The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye: Continuing Stieg Larsson's Millennium Series by David Lagercrantz Read Free Book Online Page B
Authors: David Lagercrantz
at an event organized by the Swedish Shareholders’ Association, on Stadsgårdskajen.
For a minute or two Blomkvist studied the photos of Mannheimer online and tried to get beyond his first impression. He saw a handsome man with clean-cut features, but he thought he could also detect a melancholy streak in his eyes, which not even the stylized portrait on the company’s home page could conceal. Mannheimer never made any categorical statements. There was no sell, buy, act now! There was always doubt, a question. He was said to be analytical, and musical, interested in jazz, above all in older, so-called hot jazz.
He was thirty-six years old, the only child in a well-off family from Nockeby, west of Stockholm. His father Herman, who was fifty-four when Leo was born, had been C.E.O. of the Rosvik industrial group, and later in life sat on a number of boards. Herman owned 40 per cent of the share capital of no less a company than Alfred Ögren Securities.
His mother Viveka, née Hamilton, had been a housewife and active in the Red Cross. She seemed to have devoted much of her life to her son and to his talent. The few interviews she had granted betrayed a streak of elitism. In the
Dagens Nyheter
article about his high I.Q., Leo even hinted that she had been coaching him behind the scenes.
“I was probably a little unfairly well prepared for those tests,” he said and described himself as an unruly pupil during his early years in school, which, according to the author of the article, was typical for highly gifted and under-stimulated children.
Leo Mannheimer had a tendency to play down the complimentary and flattering things said about him, which could be seen as coy. But the impression Blomkvist got was rather that Mannheimer was burdened with guilt and anguish, as though he felt he had failed to live up to the expectations invested in him as a child. Yet he had nothing to be ashamed of. His doctoral thesis had been on the 1999 I.T. bubble and, like his father, he had become a partner at Alfred Ögren Securities. Most of his fortune looked to have been inherited and he had never stood out, in either a positive or negative way, at least not as far as Blomkvist could see.
The only remotely mysterious piece of information Blomkvist had unearthed was that Mannheimer had taken six months’ leave of absence as of January the previous year, to “travel”. Afterwards he had resumed his work, and started to give lectures and sometimes even appeared on television – not as a traditional financial analyst, more as a philosopher, an old-fashioned sceptic unwilling to pronounce on something so uncertain as the future. In his latest contribution to
Dagens Industri
’s webcast, on the rise of market prices during the month of May, he said:
“The stock exchange is like someone who just came out of a depression. Everything that hurt so badly before suddenly seems far away. I can only wish the market the best of luck.”
Obviously he was being sarcastic. For some reason Blomkvist watched the piece twice. Surely there was something interesting there? He thought so. It wasn’t just the way in which Mannheimer expressed himself. It was his eyes. Their sparkle was mournful and mocking, as if Mannheimer were musing over something quite different. Maybe that was one aspect of his intelligence – the ability to pursue many lines of thought at the same time – but he looked almost like an actor wanting to break out of his role.
That did not necessarily make Leo Mannheimer a good story. Even so, Blomkvist abandoned his plans to take time off and enjoy the summer, if only to show Salander that he would not give in so easily. He got up from his computer, paced about and then sat down again, like a restless spirit, and he surfed the net and rearranged his bookshelf and rummaged around in the kitchen. But the subject of Mannheimer never left him. At 1.00 p.m., as he was about to shave and grumpily weigh himself – one of his new habits
For a minute or two Blomkvist studied the photos of Mannheimer online and tried to get beyond his first impression. He saw a handsome man with clean-cut features, but he thought he could also detect a melancholy streak in his eyes, which not even the stylized portrait on the company’s home page could conceal. Mannheimer never made any categorical statements. There was no sell, buy, act now! There was always doubt, a question. He was said to be analytical, and musical, interested in jazz, above all in older, so-called hot jazz.
He was thirty-six years old, the only child in a well-off family from Nockeby, west of Stockholm. His father Herman, who was fifty-four when Leo was born, had been C.E.O. of the Rosvik industrial group, and later in life sat on a number of boards. Herman owned 40 per cent of the share capital of no less a company than Alfred Ögren Securities.
His mother Viveka, née Hamilton, had been a housewife and active in the Red Cross. She seemed to have devoted much of her life to her son and to his talent. The few interviews she had granted betrayed a streak of elitism. In the
Dagens Nyheter
article about his high I.Q., Leo even hinted that she had been coaching him behind the scenes.
“I was probably a little unfairly well prepared for those tests,” he said and described himself as an unruly pupil during his early years in school, which, according to the author of the article, was typical for highly gifted and under-stimulated children.
Leo Mannheimer had a tendency to play down the complimentary and flattering things said about him, which could be seen as coy. But the impression Blomkvist got was rather that Mannheimer was burdened with guilt and anguish, as though he felt he had failed to live up to the expectations invested in him as a child. Yet he had nothing to be ashamed of. His doctoral thesis had been on the 1999 I.T. bubble and, like his father, he had become a partner at Alfred Ögren Securities. Most of his fortune looked to have been inherited and he had never stood out, in either a positive or negative way, at least not as far as Blomkvist could see.
The only remotely mysterious piece of information Blomkvist had unearthed was that Mannheimer had taken six months’ leave of absence as of January the previous year, to “travel”. Afterwards he had resumed his work, and started to give lectures and sometimes even appeared on television – not as a traditional financial analyst, more as a philosopher, an old-fashioned sceptic unwilling to pronounce on something so uncertain as the future. In his latest contribution to
Dagens Industri
’s webcast, on the rise of market prices during the month of May, he said:
“The stock exchange is like someone who just came out of a depression. Everything that hurt so badly before suddenly seems far away. I can only wish the market the best of luck.”
Obviously he was being sarcastic. For some reason Blomkvist watched the piece twice. Surely there was something interesting there? He thought so. It wasn’t just the way in which Mannheimer expressed himself. It was his eyes. Their sparkle was mournful and mocking, as if Mannheimer were musing over something quite different. Maybe that was one aspect of his intelligence – the ability to pursue many lines of thought at the same time – but he looked almost like an actor wanting to break out of his role.
That did not necessarily make Leo Mannheimer a good story. Even so, Blomkvist abandoned his plans to take time off and enjoy the summer, if only to show Salander that he would not give in so easily. He got up from his computer, paced about and then sat down again, like a restless spirit, and he surfed the net and rearranged his bookshelf and rummaged around in the kitchen. But the subject of Mannheimer never left him. At 1.00 p.m., as he was about to shave and grumpily weigh himself – one of his new habits
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