The Girl Who Lived Twice (Millennium #6) - David Lagercrantz Page 0,55
mental health centre in Kathmandu. He stayed there on and off until the end of September 2017, and then one day he goes off to get himself some beer and vodka. He was apparently suspicious about the drugs the doctors were giving him and said that the only thing that silenced the voices in his head was alcohol. I think the staff reluctantly let it happen. They allowed him to abscond because they knew he would always come back. But this time he didn’t come back, and they grew concerned at the hospital. They knew he was expecting a visit that he was very excited about.”
“What kind of visit?”
“I don’t know. But it might have been from a journalist. To mark the tenth anniversary of Klara Engelman’s and Viktor Grankin’s deaths, a number of articles and documentaries were being prepared. Nima was apparently very happy that at last somebody wanted to listen to him.”
“But you don’t know anything more about what he wanted to get off his chest?”
“Only that it was all but impenetrable, full of ghosts and spirits.”
“And nothing about Forsell, our Minister of Defence?”
“I don’t know, all I have is hearsay and I don’t think the centre is going to release its records any time soon.”
“What happened when he didn’t return?”
“They searched for him, of course, in all the places he would usually hang out. But they found no trace at all, except for various reports that his corpse had been seen not far from the Bagmati River, where the dead are cremated. But no body was ever identified as his, and after a year the investigation was wound up. They abandoned hope, and in the end his family held a little memorial ceremony in Namche Bazaar, or maybe more of a…how shall I put it?…a moment of prayer for him. It was very beautiful, apparently. He hadn’t been so well regarded those last years. But that restored his reputation. Nima Rita had been on the summit of Everest eleven times without oxygen. Eleven times! And his climb up Cho Oyu, that was…”
Carson went on animatedly, but Blomkvist was no longer listening quite so intently. He was looking up Nima Rita, and even though quite a lot had been written—there were Wikipedia entries in both English and German—he found only two photographs. In one, Nima Rita was standing with the Austrian star climber Hans Mosel, after their ascent of the North Face of Everest in 2001. In the other, more recent, he was shown in profile in front of a stone house in the village of Pangboche in Khumbu. Like the first picture, it had been taken from a bit too far away—certainly too far for any face-recognition software to be effective. But Blomkvist was in no doubt. He recognized the eyes and the hair, and the patches on the cheeks.
“Are you still there?” Carson said.
“I’m just a bit shocked.”
“I’m not surprised. That’s some mystery you’ve got on your hands now.”
“You can say that again. But honestly, Bob…I can tell that you’ve got supergenes. You’ve been fantastic.”
“My supergenes are for high-altitude climbing, not detective work.”
“I think you should check out your detective genes too.”
Carson gave a tired laugh.
“Can I ask you to be discreet about this for the time being?” Blomkvist said. “It would be bad if anything got out before we know more.”
“I’ve already told my wife.”
“Please keep it in the family, then.”
“I promise.”
Afterwards, Blomkvist wrote to Nyman and Bublanski to tell them what he had learned. Then he went on reading the Forsell material, and later in the morning he rang him to see if he could set up an interview.
* * *
—
Forsell had a fire going in the stove. Rebecka could smell it from downstairs in the kitchen, and she heard him pacing back and forth. She did not like the sound of his footsteps and she could not bear his silence and his glassy look. She would have done anything to see him smile again.
Something is wrong, she thought again, just wrong. She was on the point of going upstairs to demand to speak to him when he came down the winding staircase. She was happy at first. He was wearing his training gear and his Nike running shoes, and that should have been a sign that he was getting his spirits back. But there was something about his posture that frightened her. She met him halfway up the stairs and stroked his cheek.