“Mikael, this is not a joke.”

Berger drove to the office on Saturday morning still feeling queasy. She had thought that she was beginning to get to grips with the actual process of producing a newspaper and had planned to reward herself with a weekend off – the first since she started at S.M.P. – but the discovery that her most personal and intimate possessions had been stolen, and the Borgsjö report too, made it impossible for her to relax.

During a sleepless night spent mostly in the kitchen with Linder, Berger had expected the “Poison Pen” to strike, disseminating pictures of her that would be deplorably damaging. What an excellent tool the Internet was for freaks. Good grief… a video of me shagging my husband and another man – I’m going to end up on half the websites in the world.

Panic and terror had dogged her through the night.

It took all of Linder’s powers of persuasion to send her to bed.

At 8.00 she got up and drove to S.M.P. She could not stay away. If a storm was brewing, then she wanted to face it first before anyone else got wind of it.

But in the half-staffed Saturday newsroom everything was normal. People greeted her as she limped past the central desk. Holm was off today. Fredriksson was the acting news editor.

“Morning. I thought you were taking today off,” he said.

“Me too. But I wasn’t feeling well yesterday and I’ve got things I have to do. Anything happening?”

“No, it’s pretty slow today. The hottest thing we’ve got is that the timber industry in Dalarna is reporting a boom, and there was a robbery in Norrköping in which one person was injured.”

“Right. I’ll be in the cage for a while.”

She sat down, leaned her crutches against the bookshelves, and logged on. First she checked her email. She had several messages, but nothing from Poison Pen. She frowned. It had been two days now since the break-in, and he had not yet acted on what had to be a treasure trove of opportunities. Why not? Maybe he’s going to change tactics. Blackmail? Maybe he just wants to keep me guessing.

She had nothing specific to work on, so she clicked on the strategy document she was writing for S.M.P. She stared at the screen for fifteen minutes without seeing the words.

She tried to call Greger, but with no success. She did not even know if his mobile worked in other countries. Of course she could have tracked him down with a bit of effort, but she felt lazy to the core. Wrong, she felt helpless and paralysed.

She tried to call Blomkvist to tell him that the Borgsjö folder had been stolen, but he did not answer.

By 10.00 she had accomplished nothing and decided to go home. She was just reaching out to shut down her computer when her I.C.Q. account pinged. She looked in astonishment at the icon bar. She knew what I.C.Q. was but she seldom chatted, and she had not used the program since starting at S.M.P.

She clicked hesitantly on Answer.

A trick? Poison Pen?

Berger stared at the screen. It took her a few seconds to make the connection. Lisbeth Salander. Impossible.

Berger swallowed. Only four people in the world knew how he had come by that scar. Salander was one of them.

Salander is a devil with computers. But how the hell is she managingto communicate from Sahlgrenska, where she’s been isolated since April?

She doesn’t want the police to know she has access to the Net. Of course not. Which is why she’s chatting with the editor-in-chief of one of the biggest newspapers in Sweden.

Berger’s heart beat furiously.

Berger could not believe she was asking this question. It was absurd. Salander was in rehabilitation at Sahlgrenska and was up to her neck in her own problems. She was the most unlikely person Berger could turn to with any hope of getting help.

Berger thought for while before she replied.

Berger stared at the screen as she tried to work out what Salander was getting at.

Why am I not surprised?

Berger hesitated for ten seconds. Open up S.M.P. to… what? A complete loony? Salander might be innocent of murder, but she was definitely not normal.

But what did she have to lose?

Berger followed the instruction.

It took three minutes.

Berger stared in fascination at the screen as her computer slowly rebooted. She wondered whether she was mad. Then her I.C.Q. pinged.

Figuerola woke at 8.00 on Saturday morning, about two hours later than usual. She sat up in bed and looked at the man beside her. He was snoring. Well, nobody’s perfect.

She wondered where this affair with Blomkvist was going to lead. He was obviously not the faithful type, so no point in looking forward to a long-term relationship. She knew that much from his biography. Anyway, she was not so sure she wanted a stable relationship herself – with a partner and a mortgage and kids. After a dozen failed relationships since her teens, she was tending towards the theory that stability was overrated. Her longest had been with a colleague in Uppsala – they had shared an apartment for two years.

But she was not someone who went in for one-night stands, although she did think that sex was an underrated therapy for just about all ailments. And sex with Blomkvist, out of shape as he was, was just fine. More than just fine, actually. Plus, he was a good person. He made her want more.

A summer romance? A love affair? Was she in love?

She went to the bathroom and washed her face and brushed her teeth. Then she put on her shorts and a thin jacket and quietly left the apartment. She stretched and went on a 45-minute run out past Rålambshov hospital and around Fredhäll and back via Smedsudden. She was home by 9.00 and discovered Blomkvist still asleep. She bent down and bit him on the ear. He opened his eyes in bewilderment.

“Good morning, darling. I need somebody to scrub my back.”

He looked at her and mumbled something.

“What did you say?”

“You don’t need to take a shower. You’re soaked to the skin already.”

“I’ve been running. You should come along.”

“If I tried to go at your pace, I’d have a heart attack on Norr Mälarstrand.”

“Nonsense. Come on, time to get up.”

He scrubbed her back and soaped her shoulders. And her hips. And her stomach. And her breasts. And after a while she had completely lost interest in her shower and pulled him back to bed.

They had their coffee at the pavement café beside Norr Mälarstrand.

“You could turn out to be a bad habit,” she said. “And we’ve only known each other a few days.”

“I find you incredibly attractive. But you know that already.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“Sorry, can’t answer that question. I’ve never understood why I’m attracted to one woman and totally uninterested in another.”

She smiled thoughtfully. “I have today off,” she said.

“But not me. I have a mountain of work before the trial begins, and I’ve spent the last three evenings with you instead of getting on with it.”

“What a shame.”

He stood up and gave her a kiss on the cheek. She took hold of his shirtsleeve.

“Blomkvist, I’d like to spend some more time with you.”

“Same here. But it’s going to be a little up and down until we put this story to bed.”

He walked away down Hantverkargatan.

Berger got some coffee and watched the screen. For fifty-three minutes absolutely nothing happened except that her screen saver started up from time to time. Then her I.C.Q. pinged again.

But Salander was gone from her I.C.Q. Berger stared at the screen in frustration. Finally she turned off the computer and went out to find a café where she could sit and think.