“I love you, my boy,” he murmured, hardly aware of what he was saying, and possibly he repeated the sentence once or twice because the words began to sound increasingly unfamiliar to his ears.
He realized with a new sort of pain that he had never uttered them before, and once he had recovered from the first shock it occurred to him that there was something contemptible in that. Did it take an exceptional talent to make him love his own child? It would be only too typical, if so. All his life he had had an absolute obsession with achievement.
He had never bothered with anything which was not innovative or highly skilled, and when he left Sweden for Silicon Valley he had hardly given a thought to August. Basically his son was no more than an irritant in the scheme of brilliant discoveries which Balder himself was busy making.
But now, he promised himself, things would be different. He would set aside his research and everything that had tormented him these last few months, and devote his whole attention to the boy.
He would become a new person.
Chapter 7
Something else had happened at the magazine, something bad. But Berger did not want to give any details over the telephone. She suggested coming round to his place. Blomkvist had tried to put her off:
“You’re going to freeze that beautiful bum of yours!”
Berger had paid no attention and, but for the tone in her voice, he would have been happy that she was so stubborn. Ever since he left the office he had been longing to speak to her, and maybe even pull her into the bedroom and tear all her clothes off. But something told him this was not going to happen now. She had sounded upset and mumbled, “I’m sorry,” and this only made him more worried.
“I’ll get a taxi right away,” she said.
It was a while before she appeared, and out of boredom he went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. He had certainly seen better days. His hair was dishevelled and needed a cut and he had bags under his eyes. That was basically Elizabeth George’s fault. He swore and left the bathroom to set about cleaning up.
That was one thing at least that Berger would not be able to complain about. However long they had known each other, and however interwoven their lives, he still suffered a complex when it came to tidiness. He was a labourer’s son and a bachelor, she the upper-class married woman with the perfect home in Saltsjöbaden. In any case it could do no harm for his place to look a little respectable. He filled the dishwasher, wiped the sink and put out the rubbish.
He even had time to vacuum the living room, water the flowers on the windowsill and tidy up the bookshelf and magazine rack before the doorbell rang. There was both a ring and an impatient knock. When he opened up he was horrified. Berger was frozen stiff.
She shook like a leaf, and not just because of the weather. She was not even wearing a hat. The wind had ruined her neat hairstyle and there was something that looked like a graze on her right cheek, which had not been there that morning.
“Ricky!” he said. “Are you alright?”
“I’ve frozen off that beautiful bum of mine. Couldn’t get a taxi.”
“What happened to your face?”
“I slipped and fell. Three times, I think.”
He looked down at her dark-red high-heeled Italian boots.
“You’ve got perfect snow boots on too.”
“Yes. Ideal. Not to mention my decision to go without thermals this morning. Brilliant!”
“Come on in and I’ll warm you up.”
She fell into his arms and shook even more as he hugged her close.
“I’m sorry,” she said again.
“What for?”
“For everything. For Serner. I’ve been a fool.”
“Don’t exaggerate now, Ricky.”
He brushed the snowflakes from her hair and forehead and took a careful look at her cheek.
“No, no, I’ll tell you everything,” she said.
“But first get your clothes off and climb into a hot bath. Would you like a glass of red?”
She would, and she stayed in the bath for a long while with her glass, which he refilled two or three times. He sat on the lid of the toilet listening to her story, and despite all the ominous news there was something of a reconciliation about their conversation, as if they were steadily breaking through a wall they had lately been building up between them.
“I know you thought I was being a fool right from the start,” she said. “No, don’t argue, I know you too well. But you have to understand that Christer, Malin and I could see no other solution. We had recruited Emil and Sofie, and we were so proud of that. They were just about the hottest reporters around, weren’t they? It was incredibly prestigious for us. It showed that Millennium was on the move and there was a great buzz, with really positive coverage in Resumé and Dagens Media. It was like the good old days, and personally I felt strongly about the fact that I had promised both Sofie and Emil a secure future at the magazine. ‘Our finances are stable,’ I said. ‘We have Harriet Vanger behind us. We’re going to have the money for fantastic, in-depth reporting.’ You know, I really believed it too. But then...”
“Then the sky fell in.”
“Exactly, and it wasn’t just the newspaper crisis, or the collapse of the advertising market. There was also that whole situation at the Vanger Group. I’m not sure you realize what a mess it was. Sometimes I see it almost as a political coup. All those reactionary old men in the family, and women too for that matter — well, you know them better than anyone. The old racists and regressives got together and stabbed Harriet in the back. I’ll never forget that call from her. I’ve been rolled over, she said. Crushed. Of course it was her efforts to revive and modernize the group which had annoyed them, and then her decision to appoint David Goldman to the board, the son of Rabbi Viktor Goldman. But we were also part of the picture, as you know; Andrei had just written his report on beggars in Stockholm, which we all thought was the best thing he’d ever done, and which was quoted everywhere, even abroad. But which the Vanger people—”
“Thought was lefty rubbish.”
“Worse than that, Mikael — propaganda for ‘lazy buggers who can’t even be bothered to get themselves a job’.”
“Is that what they said?”
“Something along those lines. My guess is that the story itself was irrelevant, it was just their excuse, a pretext for further undermining Harriet’s role within the group. They wanted to put a stop to everything that Henrik and Harriet had stood for.”
“Idiots.”
“My God, yes, but that didn’t exactly help us. I remember those days. It was as if the rug had been pulled from under our feet, and I know, I know — I should have involved you more. But I thought that we’d all benefit if we left you to concentrate on your stories.”
“And still I didn’t deliver anything decent.”
“You tried, Mikael, you really tried. But what I’m coming to is that it was then, when it seemed as if we’d hit rock bottom, that Levin rang.”
“Someone had presumably tipped him off about what had happened.”
“Without a doubt, and I don’t even need to tell you that I was sceptical at first. Serner felt like the trashiest sort of tabloid. But Levin gave it the works, with his usual torrent of words, and invited me down to his big new villa in Cannes.”