The Girl Who Played with Fire (Millennium #2)

by Stieg Larsson

She lay on her back fastened by leather straps to a narrow bed with a steel frame. The harness was tight across her rib cage. Her hands were manacled to the sides of the bed.

Equations are classified by the highest power (value of the exponent) of their unknowns. If this is one, the equation is of first degree. If this is two, the equation is of second degree, and so on. Equations of higher degree than one yield multiple possible values for their unknown quantities. These values are known as roots. The first-degree equation (the linear equation): 3x−9 = 0 (root: x = 3)

Dimensions in Mathematics, by Dr. L. C. Parnault (Harvard University Press, 1999).

Cuius rei demonstrationem mirabilem sane detexi hanc marginis exiguitas non caperet. These lines became immortalized in the history of mathematics: I have a truly marvellous demonstration of this proposition which this margin is too narrow to contain.

There were not so many physical threats that could not be countered with a decent hammer, Salander thought.

He had tried to dominate his wife in the years that he was married, but she had merely gone along with it, and that too was a game.

The opportunity makes the thief.

And then out of the blue she had destroyed him. She had struck back with a power and determination that he had not dreamed she possessed. She had humiliated him. She had tortured him. She had all but demolished him.

During the almost two years since then, Bjurman’s life had changed dramatically. After Salander’s nighttime visit to his apartment he had felt paralyzed—virtually incapable of clear thought or decisive action. He had locked himself in, did not answer the telephone, and was unable even to keep up contact with his regular clients. After two weeks he went on sick leave. His secretary was deputized to deal with...

Every day he was confronted by the tattoo on his body. Finally he took down the mirro...

He returned to his office at the beginning of summer. He had handed over most of his clients to his colleagues. The only ones he kept for himself were companies for whom he dealt with legal business correspondence without being invo...

The specialist had examined his abdomen with ill-concealed astonishment. At last he recommended a course of action. One way would be laser treatment, he said, but the tattoo was so extensive and the needle had penetrated so deeply that he was afraid the only realistic solution was a series of skin grafts. It would be expensive and would take time.

On the night she attacked him and established control over his life, she had taken the spare set of keys to his office and apartment. She would be watching him, she had told him, and when he least expected it she would drop in. He had almost begun to believe it was an empty threat, but he had not dared to change the locks. Her warning had been unmistakable—if she ever found him in bed with a woman, Salander would make public the ninety-minute video that documented how he had raped her.

In January a year ago he had woken at 3:00 a.m., not sure why. He turned on his bedside light and almost howled in fright when he saw her standing at the foot of his bed. She was like a ghost suddenly there. Her face was pale and expressionless. In her hand she held her fucking Taser. “Good morning, Mr. Advokat Bjurman,” she said. “So sorry for waking you this time.” Good God, has she been here before? While I slept?

“I woke you for one reason only. I’m going to be away for a long time quite soon. Keep writing your reports every month, but don’t post copies to me. Send them to this hotmail address.”

“Don’t speak. I don’t want to hear your voice.”

“One more thing. The day I set you free, you can do as you like. But until that day you will not set foot again in that clinic in Marseilles. If you begin treatment, I will tattoo you again, and this time I’ll do it on your forehead.” How the fucking hell did she find out about the clinic?

He stopped fantasizing about her death and began planning for it.

He knew the penalties for aggravated rape, exploitation of a person in a subordinate position, abuse and aggravated abuse; he reckoned he would get at least six years in prison. A zealous prosecutor might use one section of the video as the basis for a charge of attempted murder.

He had all but asphyxiated her during the rape when he had excitedly pressed a pillow over her face. He devoutly wished he had finished the job.

They would not accept that she was the whole time playing a game. She had enticed him with her cute little-girl eyes, had seduced him with a body that looked like a twelve-year-old’s. She had provoked him to rape her. They would never see that she had in fact put on a performance. She had planned…

Ew

Unlike anyone else who might try to get at her, he had access to all her medical records, welfare reports, and psychiatric assessments. He was one of the very few people in Sweden who knew her secrets.

