Chap­ter 20 of The Girl Who Played with Fire con­tin­ues to unrav­el the mys­tery sur­round­ing Lis­beth Salan­der, focus­ing on her com­plex rela­tion­ships with the peo­ple around her and the inves­ti­ga­tions into the mur­ders. Miri­am Wu spends an hour being inter­viewed by Modig, dur­ing which Bublan­s­ki silent­ly observes the ses­sion. After­ward, Bublan­s­ki express­es his con­cerns about the han­dling of the case, par­tic­u­lar­ly regard­ing Crim­i­nal Inspec­tor Faste’s approach with Miri­am. He admits that assign­ing Faste to ques­tion her was a mis­take and apol­o­gizes, with Miri­am accept­ing his apol­o­gy, which light­ens the mood. Their con­ver­sa­tion shifts to Lis­beth Salan­der, with Bublan­s­ki reveal­ing his con­fu­sion over con­flict­ing accounts of her char­ac­ter, includ­ing a trou­bling por­tray­al involv­ing sex work and alle­ga­tions of men­tal inca­pac­i­ty.

Miri­am, fierce­ly pro­tec­tive of Lis­beth, defends her intel­li­gence and capa­bil­i­ties, point­ing out that Lisbeth’s hob­bies, such as com­plex math­e­mat­ics, defy the neg­a­tive stereo­types attrib­uted to her by social ser­vices. The dis­cus­sion then turns to their per­son­al rela­tion­ship, where Miri­am clar­i­fies that their inter­ac­tions are based on mutu­al respect and con­sen­su­al role-play­ing, not sadis­tic ten­den­cies as implied by oth­ers. This con­ver­sa­tion com­pli­cates the inves­ti­ga­tion, pro­vid­ing a deep­er and more nuanced view of Salander’s char­ac­ter that chal­lenges the sim­ple nar­ra­tive of her being a men­tal­ly unsta­ble crim­i­nal. Miriam’s defense of Lis­beth paints a more com­plex por­trait of their rela­tion­ship, which had pre­vi­ous­ly been over­sim­pli­fied and mis­un­der­stood by those inves­ti­gat­ing her.

Lat­er in the day, the inves­tiga­tive team meets to dis­cuss the case, and Bublan­s­ki presents a new angle: he ques­tions whether Lis­beth was act­ing alone in the mur­ders or if she had an accom­plice. This shift in strat­e­gy is met with resis­tance from Faste and Bohman, who con­tin­ue to believe that Salan­der is sole­ly respon­si­ble for the crimes. Despite their objec­tions, Pros­e­cu­tor Ekström agrees with Bublanski’s approach and assigns oth­er offi­cers to explore the pos­si­bil­i­ty of addi­tion­al sus­pects. The divide with­in the team shows the ten­sions and dif­fer­ing opin­ions on how to approach the case, reveal­ing that even those with­in the inves­ti­ga­tion do not agree on the key details. This diver­gence in opin­ions is cru­cial, as it illus­trates the com­plex­i­ty of the case and the dif­fi­cul­ty in deter­min­ing the truth.

The inves­ti­ga­tion is fur­ther com­pli­cat­ed by inter­nal ten­sions, espe­cial­ly when Modig con­fronts Bublan­s­ki about his emo­tion­al reac­tion to Faste’s per­for­mance. Bublanski’s frus­tra­tion leads to an out­burst, show­ing the strain the inves­ti­ga­tion is plac­ing on the team. At the same time, Modig is informed that sen­si­tive infor­ma­tion from the inves­ti­ga­tion has been leaked to the media, cre­at­ing even more pres­sure for the team. Although Bublan­s­ki reas­sures her that she is not the source of the leak, the accu­sa­tion hangs over her, com­pli­cat­ing her posi­tion in the team. The grow­ing pres­sure and mis­trust among the inves­ti­ga­tors only serve to height­en the stakes of the case, mak­ing it increas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult for the team to stay focused on find­ing the truth.

Back at her apart­ment, Miri­am is shocked to find that the police have thor­ough­ly searched her per­son­al space. The inva­sion of her pri­va­cy leaves her feel­ing dis­turbed and con­flict­ed. She is torn between her loy­al­ty to Lis­beth and the dis­turb­ing accu­sa­tions that con­tin­ue to sur­face against her. The mount­ing media scruti­ny of Lis­beth and the con­stant encoun­ters with jour­nal­ists make Miriam’s sit­u­a­tion even more stress­ful. She strug­gles with the emo­tion­al tur­moil of being caught between the pub­lic nar­ra­tive and the per­son­al bond she shares with Lis­beth. Ulti­mate­ly, Miri­am decides that she needs to seek Lis­beth out per­son­al­ly, hop­ing that a direct con­ver­sa­tion with her will pro­vide the clar­i­ty she needs. She resolves not to make any judg­ments until she hears from Lis­beth her­self, despite the pres­sure and con­fu­sion sur­round­ing her.

This chap­ter serves as a turn­ing point in the inves­ti­ga­tion, with the char­ac­ters grap­pling not only with the com­plex­i­ties of the case but also with their own inter­nal con­flicts. Bublanski’s shift in strat­e­gy reveals that the inves­ti­ga­tion is far from straight­for­ward, and new leads sug­gest that the truth is more com­pli­cat­ed than ini­tial­ly believed. Miriam’s emo­tion­al jour­ney adds anoth­er lay­er to the nar­ra­tive, as she is forced to rec­on­cile her feel­ings for Lis­beth with the mount­ing alle­ga­tions against her. As the inves­ti­ga­tion con­tin­ues to evolve, the ten­sion between per­son­al loy­al­ty and pro­fes­sion­al duty grows, leav­ing the char­ac­ters in a pre­car­i­ous posi­tion. The chap­ter ends with a sense of antic­i­pa­tion, as both the inves­ti­ga­tors and Miri­am pre­pare for the next steps in uncov­er­ing the truth.