Martin Vanger let go of his hair and sat cross-legged in front of Blomkvist. He took a knife from his jacket and opened it. He set the point against the skin just below Blomkvist's eye. Blomkvist forced himself to meet Martin's gaze.
"What the hell happened to her, bastard?"
"I don't understand. I thought you killed her."
Martin Vanger stared at Blomkvist for a long moment. Then he relaxed. He got up and wandered around the room, thinking. He threw the knife on the floor and laughed before he came back to face Blomkvist.
"Harriet, Harriet, always Harriet. We tried... to talk to her. Gottfried tried to teach her. We thought that she was one of us and that she would accept her duty, but she was just an ordinary... cunt. I had her under control, or so I thought, but she was planning to tell Henrik, and I realised that I couldn't trust her. Sooner or later she was going to tell someone about me."
"You killed her."
"I wanted to kill her. I thought about it, but I arrived too late. I couldn't get over to the island."
Blomkvist's brain was with difficulty trying to absorb this information, but it felt as if a message had popped up with the words INFORMATION OVERLOAD. Martin Vanger did not know what had happened to his sister.
All of a sudden Martin pulled his mobile telephone out of his pocket, glanced at the display, and put it on the chair next to the pistol.
"It's time to stop all this. I have to dispose of your anorexic bitch tonight too."
He took out a narrow leather strap from a cupboard and slipped it around Blomkvist's neck, like a noose. He loosened the chain that held him shackled to the floor, hauled him to his feet, and shoved him towards the wall. He slipped the leather strap through a loop above Blomkvist's head and then tightened it so that he was forced to stand on tiptoes.
"Is that too tight? Can you breathe?" He loosened it a notch and locked the other end of the strap in place, further down the wall. "I don't want you to suffocate all at once."
The noose was cutting so hard into Blomkvist's throat that he was incapable of uttering a word. Martin looked at him attentively.
Abruptly he unzipped Blomkvist's trousers and tugged them down, along with his boxer shorts. As he pulled them off, Blomkvist lost his foothold and dangled for a second from the noose before his toes again made contact with the floor. Martin went over to a cupboard and took out a pair of scissors. He cut off Blomkvist's T-shirt and tossed the bits on the floor. Then he took up a position some distance away from Mikael and regarded his victim.
"I've never had a boy in here," Martin said in a serious voice. "I've never touched another man, as a matter of fact... except for my father. That was my duty."
Blomkvist's temples were pounding. He could not put his weight on his feet without being strangled. He tried to use his fingers to get a grip on the concrete wall behind him, but there was nothing to hold on to.
"It's time," Martin Vanger said.
He put his hand on the strap and pulled down. Blomkvist instantly felt the noose cutting into his neck.
"I've always wondered how a man tastes."
He increased the pressure on the noose and leaned forward to kiss Blomkvist on the lips at the same time that a cold voice cut through the room.
"Hey, you fucking creep, in this shithole I've got a monopoly on that one."
Blomkvist heard Salander's voice through a red fog. He managed to focus his eyes enough to see her standing in the doorway. She was looking at Martin Vanger without expression.
"No... run," he croaked.
He could not see the look on Martin's face, but he could almost physically feel the shock when he turned around. For a second, time stood still. Then Martin reached for the pistol he had left on the chair.
Salander took three swift strides forward and swung a golf club she had hidden at her side. The iron flew in a wide arc and hit Martin on the collarbone near his shoulder. The blow had a terrible force, and Blomkvist heard something snap. Martin howled.
"Do you like pain, creep?" Salander said.
Her voice was as rough as sandpaper. As long as Blomkvist lived, he would never forget her face as she went on the attack. Her teeth were bared like a beast of prey. Her eyes were glittering, black as coal. She moved with the lightning speed of a tarantula and seemed totally focused on her prey as she swung the club again, striking Martin in the ribs.
He stumbled over the chair and fell. The pistol tumbled to the floor at Salander's feet. She kicked it away.
