"What happened?" Linder asked.

"Nothing. Absolutely nothing. He was a quiet and totally uninteresting boy in another class. I think we might have had some subjects together. French, if I remember correctly."

"He said that you treated him as though he didn't exist."

"I probably did. He wasn't somebody I knew and he wasn't in our group."

"I know how cliques work. Did you bully him or anything like that?"

"No... no, for God's sake. I hated bullying. We had campaigns against bullying in the school, and I was president of the student council. I don't remember that he ever spoke to me."

"O.K," Linder said. "But he obviously had a grudge against you. He was off sick for two long periods, suffering from stress and overwork. Maybe there were other reasons for his being off sick that we don't know about."

She got up and put on her leather jacket.

"I've got his hard drive. Technically it's stolen goods so I shouldn't leave it with you. You don't have to worry  -  I'll destroy it as soon as I get home."

"Wait, Susanne. How can I ever thank you?"

"Well, you can back me up when Armansky's wrath hits me like a bolt of lightning."

Berger gave her a concerned look.

"Will you get into trouble for this?"

"I don't know. I really don't know."

"Can we pay you for  - "

"No. But Armansky may bill you for tonight. I hope he does, because that would mean he approves of what I did and probably won't decide to fire me."

"I'll make sure he sends us a bill."

Berger stood up and gave Linder a long hug.

"Thanks, Susanne. If you ever need a friend, you've got one in me. If there's anything I can do for you..."

"Thanks. Don't leave those pictures lying around. And while we're on the subject, Milton could install a much better safe for you."

Berger smiled as Beckman walked Linder back to her car.

CHAPTER 22

MONDAY, 6.VI

Berger woke up at 6.00 on Monday morning. She had not slept for more than an hour, but she felt strangely rested. She supposed that it was a physical reaction of some sort. For the first time in several months she put on her jogging things and went for a furious and excruciatingly painful sprint down to the steamboat wharf. But after a hundred metres or so her heel hurt so much that she had to slow down and go on at a more leisurely pace, relishing the pain in her foot with each step she took.

She felt reborn. It was as though the Grim Reaper had passed by her door and at the last moment changed his mind and moved on to the next house. She could still not take in how fortunate she was that Fredriksson had had her pictures in his possession for four days and done nothing with them. The scanning he had done indicated that he had something planned, but he had simply not got around to whatever it was.

She decided to give Susanne Linder a very expensive Christmas present this year. She would think of something really special.

She left her husband asleep and at 7.30 drove to S.M.P.'s office at Norrtull. She parked in the garage, took the lift to the newsroom, and settled down in the glass cage. Before she did anything else, she called someone from maintenance.

"Peter Fredriksson has left the paper. He won't be back," she said. "Please bring as many boxes as you need to empty his desk of personal items and have them delivered to his apartment this morning."

She looked over towards the news desk. Holm had just arrived. He met her gaze and nodded to her.

She nodded back.

Holm was a bloody-minded bastard, but after their altercation a few weeks earlier he had stopped trying to cause trouble. If he continued to show the same positive attitude, he might possibly survive as news editor. Possibly.

She should, she felt, be able to turn things around.

At 8.45 she saw Borgsjo come out of the lift and disappear up the internal staircase to his office on the floor above. I have to talk to him today.

She got some coffee and spent a while on the morning memo. It looked like it was going to be a slow news day. The only item of interest was an agency report, to the effect that Lisbeth Salander had been moved to the prison in Stockholm the day before. She O.K.'d the story and forwarded it to Holm.

At 8.59 Borgsjo called.

"Berger, come up to my office right away." He hung up.

He was white in the face when Berger found him at his desk. He stood up and slammed a thick wad of papers on to his desk.

"What the hell is this?" he roared.

Berger's heart sank like a stone. She only had to glance at the cover to see what Borgsjo had found in the morning post.

Fredriksson hadn't managed to do anything with her photographs. But he had posted Cortez's article and research to Borgsjo.

Calmly she sat down opposite him.

"That's an article written by a reporter called Henry Cortez. Millennium had planned to run it in last week's issue."

Borgsjo looked desperate.

"How the hell do you dare? I brought you into S.M.P. and the first thing you do is to start digging up dirt. What kind of a media whore are you?"

Berger's eyes narrowed. She turned ice-cold. She had had enough of the word "whore".

"Do you really think anyone is going to care about this? Do you think you can trap me with this crap? And why the hell did you send it to me anonymously?"

"That's not what happened, Magnus."

"Then tell me what did happen."

"The person who sent that article to you anonymously was Fredriksson. He was fired from S.M.P. yesterday."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"It's a long story. But I've had a copy of the article for more than two weeks, trying to work out a way of raising the subject with you."

"You're behind this article?"

"No, I am not. Cortez researched and wrote the article entirely off his own bat. I didn't know anything about it."

"You expect me to believe that?"

"As soon as my old colleagues at Millennium saw how you were implicated in the story, Blomkvist stopped its publication. He called me and gave me a copy, out of concern for my position. It was then stolen from me, and now it's ended up with you. Millennium wanted me to have a chance to talk with you before they printed it. Which they mean to do in the August issue."

"I've never met a more unscrupulous media whore in my whole life. It defies belief."

"Now that you've read the story, perhaps you have also considered the research behind it. Cortez has a cast-iron story. You know that."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"If you're still here when Millennium goes to press, that will hurt S.M.P. I've worried myself sick and tried to find a way out... but there isn't one."

