"THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO" (2011)

THE GIRL WITHTHE GIRL WITH

THE DRAGON TATTOOTHE DRAGON TATTOO

Best Adapted Screenplay Best Adapted Screenplay

Steven Zaillian Steven Zaillian

Based on the book Based on the book

Stieg Larsson originally published

originally publishedby

A Christmas card vista is spoiled by a black line of railroad tracks stitched onto the snowy landscape like a scar pointing north to icy desolation. A phone rings -

A2 EXT. CABIN - ESTABLISHING A2

An elderly man who lives alone in this rustic cabin - a retired policeman - regards the phone, both expecting and dreading the call. He picks up the receiver.

Henrik Vanger - at 82, even older than Morell - listens to the silence from his end of the line in a wood-paneled room as baronial as the policeman’s was spartan.

There’s nothing more to say. Vanger sets the receiver down and regards a dried white flower in a 6” x 11” frame resting on the brown paper it was wrapped and mailed in. It’s somehow ominous, like the dark storm clouds that now burst outside -

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 2.2.

Mikael Blomkvist - 40’s - regards the gauntlet of reporters he’ll have to pass to get out of the building. As he strides toward them, microphones and cameras swing in his direction. Without stopping -

Feeling a bit like he’s fleeing the scene of a crime, which in a way he is, Blomkvist steps outside opening his umbrella. A couple of the reporters come out after him -

He hurries off in the rain.

At a table with a pre-made sandwich and cup of coffee, and a long court judgement, Blomkvist watches himself fleeing the reporters on the cafe’s TV. He’s the only one there who watches it - no one else is interested - which only makes it worse.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 3.3.

The report cuts to a shot of Wennerstrom outside the courthouse in an Armani suit, surrounded by his legal team, confidently addressing the reporters -

Done with his sandwich, Blomkvist goes to the counter.

He comes out tamping the pack. Extracts a cigarette. Tosses the pack in a sidewalk trash bin. Flicks at the lighter but can’t get it to fire in the wind and rain. Hunches his body around it, coaxes it to life.

He takes a long drag that dizzies him. A wonderful feeling. He regards the trash bin. Fishes around it, finds the pack, puts it in his coat pocket.

He comes through past Christmas decorations and a mostly- young staff. They try not to regard him as a dead-man- walking, but aren’t entirely successful. He enters the editor’s office.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 4.4.

Erika Berger is about Blomkvist’s age, and - like the IKEA furniture - sends a mixed message: a feminist in a mini-skirt.

He sits, exhausted and depressed, in a cheap Poang chair.

They regard each other in another silence. Then -

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 5.5.

He thinks about it ... shakes his head ‘no.’

A motorcycle dives down a driveway that burrows under a three-story building.

Dragan Armansky, 40’s, who looks more like a boss of a New Jersey crime family than CEO of a high-tech security firm, sits behind his desk, waiting with an older client.

The figure from the motorcycle crosses the lobby. From behind we can’t see him/her well, but can see wary looks from others emerging from and getting into the elevator.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 6.6.

The report on Armansky’s desk is 200 pages long.

INSERT: Printed on its cover: Mikael Blomkvist, a case number and, smaller, its author, Lisbeth Salander.

The black-clad figure - from behind again - strides past coworkers who look away.

Armansky breathes a defeated sigh, taps the intercom button twice to say ‘okay, let her in.’

Lisbeth Salander walks in: A small, pale, anorexic- looking waif in her early 20’s. Short black-dyed hair - pierced eyelid - tattoo of a wasp on her neck; probably several more under her black leather jacket - black t- shirt, black jeans, black Caterpillar boots.

Frode is only middlingly successful in concealing his initial reaction to her. This isn’t punk fashion. This is someone saying, Stay the fuck away from me.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 7.7.

She doesn’t shake Frode’s hand, but does address him:

Salander sends Armansky a weary look. His look back begs her not to say anything unpleasant. Eventually -

Frode looks at Armansky. What’s that supposed to mean?

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 8.8.

And, apparently, she has no opinion on it either.

This seems to please Frode more than anything else that has been said, and Salander sees it.

Armansky’s look to her at once apologizes for Frode, and encourages her to speak. She finally relents but puts no more spin on it than any other piece of raw data -

Frode thinks about that, perhaps imagining how much simpler his own life would be with such an arrangement.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 9.9.

Salander offers nothing more.

He likes sandwiches.

A15 EXT. BLOMKVIST’S APARTMENT - ESTABLISHINGA15

Blomkvist isn’t sentimental, but does have a few framed snapshots: his daughter, his sister, and one with Erika - in their 20’s - in which he’s wearing a black leather jacket.

She wakes up alone in his bed. Pads to the darkened living room to find him typing on his laptop, a half- eaten sandwich and glass of water next to it.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 10.10.

Salander sits alone at a table waiting for someone with a coffee and a gift haphazardly wrapped with a Christmas bow, the price tag still on it, a paperback book - My 60 Memorable Games, by Bobby Fischer. She notices the price tag is still on it. Peels it off. Dials a call on her cell. Hangs up when it goes to voice mail.

A18 EXT. PALMGREN’S APARTMENT - ESTABLISHING A18

She knocks on a door. Hears classical music playing softly inside, but no one answers. She tries the door. It’s unlocked. The gift in hand, she pushes it open.

She comes into an apartment which looks like it could belong to a professor. Sees a chess piece on the floor. Then a trail of them that lead her to an overturned chess table and, next to it, a body.

The gash on the old man’s head could have been caused by a fall into the corner of the table, or from a blow to it. She quickly tries to determine if he’s breathing. Calls for an ambulance.

It’s doubtful there’s a stranger Christmas gathering going on anywhere in the world. Standing around with eggnog are:

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 11.11.

Blomkvist; his teenage daughter Pernilla; his sister Annika and her Italian husband; Erika and her weirdly understanding artist husband Greger, whose arm is around her waist; a few other friends (and perhaps lovers).

Blomkvist’s daughter seems concerned for him.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 12.12.

Outside the ICU, Salander sits on the floor like a dog who won’t leave the spot its master told it to wait. For the first time since we’ve met her, she looks vulnerable. The doors swing open. A doctor steps out. Salander gets up to hear his report -

The doctor isn’t sure then if he should talk to her.

Not allowed to go inside, she peers through glass at Palmgren, who is unaware of her, or the nurse attending him, or even himself. A spiderweb of tubes emerge from his neck and wrists; oxygen tubes from his nostrils.

They’re around the dinner table now, passing platters around. Blomkvist notices his daughter’s head is bowed in silent prayer.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 13.13.

(she doesn’t say)

Nilla.

(she doesn’t repeat it)

What is that?

She begins eating. Blomkvist stares at her, feeling a little sick. A cell phone rings. No one can tell - as you never can - whose it is, and so all pull them out. It’s Blomkvist’s.

Looking back at his daughter with some concern, he steps away to take the call.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 14.14.

Frode, in his polite, deliberate way, is reeling Blomkvist in like a perch.

Blomkvist isn’t sure what to do, or say.

Salander rides a crowded underground train, but feels even more cut off from the people around her than usual; completely alone.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 15.15.

A passenger train, barely visible in a severe snowstorm, makes its way north. This is no Christmas card.

Blomkvist stares out at the bleak, northern landscape.

Blomkivist disembarks to find Frode - who he can only assume is Frode - beyond a veil of snow, waving to him from outside a Mercedes. Unlike Blomkvist, he’s dressed for this God-awful weather in a fur-collared topcoat.

Frode’s Mercedes comes across a long bridge linking the old industrial town to a rocky island.

The car comes up a long, bare-tree-lined drive, leading to a stately manor. As Frode and Blomkvist climb out, a distant gunshot echoes, but neither Frode nor the old man who appears at the front door of the manor pays it any attention; just someone hunting.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 16.16.

It is warm inside. There are fires in the fireplaces. And Vanger himself is warm in nature, yet speaks quickly as they come through the house -

Vanger looks thoroughly disappointed. Or hurt.

Tea service and pastries on a coffee table separate Blomkvist from Vanger, whose elderly frame is in danger of being swallowed up by a wing-back chair.

There are framed black and white photographs on a wall - factories and trains figuring into all of them.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 17.17.

(pause)

You know what our most profitable product now is?

(Blomkvist doesn’t)

Fertilizer.

Blomkvist imagines he’s meant to offer a wistful shrug.

A30 EXT. SALANDER’S APARTMENT - ESTABLISHING A30

She exhumes an unwashed bowl from a sinkful of dirty dishes, fills it with tap water without rinsing it, dumps a packet of ramen noodles in, puts it in a microwave.

She takes a Coke can from an anemically-stocked fridge to a desk in her so-called living room, a clutter of full ashtrays, fast food wrappers, empty soda cans, paperwork, unwashed laundry.

The only things of any value here are her MacBook and several external hard drives.

NOTE: Changes below are INSERTS only:

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 18.18.

She types Dirch Frode in the search window. Clicks on the top result which takes her to Frode’s bio on Vanger Industries’ site with its distinctive V.I. logo.

His official company photo accompanies his profile:

Uppsala University Law School ... Assistant Counsel, Vanger Industries, 1965-1972 ... Head Counsel, 1972- present.

She types in another search - Hans-Erik Wennerstrom. Clicks on his Wikipedia page, which shows a photo of him alongside his bio. She skims it -

President of the investment firm, Wennerstrom-gruppen ... personal wealth of 12 billion dollars (80 billion kronor) ... 82-foot yacht, villa on the island of Varmdo ...

She does a third search, types:

Wennerstrom+Vanger Industries - and hits the ‘cached’ option -

There are only a couple of results that include both terms. She goes to one of them, a body of text of some old page with the cached terms highlighted in yellow and blue, and reads -

... Hans-Erik Wennerstrom, CPA, Vanger Industries Accounting Dept., 1971-1972 ...

