"Imbecile," Blomkvist said again.

"It won't help to insult the police."

"That certainly seems to be true in your case. But I'm going to report you for dereliction of duty and you won't even know what hit you. Before I'm through with you, you're going to be celebrated as the dumbest policeman in Sweden on every newspaper billboard in the country."

The notion of being the object of public ridicule appeared at last to have an effect on Inspector Paulsson. His face was lined with anxiety.

"What do you propose?"

"I don't propose, I demand that you call Inspector Bublanski in Stockholm. This minute. His number's on my mobile in my breast pocket."

Inspector Modig woke with a start when her mobile rang at the other end of the bedroom. She saw to her dismay that it was just after 4.00 in the morning. Then she looked at her husband, who was snoring peacefully. He would probably sleep through an artillery barrage. She staggered out of bed, unplugged her mobile from the charger, and fumbled for the talk button.

Jan Bublanski, she thought. Who else?

"Everything has gone to hell down in Trollhattan," her senior officer said without bothering to greet her or apologize. "The X2000 to Goteborg leaves at 5.10. Take a taxi."

"What's happened?"

"Blomkvist found Salander, Niedermann and Zalachenko. Got himself arrested for insulting a police officer, resisting arrest, and for possession of an illegal weapon. Salander was taken to Sahlgrenska with a bullet in her head. Zalachenko is there too with an axe wound to his skull. Niedermann got away. And he killed a policeman tonight."

Modig blinked twice, registering how exhausted she felt. Most of all she wanted to crawl back into bed and take a month's holiday.

"The X2000 at 5.10. O.K. What do you want me to do?"

"Meet Jerker Holmberg at Central Station. You're to contact an Inspector Thomas Paulsson at the Trollhattan police. He seems to be responsible for much of the mess tonight. Blomkvist described him as an Olympic-class idiot."

"You've talked to Blomkvist?"

"Apparently he's been arrested and cuffed. I managed to persuade Paulsson to let me talk to him for a moment. I'm on my way to Kungsholmen right now, and I'll try to work out what's going on. We'll keep in touch by mobile."

Modig looked at the time again. Then she called a taxi and jumped into the shower for a minute. She brushed her teeth, pulled a comb through her hair, and put on long black trousers, a black T-shirt, and a grey jacket. She put her police revolver in her shoulder bag and picked out a dark-red leather coat. Then she shook enough life into her husband to explain where she was off to, and that he had to deal with the kids in the morning. She walked out of the front door just as the taxi drew up.

She did not have to search for her colleague, Criminal Inspector Holmberg. She assumed that he would be in the restaurant car and that is where she found him. He had already bought coffee and sandwiches for her. They sat in silence for five minutes as they ate their breakfast. Finally Holmberg pushed his coffee cup aside.

"Maybe I should get some training in some other field," he said.

Some time after 4.00 in the morning, Criminal Inspector Marcus Erlander from the Violent Crimes Division of the Goteborg police arrived in Gosseberga and took over the investigation from the overburdened Paulsson. Erlander was a short, round man in his fifties with grey hair. One of the first things he did was to have Blomkvist released from his handcuffs, and then he produced rolls and coffee from a thermos. They sat in the living room for a private conversation.

"I've spoken with Bublanski," Erlander said. "Bubble and I have known each other for many years. We are both of us sorry that you were subjected to Paulsson's rather primitive way of operating."

"He succeeded in getting a policeman killed tonight," Blomkvist said.

Erlander said: "I knew Officer Ingemarsson personally. He served in Goteborg before he moved to Trollhattan. He has a three-year-old daughter."

"I'm sorry. I tried to warn him."

"So I heard. You were quite emphatic, it seems, and that's why you were cuffed. You were the one who exposed Wennerstrom last year. Bublanski says that you're a shameless journalist bastard and an insane private investigator, but that you just might know what you're talking about. Can you bring me up to speed so that I can get the hang of what's going on?"

