The Girl Who Played with Fire (Millennium #2)

Paolo Roberto laughed out loud. "She's one fucking freaky chick...  but she's one of the good ones. I like her."

"How do you know her?"

"I've boxed with Salander since she was seventeen."

Blomkvist closed his eyes for ten seconds before he opened them and looked at the boxing champ. Salander was, as always, full of surprises.

"Of course. Lisbeth Salander boxes with Paolo Roberto. You're in the same division."

"I'm not joking."

"I believe you. She told me once that she used to spar with the boys at some boxing club."

"Let me tell you how it happened. Ten years ago I took a job as a trainer for juniors who wanted to start boxing down at the Zinken club. I was already established, and the club's junior leader thought I'd be a big draw, so I'd come in afternoons and spar with the guys. As it turned out, I stayed the whole summer and part of the autumn too. They ran a campaign and put up posters and all that, trying to lure the local kids. And it did attract a lot of fifteen- and sixteen-year-olds and some a few years older too. Quite a few immigrant kids. Boxing is a great alternative to running around town and raising hell. Ask me. I know."

"I believe you."

"Then one day in the middle of summer this skinny girl turns up out of nowhere. You know how she looks, right? She came into the club and said she wanted to learn to box."

"I can picture the scene."

"There was a roar of laughter from half a dozen guys who weighed about twice as much as she did and were obviously a whole lot bigger. I laughed too. It was nothing serious, but we teased her a little. We have a girls' section too, and I said something stupid about the fact that little chicks were only allowed to box on Thursdays or something like that."

"She didn't laugh, I bet."

"No. She didn't laugh. She looked at me with those black eyes of hers. Then she reached for a pair of boxing gloves that somebody had left lying around. They weren't tied up or anything and they were way too big for her. But we weren't laughing any more. You know what I mean?"

"This doesn't sound good."

Paolo Roberto laughed again. "Since I was the instructor I went up and pretended to jab at her, you know, for make-believe."

"Uh-oh... "

"Right. All of a sudden she whipped out a punch that caught me smack above my mouth. I was just clowning with her and was totally unprepared. She got in two or three punches before I even began to block them. Anyway, she had no muscle strength and it was like being walloped by a feather. But when I started blocking she changed tactics. She boxed instinctively and landed a few more smacks. Then I started blocking seriously and found out that she was quicker than a fucking lizard. If she had been bigger and stronger I would have had a match on my hands."

"I'm not surprised."

"And then she switched tactics again and whacked me a good one right in the balls. I felt that one."

Blomkvist winced.

"Then I jabbed back and got her in the face. I mean, it wasn't a hard punch or anything, just a pop. Then she kicked me in the shin. Anyway, it was totally freaky. I was three times bigger and heavier and she didn't have a chance, but she bashed at me as if her life was at stake."

"You made her angry."

"I realized that later. And I was ashamed. I mean...  we had put up posters and tried to draw in young people, and here she came and asked quite seriously to learn to box, and ran up against a gang of guys who just stood there and made fun of her. I would have lost it, too, if anyone had treated me that way."

"But you might have thought twice about having a crack at Paolo Roberto!"

"Well, Salander's problem was that her punches were worthless. So I started training with her. We had her in the girls' section for a couple of weeks, and she lost several matches because sooner or later somebody would always get a punch in, and then we had to sort of stop and carry her into the locker room because she was so mad and started kicking and biting and slugging us."

"That sounds like Lisbeth."

"She never gave up. But finally she had pissed off so many girls that their trainer kicked her out."

"And then?"

"It was completely impossible to box with her. She only had one style, which we called Terminator Mode. She would try to nail her opponent, and it didn't matter if it was just a warm-up or friendly sparring. And girls kept going home all scraped up because she had kicked them. That was when I had an idea. I had problems with a guy called Samir. He was seventeen and from Syria. He was a good boxer, powerfully built and with a good jab...  but he couldn't move. He stood still the whole time. So I asked Salander to come to the club one afternoon when I was going to train him. She changed and I put her in the ring with him, headgear and mouthpiece and everything. At first Samir refused to spar with her because she was 'just a fucking chick,' all the usual macho crap. So I told him, loud so everyone could hear, that this was no sparring match, and I put up 500 kronor that said she would nail him. To Salander I said that this was no training session and that Samir would pound her in bloody earnest. She looked at me with mistrust. Samir was still standing there babbling when the bell went off. Lisbeth went at him for king and country and thumped him one in the face so he went down on his ass. By then I'd been training her for a whole summer and she was starting to get some muscles and a little power in her punch."

"I bet your Syrian boy was happy."

"Well, they talked about that match for months afterwards. Samir took a licking. She won on points. If she'd had more body strength she really could have hurt him. After a while Samir was so frustrated that he started slugging away full force. I was dead afraid he might actually land a punch and we'd have to call an ambulance. She took some bruises when she blocked with her shoulders a few times, and he managed to get her on the ropes because she couldn't stand up to the force of his blows. But he was nowhere near hitting her for real."

"I wish I'd seen that."

"That day the guys in the club began to respect Salander. Especially Samir. So I started putting her in the ring to spar with considerably bigger and heavier guys. She was my secret weapon and it was great training. We arranged sessions so that Lisbeth's goal was to land five punches on various parts of the body - jaw, forehead, stomach, and so on. And the guys she boxed with had to defend themselves and protect those areas. It turned into sort of a prestige thing to have boxed with Salander. It was like scrapping with a hornet. We actually called her 'the Wasp,' and she became like the mascot of the club. I think she even liked it, because one day she came to the club with a wasp tattooed on her neck."

Blomkvist smiled. He remembered the wasp well. And it was part of the police description of her.

"How long did all this go on?"

