“Not such a bad idea,” he said.
He was thinking about the Sherpa and the Everest expedition.
“I’ve just been told that Forsell has taken an extra week’s holiday himself. Doesn’t he have a place near you?”
“On the other side of the island.”
“Well, then,” she said.
“I’ll think about it.”
“You used not to think so much. You used to just get on with it.”
“I’m on holiday too, you know,” he said.
“You’re never on holiday. You’re way too much of a guilt-ridden old workaholic to get the whole holiday thing.”
“So there’s no point in even trying, you mean?”
“No,” she said, and laughed, and then he felt he had to laugh too. He was relieved that she hadn’t suggested coming out to see him.
He did not want to complicate things with Catrin, so he said good luck and goodbye to Erika. He was thoughtful as he watched the storm whipping up the waves. What should he do? Show her that he did get the whole holiday thing after all? Or keep working?
He came to the conclusion that a meeting with Forsell was a good idea, but first he would have to read his way through more of the filth that had been written about him, and after moaning and grumbling to himself and taking a long shower, he got down to work. At the beginning it was depressing and nauseating, as if he had climbed back down into the same quagmire as when he was investigating the troll factories.
But slowly he became absorbed, and he put a great deal of effort into tracing the original sources of all the allegations and mapping out how they had spread and been distorted. He was gradually getting closer to the events on Everest once more when his mobile rang, startling him. This time it was Bob Carson from Denver.
Carson sounded excited.
* * *
—
Charlie Nilsson was sitting with a furrowed brow on a bench outside the Prima Maria Addiction Centre, or the Spin Dryer, as he called it. He did not like talking to the police, and he especially did not want his friends seeing him do it. But the woman, whose name was Moody or something, frightened him, and he did not want any grief.
“Gimme a break, will you?” he said. “I’d never sell a bottle that’s been messed with.”
“Oh, you wouldn’t, would you? So you taste everything first?”
“Very funny.”
“Funny?” Modig said. “I couldn’t be less funny if I tried.”
“Just lay off,” he said. “Anyone could have given him that booze, couldn’t they? You know what they call this place?”
“No, Charlie, I don’t.”
“The Bermuda Triangle. People go from the Spin Dryer to Systembolaget and the beer joint over there and back again, and they just vanish.”
“Meaning what, exactly?”
“That there’s a whole lot of shady stuff going on around here. Some fucking weird creatures come along, pushing dodgy booze and funky pills. But those of us who run a serious business, who stand here in the wind and rain, night after night, we can’t afford to pull stunts like that. Unless we deliver quality goods so we can look people in the eye, the next day, we’re fucked.”
“I don’t believe a word of that,” Modig said. “I’m pretty sure you’re not all that fussy. And I’d say you’re in deep shit right now. Do you see the guys in police uniforms over there?”
Charlie had had his eyes on them all along and could feel them glaring at him.
“If you don’t tell us all you know, we’re pulling you in here and now. You said you’d sold to the man,” Modig said.
“I sold to him all right. But I thought he was scary, so I kept as far away as I could.”
“Scary in what way?”
“He had scary eyes, and he had stumps instead of fingers and bloody patches on his face. He was going on about the moon. ‘Luna, luna,’ he kept saying. That’s moon, right?”
“As far as I know.”
“At least he did once. He appeared from Krukmakargatan, limping, and was beating his chest and saying that Luna was alone and calling for him, she and someone whose name was Mam Sabib or whatever the fuck it was, and it frightened me. He was a complete psycho, and I gave him the stuff even though he didn’t have the right money. It didn’t surprise me at all that he turned violent later.”
“In what way violent?”
Shit shit shit, Nilsson thought. He had promised not to say anything. But it was too late now, he would have to go with it.
“Not with me.”
“With whom?”
“Heikki Järvinen.”
“And who’s that?”
“A customer, one of my customers who actually has a bit of style. Heikki met the bloke in Norra Bantorget in the middle of the night. At least it must have been him. Heikki described a little Chinaman with fingers missing wearing a huge fucking down jacket. He was going on about having been up in the clouds, and when Heikki wouldn’t believe him he got himself a punch which made his head swim. The Chinaman was as strong as an ox, he said.”
“Where can we find this Heikki Järvinen?”
“Järvinen comes and goes, so you never really know.”
The policewoman made notes and nodded, and asked a few more questions. Then she left him, along with the uniforms, and Nilsson gave a sigh of relief. He had been sure that there was something very odd about the Chinaman, and he took himself off to call Heikki Järvinen before the police got hold of him.
* * *
—
Blomkvist heard at once that Carson’s voice had changed, as if he had been up all night or had come down with a cold.
“It’s a civilized time of day at your end, isn’t it?” he said.
“Very much so.”
“Not here. My head feels as if it’s about to blow apart. You remember I told you I had a relative who was on the mountain in 2008? And you remember I said he was dead?”
“Absolutely.”
“Well, he was. Or at least presumed dead. But I should take it from the top. I called my uncle in Khumbu. He functions as a sort of local information exchange, and we went through the whole list you sent. The only relative we found there was this one person, and I was about to give up. If he was dead then he was dead and couldn’t very well show up in Stockholm and die all over again. But my uncle told me that no body had ever been found. I looked into it all more closely, and I saw that the age was right, and so was the height.