Salander was thinking hard. This man had transported, drugged, abused and sold women both retail and wholesale. He had murdered at least eight people, including a policeman in Gosseberga and a member of Svavelsjo M.C. and his wife. She had no idea how many other lives her half-brother might have on his account, if not his conscience, but thanks to him she had been hunted all over Sweden like a mad dog, suspected of three of the murders he had committed.

Her finger rested heavily on the trigger.

He had murdered the journalist Dag Svensson and his partner Mia Johansson.

With Zalachenko he had also murdered her and buried her in Gosseberga. And now he had resurfaced to murder her again.

You could get pretty angry with less provocation.

She saw no reason to let him live any longer. He hated her with a passion that she could not even fathom. What would happen if she turned him over to the police? A trial? A life sentence? When would he be granted parole? How soon would he escape? And now that her father was finally gone  -  how many years would she have to look over her shoulder, waiting for the day when her brother would suddenly turn up again? She felt the heft of the nail gun. She could end this thing once and for all.

Risk assessment.

She bit her lip.

Salander was afraid of no-one and nothing. She realized that she lacked the necessary imagination  -  and that was evidence enough that there was something wrong with her brain.

Niedermann hated her and she responded with an equally implacable hatred towards him. He joined the ranks of men like Magge Lundin and Martin Vanger and Zalachenko and dozens of other creeps who in her estimation had absolutely no claim to be among the living. If she could put them all on a desert island and set off an atomic bomb, then she would be satisfied.

But murder? Was it worth it? What would happen to her if she killed him? What were the odds that she would avoid discovery? What would she be ready to sacrifice for the satisfaction of firing the nail gun one last time?

She could claim self-defence... no, not with his feet nailed to the floorboards.

She suddenly thought of Harriet Fucking Vanger, who had also been tormented by her father and her brother. She recalled the exchange she had had with Mikael Bastard Blomkvist in which she cursed Harriet Vanger in the harshest possible terms. It was Harriet Vanger's fault that her brother Martin had been allowed to go on murdering women year after year.

"What would you do?" Blomkvist had said.

"I'd kill the fucker," she had said with a conviction that came from the depths of her cold soul.

And now she was standing in exactly the same position in which Harriet Vanger had found herself. How many more women would Niedermann kill if she let him go? She had the legal right of a citizen and was socially responsible for her actions. How many years of her life did she want to sacrifice? How many years had Harriet Vanger been willing to sacrifice?

Suddenly the nail gun felt too heavy for her to hold against his spine, even with both hands.

She lowered the weapon and felt as though she had come back to reality. She was aware of Niedermann muttering something incoherent. He was speaking German. He was talking about a devil that had come to get him.

She knew that he was not talking to her. He seemed to see somebody at the other end of the room. She turned her head and followed his gaze. There was nothing there. She felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck.

She turned on her heel, grabbed the iron rod, and went to the outer room to find her shoulder bag. As she bent to retrieve it she caught sight of the knife. She still had her gloves on, and she picked up the weapon.

She hesitated a moment and then placed it in full view in the centre aisle between the stacks of packing crates. With the iron rod she spent three minutes prising loose the padlock so that she could get outside.

She sat in her car and thought for a long time. Finally she flipped open her mobile. It took her two minutes to locate the number for Svavelsjo M.C.'s clubhouse.

"Yeah?"

"Nieminen," she said.

"Wait."

She waited for three minutes before Sonny Nieminen came to the telephone.

"Who's this?"

"None of your bloody business," Salander said in such a low voice that he could hardly make out the words. He could not even tell whether it was a man or a woman.

"Alright, so what do you want?"

"You want a tip about Niedermann?"

"Do I?"

"Don't give me shit. Want to know where he is or not?"

"I'm listening."

Salander gave him directions to the brickworks outside Norrtalje. She said that he would be there long enough for Nieminen to find him if he hurried.

She closed her mobile, started the car and drove up to the O.K. petrol station across the road. She parked so that she had a clear view of the brickworks.

She had to wait for more than two hours. It was just before 1.30 in the afternoon when she saw a van drive slowly past on the road below her. It stopped at the turning off the main road, stood there for five minutes, and then drove down to the brickworks. On this December day, twilight was setting in.

She opened the glove box and took out a pair of Minolta 16 x 50 binoculars and watched as the van parked. She identified Nieminen and Waltari with three men she did not recognize. New blood. They had to rebuild their operation.

