The Girl Who Lived Twice (Millennium #6) - David Lagercrantz Page 0,51
them could give a detailed account of how they made it down to the tents on the Southeast Ridge.
But if there was a time that was unaccounted for in all the reports of that day, then it was between seven and eleven in the evening. Even if that was not much to be going on, Salander did spot some discrepancies in their stories, especially with regard to Forsell’s condition and how bad it had really been.
It was as if his crisis had been made to appear less and less serious over time. Personally, she did not think it was all that remarkable, not compared to the real drama that was unfolding on another part of the mountain, where Klara Engelman and her guide Viktor Grankin died that afternoon. It was not so surprising that endless column inches had been devoted to that. Why, of all people, was it the prestige client who lost her life, when there were so many others on the mountain that day? Why did she have to die, she, the subject of so much gossip and vilification?
For a while there was talk that it was all down to envy and class hatred and misogyny. But once the initial furor had died down, it was clear that no effort had been spared to save Engelman, and that right from the start she had been beyond rescue—ever since she collapsed very suddenly in the snow. The assistant guide, Robin Hamill, even said:
“It wasn’t that too little was done to save Klara, but too much. She was considered so important to Viktor and the expedition that we risked the lives of many others in our endeavours,” and that sounded plausible, Salander thought.
Engelman was such a major celebrity that nobody had dared to send her down while there was still time. The whole expedition was held up as she dragged herself along, and after she tore off her oxygen mask in confusion and desperation, just before one in the afternoon, she only became weaker.
She collapsed on her knees and toppled forward onto the snow. Panic broke out and Grankin, who was clearly not his usual robust self that day, shouted at everybody to stop. Significant efforts were made to bring her down at that point. But not long afterwards the weather deteriorated, and the snowstorm slammed into them. Many others in the group—in particular Mads Larsen, a Dane, and Charlotte Richter, a German—found themselves in a critical condition, and for a few hours it looked as if they were heading for a full-scale catastrophe.
But the expedition Sherpas, above all their Sirdar, Nima Rita, worked ceaselessly in the storm and led people down on ropes or steadied them as they descended. By evening, all had been rescued, all except for Klara Engelman and Viktor Grankin. He had refused to leave Engelman, rather like a captain staying on his sinking ship.
In the weeks and months that followed there was an extensive investigation of the drama, and by now most of the questions seemed to have been answered. The only thing that was never fully explained—although it was assumed to have been caused by the powerful jet stream at those altitudes—was that Engelman was found half a mile further down, even though all witnesses said that she and Grankin had died together, side by side in the snow.
Salander thought about this, and about all the other bodies left up there on the slopes, year after year, without anybody being able to bring them down and bury them. As the hours went by she scrutinized the various accounts until it seemed that there was perhaps something not quite right with the story after all. She even read about Mats Sabin—Blomkvist had mentioned him—and then drifted into the gossip threads on the internet. At some point an entirely different thought struck her, but that was as far as she got.
The door flew open and Paulina came in, quite drunk, and tore into her for being a total monster. Salander gave as good as she got, until they threw themselves over each other and made frenzied love, united in a feeling of despair and loneliness.
CHAPTER 15
August 26
Mikael ran a full six miles along the water’s edge and back that morning, and when he got home to the cabin the telephone was ringing. It was Erika Berger. The next issue of Millennium was going to press the following day. She was not altogether happy with it, but she was not unhappy either.