"What happened here tonight is the culmination of the murders of two friends of mine in Enskede, Dag Svensson and Mia Johansson. And the murder of a person who was no friend of mine... a lawyer called Bjurman, also Lisbeth Salander's guardian."

Erlander made notes between taking sips of his coffee.

"As you no doubt know, the police have been looking for Salander since Easter. She was a suspect in all three murders. First of all, you have to realize that Salander is not only not guilty of these murders, she has been throughout a victim in the whole affair."

"I haven't had the least connection to the Enskede business, but after everything that was in the media about her it seems a bit hard to swallow that Salander could be completely innocent."

"Nonetheless, that's how it is. She's innocent. Full stop. The killer is Ronald Niedermann, the man who murdered your officer tonight. He works for Karl Axel Bodin."

"The Bodin who's in Sahlgrenska with an axe in his skull?"

"The axe isn't still in his head. I assume it was Salander who nailed him. His real name is Alexander Zalachenko and he's Lisbeth's father. He was a hit man for Russian military intelligence. He defected in the '70s, and was then on the books of Sapo until the collapse of the Soviet Union. He's been running his own criminal network ever since."

Erlander scrutinized the man opposite him. Blomkvist's face was shiny with sweat, but he looked both frozen and deathly tired. Until now he had sounded perfectly rational, but Paulsson  -  whose opinion had little influence on Erlander  -  had warned him that Blomkvist had been babbling on about Russian agents and German hit men  -  hardly routine elements in Swedish police work. Blomkvist had apparently reached the point in his story at which Paulsson had decided to ignore everything else he might say. But there was one policeman dead and another severely wounded on the road to Nossebro, so Erlander was willing to listen. But he could not keep a trace of incredulity out of his voice.

"O.K. A Russian agent."

Blomkvist smiled weakly, only too aware of how odd his story sounded.

"A former Russian agent. I can document every one of my claims."

"Go on."

"Zalachenko was a top spy in the '70s. He defected and was granted asylum by Sapo. In his old age he became a gangster. As far as I understand it, it's not a unique situation in the wake of the Soviet Union's collapse."

"O.K."

"As I said, I don't know exactly what happened here tonight, but Lisbeth tracked down her father whom she hadn't seen for fifteen years. Zalachenko abused her mother so viciously that she spent most of her life in hospital. He tried to murder Lisbeth, and through Niedermann he was the architect of the murders of Svensson and Johansson. Plus, he was behind the kidnapping of Salander's friend Miriam Wu  -  you probably heard of Paolo Roberto's title bout in Nykvarn, as a result of which Wu was rescued from certain death."

"If Salander hit her father in the head with an axe she isn't exactly innocent."

"She has been shot three times. I think we could assume her actions were on some level self-defence. I wonder..."

"Yes?"

"She was so covered with dirt, with mud, that her hair was one big lump of dried clay. Her clothes were full of sand, inside and out. It looked as though she might have been buried during the night. Niedermann is known to have a habit of burying people. The police in Sodertalje have found two graves in the place that's owned by Svavelsjo Motorcycle Club, outside Nykvarn."

"Three, as a matter of fact. They found one more late last night. But if Salander was shot and buried, how was she able to climb out and start wandering around with an axe?"

"Whatever went on here tonight, you have to understand that Salander is exceptionally resourceful. I tried to persuade Paulsson to bring in a dog unit  - "

"It's on its way now."

"Good."

"Paulsson arrested you for insulting a police officer..."

"I will dispute that. I called him an imbecile and an incompetent fool. Under the circumstances neither of these epithets could be considered wide of the mark."

"Hmm. It's not a wholly inaccurate description. But you were also arrested for possession of an illegal weapon."

"I made the mistake of trying to hand over a weapon to him. I don't want to say anything more about that until I talk to my lawyer."

"Alright. We'll leave it at that. We have more serious issues to discuss. What do you know about this Niedermann?"