Hmmm.

The children of the “thieves, misers, bullies and incompetents” play on a beach. A shutter blinks freezing a 12-year-old girl in foreground in black and white -

The same photograph of Harriet in a photo album Vanger shows Blomkvist.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 19.19.

A page in the album turns to reveal a photo of a young man in a uniform with a Nazi pin.

(Blomkvist checks his watch)

The 4:30. Yes. Okay. Anyway, Richard died a martyr to the Nazi cause in 1940 - missed all the real excitement - but not the opportunity to regularly beat his wife Margareta and their son, Gottfried.

We see photos of Gottfried, a handsome young man.

INSERT: Close on a photo of Gottfried.

A studio photo: Gottfried with his wife and two children.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 20.20.

A photo of a much younger Vanger and 15-year-old Harriet.

Vanger nods as he regards the photo ...

Vanger nods again; is silent for several moments ...

The 4:30 train leaves the station without Blomkvist.

Anna gathers the cups and leaves with the tea tray.

Three generations of Vangers dot the grounds.

And we see the parade, and, among the spectators lining the town’s main street, Harriet with other teenage girls.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 21.21.

A clock in the room reads, 2:10. Vanger and a few family members sip afternoon cocktails. Harriet appears.

She leaves. He returns to the others in the room.

A car and a fuel truck, both going too fast, collide on the bridge. The truck rolls onto its side crushing the car and spewing gasoline.

Vanger and the others react to the noise of the crash. Out the large window they can see the bridge and many of those on the grounds trotting down to get a closer look.

People and vehicles converge on both sides of the bridge.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 22.22.

The truck driver has managed to climb out of his cab, but the other motorist is trapped.

A local newspaper photographer and another man, snap pictures as Vanger and others try without success to pry the injured driver from his car. As the chaos ensues -

Anna glances to Harriet as she comes in, then back out the window to the bridge. Harriet passes a clock that reads 2:35, steps outside, walks toward the woods ...

As the sun sets, Vanger and the others on the bridge make progress extracting the driver from the car. A young man coming from the town side takes off his jacket to help.

The family has assembled at a long dining table.

Vanger considers an empty chair as everyone else, including the young man from the bridge, his jacket draped on his chair, passes platters of food around.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 23.23.

Vanger has the same look of concern on his face now as he leads Blomkvist up some stairs.

The crews continue their work under lights.

Vanger’s pauses at a landing to steady himself and his labored breathing.

He unlocks the door of the attic and pushes it open to reveal a cluster of nine dusty framed dried flowers on a wall.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 24.24.

And, on another wall, forty similarly-framed flowers -

Blomkvist regards the forty ...

It’s raining as an elegantly-dressed woman slows before a luxurious apartment building. Salander approaches from the other direction. Passing, she notes the four number tones the woman keys in the code lock.

The door buzzes open and the woman disappears inside. Salander doubles back and keys the same four number tones in the Milton Security lock.

Opulent foyer. Security camera. Antique elevator cage whose cables pull the woman upstairs. Salander comes to an unlocked service door and takes stairs to a basement machine room. Examines tangles of phone lines, meters, Wi-Fi routers. Photographs them with a digital camera.

She climbs the stairs back up to the foyer. The front door buzzes, and a man in a suit on the sidewalk pushes it open, sees her, holds it wide enough for her to pass.

The man is a driver/bodyguard. He continues to hold the door for his employer who now emerges from the back of an idling car and crosses to it in the rain ... Wennerstrom.

The rain here is icier and more punishing.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 25.25.

They’re eating dinner now in the dining room.

And for all that, he’s no closer to the truth.

Blomkvist wonders why he ever agreed to come here as Vanger refills his wine glass.

(nothing from Blomkvist)

As for compensation, I’ll pay you twice your salary for as many months as it takes. I’ll quadruple it if you solve the mystery.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 26.26.

He pushes toward Blomkvist a plate: the carcass of the fresh-killed and cooked duck they’ve been eating. It and the mention of Wennerstrom’s name clouds, at least for a moment, Blomkvist’s memory of the train he missed.

A50 EXT. PLAGUE’S APARTMENT - ESTABLISHING A50

Salander climbs a flight of stairs in a building that couldn’t be more different than Wennerstrom’s. Knocks on a door, waits, listens to some dead-bolts unlocking.

It opens, but remains impassable by a figure weighing over 300 pounds. He offers her no greeting. Fades back into the shadows of his dark apartment.

It’s hard to imagine how he or anyone might accomplish that. The place is like a junkyard. Even the unmade bed is covered with stuff.

She takes some cash from a pocket, hands it to him. He counts it and is unimpressed with its total.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 27.27.

So much so that he does nothing more than look at her. She reaches to take the money back, but he pockets it and moves across the dark room to a work table where high-end computers fight for space with debris. Finds and gives her a small homemade electronic box, which she turns over in her hands.

While it’s clear both these people are deficient in behavior that governs polite society, it’s hard to tell which lacks it more.

Erika, first to arrive this morning, or so she thinks, comes through the empty offices with a Wayne’s Coffee to- go cup - but Blomkvist is already there, packing supplies from his desk, books from his shelf. A second suitcase, presumably full of clothes, sits on the floor.

He zips the suitcase with the supplies in it closed and gathers the rest.

They cross through the building, he with his cases, she with her coffee cup.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 28.28.

He kisses her but gets back no more than he would from a statue - and steps outside.

The depot thermometer reads 0. Blomkvist disembarks with two suitcases. This time, Frode isn’t there to meet him. He struggles with his luggage through the snow to a taxi stand.

As a taxi passes a gas station by the bridge, Blomkvist regards the Middle Eastern driver’s eyes which regard him in the rear view mirror.

The taxi deposits Blomkvist outside a cottage. From here he can see Vanger’s manor and couple other houses. The taxi drives off and disappears into the snow.

Two rooms. Fireplace. Pile of wood. A realtor would call it cozy. In truth it’s just tiny and freezing cold.

Blomkvist unpacks. Puts clothes in a wardrobe, sets out books, note pads, pens, CD’s, a CD player, his laptop and a small printer.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 29.29.

He flips open his cell phone to make a call. Gets no reception bars. Hears a faint, plaintive cry and traces it to a window, beyond which, on the sill outside, stands a cat peering in. He opens the door, and the cat heads straight for the kitchenette. Then looks at him.

He opens the old fridge. No milk. Nothing.

He comes out into falling snow holding his cell phone out in front of him like a dowser divining ground water. Moves around trying to get a signal. Can’t.

He purchases milk, butter, a loaf of sliced bread, some packaged lunch meats and a few cans of cat food.

He walks along the street through wind-whipping snow, cradling the grocery bag, cell out in front of him again. Any of the locals could tell him he could do this forever - there are no cell towers anywhere around here.

Grocery bag at his feet, he dials a call with fingers he can no longer feel on the gas station pay phone by the end of the bridge. It goes to Erika’s voice mail.

He hangs up, open the same pack of cigarettes from before. Eighteen in there. Struggles to get one lit in the wind and snow, hurries off toward the bridge.

As the cat laps at milk on a plate, Blomkvist tries to get a fire going using pages ripped from a book. It’s a struggle he’s going to lose; he’s no Boy Scout.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 30.30.

Salander appears and keys in the four lock tones.

In the machine room again, she pulls one cable away from the others and wires to it to Plague’s electronic box.

The bell in the church tower clangs -

But it’s a knock that draws Blomkvist awake. Having forgotten where he is, he regards the cat sleeping with him, then the room, and groans. He pads to the door in the freezing cold. Opens it to find a rugged older man on his doorstep with a handcart loaded with file boxes.

As Gunner expertly builds a fire in the fireplace for him, Blomkvist works at unpacking the boxes - documents, fat police reports, notebooks, folders, photo albums.

Nilsson nods, but isn’t sure he believes it. Maybe he took a look inside the boxes before he brought them down.

Blomkvist nods and hopes that’s enough to put an end to the subject. It isn’t.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 31.31.

Blomkvist shares his annoyance with the cat. Nilsson dusts himself off, satisfied with the fire he’s made.

Vanger has ventured outside to show Blomkvist around the estate. Smoke from chimneys rise into bitter cold grey skies, weather for which Blomkvist, unlike the old man, is inadequately dressed.

Vanger’s look to Blomkvist adds, ‘so consider him a suspect.’ He indicates another house on the grounds -

(points)

- she speaks to Harald - which is one of reasons I don’t speak to her.

(points)

Cecilia’s brother Birger lives there.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 32.32.

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

They hear a distant rifle crack and echo. It startles Blomkvist a bit, but not Vanger.

Old enough, Blomkvist gathers, to be considered a suspect. Vanger points off -

Shivering in the cold, Blomkvist turns.

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.

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.

It’s unlikely he understands what she has said. It’s unlikely he even knows she’s there.

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.”

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.”

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.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 34.34.

Vanger points Isabella out. Slender, overdressed and smoking a Sobranie, she immediately strikes Morell as a woman as venomous as she is beautiful.

Morell follows Vanger down a hall -

INTERCUT: Blomkvist reads, “Approx. 12:05, inspected missing girl’s bedroom. Found - “

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.

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

INTERCUT: Blomkvist reads, “authorized our patrol boat and two volunteer craft to begin 12:20 a.m. - G. Morell.”

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 35.35.

The police patrol boat and two Peterssons motor around the island, spotlighting the shore and rocky cliffs.

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.”

Search parties crisscross the island, wade through ditches, check old barns, shine flashlights up chimneys. Woodsmen with blood hounds comb through woods.

A train bisects the landscape. Blomkvist looks out.

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.

