Mimmi was dressed in a white shirt and jacket. She looked fabulous. Salander instantly felt shy.
( … )
‘I was in the hospital for three weeks, and then it was chaos when I got home to Lundagatan. I couldn’t sleep. I had nightmares about that bastard Niedermann. I called my mother and told her I wanted to come here, to Paris.’
Salander said she understood.
‘Forgive me,’ Mimmi said.
‘Don’t be such an idiot. I’m the one who’s come here to ask you to forgive me.’
‘For what?’
‘I wasn’t thinking. It never occurred to me that I was putting you in such danger by turning over my old apartment to you. It was my fault that you were almost murdered. You’d have every right to hate me.’
Mimmi looked shocked. ‘Lisbeth, I never even gave it a thought. It was Ronald Niedermann who tried to murder me, not you.’

When she had put away seven glasses of Tullamore Dew in a little over two hours, he decided not to give her anymore. It was then that he heard the crash as she fell off the bar stool.
He put down the glass he was drying and went around the counter to pick her up. She seemed offended.

When she drank beer she did not care what brand or type it was; she accepted whatever he served her. When she ordered whisky she always chose Tullamore Dew, except on one occasion when she studied the bottles behind the bar and asked for Lagavulin. When the glass was brought to her, she sniffed at it, stared at it for a moment, and then took a tiny sip. She set down her glass and stared at it for a minute with an expression that seemed to indicate that she considered its contents to be a mortal enemy.

Salander opened the door and got out. She paused as she was about to close the car door. She looked as though she wanted to say something but could not find the words. For a moment she appeared almost vulnerable.
“That’s all right, Lisbeth,” Giannini said. “Go and get some sleep. And stay out of trouble for a while.”
Salander stood at the curb and watched Giannini drive away until her tail lights disappeared around the corner.
“Thanks,” she said at last.

Don’t you want to go on being my lawyer?”
( … )
“I don’t know. You don’t trust me. And I don’t trust you. I have no desire to be drawn into a long process during which I encounter nothing but frustrating silence when I make a suggestion or want to discuss something.”
Salander said nothing for a long moment. “I … I’m not good at relationships. But I do trust you.”
It sounded almost like an apology.

My client grew up in abominable family circumstances. Over a period of years her father persistently abused her mother.”
“That’s-“
“Let me finish. Lisbeth Salander’s mother was mortally afraid of Alexander Zalachenko. She did not dare to protest. She did not dare to go to a doctor. She did not dare to go to a women’s crisis centre. She was ground down and eventually beaten so badly that she suffered irreversible brain damage. The person who had to take responsibility, the only person who tried to take responsibility for the family long before she reached her teens even, was Lisbeth Salander. She had to shoulder that burden all by herself, since Zalachenko the spy was more important to the state and its social services than Lisbeth’s mother.”
“I cannot-“
“The result, excuse me, was a situation in which society abandoned Lisbeth’s mother and her two children. Are you surprised that Lisbeth had problems at school? Look at her. She’s small and skinny. She has always been the smallest girl in her class. She was introverted and eccentric, and she had no friends. Do you know how children tend to treat fellow students who are different?”
Teleborian sighed.
Giannini continued. “I can go back to her school records and examine one situation after another in which Lisbeth turned violent. The incidents were always preceded by some kind of provocation. I can easily recognize the signs of bullying. Let me tell you something.”
“What?”
“I admire Lisbeth Salander. She’s tougher than I am. If I had been strapped down for a year when I was thirteen, I would probably have broken down altogether. She fought back with the only weapon she had available - her contempt for you.