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Read an exclusive extract of THE GIRL IN THE EAGLE’S TALONS by Karin Smirnoff

By Lipfon Tang
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Lisbeth Salander pours herself a free cup of coffee from the thermos in the lobby. It’s lukewarm and has a metallic smell, but it eases the pressure in her head.
She sits down in an armchair. No frumpy social services types as far as the eye can see.
There’s no mistaking them, thinks Lisbeth as she surveys her surroundings. The suits are crowding around the bar, a gang of sports jackets are playing shuffleboard, office blouses are having after-work drinks and . . . There she is, on her way in through the first set of entrance doors. A female exemplar of the social-worker species. Indeterminate age, grey-blonde hair, a worry line across her forehead. A Kånken rucksack, the original model, with a folding umbrella sticking out of the side pocket. Around her neck an ID lanyard she forgot to take off when she left the office.
When the woman stops, looks around, spies the after-work blouses, smiles and heads over to them, Lisbeth is taken aback. So shocked by her own misjudgement that she doesn’t have time to register the man who has materialised out of nowhere and is now holding out his hand to her.
“Erik Niskala,” he says. “Elsie Nyberg didn’t feel well so I’m filling in for her. Can I get you anything?” he adds, and suggests a beer.
Lisbeth nods. A few minutes later a beer and some peanuts appear in front of her. Niskala hangs his overcoat over the chair and sits down, with some effort. He is big and overweight. The shirt buttons are straining around his belly beneath his cardigan, but his eyes are sharp. She notices that, too.
“Well,” he says. “I had to be briefed on this case in rather a hurry. And cheers, by the way, welcome to Gasskas. This IPA is brewed locally and they even sell it at the off-licence. Give it a try and you’ll detect distinct notes of pineapple.” He looks at her over his tankard and takes a few good swigs. Wipes the froth from his beard and ends with an “Ahhhh, I’ve been looking forward to that all day. An ice-cold beer in a proper glass.”
Then it’s as if he catches himself. The undesirability of drinking at work. The fact that he has business of a formal nature. He fishes his glasses and a plastic folder out of a battered leather briefcase and leans back. Puts on the glasses and then takes them off again. Leans forward as far as his belly will allow and regards her with the sort of look that a teacher might give a pupil who has done something unexpected. Not necessarily good, not necessarily bad.
“It’s about Svala,” he says. “Your niece, if I understand rightly.”
“Ronald Niedermann’s daughter,” Lisbeth replies. “She and I have never met.”
“No, I realise that,” he says, “but you’re down as Svala’s emergency contact. With no name or telephone number. It’s evidently taken them some time to find you, but you’re here now.”
She tries to probe him on how they went about it, but he doesn’t know.
“I’m just a basic child welfare officer,” he says, “not some hacker.”
Lisbeth takes a few gulps of beer, too. Bloody pulse. Bloody headache that won’t let up. And bloody Niedermann, who should never have had a child before he died. How was she supposed to know? And even if she had known, would it have made any difference?
It was him or her, it was that simple. He was the one who came after her, not the other way round. Apart from that last time, perhaps. It’s still a favourite memory. Niedermann’s gigantic body, hoisted up in chains like a masochist at some S&M club. His rage, then his empty eyes and some mumbled German. The sound of motorbikes approaching. Lisbeth riding back to town, tasting freedom on the dark-red Honda.
Conclusion: of all the bad things she has done to other people, Niedermann’s death is up there with the best. She regrets nothing. Not even for the sake of an orphaned child.
“Do you know anything about her father?” says Niskala.
“No,” says Lisbeth, “I never met him.”
“So you don’t know how long he was on the scene?”
“No,” she says again.
Lisbeth Salander pins Niskala with her stare for so long that he is forced to look down.
“Alright,” he says, fingering the file. “I’ll get straight to the point. We need an emergency placement and Svala has suggested you.”
“Me?” says Lisbeth. “I can’t look after a child. I won’t do it. I agreed to meet her, but that was all.” Right now she has no recollection of why. “She’s got a grandmother. Isn’t it best that she lives with her?”
“That’s exactly why we had to see you today. The problem is, Svala’s grandmother died this morning. It was the girl who found her.”
“Shit,” says Lisbeth. “What did she die of?”
“I don’t know,” Niskala replies. “A heart attack, presumably. She was lying dead on the hall floor.”
“Shit,” she says again, but she’s thinking Fucking hell! If there was a chance of wriggling out of all this, that’s now gone. Of course she could say no. Social services would come up with a foster home and Lisbeth wouldn’t have to give it another thought. But social services are too damn good at messing up. They’d probably place the kid with some local paedophile.
“Naturally we’re working on finding a permanent family home for her,” says Niskala. “How long?” says Lisbeth.
“Hard to say, we’ve got various suitable families in the area. It could all happen quite fast.”
“No,” she says, “I just can’t. I have to get back to Stockholm,” she adds, which is a lie. She comes and goes as she wishes. She has no need of an office to do her job. But a child. A teenager. No. She wouldn’t even agree to a stick insect.
He opens his folder to leaf through his papers.
“There’s nothing wrong with the girl,” he says, looking for a suitable passage to read out, but then he changes his mind and passes the whole file over to Lisbeth. “Take the evening to think it over,” he goes on. “It’s meant to be a confidential matter, but I daresay we can make an exception,” he chuckles. “You’re in the security business, after all.”