A77 OMIT: EXT. CABIN - LAKE SILJAN - ESTABLISHINGA77

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.

He lights the pipe. Blomkvist watches the tobacco glow.

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.

Morell nods that he knows that only too well as he turns to that last page. On it, in neat handwriting:

Magda 32016 Sara 32109 R.J. 30114 R.L. 32027 Mari 32018

He hands the address book back. It, and everything else about the case, clearly trouble him still.

Blomkvist isn’t sure what that means.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 38.38.

And neither can poor Morell with his Harriet case.

An unexciting social welfare building.

As a man behind a desk reviews a thick file, Salander reviews him: About 50; spends money on suits, thinking that might disguise his public servant status; no wedding ring; typical creep, as far as she’s concerned.

It is, but she can tell he couldn’t care less. He leafs through her file -

Nothing from her.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 39.39.

Salander, who’s had to suffer insufferable officials all her life, doesn’t dignify the question with an answer.

(looks at her too long)

But you were. And between then and now -

(indicating the files)

- two years in the locked ward at St. Stephens, for violent aggression - failure to adapt to four foster homes and seven schools - arrested twice for intoxication, twice for narcotics use, and most recently for assault: a bottle smashed into a man’s face. You may have conned Mr. Palmgren into thinking you’ve improved, but looking at this -

(the file)

- not to mention how you’re looking at me now - I can see you haven’t. So the Good-Old-Mr-Palmgren-Days are over. Starting now, you’ll be given a monthly allowance. You’ll provide me with receipts for your expenses.

(MORE)

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 40.40. BJURMAN (CONT'D)

If the numbers don’t balance, I’ll have to assume the difference is going to drugs.

She won’t look at him any more - not that there’s anything even remotely interesting to see if she did.

She does ... in a way that says, I’d like to kill you.

Salander steps into the elevator, hits the down button. As the doors close -

Martin’s house didn’t look so far away, but the road Blomkvist has to climb to reach it, and the fact he, like all writers, is out of shape, taxes him. A car driven by an attractive woman in her 30’s pulls alongside him.

LIV

Mikael? (he manages a nod) We’re going to the same place. Hop in.

Martin, wearing an apron, opens the door to find both his dinner guests on the porch.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 41.41.

LIV

I found him at death’s door halfway up the hill.

Blomkvist puts a bottle of aquavit in Martin’s hand.

The place is far cry from Vanger’s manor. It’s modern. Martin, Liv and Blomkvist work on the dinner Martin has prepared. Soft jazz music issues from somewhere.

LIV

I used to work in the company’s petrochemical division in Goteborg. When it was sold, I went with it.

LIV

I live in Hong Kong now, but come back to Stockholm for family events, and when I do, I drive up to spend a couple days with Martin.

They all glance away to a sound: A soft, strange, wailing wind. Martin drains the last of a bottle of wine in Blomkvist’s glass and gets up.

Martin heads off to the kitchen. Blomkvist and Liv, left with each other, seem unsure what to talk about.

LIV

I saw you on Sky News a while ago.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 42.42.

LIV

Sorry to remind you of it.

LIV

You’re writing a book now, Martin said.

LIV

I love Henrik. He’s fascinating. Martin, too. Together they’re the Old Sweden and the New.

LIV

You know about Harriet, right?

Blomkvist doesn’t say. The sound of the wind stops.

LIV

You don’t?

Martin emerges from the cellar with a bottle of wine in hand and returns with it to the dining room.

LIV

Harriet.

Martin doesn’t comment. Just nods. Silence. Then -

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 43.43.

(Blomkvist glances to Liv)

Liv knows everything about my crazy family. Which is why she’ll never marry me.

LIV

That’s one reason.

She holds up her left hand. A wedding ring is on it. The couple seems very comfortable with each other, not unlike Blomkvist and Erika.

And Martin’s, too, clearly. Blomkvist dares to ask, as innocently as possible -

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 44.44.

Liv sets her hand atop her boyfriend’s.

Blomkvist promises him with a nod that it will.

As Salander moves with a crowd toward the doors of a subway car, someone behind her roughly yanks the strap of her messenger bag from her shoulder -

She gives chase, pushes past people, catches up with the junkie, grapples with him. He slugs her. She goes down, but doesn’t give up. Catches up with him on the escalator, throws him back down it. The bag slams onto the metal stairs, too, but at least she has it now.

She doesn’t run. She waits at the top and watches the junkie drag himself up and think about trying again. He wisely decides to let it go, hops to the down-escalator and disappears into the underground station.

Blomkvist sifts through a box containing some of Harriet’s personal belongings: school papers, textbooks, a Bible, the address book, her wallet and ID ...

A knock on the door. He puts the box in a closet on top of others, kicks it closed, opens the front door to find a not unattractive woman in her 50’s on his porch.

Cecilia regards Blomkvist’s Vanger family tree on the wall. Wherever he only has an old photo, there’s a Post- It next to it that reads: Recent Photo?

INSERT of Cecilia’s photo, taken when she was a teenager, and a Post-It with her name on it.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 45.45.

Silence. Then -

(Blomkvist can’t think fast enough to respond)

I wonder sometimes who’s crazier - my Nazi father or my obsessed uncle.

INSERT of the photo of Young Harald in his Nazi uniform on the wall.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 46.46.

INSERT of the photo on the wall of Anita, taken when she was about 17 years old.

He smiles. She studies him. Maybe he’s not so bad.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 47.47.

A tech tries to get beyond the dreaded blinking “?” on the laptop’s cracked screen.

Salander against the store window, cell phone to her ear.

Salander waits. Watches people stare at her like they always do. The secretary comes back on.

Salander comes past a janitor waxing a long, otherwise empty corridor. At the far end, she opens her new guardian’s office door.

As Bjurman reviews a McJesus invoice, Salander waits. The thick atmosphere reminds her of all the others she has sat in with school principals, shrinks and cops.

(nothing from her)

When’s the last time you were tested for HIV?

(MORE)

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 48.48. BJURMAN (CONT'D)

(nothing) How many partners have you had in the last month? (nothing) How many were men?

That last one seems to amuse him; none amuse her.

Bjurman sighs. Sets the form aside and looks at the McJesus invoice again.

As he comes around the desk, she eyes a sharp letter opener sticking out above some pens in a coffee mug a child has painted with the word, ‘daddy.’

He stands in front of her, his crotch at her eye level.

(MORE)

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 49.49. BJURMAN (CONT'D) (she doesn’t do anything)

Do you want this computer or not?

He takes her hand and places it on the crotch of his trousers.

(she does)

And ...

(she tugs at his underwear)

And ...

(she doesn’t move; he smiles)

I like the reticence. I prefer a whore who pretends she isn’t. It’s almost convincing.

He grabs her hair and roughly pulls her head toward him.

Salander eats some toothpaste in Bjurman’s private bathroom. When she returns to the office, she finds him calmly writing a check.

He holds it out to her, but when she reaches for it, pulls it back a little.

She takes the check and leaves.

She sits cross-legged in the dark. Thinking. Or plotting. The dragon tattoo visible on her bare back.

Blomkvist, who doesn’t care for flying, pours two mini- bottles of vodka into a plastic cup.

He sprays Binaca in his mouth. Then, careful to look both ways, crosses the street to an investment bank.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 50.50.

Blomkvist approaches a desk. The brass name plate on it reads, Anita Vanger.

The accent is all British. She’s been here much longer than her home country. No trace of Swedish anymore. He offers his hand -

As he sits, she regards him a little more carefully ...

She stares at him. He waits for the response Cecilia predicted, but it doesn’t come.

They sit together at a little table on the sidewalk.

She does, too.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 51.51.

(he nods)

Everything I knew about that I told to - whatever his name was - that policeman - when it happened.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 52.52.

Salander, on a park bench, debates with herself if she wants to make the call on the cell in her hand. She scrolls to “NB” and hits send. It connects.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 53.53.

The taxi that first brought him here to the island, crosses the bridge. Again, Blomkvist regards the Middle Eastern driver, who regards him in the rearview mirror.

Outside the building’s entrance with a backpack slung over her shoulder, Salander presses an apartment button. As she waits, she notes there’s no security camera.

The door buzzes. She pushes it open.

She moves along a hallway with both purpose and dread. Knocks on his door ... It opens, revealing him in a robe.

She takes in the layout quickly: living room, dining area, kitchen, short hallway to a closed door.

(pause)

So, what do you need money for this time? Grand Theft Auto 5?

He smiles. Steps toward her. Lifts her chin.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 54.54.

He walks to the hallway. She doesn’t. He holds out his hand. She finally joins him. As they step into the bedroom, he roughly pushes her toward the bed.

She puts her backpack and leather jacket on a chair. Sits on the edge of the bed. He stands over her. She knows what she’s supposed to do, but seems unable to.

She reaches out to it and before she can react, there’s a handcuff around the wrist. He quickly cuffs the other to his own wrist. This is bad. She tries to get out. He gets her in a strangle hold and chokes her into unconsciousness.

She comes to, on her stomach, sees her wrists cuffed to the headboard posts, her ankles secured to the foot posts with silk ties, and scissors slicing her jeans off. She starts to scream and he stuffs her mouth with her underwear.

He lights a couple candles. Switches on some New Age music.

He watches her struggle. But she’s not going anywhere. He tears open a condom package with his teeth.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 55.55.

He crams a pillow under her stomach and climbs on top of her. She keeps fighting but there’s not much she can do handcuffed. Eventually, she retreats to another place inside herself. She’s had to go here before in her life; it’s the only place to go in such situations.

The cat turns its head to a sound Blomkvist can’t hear. He has Harriet’s box of belongings out again and looks at photos of her school friends in her wallet. Then picks up the Bible. Handwritten on the inside cover is Harriet Vanger. He opens it at random. Hebrews:

He sets it down. Rubs his eyes. Everything - his daughter, his life, this cabin, the word of God - is depressing.

