Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Page #7

(points)

Out there is my nephew Martin’s

house; Harriet’s brother.

It’s a modern house - lots of glass - out on the point.

BLOMKVIST:

Who speaks to him?

VANGER:

I speak to him. He runs the company

now, as I think I told you.

They hear a distant rifle crack and echo. It startles

Blomkvist a bit, but not Vanger.

VANGER:

Someone shooting their dinner.

Gunner probably. The caretaker.

BLOMKVIST:

I just met him.

VANGER:

He was 19 when Harriet disappeared.

Old enough, Blomkvist gathers, to be considered a

suspect. Vanger points off

VANGER:

He lives over there.

Shivering in the cold, Blomkvist turns.

BLOMKVIST:

And you live here.

VANGER:

Sorry?

BLOMKVIST:

Your house.

For a moment, Vanger isn’t sure what Blomkvist means.

Then he is, and is pleased by it.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 33.

33.33.

VANGER:

Yes, you’re right. The man who

hires the detective should always be

kept on the suspects list.

OMIT - INT. COTTAGE - DAY

66A

INT. PALMGREN’S APARTMENT - DAY

67

A nurse takes a tray away, leaving Salander alone with

Palmgren, separated by the chess table they won’t playing

a game on. She wipes his mouth with her sleeve.

SALANDER:

I got a call from social welfare.

I’ve been assigned a new guardian.

It’s unlikely he understands what she has said. It’s

unlikely he even knows she’s there.

INT. COTTAGE - NIGHT

68

Tacked to a wall, a map of the island on which Blomkvist

has written the names of the living Vanger family members

and staff in the approximate locations of their houses.

Next to it - 3x5 cards and photos - a Vanger family tree -

which doubles as a suspects list. On some of the cards

is the word, ‘deceased.’

He makes a sandwich. Refills a coffee cup. Begins

reading the police reports. The first is a photocopy

of a note when the call from Vanger came in: “Officer

Morell informed by telephone of situation, 10:19 p.m.”

EXT. HEDEBY ISLAND - NIGHT - 1966

69

Gustaf Morell stands at the bow of a patrol boat slowly

motoring past the bridge where the fire brigade works to

pump the gasoline from the overturned truck.

INTERCUT:
Blomkvist reads, “Morell on site, Hedeby

Island, 11:
42 p.m.”

INT. VANGER MANOR - NIGHT - 1966

70

Morell, feeling like he’s entered an Agatha Christie

locked room mystery, regards the extended Vanger clan

sitting in the living room looking suitably worried.

MORELL:

I’d like to see the girl’s room.

VANGER:

It’s down the hall.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 34.

34.34.

MORELL:

I thought this was your house.

VANGER:

It is. She lives with me.

MORELL:

Are her parents alive?

VANGER:

Her mother is.

Vanger points Isabella out. Slender, overdressed and

smoking a Sobranie, she immediately strikes Morell as a

woman as venomous as she is beautiful.

VANGER:

This way.

Morell follows Vanger down a hall

INTERCUT:
Blomkvist reads, “Approx. 12:05, inspected

missing girl’s bedroom. Found - “

INT. HARRIET’S ROOM - VANGER MANOR - DAWN - 1966

A purse on the desk in Harriet’s room. Morell carefully

removes the contents: Comb, pocket mirror, handkerchief,

wallet containing a few kronor, her ID, and her address

book. He leafs through this.

DET. MORELL

I want to speak to everyone here.

That’ll take all night so you might

want someone to put some coffee on.

YOUNGER VANGER:

What about the search?

MORELL:

First thing in the morning.

YOUNGER VANGER:

No. We should do it now. She could

be hurt out there.

Vanger is either a good actor or has nothing to hide.

VANGER:

Please. I beg you.

INTERCUT:
Blomkvist reads, “authorized our patrol boat

and two volunteer craft to begin 12:20 a.m. - G. Morell.”

71A

71B

A77

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 35.

35.35.

EXT. HEDEBY ISLAND - NIGHT - 1966

71A

The police patrol boat and two Peterssons motor around

the island, spotlighting the shore and rocky cliffs.

INT. VANGER MANOR - NIGHT - 1966

71B

The weird tableaux of characters, awaiting their

interviews with Morell. At the moment, he’s across the

room with Harald Vanger, taking notes, drinking coffee.

INTERCUT:
Blomkvist reads, “Patrol 014 and Orienteering

Club volunteers assembled, 6:40 a.m.”

OMIT:
INT. VANGER MANOR - NIGHT - 1966

72

OMIT:
EXT. HEDEBY ISLAND - NIGHT - 1966

73

EXT. HEDEBY ISLAND - DAWN - 1966

74

Search parties crisscross the island, wade through

ditches, check old barns, shine flashlights up chimneys.

Woodsmen with blood hounds comb through woods.

MORELL V/O

We searched for days ...

EXT/INT. TRAIN - MOVING - LAKE SILJAN - PRESENT DAY

75

A train bisects the landscape. Blomkvist looks out.

MORELL V/O

Eventually, much to his dismay - and

mine - I had to talk to Henrik about

calling it off

EXT. HEDEBY ISLAND - DUSK - 1966

76

As the search continues, Morell, looking like he hasn’t

slept - which he hasn’t - peers down a rocky cliff to the

water. Somehow he knows they’re never going to find her.

MORELL V/O

The fact that I never found a body

didn’t surprise me. You can’t dig

up an entire island.

OMIT:
EXT. CABIN - LAKE SILJAN - ESTABLISHING

A77

INT. CABIN - LAKE SILJAN - DAY

77

The same face - forty years older - the man who spoke to

Vanger on the phone about the dried flowers - now speaks

with Blomkvist as he scrapes out the bowl of his pipe.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 36.

36.36.

MORELL:

But I also couldn’t find a motive.

Was it spontaneous? Was it planned?

Did she know something someone wished

she didn’t? Was it about business?

BLOMKVIST:

Business? She was sixteen.

MORELL:

And very bright. Henrik told me he

could easily imagine her running the

business someday, which would mean

someone else wouldn’t.

BLOMKVIST:

She was with some friends that day.

At a parade. You must have talked to

them.

MORELL:

She told them she wasn’t feeling

well. She left early. But they also

said she kept secrets from them, too.

The main thing I learned talking to

them for hours is that teenage girls

are complicated.

BLOMKVIST:

I have one.

MORELL:

So you know.

(Blomkvist does indeed)

Did you bring the last gift Henrik

received?

BLOMKVIST:

It’s at the National Forensic Lab.

MORELL:

I can tell you what their report

will say now:
It’s a flower common

to Europe. All of them are. No

prints. No DNA.

He lights the pipe. Blomkvist watches the tobacco glow.

BLOMKVIST:

I wanted to ask you about this.

He produces an old address book from his jacket pocket.

Of course, Morell has seen it before, and handles it

delicately. The decades have dried out its pages.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 37.

37.37.

MORELL:

She received this from Henrik the

Christmas before. I studied it more

times than I can say. I know every

page of it.

BLOMKVIST:

It’s the last page I’m curious about.

MORELL:

As was I.

BLOMKVIST:

The only names not alphabetized.

Morell nods that he knows that only too well as he turns

to that last page. On it, in neat handwriting:

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