The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye: Continuing Stieg Larsson's Millennium Series Read Free

jail as anywhere else.
    She had been sentenced to two months for unlawful use of property and reckless endangerment in the dramatic events following the murder of Professor Frans Balder. Salander had taken it upon herself to hide an eight-year-old autistic boy and refused to cooperate with the police because she believed – quite rightly – that the police investigation had been betrayed. No-one disputed that she went to heroic lengths to save the child’s life. Even so, Chief Prosecutor Richard Ekström led the case with great conviction and the court ultimately found against her, although one of the lay judges dissented. Salander’s lawyer, Giannini had done an outstanding job. But she got virtually no help from her client so that in the end she did not stand a chance. Salander maintained a sullen silence throughout the trial and she refused to appeal the verdict. She simply wanted to get the business over with.
    At first she was sent to Björngärda Gård open prison, where she had a lot of freedom. Then new information surfaced, suggesting there were people who wanted to harm her. This was not entirely unexpected, given the enemies she had made, so she was transferred to the secure wing at Flodberga.
    Salander had no problem sharing space with Sweden’s most notorious female criminals. She was constantly surrounded by guards, and no assaults or violence had been reported in the unit for many years. Records also showed that an impressive number of inmates had been rehabilitated. But those statistics all came from the time before the arrival of Benito Andersson.
    From the first day Salander arrived at the prison, she faced a variety of provocations. She was a high-profile prisoner known from the media, not to mention the rumours that spread through the underworld. Only a few days earlier, Benito had put a note in her hand which read: FRIEND OR ENEMY? Salander had thrown it away after a minute – it took about fifty-eight seconds before she could be bothered to read it.
    She had no interest in power struggles or alliances. She concentrated on observing and learning, and by now she felt she had learned more than enough. She stared blankly at her bookshelf, stocked with the essays on quantum field theory she had ordered before she landed inside. In the cupboard on the left were two changes of prison clothes, all stamped with the initials of the Prison Service, plus some underwear and two pairs of gym shoes. There was nothing on the walls, not a single reminder of life on the outside. She cared no more for the surroundings in her cell than she did at home on Fiskargatan.
    Cell doors were being shut along the corridor and normally that meant some freedom for Salander. When the noise died down, she could lose herself in mathematics – in attempts to combine quantum mechanics with the theory of relativity – and forget the world around her. But tonight was different. She was irritated, and not just because of the abuse of Faria Kazi or the rampant corruption in the unit.
    She could not stop thinking about the visit six days earlier from Holger Palmgren, her old guardian from the time when the authorities had decided she was incapable of taking care of herself. The visit had been a major production. Palmgren hardly ever left his apartment in Liljeholmen and was entirely dependent on carers and assistants. But he had been adamant. The social service’s subsidized transport service brought him in his wheelchair, wheezing into an oxygen mask. Salander was glad to see him.
    She and Palmgren had spoken of old times and he had become sentimental and emotional. There was just one thing that had troubled Salander. Palmgren told her that a woman by the name of Maj-Britt Torell had been to see him. She used to be a secretary at St Stefan’s psychiatric clinic for children, where Salander had been a patient. The woman had read about Salander in the newspapers and brought Palmgren some documents which she believed he might find