The Girl Who Lived Twice (Millennium #6) - David Lagercrantz Page 0,88
you. ☺ You’re with the competition>
she wrote.
he wrote.
Stop it, she thought. Stop it. Then, reluctantly, she smiled. At last. But she was not going to go there, definitely not. Instead she went into the kitchen to tidy up, and put on Emmylou Harris so loudly that her cat raced into the bedroom. When she got back to the sitting room and picked up her mobile, she saw another text from Blomkvist.
No way, she thought. No way.
she wrote.
They went onto Signal.
he suggested.
she replied. Not “Hey, great idea, nice place!” nothing like that, only “OK.”
Then she changed and asked the neighbour to look after the cat, and began to pack.
* * *
—
Camilla was standing on the balcony and felt the rain falling on her shoulders and hands. Still, she was glad to be outside. Along Strandvägen and on the boats out there in the bay, a life was going on that should by rights have been hers, but now reminded her only of how much had been stolen from her. This cannot go on, she thought. It has to end.
She closed her eyes and tipped her head back, and raindrops fell on her forehead and lips, and as she tried to escape into her dreams, she kept being drawn back to Lundagatan, and Agneta shouting at her to go away, and Lisbeth shutting up like a clam as if she wanted to kill them all with her silence, her grim rage.
She felt a hand on her shoulder. Galinov had joined her on the terrace and she turned to look at him, at his gentle smile and his beautiful face. He drew her to him.
“My girl,” he said. “How are you?”
“I’m fine.”
“I don’t believe you.”
She looked down at the quay.
“Don’t worry, everything’ll be OK,” he said.
She searched his eyes.
“Has something happened?”
“We have visitors.”
“Who?”
“Your charming bandits.”
She nodded and went back into the apartment and saw Sandström and some other pathetic creature in jeans and a cheap brown jacket. The creature looked bruised, as if he had been given a beating. He was at least six-six and disgustingly bloated, and he turned out to be called Conny.
“Conny has something to tell us,” Sandström said.
“So, get on with it then?”
“I was watching Blomkvist’s apartment,” Andersson said.
“That obviously went well.”
“He was attacked,” Sandström said.
She looked at his split lip.
“Was he now?”
“By Salander.”
In Russian she said:
“Ivan, Conny here is taller than you, right?”
“He’s certainly heavier,” Galinov said. “And not quite as well dressed.”
She continued in Swedish. “My sister is just five feet tall and as thin as a rake, and she…beat the shit out of you.”
“She took me by surprise.”
“She got hold of his mobile,” Sandström said, “and sent a text to all of us in the club.”
“What did it say?”
“That we should listen to Conny.”
“I’m listening, Conny,” Camilla said.
“Salander said she’d come after all of us if we didn’t stop following Mikael Blomkvist.”
“Then she said something else,” Sandström added.
“And that was…?”
“That she’d come after us anyway and destroy our entire business.”
“Great,” she said, and somehow managed to stay calm.
“And then…” Sandström said. “Well, there was a lot of sensitive stuff on that mobile she nicked. We’re actually quite worried.”
“And so you should be,” she said. “But not about Lisbeth, right, Ivan?”
On the outside Camilla looked sarcastic and menacing. But inside she was falling apart. Eventually she told Galinov to take over the conversation and went into her room, and there she let the past wash over her like dirty, black water.
* * *
—
Rebecka Forsell could not believe what she had done. She had heard Johannes whisper, “He mustn’t see me,” and, on an impulse she would never fully understand, she tripped Lindberg. Then they raced through the swing doors to the taxis waiting in the rain.
Forsell chose one that looked like it didn’t belong to any taxi firm.
“Drive,” he said, and at that the driver, a dark-skinned young man with curly hair and sleepy eyes, turned to him. He showed no surprise at seeing a man still in his pyjamas.
“Where to?” he said.
Forsell did not say a word.
“Just cross Solnabron and head into town,” Rebecka said, thinking that they could take it from there. But she also noted—and it came as an unexpected relief—that the driver had not shown any sign of