The Girl in the Spider's Web Page 21

“Because the last thing I saw before I snatched the drawing away from him was a menacing shadow emerging out of those squares,” she continued.

  “Do you have the drawing here?”

  “No, or rather yes.”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m afraid I threw it away. But maybe it’s still in the bin.”

  —

  Blomkvist had coffee grounds and yoghurt all over his hands as he pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of the trash can and smoothed it out on the draining board. He brushed it with the back of his hand and looked at it in the glare of the kitchen lights. The drawing was not finished, not by any means, and it consisted mostly of chessboard squares, just as Hanna had said, seen from above or from the side. Without having been in Balder’s bedroom, it would not be obvious that the squares represented a floor, but Blomkvist immediately recognized the mirrors on the wardrobe to the right of the bed. He also recognized the darkness, that special darkness that had met him during the night.

  He felt transported back to the moment when he had walked in through the broken window—apart from one small important detail. The room he had entered had been almost dark, whereas the drawing showed a thin source of light falling diagonally from above, extending out over the squares. It gave contours to a shadow which was not distinct or meaningful, but which felt eerie, perhaps for that very reason.

  The shadow was stretching out an arm and Blomkvist, who saw the drawing in a different light from Hanna, had no trouble interpreting what that signified. The figure meant to kill. Above the chessboard squares and the shadow there was a face which had not yet materialized.

  “Where is August now?” he said. “Is he sleeping?”

  “No. He…I’ve left him with someone else for a while. I couldn’t handle him, to be honest.”

  “Where is he?”

  “At Oden’s Medical Centre for Children and Adolescents. On Sveavägen.”

  “Who knows that he’s there?”

  “No-one.”

  “Just you and the staff?”

  Hanna nodded.

  “Then it has to stay that way. Will you excuse me for a moment?”

  Blomkvist took out his mobile and called Bublanski. In his mind he had already drafted yet another question for [Lisbeth stuff].

  —

  Bublanski felt frustrated—the investigation was going nowhere. Neither Balder’s Blackphone nor his laptop had been found, so they had not been able to map his contacts with the outside world despite having had detailed discussions with the service provider.

  For the time being they had little more than smoke screens and clichés to go on, Bublanski thought: a ninja warrior had materialized swiftly and effectively and then vanished into the darkness. In fact the attack had something far too perfect about it, as if it had been carried out by a person free of all the usual human failings and contradictions which as a rule feature in a murder. This was too clean, too clinical, and Bublanski could not help thinking that it had been just another day at the office for the killer. He was pondering this and more besides when Blomkvist rang.

  “Oh, it’s you,” Bublanski said. “We were just talking about you. We’d like to have another word with you as soon as possible.”

  “Of course, not a problem. But right now I’ve got something much more important to tell you. The witness, August Balder, is a savant,” Blomkvist said.

  “A what?”

  “A boy who may be severely handicapped but nonetheless has a special gift. He draws like a master, with a remarkable, mathematical sharpness. Did you see the drawings of the traffic light which were lying on the kitchen table in Saltsjöbaden?”

  “Yes, briefly. Are you saying it wasn’t Balder who drew them?”

  “It was the boy.”

  “They looked like astonishingly mature pieces of work.”

  “But they were drawn by August. This morning he sat down and drew the chessboard squares on the floor in his father’s bedroom, and he didn’t stop at that. He sketched a shaft of light and a shadow. My theory is that it’s the killer’s shadow and the light from his headlamp, but of course we can’t yet say for certain. The boy was interrupted in his work.”

  “Are you pulling my leg?”

  “This is hardly the moment.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “I’m at the home of the boy’s mother, Hanna Balder, and I’m looking at the drawing. The boy is no longer here. He’s at…” The journalist hesitated. “I don’t want to say more than that over the phone.”

  “You say that the boy was interrupted in the middle of his drawing?”

  “A psychologist stopped him.”

  “How could one do something like that?”

  “He probably didn’t realize what the drawings represented, he just saw them as something compulsive. I suggest you send some people over right away. You’ve got your witness.”

  “We’ll be there as soon as we can.”

  Jan Bublanski ended the call and went to share Blomkvist’s news with the team, though soon after he wondered whether this had been wise.

  CHAPTER 15

  NOVEMBER 21

  Salander was at the Raucher Chess Club on Hälsingegatan. She did not really feel like playing. Her head was aching—she had been on the hunt all day long. But the hunt had taken her here. When she realized that Frans Balder had been betrayed by one of his own, she had promised him she would leave the traitor alone. She had not approved of the strategy, but she had kept her word, and only when Balder had been killed did she feel absolved of her promise.

  Now she was going to proceed on her own terms. But it was not all that easy. Arvid Wrange had not been at home, and instead of calling him she wanted to strike down on his life like a bolt of lightning and had therefore been out searching for him, her hoodie pulled over her head. Wrange lived the life of a drone. But as with so many other drones, he had a routine, and Salander had been able to find a number of signposts through the trail of pictures he posted on Instagram and Facebook: Riche on Birger Jarlsgatan and the Theatre Grill on Nybrogatan, the Raucher Chess Club and Café Ritorno on Odengatan, and a number of others, including a shooting club on Fridhelmsgatan, plus the addresses of two girlfriends.

