Hospital, she thought. What am I doing here?

She felt exhausted, could hardly get her thoughts in order. Then the memories came rushing back to her. For several seconds she was seized by panic as the fragmented images of how she had dug herself out of a trench came flooding over her. Then she clenched her teeth and concentrated on breathing.

She was alive, but she was not sure whether that was a good thing or bad.

She could not piece together all that had happened, but she summoned up a foggy mosaic of images from the woodshed and how she had swung an axe in fury and struck her father in the face. Zalachenko. Was he alive or dead?

She could not clearly remember what had happened with Niedermann. She had a memory of being surprised that he had run away and she did not know why.

Suddenly she remembered having seen Kalle Bastard Blomkvist. Perhaps she had dreamed the whole thing, but she remembered a kitchen – it must have been the kitchen in the Gosseberga farmhouse – and she thought she remembered seeing him coming towards her. I must have been hallucinating.

The events in Gosseberga seemed already like the distant past, or possibly a ridiculous dream. She concentrated on the present and opened her eyes again.

She was in a bad way. She did not need anyone to tell her that. She raised her right hand and felt her head. There were bandages. She had a brace on her neck. Then she remembered it all. Niedermann. Zalachenko. The old bastard had a pistol too. A.22 calibre Browning. Which, compared to all other handguns, had to be considered a toy. That was why she was still alive.

I was shot in the head. I could stick my finger in the entry wound and touch my brain.

She was surprised to be alive. Yet she felt indifferent. If death was the black emptiness from which she had just woken up, then death was nothing to worry about. She would hardly notice the difference. With which esoteric thought she closed her eyes and fell asleep again.

She had been dozing only a few minutes when she was aware of movement and opened her eyelids to a narrow slit. She saw a nurse in a white uniform bending over her. She closed her eyes and pretended to be asleep.

“I think you’re awake,” the nurse said.

“Mmm,” Salander said.

“Hello, my name is Marianne. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Salander tried to nod, but her head was immobilized by the brace.

“No, don’t try to move. You don’t have to be afraid. You’ve been hurt and had surgery.”

“Could I have some water?” Salander whispered.

The nurse gave her a beaker with a straw to drink water through. As she swallowed the water she saw another person appear on her left side.

“Hello, Lisbeth. Can you hear me?”

“Mmm.”

“I’m Dr Helena Endrin. Do you know where you are?”

“Hospital.”

“You’re at the Sahlgrenska in Göteborg. You’ve had an operation and you’re in the intensive care unit.”

“Umm-hmm.”

“There is no need to be afraid.”

“I was shot in the head.”

Endrin hesitated for a moment, then said, “That’s right. So you remember what happened.”

“The old bastard had a pistol.”

“Ah… yes, well someone did.”

“A.22.”

“I see. I didn’t know that.”

“How badly hurt am I?”

“Your prognosis is good. You were in pretty bad shape, but we think you have a good chance of making a full recovery.”

Salander weighed this information. Then she tried to fix her eyes on the doctor. Her vision was blurred.

“What happened to Zalachenko?”

“Who?”

“The old bastard. Is he alive?”

“You must mean Karl Axel Bodin.”

“No, I don’t. I mean Alexander Zalachenko. That’s his real name.”

“I don’t know anything about that. But the elderly man who came in at the same time as you is critical but out of danger.”

Salander’s heart sank. She considered the doctor’s words.

“Where is he?”

“He’s down the hall. But don’t worry about him for the time being. You have to concentrate on getting well.”

Salander closed her eyes. She wondered whether she could manage to get out of bed, find something to use as a weapon, and finish the job. But she could scarcely keep her eyes open. She thought, He’s going to get away again. She had missed her chance to kill Zalachenko.

“I’d like to examine you for a moment. Then you can go back to sleep,” Dr Endrin said.

Blomkvist was suddenly awake and he did not know why. He did not know where he was, and then he remembered that he had booked himself a room in City Hotel. It was as dark as coal. He fumbled to turn on the bedside lamp and looked at the clock. 2.00. He had slept through fifteen hours.

He got up and went to the bathroom. He would not be able to get back to sleep. He shaved and took a long shower. Then he put on some jeans and the maroon sweatshirt that needed washing. He called the front desk to ask if he could get coffee and a sandwich at this early hour. The night porter said that was possible.

He put on his sports jacket and went downstairs. He ordered a coffee and a cheese and liver pâté sandwich. He bought the Göteborgs-Posten. The arrest of Lisbeth Salander was front-page news. He took his breakfast back to his room and read the paper. The reports at the time of going to press were somewhat confused, but they were on the right track. Ronald Niedermann, thirty-five, was being sought for the killing of a policeman. The police wanted to question him also in connection with the murders in Stockholm. The police had released nothing about Salander’s condition, and the name Zalachenko was not mentioned. He was referred to only as a 66-year-old landowner from Gosseberga, and apparently the media had taken him for an innocent victim.

When Blomkvist had finished reading, he flipped open his mobile and saw that he had twenty unread messages. Three were messages to call Berger. Two were from his sister Annika. Fourteen were from reporters at various newspapers who wanted to talk to him. One was from Malm, who had sent him the brisk advice: It would be best if you took the first train home.

Blomkvist frowned. That was unusual, coming from Malm. The text was sent at 7.06 in the evening. He stifled the impulse to call and wake someone up at 3.00 in the morning. Instead he booted up his iBook and plugged the cable into the broadband jack. He found that the first train to Stockholm left at 5.20, and there was nothing new in Aftonbladet online.

He opened a new Word document, lit a cigarette, and sat for three minutes staring at the blank screen. Then he began to type.

Her name is Lisbeth Salander. Sweden has got to know her through police reports and press releases and the headlines in the evening papers. She is twenty-seven years old and one metre fifty centimetres tall. She has been called a psychopath, a murderer, and a lesbian Satanist. There has been almost no limit to the fantasies that have been circulated about her. In this issue, Millennium will tell the story of how government officials conspired against Salander in order to protect a pathological murderer…

– -

He wrote steadily for fifty minutes, primarily a recapitulation of the night on which he had found Dag Svensson and Mia Johansson and why the police had focused on Salander as the suspected killer. He quoted the newspaper headlines about lesbian Satanists and the media’s apparent hope that the murders might have involved S. amp; M. sex.

When he checked the clock he quickly closed his iBook. He packed his bag and went down to the front desk. He paid with a credit card and took a taxi to Göteborg Central Station.

Blomkvist went straight to the dining car and ordered more coffee and sandwiches. He opened his iBook again and read through his text. He was so absorbed that he did not notice Inspector Modig until she cleared her throat and asked if she could join him. He looked up, smiled sheepishly, and closed his computer.