“Alright, then,” Andersson said, walking into the hallway to keep a close eye on Björck as he turned off the coffee machine and picked up his coat.

In the late morning it dawned on Blomkvist that his rental car was still at the Gosseberga farm, but he was so exhausted that he did not have the strength or the means to get out there to fetch it, much less drive safely for any distance. Erlander kindly arranged for a crime scene tech to take the car back on his way home.

“Think of it as compensation for the way you were treated last night.”

Blomkvist thanked him and took a taxi to City Hotel on Lorensbergsgatan. He booked in for the night for 800 kronor and went straight to his room and undressed. He sat naked on the bed and took Salander’s Palm Tungsten T3 from the inside pocket of his jacket, weighing it in his hand. He was still amazed that it had not been confiscated when Paulsson frisked him, but Paulsson presumably thought it was Blomkvist’s own, and he had never been formally taken into custody and searched. He thought for a moment and then slipped it into a compartment of his laptop case where he had also put Salander’s D.V.D. marked “Bjurman,” which Paulsson had also missed. He knew that technically he was withholding evidence, but these were the things that Salander would no doubt prefer not to have fall into the wrong hands.

He turned on his mobile and saw that the battery was low, so he plugged in the charger. He made a call to his sister, Advokat Giannini.

“Hi, Annika.”

“What did you have to do with the policeman’s murder last night?” she asked him at once.

He told her succinctly what had happened.

“O.K., so Salander is in intensive care.”

“Correct, and we won’t know the extent or severity of her injuries until she regains consciousness, but now she’s really going to need a lawyer.”

Giannini thought for a moment. “Do you think she’d want me for her lawyer?”

“Probably she wouldn’t want any lawyer at all. She isn’t the type to ask anyone for help.”

“Mikael… I’ve said this before, it sounds like she might need a criminal lawyer. Let me look at the documentation you have.”

“Talk to Erika and ask her for a copy.”

As soon as Blomkvist disconnected, he called Berger himself. She did not answer her mobile, so he tried her number at the Millennium offices. Henry Cortez answered.

“Erika’s out somewhere,” he said.

Blomkvist briefly explained what had happened and asked Cortez to pass the information to Millennium’s editor-in-chief.

“Will do. What do you want us to do?” Cortez said.

“Nothing today,” Blomkvist said. “I have to get some sleep. I’ll be back in Stockholm tomorrow if nothing else comes up. Millennium will have an opportunity to present its version of the story in the next issue, but that’s almost a month away.”

He flipped his mobile shut and crawled into bed. He was asleep within thirty seconds.

Assistant County Police Chief Carina Spångberg tapped her pen against her glass of water and asked for quiet. Nine people were seated around the conference table in her office at police headquarters. Three women and six men: the head of the Violent Crimes Division and his assistant head; three criminal inspectors including Erlander and the Göteborg police press officers; preliminary investigation leader Agneta Jervas from the prosecutor’s office, and lastly Inspectors Modig and Holmberg from the Stockholm police. They were included as a sign of goodwill and to demonstrate that Göteborg wished to co-operate with their colleagues from the capital. Possibly also to show them how a real police investigation should be run.

Spångberg, who was frequently the lone woman in a male landscape, had a reputation for not wasting time on formalities or mere courtesies. She explained that the county police chief was at the Europol conference in Madrid, that he had broken off his trip as soon as he knew that one of his police officers had been murdered, but that he was not expected back before late that night. Then she turned directly to the head of the Violent Crimes Division, Anders Pehrzon, and asked him to brief the assembled company.

“It’s been about ten hours since our colleague was murdered on Nossebrovägen. We know the name of the killer, Ronald Niedermann, but we still don’t have a picture of him.”

“In Stockholm we have a photograph of him that’s about twenty years old. Paolo Roberto got it through a boxing club in Germany, but it’s almost unusable,” Holmberg said.

“Alright. The patrol car that Niedermann is thought to have driven away was found in Alingsås this morning, as you all know. It was parked on a side street 350 metres from the railway station. We haven’t had a report yet of any car thefts in the area this morning.”

“What’s the status of the search?”

“We’re keeping an eye on all trains arriving in Stockholm and Malmö. There is a nationwide A.P.B. out and we’ve alerted the police in Norway and Denmark. Right now we have about thirty officers working directly on the investigation, and of course the whole force is keeping their eyes peeled.”

“No leads?”

“No, nothing yet. But someone with Niedermann’s distinctive appearance is not going to go unnoticed for long.”

“Does anyone know about Torstensson’s condition?” asked one of the inspectors from Violent Crime.

“He’s at Sahlgrenska. His injuries seem to be similar to those of a car crash victim – it’s hardly credible that anyone could do such damage with his bare hands: a broken leg, ribs crushed, cervical vertebrae injured, plus there’s a risk that he may be paralysed.”

They all took stock of their colleague’s plight for a few moments until Spångberg turned to Erlander.

“Marcus… tell us what really happened at Gosseberga.”

“Thomas Paulsson happened at Gosseberga.”

A ripple of groans greeted this response.

“Can’t someone give that man early retirement? He’s a walking catastrophe.”

“I know all about Paulsson,” Spångberg interrupted. “But I haven’t heard any complaints about him in the last… well, not for the past two years. In what way has he become harder to handle?”

“The police chief up there is an old friend of Paulsson’s, and he’s probably been trying to protect him. With all good intentions, of course, and I don’t mean to criticize him. But last night Paulsson’s behaviour was so bizarre that several of his people mentioned it to me.”

“In what way bizarre?”

Erlander glanced at Modig and Holmberg. He was embarrassed to be discussing flaws in their organization in front of the visitors from Stockholm.

“As far as I’m concerned, the strangest thing was that he detailed one of the techs to make an inventory of everything in the woodshed – where we found the Zalachenko guy?”

“An inventory of what in the woodshed?” Spångberg wanted to know.

“Yes… well… he said he needed to know exactly how many pieces of wood were in there. So that the report would be accurate.”

There was a charged silence around the conference table before Erlander went on.

“And this morning it came out that Paulsson has been taking at least two different antidepressants. He should have been on sick leave, but no-one knew about his condition.”

“What condition?” Spångberg said sharply.

“Well, obviously I don’t know what’s wrong with him – patient’s confidentiality and all that – but the drugs he’s taking are strong ataractics on the one hand, and stimulants. He was high as a kite all night.”

“Good God,” said Spångberg emphatically. She looked like the thundercloud that had swept over Göteborg that morning. “I want Paulsson in here for a chat. Right now.”

“He collapsed this morning and was admitted to the hospital suffering from exhaustion. It was just our bad luck that he happened to be on rotation.”

“May I ask… Paulsson, did he arrest Mikael Blomkvist last night?”