  Wrange had changed since the last time she had him on her radar. Not only had he gotten rid of his nerdy look. His morals were also at an ebb. Salander was not big on psychological theory, but she could see for herself that his first major transgression had led to a succession of others. Wrange was no longer an ambitious student, eager to learn. Now he was addicted to porn and bought sex online, violent sex. Two of the women had afterwards threatened to report him.

  The man had a fair amount of money. He also had a load of problems. As recently as that morning he had Googled “witness protection Sweden,” which was careless of him. Even though he was no longer in contact with Solifon, at least not from his computer, they were probably still keeping an eye on him. It would be unprofessional not to. Maybe he was beginning to crack up beneath the new urbane exterior, which served her purpose. When she once again rang the chess club—chess being the only connection with his former life—she was pleasantly surprised to hear that Wrange had just arrived there.

  So now she walked down the small flight of steps on Hälsingegatan and along a corridor to some shabby premises where a motley crowd of mostly older men were sitting hunched over their chessboards. The atmosphere was somnolent, and nobody seemed to even notice her, let alone question her presence. They were all busy with what they were doing, and the only sound was the click of the chess clocks and the occasional swear word. There were framed photographs of Kasparov, Magnus Carlsen, and Bobby Fischer on the walls and even one of a pimply, teenaged Arvid Wrange playing the chess star Judit Polgár.

  A different, older version of him was sitting at a table further in and to the right, and he seemed to be trying out some new opening. Next to him were a couple of shopping bags. He was wearing a yellow lambswool sweater with a freshly ironed white shir
t and a pair of shiny English shoes, a little too stylish for the surroundings. Salander approached him with careful, hesitant steps and asked if he would like a game. He responded by looking her up and down, then he said: “OK.”

  “Nice of you,” she replied, like a well-mannered young girl, and sat down. She opened with e4, he answered with b5, the Polish gambit, and then she closed her eyes and let him play on.

  —

  Wrange tried to concentrate on the game, but he was not managing too well. Fortunately this punk girl was going to be easy pickings. She wasn’t bad, as it turned out—she probably spent a lot of time playing—but what good was that? He toyed with her a little, and she was bound to be impressed. Who knows, maybe he could even get her to come home with him afterwards. True, she looked stroppy, and Wrange did not go in for stroppy girls, but she had nice tits and he might be able to take out his frustrations on her. It had been a disaster of a morning. The news that Balder had been murdered had floored him.

  It wasn’t grief that he felt: it was fear. Wrange really did try hard to convince himself that he had done the right thing. What did the goddamn professor expect when he treated him as if he didn’t exist? But of course it wouldn’t look good that Wrange had sold him down the river. He consoled himself with the thought that an idiot like Balder must have made thousands of enemies, but deep down he knew: the one event was linked to the other, and that scared him to death.

  Ever since Balder had started working at Solifon, Wrange had been afraid that the drama would take a frightening new turn, and here he was now, wishing that it would all go away. That must have been why he went into town this morning on a compulsive spree to buy a load of designer clothes, and had ended up here at the chess club. Chess still managed to distract him, and the fact was that he was feeling better already. He felt like he was in control and smart enough to keep on fooling them all. Look at how he was playing.

  This girl was not half bad. In fact there was something unorthodox and creative in her play, and she would probably be able to teach most people in here a thing or two. It was just that he, Arvid Wrange, was crushing her. His play was so brilliant and sophisticated that she had not even noticed he was on the brink of trapping her queen. Stealthily he moved his positions forward and snapped it up without sacrificing more than a knight. In a flirty, casual tone bound to impress her he said, “Sorry, baby. Your queen is down.”

  But he got nothing in return, no smile, not a word, nothing. The girl upped the tempo, as if she wanted to put a quick end to her humiliation, and why not? He’d be happy to keep the process short and take her out for two or three drinks before he pulled her. Maybe he would not be very nice to her in bed. The chances were that she would still thank him afterwards. A miserable cunt like her would be unlikely to have had a fuck for a long time and would be totally unused to guys like him, cool guys who played at this level. He decided to show off a bit and explain some higher chess theory. But he never got the chance. Something on the board did not feel quite right. His game began to run into some sort of resistance he could not understand. For a while he persuaded himself that it was only his imagination, perhaps the result of a few careless moves. If only he concentrated he would be able to put things right, and so he mobilized his killer instinct.

  But the situation just got worse.

  He felt trapped—however hard he tried to regain the initiative she hit back—and in the end he had no choice but to acknowledge that the balance of power had shifted, and shifted irreversibly. How crazy was that? He had taken her queen, but instead of building on that advantage he had landed in a fatally weak position. Surely she had not deliberately sacrificed her queen so early in the game? That would be impossible—the sort of thing you read about in books, it doesn’t happen in your local chess club in Vasastan, and it’s definitely not something that pierced punk chicks with attitude problems do, especially not to great players like him. Yet there was no escape.