Dawn light outside the living room window.

Bjurman, at his dining table with a glass of orange juice, writing out a check.

In the bedroom, Salander slips on her leather jacket, shoulders her backpack, hobbles out to the living room.

It’s bizarre: his manner seems to be one of genuine concern. She nods. He hands her the check. Then opens the door for her like a perfect gentleman.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 56.56.

She nods. Leaves. The door closes.

A lone figure hobbles through the empty streets.

She sets a check down. On the memo line he’s neatly written, “for food.” She takes a bottle of water from the fridge and drinks.

Shower water hits the dragon tattoo on her shoulder blade and runs down past several others. By the time the water reaches the drain it has turned red.

Coming through trees with a bag of groceries, Blomkvist sees a BMW parked outside his cottage.

Blomkvist taps on the car’s fogged-up driver’s window. A hand inside wipes at it, revealing Erika. She lowers it a crack.

As he tries to get some logs in the fireplace going, using more pages torn from one of his books, Erika wraps herself in a blanket. The cat, who has no trouble with the cold, naps on the paperwork on the desk.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 57.57.

What she can see is the Vanger research covering the walls and table surfaces, and that the threads of the family tree lead to a photograph of Vanger at the top.

He is.

Vanger and Martin all but ignore Blomkvist as they chat with Erika over dinner. They seem charmed by her.

Erika looks at Blomkvist, but he hasn’t talked to them about this.

You know, I used to be in the newspaper business. We owned six dailies back in the 50’s.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 58.58.

Erika nods politely.

Blomkvist suddenly feels like someone coming late to a party.

Silence.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 59.59.

Erika half-shrugs to say she’ll consider it.

She nods.

Blomkvist looks at Erika, but she glances away to Vanger.

He makes a teepee shape with his hands, like praying.

Erika lights a teepee of logs in the fireplace.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 60.60.

The logs crackle as flames climb them. She gets up, comes past him, unbuttoning her shirt as she disappears into the bedroom. He stares at the fire.

Salander regards a selection of forearm tattoos: barbed wire, Celtic bands, strings of leaves and flowers.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 61.61.

That doesn’t bother her in the least. She rolls up her sleeves and watches him ready the tattoo gun.

TELEVISION IMAGE:

A bland financial announcer reading the news. The graphic to the side of him is the distinctive V.I. logo of Vanger Industries.

A news crew has crammed itself inside Erika’s office, where a reporter interviews her -

He’s at his desk, the cat in his lap, reviewing the album of photos taken on the day Harriet disappeared.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 62.62.

They’re arranged chronologically, and Vanger has noted the approximate time of day of each.

The first several were taken on the manor grounds, by family members of each other. The next couple taken in town of the parade. Then dozens taken on and around the bridge of the dramatic accident. He hears the sound and glances out to see a television news van driving toward Vanger’s manor -

A crew is set up in the yard by the water, interviewing Henrik and Martin. Under his suit jacket Henrik wears a cheerful yellow shirt. Birger unhappily looks on.

As a clerk rings up the items Salander is buying - bright yellow duct tape and a plastic protective mask - she watches a shot on a TV here of Wennerstrom being interviewed outside his offices -

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 63.63.

The report segues to another story. The clerk hands Salander her receipt.

Her hardware store purchases, along with some fresh DVD- R’s, a couple of plastic bottles of ink, and McDonald’s Kids Meal wrappers, sit by her laptop.

She’s not typing on its keyboard, but characters are appearing nonetheless as someone somewhere else, writes an email:

The From box reads: h wennerstrom <HEW@WG.com>

The To box reads: l jansson <LDJ@SkLaw.com

The Subject box reads: Vanger/Blomkvist

And the Message, which is being typed:

Can somebody please explain to me what the fuck is going on with these two assholes -

Blomkvist has returned to the accident photos. Pauses on a blurry one of the fire crew, the focus inadvertently on the background - Vanger’s manor.

What caught his attention is a figure in one of the upstairs windows. He checks a scribbled floor plan of the manor and sees that it’s Harriet’s bedroom.

But he’s not sure if it’s Harriet. The figure is too soft to identify - even with a magnifying glass - but is wearing a light-colored dress and has light hair.

He glances to the family tree on the wall - the teenage Vanger girls’ photos -

Three INSERTS: Harriet ... Cecelia ... Anita ...

They all have light hair, and, frankly, all look alike.

He moves on to the parade pictures. To the one Vanger said before was the last picture taken of Harriet alive. It’s not really of her.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 64.64.

It’s a wide shot of the parade itself - but she can be seen in the background across the street with her friends, watching a float - atop which some women in harem outfits dance - pass by.

He slips it from its corner-fasteners and turns it over. There’s a Hedestad Courier copyright printed on the back. He turns it over again and looks at the photo itself.

Guided by the photo, he walks along the town’s main street to the approximate place from which it was taken - outside a haberdashery window - but it’s still not right.

The photo was shot from a higher than street level angle. He looks to a second story window above the store. Then crosses the street to where Harriet was standing when the picture was taken. Looks back at the haberdashery where, now, the owner peers out at him.

On the pay phone outside the gas station -

Silence. Then -

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 65.65.

A119 EXT. HEDESTAD COURIER - ESTABLISHING A119

Blomkvist follows the paper’s youngish photo editor up narrow stairs to an attic.

She glances back at him. The date means something to her, but she chooses not to comment.

She pulls four thick binders off a shelf from September 1966 alone, proving Blomkvist’s point about photographers - and piles them up next to a light-box and scanner.

He waits for her to leave. She seems reluctant to ...

The door opens revealing Salander. Bjurman seems a little surprised to see her at his doorstep.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 66.66.

She looks like a schoolgirl with her little backpack over her shoulder. How did he ever get so lucky?

She steps inside. He takes her hand and leads her toward the bedroom. Her other hand slips into her jacket pocket.

She pulls a Taser from her pocket and jams it under his chin, firing off 75,000 volts -

Set down on the rugged landscape under an almost moonless night sky, the cottage looks vulnerable.

The cat, curled up on a chair, jerks its head up at a sound neither we nor Blomkvist can hear, and stays absolutely still, listening.

Blomkvist scrolls through the Courier negatives he has converted into positives and has loaded into Photoshop.

He was right. Many more parade pictures were shot that day. Several at street level - a marching band, floats, children with balloons, some in better focus than others.

He reaches the first of the higher-angle shots from the floor above the haberdashery, scans the crowd lining the street. Harriet isn’t in it.

But in the next she appears at the edge of the frame with her school friends. In the next, she’s further into frame. And the next, standing in the same spot he stood earlier today.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 67.67.

Blomkvist selects all 18 of the high-angle parade photographs, transfers them to an iPhoto file, and reopens them as a ‘slide show.’

The first few, accompanied by the default music, Minuet in G, dissolve at two-second intervals. Too long. Too distracting with the music. And too wide.

He adjusts the size function - closer on Harriet gets rid of the dissolve effect and music and reduces the time- interval to make the transitions as quick as possible.

He hits ‘play’ again and watches a short jerky ‘silent film’- a kind of electronic flip-book:

Harriet arrives with her friends. Moves along the street. Stops and faces the parade. Says something to her friends. Laughs. Watches the float with the harem girls on it. Smiles. Sees something to her left. Turns her head slightly toward it. Her eyes widen in fear. She looks down. She moves off. Her friends look after her confused. And then she’s gone.

Blomkvist backs up to the frame of Harriet looking off with fear in her eyes, and for the first time believes without a doubt what Vanger has believed for 40 years:

She was murdered. Whoever she saw across the street followed her and killed her. The cat watches him.

Bjurman slowly comes to.

It takes him a moment to realize it’s true. Another to realize it might be better if he wasn’t since he’s naked on the floor, face-up, wrists and ankles bound. He tries to cry out and realizes he’s also gagged.

She emerges from the shadows, stands over him, and he sees that her eyes are ringed in black mascara like some kind of ghoulish raccoon. She looks insane. As she steps out of his field of view, and his hands struggle against the restraints.

He cranes his neck to see she’s by her backpack that’s resting on a chair.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 68.68.

She takes a DVD-R from the backpack, puts it in his player, flips his plasma TV on with a remote. She got it all - what he did to her - the rape - in HD.

He starts to whimper.

He can’t. He can’t even look at her. His life is over. He weeps into the gag.

He won’t. She strides to her backpack. Takes out a large dildo. Gets on her knees, and works it into his ass. She can only get it about halfway up. She has to stand up and kick it the rest of the way with her boot. He howls into the gag.

She does indeed. He vigorously nods his head, now, and after everything she says -

(MORE)

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 69.69. SALANDER (CONT'D)

If something happens to me - if I get hit by a car - if you hit me with a car - same thing, it uploads automatically.

She fishes his apartment keys from his trousers. Shows him that she has them.

His eyes dart to the TV as he nods that he understands.

She kicks him. Then straddles his fat gut and looks him in the eye.

And he knows she means it.

(he shakes his head no)

Do you doubt what’s in the reports about me? What do they say when you sum them up? They say I’m insane.

(he shakes his head no)

No, it okay. You can nod because it’s true. I am insane.

She gets up off him, rummages through her backpack again.

She puts on a plastic surgical mask. He fears the next thing he’ll see is a pair of scissors in her hand, but it isn’t. It’s something else he doesn’t recognize. She straddles him again. He squirms under her weight.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 70.70.

He sees that the thing in her hand is some kind of surgical device, a shiny stripped-down gun with a sharp point and a plastic ink bottle where the bullets would go.

He struggles to twist his body away, but it’s useless. She digs the tattooing gun’s needle into his chest and begins dragging it back and forth. He screams as dots of blood spatter her plastic mask ...

