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“I know. Morander told me. But when it comes to policy he’s going to have to toe the line. I’m the one you hired to run the paper.”
Borgsjö thought for a moment and said: “We’re going to have to solve these problems as they come up.”
Gia
She’s hiding something. That little fool is not telling me the truth. And Micke is hiding something too. God knows what they’re playing at.
She also decided that since her brother and her client had not so far communicated with each other, the conspiracy – if it was one – had to be a tacit agreement that had developed naturally. She did not understand what it was about, but it had to be something that her brother considered important enough to conceal.
She was afraid that it was a moral issue, and that was one of his weaknesses. He was Salander’s friend. She knew her brother. She knew that he was loyal to the point of foolhardiness once he had made someone a friend, even if the friend was impossible and obviously flawed. She also knew that he could accept any number of idiocies from his friends, but that there was a boundary and it could not be infringed. Where exactly this boundary was seemed to vary from one person to another, but she knew he had broken completely with people who had previously been close friends because they had done something that he regarded as beyond the pale. And he was inflexible. The break was for ever.
Gia
She had gathered that Salander could be moody and withdrawn. Until she met her in person, Gia
Salander seemed at times to be in a deep depression and had not the slightest interest in dealing with her situation or her future. She simply did not grasp or did not care that the only way Gia
Salander was sulky and often just silent. When she did say something, she took a long time to think and she chose her words carefully. Often she did not reply at all, and sometimes she would answer a question that Gia
On principle, she knew, Salander never talked to the authorities. In this case, that was an advantage. Despite the fact that she kept urging her client to answer questions from the police, deep inside she was pleased with Salander’s silence. The reason was simple. It was a consistent silence. It contained no lies that could entangle her, no contradictory reasoning that would look bad in court.
But she was astonished at how imperturbable Salander was. When they were alone she had asked her why she so provocatively refused to talk to the police.
“They’ll twist what I say and use it against me.”
“But if you don’t explain yourself, you risk being convicted anyway.”
“Then that’s how it’ll have to be. I didn’t make all this mess. And if they want to convict me, it’s not my problem.”
Salander had in the end described to her lawyer almost everything that had happened at Stallarholmen. All except for one thing. She would not explain how Magge Lundin had ended up with a bullet in his foot. No matter how much she asked and nagged, Salander would just stare at her and smile her crooked smile.
She had also told Gia
When Gia
This is getting us nowhere, Gia
Salander sat on the edge of her bed, looking out of the window. She could see the building on the other side of the car park. She had sat undisturbed and motionless for an hour, ever since Gia
She was irritated with Gia
And yet it was her life that was going to be turned inside out. She would be forced to explain herself and to beg for forgiveness because she had defended herself.
She just wanted to be left in peace. And when it came down to it, she was the one who would have to live with herself. She did not expect anyone to be her friend. A
She wondered what Armansky thought of her after all that had happened.
She wondered how Holger Palmgren viewed the situation.
According to Gia
She wondered what Miriam Wu felt about her.
She wondered what she thought of herself, come to that, and came to the realization that most of all she felt indifference towards her entire life.
She was interrupted when the Securitas guard put the key in the door to let in Dr Jonasson.
“Good evening, Fröken Salander. And how are you feeling today?”
“O.K.,” she said.
He checked her chart and saw that she was free of her fever. She had got used to his visits, which came a couple of times a week. Of all the people who touched her and poked at her, he was the only one in whom she felt a measure of trust. She never felt that he was giving her strange looks. He visited her room, chatted a while, and examined her to check on her progress. He did not ask any questions about Niederma