The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

He had seemed hurt when she did not want to speak to him. Finally she had looked him in the eye and explained her decision: I will never ever talk to you or any other crazy-doctor. None of you listen to what I have to say. You can keep me locked up here until I die. That won't change a thing. I won't talk to any of you. He had looked at her with surprise and hurt in his eyes. Then he had nodded as if he understood.



"Dr Teleborian," Giannini said, "we have established that you had Lisbeth Salander committed to a children's psychiatric clinic. You were the one who furnished the district court with the report, and this report constituted the only basis for the decisions that were made. Is this correct?"



"That is essentially correct. But I think  - "



"You'll have plenty of time to explain what you think. When Lisbeth Salander was about to turn eighteen, you once again interfered in her life and tried to have her locked up in a clinic."



"This time I wasn't the one who wrote the forensic medical report  - "



"No, it was written by Dr Jesper H. Loderman. And he just happened to be a doctoral candidate at that time. You were his supervisor. So it was your assessments that caused the report to be approved."



"There's nothing unethical or incorrect in these reports. They were done according to the proper regulations of my profession."



"Now Lisbeth Salander is twenty-seven years old, and for the third time we are in a situation in which you are trying to convince a district court that she is mentally ill and must be committed to a secure psychiatric ward."



Teleborian took a deep breath. Giannini was well prepared. She had surprised him with a number of tricky questions and she had succeeded in distorting his replies. She had not fallen for his charms, and she completely ignored his authority. He was used to having people nod in agreement when he spoke.



How much does she know?



He glanced at Prosecutor Ekstrom but realized that he could expect no help from that quarter. He had to ride out the storm alone.



He reminded himself that, in spite of everything, he was an authority.



It doesn't matter what she says. It's my assessment that counts.



Giannini picked up his forensic psychiatric report.



"Let's take a closer look at your latest report. You expend a great deal of energy analysing Lisbeth Salander's emotional life. A large part deals with your interpretation of her personality, her behaviour and her sexual habits."



"In this report I have attempted to give a complete picture."



"Good. And based on this complete picture you came to the conclusion that Lisbeth suffers from paranoid schizophrenia."



"I prefer not to restrict myself to a precise diagnosis."



"But you have not reached this conclusion through conversations with my client, have you?"



"You know very well that your client resolutely refuses to answer questions that I or any other person in authority might put to her. This behaviour is in itself particularly telling. One can conclude that the patient's paranoid traits have progressed to such an extent that she is literally incapable of having a simple conversation with anyone in authority. She believes that everyone is out to harm her and feels so threatened that she shuts herself inside an impenetrable shell and goes mute."



"I notice that you're expressing yourself very carefully. You say, for example, that one can conclude..."



"Yes, that's right. I am expressing myself carefully. Psychiatry is not an exact science, and I must be careful with my conclusions. At the same time it is not true that we psychiatrists sit around making assumptions that have no basis in fact."



"What you are being very precise about is protecting yourself. The literal fact is that you have not exchanged one single word with my client since the night of her thirteenth birthday because she has refused to talk to you."



"Not only to me. She appears unable to have a conversation with any psychiatrist."



"This means that, as you write here, your conclusions are based on experience and on observations of my client."



"That's right."



"What can you learn by studying a girl who sits on a chair with her arms crossed and refuses to talk to you?"



Teleborian sighed as though he thought it was irksome to have to explain the obvious. He smiled.



"From a patient who sits and says nothing, you can learn only that this is a patient who is good at sitting and saying nothing. Even this is disturbed behaviour, but that's not what I'm basing my conclusions upon."



"Later this afternoon I will call upon another psychiatrist. His name is Svante Branden and he's senior physician at the Institute of Forensic Medicine and a specialist in forensic psychiatry. Do you know him?"



Teleborian felt confident again. He had expected Giannini to call upon another psychiatrist to question his own conclusions. It was a situation for which he was ready, and in which he would be able to dismiss every objection without difficulty. Indeed, it would be easier to handle an academic colleague in a friendly debate than someone like Advokat Giannini who had no inhibitions and was bent on distorting his words. He smiled.



"He is a highly respected and skilled forensic psychiatrist. But you must understand, Fru Giannini, that producing a report of this type is an academic and scientific process. You yourself may disagree with my conclusions, and another psychiatrist may interpret an action or an event in a different way. You may have dissimilar points of view, or perhaps it would be a question purely of how well one doctor or another knows the patient. He might arrive at a very different conclusion about Lisbeth Salander. That is not at all unusual in psychiatry."



"That's not why I'm calling him. He has not met or examined Lisbeth Salander, and he will not be making any evaluations about her mental condition."



"Oh, is that so?"



"I have asked him to read your report and all the documentation you have produced on Lisbeth Salander and to look at her medical records from St Stefan's. I have asked him to make an assessment, not about the state of my client's health, but about whether, from a purely scientific point of view, there is adequate foundation for your conclusions in the material you recorded."



Teleborian shrugged.



"With all due respect, I think I have a better understanding of Lisbeth Salander than any other psychiatrist in the country. I have followed her development since she was twelve, and regrettably my conclusions were always confirmed by her actions."



"Very well," Giannini said. "Then we'll take a look at your conclusions. In your statement you write that her treatment was interrupted when she was placed with a foster family at the age of fifteen."



"That's correct. It was a serious mistake. If we had been allowed to complete the treatment we might not be here in this courtroom today."



