Even before Salander began to take an interest in science, she would say there was a genetic flaw in her family. For a long time she meant simply that many of them had extreme traits in one way or another, and were evil. But a year or so ago she resolved to get to the bottom of her hypothesis, and by accessing a sequence of computer servers, she got hold of Zalachenko’s Y chromosome from the Laboratory of Forensic Genetics in Linköping.
She spent long nights learning how to analyze it, and read up on everything she could find on haplogroups. Small mutations have occurred in all lines of descent. The haplogroups show which mutational branch of humanity each individual belongs to and it had not surprised her in the least that her father’s group was extremely unusual. When she researched it she found an over-representation not only of high intelligence, but also of psychopathy, and that made her no happier, nor any wiser.
But it had taught her how to work with DNA techniques. Now that it was past two in the morning and she was only reliving the past, shuddering at the memories and staring up at the smoke detector which blinked like an evil red eye in the ceiling, she wondered if she might not after all take a look at the material Blomkvist had sent her. It would at least shift her mind onto other things.
So she got up carefully from the bed, sat at the desk and opened the files. “Let’s see, now,” she muttered. “Let’s see…What’s this?” It was the result of a preliminary autosomal DNA test, with a number of selected so-called STR markers—short tandem repeats—so she opened her BAM Viewer from the Broad Institute, which would help her analyze them. It was a while before she applied her full attention to the task—she was easily distracted by the satellite images of Camilla’s house—but there was something in the material which began to slowly fascinate her, perhaps the realization that the man had no ancestors or kin in the Nordic region.
He came from somewhere a long way away. Having read through the autopsy report again, above all the carbon-13 analysis and the descriptions of the injuries and amputations, she was struck by a surprising thought and sat there for a long time, immobile and leaning forward with a hand pressed against the bullet wound in her shoulder.
Swiftly she ran a series of searches. Could it really be true? She found it hard to believe, and was preparing to hack into the medical examiner’s server when she had the outlandish idea of trying first by conventional means. She sent off an e-mail and then helped herself to what was left in the minibar, a Coca-Cola and a miniature of brandy, and let the hours drift by until morning came, sometimes dozing off in her chair. At about the time Paulina opened her eyes and sounds could be heard outside in the corridor, she received a signal on her mobile and connected to the satellite images again. At first she only peered at them with tired eyes, but then she was suddenly wide awake.
Her screen showed her sister and three men—one of them unusually tall—leaving the house in Rublyovka and getting into a limousine. Salander followed them all the way to the international airport at Domodedovo, outside Moscow.
CHAPTER 11
August 25
Fredrika Nyman tossed and turned through the small hours and finally looked at the alarm clock. She hoped it would be 5:30 at least. It was twenty past four and she swore out loud. She had had no more than five hours’ sleep, but she could tell—the way an insomniac knows—that she would sleep no more now, so she got up and made a pot of green tea. The morning newspapers had not yet arrived. She settled at the kitchen table with her mobile and listened to the birds. She missed the city. She missed having a man around, or anyone at all who was not a teenager.
“I didn’t sleep last night either, and I have a headache and my back hurts,” she would have said, and she said it anyway, but to nobody other than herself. And then she also had to respond: “Poor you, Fredrika.”
The surface of the lake was smooth after the night’s squalls, and she could just glimpse the two resident swans a little way off. They were gliding along, close to each other. Sometimes she envied them, not because she wanted to be a swan, but because there were two of them. They could have bad nights together. Complain to each other in swan language…The lack of sleep was getting to her. She checked her e-mails and found one from somebody who called themselves “Wasp”:
<Got the STR markers and the autopsy reports from Blomkvist. Have an idea about the man’s origins. Interesting carbon-13. But I need whole genome sequencing. Guess it’ll be quickest with UGC. Get them to hurry up. Don’t have time to wait.>
Bloody insolent tone. And not even a sign-off. Why don’t you go sequence yourself, she thought. She could not stand that type of charmless, geeky researcher. Her husband had been the same, utterly hopeless now that she thought about it. Then she read the e-mail again and calmed down. It was rude and bossy, but it was exactly what she had been thinking, and she had in fact sent a blood sample to Uppsala Genome Center a few days earlier and asked them for exactly that, for the whole genetic make-up to be sequenced.
She had pressed them hard and urged the bioinformaticians to flag any unusual mutations and variations. She was expecting an answer any time now, so she wrote to them rather than the pushy researcher, having decided to adopt the same sort of tone herself while she was at it:
<I need the sequencing now> she wrote.
She hoped they would also be favourably impressed by the hour of writing. It was not yet five in the morning and even the swans on the lake looked to be out of sorts. And not so bloody smug about being a couple, after all.
* * *
—
Kurt Widmark Electronics on Hornsgatan had not yet opened. But Inspector Sonja Modig saw an elderly, stooped gentleman inside and knocked on the door, and he shuffled over wearing a forced smile.
“You’re early. But do come on in anyway,” he said.
Modig introduced herself and explained why she had come, whereupon the man stiffened and looked irritated, and huffed and grumbled for a while. He was pale, had a slightly crooked face and a long comb-over across his bald pate. There was a hint of bitterness around his mouth.
“Things are bad enough as it is in my line of business,” he said. “Competition from online companies and department stores.”
Modig smiled and tried to appear sympathetic. She had spent the early part of the morning walking around at random, making enquiries, and a young man in the hairdressers next door had told her that the beggar Bublanski had been talking about had quite often stood at the window of the electrical shop, glaring at the television screens inside.
“When did you first see him?” she said.
“He came marching in here a few weeks ago and stood in front of one of my sets,” Kurt Widmark said.
“What was on?”
“The news, and a rather tough interview with Johannes Forsell about the stock market crash and total defence.”