Then she struck for the third time, just as Martin Vanger was trying to get to his feet. She hit him with a loud smack on the hip. A horrible cry issued from Martin's throat. The fourth blow struck him from behind, between the shoulder blades.
"Lis... uuth..." Blomkvist gasped.
He was about to pass out, and the pain in his temples was almost unbearable.
She turned to him and saw that his face was the colour of a tomato, his eyes were open wide, and his tongue was popping out of his mouth.
She looked about her and saw the knife on the floor. Then she spared a glance at Martin Vanger, who was trying to crawl away from her, one arm hanging. He would not be making any trouble for the next few seconds. She let go of the golf club and picked up the knife. It had a sharp point but a dull edge. She stood on her toes and frantically sawed at the leather strap to get it off. It took several seconds before Blomkvist sank to the floor. But the noose was pulled tighter round his neck.
Salander looked again at Martin Vanger. He was on his feet but doubled over. She tried to dig her fingers under the noose. At first she did not dare cut it, but finally she slipped the point of the knife underneath, scoring Blomkvist's neck as she tried to expand the noose. At last it loosened and Blomkvist took several shaky, wheezing breaths.
For a moment Blomkvist had a sensation of his body and soul uniting. He had perfect vision and could make out every speck of dust in the room. He had perfect hearing and registered every breath, every rustle of clothing, as if they were entering his ears through a headset, and he was aware of the odour of Salander's sweat and the smell of leather from her jacket. Then the illusion burst as blood began streaming to his head.
Salander turned her head just as Martin Vanger disappeared out the door. She got up, grabbed the pistol, checked the magazine and flicked off the safety. She looked around and focused on the keys to the handcuffs, which lay in plain sight on the table.
"I'm going to take him," she said, running for the door. She grabbed the keys as she passed the table and tossed them backhanded to the floor next to Blomkvist.
He tried to shout to her to wait, but he managed only a rasping sound and by then she had vanished.
Salander had not forgotten that Martin Vanger had a rifle somewhere, and she stopped, holding the pistol ready to fire in front of her, as she came upstairs to the passageway between the garage and the kitchen. She listened, but she could hear no sound telling her where her prey was. She moved stealthily towards the kitchen, and she was almost there when she heard a car starting up in the courtyard.
From the drive she saw a pair of tail lights passing Henrik Vanger's house and turning down to the bridge, and she ran as fast as her legs could carry her. She stuffed the pistol in her jacket pocket and did not bother with the helmet as she started her motorcycle. Seconds later she was crossing the bridge.
He had maybe a ninety-second start when she came into the roundabout at the entrance to the E4. She could not see his car. She braked and turned off the motor to listen.
The sky was filled with heavy clouds. On the horizon she saw a hint of the dawn. Then she heard the sound of an engine and caught a glimpse of tail lights on the E4, going south. Salander kicked the motorcycle, put it into gear, and raced under the viaduct. She was doing 40 miles per hour as she took the curve of the entrance ramp. She saw no traffic and accelerated to full speed and flew forward. When the road began to curve along a ridge, she was doing 90 mph, which was about the fastest her souped-up lightweight bike could manage going downhill. After two minutes she saw the lights about 650 yards ahead.
Analyse consequences. What do I do now?
She decelerated to a more reasonable seventy-five and kept pace with him. She lost sight of him for several seconds when they took several bends. Then they came on to a long straight; she was only two hundred yards behind him.
He must have seen the headlight from her motorcycle, and he sped up when they took a long curve. She accelerated again but lost ground on the bends.
She saw the headlights of a truck approaching. Martin Vanger did too. He increased his speed again and drove straight into the oncoming lane. Salander saw the truck swerve and flash its lights, but the collision was unavoidable. Martin Vanger drove straight into the truck and the sound of the crash was terrible.
Salander braked. She saw the trailer start to jackknife across her lane. At the speed she was going, it took two seconds for her to cover the distance up to the accident site. She accelerated and steered on to the hard shoulder, avoiding the hurtling back of the truck by two yards as she flew past. Out of the corner of her eye she saw flames coming from the front of the truck.