"He's a murderer. And there's something wrong with him. He's over two metres tall and built like a tank. Ask Paolo Roberto, who boxed with him. He suffers from a disease called congenital analgesia, which means the transmitter substance in his nerve synapses doesn't function. He feels no pain. He's German, was born in Hamburg, and in his teens he was a skinhead. Right now he's on the run and he'll be seriously dangerous to anyone he runs into."

"Do you have an idea where he might be heading?"

"No. I only know that I had him neatly trussed, all ready to be arrested, when that idiot from Trollhattan took charge of the situation."

Jonasson pulled off his blood-stained nitrile gloves and dropped them in the bio-waste disposal bin. A theatre nurse was applying bandages to the gunshot wound on Salander's hip. The operation had lasted three hours. He looked at the girl's shaved and wounded head, which was already wrapped in bandages.

He felt a sudden tenderness, as he often did for patients after an operation. According to the newspapers, she was a psychopathic mass murderer, but to him she looked more like an injured sparrow.

"You're an excellent surgeon," Ellis said, looking at him with amused affection.

"Can I buy you breakfast?"

"Can one get pancakes and jam anywhere round here?"

"Waffles," Jonasson said. "At my house. Let me call my wife to warn her, then we can take a taxi." He stopped and looked at the clock. "On second thoughts, it might be better if we didn't call."

Annika Giannini woke with a start. She saw that it was 5.58 a.m... She had her first client meeting at 8.00. She turned to look at Enrico, who was sleeping peacefully and probably would not be awake before 8.00. She blinked hard a few times and got up to turn on the coffeemaker before she took her shower. She dressed in black trousers, a white polo neck, and a muted brick-red jacket. She made two slices of toast with cheese, orange marmalade and a sliced avocado, and carried her breakfast into the living room in time for the 6.30 television news. She took a sip of coffee and had just opened her mouth to take a bite of toast when she heard the headlines.

One policeman killed and another seriously wounded. Drama last night as triple murderer Lisbeth Salander is finally captured.

At first she could not make any sense of it. Was it Salander who had killed a policeman? The news item was sketchy, but bit by bit she gathered that a man was being sought for the killing. A nationwide alert had gone out for a man in his mid-thirties, as yet unnamed. Salander herself was critically injured and at Sahlgrenska hospital in Goteborg.

She switched to the other channel, but she learned nothing more about what had happened. She reached for her mobile and called her brother, Mikael Blomkvist. She only got his voicemail. She felt a small twinge of fear. He had called on his way to Goteborg. He had been tracking Salander. And a murderer who called himself Ronald Niedermann.

As it was growing light an observant police officer found traces of blood on the ground behind the woodshed. A police dog followed the trail to a narrow trench in a clearing in a wood about four hundred metres north-east of the farmhouse.

Blomkvist went with Inspector Erlander. Grimly they studied the site. Much more blood had obviously been shed in and around the trench.

They found a damaged cigarette case that seemed to have been used as a scoop. Erlander put it in an evidence bag and labelled the find. He also gathered samples of blood-soaked clumps of dirt. A uniformed officer drew his attention to a cigarette butt  -  a filterless Pall Mall  -  some distance from the hole. This too was saved in an evidence bag and labelled. Blomkvist remembered having seen a pack of Pall Malls on the kitchen counter in Zalachenko's house.

Erlander glanced up at the lowering rain clouds. The storm that had ravaged Goteborg earlier in the night had obviously passed to the south of the Nossebro area, but it was only a matter of time before the rain came. He instructed one of his men to get a tarpaulin to cover the trench and its immediate surroundings.

"I think you're right," Erlander said to Blomkvist as they walked back to the farmhouse. "An analysis of the blood will probably establish that Salander was buried here, and I'm beginning to expect that we'll find her fingerprints on the cigarette case. She was shot and buried here, but somehow she managed to survive and dig herself out and  - "

"And somehow got back to the farm and swung an axe into Zalachenko's skull," Blomkvist finished for him. "She can be a moody bitch."

"But how on earth did she handle Niedermann?"

Blomkvist shrugged. He was as bewildered as Erlander on that score.

CHAPTER 2

FRIDAY, 8.IV