Chapter 5 Women Who Hate Men
January 8th - 9th
'The sky was dark when Lisbeth Salander stepped out of Globala Gymnasiet on the south side of Hornsgatan. She was the runt of the grade sevens, but it didn't stop her from smashing that stupid Bergström boy into the brick wall next to the library. Salander knew she was easily outmatched and it took three burly grade elevens to haul them both up to their separate corners of the infirmary after she'd been thrown face down into a rubbish bin.
An hour and half later she was released from detention and into the world for the two week Christmas break. Everyone was excited for it; but she knew it meant that he would be back. She hoped in vain that his long absence since Midsummers's Eve could be taken as a sign of his horrific death at the hands of a lorry on some desolate rural road where he'd be left for the ravens.
Lisbeth heard the squeal of bicycle tires and laughter around the corner on Lundsgatan as Camilla and her gaggle of school friends tore around the corner. The cheap chrome frame still shined brightly as they rode past,
Camilla paused briefly as she passed, though Lisbeth didn't know why she would even acknowledge her when she was so close to her friends.
"Papa's home." Then she was gone, riding the wrong direction down Ringvägen, shrieking like banshees.
Their apartment was in the eighth building on the left. His car was parked across the street in front of the apartments with the nice view of the Riddarfjärden, the cabin filled with McDonald's wrappers and beer cans that looked to be days or possibly weeks old. A small trail of cigarette smoke could be seen from their second floor window and Lisbeth had no doubt that he was watching her.
Their neighbors on the floor all seemed to be loitering in the hall when she raced up from the stairs.
"It's just the fucking Salander's," was one man's comment to his immediate neighbor, giving her a nasty glare that she returned in kind as she ran by. He was just as bad a wife beater as her own father and at times she could hear muted screams through the wall their apartment units shared.
The apartment was dead silent when she entered. That alone was a bad sign. She could see Zalachenko smiling sweetly at her and she could never remember a time of absolute quiet when he was here.
Her hands were balled into tiny fists at the sight of him, standing defiantly by the coat closet. He never smiled. "Where's my mother?"
"Right here." He held his hands out, and then Lisbeth could see what was hidden behind their ugly checked couch.
No. Lisbeth looked down on her abnormally still mother. There was always some movement, some tiny little sob. Now she was as limp and unmoving as a rag doll. He's killed her, she thinks, rushing to her mother's side. No, she's still breathing. Her eyes are open but unseeing.
"What did you do to her!"
Zalachenko looked down at his runt of a daughter grabbing her forcefully by the chin. "A woman should never refuse a man, Lisbeth. I only put your mother in her place."
He laughed at her then, the sound filling her with rage as she watched him prod her mother with the tip of his steel-toed boot before flicking his cigarette on the rug to smolder. He turned for the door, Lisbeth hot on his heels, landing a sharp kick behind his knee. He stumbled slightly and when she returned for more he backhanded her with enough force to send her flying into the couch.
He hoisted her up by her auburn hair. "DO NOT DISRESPECT ME IN THIS HOUSE!" Another smack to the face and he was gone, stomping down the hallway as Lisbeth crawled to her prone mother. She still hadn't so much as moved or made a sound. Blood had congealed in her wavy brown hair, her face a mass of black and blue that gave her an inhuman appearance.
"Your mother was a whore."'
Salander woke with a start, a cold sweat poring down her face as she felt a hand grope at her neck in the dark. Fuck, he's here! Panic coursed through her veins as she rolled off the edge of the bed, hitting the floor hard before rolling off towards the wardrobe. Her Taser was in the top drawer stuffed inside a sock. She waved it menacingly at the shadow moving on the bed.
"…Lisbeth?" Blomkvist saw the blue electrical current that sparked in her hand. "Fucking hell!"
His voice was enough to bring her out of her trance, the Taser slipping limply from her fingers. Blomkvist? She slid down against the wall, a tremor running its course through her body. Fuck! I was actually going to tase him!
The arm that had been draped across her neck reached out to the bedside lamp, the light burning every fiber of her mind as she clutched her head. The bed groaned, bare feet padding over to her. I was going to tase him. A hand dropped down to her tattooed shoulder. Salander just wanted him to leave, or at least turn the light off.
"Bad dream?"
She stood; shoving his hand roughly from her and giving him the blankest expression she could muster up before walking to the master bathroom, locking the door behind her. The lighting was more subdued in here. The large Jacuzzi tub looked extremely.