He discovered to his great surprise that Salander had a twin sister who had not been referred to in any of the material to which he had previously had access. My God, there are two of them. But he could not find any reference to what had happened to the sister.

It consisted of forty-seven pages of A4, with a dozen or so pages of notes that were added over a six-year period. And finally the photographs. And the name. My God… it can’t be possible. Now he realized why the report had been stamped top secret. There was one other person who had reason to hate Salander with the same passion as he did. He had an ally, the most improbable ally he could have imagined.

Forbes was therefore dependent on his wife. Salander thought that this was not a good position to be in if you were in the habit of abusing your wife.

He’s planning to murder her. Forty million in the pot. The storm is his camouflage. This is his chance.

An equation commonly contains one or more so-called unknowns, often represented by x, y, z, etc. Values given to the unknowns which yield equality between both sides of the equation are said to satisfy the equation and constitute a solution. Example: 3x + 4 = 6x − 2 (x = 2)

All her life she had had to choose the cheapest option, and she was not yet used to the idea that she had more than three billion kronor, which she had stolen by means of an Internet coup combined with good old-fashioned fraud.

She put on makeup, a pair of glasses, and a blond shoulder-length wig and tucked a Norwegian passport in the name of Irene Nesser into her bag. She studied herself in the mirror and decided that Irene Nesser looked a little bit like Lisbeth Salander, but was still a completely different person.

Her mother had spent ten years at Äppelviken, and it was where she finally died at only forty-six, after one last annihilating cerebral haemorrhage. The last fourteen years of Agneta Sofia Salander’s life had been punctuated by small cerebral haemorrhages which left her unable to take care of herself. Sometimes she had not even been able to recognize her daughter.

Her mother had been short and thin, but nowhere near as anorexic-looking as Salander. In fact, her mother had been downright beautiful, and had a lovely figure. Just like Salander’s sister, Camilla.

They were twins, born within twenty minutes of each other. Lisbeth was first. Camilla was beautiful.

From the time they were little girls Camilla had been outgoing, popular, and successful at school, while Lisbeth had been ungiving and introverted, rarely responding to the teachers’ questions. Camilla’s grades were very good; Lisbeth’s never were. Already in elementary school Camilla had distanced herself from her sister to the point that she would not even take the same route to school that Lisbeth took. Teachers and friends noticed that the two girls never had anything to do with each other, never sat next to each other. From the age of eight they had been in separate classes.

They had not seen each other since their seventeenth birthday, and that meeting had ended with Lisbeth getting a black eye and Camilla a fat lip. Lisbeth did not know where Camilla was living now, and she hadn’t made any attempt to find out.

In Lisbeth’s eyes Camilla was insincere, corrupt, and manipulative. But it was Lisbeth whom society had declared incompetent.

During the operation on her breasts at the clinic in Genoa, a ring in her nipple had to be removed. Then she had done away with a ring from her lower lip, and on Grenada she had taken the ring out of her left labium—it had chafed, and she had no idea why she had let herself be pierced there in the first place. She yawned and unscrewed the stud she had had through her tongue for seven years. She put it in a bowl on the shelf next to the sink. Her mouth felt empty. Apart from the rings in her earlobes, she had now only two piercings left: a ring in her left eyebrow and a jewel in her navel.

The strange thing about the dog is that it did not bark, my dear Watson.

There was a difference, besides, between Catholicism and Judaism. He went to the synagogue when he needed company and fellowship with other people. Catholics went to church to seek peace in the presence of God. The church invited silence and visitors would always be left to themselves.

There are no innocents. There are, however, different degrees of responsibility.

It proved once again the theory that no security system is a match for a stupid employee.

Paolo Roberto smiled. “Blomkvist—if you ever need a favour again …” “Yes?” “… ask Sebastián Luján to do it for you.”

Nobody was innocent. There were only varying degrees of responsibility.