A127 EXT. BJURMAN’S APARTMENT - DAWN - ESTABLISHINGA127

The job has taken her all night. The sky outside the living room window is beginning to lighten. She drinks a glass of water in the kitchen, wipes her prints from it.

She crosses to the bedroom where Bjurman’s toys have been wiped cleaned and put back in the dresser. Picks up her backpack. Looks at him. He’s unconscious. She sets handcuff key next to a dark stain on his stomach.

We stay on the key as she leaves the room. Hearing the front door open and close, we rise up to see his entire naked body on the bed. Tattooed into his skin in big letters, from his nipples to his groin, is:

I AM A RAPIST PIG

Returning from a walk and a smoke, Blomkvist sees - sitting outside the cottage, petting his cat - Harriet. Of course it can’t be her, but it is a teenage girl who resembles the old pictures of her. Seeing him, she waves. It’s his daughter.

He arrives and gives her a hug.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 71.71.

Blomkvist tries to hide his dismay.

He’s made them some coffee, and, of course, sandwiches. Patiently waits for her to finish her silent prayer, and smiles bravely.

As they eat in silence, Blomkvist can’t help but think about Harriet and what Vanger said about not giving her his attention when she needed it.

That’s what I’m doing.

The afternoon train is boarding. It’s not crowded.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 72.72.

He nods but doesn’t believe it any more than she believes he’s okay with Bible Camp. She climbs aboard. Waves.

The train begins to move.

The train clears the platform. He watches after it. What was she talking about? He glances absently to the taxi stand. Hussein points to his taxi. Ride?

Blomkvist comes in, goes straight to his desk, sifts through the paperwork on it, then sees the Xerox of the last page of Harriet’s address book - the unknown phone numbers - he taped to the lamp -

Magda 32016 Sara 32109 R.J. 30114 R.L. 32027 Mari 32018

It could be a coincidence they’re Bible names - Magdalene, Sarah, Mary - or maybe not. He digs through Harriet’s personal things for her Bible.

Since all the number sequences begin with ‘3,’ he goes to the third chapter - Leviticus - notices that its first facing page is faintly dog-eared - finds R.J’s verse - 1:14 - on it:

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 73.73.

Pinching a cigarette in a shaking hand, Blomkvist pokes numbers on his cell phone. Instead of ringing he hears a beep. “Retry?” appears on the cell screen.

Back across the bridge by the gas station, he makes the call on the pay phone.

As Blomkvist glances to the last page in Harriet’s address book, to R.J. 30114 -

Like the Leviticus dove. A siren. Ambulance coming past, headed for the bridge.

He watches the ambulance speed across the bridge.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 74.74.

Blomkvist hangs up and takes off at a trot toward the bridge -

He reaches the manor just as the ambulance is leaving and Martin is climbing into his Range Rover. He looks undone.

Martin pulls out to follow the ambulance to the hospital. Blomkvist watches after them.

The cat naps while Blomkvist looks up the other Leviticus quotes from Harriet’s list in her dog-eared Bible -

There’s a knock. He tucks the list in the Bible, sets aside and answers the door. Frode comes in.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 75.75.

He points to the table.

Blomkvist pours him one, and another for himself.

I need to know what he has on him. Now. In case.

Silence. Blomkvist drinks. Eventually -

Frode looks at Blomkvist a little more intently.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 76.76.

Now it’s Blomkvist who studies Frode. He’s not sure he wants to tell him. And even less so the longer he looks.

Frode studies him again - wondering perhaps if Blomkvist suspects him.

Blomkvist’s brain tries to quickly inventory his life, pausing at its darker recesses. Frode nods.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 77.77.

Blomkvist isn’t sure how to play this. Then he is. Sets his napkin down, gets up and begins taking things down from the wall. Frode watches. Then sighs.

Only a few lights on in the Milton Security building.

It isn’t often a subject of an investigation shows up in his office, but is always awkward when one does.

(it rests on his lap)

The investigator’s name is on it, but I can find no record of her, and I’m pretty good at that sort of thing.

He jots “Annika Giannini” on one of Armansky’s Post-Its.

(gestures to the report)

There’s information in here that could only have come from one place. I think you know what I mean.

Silence. Armansky tries not to look sick. Then -

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 78.78.

Blomkvist just sits there, the picture of calm ...

Cacophony of loud techno and a fringe clientele. Alone at a table drinking, Salander seems comfortable with the noise and her dateless status, but doesn’t avoid a glance from an Asian girl at the bar, and doesn’t tell her to go away when she comes over and motions to the empty chair.

Salander and the girl from the club, asleep in bed, entwined like snakes.

Salander wakes, disentangles herself, and is padding to the bathroom when there’s a knock on her door.

She stares it. No one ever knocks on her door. But someone knocks on it again. She crosses to it, wrapping herself in a blanket.

Her mind races, as Blomkvist’s did to the news someone had invaded his privacy. She unlocks the door. Cracks it enough to see him. He smiles, but it’s disconcerting. She’s not sure it’s a harmless one.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 79.79.

He pushes the door enough to pass. Has a paper bag and satchel with him. Takes in the place, including the girl in the bedroom, in a glance as he heads for the kitchen.

(he stops; looks back)

Who do you think you are?

He opens cabinets looking for the coffee. She stares.

Blomkvist, plunging a French press, watches as the girlfriend lets herself out. In the bedroom, Salander finishes getting dressed, sticks her Taser in the back pocket of her jeans and comes out to find a table setting that’s more formal than she, or anyone who lives alone, is used to.

He pours her, and then himself, coffee.

He smiles. His eyes are not unkind. As he helps himself to one of the bagels -

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 80.80.

A copy of it sits next to his plate.

Blomkvist lets it go.

He’s arranged some of his research on the floor, and watches Salander kneeling before it, her eyes passing over photographs of the Vanger clan, the accident on the bridge, Xeroxes of the Leviticus list and verses.

(MORE)

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 81.81. BLOMKVIST (CONT'D)

I have no idea who the others are - or how they’re connected to the death of a 16 year old girl - but they have to be.

His eyes settle on her blue-black “handcuffs” as hers settle on a copy of an old Hedestad Courier front page: the article about the grisly murder of Rebecka Jacobsson.

She gets up, goes to her desk, begins jotting something down, ignoring him.

Blomkvist, slightly taken aback, picks up the Leviticus Xerox from the floor.

That’s what she’s jotting down, from memory: the names, initials and Leviticus numbers. She wakes her laptop -

Hussein’s taxi brings Blomkvist across to the island.

He gets out with his satchel. Whistles for the cat -

He picks up the bowl of food he left on the porch, unlocks the door, goes inside, and sees the cat napping on his desk. He stares at it. Then at the door he just came through. Then the windows: all shut.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 82.82.

Nothing has been disturbed as far as he can tell, but someone has been in here.

A window on Salander’s laptop shows a map of Sweden divided into its 21 counties: Stockholm, Vasterbotten, Uppsala, etc.

She starts with Skane. Hacks *however one does that* into its police department’s crime database (or various county newspapers’ databases).

She fills in the year field with - 1947-1966 - and continues to types quickly. When we see what that is, she’s in the middle of typing this filters list -

Homicide Female Rape Decapitation Dismemberment Fire Altar Priest Prostitute Unsolved Mari Magda Sara R.L.

The search produces a screen showing matches to some of the filter words - the rest of the case synopses greyed out. But also, with all of them, there’s this message:

Full Police Report Not Digitized

Blomkvist watches a Hedestad locksmith install a dead- bolt on his front door.

Salander comes out of her apartment building onto an empty street. Everyone is asleep. No lights on. It must be about 3am.

She ties a duffel bag down, climbs onto the motorcycle, kick-starts it, races off into the night.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 83.83.

Salander’s Honda races past a pastoral agricultural landscape.

An old police detective considers Salander’s driver's license, her Milton Security ID, and a letter signed by the giant security firm's CEO, Dragan Armansky.

He waits for her to say something, but she doesn’t seem to understand conversational dynamics, so it’s up to him.

She nods. He’s not sure which he finds stranger - her appearance or her sincerity. He touches his own neck to indicate the tattoo on hers.

He’d be horrified if one of his grandchildren did that, but she just shrugs like it’s no big deal.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 84.84.

Hard for him to picture. But, upon reflection -

The old man rummages through an old file cabinet.

He pulls a thick, yellowed folder out and sits with it and her at a table.

And that troubles him still, that he never solved it.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 85.85.

He pushes the folder across the table to her ...

Blomkvist comes in to find - like Morell did 40 years ago - a strange tableaux of suspects - two of whom he’s only yet seen in photographs on his cottage wall -

Birger, Cecilia, Frode, Martin, Gunnar, Anna, and, looking like an aging overdressed vampire, Isabella, smoking a cigarette.

How is he?

Frode takes Blomkvist aside.

He glances over to them. Isabella’s staring back.

Isabella gets up to come over -

Can I see Henrik?

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 86.86.

A nurse chooses this - the absolute worst time - to approach Isabella.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 87.87.

Isabella gives the nurse a look so hard it’s almost frightening - calmly flicks an ash on the floor - waits for the nurse to leave - and looks back at Blomkvist.

As Frode guessed, Henrik is asleep, wired up to monitors, and doesn’t stir as Blomkvist looks in on him.

Salander’s motorcycle parked outside.

As young travelers with huge backpacks try to sleep around her, Salander reads to herself from a Bible by flashlight. Leviticus 4:32 -

Another police station.

Det. Isaksson is on the phone -

Another old police detective has Salander’s credentials and a phone in hand -

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 88.88.

The old Uddevalla detective regards Salander waiting at the counter. Into the phone -

He hangs up. To Salander -

He escorts her to the file room.