She waited for the tiles to steam before clambering in, Jacuzzi jets on full blast. The bed creaked again and she slipped further down into the water, staring at the tile opposite to the tub.
She didn't want to think; just mindlessly sit there. No feelings, no thoughts. Once she'd been good at distancing herself from the terror that sleep often brought, but now every night was a gamble. This time it nearly ended with her tasing Mikael. Only when the water had become lukewarm did she decide to crawl out of the tub. Wrapping herself in a towel, she looked at her reflection in the medicine cabinet mirror, realizing she couldn't hide forever. Her hand wandered to the three day old bruising forming a robber's mask across much of her face.
Her eyes were unseeing, the corners bloodied where the pressure of Zalachenko's kicks had been vicious enough to rupture the fragile capillaries of her eyes…
With a resounding crash, the door to the medicine cabinet flew off its hinges, shattering the built in mirror on the slick tile floor.
Blomkvist had just dragged a skillet out of one of the kitchen cabinets when Salander finally came out of the master suite in a black tank labeled 'Zinken FC.' The cat was perched on top of the coffee machine, soaking up the radiating warmth from the freshly made pot. Its paws batted at her hand when she reached for a mug on the rack hanging over it. Salander didn't know what to do with the damn thing. Short of throwing a can of tuna down the stairs, she doubted she'd be able to remove it and still come out in one piece. Cat 1, Salander 0, she thought.
"You were thrashing around a bit last night. The cat was absolutely terrified." He joked lamely, cracking an egg into the skillet.
Salander was not amused.
"I'm heading back to Millennium. We need to work out the publishing schedule of Dag's book."
She glared at his backside. The scene felt entirely too domestic to her. Here she was, with a cat sitting on her counter and Blomkvist making an omelet while she just leaned on the counter trying to figure out how the hell things got this far.
The cat followed her out of the kitchen, hoping up onto the window seat where it could watch her click through her laptop. The last Wi-Fi hit had been at 12:18pm the previous day. Battery dead? She sipped her coffee, skimming through all the file monitors. None of them had been tripped either. Salander saw no reason for the sudden lack of activity. Her presence on his computer was completely undetectable. It was completely baffling.
Blomkvist's head poked through the archway leading into the kitchen. "Do you want anything?" She shook her head, shutting the laptop again. Then she remembered the laptop she'd pilfered from Millennium. She drained her mug, leaving it on the coffee table. In the bedroom she haphazardly shoved a pair of boxing gloves and a change of close into a gym bag.
She carried the laptop into the living room, putting it on the end table next to one of her pop can ashtrays. She looked over and found the cat with its head stuck all the way down into her coffee mug.
"God you're fucking weird." The cat yanked its head out of the mug at the sound of her voice, tilting its head to one side as if saying, 'Yes, I know.'
"Get off the ropes, he's going to-"
Thock! Paolo cursed, watching one of his trainee's slip dazed through the ropes of the boxing ring onto the concrete floor. He grabbed the boy by the arm, dragging him over to one of the stools lined up against the wall. He'd have a good mark on his jaw, but it didn't look like a hit worthy of a concussion.
"I told you to stay in the center of the ring. Go ice up for a bit and then do some footwork drills before you clear out."
The boy, Assef, looked up at him with a murderous glance said nothing, kicking a pail clear across the room as he walked off to the locker rooms.
"Yeah, well listen to your coaches when they tell you something." Paolo muttered under his breath, watching as the victor of that bought went on to pummeling the bags. In retrospect, he supposed that it wasn't the most ideal match-up, but his goal had been to teach Assef to just move. The boy could throw a decent punch, but against a pressure boxer like Myca he'd have to adapt accordingly. At least that was Paolo's plan for the aspiring fighter.
The studio was still fairly empty at this time in the morning, with the exception of Myca, Assef, and a few other bag beaters, Paolo was on his own to keep the peace. There was a steady rhythm going over on the mats, but a dull thathumpthathump caught his attention. He recognized the sound of a newbie, typically with one arm stronger than the other. But the speed threw him off. It was quick, experienced. An odd combination.
Lisbeth. Yes, he could see her now, back turned to him and slugging a torso bag placed at its maximum height of two meters high. There was only one person he'd ever seen at that height, and Paolo knew she'd have no chance against him. He could see her left hook was significantly weaker than her right.
