The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Trilogy Bundle by Stieg Larsson Page B

publicity surrounding the trial that caused Herr Vanger to take notice of you. He wants to offer you a freelance assignment. I’m only a messenger. What the matter concerns is something only he can explain.”
    â€œThis is one of the odder calls I’ve had in a long time. Let me think about it. How can I reach you?”

    Blomkvist sat looking at the disorder on his desk. He could not imagine what sort of job Vanger would want to offer him, but the lawyer had succeeded in arousing his curiosity.
    He Googled the Vanger company. It might be in the backwaters but it seemed to be in the media almost daily. He saved a dozen company analyses and then searched for Frode, and Henrik and Martin Vanger.
    Martin Vanger appeared diligent in his capacity as CEO of the Vanger Corporation. Frode kept a low profile; he was on the board of the Hedestad Country Club and active in the Rotary Club. Henrik Vanger appeared, with one exception, only in articles giving the background of the company. The
Hedestad Courier
had published a tribute to the former magnate on his eightieth birthday two years ago, and it included a short sketch. He put together a folder of fifty pages or so. Then finally he emptied his desk, sealed the cartons, and, having no idea whether he would come back, went home.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 
    Salander spent Christmas Eve at the Äppelviken Nursing Home in Upplands-Väsby. She had brought presents: a bottle of eau de toilette by Dior and an English fruitcake from Åhléns department store. She drank coffee as she watched the forty-six-year-old woman who with clumsy fingers was trying to untie the knot on the ribbon. Salander had tenderness in her eyes, but that this strange woman was her mother never ceased to amaze her. She could recognise not the slightest resemblance in looks or nature.
    Her mother gave up the struggle and looked helplessly at the package. It was not one of her better days. Salander pushed across the scissors that had been in plain sight on the table and her mother suddenly seemed to wake up.
    â€œYou must think I’m stupid.”
    â€œNo, Mum. You’re not stupid. But life is unfair.”
    â€œHave you seen your sister?”
    â€œNot in a long time.”
    â€œShe never comes.”
    â€œI know, Mum. She doesn’t see me either.”
    â€œAre you working?”
    â€œYes. I’m doing fine.”
    â€œWhere do you live? I don’t even know where you live.”
    â€œI live in your old apartment on Lundagatan. I’ve lived there for several years. I had to take over the payments.”
    â€œIn the summertime maybe I can come and see you.”
    â€œOf course. In the summertime.”
    Her mother at last got the Christmas present open and sniffed at the aroma, enchanted. “Thank you, Camilla,” she said.
    â€œLisbeth. I’m Lisbeth.”
    Her mother looked embarrassed. Salander said that they should go to the TV room.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 
    Blomkvist spent the hour of the Disney special on Christmas Eve with his daughter Pernilla at the home of his ex-wife, Monica, and her new husband in Sollentuna. After discussions with her mother they had agreed to give Pernilla an iPod, an MP3 player hardly bigger than a matchbox which could store her huge CD collection.
    Father and daughter spent the time together in her room upstairs. Pernilla’s parents were divorced when she was five, and she had had a new father since she was seven. Pernilla came to see him about once a month and had week-long holidays with him in Sandhamn. When they spent time together they usually got along well, but Blomkvist had let his daughter decide how often she wanted to see him, the more so after her mother remarried. There had been a couple of years in her early teens when contact almost stopped, and it was only in the past two years that she seemed to want to see him more often.
    She had followed the trial in the firm belief