"And if it is a forgery... who did it and why?"

Bublanski shrugged. As I understand it, Ekstrom is going to commission one more thorough evaluation of Salander."

"I can't accept that."

"It's not our case any more."

"And Faste has replaced us. Jan, I'm going to the media if these bastards piss all over Salander one more time."

"No, Sonja. You won't. First of all, we no longer have access to the report, so you have no way of backing up your claims. You're going to look like a paranoid, and then your career will be over."

"I still have the report," Modig said in a low voice. "I made a copy for Curt but I never had a chance to give it to him before the Prosecutor General collected the others."

"If you leak that report, you'll not only be fired but you'll be guilty of gross misconduct."

Modig sat in silence for a moment and looked at her superior.

"Sonja, don't do it. Promise me."

"No, Jan. I can't promise that. There's something very sick about this whole story."

"You're right, it is sick. But since we don't know who the enemy is, you're not going to do anything for the moment."

Modig tilted her head to one side. "Are you going to do anything?"

"I'm not going to discuss that with you. Trust me. It's Friday night. Take a break, go home. And... this discussion never took place."

Niklas Adamsson, the Securitas guard, was studying for a test in three weeks' time. It was 1.30 on Saturday afternoon when he heard the sound of rotating brushes from the low-humming floor polisher and saw that it was the dark-skinned immigrant who walked with a limp. The man would always nod politely but never laughed if he said anything humorous. Adamsson watched as he took a bottle of cleaning fluid and sprayed the reception counter-top twice before wiping it with a rag. Then he took his mop and swabbed the corners in the reception area where the brushes of the floor polisher could not reach. The guard put his nose back into his book about the national economy and kept reading.

It took ten minutes for the cleaner to work his way over to Adamsson's spot at the end of the corridor. They nodded to each other. Adamsson stood to let the man clean the floor around his chair outside Salander's room. He had seen him almost every day since he had been posted outside the room, but he could not remember his name  -  some sort of foreign name  -  but Adamsson did not feel the need to check his I.D. For one thing, the nigger was not allowed to clean inside the prisoner's room  -  that was done by two cleaning women in the morning  -  and besides, he did not feel that the cripple was any sort of threat.

When the cleaner had finished in the corridor, he opened the door to the room next to Salander's. Adamsson glanced his way, but this was no deviation from the daily routine. This was where the cleaning supplies were kept. In the course of the next five minutes he emptied his bucket, cleaned the brushes, and replenished the cart with plastic bags for the wastepaper baskets. Finally he manoeuvred the cart into the cubbyhole.

Ghidi was aware of the guard in the corridor. It was a young blond man who was usually there two or three days a week, reading books. Part-time guard, and part-time student. He was about as aware of his surroundings as a brick.

Ghidi wondered what Adamsson would do if someone actually tried to get into the Salander woman's room.

He also wondered what Blomkvist was really after. He had read about the eccentric journalist in the newspapers, and he had made the connection to the woman in 11C, expecting that he would be asked to smuggle something in for her. But he did not have access to her room and had never even seen her. Whatever he had expected, it was not this.

He could not see anything illegal about his task. He looked through the crack in the doorway at Adamsson, who was once more reading his book. He checked that nobody else was in the corridor. He reached into the pocket of his smock and took out the Sony Ericsson Z600 mobile. Ghidi had seen in an advertisement that it cost around 3,500 kronor and had all the latest features.

He took a screwdriver from his pocket, stood on tiptoe and unscrewed the three screws in the round white cover of a vent in the wall of Salander's room. He pushed the telephone as far into the vent as he could, just as Blomkvist had asked him to. Then he screwed on the cover again.

It took him forty-five seconds. The next day it would take less. He was supposed to get down the mobile, change the batteries and put it back in the vent. He would then take the used batteries home and recharge them overnight.

That was all Ghidi had to do.

But this was not going to be of any help to Salander. On her side of the wall there was presumably a similar screwed-on cover. She would never be able to get at the mobile, unless she had a screwdriver and a ladder.

"I know that," Blomkvist had said. "But she doesn't have to reach the phone."

Ghidi was to do this every day until Blomkvist told him it was no longer necessary.

And for this job Ghidi would be paid 1000 kronor a week, straight into his pocket. And he could keep the mobile when the job was over.

He knew, of course, that Blomkvist was up to some sort of funny business, but he could not work out what it was. Putting a mobile telephone into an air vent inside a locked cleaning supplies room, turned on but not uplinked, was so crazy that Ghidi could not imagine what use it could be. If Blomkvist wanted a way of communicating with the patient, he would be better off bribing one of the nurses to smuggle the telephone in to her.

On the other hand, he had no objection to doing Blomkvist this favour  -  a favour worth 1000 kronor a week. He was better off not asking any questions.

Jonasson slowed his pace when he saw a man with a briefcase leaning on the wrought-iron gates outside his housing association apartment on Hagagatan. He looked somehow familiar.

"Dr Jonasson?" he said.

"Yes?"

"Apologies for bothering you on the street outside your home. It's just that I didn't want to track you down at work, and I do need to talk to you."

"What's this about, and who are you?"

"My name is Blomkvist, Mikael Blomkvist. I'm a journalist and I work at Millennium magazine. It's about Lisbeth Salander."

"Oh, now I recognize you. You were the one who called the paramedics. Was it you who put duct tape on her wounds?"

"Yes."

"That was a smart thing to have done. But I don't discuss my patients with journalists. You'll have to speak to the P.R. department at Sahlgrenska, like everyone else."

"You misunderstand me. I don't want information and I'm here in a completely private capacity. You don't have to say a word or give me any information. Quite the opposite: I want to give you some information."

Jonasson frowned.

