He opened the Bible and read on the inside cover: Harriet Vanger, May 12, 1963. It was her Confirmat
ion Bible. He sadly put it back on the shelf.
Behind the cabin there were a wood and tool shed with a scythe, rake, hammer, and a big box with saw
s, planes, and other tools. He took a chair on to the porch and poured coffee from his thermos. He l
it a cigarette and looked across Hedestad Bay through the veil of undergrowth.
Gottfried’s cabin was much more modest than he had expected. Here was the place to which Harriet and
Martin’s father had retreated when his marriage to Isabella was going to the dogs in the late fifti
es. He had made this cabin his home and here he got drunk. And down there, near the wharf, he had dr
owned. Life at the cabin had probably been pleasant in the summer, but when the temperature dropped
to freezing it must have been raw and wretched. According to what Vanger told him, Gottfried continu
ed to work in the Vanger Corporation—interrupted by periods when he was on wild binges—until 1964. T
he fact that he was able to live in the cabin more or less permanently and still appear for work sha
ven, washed, and in a jacket and tie spoke of a surviving personal discipline.
And here was also the place that Harriet had been to so often that it was one of the first in which
they looked for her. Vanger had told him that during her last year, Harriet had gone often to the ca
bin, apparently to be in peace on weekends or holidays. In her last summer she had lived here for th
ree months, though she came into the village every day. Anita Vanger, Cecilia’s sister, spent six we
eks with her here.
What had she done out here all alone? The magazines Mitt Livs Novell and Romans, as well as a number
of books about Kitty, must have been hers. Perhaps the sketchpad had been hers. And her Bible was h
ere.
She had wanted to be close to her lost father—was it a period of mourning she needed to get through?
Or did it have to do with her religious brooding? The cabin was spartan—was she pretending to live
in a convent?
Blomkvist followed the shoreline to the southeast, but the way was so interrupted by ravines and so
grown over with juniper shrubs that it was all but impassable. He went back to the cabin and started
back on the road to Hedeby. According to the map there was a path through the woods to something ca
lled the Fortress. It took him twenty minutes to find it in the overgrown scrub. The Fortress was wh
at remained of the shoreline defence from the Second World War; concrete bunkers with trenches sprea
d out around a command building. Everything was overrun with long grass and scrub.
He walked down a path to a boathouse. Next to the boathouse he found the wreck of a Pettersson boat.
He returned to the Fortress and took a path up to a fence—he had come to ?sterg?rden from the other
side.
He followed the meandering path through the woods, roughly parallel to the fields of ?sterg?rden. Th
e path was difficult to negotiate—there were patches of marsh that he had to skirt. Finally he came
to a swamp and beyond it a barn. As far as he could see the path ended there, a hundred yards from t
he road to ?sterg?rden.
Beyond the road lay the hill, S?derberget. Blomkvist walked up a steep slope and had to climb the la
st bit. S?derberget’s summit was an almost vertical cliff facing the water. He followed the ridge ba
ck towards Hedeby. He stopped above the summer cottages to enjoy the view of the old fishing harbour
and the church and his own cottage. He sat on a flat rock and poured himself the last of the lukewa
rm coffee.
Cecilia Vanger kept her distance. Blomkvist did not want to be importunate, so he waited a week befo
re he went to her house. She let him in.
“You must think I’m quite foolish, a fifty-six-year-old, respectable headmistress acting like a teen
age girl.”
“Cecilia, you’re a grown woman. You have the right to do whatever you want.”
“I know and that’s why I’ve decided not to see you any more. I can’t stand…”
“Please, you don’t owe me an explanation. I hope we’re still friends.”
“I would like for us to remain friends. But I can’t deal with a relationship with you. I haven’t eve
r been good at relationships. I’d like it if you would leave me in peace for a while.”