The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (Millennium #0)

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (Millennium #0) Page 33

There was impatient muttering around the table.

"You can read about a lot of this in a report from the government's Construction Cost Delegation, which was active in the late '90s. Since then not much has happened. No-one is talking to the construction companies about the unreasonable prices. The buyers cheerfully pay what they are told it costs, and in the end the price burden falls on the renters or the taxpayers."

"Henry, the toilets?"

"The little that has changed since the Construction Cost Delegation's report has happened at the local level, and primarily outside Stockholm. There are buyers who got fed up with the high construction prices. One example is Karlskrona Homes, which builds houses less expensively than anyone else by buying the materials themselves. And Svensk Handel has also got into the game. They think that the price of construction materials is absurd, so they've been trying to make it easier for companies to buy less expensive products that are equally good. And that led to a little clash at the Construction Fair in alvsjo last year. Svensk Handel had brought in a man from Thailand who was selling toilets for 500 kronor apiece."

"And what happened?"

"His nearest competitor was a Swedish wholesale outfit called Vitavara Inc., which sells genuine Swedish toilets for 1700 kronor apiece. And shrewd municipal buyers started to scratch their heads and wonder why they were shelling out 1700 kronor when they could get a similar toilet from Thailand for 500."

"Better quality maybe," Karim said.

"No. The exact same."

"Thailand," Malm said. "That sounds like child labour and stuff like that. Which could explain the low price."

"Not so," Cortez said. "Child labour exists mostly in the textile and souvenir industries in Thailand. And the paedophile industry, of course. The United Nations keeps an eye on child labour, and I've checked out this company. They're a reputable manufacturer. It's a big, modern, respectable operation producing appliances and plumbing goods."

"Alright... but we're talking about low-wage countries, and that means that you risk writing an article proposing that Swedish industry should be outbid by Thai industry. Fire the Swedish workers and close the factories here, and import everything from Thailand. You won't win any points with the Trades Union Federation."

A smile spread over Cortez's face. He leaned back and looked ridiculously pleased with himself.

"No again," he said. "Guess where Vitavara Inc. makes its toilets to sell at 1700 kronor apiece?"

Silence fell over the room.

"Vietnam," Cortez said.

"You've got to be kidding," Eriksson said.

"They've been making toilets there for at least ten years. Swedish workers were already out of that race in the '90s."

"Oh, shit."

"But here comes my point. If you imported directly from the factory in Vietnam, the price would be in the order of 390 kronor. Guess how you can explain the price difference between Thailand and Vietnam?"

"Don't tell me that  - "

"Oh, yes. Vitavara Inc. subcontracts the work to an outfit called Fong Soo Industries. They're on the U.N. list of companies that use child labour, at least they were in an investigation from 2001. But the majority of the workers are convicts."

Eriksson burst out laughing. "This is great. This is really great. I'm sure you're going to be a journalist when you grow up. How fast can you have the story ready?"

"Two weeks. I have a lot of international trade stuff to check out. And then we need a bad guy for the story, so I'm going to see who owns Vitavara Inc."

"Then we could run it in the June issue?"

"No problem."

Inspector Bublanski listened to Prosecutor Ekstrom without expression. The meeting had lasted forty minutes, and Bublanski was feeling an intense desire to reach out and grab the copy of The Law of the Swedish Kingdom that lay on the edge of Ekstrom's desk and ram it into the prosecutor's face. He wondered what would happen if he acted on his impulse. There would certainly be headlines in the evening papers and it would probably result in an assault charge. He pushed the thought away. The whole point of the socialized human being was to not give in to that sort of impulse, regardless of how belligerently an opponent might behave. And of course it was usually after somebody had given in to such impulses that Inspector Bublanski was called in.

"I take it that we're in agreement," Ekstrom said.

"No, we are not in agreement," Bublanski said, getting to his feet. "But you're the leader of the preliminary investigation."

He muttered to himself as he turned down the corridor to his office, summoning Andersson and Modig as he went. They were the only colleagues available to him that afternoon as Holmberg had regrettably opted to take a two-week holiday.

"My office," Bublanski said. "Bring some coffee."

After they had settled in, Bublanski looked at the notes from his meeting with Ekstrom.

"As the situation stands, our preliminary investigation leader has dropped all charges against Lisbeth Salander relating to the murders for which she was being sought. She is no longer part of the preliminary investigation so far as we're concerned."

"That can be considered a step forward, at any rate," Modig said.

Andersson, as usual, said nothing.

"I'm not so sure about that," Bublanski said. "Salander is still suspected of G.B.H. in connection with the events at Stallarholmen and Gosseberga. But we're no longer involved with those investigations. We have to concentrate on finding Niedermann and working on the graves in the woods at Nykvarn. On the other hand it's now clear that Ekstrom is going to bring charges against Salander. The case has been transferred to Stockholm, and an entirely new investigation has been set up for the purpose."

"Oh, really?" Modig said.

"And who do you think is going to investigate Salander?" Bublanski said.

"I'm fearing the worst."

"Hans Faste is back on duty, and he's going to assist Ekstrom."

"That's insane. Faste is grossly unsuited to investigate anything at all to do with Salander."

"I know that. But Ekstrom has a good argument. Faste has been out sick since... hmm... he collapsed in April, and this would be the perfect, simple case for him to focus on."

Silence.

"The long and the short of it is that we're to hand all our material on Salander over to him this afternoon."

"And this story about Gunnar Bjorck and Sapo and the 1991 report..."

"... is going to be handled by Faste and Ekstrom."

"I don't like this," Modig said.

"Nor do I. But Ekstrom's the boss, and he has backing from higher up in the bureaucracy. In other words, our job is still to find the killer. Curt, what's the situation?"