A164 OMIT - EXT. POLICE STATION - FARSTA ESTABLISHINGA164

Just like Isaksson, the Uddevalla detective pulls open an old cabinet drawer, finds a particular ancient folder in it and hands it to Salander. She begins flipping through the reports and crime photos inside it, but we don’t see them.

She begins photographing the reports and crime scene pictures with her camera as the detective watches her, not without some kind of strange sense of admiration.

Blomkvist considers Birger’s photo on his wall: Brother of Cecilia, son of Harald the Nazi, 21-years-old when his cousin Harriet disappeared ...

Blomkvist and Martin drink Skane. Martin’s normally breezy demeanor seems to have suffered from his mother’s public displays. Embarrassed by them and her, he’s more serious now.

(MORE)

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 89.89. MARTIN (CONT'D)

Please accept my apology for my mother’s behavior.

And he seems as lost now as he must have been then.

They glance off to the sound of a motorcycle. It appears, roars up, parks. Salander climbs off it and shoulders a duffel bag. Blomkvist seems surprised to see her.

She comes past them without another word. Martin can’t help noticing her wasp and handcuff tattoos. Looks after her as she disappears into the cottage. It’s hard to believe, but he has to ask:

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 90.90.

Blomkvist comes in as Martin drives off. Salander is already unpacking her things - laptop, charger, change of clothes. What’s she doing, moving in?

Busy setting up her laptop on his desk, starting it up, sitting down at it, she’s all but ignoring him.

She hands him her own dog-eared Bible and a copy of the list of names and initials he gave her -

Five more? Blomkvist stares at her but she’s turned back to her laptop, bringing up police reports and crime scene photos.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 91.91.

“If a man lies with a woman having her sickness, he has made naked her fountain and she has uncovered the fountain of her blood.”

Blomkvist doesn’t see a connection.

Salander brings up more crime photos -

She’s lit a cigarette and brings up the next photos -

Sara Witt, 1964. Daughter of a pastor. Tied to her bed, raped, charred in the fire that burned down her house. Leviticus -

Magda Lovisa Sjoberg, 1960 -

Several photos of a dead woman and dead cow -

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 92.92.

A photo of a pretty girl in riding jodhpurs, petting a horse, and several more of her dead naked body on a wet cement floor surrounded by tropical fish.

Before Blomkvist can find the verse, she’s on to the next ones. More photos of murdered girls -

Salander, as we know, is not paid to give her opinion. She’s a hunter/gatherer, not an analyst. But Blomkvist asked, so she gives it -

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 93.93.

The silence they just left has followed them out here. The island, more than ever, feels haunted as Blomkvist looks off, smoking.

He glances off to Harald’s dark house.

The Nazi’s shadowy form crosses behind the shades ...

He pokes at embers in the fireplace to try coax some flames.

He takes a blanket from the back of a chair.

She takes the blanket from him and sits with it on the couch. He watches her a moment.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 94.94.

She switches off the lamp. Then, in a moment, in the dark -

A170 EXT. COTTAGE - MORNING - ESTABLISHING A170

Salander browses through an iPhoto album of old photographs of Blomkvist and the motorcycle he mentioned. In some of them, Erika is with him. In all of them, he’s wearing a leather jacket not unlike Salander’s.

He’s just woken up in a tangle of blankets on the couch to see her at his laptop. She closes the album, leaving on the screen what she was looking at before: his iMovie of the parade and some annotated police files.

She gives him a don’t-be-a-child look.

Blomkvist drags himself up, pours himself some coffee, adds some milk.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 95.95.

She doesn’t say. He comes over. She plays the iMovie, stops on a frame before Harriet turns her head. Points to a young couple standing among the people behind her. The woman has an Instamatic camera in her hand.

She advances to the next frame: The woman has raised the camera to her eye.

And the next: Harriet turning her head in foreground while in the background the flash cube atop the woman’s Instamatic flares slightly.

Blomkvist is stunned, by both the fact he didn’t notice it before, and what it means: Though the woman is taking a snapshot of the parade, she could have inadvertently included in it whatever - whoever - Harriet saw at that moment across the street.

He takes over his laptop from her, finds the later Courier photos he didn’t include in his iMovie, after Harriet has left.

In one, the couple is moving off the other way. In another, they’re getting in a parked car to leave.

He sharpens the Photoshop contrast. The rear license plate is partly visible, but too small for him to make out even by squinting.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 96.96.

He focuses on a decal on the car’s back window. The letters are even small and blurrier, but she thinks she can make out -

He gets up. Heads for the front door to smoke his cigarette outside -

He opens the door to leave and sees on the porch -

The charred corpse of the cat. Its legs - sawn off and arranged in the shape of a swastika - lie in the middle of a dark circle of blood.

He seems too startled to move, but when Salander sees it, she immediately gets her camera and begins framing close-ups of the cat parts, and its head resting atop the seat of her motorcycle.

Blomkvist stares off at Harald’s house ...

As Frode scrolls through the photos of the dismembered cat on Salander’s camera, horrified by them, she regards at a table across the room: Birger, Isabella and Gunner.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 97.97.

Frode glances off to her. She’s staring at Salander. And turns to Birger.

Frode takes one more look at the photos before -

Blomkvist and Salander coming down a corridor on their way out.

A car and a motorcycle split apart at an interchange - the Volvo to the north, Salander’s Honda to the south.

Salander pulls her Honda into an underground garage.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 98.98.

No one says hello to her - nor she to them - as she strides through the place to the tech room.

INSERT: Cases snapped open revealing sophisticated surveillance equipment - several cameras, mounts, hand monitor, cables.

The clerk picks up a phone, but then sets it back down. Picks up the list again.

A175 EXT. HIGHWAY - DAY A175

A Volvo speeds along a rural highway, far from Hedestad and the Vangers.

On the passenger seat -

INSERT: the car rental agreement - a print of the parade photo of the couple getting into the car he was looking at with Salander on his laptop - and a hand- written note that reads -

N O R S J O S N I C K E R I F A B R I K

A POV through the windshield of a highway sign alerts him the Norsjo exit is coming up.

The main street of a very small town. The Volvo pulls to a stop outside its only hardware store.

An ancient place with narrow aisles crammed with stuff.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 99.99.

The clerk - for what Blomkvist needs - is too young.

He gestures to a clerk in his 60’s helping a customer.

The older clerk looks at the parade photo of the couple.

As he gathers up the photos to leave -

Blomkvist looks up. Not a bad idea.

Salander checks a ‘mirror’ of Bjurman’s computer on her laptop. Skims one of the monthly reports she instructed him to write.

A179 EXT. RETIREMENT HOME - NORSJO - ESTABLISHINGA179

A group of elderly men and women in a rec room pass Blomkvist’s photos around. One old man offers -

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 100.100.

Blomkvist writes the name down.

A180 EXT. BRANNLUND HOUSE - ESTABLISHING A180

She is still alive, and sitting across from Blomkvist in her living room as he takes out his photos -

He shows her one of the photos.

She smiles at the picture; it brings back good memories.

Blomkvist thinks about making something up. Decides not to. Indicates Harriet in the photo -

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 101.101.

Blomkvist nods; Mildred takes a closer look at the photo.

Mildred gets up with purpose, goes into another room, returns with a photo album. Leafs past wedding photos, to honeymoon photos and stops on the only one she took of the parade. She hands the album to Blomkvist.

The snapshot shows the float with the harem girls in foreground, and - in the background, across the street - several out of focus figures -

Establish.

He gets in the elevator without really looking at the figure already in it.

A finger presses it. The doors close and the elevator starts down.

Bjurman, terrified, backs into a corner. She presses a button and the elevator jerks to a stop between floors.

(which she has in hand)

It felt perfunctory, like your heart wasn’t in it. Let’s see a little more enthusiasm for my recovery in next month’s.

He nods.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 102.102.

He nods. She gets the elevator going again and steps closer to him. He tries bowing his head like a dog being scolded. She lifts his chin like he did to her before he raped her.

She touches his forehead. He backs away. The doors open and she steps out, leaving him in there, looking too frightened to move. The doors close.

Having returned and scanned Mildred’s snapshot into Photoshop, Blomkvist better defines on his laptop its background and the people in frame across the street from where Harriet was standing:

INSERT: Couples, kids, a clown.

INSERT: The watch repair shop clock that reads, 2:00.

INSERT: A figure standing slightly apart from the other people.

It’s too blurry to make out his face or age, but he has light brown hair, dark slacks, and a dark blazer with some kind of patch on the pocket.

Salander blasts onto the highway headed north.

Blomkvist regards Isabella’s two photos on the wall.

In one she’s a stunning young woman. In the other, the old wreck she’s become.

He glances to her husband Gottfried’s photo. Where a second more current photo of him should go is a Courier article about his drowning in 1965. That’s when Isabella changed - and this is where it happened - in this old house out on the point.

He untacks the article -

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 103.103.

The boathouse hasn’t fared well. Neither has the dock Blomkvist has to walk on to reach it. He glances inside - no boat, just dark water slapping against the pilings - looks back to the shore at the long-uninhabited cabin.

No electricity but enough light spills through the open door for him to see the neglected, shadowy interior:

Beds with bare, or no, mattresses. Sticks of furniture. Old water-stained books strewn around. Beer bottles and other debris left by intrepid Hedestad teenagers.

It’s creepy, even if you weren’t alone in it, knowing what you know.

He kneels to look at some of the books. Mickey Spillane, a bird guidebook, something called The Evil Empire about the USSR, a children’s book. He opens this last one and sees “Harriet” scrawled in a very young child’s hand.

Having climbed the cliff above the cabin, he finds himself at the highest point on the island. Stops to rest at the ruins of a fort.