"That's a good beat for getting your ass kicked all over the ring."
Salander gave the dummy one more loaded punch before turning around to face him. He winced at the bandit mask of bruising that covered most of her face.
"Anyone to spar around here?"
Paolo pointed to Myca. "If you like Thai kickboxers, Myca's your boy. Then there's a brute in the shower that can't move for shit. You'd get a good kick out of him if he keeps being so fucking stubborn about his footwork."
"Okay."
"Okay?"
"I'll take the Iraqi." And she knows he's Iraqi, how? "Where is he?"
He looked down at her. There was a fire in her coal colored eyes that showed her serious need to beat the shit out of something. A good few rounds with Assef would be perfect, Paolo decided. She was his hornet and would keep going back for more until she was had her opponent on their knees or needed to be hauled out of the ring. Plus she couldn't truly cause him any lasting damage with her offbeat hooks. He nodded before walking off to the locker room.
Assef was sitting on the bench, holding a cold compress to his jaw. Paolo threw his gloves at him.
"Get up. You have another match."
"I'm not-"
"Don't be a fucking sore loser. Just get up and do as you're told." He added a death glare for reinforcement before heading back out to the main gym. Salander was already up and hopping around the ring, making quick air jabs at an invisible opponent.
She was rusty, but not bad. He called her over to a corner.
"Okay, lock in. Remember Samir? Well Assef is a slightly smaller version. He can swing like all hell, but the only direction he moves is backwards and he likes to uppercut when you get him in the corners. You got all that?"
Salander nodded just as Assef walked out of the locker room. With one glance at Salander, he crossed his arms and no amount of cursing or swearing was going to put him in the ring with her.
Paolo switched tactics immediately. He called out to one of the veteran boxers, Jonah. "I have two-hundred krona on Fröken Salander that says she'll get in five hits before he can block one."
"I have four hundred that says she'll put him on his ass just like Samir." Jonah played along. He looked up at Salander, "Good to see you back, Salander."
Jonah made an easy four hundred krona the moment the bell went off. Paolo suggested going out for coffee afterwards.
Helen Forsberg opened the door to Holmberg's office. The office was dark and Holmberg was soundly asleep, slumped over his keyboard with a little circle bouncing around on his desktop.
"Jerker, WAKE UP." She smacked the desk and was afraid he would fly out of his chair when he suddenly jumped up.
"What?" His hand groped in the semidarkness for his glasses. All the while, he squinted at the evidence baggie with a single vial in it. "A present for me?"
"Just hold out your hand." When he made a reach for it, Forsberg slapped him firmly on the wrist.
"What was that for?" He wiggled the mouse, bringing up his desktop screen with security video from the Bellmansgatan catwalk.
"You gave me a hair extension, not a hair. I had to fight Bublanski over the phone so I could pull some real hairs off of the shirt they found in the laundry hamper. She's a natural redhead, by the way."
"When do you think it'll be done?" Holmberg casually clicked through stills. He'd seen a blonde woman going up the catwalk to Bellmansgatan, but had yet to get a face shot of her coming back down.
"Theoretically I could process it in about four hours. But it'll cost you."
"What do you want?"
"Seats at Råsunda, and I don't mean the shitty seats up in the corners either."
"Do you know how expensive just the shit seats are now?"
"That's why I'm asking."
"This is blackmail."
"No, this is progress on a high priority case." She pointed at the screen. "And don't waste your time looking for the chick. They found her fingerprints all over a brass doorhandle to the apartment an hour ago."
Holmberg sighed, rubbing his face. "How many games do you want to go to?"
"All of them."
"Be serious."
"Whenever Durgårdens plays AIF." She turned and walked out of the door, taking the evidence bag with her.
He poked his head out the door, yelling at her retreating form, "I want those results in four hours flat!" When the coast was clear he shut the door and went back to sleep on his keyboard.
Blomkvist's back was turned away from the loft steps, but he could hear as Berger ascended the stairs, wrapping her hands around his eyes. "We have a coffee thief in our midst."
He poked her hand with his editing pen, "I'll reimburse you later, I'm editing Lotta's article."
"So you admit it?"
"Sorry, but I have to protect my source."
She pursed her lips, perching on the sofa at a right angle to Blomkvist's desk. "Tell your source to at least clean up after stealing apples from the fridge, too." Blomkvist gave a snort, but did not look up from his work.
