A more concrete question, to which Morell had devoted much more attention, was a surprising page in Harriet's date book, a beautiful bound book she had been given as a Christmas present the year before she disappeared. The first half of the date book was a day-by-day calendar in which Harriet had listed meetings, the dates of exams at school, her homework, and so on. The date book also had a large section for a diary, but Harriet used the diary only sporadically. She began ambitiously enough in January with many brief entries about people she had met over the Christmas holidays and several about films she had seen. After that she wrote nothing personal until the end of the school year when she apparently - depending on how the entries were interpreted - became interested from a distance in some never-named boy.

The pages that listed telephone numbers were the ones that held the real mystery. Neatly, in alphabetical order, were the names and numbers of family members, classmates, certain teachers, several members of the Pentecostal congregation, and other easily identifiable individuals in her circle of acquaintances. On the very last page of the address book, which was blank and not really part of the alphabetical section, there were five names and telephone numbers. Three female names and two sets of initials:

Magda - 32016

Sara - 32109

R.J. - 30112

R.L. - 32027

Mari - 32018

The telephone numbers that began with 32 were Hedestad numbers in the sixties. The one beginning with 30 was a Norrbyn number, not far from Hedestad. The problem was that when Morell contacted every one of Harriet's friends and acquaintances, no-one had any idea whose numbers they were.

The first number belonging to "Magda" initially seemed promising. It led to a haberdashery at Parkgatan 12. The telephone was in the name of one Margot Lundmark, whose mother's name was actually Magda; she sometimes helped out in the store. But Magda was sixty-nine years old and had no idea who Harriet Vanger was. Nor was there any evidence that Harriet had ever visited the shop or bought anything there. She wasn't interested in sewing.

The second number for "Sara" belonged to a family by the name of Toresson, who lived in Vaststan, on the other side of the tracks. The family included Anders and Monica and their children, Jonas and Peter, who at the time were pre-school age. There was no Sara in the family, nor did they know of Harriet Vanger, other than that she had been reported in the media as missing. The only vague connection between Harriet and the Toresson family was that Anders, who was a roofer, had several weeks earlier put a tiled roof on the school which Harriet attended. So theoretically there was a chance that they had met, although it might be considered extremely unlikely.

The remaining three numbers led to similar dead ends. The number 32027 for "R.L." had actually belonged to one Rosmarie Larsson. Unfortunately, she had died several years earlier.

Inspector Morell concentrated a great deal of his attention during the winter of 1966-67 on trying to explain why Harriet had written down these names and numbers.

One possibility was that the telephone numbers were written in some personal code - so Morell tried to guess how a teenage girl would think. Since the thirty-two series obviously pointed to Hedestad, he set about rearranging the remaining three digits. Neither 32601 or 32160 led to a Magda. As Morell continued his numerology, he realised that if he played around with enough of the numbers, sooner or later he would find some link to Harriet. For example, if he added one to each of the three remaining digits in 32016, he got 32127 - which was the number to Frode's office in Hedestad. But one link like that meant nothing. Besides, he never discovered a code that made sense of all five of the numbers.

Morell broadened his inquiry. Could the digits mean, for example, car number plates, which in the sixties contained the two-letter county registration code and five digits? Another dead end.

The inspector then concentrated on the names. He obtained a list of everyone in Hedestad named Mari, Magda, or Sara or who had the initials R.L. or R.J. He had a list of 307 people. Among these, 29 actually had some connection to Harriet. For instance, a boy from her class was named Roland Jacobsson - R.J. They scarcely knew each other and had had no contact since Harriet started preparatory school. And there was no link to the telephone number.

The mystery of the numbers in the date book remained unsolved.

Her fourth encounter with Advokat Bjurman was not one of their scheduled meetings. She was forced to make contact with him.

In the second week of February Salander's laptop fell victim to an accident that was so uncalled for that she felt an urgent desire to kill someone. She had ridden her bike to a meeting at Milton Security and parked it behind a pillar in the garage. As she set her rucksack on the ground to put on the bike lock, a dark red Saab began reversing out. She had her back turned but heard the cracking sound from her rucksack. The driver didn't notice a thing and, unwitting, drove off up the exit ramp.

