As he was helping her prepare the coffee, she put a hand on his shoulder and asked him how was he doing. He told her he felt as low as he had in life.

“Get yourself a real lawyer next time,” she said.

“It probably wouldn’t have helped in this case. But we’ll talk it all the way through, Sis, some other time when all the dust is settled.”

She gave him a hug and kissed him on the cheek before they carried out the Christmas cake and the coffee. Then Blomkvist excused himself and asked to use the telephone in the kitchen. He called the lawyer in Hedestad and could hear there too the buzz of voices in the background.

“Merry Christmas,” Frode said. “Dare I hope you have made up your mind?”

“I really don’t have any immediate plans and I am curious to know more. I’ll come up the day after Christmas if that suits you.”

“Excellent, excellent. I am incredibly pleased. You will forgive me, I’ve got children and grandchildren visiting and can hardly hear myself think. Can I call you tomorrow to agree on a time? Where can I reach you?”

Blomkvist regretted his decision before even he left for home, but by then it was too awkward to call and cancel. So on the morning of December 26 he was on the train heading north. He had a driver’s license, but he had never felt the need to own a car.

Frode was right, it was not a long journey. After Uppsala came the string of small industrial towns along the Norrland coast. Hedestad was one of the smaller ones, a little more than an hour north of Gävle.

On Christmas night there had been a big snowstorm, but the skies had now cleared and the air was ice-cold when Blomkvist alighted at Hedestad. He realised at once that he wasn’t wearing enough clothes for winter in Norrland. Frode knew what he looked like and kindly collected him from the platform and led him straight to the warmth of his Mercedes. In the centre of Hedestad, snow clearing was in full swing, and Frode wove his careful way through the narrow streets. High banks of snow presented a picturesque contrast to Stockholm. The town seemed almost like another planet, yet he was only a little more than three hours from Sergels Torg in downtown Stockholm. He stole a glance at the lawyer: an angular face with sparse, bristly white hair and thick glasses perched on an impressive nose.

“First time in Hedestad?” Frode said.

Blomkvist nodded.

“It’s an old industrial town with a harbour. Population of only 24,000. But people like living here. Herr Vanger lives in Hedeby-at the southern edge of the town.”

“Do you live here too?”

“I do now. I was born in Skåne down south, but I started working for Vanger right after I graduated in 1962. I’m a corporate lawyer, and over the years Herr Vanger and I became friends. Today I’m officially retired, and Herr Vanger is my only client. He’s retired too, of course, and doesn’t need my services very often.”

“Only to scrape up journalists with ruined reputations.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. You’re not the first one to lose a match against Hans-Erik Wennerström.”

Blomkvist turned to Frode, unsure how to read that reply.

“Does this invitation have anything to do with Wennerström?” he said.

“No,” said Frode. “But Herr Vanger is not remotely in Wennerström’s circle of friends, and he followed the trial with interest. He wants to meet you to discuss a wholly different matter.”

“Which you don’t want to tell me about.”

“Which it isn’t my place to tell you about. We have arranged it so that you can spend the night at Herr Vanger’s house. If you would rather not do that, we can book you a room in the Grand Hotel in town.”

“I might be taking the evening train back to Stockholm.”

The road into Hedeby was still unploughed, and Frode manoeuvred the car down frozen tyre ruts. The old town centre consisted of houses along the Gulf of Bothnia, and around them larger, more modern homes. The town began on the mainland and spilled across a bridge to a hilly island. On the mainland side of the bridge stood a small, white stone church, and across the street glowed an old-fashioned neon sign that read SUSANNE’S BRIDGE CAFÉ AND BAKERY. Frode drove about a hundred yards farther and turned left on to a newly shovelled courtyard in front of a stone building. The farmhouse was too small to be called a manor, but it was considerably larger than the rest of the houses in the settlement. This was the master’s domain.

“This is the Vanger farm,” Frode said. “Once it was full of life and hubbub, but today only Henrik and a housekeeper live there. There are plenty of guest rooms.”

They got out. Frode pointed north.

“Traditionally the person who leads the Vanger concern lives here, but Martin Vanger wanted something more modern, so he built his house on the point there.”

Blomkvist looked around and wondered what insane impulse he had satisfied by accepting Frode’s invitation. He decided that if humanly possible he would return to Stockholm that evening. A stone stairway led to the entry, but before they reached it the door was opened. He immediately recognised Henrik Vanger from the photograph posted on the Internet.

In the pictures there he was younger, but he looked surprisingly vigorous for eighty-two: a wiry body with a rugged, weather-beaten face and thick grey hair combed straight back. He wore neatly pressed dark trousers, a white shirt, and a well-worn brown casual jacket. He had a narrow moustache and thin steel-rimmed glasses.

“I’m Henrik Vanger,” he said. “Thank you for agreeing to visit me.”

“Hello. It was a surprising invitation.”

“Come inside where it’s warm. I’ve arranged a guest room for you. Would you like to freshen up? We’ll be having dinner a little later. And this is Anna Nygren, who looks after me.”

Blomkvist shook hands with a short, stout woman in her sixties. She took his coat and hung it in a hall cupboard. She offered him a pair of slippers because of the draught.

Mikael thanked her and then turned to Henrik Vanger. “I’m not sure that I shall be staying for dinner. It depends on what this game is all about.”

Vanger exchanged a glance with Frode. There was an understanding between the two men that Blomkvist could not interpret.

“I think I’ll take this opportunity to leave you two alone,” said Frode. “I have to go home and discipline the grandkids before they tear the house down.”

He turned to Mikael.

“I live on the right, just across the bridge. You can walk there in five minutes; the third house towards the water down from the bakery. If you need me, just telephone.”

Blomkvist reached into his jacket pocket and turned on a tape recorder. He had no idea what Vanger wanted, but after the past twelve months of havoc with Wennerström he needed a precise record of all strange occurrences anywhere near him, and an unlooked-for invitation to Hedestad came into that category.

Vanger patted Frode on the shoulder in farewell and closed the front door before turning his attention to Blomkvist.

“I’ll get right to the point in that case. This is no game. I ask you to listen to what I have to say and then make up your mind. You’re a journalist, and I want to give you a freelance assignment. Anna has served coffee upstairs in my office.”

The office was a rectangle of more than 1,300 square feet. One wall was dominated by a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf thirty feet long containing a remarkable assortment of literature: biographies, history, business and industry, and A4 binders. The books were arranged in no apparent order. It looked like a bookshelf that was used. The opposite wall was dominated by a desk of dark oak. On the wall behind the desk was a large collection of pressed flowers in neat meticulous rows.

Through the window in the gable the desk had a view of the bridge and the church. There was a sofa and coffee table where the housekeeper had set out a thermos, rolls, and pastries.