Berger sighed and grabbed the stack of papers that Blomkvist had already painstakingly combed through as well as a green sharpie. She had no doubts in his editing abilities and would probably make not a single mark on the papers, but Karim was still at the intern level and therefore required a bit more guidance from the top brass at Millennium. Other than asking for a few clarifications on the article's mathematics in the margins, Berger was impressed at how Karim had grown in her writing. Maybe she would bring up the idea of getting Karim onboard full time at the April board meeting.
He passed her the remaining stack before logging onto his computer. He'd been working sporadically since November in patching up Dag's book and now he believed it was just about ready. In the end he had to deduct about thirty pages due to the circumstances surrounding the Salander trial and the Enskede murders, but what was left would still undoubtedly still cause quite the shake up.
The problem was the password to the files had been changed. There was only one person that could have done it, but for what reason he had no clue. He grabbed his desk landline, jabbing the buttons to connect him to Salander's mobile.
Seven rings later, she picked up.
"Lisbeth, unlock my files." It sounded like she was at a bar or something. The sun wasn't even up yet.
"No."
"I'm not going to argue with you over this. I need those files unlocked."
"Just trust me." With that she hung up on him. When he called back he was immediately directed to her voicemail.
Erika didn't look up from the last few pages of Karim's article. "Privacy problems?"
"Trust problems, apparently." It was too early to deal with this. He started typing in all the obvious passwords, knowing the futility of it. With his luck the password would be a physics equation married with binary coding. "You know, fuck it. I'll just print off my own article and edit that."
"Oh, that reminds me, She from TV4 sent me a letter expressing their dearest condolences regarding your death. You might want to let them and the rest of the world in on your miraculous survival."
Damn. He'd forgotten all about that. He opened up a new word file and quickly typed up a single paragraph, adding a pixelated webcam shot for good measure before sending the press release off to the major news carriers. He sent a hard copy to the printer downstairs as well. He was now officially alive and well.
He jogged down the steps the printer, noting the ink needed to be restocked. Other than Berger and Malm, the rest of Millennium was woefully unaware of his existence. It wasn't the greatest feeling in the world to break the news to the rest in such a cold fashion, but he pinned the press release on the bulletin board over the kitchenette sink anyways. He stopped when he noticed another paper in the printer tray. The heading was 'Police Report 2919973004' and featured a ten-year-old mug shot of a heavily pierced seventeen-year-old Lisbeth.
Paolo Roberto, ever the gentleman, held the door open for Salander as they walked into Mellqvist's Kaffebar. Salander herself hadn't been there in nearly three years, but it was the closest place she could think of with decent coffee and a public Wi-Fi port. Neither were the sort of trendy people Mellqvist usually attracted, but they were more than happy to take a seat in one of the back corners, facing out towards Hornsgatan.
Salander paid at the counter, watching Paolo dump four sugar packets into his coffee. She never figured him as a sweet tooth. Surprise, surprise. She turned her phone on, connecting to her laptop. Still nothing. Instead of feeling at ease, it only served to put her more on edge. Paolo looked up to see her tense expression.
"He thump you in the face?" She shook her head no, grabbing a couple sugar packets of her own. "I told him I'd rip his balls off if he did."
"You didn't have to." I could handle him on my own.
"I beg to differ. One, your entire nose looks like someone took a baseball bat to it. Two, it doesn't matter how quick you are, one hit to the face and Assef would have guaranteed you a pretty good concussion."
He sipped at his coffee for a while, considering the woman sitting in front of him. "But you've changed. A lot. If it weren't for the tattoos I wouldn't have recognized you at all today. You're not that little seventeen year old that thumped me in the balls on your first day."
"I can still do that if you want."
He smiled reflexively at the sight of her own crooked one. He had so many questions and he didn't know where to start. One day she just quit going to the club and next thing he knows she's the highlight of every breaking news bulletin in northern Europe.
"Thanks for saving Mimmi last year." She addressed her coffee cup, not looking up at him. "I should have thanked you sooner."
She was apologizing to him? "It was worth it. Didn't some bikers kill that big blonde fucker last autumn?"
"I guess." The corner of her lips twitched slightly upwards. Her eyes dared him to think otherwise.
"You were in the hospital for a while last spring. Anything to do with your weak left hook?"
"I got shot."