A piece of the stone wall next to his head suddenly erupts. As fragments tear into his scalp, he hears the delayed crack and echo of the rifle shot -

He throws himself to the ground. Crawls desperately around and behind the ruins. Sees his shirt is bloody but can’t feel a wound under it. Touches his face and finds the blood is coming from his forehead.

He can see no one, and is almost relieved since if he could it would mean they were walking toward him, which would mean he would soon be shot dead, point blank.

He has to get out of here before that happens. Behind him - the rocky cliff he just climbed. Ahead of him - a clearing leading to woods. Really only one choice -

He runs for the trees. Dives through a curtain of thicket and stinging nettles that tear at his arms and hands. Crawls the rest of the way to the woods on his elbows and toes like an infantryman.

Safe for the moment, he figures, hidden in the woods, he looks at the sun low in the sky, and decides to wait.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 104.104.

Salander, returned from Stockholm, moves around the cottage - inside and out - installing the equipment she brought from Milton Security:

Motion detectors - security cameras - software that bisects a PC screen into quadrants showing night-vision views of each corner of the cottage.

A figure appears on a quadrant of Salander’s surveillance PC. Comes past the motorcycle and nearly reaches the porch before she hears -

She opens the door to see him covered in blood, pressing a torn piece of his shirt to his bleeding head - and almost gasps.

She turns the bathtub’s hot water tap -

She pulls a length of dental floss from its case -

Splits it in two thinner lengths with her chewed finger nails -

Feeds one of the lengths of floss through the eye of a needle -

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 105.105.

She perches on the edge of the tub where he sits - still in his pants - half-submerged in tepid water - bottle of vodka in his hand.

She splashes some of the vodka on the needle. Most of it goes in the water. Hands the bottle back to him.

He takes a swig from the vodka bottle. She reaches to his face with the needle and floss -

It takes all he’s got not to move, and even that isn’t enough as she first sticks the needle through the flesh. He pulls away with a groan.

She just looks at him. Waits for him to take another swig of vodka to steel himself.

She pierces him a second time, draws the floss through the skin. And after that it doesn’t seem to be so bad.

As she works, his eyes glance to hers with a mixture of dread and gratitude, but hers are focused on the work. Hers then briefly glance to his, but now his are down.

He comes out of the bathroom in his soaking wet pants and collapses on the bed. She works to pull his pants off.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 106.106.

He touches the wound and looks at his fingers -

She regards the surveillance monitor, the night-vision views of the cottage. She can’t believe it but she feels vigilant more for his sake than her own.

She goes to a window and looks out. Sees her own reflection in the glass and studies it. Then kicks her boots off.

She comes into the bedroom in her t-shirt and underwear. He’s still muttering without looking at her.

She pulls her t-shirt over his stitched-up head, cocooning it against her breasts. Silence. Then -

He extracts his head from the cocoon and looks at her.

He nods. That’s true. Then -

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 107.107.

She climbs on top of him.

Afterwards. She opens his dwindling pack of cigarettes. Lights one. Glances over to him lying next to her. He’s not looking at the smoke but rather the startling tattoos on her bare legs and arms. Eventually -

He shakes his head no. Reaches for the cigarette. Takes a drag. Hands it back.

He wakes. Comes out to find a proper place setting on the table. Sits with Salander. Listens to that awkward, but not altogether unpleasant silence you always hear in this situation the next morning. She breaks it -

Establish.

Frode and Martin stare at Blomkvist’s unprofessionally sutured head wound; Salander near him like an emaciated bodyguard.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 108.108.

Frode regards Blomkvist.

Blomkvist doesn’t say. Only -

Frode exchanges a look with Martin.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 109.109.

Frode and Martin step away to confer in private.

This goes against every privileged, confidential bone in the lawyer’s body. He can only stare at Blomkvist and Salander across the room, wondering why he hired either one of them.

Blomkvist and Salander walk down the road from Martin’s house.

Vanger Industries’ corporate archives are kept in the oldest building in the town’s warehouse district. The rumble of Salander’s motorcycle announces her arrival.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 110.110.

Like someone visiting a relative they never liked, Blomkvist reviews yet again the photos from ‘that day’ - scrolling through the bridge accident shots -

He stops. One of the figures has something in his hand he hadn’t noticed before. It and the figure are somewhat blurred in movement - but it looks like a gun. He sharpens the contrast to reveal that the gun is in fact a Hasselblad-type camera. Looks at the man’s face - then at his wall of Vanger family photos - unhappy to see it matches Harald ...

Carbon-copied or original documents from the 50’s and 60’s surround Salander like the water around the island:

Financial analyses, annual reports, internal memoranda, trade union agreements, brittle news clippings, corporate staff photographs, one of which she’s regarding now: A much younger Frode, posing against a wall of law books.

The photo of Harald in his Nazi uniform on the wall.

Cecilia looks at the blurred bridge photo of Harald with the camera in his hand. Then at Blomkvist, coolly.

He gives her his most disarming smile. It usually works with women, but doesn’t seem to have much affect on her.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 111.111.

Salander gets up and crosses to an anteroom where an unhappy older woman - the archive manager - seems to be doing nothing but waiting for the strange girl to leave.

The woman stares at her for a long moment, then picks up the phone.

Stairs lead them to a higher floor. The woman climbs a step-stool. Pulls a couple of large binders from a high shelf. Salander doesn’t help her off the stool and the woman looks at her even more unhappily than before.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 112.112.

The blinds, as usual, closed. Couple of lamps throw shadows on the walls which display hunting and military trophies - wild game heads, sabers and vintage firearms - some of Harald’s dearer photographs - some photographs in dusty frames.

Blomkvist, alone in the room, looks at them: Swedish Nazi leader in the 1930’s.

The 92-year-old comes into the room from the kitchen, followed by a housekeeper with a tea tray. Indicates the younger man in the photo, also in a Nazi uniform, that Blomkvist is looking at.

Blomkvist nods. Has no idea what to say. But Harald waits for more of a response. Finally -

Blomkvist’s eyes shift to a bolt-action Mauser infantry rifle displayed on a shelf ...

Spread out on the desk: A map of Sweden showing the factory sites and other Vanger holdings - and one she made earlier where the nine women were murdered. Dots appear at the same locations on both.

On a handwritten list of the victims, she puts a check next to Rebecka Jacobsson, 1949, Hedestad - moves on to Mari Holmberg, 1954, Kalmar - begins sifting through the mountain of Vanger Industries clippings from that year -

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 113.113.

A bony Nazi pouring tea in a shadowy room with you is bad, but the rabbit-print tea cozy only makes it worse.

Blomkvist tries to ignore him settling back in his worn leather chair with his chipped cup, and sifts through an old shoebox of unsorted photographs:

A holiday at Lake Como, early 1950’s judging from the cars; a Vanger family gathering long ago; some men posing by a slain wild boar dangling from a rope.

Harald holds out a pack of cigarettes. Blomkvist comes over, pulls one out.

(lights the cigarette)

With an ‘o’ - or a ‘u.’

Harald doesn’t say it, but his nod means, ‘not Jewish then. Good’ Blomkvist returns to the photos, glancing up occasionally to the smoke curling up past Harald’s face as he examines the journalist at work.

(Blomkvist shrugs)

I’m the most honest of all of them.

Blomkvist opens another shoebox. Lying on top is a photograph of the bridge accident, and, under it, a few more. He takes them out and angles them toward a lamp.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 114.114.

Blomkvist tries to nod appreciatively, but the bridge photos don’t tell him anything he doesn’t already know.

He finds several more that appear to be a hunting expedition - men and blood hounds - but then sees Morell in one, more policemen, and a stricken Henrik in boots and raincoat, and realizes this is the search party. Off to the side, a young man, head turned half away, wearing a dark blazer with a gold patch, which that 2.8 Zeiss lens makes clear is a prep school insignia. A lion.

He takes the photo over to the Nazi who only has to glance at it a moment to recognize his late nephew’s son:

Harald nods, hands it back, smokes. It’s not unusual Martin would have joined the search party - it would be unusual if he hadn’t - it’s his sister that’s missing - but this blazer he’s wearing troubles Blomkvist -

The archive manager shoulders her purse, locks her anteroom, and approaches Salander.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 115.115.

Nowhere near finished.

(nothing from the woman)

Call Frode.

As Henrik naps and Martin clears his dinner tray, Frode listens to the caller on the room phone -

(to Martin)

I’m going to let you decide. It’s Ms. Lindgren again.

Yes, Ingrid, what’s the problem?

Having found nothing of interest in the 1954 files, Salander moves on to the 1957 killing of Rakel Lunde. The older woman comes back. Drops a set of keys on the desk.

The woman leaves. Her footsteps echo and fade. Salander reads a yellowed clipping from a Landskrona newspaper:

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 116.116.

It’s about Vanger Industries hiring a local contractor, Carlen Construction, to build a plant. Gottfried Vanger - here to sign the contract.

But all that really interests Salander is the date. The article was published one day after the paper printed the story of the discovery of Rakel’s battered naked body.

Salander flips through the handwritten notes she made during her talk with the retired detective in Landskrona - and finds that part-time palm reader Rakel’s main job was as a cleaning woman for Carlen Construction.

The detective interviewed her co-workers, but no one from Vanger Industries, including that firm’s representative in town for a few days, Gottfried Vanger.

Gottfried Vanger ... which one was he again? Salander brings up on her laptop photographs she took of the wall of the cottage: the Vanger family tree.

Gottfried Vanger, Son of Margareta & Richard the Nazi Husband of crazy Isabella, Father of Martin and Harriet

Of all the Vangers - at least back in 1950 when Harriet was born - Gottfried was the most handsome. Clark Gable good looks.

She puts a check next to Rakel’s name and returns to Mari Holmberg and the 1954 Vanger files.