The rucksack contained her white Apple iBook 600 with a 25-gig hard drive and 420 megs of RAM, manufactured in January 2002 and equipped with a 14-inch screen. At the time she bought it, it was Apple's state-of-the-art laptop. Salander's computers were upgraded with the very latest and sometimes most expensive configurations - computer equipment was the only extravagant entry on her list of expenses.

When she opened the rucksack, she could see that the lid of her computer was cracked. She plugged in the power adapter and tried to boot up the computer; not even a death rattle. She took it over to Timmy's MacJesus Shop on Brannkyrkagatan, hoping that at least something on the hard drive could be saved. After fiddling with it for a short time, Timmy shook his head.

"Sorry. No hope," he said. "You'll have to arrange a nice funeral."

The loss of her computer was depressing but not disastrous. Salander had had an excellent relationship with it during the year she had owned it. She had backed up all her documents, and she had an older desktop Mac G3 at home, as well as a five-year-old Toshiba PC laptop that she could use. But she needed a fast, modern machine.

Unsurprisingly she set her sights on the best available alternative: the new Apple PowerBook G4/1.0 GHz in an aluminium case with a PowerPC 7451 processor with an AltiVec Velocity Engine, 960 MB RAM and a 60 GB hard drive. It had BlueTooth and built-in CD and DVD burners.

Best of all, it had the first 17-inch screen in the laptop world with NVIDIA graphics and a resolution of 1440 x 900 pixels, which shook the PC advocates and outranked everything else on the market.

In terms of hardware, it was the Rolls-Royce of portable computers, but what really triggered Salander's need to have it was the simple feature that the keyboard was equipped with backlighting, so that she could see the letters even if it was pitch dark. So simple. Why had no-one thought of that before?

It was love at first sight.

It cost 38,000 kronor, plus tax.

That was the problem.

Come what may, she put in her order at MacJesus. She bought all her computer accessories there, so they gave her a reasonable discount. She tallied up her expenses. The insurance on her ruined computer would cover a good part of the price, but with the warranty and the higher price of her new acquisition, she was still 18,000 kronor short. She had 10,000 kronor hidden in a coffee tin at home but that was all. She sent evil thoughts to Herr Bjurman, but then she bit the bullet and called her guardian to explain that she needed money for an unexpected expense. Bjurman's secretary said that he had no time to see her that day. Salander replied that it would take the man twenty seconds to write out a cheque for 10,000 kronor. She was told to be at his office at 7:30 that evening.

Blomkvist might have no experience of evaluating criminal investigations, but he reckoned that Inspector Morell had been exceptionally conscientious. When Blomkvist had finished with the police investigation, Morell still kept turning up as a player in Vanger's own notes. They had become friends, and Blomkvist wondered whether Morell had been as obsessed as the captain of industry became.

It was unlikely, in his view, that Morell had missed anything. The solution to the mystery was not going to be found in the police records. Every imaginable question had been asked, and all leads followed up, even some that seemed absurdly far-fetched. He had not read every word of the report, but the further into the investigation he got, the more obscure the subsequent leads and tips became. He was not going to find anything that his professional predecessor and his experienced team had missed, and he was undecided what approach he should adopt to the problem. Eventually it came to him that the only reasonably practical route for him to take was to try to find out the psychological motives of the individuals involved.

The first question had to do with Harriet herself. Who was she?

From his kitchen window Blomkvist had noticed a light go on upstairs in Cecilia Vanger's house at a little after 5:00 in the afternoon. He knocked on her door at 7:30, just as the news broadcast was starting on TV. She opened the door dressed in her bathrobe, her hair wet under a yellow towel. Blomkvist apologised at once for disturbing her and made to retreat, but she waved him into the living room. She turned on the coffeemaker and vanished upstairs for a few minutes. When she came back down, she had put on jeans and a check flannel shirt.

"I was starting to think you were never going to call."