He let out a whistle. So that was why she had the bullet hole tattoo on her shoulder. Kind of creepy, but OK, he could respect that. "I can help you work out the kinks if you want. I'm in for early morning sparring Friday through Monday."
Salander opened her mouth to reply, but her mobile suddenly went off.
"Lisbeth, unlock my files." Damn it! She didn't think he'd want access to them so soon, but she had put the password on just as a precaution. She didn't want the info to be printed as long as someone else was skimming through the files. She wanted to be prepared for the possible eventuality that that information might be used for some other purpose by whoever had stolen the laptop.
"No."
"I'm not going to argue with you over this. I need those files unlocked."
"Just trust me." She hung up before he could protest further, switching her phone to voicemail to avoid the constant pestering that would surely follow. Paolo was giving her an expectant look that made her downright uncomfortable.
"What?"
"Are you going to abandon to club again or do you want to work out with us again? Samir misses you." He didn't bat and eye at her biting tone.
She drained her mug. "I'll see if I can. No promises."
Paolo seemed to think it was an adequate response.
They stood and walked out of Mellqvist together. Finken FC was only another block down the street. She climbed in her car, turning on defrost and lighting a cigarette, waiting for the car to thaw out.
Salander then remembered her furry new resident. "Paolo, you want a cat?"
"Nope. Deathly allergic. You should have that Miriam Wu drop in sometime. Myca could use another Thai kickboxer to spar with."
"She moved." Lisbeth dropped her cigarette butt into a puddle, looking up at Paolo as he towered over her.
"I don't blame her." There was no accusation in his voice as he waved when she pulled away from the curb. Salander had decided a long time ago she liked Paolo. He was a cocky bastard, but he also had a strong no-bullshit side that was refreshing. She regretted that she hadn't sat down with him beforehand, but was set on making amends in the near future.
She still didn't feel like going back home as she drove along Hornsgatan. While she had successfully beaten most of the rage out of her system against the stupid Iraqi boy, she still didn't want to think of the morning's events. She still had to clean up the bathroom and buy a new mirror.Wait a minute. Mimmi had a few mirrors lying around that didn't serve any use. Salander doubted she'd miss one of the smaller ones.
She pulled a completely illegal U-turn at Hornsgatan and Blecktornsgränd to double back towards Lundagatan. Paolo was still standing outside of Finken FC, talking to someone in a car.
At Lundagatan 49 she parked on a yellow curb, but it was too early for anyone to be out writing parking tickets. She wouldn't take that long anyways. A radio store had recently moved into the old hardware store space on the ground floor.
Her feet thundered up the steps to the second floor. Her former childhood home was the only one on the second floor with an outdoor space and was in the dead center of the building. The halls still had the same smell of stale cigarettes as they did fifteen years ago, but the largely immigrant population that inhabited the building was now gone and it was strangely quiet.
She dragged her key ring out of her pockets, but found the door unlocked. Shit. Instinctively she wrapped her keys around her fist to create a set of impromptu brass knuckles. The apartment was only 500 square feet and she'd be fighting in extremely tight quarters if anyone was still home.
The entrance was a crowded mass of shoes and Salander could hear the rattle of kitchen drawers being opened in the general living area.Fucking looters. She raised her fist, ready to strike in the five steps it would take to get to the fridge. Then her mobile went off in her pocket.
She wasn't sure what happened next.
Something heavy clattered to the floor as Salander watched a petite woman in a charcoal grey hooded jacket sprint for the sliding door onto the balcony. Salander gave chase, but the woman was up and over the railing. It was a fifteen-foot drop, but it didn't stop the woman from hitting the ground running. The woman had already scrambled up the steps to upper Lundagatan when Salander landed a little less gracefully outside of SMT Radio. By the time she reached the top of the steps, she could just see someone in a charcoal shirt slide down a wooded embankment towards Söder Mälarstrand. Salander clutched at the stitch in her side, knowing she had lost the foot race.
Salander paced at the top of upper Lundagatan, trying to get her breath back. A woman had just walked into her old apartment and completely ransacked it. She could have easily had the situation under control if her fucking mobile hadn't rung. She pulled it roughly from her jeans pocket.
Get in touch with Bublanski. Annika says don't argue. –M
KALLE FUCKING BLOMKVIST! She lashed out at a birch sapling, snapping its trunk with a single kick. First he runs background checks on her sister, now he rings her mobile to try and get her to talk to some fucking cop!
