Free Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson

else right now.”
    “OK. But I want us to be in agreement about the constraints of the job. Let’s hear the rest of your report.”
    “There isn’t much more apart from his private life. In 1986 he married Monica Abrahamsson and the same year they had a daughter, Pernilla. The marriage didn’t last; they were divorced in 1991. Abrahamsson has remarried, but they seem to be friends still. The daughter lives with her mother and doesn’t see Blomkvist often.”
    Frode asked for more coffee and then turned to Salander.
    “You said that everyone has secrets. Did you find any?”
    “I meant that all people have things they consider to be private and that they don’t go around airing in public. Blomkvist is obviously a big hit with women. He’s had several love affairs and a great many casual flings. But one person has kept turning up in his life over the years, and it’s an unusual relationship.”
    “In what way?”
    “Erika Berger, editor in chief of
Millennium
: upper-class girl, Swedish mother, Belgian father resident in Sweden. Berger and Blomkvist met in journalism school and have had an on-and-off relationship ever since.”
    “That may not be so unusual,” Frode said.
    “No, possibly not. But Berger happens to be married to the artist Greger Beckman, a minor celebrity who has done a lot of terrible things in public venues.”
    “So she’s unfaithful.”
    “Beckman knows about their relationship. It’s a situation apparently accepted by all parties concerned. Sometimes she sleeps at Blomkvist’s and sometimes at home. I don’t know exactly how it works, but it was probably a contributing factor to the breakup of Blomkvist’s marriage to Abrahamsson.”

CHAPTER 3

Friday, December 20–
Saturday, December 21
    Erika Berger looked up quizzically when an apparently freezing Blomkvist came into the editorial office.
Millennium
’s offices were in the centre of the trendy section of Götgatan, above the offices of Greenpeace. The rent was actually a bit too steep for the magazine, but they had all agreed to keep the space.
    She glanced at the clock. It was 5:10, and darkness had fallen over Stockholm long before. She had been expecting him around lunchtime.
    “I’m sorry,” he said before she managed to say anything. “But I was feeling the weight of the verdict and didn’t feel like talking. I went for a long walk to think things over.”
    “I heard the verdict on the radio.
She
from TV4 called and wanted a comment.”
    “What’d you say?”
    “Something to the effect that we were going toread the judgement carefully before we make any statements. So I said nothing. And my opinion still holds: it’s the wrong strategy. We come off looking weak with the media. They will run something on TV this evening.”
    Blomkvist looked glum.
    “How are you doing?”
    Blomkvist shrugged and plopped down in his favourite armchair next to the window in Erika’s office. The decor was spartan, with a desk and functional bookcases and cheap office furniture. All of it was from IKEA apart from the two comfortable and extravagant armchairs and a small end table—a concession to my upbringing, she liked to say. She would sit reading in one of the armchairs with her feet tucked underneath her when she wanted to get away from the desk. Blomkvist looked down on Götgatan, where people were hurrying by in the dark. Christmas shopping was in full swing.
    “I suppose it’ll pass,” he said. “But right now it feels as if I’ve got myself a very raw deal.”
    “Yes, I can imagine. It’s the same for all of us. Janne Dahlman went home early today.”
    “I assume he wasn’t over the moon about the verdict.”
    “He’s not the most positive person anyway.”
    Mikael shook his head. For the past ninemonths Dahlman had been managing editor. He had started there just as the Wennerström affair got going, and he found himself on an editorial staff in crisis mode. Blomkvist tried to remember what their reasoning had