Wednesday, June 11–Saturday, June 14
Blomkvist got help with the third jigsaw piece from an unexpected quarter.
After working on the images practically all night he slept heavily until well into the afternoon. He awoke with a headache, took a shower, and walked to Susanne’s for breakfast. He ought to have gone to see Vanger and report what he had discovered. Instead, when he came back, he went to Cecilia’s house and knocked on the door. He needed to ask her why she had lied to him about being in Harriet’s room. No-one came to the door.
He was just leaving when he heard: “Your whore isn’t home.”
Gollum had emerged from his cave. He was once tall, almost six foot six, but now so stooped with age that his eyes were level with Blomkvist’s. His face and neck were splotched with dark liver spots. He was in his pyjamas and a brown dressing gown, leaning on a cane. He looked like a Central Casting nasty old man.
“What did you say?”
“I said that your whore isn’t home.”
Blomkvist stepped so close that he was almost nose to nose with Harald Vanger.
“You’re talking about your own daughter, you fucking pig.”
“I’m not the one who comes sneaking over here in the night,” Harald said with a toothless smile. He smelled foul. Blomkvist sidestepped him and went down the road without looking back. He found Vanger in his office.
“I’ve just had the pleasure of meeting your brother,” Mikael said.
“Harald? Well, well, so, he’s ventured out. He does that a couple of times a year.”
“I was knocking on Cecilia’s door when this voice behind me said, quote, Your whore isn’t home, unquote.”
“That sounds like Harald,” Vanger said calmly.
“He called his own daughter a whore, for God’s sake.”
“He’s been doing that for years. That’s why they don’t talk much.”
“Why does he call her that?”
“Cecilia lost her virginity when she was twenty-one. It happened here in Hedestad after a summer romance, the year after Harriet disappeared.”
“And?”
“The man she fell in love with was called Peter Samuelsson. He was a financial assistant at the Vanger Corporation. A bright boy. Today he works for ABB. The kind of man I would have been proud to have as my son-in-law if she were my daughter. Harald measured his skull or checked his family tree or something and discovered that he was one-quarter Jewish.”
“Good Lord.”
“He’s called her a whore ever since.”
“He knew that Cecilia and I have…”
“Everybody in the village probably knows that with the possible exception of Isabella, because no-one in his right mind would tell her anything, and thank heavens she’s nice enough to go to bed at 8:00 every night. Harald on the other hand has presumably been following every step you take.”
Blomkvist sat down, looking foolish.
“You mean that everyone knows…”
“Of course.”
“And you don’t mind?”
“My dear Mikael, it’s really none of my business.”
“Where is Cecilia?”
“The school term is over. She went to London on Saturday to visit her sister, and after that she’s having a holiday in…hmmm, I think it was Florida. She’ll be back in about a month.”
Blomkvist felt even more foolish.
“We’ve sort of put our relationship on hold for a while.”
“So I understand, but it’s still none of my business. How’s your work coming along?”
Blomkvist poured himself a cup of coffee from Vanger’s thermos.
“I think I’ve found some new material.”
He took his iBook out of his shoulder bag and scrolled through the series of images showing how Harriet had reacted on J?rnv?gsgatan. He explained how he had found the other spectators with the camera and their car with the Norsj? Carpentry Shop sign. When he was finished Vanger wanted to see all the pictures again. When he looked up from the computer his face was grey. Blomkvist was suddenly alarmed and put a hand on Vanger’s shoulder. Vanger waved him away and sat in silence for a while.
“You’ve done what I thought was impossible. You’ve turned up something completely new. What are you going to do next?”
“I am going to look for that snapshot, if it still exists.”
He did not mention the face in the window.
?
Harald Vanger had gone back to his cave by the time Blomkvist came out. When he turned the corner he found someone quite different sitting on the porch of his cottage, reading a newspaper. For a fraction of a second he thought it was Cecilia, but the dark-haired girl on the porch was his daughter.
“Hi, Pappa,” Pernilla Abrahamsson said.
He gave his daughter a long hug.
“Where in the world did you spring from?”
“From home, of course. I’m on my way to Skellefte?. Can I stay the night?”
“Of course you can, but how did you get here?”
“Mamma knew where you were. And I asked at the café if they knew where you were staying. The woman told me exactly how to get here. Are you glad to see me?”
“Certainly I am. Come in. You should have given me some warning so I could buy some good food or something.”
“I stopped on impulse. I wanted to welcome you home from prison, but you never called.”
