he had gone home and called Nyman again.
He had claimed to know a prominent woman geneticist who might be able to make some progress on the DNA analyses. Nyman was keen to know who this was and exactly what field she worked in. He said only that she was a very determined person, a professor in London who specialized in tracing genealogy. Salander was indeed brilliant at DNA analyses. She had gone to great lengths to try to find out why her family all had such extreme genetic features. It was not just her highly intelligent and odious father, Zalachenko. There was her half brother too, Ronald Niedermann, with his exceptional strength and his lack of sensitivity to pain. There was Lisbeth herself, with her photographic memory. There were a number of people among her blood relations with exceptional characteristics, and although Blomkvist had no idea what she had discovered, he did know that Salander had taught herself the scientific methodology in no time at all. After a lengthy exchange with Fredrika Nyman, he eventually got the material she had been sent.
Then he forwarded it all to Salander. He was not optimistic. Perhaps it was no more than an excuse to get in touch. Whatever. He looked out to sea. The wind was getting up and the last bathers were packing away their things. He became absorbed in his thoughts.
What had got into Catrin? In just a few days they had become so close that he had thought…well, he wasn’t sure what he thought. That they really belonged together? That was plain silly, they were like night and day…he should leave it for now, and ring Erika instead. He ought to make up for the fact that he had put his article on hold. He picked up his mobile and rang…Catrin. That was just how it went, and at first the conversation continued more or less as it had ended, stiff and hesitant. Then she said:
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For leaving.”
“No plant should ever have to die because of me.”
She gave a sad laugh.
“What are you going to do now?” he said.
“Not sure. Well, maybe I’ll force myself to sit down and try and write something.”
“Doesn’t sound like much fun.”
“No,” she said.
“But you needed to get away, was that it?”
“I think so.”
“I watched you through the window when you were weeding. You looked worried.”
“Yes, perhaps I am.”
“Did something happen?”
“Not really.”
“But something did, right?”
“I was thinking about the beggar.”
“What about him?”
“That I hadn’t told you what he was shouting about Forsell.”
“You said it was the usual stuff.”
“But it may have been more than that.”
“Why are you telling me this now?”
“Because it started to come back to me more clearly when that doctor called.”
“So what was he saying?”
“Something along the lines of: ‘I took Forsell. I left Mamsabiv, terrible, terrible.’ Something like that.”
“What do you think it means?”
“I don’t know. But when I checked Mamsabiv, Mansabin, all sorts of words like that, I got Mats Sabin, that was the closest I found.”
“The military historian?”
“Do you know him?”
“Years ago I was one of those people who read everything about the Second World War.”
“Do you also know that Sabin died four years ago, during a mountain hike in Abisko National Park? He froze to death by a lake. People think he had a stroke and couldn’t get to a shelter out of the cold.”
“I didn’t know that,” he said.
“Not that I think it’s got anything to do with Forsell…”
“But…” he said to encourage her.
“But I couldn’t resist doing a search against the two of them together and I saw that Forsell and Sabin had a falling-out in the media. About Russia.”
“Explain?”
“After he retired, Sabin changed his opinion and went from being a hawk to having a more Russia-friendly outlook, and in several pieces—in Expressen, among others—he wrote that everyone in Sweden suffered from a terror of Russia, a paranoia, and that we should be taking a more sympathetic view. Forsell countered by writing that Sabin’s words simply replicated Russian propaganda and implied that he was a paid lackey. After that all hell broke loose. There was talk of libel suits and other legal action, but in the end Forsell backed down and apologized.”
“Where does the beggar come into this?”
“No idea. Although…he did say ‘I left Mansabin,’ or something similar, and that might fit. Sabin was alone and abandoned when he died.”
“It’s a lead,” he said.
“Probably nonsensical.”
“Can’t you come back so we can talk it through, and also