He had just about had a fit. Blomkvist had cropped up on every site, and that hurt. Not only because Levin had so gleefully registered that the younger generation hardly knew who Blomkvist was. He also hated that media logic which said that you became a star — a star journalist or a star actor or whatever the hell it might be — simply because you found yourself in some sort of trouble. He would have been happier to read about that has-been Blomkvist who wasn’t even going to keep his job at his own magazine, not if Ove Levin and Serner Media had anything to do with it. Instead they said: why Frans Balder, of all people?
Why on earth did he have to be murdered right under Blomkvist’s nose? Wasn’t that just typical? So infuriating. Even if those useless journalists out there hadn’t realized it yet, Levin knew that Balder was a big name. Not long ago Serner’s own newspaper, Business Daily, had produced a special supplement on Swedish scientific research which had given him a price tag: four billion kronor, though God knows how they got to that figure. Balder was a star, no doubt about it. Most importantly, he was a Garbo. He never gave interviews, and that made him all the more sought after.
How many requests had Balder received from Serner’s own journalists after all? As many as he had refused or, for that matter, simply not bothered to answer. Many of Levin’s colleagues out there thought Balder was sitting on a fantastic story. He couldn’t bear the idea that, so the newspaper reports said, Balder had wanted to talk to Blomkvist in the middle of the night. Could Blomkvist really have a scoop on top of everything else? That would be disastrous. Once more, almost obsessively, Levin went onto the Aftonbladet site and was met with the headline:
The article was illustrated by a double-column photograph of Mikael Blomkvist which did not show any flab at all. Those bastard editors had gone and chosen the most flattering photograph they could find, and that made him angrier still. I have to do something about this, he thought. But what? How could he put a stop to Blomkvist without barging in like some old East German censor and making everything worse? He looked out towards Riddarfjärden and an idea came to him. Borg, he thought. My enemy’s enemy can be my best friend.
“Sanna,” he shouted.
“Yes, Ove?”
Sanna Lind was his young secretary.
“Book a lunch at once with William Borg at Sturehof. If he says he has something else on, tell him this is more important. He can even have a raise,” he said, and thought: why not? If he’s prepared to help me in this mess then it’s only fair he gets something out of it.
Hanna Balder was standing in the living room at Torsgatan looking in despair at August, who had yet again dug out paper and crayons. She had been told that she had to discourage him, and she did not like doing it. Not that she questioned the psychologist’s advice and expertise, but she had her doubts. August had seen his father murdered and if he wanted to draw, why stop him? Even if it did not seem be doing him much good.
His body trembled when he started drawing and his eyes shone with an intense, tormented light. The pattern of squares spreading out and multiplying in mirrors was a strange theme, given what had happened. But what did she know? Maybe it was the same as with his series of numbers. Even though she did not understand it in the slightest, it presumably meant something to him, and perhaps — who knows? — those squares were his own way of coming to terms with events. Shouldn’t she just ignore the instructions? After all, who would find out? She had read somewhere that a mother should rely on her intuition. Gut feeling is often a better tool than all the psychological theories in the world. She decided to let August draw.
But suddenly the boy’s back stiffened like a bow, and Hanna could not help thinking back to what the psychologist had said. She took a hesitant step forward and looked down at the paper. She gave a start, and felt very uncomfortable. At first she could not make sense of it.
She saw the same pattern of squares repeating themselves in two surrounding mirrors and it was extremely skilfully done. But there was something else there as well, a shadow which grew out of the squares, like a demon, a phantom, and it frightened the living daylights out of her. She started to think of films about children who become possessed. She snatched the drawing from the boy and crumpled it up without fully understanding why. Then she shut her eyes and expected to hear that heart-rending toneless cry again.
But she heard no cry, just a muttering which sounded almost like words — impossible because the boy did not speak. Instead Hanna prepared herself for a violent outburst, with August thrashing back and forth over the living-room floor. But there was no attack either, only a calm and composed determination as August took hold of a new piece of paper and started to draw the same squares again. Hanna had no choice but to carry him to his room. Afterwards she would describe what happened as pure horror.
August kicked and screamed and lashed out, and Hanna only just managed to keep hold of him. For a long time she lay in the bed with her arms knotted around him, wishing that she could go to pieces herself. She briefly considered waking Lasse and asking him to give August one of those tranquillizing suppositories they now had, but then discarded that idea. Lasse would be bound to be in a foul mood and she hated to give a child tranquillizers, however much Valium she took herself. There had to be some other way.
She was falling apart, desperately considering one option after the other. She thought of her mother in Katrineholm, of her agent Mia, of the nice woman who rang last night, Gabriella Grane, and then of the psychologist again, Einar Fors-something, who had brought August to her. She had not particularly liked him. On the other hand he had offered to look after August for a while, and this was all his fault in the first place.
He was the one who said August should not draw, so he should be sorting out this mess. In the end she let go of her son and dug out the psychologist’s card to call him. August immediately made a break for the living room to start drawing his damn squares again.
Einar Forsberg did not have a great deal of experience. He was forty-eight years old and with his deep-set blue eyes, brand-new Dior glasses and brown corduroy jacket he could easily be taken for an intellectual. But anyone who had ever disagreed with him would know that there was something stiff and dogmatic about his way of thinking and he often concealed his lack of knowledge behind dogma and cocksure pronouncements.
It had only been two years since he qualified as a psychologist. Before that he was a gym teacher from Tyresö, and if you had asked his old pupils about him they would all have roared: “Silence, cattle! Be quiet, oh my beasts!” Forsberg had loved to shout those words, only half joking, when he wanted order in the classroom, and even though he had hardly been anyone’s favourite teacher he had kept his boys in line. It was this ability which persuaded him that he could put his skills to better use elsewhere.