"I should have rung first, but I saw your light was on and came over on impulse."

"I've seen the lights on all night at your place. And you're often out walking after midnight. You're a night owl?"

Blomkvist shrugged. "It's turned out that way." He looked at several textbooks stacked on the edge of the kitchen table. "Do you still teach?"

"No, as headmistress I don't have time. But I used to teach history, religion, and social studies. And I have a few years left."

"Left?"

She smiled. "I'm fifty-six. I'll be retiring soon."

"You don't look a day over fifty, more like in your forties."

"Very flattering. How old are you?"

"Well, over forty," Blomkvist said with a smile.

"And you were just twenty the other day. How fast it all goes. Life, that is."

Cecilia Vanger served the coffee and asked if he was hungry. He said that he had already eaten, which was partly true. He did not bother with cooking and ate only sandwiches. But he was not hungry.

"Then why did you come over? Is it time to ask me those questions?"

"To be honest... I didn't come over to ask questions. I think I just wanted to say hello."

She smiled. "You're sentenced to prison, you move to Hedeby, clamber through all the material of Henrik's favourite hobby, you don't sleep at night and take long nighttime walks when it's freezing cold... Have I left anything out?"

"My life is going to the dogs."

"Who was that woman visiting you over the weekend?"

"Erika... She's the editor in chief of Millennium."

"Your girlfriend?"

"Not exactly. She's married. I'm more a friend and occasional lover."

Cecilia Vanger hooted with laughter.

"What's so funny?"

"The way you said that. Occasional lover. I like the expression."

Blomkvist took a liking to Cecilia Vanger.

"I could use an occasional lover myself," she said.

She kicked off her slippers and propped one foot on his knee. Blomkvist automatically put his hand on her foot and stroked the ankle. He hesitated for a second - he could sense he was getting into unexpected waters. But tentatively he started massaging the sole of her foot with his thumb.

"I'm married too," she said.

"I know. No-one gets divorced in the Vanger clan."

"I haven't seen my husband in getting on for twenty years."

"What happened?"

"That's none of your business. I haven't had sex in... hmmm, it must be three years now."

"That surprises me."

"Why? It's a matter of supply and demand. I have no interest in a boyfriend or a married man or someone living with me. I do best on my own. Who should I have sex with? One of the teachers at school? I don't think so. One of the students? A delicious story for the gossiping old ladies. And they keep a close watch on people called Vanger. And here on Hedeby Island there are only relatives and people already married."

She leaned forward and kissed him on the neck.

"Do I shock you?"

"No. But I don't know whether this is a good idea. I work for your uncle."

"And I'm the last one who's going to tell. But to be honest, Henrik probably wouldn't have anything against it."

She sat astride him and kissed him on the mouth. Her hair was still wet and fragrant with shampoo. He fumbled with the buttons on her flannel shirt and pulled it down around her shoulders. She had no bra. She pressed against him when he kissed her breasts.

Bjurman came round the desk to show her the statement of her bank account - which she knew down to the last ore, although it was no longer at her disposal. He stood behind her. Suddenly he was massaging the back of her neck, and he let one hand slide from her left shoulder across her breasts. He put his hand over her right breast and left it there. When she did not seem to object, he squeezed her breast. Salander did not move. She could feel his breath on her neck as she studied the letter opener on his desk; she could reach it with her free hand.

But she did nothing. If there was one lesson Holger Palmgren had taught her over the years, it was that impulsive actions led to trouble, and trouble could have unpleasant consequences. She never did anything without first weighing the consequences.

The initial sexual assault - which in legal terms would be defined as sexual molestation and the exploitation of an individual in a position of dependence, and could in theory get Bjurman up to two years in prison - lasted only a few seconds. But it was enough to irrevocably cross a boundary. For Salander it was a display of strength by an enemy force - an indication that aside from their carefully defined legal relationship, she was at the mercy of his discretion and defenceless. When their eyes met a few seconds later, his lips were slightly parted and she could read the lust on his face. Salander's own face betrayed no emotions at all.