“But there was no suicide.”
“No, the man jogged on in the direction of Balder’s house. He had a rucksack, and dark clothes, possibly camouflage trousers. He was powerful and athletic and reminded Ivan of his old toys, he said, his ninja warriors.”
“That doesn’t sound good either.”
“Not good at all. Presumably this was the man who shot at Blomkvist.”
“And Blomkvist didn’t see his face?”
“No, he threw himself to the ground when the man turned and shot at him. It all happened very quickly. But according to Blomkvist the man looked as if he had military training and that fits with Ivan Grede’s observations. I have to agree: the speed and efficiency of the operation point in that direction.”
“Have you got to the bottom of why Blomkvist was there?”
“Oh, definitely. If anything was done properly last night, it was the interviews with him. Have a look at this.” Modig handed over a transcript. “Blomkvist had been in touch with one of Balder’s former assistants who claimed that the professor had been targeted by a data breach and had his technology stolen. The story interested Blomkvist. But Balder had been living as a recluse and had virtually no contact with the outside world. All the shopping and errands were done by a housekeeper called... just a second... Fru Rask, Lottie Rask, who incidentally had strict instructions not to say a word about the son living in the house. I’ll come to that in a moment. Then last night I’m guessing that Balder was worried and wanted to get some anxiety off his chest. Don’t forget, he had just been told that he was subject to a serious threat. Plus his burglar alarm had gone off and two policemen were guarding the house. Perhaps he suspected that his days were numbered. No way of knowing. In any case he called Mikael Blomkvist in the middle of the night and said he wanted to tell him something.”
“In the olden days in situations like that you would call a priest.”
“So now you call a journalist. Well, it’s pure speculation. We only know what Balder said on Blomkvist’s voicemail. Apart from that we have no idea what he was planning to tell him. Blomkvist says he doesn’t know either, and I believe him. But I seem to be pretty much the only one who does. Ekström, who’s being a massive nuisance, by the way, is convinced Blomkvist is holding back things which he plans to publish in his magazine. I find that very hard to believe. Blomkvist is a tricky bugger, we all know that. But he isn’t someone who will knowingly, deliberately sabotage a police investigation.”
“Definitely not.”
“Ekström is coming on strong and saying that Blomkvist should be arrested for perjury and obstruction and God knows what else.”
“That’s not going to help.”
“No, and bearing in mind what Blomkvist is capable of I think we’re better off staying on good terms with him.”
“I suppose we’ll have to talk to him again.”
“I agree.”
“And this thing with Lasse Westman?”
“We’ve just spoken to him, and it’s not an edifying story. Westman had been to every bar in town — Konstnärsbaren, Teatergrillen, Café Opera, Riche, you get the idea — and was ranting and raving about Balder and the boy for hours on end. He drove his friends crazy. The more Westman drank and the more money he blew, the more fixated he became.”
“Why was this important to him?”
“Partly it was a hang — up. You get that with alcoholics. I remember it from an old uncle. Every time he got loaded, he got something fixed in his mind. But obviously there’s more to it than that. At first Westman went on about the custody ruling, and if he had been a different person one might believe that he really was concerned for the boy. But in this case... I suppose you know that Westman has a conviction for assault.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“He had a relationship some years ago with some fashion blogger, Renata Kapusinski. He beat the crap out of her. I think he even bit her rather badly in the cheek. Also, Balder had intended to report him. He never sent in the paperwork — perhaps because of the legal position he found himself in — but it clearly suggests that he suspected Westman of being violent towards his son as well.”
“What are you saying?”
“Balder had noticed unexplained bruises on the boy’s body — and in this he’s backed up by a psychologist from the Centre for Autism. So it was...”
“... probably not love and concern which drove Westman out to Saltsjöbaden.”
“More likely it was money. After Balder took back his son, he had stopped or at least reduced the child support he had agreed to pay.”
“Westman didn’t try to report him for that?”
“He probably didn’t dare to, in the circumstances.”
“What else does the custody ruling say?” Bublanski said, after a pause.
“That Balder was a useless father.”
“Was he?”
“He certainly wasn’t evil, like Westman. But there’d been an incident. After the divorce, Balder had his son every other weekend, and at that time he was living in an apartment in Östermalm with books from floor to ceiling. One of those weekends, when August was six, he was in the sitting room — with Balder glued to his computer in the next room as usual. We don’t know exactly what happened. But there was a small stepladder propped against one of the bookshelves. August climbed it and probably took hold of some of the books higher up and fell and broke his elbow. He knocked himself unconscious, but Balder didn’t hear anything. He just kept working and only after several hours did he discover August lying on the floor next to those books, moaning. At that he became hysterical and drove the boy to A. & E.”
“And he lost custody altogether?”
“Not only that. He was declared emotionally immature and incapable of taking care of his child. He was not to be allowed to be alone with August. But frankly, I don’t think much of that ruling.”
“Why not?”
“Because it was an uncontested hearing. The ex-wife’s lawyer went at it hammer and tongs, while Balder grovelled and said he was useless and irresponsible and unfit to live and God knows what else. What the tribunal wrote was malicious and tendentious, to my mind. To the effect that Balder had never been able to connect with other people and had always sought refuge with machines. Now that I’ve had time to look into his life a little, I’m not that impressed by how it was dealt with. His guilt-laden tirades and self-criticism were taken as gospel by the tribunal. At any rate Balder was extremely cooperative. As I said, he agreed to pay a large amount of child support, forty thousand a month, I believe, plus a one-off payment of nine hundred thousand kronor for unforeseen expenses. Not long after that he took himself off to America.”
“But then he came back.”
“Yes, and there were a number of reasons for that. He’d had his technology stolen, and maybe he identified who had done it. He found himself in a serious dispute with his employer. But I think it had also to do with his son. The woman from the Centre for Autism I mentioned, she’d been very optimistic about the boy’s development at an early stage. But then nothing turned out as she’d hoped. She also received reports that Hanna Balder and Westman had failed to live up to their responsibilities when it came to his schooling. It had been agreed that August would be taught at home, but the special-needs teachers seem to have been played off against each other. Probably the money for his education was misappropriated and fake teachers’ names used, all sorts of stuff like that. But that’s an altogether different story which somebody will have to look into at some point.”