 


Katarina da Silva is already in the office. She sets out the coffee cups and cuts slices of bun loaf.
“You think people like this eat buns?” says Salo.
“Cinnamon softens people up. We might well need that. Do you know what they want this time?” she asks. She is not exactly happy about having to interrupt her weekend for Henry Salo’s business acquaintances.
“An assurance that I’m on their side, I presume.”
He’s told her about the meeting at the Treehotel and Branco Group’s ambition to appropriate the bulk of the wind farm and leave only small areas for everyone else.
He does not mention the threat, if a threat is what it is.
“I’m glad you’re here,” says Salo. “It all looks good on paper, but there’s something about the owner, Marcus Branco. I think we need to sound him out. One of our conditions is for some of the electricity to stay in the region, otherwise the whole thing is off. Gasskas is attractive enough already because of the hydro-electric power, but for future projects to go ahead we have to be able to guarantee much greater capacity.”
“I know that already,” says da Silva. “What do you know about the Branco Group, the company itself, I mean?”
“No more than what has already emerged. Basically it’s a security firm that’s invested in mines, property and manufacturing industry. Centre of operations in Umeå. Plenty of capital.”
At five minutes to one, Salo goes to the main entrance to let them in. On the dot of one o’clock, Marcus Branco comes gliding in with Lo in his wake.
“A new face,” says Salo, pretending they’ve never met. “Welcome to Gasskas municipal council building. I thought we could use the conference suite. Please come through, and then we’ll go to the right.”
“And you’re the lawyer?” says Branco, looking at da Silva.
“I’m the council legal officer. Retired. I come in when needed. Like today,” she says, untying the tape from around the folder. “We’ve discussed your proposal, brought it before the politicians and concluded that the original decision still stands. Three operators dividing the land equally between them.”
Branco says nothing. He pauses theatrically and looks out over the town, the river, the police station and the enforcement service. He’s not annoyed, merely expectant.
“Excuse us, ladies, I’d like to talk to Henry Salo alone,” he says eventually.
There’s a feeble protest from da Silva. Then she gets up and turns to Lo.
“We can go and sit in the staffroom for a while, I suppose.”
“I understand you know Märta Hirak,” says Branco when they’re alone.
“Yes,” Salo says. “Why?”
“We want to talk to her about something, but we haven’t been able to track her down.”
“I heard she disappeared, left town,” says Salo, “But what’s it got to do with me?”
“We’ve done a bit of investigating. You and Hirak were an item. A teenage love affair that came to a sorry end.”
“That was thirty years ago. Get to the point.”
“If I understand my source correctly, you’re still seeing her?”
“I still don’t know what you’re driving at,” says Salo.
“My source is pretty sure you still care about her. Maybe more than you do about your fiancée. It would be a great shame for you and for her if anything happened. Wouldn’t it?”
His entire body, every single sense, his intuition and everything else, is impelling him to get up and yell: Out of my life. I don’t give a damn about your fucking wind farm. Leave me in peace!
“I want to make this very clear,” says Branco. “Guarantee the land, otherwise Hirak will be gone for good. And then there’s your official family too, of course. Your future wife Pernilla, for example. And it’s lovely, isn’t it, that Lukas’s grandfather – Mikael Blomkvist, isn’t it? – is so attentive to the boy.”
“Thank you,” Salo says, “that’s enough.” One of the few things he credits himself with is the ability to stay cool when his soul is on fire. Now he’s supposed to judge the circles of hell. Weigh one person against another.
Märta Hirak . . . They wake in the Treehotel’s Bird’s Nest room. Hours have passed, though it feels like minutes. He is still lying there, his legs entwined with hers. If he holds on to her tightly enough, perhaps she will stay.
“I’ve got to disappear for a while,” she says. “I’ll be in touch.”
Two words are all he has had since. Miss you. He is still living on them.
“You can do what you like with Märta Hirak,” says Salo, “it’s not my problem. I’m afraid I can’t help you. Rules are rules. If that’s all, then perhaps we can finish here.”
Get the guy out before he says any more.
But Marcus Branco just glides off without thanks or goodbyes.

 

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