The Nilssons were pleasant people. They did not seem curious about why Blomkvist was in Hedestad-the fact that he was working for Henrik Vanger was evidently enough of an explanation. Blomkvist observed the interaction between the Nilssons and Vanger, concluding that it was relaxed and lacking in any sort of gulf between master and servants. They talked about the village and the man who had built the guest house where Blomkvist was living. The Nilssons would prompt Vanger when his memory failed him. He, on the other hand, told a funny story about how Nilsson had come home one night to discover the village idiot from across the bridge trying to break a window at the guest house. Nilsson went over to ask the half-witted delinquent why he didn’t go in through the unlocked front door. Nilsson inspected Blomkvist’s little TV with misgiving and invited him to come across to their house if there was ever a programme he wanted to see.

Vanger stayed on briefly after the Nilssons left. He thought it best that Blomkvist sort through the files himself, and he could come to the house if he had any problems.

When he was alone once more, Blomkvist carried the boxes into his office and made an inventory of the contents.

Vanger’s investigation into the disappearance of his brother’s granddaughter had been going on for thirty-six years. Blomkvist wondered whether this was an unhealthy obsession or whether, over the years, it had developed into an intellectual game. What was clear was that the old patriarch had tackled the job with the systematic approach of an amateur archaeologist-the material was going to fill twenty feet of shelving.

The largest section of it consisted of twenty-six binders, which were the copies of the police investigation. Hard to believe an ordinary missing-person case would have produced such comprehensive material. Vanger no doubt had enough clout to keep the Hedestad police following up both plausible and implausible leads.

Then there were scrapbooks, photograph albums, maps, texts about Hedestad and the Vanger firm, Harriet’s diary (though it did not contain many pages), her schoolbooks, medical certificates. There were sixteen bound A4 volumes of one hundred or so pages each, which were Vanger’s logbook of the investigations. In these notebooks he had recorded in an impeccable hand his own speculations, theories, digressions. Blomkvist leafed through them. The text had a literary quality, and he had the feeling that these texts were fair copies of perhaps many more notebooks. There were ten binders containing material on members of the Vanger family; these pages were typed and had been compiled over the intervening years, Vanger’s investigations of his own family.

Around 7:00 he heard a loud meowing at the front door. A reddish-brown cat slipped swiftly past him into the warmth.

“Wise cat,” he said.

The cat sniffed around the guest house for a while. Mikael poured some milk into a dish, and his guest lapped it up. Then the cat hopped on to the kitchen bench and curled up. And there she stayed.

It was after 10:00 before Blomkvist had the scope of the material clear in his mind and had arranged it on the shelves. He put on a pot of coffee and made himself two sandwiches. He had not eaten a proper meal all day, but he was strangely uninterested in food. He offered the cat a piece of sausage and some liverwurst. After drinking his coffee, he took the cigarettes out of his jacket pocket and opened the pack.

He checked his mobile. Berger had not called. He tried her once more. Again only her voicemail.

One of the first steps Blomkvist had taken was to scan in the map of Hedeby Island that he had borrowed from Vanger. While all the names were still fresh in his mind, he wrote down who lived in each house. The Vanger clan consisted of such an extensive cast that it would take time to learn who was who.

Just before midnight he put on warm clothes and his new shoes and walked across the bridge. He turned off the road and along the sound below the church. Ice had formed on the sound and inside the old harbour, but farther out he could see a darker belt of open water. As he stood there, the lights on the facade of the church went out, and it was dark all around him. It was icy cold and stars filled the sky.

All of a sudden Blomkvist felt depressed. He could not for the life of him understand how he had allowed Vanger to talk him into taking on this assignment. Berger was right: he should be in Stockholm -in bed with her, for instance-and planning his campaigns against Wennerström. But he felt apathetic about that too, and he didn’t even have the faintest idea how to begin planning a counter-strategy.

Had it been daylight, he would have walked straight to Vanger’s house, cancelled his contract, and gone home. But from the rise beside the church he could make out all the houses on the island side. Harald Vanger’s house was dark, but there were lights on in Cecilia’s home, as well as in Martin’s villa out by the point and in the house that was leased. In the small-boat harbour there were lights on in the draughty cabin of the artist and little clouds of sparks were rising from his chimney. There were also lights on in the top floor of the café, and Blomkvist wondered whether Susanne lived there, and if so, whether she was alone.

On Sunday morning he awoke in panic at the incredible din that filled the guest house. It took him a second to get his bearings and realise that it was the church bells summoning parishioners to morning service. It was nearly 11:00. He stayed in bed until he heard an urgent meowing in the doorway and got up to let out the cat.

By noon he had showered and eaten breakfast. He went resolutely into his office and took down the first binder from the police investigation. Then he hesitated. From the gable window he could see Susanne’s Bridge Café. He stuffed the binder into his shoulder bag and put on his outdoor clothes. When he reached the café, he found it brimming with customers, and there he had the answer to a question that had been in the back of his mind: how could a café survive in a backwater like Hedeby? Susanne specialised in churchgoers and presumably did coffee and cakes for funerals and other functions.

He took a walk instead. Konsum was closed on Sundays, and he continued a few hundred yards towards Hedestad, where he bought newspapers at a petrol station. He spent an hour walking around Hedeby, familiarising himself with the town before the bridge. The area closest to the church and past Konsum was the centre, with older buildings-two-storey stone structures which Blomkvist guessed had been built in the 1910s or ’20s and which formed a short main street. North of the road into town were well-kept apartment buildings for families with children. Along the water and to the south of the church were mostly single-family homes. Hedeby looked to be a relatively well-to-do area for Hedestad’s decision-makers and civil servants.

When he returned to the bridge, the assault on the café had ebbed, but Susanne was still clearing dishes from the tables.

“The Sunday rush?” he said in greeting.

She nodded as she tucked a lock of hair behind one ear. “Hi, Mikael.”

“So you remember my name.”

“Hard to forget,” she said. “I followed your trial on TV.”

“They have to fill up the news with something,” he muttered, and drifted over to the corner table with a view of the bridge. When he met Susanne’s eyes, she smiled.

At 3:00 Susanne announced that she was closing the café for the day. After the church rush, only a few customers had come and gone. Blomkvist had read more than a fifth of the first binder of the police investigation. He stuck his notebook into his bag and walked briskly home across the bridge.