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She looked at Jervas, who nodded. “All this stuff about insults and resisting arrest is just nonsense. I assume you will ignore it.”
    “Probably. Illegal weapons are more serious.”
    “I would urge you to wait and see. Blomkvist has put the pieces of this puzzle together all by himself; he’s way ahead of us on the police force. It will be to our advantage to stay on good terms with him and ensure his cooperation, rather than unleash him to condemn the entire police force in his magazine and elsewhere in the media.”
    After a few seconds, Erlander cleared his throat. If Modig dared to stick her neck out, he could do the same.
    “I agree with Sonja. I too think Blomkvist is a man we could work with. I’ve apologized to him for the way he was treated last night. He seems ready to let bygones be bygones. Besides, he has integrity. He somehow tracked down where Salander was living, but he won’t give us the address. He’s not afraid to get into a public scrap with the police . . . and he’s most certainly in a position where his voice will carry just as much weight in the media as any report from Paulsson.”
    “But he refuses to give the police any information about Salander.”
    “He says that we’ll have to ask her ourselves, if that time ever comes. He says he absolutely won’t discuss a person who is not only innocent but who also has had her rights so severely violated.”
    “What kind of weapon is it?” Jervas said.
    “It’s a Colt 1911 Government. Serial number unknown. Forensics has it, and we don’t know yet whether it is connected to any known crime in Sweden. If it is, that will put the matter in a rather different light.”
    Spångberg raised her pen.
    “Agneta, it’s up to you to decide whether you want to initiate a preliminary investigation against Blomkvist. But I advise that you wait for the report from forensics. So let’s move on. This character Zalachenko . . . what can our colleagues from Stockholm tell us about him?”
    “The truth is,” Modig said, “that until yesterday afternoon we had never heard of either Zalachenko or Niedermann.”
    “I thought you were busy looking for a lesbian Satanist gang in Stockholm.Was I wrong?” one of the Göteborg detectives said. His colleagues all frowned. Holmberg was studying his fingernails. Modig had to take the question.
    “Within these four walls, I can tell you that we have our equivalent of Inspector Paulsson, and all that stuff about a lesbian Satanist gang is probably a smokescreen originating mainly from him.”
    Modig and Holmberg then described in detail the investigation as it had developed. When they had finished there was a long silence around the table.
    “If all this about Gunnar Björck is true and it comes out, Säpo’s ears are going to be burning,” the assistant head of the violent crimes division concluded.
    Jervas raised her hand. “It sounds to me as though your suspicions are for the most part based on assumptions and circumstantial evidence. As a prosecutor I would be uneasy about the lack of unassailable evidence.”
    “We’re aware of that,” Holmberg said. “We think we know what happened in general, but there are questions that still have to be answered.”
    “I gather you’re still busy with excavations in Nykvarn,” Spångberg said. “How many killings do you reckon this case involves?”
    Holmberg rubbed his eyes wearily. “We started with two, then three murders in Stockholm. Those are the ones that prompted the hunt for Salander: the deaths of Advokat Bjurman, the journalist Dag Svensson, and Mia Johansson, an academic. In the area around the warehouse in Nykvarn we have so far found three graves—well, three bodies. We’ve identified a known dealer and petty thief who was found dismembered in one trench. We found a woman’s body in a second trench—she’s still unidentified. And we haven’t dug up the third yet. It appears to be older than the others. Furthermore, Blomkvist