The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Read Online Free Page B

million?”
    “When it became clear that the AIA project was going to be investigated, Wennerström sent a cheque for six million to AIA for the difference. So the matter was settled, legally at least.”
    “It sounds as though Wennerström frittered away a little money for AIA. But compared with the half billion that disappeared from Skanska or the CEO of ABB’s golden parachute of more than a billion kronor—which really upset people—this doesn’t seem to be much to write about,” Blomkvist said. “Today’s readers are pretty tired of stories about incompetent speculators, even if it’s with public funds. Is there more to the story?”
    “It gets better.”
    “How do you know all this about Wennerström’s deals in Poland?”
    “I worked at Handelsbanken in the nineties. Guess who wrote the reports for the bank’s representative in AIA?”
    “Aha. Tell me more.”
    “Well, AIA got their report from Wennerström. Documents were drawn up. The balance of the money had been paid back. That six million coming back was very clever.”
    “Get to the point.”
    “But, my dear Blomkvist, that is the point. AIA was satisfied with Wennerström’s report. It was an investment that went to hell, but there was no criticism of the way it had been managed. We looked at invoices and transfers and all the documents. Everything was meticulously accounted for. I believed it. My boss believed it. AIA believed it, and the government had nothing to say.”
    “Where’s the hook?”
    “This is where the story gets ticklish,” Lindberg said, looking surprisingly sober. “And since you’re a journalist, this is off the record.”
    “Come off it. You can’t sit there telling me all this stuff and then say I can’t use it.”
    “I certainly can. What I’ve told you so far is in the public record. You can look up the report if you want. The rest of the story—what I haven’t told you—you can write about, but you’ll have to treat me as an anonymous source.”
    “OK, but ‘off the record’ in current terminology means that I’ve been told something in confidence and can’t write about it.”
    “Screw the terminology. Write whatever the hell you want, but I’m your anonymous source. Are we agreed?”
    “Of course,” Blomkvist said.
    In hindsight, this was a mistake.
    “All right then. The Minos story took place more than a decade ago, just after the Wall came down and the Bolsheviks starting acting like decent capitalists. I was one of the people who investigated Wennerström, and the whole time I thought there was something damned odd about his story.”
    “Why didn’t you say so when you signed off on his report?”
    “I discussed it with my boss. But the problem was that there wasn’t anything to pinpoint. The documents were all OK, I had only to sign the report. Every time I’ve seen Wennerström’s name in the press since then I think about Minos, and not least because some years later, in the mid-nineties, my bank was doing some business with Wennerström. Pretty big business, actually, and it didn’t turn out so well.”
    “He cheated you?”
    “No, nothing that obvious. We both made money on the deals. It was more that…I don’t know quite how to explain it, and now I’m talking about my own employer, and I don’t want to do that. But what struck me—the lasting and overall impression, as they say—was not positive. Wennerström is presented in the media as a tremendous financial oracle. He thrives on that. It’s his ‘trust capital.’”
    “I know what you mean.”
    “My impression was that the man was all bluff. He wasn’t even particularly bright as a financier. In fact, I thought he was damned ignorant about certain subjects although he had some really sharp young warriors for advisers. Above all, I really didn’t care for him personally.”
    “So?”
    “A few years ago I went down to Poland on some other matter. Our group had dinner with some investors in Lódz, and I found