Andersson shook his head. "Niedermann seems to have been swallowed up by the earth. I have to admit that in all my years on the force I've never seen anything like it. We haven't had any tip-offs, and we don't have a single informer who knows him or has any idea where he might be."

"That sounds fishy," Modig said. "But he's being sought for the police murder in Gosseberga, for G.B.H on another officer, for the attempted murder of Salander, and for the aggravated kidnapping and assault of the dental nurse Anita Kaspersson, as well as for the murders of Svensson and Johansson. In every instance there's good forensic evidence."

"That helps a bit, at least. How's it going with the case of Svavelsjo M.C.'s treasurer?"

"Viktor Goransson  -  and his girlfriend, Lena Nygren. Fingerprints and D.N.A. from Goransson's body. Niedermann must have bloodied his knuckles pretty badly during the beating."

"Anything new on Svavelsjo M.C.?"

"Nieminen has taken over as club president while Lundin remains in custody, awaiting trial for the kidnapping of Miriam Wu. There's a whisper that Nieminen has offered a big reward to anyone who could provide information as to Niedermann's whereabouts."

"Which makes it even stranger that he hasn't been found, if the entire underworld is looking for him. What about Goransson's car?"

"Since we found Kaspersson's car at Goransson's place, we're sure that Niedermann switched vehicles. But we have no trace of the car he took."

"So we have to ask ourselves, one, is Niedermann still hiding out somewhere in Sweden?; two, if so, with whom?; three, is he out of the country? What do we think?"

"We have nothing to tell us that he has left the country, but really that seems his most logical course."

"If he has gone, where did he ditch the car?"

Modig and Andersson shook their heads. Nine times out of ten, police work was largely uncomplicated when it came to looking for one specific individual. It was about initiating a logical sequence of inquiries. Who were his friends? Who had he been in prison with? Where does his girlfriend live? Who did he drink with? In what area was his mobile last used? Where is his vehicle? At the end of that sequence the fugitive would generally be found.

The problem with Niedermann was that he had no friends, no girlfriend, no listed mobile, and he had never been in prison.

The inquiries had concentrated on finding Goransson's car, which Niedermann was presumed to be using. They had expected the car to turn up in a matter of days, probably in some car park in Stockholm. But there was as yet no sign of it.

"If he's out of the country, where would he be?"

"He's a German citizen, so the obvious thing would be for him to head for Germany."

"He seems not to have had any contact with his old friends in Hamburg."

Andersson waved his hand. "If his plan was to go to Germany... Why would he drive to Stockholm? Shouldn't he have made for Malmo and the bridge to Copenhagen, or for one of the ferries?"

"I know. And Inspector Erlander in Goteborg has been focusing his search in that direction from day one. The Danish police have been informed about Goransson's car, and we know for sure that he didn't take any of the ferries."

"But he did drive to Stockholm and to Svavelsjo, and there he murdered the club's treasurer and  -  we may assume  -  went off with an unspecified sum of money. What would his next step be?"

"He has to get out of Sweden," Bublanski said. "The most obvious thing would be to take one of the ferries across the Baltic. But Goransson and his girlfriend were murdered late on the night of April 9. Niedermann could have taken the ferry the next morning. We got the alarm roughly sixteen hours after they died, and we've had an A.P.B. out on the car ever since."

"If he took the morning ferry, then Goransson's car would have been parked at one of the ports," Modig said.

"Perhaps we haven't found the car because Niedermann drove out of the country to the north via Haparanda? A big detour around the Gulf of Bothnia, but in sixteen hours he could have been in Finland."

"Sure, but soon after he would have had to abandon the car in Finland, and it should have been found by now."

They sat in silence. Finally Bublanski got up and stood at the window.

"Could he have found a hiding place where he's just lying low, a summer cabin or  - "

"I don't think it would be a summer cabin. This time of year every cabin owner is out checking their property."

"And he wouldn't try anywhere connected to Svavelsjo M.C. They're the last people he'd want to run into."

"And the entire underworld should be excluded as well... Any girlfriend we don't know about?"

They could speculate, but they had no facts.

When Andersson had left for the day, Modig went back to Bublanski's office and knocked on the door jamb. He waved her in.

"Have you got a couple of minutes?" she said.

"What's up?"

"Salander. I don't like this business with Ekstrom and Faste and a new trial. You've read Bjorck's report. I've read Bjorck's report. Salander was unlawfully committed in 1991 and Ekstrom knows it. What the hell is going on?"

Bublanski took off his reading glasses and tucked them into his breast pocket. "I don't know."

"Have you got any idea at all?"

"Ekstrom claims that Bjorck's report and the correspondence with Teleborian were falsified."

"That's rubbish. If it were a fake, then Bjorck would have said so when we brought him in."

"Ekstrom says Bjorck refused to discuss it, on the grounds that it was Top Secret. I was given a dressing down because I jumped the gun and brought him in."

"I'm beginning to have strong reservations about Ekstrom."

"He's getting squeezed from all sides."

"That's no excuse."

"We don't have a monopoly on the truth, Sonja. Ekstrom says he's received evidence that the report is a fake  -  that there is no real report with that protocol number. He also says that the forgery is a good one and that the content is a clever blend of truth and fantasy."

"Which part was truth and which part was fantasy, that's what I need to know," Modig said.

"The outline story is pretty much correct. Zalachenko is Salander's father, and he was a bastard who beat her mother. The problem is the familiar one  -  the mother never wanted to make a complaint so it went on for several years. Bjorck was given the job of finding out what happened when Salander tried to kill her father. He corresponded with Teleborian  -  but the correspondence in the form we've seen it is apparently a forgery. Teleborian did a routine psychiatric examination of Salander and concluded that she was mentally unbalanced. A prosecutor decided not to take the case any further. She needed care, and she got it at St Stefan's."