Free The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson

about less than an hour after I get to my office in Stockholm. And I won’t write a word of what you tell me.”
    She hesitated for a while before she met his gaze.
    “He made a formal complaint against Salander, that she tried to kill him. She risks being charged with aggravated assault and attempted murder.”
    “And in all likelihood she’ll claim self-defence.”
    “I hope she will,” Modig said.
    “That doesn’t sound like an official line.”
    “Bodin—Zalachenko—is as slippery as an eel, and he has answers to all our questions. I’m convinced that things are more or less as you told us yesterday, and that means that Salander has been subjected to a lifetime of injustice—since she was twelve.”
    “That’s the story I’m going to publish,” Blomkvist said.
    “It won’t be popular with some people.”
    Modig hesitated again. Blomkvist waited.
    “I talked with Bublanski half an hour ago. He didn’t go into any detail, but the preliminary investigation against Salander for the murder of your friends seems to have been shelved. The focus has shifted to Niedermann.”
    “Which means that . . .” He let the question hang in the air between them.
    Modig shrugged.
    “Who’s going to take over the investigation of Salander?”
    “I don’t know. What happened in Gosseberga is primarily Göteborg’s problem. I would guess that somebody in Stockholm will be assigned to compile all the material for a prosecution.”
    “I see. What do you think the odds are that the investigation will be transferred to Säpo?”
    Modig shook her head.
    Just before they reached Alingsås, Blomkvist leaned towards her. “Sonja, I think you understand how things stand. If the Zalachenko story gets out, there’ll be a massive scandal. Säpo conspired with a psychiatrist to lock Salander up in an asylum. The only thing they can do now is to stonewall and go on claiming that Salander is mentally ill, and that committing her in 1991 was justified.”
    Modig nodded.
    “I’m going to do everything I can to counter any such claims. I believe that Salander is as sane as you or I. Odd, certainly, but her intellectual gifts are undeniable.” He paused to let what he had said sink in. “I’m going to need somebody on the inside I can trust.”
    She met his gaze. “I’m not competent to judge whether or not Salander is mentally ill.”
    “But you are competent to say whether or not she was the victim of a miscarriage of justice.”
    “What are you suggesting?”
    “I’m only asking you to let me know if you discover that Salander is being subjected to another miscarriage of justice.”
    Modig said nothing.
    “I don’t want details of the investigation or anything like that. I just need to know what’s happening with the charges against her.”
    “It sounds like a good way for me to get kicked off the force.”
    “You would be a source. I would never, ever mention your name.”
    He wrote an email address on a page torn from his notebook.
    “This is an untraceable Hotmail address. You can use it if you have anything to tell me. Don’t use your official address, obviously; just set up your own temporary Hotmail account.”
    She put the address in the inside pocket of her jacket. She did not make him any promises.
    Inspector Erlander woke at 7:00 on Saturday morning to the ringing of his phone. He heard voices from the TV and smelled coffee from the kitchen,where his wife was already doing her morning chores. He had returned to his apartment in Mölndal at 1:00 in the morning, having been on duty for twenty-two hours, so he was far from wide awake when he reached to answer it.
    “Rikardsson, night shift. Are you awake?”
    “No,” Erlander said. “What’s happened?”
    “News. Anita Kaspersson has been found.”
    “Where?”
    “Outside Seglora, south of Borås.”
    Erlander visualized the map in his head.
    “South,” he said. “He’s taking the back roads. He must have driven up the 180 through Borås and