"Please hear me out," Blomkvist said. "I don't go around accosting surgeons on the street, but what I have to tell you is very important. Can I buy you a cup of coffee?"

"Tell me what it's about."

"It's about Lisbeth Salander's future and wellbeing. I'm a friend."

Jonasson thought that if it had been anyone other than Blomkvist he would have refused. But Blomkvist was a man in the public eye, and Jonasson could not imagine that this would be some sort of tomfoolery.

"I won't under any circumstances be interviewed, and I won't discuss my patient."

"Perfectly understood," Blomkvist said.

Jonasson accompanied Blomkvist to a cafe nearby.

"So what's this all about?" he said when they had got their coffee.

"First of all, I'm not going to quote you or mention you even in anything I write. And as far as I'm concerned this conversation never took place. Which said, I am here to ask you a favour. But I have to explain why, so that you can decide whether you can or you can't."

"I don't like the sound of this."

"All I ask is that you hear me out. It's your job to take care of Lisbeth's physical and mental health. As her friend, it's my job to do the same. I can't poke around in her skull and extract bullets, but I have another skill that is as crucial to her welfare."

"Which is?"

"I'm an investigative journalist, and I've found out the truth about what happened to her."

"O.K."

"I can tell you in general terms what it's about and you can come to your own conclusions."

"Alright."

"I should also say that Annika Giannini, Lisbeth's lawyer  -  you've met her I think  -  is my sister, and I'm the one paying her to defend Salander."

"I see."

"I can't, obviously, ask Annika to do this favour. She doesn't discuss Lisbeth with me. She has to keep her conversations with Lisbeth confidential. I assume you've read about Lisbeth in the newspapers."

Jonasson nodded.

"She's been described as a psychotic, and a mentally ill lesbian mass murderer. All that is nonsense. Lisbeth Salander is not psychotic. She may be as sane as you and me. And her sexual preferences are nobody's business."

"If I've understood the matter correctly, there's been some reassessment of the case. Now it's this German who's being sought in connection with the murders."

"To my certain knowledge, Niedermann is a murderer who has no grain of conscience. But Lisbeth has enemies. Big and nasty enemies. Some of these are in the Security Police."

Jonasson looked at Blomkvist in astonishment.

"When Lisbeth was twelve, she was put in a children's psychiatric clinic in Uppsala. Why? Because she had stirred up a secret that Sapo was trying at any price to keep a lid on. Her father, Alexander Zalachenko  -  otherwise known as Karl Axel Bodin, who was murdered in your hospital  -  was a Soviet defector, a spy, a relic from the Cold War. He also beat up Lisbeth's mother year after year. When Lisbeth was twelve, she hit back and threw a Molotov cocktail at him as he sat in his car. That was why she was locked up."

"I don't understand. If she tried to kill her father, then surely there was good reason to take her in for psychiatric treatment."

"My story  -  which I am going to publish  -  is that Sapo knew about Zalachenko the wife beater, they knew what had provoked Lisbeth to do what she did, but they chose to protect Zalachenko because he was a source of valuable information. So they faked a diagnosis to make sure that Lisbeth was committed."

Jonasson looked so sceptical that Blomkvist had to laugh.

"I can document every detail. And I'm going to write a full account in time for Lisbeth's trial. Believe me  -  it's going to cause uproar. You might bear in mind that the beating that provoked Lisbeth's attack put her mother in hospital for the rest of her life."

"O.K. Go on."

"I'm going to expose two doctors who were errand boys for Sapo, and who helped bury Lisbeth in the asylum. I'm going to hang them out to dry. One of these is a well-known and respected person. But, as I said, I have all the documentation."

"If a doctor were mixed up in something like this, it's a blot on the entire profession."

"I don't believe in collective guilt. It concerns only those directly involved. The same is true of Sapo. I don't doubt that there are excellent people working in Sapo. This is about a small group of conspirators. When Lisbeth was eighteen they tried to institutionalize her again. This time they failed, and she was instead put under guardianship. In the trial, whenever it is, they're once again going to try to throw as much shit at her as they can. I  -  or rather, my sister Annika  -  will fight to see that she is acquitted, and that her still-extant declaration of incompetence is revoked."

"I see."

"But she needs ammunition. So that's the background for this tactic. I should probably also mention that there are some individuals in the police force who are actually on Lisbeth's side in all this. But not the prosecutor who brought the charges against her. In short, Lisbeth needs help before the trial."

"But I'm not a lawyer."

"No. But you're Lisbeth's doctor and you have access to her."

Jonasson's eyes narrowed.

"What I'm thinking of asking you is unethical, and it might also be illegal."

"Indeed?"

"But morally it's the right thing to do. Her constitutional rights are being violated by the very people who ought to be protecting her. Let me give you an example. Lisbeth is not allowed to have visitors, and she can't read newspapers or communicate with the outside world. The prosecutor has also pushed through a prohibition of disclosure for her lawyer. Annika has obeyed the rules. However, the prosecutor himself is the primary source of leaks to the reporters who keep writing all the shit about Lisbeth."

"Is that really so?"

"This story, for example." Blomkvist held up a week-old evening newspaper. "A source within the investigation claims that Lisbeth is non compos mentis, which prompted the newspaper to speculate about her mental state."

"I read the article. It's nonsense."

"So you don't think she's crazy."

"I won't comment on that. But I do know that no psychiatric evaluations have been done. Accordingly, the article is nonsense."

"I can show you chapter and verse to prove that the person who leaked this information is a police officer called Hans Faste. He works for Prosecutor Ekstrom."

"Oh."

"Ekstrom is going to seek to have the trial take place behind closed doors, so that no outsider will have knowledge of or be able to weigh the evidence against Lisbeth. But what is worse... Because the prosecutor has isolated Lisbeth, she won't be able to do the research she needs to do to prepare her defence."