"You mean that if you had had the opportunity to keep her in restraints for another year she might have become more tractable?"



"That is unworthy."



"I do beg your pardon. You cite extensively the report that your doctoral candidate Jesper Loderman put together when she was about to turn eighteen. You write that, quote, Lisbeth Salander's self-destructive and antisocial behaviour is confirmed by drug abuse and the promiscuity which she has exhibited since she was discharged from St Stefan's, unquote. What did you mean by this statement?"



Teleborian sat in silence for several seconds.



"Well... now I'll have to go back a bit. After Lisbeth Salander was discharged from St Stefan's she developed, as I had predicted, problems with alcohol and drug abuse. She was repeatedly arrested by the police. A social welfare report also determined that she had had profligate sexual relations with older men and that she was very probably involved in prostitution."



"Let's analyse this. You say that she abused alcohol. How often was she intoxicated?"



"I'm sorry?"



"Was she drunk every day from when she was released until she turned eighteen? Was she drunk once a week?"



"Naturally I can't answer that."



"But you have just stated that she had problems with alcohol abuse."



"She was a minor and arrested repeatedly by the police for drunkenness."



"That's the second time you have said that she was arrested repeatedly. How often did this occur? Was it once a week or once every other week?"



"No, it's not a matter of so many individual occasions..."



"Lisbeth Salander was arrested on two occasions for drunkenness, once when she was sixteen, once when she was seventeen. On one of those occasions she was so blind drunk that she was taken to hospital. These are the repeatedly you refer to. Was she intoxicated on more than these occasions?"



"I don't know, but one might fear that her behaviour was  - "



"Excuse me, did I hear you correctly? You do not know whether she was intoxicated on more than two occasions during her teenage years, but you fear that this was the case. And yet you write reports maintaining that Lisbeth Salander was engaged in repeated alcohol and drug abuse?"



"That is the social service's information, not mine. It has to do with Lisbeth Salander's whole lifestyle. Not surprisingly her prognosis was dismal after her treatment was interrupted, and her life became a round of alcohol abuse, police intervention, and uncontrolled promiscuity."



"You say 'uncontrolled promiscuity'."



"Yes. That's a term which indicates that she had no control over her own life. She had sexual relations with older men."



"That's not against the law."



"No, but it's abnormal behaviour for a sixteen-year-old girl. The question might be asked as to whether she participated in such encounters of her own free will or whether she was in a situation of uncontrollable compulsion."



"But you said that she was very probably a prostitute."



"That may have been a natural consequence of the fact that she lacked education, was incapable of completing school or continuing to higher education, and therefore could not get a job. It's possible that she viewed older men as father figures and that financial remuneration for sexual favours was simply a convenient spin-off. In which case I perceive it as neurotic behaviour."



"So you think that a sixteen-year-old girl who has sex is neurotic?"



"You're twisting my words."



"But you do not know whether she ever took money for sexual favours."



"She was never arrested for prostitution."



"And she could hardly be arrested for it since prostitution is not a crime in our country."



"Well, yes, that's right. In her case this has to do with compulsive neurotic behaviour."



"And you did not hesitate to conclude that Lisbeth Salander is mentally ill based on these unverifiable assumptions? When I was sixteen years old, I drank myself silly on half a bottle of vodka which I stole from my father. Do you think that makes me mentally ill?"



"No, of course not."



"If I may be so bold, is it not a fact that when you were seventeen you went to a party and got so drunk that you all went out on the town and smashed the windows around the square in Uppsala? You were arrested by the police, detained until you were sober, and then let off with a fine."



Teleborian looked shocked.



"Is that not a fact, Dr Teleborian?"



"Well, yes. People do so many stupid things when they're seventeen. But  - "



"But that doesn't lead you  -  or anyone else  -  to believe that you have a serious mental illness?"



Teleborian was angry. That infernal lawyer kept twisting his words and homing in on details. She refused to see the larger picture. And his own childish escapade... How the hell had she got hold of that information?



He cleared his throat and spoke in a raised voice.



"The reports from social services were unequivocal. They confirmed that Lisbeth Salander had a lifestyle that revolved around alcohol, drugs and promiscuity. Social services also said that she was a prostitute."



"No, social services never said that she was a prostitute."



"She was arrested at  - "



"No. She was not arrested," Giannini said. "She was searched in Tantolunden at the age of seventeen when she was in the company of a much older man. That same year she was arrested for drunkenness. Also in the company of a much older man. Social services feared that she might be engaged in prostitution. But no evidence was ever presented."



"She had very loose sexual relations with a large number of individuals, both male and female."



"In your own report, you dwell on my client's sexual habits. You claim that her relationship with her friend Miriam Wu confirms the misgivings about a sexual psychopathy. Why does it confirm any such thing?"



Teleborian made no answer.



"I sincerely hope that you are not thinking of claiming that homosexuality is a mental illness," Giannini said. "That might even be an illegal statement."



"No, of course not. I'm alluding to the elements of sexual sadism in the relationship."



"You think that she's a sadist?"



"I  - "



"We have Miriam Wu's statement here. There was, it says, no violence in their relationship."



"They engaged in S.&M. sex and  - "



"Now I'm beginning to think you've been reading too many evening newspapers. Lisbeth Salander and her friend Miriam Wu engaged in sexual games on some occasions which involved Miriam Wu tying up my client and giving her sexual satisfaction. That is neither especially unusual nor is it against the law. Is that why you want to lock up my client?"