d he was on his way te. harriet stopped him on the road aed to say something to him, but he waved her off a. falk erson to see her alive.”
“how did she die?” blomkvist said again.
“i don’t know,” vanger said with a troubled expressio get aronsson out of his til around 5:00—he survived, by the way, although he was not in good shape—aer 6:00 the threat of fire was sidered past. the island was still cut off, but thio . it wasn’t u dowdelayed dinner around 8:00 that we discovered harriet was missi ohe s to get harriet from her room, but she came back to say that she ’t find her. i didn’t think much about it; i probably assumed she had gone for a walk or she hadhat dinner was served. and during the evening i had to deal with various diss ah the family. so it wasn’t u m, whe to fi we realised that nobody k was and that no-one had seehe day before.” he spread his arms out wide. “and from that day, she has been missing without a trace.”
“missing?” blomkvist echoed.
“for all these years we haveo find one microscopic scrap of her.”
“but if she vanished, as you say, you ’t be sure that she was murdered.”
“i uhe obje. i’ve had thoughts along the same lines. erso a trae s could have happened. she could have gone off of her own free will and be hiding somewhere. she could have had a and died. she could have itted suid finally, she could have beeim of a crime. i’ve weighed all these possibilities.”
“but you believe that someoook harriet’s life. why?”
“because it’s the only reasonable .” vanger held up one finger. “from the outset i hoped that she had run away. but as the days passed, we all realised that this wasn’t the case. i mean, how would a sixteen-year-old from such a protected world, even a very able girl, be able to manage on her own? how could she stay hidden without being discovered? where would she get money? and eve a job somewhere, she would need a social security d an address.”
he held up two fingers.
“my hought was that she had had some kind of at. e a favo to the desk aop drawer. there’s a map there.”
blomkvist did as he was asked ahe map oable. hedeby island was an irregularly shaped land mass about two miles long with a maximum width of about one mile. a large part of the island was covered by forest. there area by the bridge and aroule summer-house harbour. oher side of the island was the smallholding, ?sterg?rden, from whifortunate aronsson had started out in his car.
“remember that she ’t have left the island,” vanger said. “here on hedeby island you could die in a like anywhere else. you could be struck by lightning—but there was hat day. you could be trampled to death by a horse, fall dowumble into a rock crevice. there are no doubt hundreds of ways to fall vi at here. i’ve thought of most of them.”
he held up three fingers.
“there’s just od this also applies to the third possibility—that the girl, trary to every indi, took her own life. her body must be somewhere in this limited area.”
vanger slammed his fist down on the map.
“ier she disappeared, we searched everywhere, crissg the islahrough every ditch, scoured every patch of field, d uprooted tree. we went through every building, ey, well, barn, a.”
the old man looked away from blomkvist ahe darkside the window. his voiore intimate.
“the whole autumn i looked for her, evehe search parties stopped and people had given up. when i wasan going for walks bad forth across the island. winter d we still hadn’t found a trace of her. in the spri on looking until i realised how preposterous my search was. when summer came i hired three experienen who did the entire search ain with dogs. they bed every square foot of the island. by that time i had begun to think that someo have killed her. so they also searched frave. they worked at it for three months. we fouest vestige of the girl. it was as if she had dissolved into thin air.”
“i k of a number of possibilities,” blomkvist ventured.
“let’s hear them.”
“she could have drowned, atally or ohis is an island
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