When Nieminen and his pals had found the open door at the end of the building, she opened her mobile again. She composed a message and sent it to the police station in Norrtalje.

POLICE MURDERER R. NIEDERMANN IN OLD BRICKWORKS BY THE O.K. STATION OUTSIDE SKEDERID. ABOUT TO BE MURDERED BY S. NIEMINEN AND MEMBERS OF SVAVELSJo M.C. WOMEN DEAD IN PIT ON GROUND FLOOR.

She could not see any movement from the factory.

She bided her time.

As she waited she removed the S.I.M. card from her telephone and cut it up with some nail scissors. She rolled down the window and tossed out the pieces. Then she took a new S.I.M. card from her wallet and inserted it in her mobile. She was using a Comviq cash card, which was virtually impossible to track. She called Comviq and credited 500 kronor to the new card.

Eleven minutes after her message was sent, two police vans with their sirens off but with blue lights flashing drove at speed up to the factory from the direction of Norrtalje. They parked in the yard next to Nieminen's van. A minute later two squad cars arrived. The officers conferred and then moved together towards the brickworks. Salander raised her binoculars. She saw one of the policemen radio through the registration number of Nieminen's van. The officers stood around waiting. Salander watched as another team approached at high speed two minutes later.

Finally it was all over.

The story that had begun on the day she was born had ended at the brickworks.

She was free.

When the policemen officers took out assault rifles from their vehicles, put on Kevlar vests and started to fan out around the factory site, Salander went inside the shop and bought a coffee and a sandwich wrapped in cellophane. She ate standing at a counter in the cafe.

It was dark by the time she got back to her car. Just as she opened the door she heard two distant reports from what she assumed were handguns on the other side of the road. She saw several black figures, presumably policemen, pressed against the wall near the entrance at one end of the building. She heard sirens as another squad car approached from the direction of Uppsala. A few cars had stopped at the side of the road below her to watch the drama.

She started the Honda, turned on to the E18, and drove home.

It was 7.00 that evening when Salander, to her great annoyance, heard the doorbell ring. She was in the bath and the water was still steaming. There was really only one person who could be at her front door.

At first she thought she would ignore it, but at the third ring she sighed, got out of the bath, and wrapped a towel around her. With her lower lip pouting, she trailed water down the hall floor. She opened the door a crack.

"Hello," Blomkvist said.

She did not answer.

"Did you hear the evening news?"

She shook her head.

"I thought you might like to know that Ronald Niedermann is dead. He was murdered today in Norrtalje by a gang from Svavelsjo M.C."

"Really?" Salander said.

"I talked to the duty officer in Norrtalje. It seems to have been some sort of internal dispute. Apparently Niedermann had been tortured and slit open with a knife. They found a bag at the factory with several hundred thousand kronor."

"Jesus."

"The Svavelsjo mob was arrested, but they put up quite a fight. There was a shoot-out and the police had to send for a back-up team from Stockholm. The bikers surrendered at around 6.00."

"Is that so?"

"Your old friend Sonny Nieminen bit the dust. He went completely nuts and tried to shoot his way out."

"That's nice."

Blomkvist stood there in silence. They looked at each other through the crack in the door.

"Am I interrupting something?" he said.

She shrugged. "I was in the bath."

"I can see that. Do you want some company?"

She gave him an acid look.

"I didn't mean in the bath. I've brought some bagels," he said, holding up a bag. "And some espresso coffee. Since you own a Jura Impressa X7, you should at least learn how to use it."

She raised her eyebrows. She did not know whether to be disappointed or relieved.

"Just company?"

"Just company," he confirmed. "I'm a good friend who's visiting a good friend. If I'm welcome, that is."

She hesitated. For two years she had kept as far away from Mikael Blomkvist as she could. And yet he kept sticking to her life like gum on the sole of her shoe, either on the Net or in real life. On the Net it was O.K. There he was no more than electrons and words. In real life, standing on her doorstep, he was still fucking attractive. And he knew her secrets just as she knew all of his.

She looked at him for a moment and realized that she now had no feelings for him. At least not those kinds of feelings.

He had in fact been a good friend to her over the past year.

She trusted him. Maybe. It was troubling that one of the few people she trusted was a man she spent so much time avoiding.

Then she made up her mind. It was absurd to pretend that he did not exist. It no longer hurt her to see him.

She opened the door wide and let him into her life again.