  In four or five moves he would be beaten and so he saw no alternative but to knock over his king with his index finger and mumble congratulations. Even though he would have liked to serve up some excuses, something told him that that would make matters worse. He had a sneaking feeling that his defeat was not just down to bad luck, and almost against his will he began to feel frightened again. Who the hell was she?

  Cautiously he looked her in the eye and now she no longer looked like a stroppy, insecure nobody. Now she seemed cold—like a predator eyeing its prey. He felt deeply ill at ease, as if the defeat on the chessboard were but a prelude to something much, much worse. He glanced towards the door.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” she said.

  “Who are you?” he said.

  “Nobody special.”

  “So we haven’t met before?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “But nearly, is that it?”

  “We’ve met in your nightmares, Arvid.”

  “Is this some kind of joke?”

  “Not really.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What do you think I mean?”

  “How should I know?”

  He could not understand why he was so scared.

  “Frans Balder was murdered last night,” she said in a monotone.

  “Well…yes…I read that,” he stammered.

  “Terrible, isn’t it?”

  “Awful.”

  “Especially for you, right?”

  “Why especially for me?”

  “Because you betrayed him, Arvid. Because you gave him the kiss of Judas.”

  His body froze.

  “That’s bullshit,” he spat out.

  “As a matter of fact it’s not. I hacked your computer, cracked your encryption, and saw very clearly that you sold his technology to Solifon. And you know what?”

  He was finding it hard to breathe.

  “I’m sure you woke up this morning and wondered if his death was your fault. I can help you there: it was your fault. If you hadn’t been so greedy and bitter and pathetic, Frans Balder would be alive now. I should warn you that’s making me pretty fucking angry, Arvid. I’m going to hurt you badly. First of all by making you suffer the same sort of treatment you inflict on the women you find online.”

  “Are you insane?”

  “Probably, yes,” she said. “Empathy deficit disorder. Excessive violence. Something along those lines.”

  She gripped his hand with a force which scared him out of his wits.

  “Arvid, do you know what I’m doing right now?”

  “No.”

  “I’m sitting here trying to decide what to do with you. I’m thinking in terms of suffering of biblical proportions. That’s why I might seem a bit distracted.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want revenge—haven’t I made that clear?”

  “You’re talking crap.”

  “Definitely not, and I think you know it too. But there is a way out.”

  “What do I have to do?”

  He could not understand why he said it. What do I have to do? It was an admission, a capitulation, and he considered taking it back, putting pressure on her instead, to see if she had any proof or if she was bluffing. But he could not bring himself to do it.

  Only later did he realize that it was not just the threats she tossed out or the uncanny strength of her hands. It was the game of chess, the queen sacrifice. He was in shock, and something in his subconscious told him that a woman who plays like that must also know his secrets.

  “What do I have to do?” he said again.

  “You’re going to follow me out of here and you’re going to tell me everything, Arvid. You’re going to tell me exactly what happened when you sold out Frans Balder.”

  —

  “It’s a miracle,” Bublanski said as he stood in Hanna Balder’s kitchen looking at the crumpled drawing which Blomkvist had plucked out of the rubbish.

  “Let’s not exaggerate,” said Modig, who was standing right next
to him. She was right. It was not much more than some chess squares on a piece of paper, after all, and as Mikael Blomkvist had pointed out over the telephone there was something strangely mathematical about the work, as if the boy were more interested in the geometry than in the threatening shadow above. But Bublanski was excited all the same. He had been told over and over how mentally impaired the Balder boy was, and how little he would be able to help them. Now the boy had produced a drawing which gave Bublanski more hope than anything else in the investigation. It strengthened his long-held conviction that one must never underestimate anyone or cling to preconceived ideas.

  They could not be certain that what August was illustrating was the moment of the murder. The shadow could, at least in theory, be associated with some other occasion, and there was no guarantee that the boy had seen the killer’s face or that he would be able to draw it. And yet deep down that is what Bublanski believed. Not just because the drawing, even in its present state, was masterful. He had studied the other drawings too, in which you could see, beyond the street crossing and the traffic light, a shabby man with thin lips who had been caught red-handed jaywalking, if you looked at it purely from a law-enforcement point of view. He was crossing the street on a red, and Amanda Flod, another officer on the team, had recognized him straightaway as the out-of-work actor Roger Winter, who had convictions for drunk driving and assault.

  The photographic precision of August’s eye ought to be a dream for any murder investigator. But Bublanski did realize that it would be unprofessional to set his hopes too high. Maybe the murderer had been masked at the time of the killing or his face had already faded from the child’s memory. There were many possible scenarios and Bublanski cast a glum look in the direction of Modig.

  “You think it’s wishful thinking on my part,” he said.

  “For a man who’s beginning to doubt the existence of God, you are surprisingly willing to hope for a miracle.”

  “Well, maybe.”

  “But it’s worth getting to the bottom of. I agree with that,” Modig said.

  “Good, in that case let’s see the boy.”