Read Online The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Trilogy Bundle by Stieg Larsson - Free Book Online Page B

come off looking weak with the media. They will run something on TV this evening.”
    Blomkvist looked glum.
    â€œHow are you doing?”
    Blomkvist shrugged and plopped down in his favourite armchair next to the window in Erika’s office. The decor was spartan, with a desk and functional bookcases and cheap office furniture. All of it was from IKEA apart from the two comfortable and extravagant armchairs and a small end table—a concession to my upbringing, she liked to say. She would sit reading in one of the armchairs with her feet tucked underneath her when she wanted to get away from the desk. Blomkvist looked down on Götgatan, where people were hurrying by in the dark. Christmas shopping was in full swing.
    â€œI suppose it’ll pass,” he said. “But right now it feels as if I’ve got myself a very raw deal.”
    â€œYes, I can imagine. It’s the same for all of us. Janne Dahlman went home early today.”
    â€œI assume he wasn’t over the moon about the verdict.”
    â€œHe’s not the most positive person anyway.”
    Mikael shook his head. For the past nine months Dahlman had been managing editor. He had started there just as the Wennerström affair got going, and he found himself on an editorial staff in crisis mode. Blomkvist tried to remember what their reasoning had been when he and Berger decided to hire him. He was competent, of course, and had worked at the TT news bureau, the evening papers, and Eko on the radio. But he apparently did not like sailing against the wind. During the past year Blomkvist had often regretted that they had hired Dahlman, who had an enervating habit of looking at everything in as negative a light as possible.
    â€œHave you heard from Christer?” Blomkvist asked without taking his eyes off the street.
    Christer Malm was the art director and designer of
Millennium
. He was also part owner of the magazine together with Berger and Blomkvist, but he was on a trip abroad with his boyfriend.
    â€œHe called to say hello.”
    â€œHe’ll have to be the one who takes over as publisher.”
    â€œLay off, Micke. As publisher you have to count on being punched in the nose every so often. It’s part of the job description.”
    â€œYou’re right about that. But I was the one who wrote the article that was published in a magazine of which I also happen to be the publisher. That makes everything look different all of a sudden. Then it’s a matter of bad judgement.”
    Berger felt that the disquiet she had been carrying with her all day was about to explode. In the weeks before the trial started, Blomkvist had been walking around under a black cloud. But she had never seen him as gloomy and dejected as he seemed to be now in the hour of his defeat. She walked to his side of the desk and sat on his lap, straddling him, and put her arms round his neck.
    â€œMikael, listen to me. We both know exactly how it happened. I’m as much to blame as you are. We simply have to ride out the storm.”
    â€œThere isn’t any storm to ride out. As far as the media are concerned, the verdict means that I’ve been shot in the back of the head. I can’t stay on as the publisher of
Millennium
. The vital thing is to maintain the magazine’s credibility, to stop the bleeding. You know that as well as I do.”
    â€œIf you think I intend to let you take the rap all by yourself, then you haven’t learned a damn thing about me in the years we’ve worked together.”
    â€œI know how you operate, Ricky. You’re 100 percent loyal to your colleagues. If you had to choose, you’d keep fighting against Wennerström’s lawyers until your credibility was gone too. We have to be smarter than that.”
    â€œAnd you think it’s smart to jump ship and make it look as if I sacked you?”
    â€œIf
Millennium
is going to survive, it depends on you now. Christer is great,