Chap­ter 13 of The Girl Who Played with Fire begins with Pros­e­cu­tor Richard Ekström being for­mal­ly assigned to over­see the dou­ble homi­cide inves­ti­ga­tion on Maun­dy Thurs­day, March 24. The deci­sion to call Ekström was made by a night duty pros­e­cu­tor who rec­og­nized the media fren­zy that the case could spark, con­sid­er­ing Ekström’s metic­u­lous approach to legal mat­ters and his sharp eye for detail. At forty-two, Ekström had built a sol­id rep­u­ta­tion in his career, start­ing in Upp­sala before advanc­ing to the Min­istry of Jus­tice, where he worked to align Swedish law with EU stan­dards. While some viewed him as polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed, he made a point of dis­tanc­ing him­self from par­ty affil­i­a­tions, although his actions were close­ly mon­i­tored due to the pos­si­bil­i­ty of his future in high­er office.

Once briefed, Ekström learned that the vic­tims were a crim­i­nol­o­gist and a journalist—details that imme­di­ate­ly drew sig­nif­i­cant pub­lic atten­tion, espe­cial­ly since the jour­nal­ist who dis­cov­ered the bod­ies was Mikael Blomkvist, known for his involve­ment in high-pro­file cas­es. Blomkvist’s name only inten­si­fied the media storm sur­round­ing the mur­ders. Ekström, rec­og­niz­ing the sever­i­ty of the case, quick­ly called back Crim­i­nal Inspec­tor Jan Bublan­s­ki, who had been on leave after a par­tic­u­lar­ly tax­ing peri­od. Despite his time off, Bublan­s­ki was called back into action due to his expe­ri­ence with vio­lent crimes and his deep under­stand­ing of how to han­dle such high-stakes inves­ti­ga­tions. His imme­di­ate recog­ni­tion of the seri­ous­ness of the sit­u­a­tion under­scored the grav­i­ty of the case that lay ahead.

By 9:00 a.m., Bublan­s­ki had assem­bled a team of skilled inves­ti­ga­tors, hand­pick­ing mem­bers based on their spe­cif­ic abil­i­ties to han­dle dif­fer­ent aspects of the case. Among them was Son­ja Modig, whose cre­ative and method­i­cal approach to inves­ti­ga­tions had earned her Bublanski’s trust. As they reviewed the details of the crime scene, they quick­ly deter­mined that the mur­ders had been car­ried out with clin­i­cal pre­ci­sion. There were no signs of a strug­gle or theft, sug­gest­ing that the killer was like­ly famil­iar with firearms and knew what they were doing. The lack of direct wit­ness­es to the killer’s escape fur­ther com­pli­cat­ed the inves­ti­ga­tion, leav­ing the team with more ques­tions than answers about who was respon­si­ble and why the killings were so metic­u­lous­ly planned.

While the inves­ti­ga­tion was under­way, Blomkvist took mat­ters into his own hands, div­ing into the work of the deceased, deter­mined to uncov­er any impor­tant infor­ma­tion they had been work­ing on. As he metic­u­lous­ly backed up sen­si­tive data, Blomkvist was aware of the secre­cy sur­round­ing the mate­ri­als and knew how cru­cial it was to pre­serve the infor­ma­tion. Mean­while, Bublan­s­ki received a key piece of evi­dence from the Nation­al Foren­sics Lab­o­ra­to­ry con­firm­ing that the Colt .45 Mag­num used in the mur­ders was reg­is­tered to Nils Erik Bjur­man, a lawyer who was dif­fi­cult to con­tact. As the inves­ti­ga­tion unfold­ed, anoth­er bomb­shell emerged—Lisbeth Salander’s fin­ger­prints were found on the mur­der weapon. This dis­cov­ery con­nect­ed her to the crime, rais­ing new ques­tions about her role in the mur­ders, her ties to the vic­tims, and her con­nec­tion to Bjur­man.

As the inves­ti­ga­tion deep­ened, dis­cus­sions turned to Salander’s tur­bu­lent past and her con­tro­ver­sial guardian­ship under Bjur­man. There were con­flict­ing opin­ions about her sta­bil­i­ty and abil­i­ties, with some see­ing her as unsta­ble, while oth­ers rec­og­nized her sharp intel­lect. With the rev­e­la­tion that Salan­der had a direct con­nec­tion to the mur­der weapon, the police began to focus their efforts on track­ing her down. The urgency of the sit­u­a­tion grew as they real­ized that Salander’s poten­tial involve­ment in the mur­ders could change every­thing about the case. The inves­ti­ga­tion was now at a crit­i­cal junc­ture, and the hunt for Salan­der became a key focus, mark­ing a turn­ing point in the search for the truth behind the shock­ing dou­ble homi­cide.