"One evening a week for about three years. I was there full-time during that summer and then sporadically after that. The guy who kept up the training with Salander was our junior trainer, Putte Karlsson. Then Salander started working and didn't have time to come as often, but up until last year she'd be there at least once a month. I saw her a few times a year and did sparring sessions with her. It was good training, and we were sweaty afterwards. She hardly ever talked to anyone. When there was no sparring she would work the heavy bag intensely for two hours, as if it were her mortal enemy."

CHAPTER 23

Sunday, April 3 - Monday, April 4

Blomkvist made two more espressos. He apologized when he lit a cigarette. Paolo Roberto shrugged.

He had the public reputation of being a cocky type who would say exactly what he thought. Blomkvist quickly saw that he was just as cocky in private, but that he was an intelligent and modest human being. He reminded himself that Paolo Roberto had also made a bid for a political career as a Social Democrat candidate for parliament. He definitely had something between his ears. Blomkvist found he was beginning to like him.

"Why are you coming to me with this story?"

"That girl's really in the soup, right? I don't know what to do, but she probably could use a friend in her corner."

"I agree."

"Why do you think she's innocent?"

"It's hard to explain. Lisbeth is an uncompromising person, but I just don't believe the story that she could have shot Dag and Mia. Especially not Mia. For one thing, she had no motive -"

"At least none that we know of."

"Fair enough. Lisbeth would have no problem using violence against somebody who deserved it. But I don't know. I've decided to challenge Bublanski, the detective in charge of the investigation. I think there's a reason why Dag and Mia were murdered. And I think the reason is somewhere in the story Dag was working on."

"If you're right, Salander will need more than a hand to hold when she's arrested - she'll need a whole other kind of support."

"I know."

Paolo Roberto had a dangerous glint in his eye. "If she's innocent she's been subjected to one of the worst fucking legal scandals in history. She's been painted as a murderer by the media and the police, and after all the shit that's been written... "

"I know."

"What can we do? Can I help out somehow?"

"The best help we could offer would be to find an alternative suspect. That's what I'm working on. The next best thing would be to get to her before some police thug shoots her dead. Lisbeth isn't the type of person who would give herself up voluntarily."

"So how do we find her?"

"I don't know. But there is one thing you could do. Something practical, if you have the time and energy."

"My girlfriend is away all week. So I do have the time and the energy."

"Well, I was thinking that since you're a boxer... "

"Yes?"

"Lisbeth has a girlfriend, Miriam Wu. You've probably read about her."

"Better known as the S&M dyke...  Yeah, I've read about her."

"I have her mobile number and I've been trying to get hold of her. She hangs up as soon as she hears it's a reporter."

"I don't blame her."

"I don't really have time to chase after Froken Wu. But I read somewhere that she trains in kickboxing. I was thinking that if a famous boxer wanted to get in touch with her... "

"I'm with you. And you're hoping that she might provide a lead to Salander."

"When the police interviewed her she said she had no idea where Lisbeth was staying. But it's worth a try."

"Give me her number. I'll talk to her."

Blomkvist gave him the number and the address on Lundagatan.

Bjorck had spent the weekend analysing his situation. His prospects, he decided, were hanging by a fraying thread, and he would have to make the most of the hand he'd been dealt.

Blomkvist was a fucking swine. The only question was whether he could be persuaded to keep his mouth shut about...  about the fact that Bjorck had hired the services of those bitches. It was a chargeable offence, and he would be fired if it were made public. The press would rip him to shreds. A member of the Security Police who exploited teenage prostitutes...  If only those fucking cunts hadn't been so young.

Sitting here doing nothing would certainly seal his fate. Bjorck was smart enough not to have said anything to Blomkvist. He had read his expression. The man was in agony. He wanted information. But he was going to be forced to pay for it, and the price was his silence.

Zala brought a whole new dimension to the murder investigation.

Svensson had been hunting Zala.

Bjurman had been hunting Zala.

And Superintendent Bjorck was the only one who knew that there was a link between Zala and Bjurman, which meant that Zala was a clue to the murders at Enskede and Odenplan.

This created another serious problem for Bjorck's future well-being. He was the one who had given Bjurman the information about Zalachenko - as a friendly gesture and in spite of the fact that the file was still top secret. That was a detail, but it meant that he had committed another chargeable offence.

Furthermore, since Blomkvist's visit on Friday he had involved himself in yet one more crime. As a police officer, if he had information in a murder investigation it was his duty to inform his colleagues immediately. But if he gave the information to Bublanski or Ekstrom, he would implicate himself. It would all eventually come out. Not just the whores, but the whole Zalachenko affair.

On Saturday he had gone to his office at the Security Police on Kungsholmen. He had picked out all the old documents about Zalachenko and read through them. He was the one who had written the reports, but it was many years ago. The oldest of the documents were almost thirty years old. The most recent was ten years old.

Zalachenko.

A slippery fucker.

Zala.

Bjorck himself had called him that in his report, although he could not remember ever having used the name.

But the connection was crystal clear. To Enskede. To Bjurman. And to Salander.

Bjorck still did not understand how all the pieces of the puzzle fit together, but he thought he knew why Salander had been in Enskede. He could also easily imagine her flying into a rage and killing Svensson and Johansson, either because they had refused to cooperate or because they had provoked her. She had a motive, known only to Bjorck and perhaps two or three other people in the whole country.

She is completely insane. I hope to God that some officer shoots her dead when she's apprehended. She knows. She could break the whole story wide open if she talked.

No matter how Bjorck looked at his situation, Blomkvist was his only possible way out. And that was the one thing that mattered to him. He felt a growing desperation. Blomkvist had to be persuaded to treat him as a confidential source and to keep quiet about his...  foolish escapades with those fucking whores. Damn, if only Salander would blow Blomkvist's head off too.