She rode on, braking and thinking, for another 150 yards before she stopped and turned around. She saw the driver of the truck climb out of his cab on the passenger side. Then she accelerated again. At akerby, about a mile south, she turned left and took the old road back north, parallel to the E4. She went up a hill past the scene of the crash. Two cars had stopped. Big flames were boiling out of the wreckage of Martin's car, which was wedged underneath the truck. A man was spraying the flames with a small fire extinguisher.
She was soon rolling across the bridge at a low speed. She parked outside the cottage and walked back to Martin Vanger's house.
Mikael was still fumbling with the handcuffs. His hands were so numb that he could not get a grip on the key. Salander unlocked the cuffs for him and held him tight as the blood began to circulate in his hands again.
"Martin?" he said in a hoarse voice.
"Dead. He drove slap into the front of a truck a couple of miles south on the E4."
Blomkvist stared at her. She had only been gone a few minutes.
"We have to... call the police," he whispered. He began coughing hard.
"Why?" Salander said.
For ten minutes Blomkvist was incapable of standing up. He was still on the floor, naked, leaning against the wall. He massaged his neck and lifted the water bottle with clumsy fingers. Salander waited patiently until his sense of touch started to return. She spent the time thinking.
"Put your trousers on."
She used Blomkvist's cut-up T-shirt to wipe fingerprints from the handcuffs, the knife, and the golf club. She picked up her PET bottle.
"What are you doing?"
"Get dressed and hurry up. It's getting light outside."
Blomkvist stood on shaky legs and managed to pull on his boxers and jeans. He slipped on his trainers. Salander stuffed his socks into her jacket pocket and then stopped him.
"What exactly did you touch down here?"
Blomkvist looked around. He tried to remember. At last he said that he had touched nothing except the door and the keys. Salander found the keys in Martin Vanger's jacket, which he had hung over the chair. She wiped the door handle and the switch and turned off the light. She helped Blomkvist up the basement stairs and told him to wait in the passageway while she put the golf club back in its proper place. When she came back she was carrying a dark T-shirt that belonged to Martin Vanger.
"Put this on. I don't want anyone to see you scampering about with a bare chest tonight."
Blomkvist realised that he was in a state of shock. Salander had taken charge, and passively he obeyed her instructions. She led him out of Martin's house. She held on to him the whole time. As soon as they stepped inside the cottage, she stopped him.
"If anyone sees us and asks what we were doing outside tonight, you and I went out to the point for a nighttime walk, and we had sex out there."
"Lisbeth, I can't..."
"Get in the shower. Now."
She helped him off with his clothes and propelled him to the bathroom. Then she put on water for coffee and made half a dozen thick sandwiches on rye bread with cheese and liver sausage and dill pickles. She sat down at the kitchen table and was thinking hard when he came limping back into the room. She studied the bruises and scrapes on his body. The noose had been so tight that he had a dark red mark around his neck, and the knife had made a bloody gash in his skin on the left side.
"Get into bed," she said.
She improvised bandages and covered the wound with a makeshift compress. Then she poured the coffee and handed him a sandwich.
"I'm really not hungry," he said.
"I don't give a damn if you're hungry. Just eat," Salander commanded, taking a big bite of her own cheese sandwich.
Blomkvist closed his eyes for a moment, then he sat up and took a bite. His throat hurt so much that he could scarcely swallow.
Salander took off her leather jacket and from the bathroom brought a jar of Tiger Balm from her sponge bag.
"Let the coffee cool for a while. Lie face down."
She spent five minutes massaging his back and rubbing him with the liniment. Then she turned him over and gave him the same treatment on the front.
"You're going to have some serious bruises for a while."
"Lisbeth, we have to call the police."
"No," she replied with such vehemence that Blomkvist opened his eyes in surprise. "If you call the police, I'm leaving. I don't want to have anything to do with them. Martin Vanger is dead. He died in a car accident. He was alone in the car. There are witnesses. Let the police or someone else discover that fucking torture chamber. You and I are just as ignorant about its existence as everyone else in this village."
