“So where do the toilets come into the picture?” Malm said.

“I’m getting to that. The question is, why are apartments so bloody expensive? Because the people commissioning the buildings don’t know how to set the price. To put it simply, a developer calls up Skanska Construction and says that they want a hundred apartments and asks what it will cost. And Skanska calculates it and comes back and says it’ll cost around 500 million kronor. Which means that the price per square metre will be X kronor and it would cost 10,000 a month if you wanted to move in. But unlike the McDonald’s example, you don’t really have a choice – you have to live somewhere. So you have to pay the going rate.”

“Henry, dear… please get to the point.”

“But that is the point. Why should it cost 10,000 a month to live in those crappy dumps in Hammarbyhamnen? Because the construction companies don’t give a damn about keeping prices down. The customer’s going to have to pay, come what may. One of the big costs is building materials. The trade in building materials goes through wholesalers who set their own prices. Since there isn’t any real competition there, a bathtub retails at 5,000 kronor in Sweden. The same bathtub from the same manufacturer retails at 2,000 kronor in Germany. There is no added cost that can satisfactorily explain the price difference.”

There was impatient muttering around the table.

“You can read about a lot of this in a report from the government’s Construction Cost Delegation, which was active in the late ’90s. Since then not much has happened. No-one is talking to the construction companies about the unreasonable prices. The buyers cheerfully pay what they are told it costs, and in the end the price burden falls on the renters or the taxpayers.”

“Henry, the toilets?”

“The little that has changed since the Construction Cost Delegation’s report has happened at the local level, and primarily outside Stockholm. There are buyers who got fed up with the high construction prices. One example is Karlskrona Homes, which builds houses less expensively than anyone else by buying the materials themselves. And Svensk Handel has also got into the game. They think that the price of construction materials is absurd, so they’ve been trying to make it easier for companies to buy less expensive products that are equally good. And that led to a little clash at the Construction Fair in Älvsjö last year. Svensk Handel had brought in a man from Thailand who was selling toilets for 500 kronor apiece.”

“And what happened?”

“His nearest competitor was a Swedish wholesale outfit called Vitavara Inc., which sells genuine Swedish toilets for 1700 kronor apiece. And shrewd municipal buyers started to scratch their heads and wonder why they were shelling out 1700 kronor when they could get a similar toilet from Thailand for 500.”

“Better quality maybe,” Karim said.

“No. The exact same.”

“Thailand,” Malm said. “That sounds like child labour and stuff like that. Which could explain the low price.”

“Not so,” Cortez said. “Child labour exists mostly in the textile and souvenir industries in Thailand. And the paedophile industry, of course. The United Nations keeps an eye on child labour, and I’ve checked out this company. They’re a reputable manufacturer. It’s a big, modern, respectable operation producing appliances and plumbing goods.”

“Alright… but we’re talking about low-wage countries, and that means that you risk writing an article proposing that Swedish industry should be outbid by Thai industry. Fire the Swedish workers and close the factories here, and import everything from Thailand. You won’t win any points with the Trades Union Federation.”

A smile spread over Cortez’s face. He leaned back and looked ridiculously pleased with himself.

“No again,” he said. “Guess where Vitavara Inc. makes its toilets to sell at 1700 kronor apiece?”

Silence fell over the room.

“Vietnam,” Cortez said.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Eriksson said.

“They’ve been making toilets there for at least ten years. Swedish workers were already out of that race in the ’90s.”

“Oh, shit.”

“But here comes my point. If you imported directly from the factory in Vietnam, the price would be in the order of 390 kronor. Guess how you can explain the price difference between Thailand and Vietnam?”

“Don’t tell me that-”

“Oh, yes. Vitavara Inc. subcontracts the work to an outfit called Fong Soo Industries. They’re on the U.N. list of companies that use child labour, at least they were in an investigation from 2001. But the majority of the workers are convicts.”

Eriksson burst out laughing. “This is great. This is really great. I’m sure you’re going to be a journalist when you grow up. How fast can you have the story ready?”

“Two weeks. I have a lot of international trade stuff to check out. And then we need a bad guy for the story, so I’m going to see who owns Vitavara Inc.”

“Then we could run it in the June issue?”

“No problem.”

Inspector Bublanski listened to Prosecutor Ekström without expression. The meeting had lasted forty minutes, and Bublanski was feeling an intense desire to reach out and grab the copy of The Law of the Swedish Kingdom that lay on the edge of Ekström’s desk and ram it into the prosecutor’s face. He wondered what would happen if he acted on his impulse. There would certainly be headlines in the evening papers and it would probably result in an assault charge. He pushed the thought away. The whole point of the socialized human being was to not give in to that sort of impulse, regardless of how belligerently an opponent might behave. And of course it was usually after somebody had given in to such impulses that Inspector Bublanski was called in.

“I take it that we’re in agreement,” Ekström said.

“No, we are not in agreement,” Bublanski said, getting to his feet. “But you’re the leader of the preliminary investigation.”

He muttered to himself as he turned down the corridor to his office, summoning Andersson and Modig as he went. They were the only colleagues available to him that afternoon as Holmberg had regrettably opted to take a two-week holiday.

“My office,” Bublanski said. “Bring some coffee.”

After they had settled in, Bublanski looked at the notes from his meeting with Ekström.

“As the situation stands, our preliminary investigation leader has dropped all charges against Lisbeth Salander relating to the murders for which she was being sought. She is no longer part of the preliminary investigation so far as we’re concerned.”

“That can be considered a step forward, at any rate,” Modig said.

Andersson, as usual, said nothing.

“I’m not so sure about that,” Bublanski said. “Salander is still suspected of G.B.H. in connection with the events at Stallarholmen and Gosseberga. But we’re no longer involved with those investigations. We have to concentrate on finding Niedermann and working on the graves in the woods at Nykvarn. On the other hand it’s now clear that Ekström is going to bring charges against Salander. The case has been transferred to Stockholm, and an entirely new investigation has been set up for the purpose.”

“Oh, really?” Modig said.

“And who do you think is going to investigate Salander?” Bublanski said.

“I’m fearing the worst.”

“Hans Faste is back on duty, and he’s going to assist Ekström.”

“That’s insane. Faste is grossly unsuited to investigate anything at all to do with Salander.”

“I know that. But Ekström has a good argument. Faste has been out sick since… hmm… he collapsed in April, and this would be the perfect, simple case for him to focus on.”

Silence.

“The long and the short of it is that we’re to hand all our material on Salander over to him this afternoon.”

“And this story about Gunnar Björck and Säpo and the 1991 report…”