"What do you mean?"

"You'll have to go."

"Don't be absurd. I haven't done anything illegal."

"Magnus, don't you understand the impact of this expose? I don't want to have to call a board meeting. It would be too embarrassing."

"You're not going to call anything at all. You're finished at S.M.P."

"Wrong. Only the board can sack me. Presumably you're allowed to call them in for an extraordinary meeting. I would suggest you do that for this afternoon."

Borgsjo came round the desk and stood so close to Berger that she could feel his breath.

"Berger, you have one chance to survive this. You have to go to your damned colleagues at Millennium and get them to kill this story. If you do a good job I might even forget what you've done."

Berger sighed.

"Magnus, you aren't understanding how serious this is. I have no influence whatsoever on what Millennium is going to publish. This story is going to come out no matter what I say. The only thing I care about is how it affects S.M.P. That's why you have to resign."

Borgsjo put his hands on the back of her chair.

"Berger, your cronies at Millennium might change their minds if they knew that you would be fired the instant they leak this bullshit."

He straightened up.

"I'll be at a meeting in Norrkoping today." He looked at her, furious and arrogant. "At Svea Construction."

"I see."

"When I'm back tomorrow you will report to me that this matter has been taken care of. Understood?"

He put on his jacket. Berger watched him with her eyes half closed.

"Maybe then you'll survive at S.M.P. Now get out of my office."

She went back to the glass cage and sat quite still in her chair for twenty minutes. Then she picked up the telephone and asked Holm to come to her office. This time he was there within a minute.

"Sit down."

Holm raised an eyebrow and sat down.

"What did I do wrong this time?" he said sarcastically.

"Anders, this is my last day at S.M.P. I'm resigning here and now. I'm calling in the deputy chairman and as many of the board as I can find for a meeting over lunch."

He stared at her with undisguised shock.

"I'm going to recommend that you be made acting editor-in-chief."

"What?"

"Are you O.K. with that?"

Holm leaned back in his chair and looked at her.

"I've never wanted to be editor-in-chief," he said.

"I know that. But you're tough enough to do the job. And you'll walk over corpses to be able to publish a good story. I just wish you had more common sense."

"So what happened?"

"I have a different style to you. You and I have always argued about what angle to take, and we'll never agree."

"No," he said. "We never will. But it's possible that my style is old-fashioned."

"I don't know if old-fashioned is the right word. You're a very good newspaperman, but you behave like a bastard. That's totally unnecessary. But what we were most at odds about was that you claimed that as news editor you couldn't allow personal considerations to affect how the news was assessed."

Berger suddenly gave Holm a sly smile. She opened her bag and took out her original text of the Borgsjo story.

"Let's test your sense of news assessment. I have a story here that came to us from a reporter at Millennium. This morning I'm thinking that we should run this article as today's top story." She tossed the folder into Holm's lap. "You're the news editor. I'd be interested to hear whether you share my assessment."

Holm opened the folder and began to read. Even the introduction made his eyes widen. He sat up straight in his chair and stared at Berger. Then he lowered his eyes and read through the article to the end. He studied the source material for ten more minutes before he slowly put the folder aside.

"This is going to cause one hell of an uproar."

"I know. That's why I'm leaving. Millennium was planning to run the story in their July issue, but Mikael Blomkvist stopped publication. He gave me the article so that I could talk with Borgsjo before they run it."

"And?"

"Borgsjo ordered me to suppress it."

"I see. So you're planning to run it in S.M.P. out of spite?"

"Not out of spite, no. There's no other way. If S.M.P. runs the story, we have a chance of getting out of this mess with our honour intact. Borgsjo has no choice but to go. But it also means that I can't stay here any longer."

Holm sat in silence for two minutes.

"Damn it, Berger... I didn't think you were that tough. I never thought I'd ever say this, but if you're that thick-skinned, I'm actually sorry you're leaving."

"You could stop publication, but if both you and I O.K. it... Do you think you'll run the story?"

"Too right we'll run it. It would leak anyway."

"Exactly."

Holm got up and stood uncertainly by her desk.

"Get to work," said Berger.

After Holm left her office she waited five minutes before she picked up the telephone and rang Eriksson.

"Hello, Malin. Is Henry there?"

"Yes, he's at his desk."

"Could you call him into your office and put on the speakerphone? We have to have a conference."

Cortez was there within fifteen seconds.

"What's up?"

"Henry, I did something immoral today."

"Oh, you did?"

"I gave your story about Vitavara to the news editor here at S.M.P."

"You what?"

"I told him to run the story in S.M.P. tomorrow. Your byline. And you'll be paid, of course. In fact, you can name your price."

"Erika... what the hell is going on?"

She gave him a brisk summary of what had happened during the last weeks, and how Fredriksson had almost destroyed her.

"Jesus Christ," Cortez said.

"I know that this is your story, Henry. But equally I have no choice. Can you agree to this?"

Cortez was silent for a long while.

"Thanks for asking." he said. "It's O.K. to run the story with my byline. If it's O.K. with Malin, I should say."

"It's O.K. with me," Eriksson said.

"Thank you both," Berger said. "Can you tell Mikael? I don't suppose he's in yet."

"I'll talk to Mikael," Eriksson said. "But Erika, does this mean that you're out of work from today?"

Berger laughed. "I've decided to take the rest of the year off. Believe me, a few weeks at S.M.P. was enough."

"I don't think you ought to start thinking in terms of a holiday yet," Eriksson said.