It had started to rain and Salander went back into the building to take stock of the shit heap mess the bitch had left. The lock to the door was unmarked, giving Salander a nasty feeling that whoever head broken in had a key. The mailbag had been emptied onto the floor along with every single drawer and cabinet. A five-inch folding knife lay on the kitchen counter that Salander did not recognize. She herself preferred bludgeoning weapons or blinding weapons; too many things could go wrong if you added guns and knives to a fight.
After a thorough inspection and a full pack of cigarettes, she was convinced nothing had been taken, but someone had been searching pretty damn hard for something.
On her way home, she stopped off at the 7-Eleven on Götgatan, buying a carton of Marlboros and a few tins of cat food. Salander looked at the labels, wondering why cats would need something low in Calories.
The cat in question was perched at the top of her coat closet in the entrance hall, pouncing down when the door was jolted open. It took a good slam to get it shut and Salander made fixing it at the top of her to do list for the late morning. When she walked into the master bathroom with a dustpan, she found the all the glass had already been swept up. Her rage returned and she threw the metal pan across the room, scratching the side of the tub. Blomkvist shouldn't be the one cleaning up my messes. She thought, lighting a cigarette on the edge of her bed. When do I get to take care of my own problems? She flicked ash into a freshly emptied ashtray, swearing all the while.
For the door she had to go down to the garage, grabbing a screwdriver, drill, and a hammer. She spent until one in the afternoon redrilling and hanging the door, the result leaving a one-inch gap under the door. Another five cigarettes later left her staring at her mobile, contemplating whether or not to call Annika. She sure as hell wasn't calling a cop without assessing the severity of the situation.
If only she knew what that 'situation' was. Fuck it. She snatched up the phone and smashed her fingers into the touchpad numbers.
"Giannini."
"I'm not talking to the police."
"Wait, Lisbeth? I told Blom-"
"Do you know what's going on?"
"All I know is that just after ten I got a call from Bublanski that said he needed to speak with you immediately. He wouldn't elaborate at all and hung up in a huff."
"Thanks." She said through clenched teeth, hanging up in a similar manner. She still wasn't going to call Bublanski; he was a cop and that was that. No talking required. But she could still snoop through his emails. She wondered why she hadn't thought of it sooner. Bublanski was constantly emailing from his PDA. It would give her all the information she could possibly need and a lot more if she had more nefarious intentions. Svensk Polis was damn lucky she wasn't one of those types of hackers.
At nine fifty-seven, Bublanski received an email from Jerker Holmberg.
Three DNA hits came off of hairs found at Östermalm. I don't know what to make of it at all.
Bublanski replied back two minutes later.
Who are the hits connected to?
Holmberg took time to formulate his response back.
Well, first you have to understand DNA or else you'll shit bricks. DNA is made of random pairs that give the individual uniqueness. Everyone has 99.999 percent the same DNA as the next guy, but about 3 million out of billions of pairs differ between individuals. So theoretically no one should have the same DNA as another. Going back to the results though, there are three hits that share the exact same DNA sequence. Lieve Petersen, a minor whose record was sealed in 1998 after emigrating elsewhere, and Lisbeth Salander.
Bublanski didn't respond back, but there was a call to Annika Giannini's number four minutes later that lasted a mere forty-seven seconds.
Salander hadn't seen her sister in almost eleven years. In six days she'd killed her mortal enemy, bombed Blomkvist's apartment, and in all probability broke into Mimmi's apartment. If fucking Kalle Blomkvist hadn't rung her mobile, she could have finished the twisted bitch off once and for all.
Camilla had the computer. Lisbeth could track her all around Stockholm as long as there was an accessible Internet connection. Suddenly things were looking slightly up. The problem was that she hadn't gotten any hits in over twenty-four hours. Either she was out of range to use the Internet or she'd already disposed of the computer in the Riddarfjärden.
With a pack of Marlboro reds, a cat, and a full pot of coffee ready to go, Salander dedicated the rest of her energy researching Camilla's Belgian persona. She'd foolishly kept much of the same personal information that she had in Sweden and Salander was ashamed that she'd never thought of keeping tabs on her. She'd always believed Camilla knew where Zala had gotten off to, but it never once crossed her mind to confront her sister once more on the subject during her hunt.
While Salander was in Göteburg with a bullet in her skull, Camilla had been earning her Master of Science at Ghent. Her concentration was chemical engineering.
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