Blomkvist flips through one of Morell’s reports stating everyone’s whereabouts on the day Harriet’s disappeared.

INSERT: Across from Martin Vanger’s name it reads: “Arrived on 4:30 train.”

He brings up the Photoshop-enhanced Brannlund parade photo on his laptop -

INSERT: The figure with the blazer and pocket patch standing near the watch repair clock, which reads: 2:00.

And the photo Harald let him take with him of ‘Gottfried’s useless boy’ -

INSERT: Young Martin with the search party, the emblem clearly visible on his blazer pccket.

He shuffles through copies of articles in Salander’s victims’ files. Looks at the last one, Lena Andersson, 1967. The photo is a school wallet photo -

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 117.117.

INSERT: She’s wearing a sweater with the same Uppsala Prep School lion emblem as Martin.

He looks at Mildred’s parade photo of the figure standing near the watch repair clock. It reads, 2:00.

And the photo Harald let him take with him of ‘Gottfried’s useless boy’ with the search party. In it and the parade photo, he’s wearing the same blazer.

He shuffles through copies of articles in Salander’s victims’ files. Looks at the last one, Lena Andersson, 1967. The photo is a school wallet photo - in a sweater with the same Uppsala Prep School lion emblem as Martin.

Knowing what she’s looking for now, Salander finds it fairly quickly: A clipping about a timber company Vanger Industries bought in Kalmar and an interview in its local paper with Gottfried, two days after Mari’s murder.

She jumps to 1960 - Magda Lovisa Sjoberg - Karlstad - and an article in its local paper - this time with a photo of Gottfried - about a union dispute at its factory there.

Blomkvist comes out with his cell phone, tries to make a bar or two materialize on it. Dials but only gets a beep that asks him if he wants to ‘retry.’ He doesn’t.

Instead, under the darkening sky, he looks off to the point. Martin’s house is small in the distance, but he can see there’s no car in the driveway and no lights on. He stares at it for a long time ...

Salander pulls a 1962 Uddevalla paper from the files. Same day this time, the same page of the newspaper: Lea Persson’s horrific murder and an story quoting Gottfried about an expansion project to the town’s harbor.

She regards Gottfried’s newsprint photo: His face looks more than 8 years older than the one in Kalmar but that’s what drinking to excess, and murder perhaps, does to you.

Blomkvist lays the Lena Andersson article - and the photograph of the figure at the parade - atop the rest of the junk on the desk - and quickly scrolls through photos on his laptop, leaving on the screen for Salander to see when she returns: Martin’s recent Vanger Industries PR portrait ...

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 118.118.

Salander has hit a snag. Gets up. We stay to have a look at the problem she leaves: the victims list - now with “Gottfried” jotted down next to all but one name:

1967 - Lena Andersson - Uppsala

Next to it, the newspaper article about the murdered girl, with a school photo. And, next to that, the reason there’s no “Gottfried” notation: his obituary in a Hedestad Courier clipping: 1965.

We listen to the fading echo of Salander’s footsteps -

As annoying as the older woman was, it was less creepy with her around. Salander is alone in the old building now, wandering through it looking for vending machines.

She finds some. Drops coins in one. A cup fills with coffee. She gets a candy bar from another. The coffee machine finishes. The place again plunges into silence. She starts back with her snack down a hallway -

Trying to look like he’s just out for a stroll, Blomkvist walks past Martin’s dark house, then turns around, walks up the front path to the porch and makes a show of knocking on the door, just in case anyone on the island can see him, which is doubtful in this darkness.

He tries the door. Locked. Comes down off the porch as if leaving, but then veers off the path and walks around to the side of the house.

He peers through a floor-to-ceiling window, but can’t see much inside. Comes around to the back and looks in another window. Tries the back door. Unlocked.

He can’t see a lot in the dark, but doesn’t dare switch on any lights. He crosses through the kitchen, but we stay behind to regard a closed basement door ...

We pick him up again as he comes into the living room, follow him to a wall of glass. It’s pitch black outside.

We follow him down a hallway - but stop at a bedroom doorway as if this is as far as we care to go. We stay at the threshold and watch him go in and look around. As he begins rummaging around the recesses of a closet -

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 119.119.

A pair of headlights comes across the bridge.

Blomkvist comes back to the wall of glass. Still no lights out there. Heads off to the hall again.

The car parks fifty yards from Blomkvist’s cottage. The headlights blink off. Someone climbs out.

Blomkvist comes into a study. Lots of books and framed photographs. He begins looking around.

The headlights come up the road leading to the point.

Blomkvist approaches a gun case in the study. Hunting rifles. Three of them - and an empty space for a fourth one.

The trees outside the study window flare with light. A moment later, Blomkvist hears a sound of tires on gravel.

Martin is back, and Blomkvist is in his house.

We rush back down the hall with Blomkvist. Hopefully Martin will enter through the front door because we’re going to try to get out the back one -

Blomkvist trips over something in the dark and we go down with him. Then up again - through the kitchen - past the basement door - grabs a knife from a drawer - shoves it in a back pocket - hurries out the rear door -

Blomkvist tries to steady his breathing as he slinks around the side of the house. As he passes a window, it lights up - and we again hit the ground with him.

He hurries across the yard, trips over something in the dark - a sprinkler? - and goes down again into wet muck.

He gets up and starts down the road as if returning from a leisurely evening walk - which would be more convincing without the limp - not daring to look back as he goes.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 120.120.

Blomkvist stops. His heart pounds. Martin comes down his porch and walks toward his car.

Martin pulls a golf bag from his trunk and shoulders it.

Naturally, this is the last thing Blomkvist wants to do, but it would be more suspicious if he refuses. He heads back to Martin’s house, trying not to limp.

Finished with her candy bar and coffee, Salander opens the 1967 files, looks through the clippings for anything of note in Uppsala, where Lena was killed.

She finds no news of factories opening there that year, but she does come across a PR newsletter about a winter retreat for fifty employees and their families.

There’s a photo of Henrik presenting someone with a Best Worker of the Year plaque. And another taken at a dinner for twenty guests and Vanger family members:

The camera has captured Henrik presiding at the head of the table, putting on a brave face, raising a champagne flute - as everyone else does the same - except for the young man at the far right foreground.

He looks sullen. But what teenager wouldn’t at an event as boring as this. Salander would look even more sullen. She checks the caption and reads:

... far right, Martin Vanger (19), currently studying in Uppsala.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 121.121.

Uppsala. Same place as Lena - though it’s what young Martin is wearing that strikes her: an Uppsala private school blazer with a lion on its pocket - the same as on Lena Andersson’s sweater in the photo of her in the article about her murder.

It’s not as eerie with the lights on - except for the fact there’s a killer in it. Martin sets the golf clubs down and begins emptying a grocery bag in the kitchen.

Blomkvist’s clothes. The fresh mud stains.

Martin smiles, but Blomkvist isn’t sure what he said warrants one. Martin begins rummaging through a drawer for a flashlight. The knife block - with one missing - is right there.

Blomkvist notices a drop of blood from his pantleg on the stone floor and covers it up with his shoe. Martin, not seeming to notice, finds a mini-Maglite in the drawer.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 122.122.

Martin hands Blomkvist the mini-Maglite.

Salander scrolls through laptop photos to the one at the parade taken by the Brannlund woman on her honeymoon; the people across the street and the blurry figure wearing the blazer with the “pocket square” ...

Martin pours Scotch. Hands one to Blomkvist.

Blomkvist’s eyes only dart to a rifle bag leaning against the wall next to a box of shells, but Martin follows them.

They drink. Listen to a silence.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 123.123.

(Blomkvist doesn’t know what he means)

New. To report.

Martin regards Blomkvist in another silence. Then -

Martin pulls open a bar drawer and takes from it a handgun.

He gives a little gesture with it to the handle of the knife protruding from a back pocket of Blomkvist’s jeans. There are fresh drops of blood on the floor next to his shoes.

Blomkvist doesn’t know what to say. Martin’s demeanor, even in this situation, remains cordial.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 124.124.

Blomkvist’s hope of getting out of here unscathed is pretty much gone now. He pulls the knife from his back pocket and sets it on a side table.

Salander strides past the napping night watchman without leaving the keys or bothering to tell him she’s done.

Crossing the empty parking lot, she tries Blomkvist on her cell. Gets his voice mail. Kick-starts her bike.

Martin “leads” Blomkvist from behind back to the kitchen, switching off lights as they go.

They come through a pantry, at the end of which is a door.

Blomkvist does. Sees steps leading into darkness. As they descend Martin flicks a switch and bare fluorescent tubes flicker on to reveal: A furnace. Washer. Dryer. Old discarded furniture. And another door. A steel one.

As they approach it, Martin presses a little remote and the lock on the steel door clicks.

As Blomkvist steps across the threshold -

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 125.125.

Blomkvist flips it and a row of overhead fluorescent tubes flickers on - one after the other - revealing a subterranean torture chamber:

Metal eyelets bolted to the concrete walls and ceiling and floor - table with leather straps - bed with leather straps - steel-mesh cage - work bench with handsaws and other tools -

Blomkvist takes it in with one glance and immediately turns to try to smash the glass in his hand into Martin’s face - which is covered now with a plastic oxygen mask he holds to it. Gas plumes down on Blomkvist from above; the glass comes out of his hand, shattering on the cement floor -

The Honda’s single headlight shudders as Salander comes across the bridge onto the island.

Blomkvist comes to on the floor, handcuffed to a chain that runs through a metal eyelet. He sees Martin behind a video camera on a tripod, focusing it - a shelf full of Betamax tapes - and a TV monitor on which his own image then appears.

Note: the steel door if we were close enough to it to notice - which we aren’t - is not locked. It’s not even completely shut.

Satisfied with the framing of the shot of his guest, Martin takes a seat on a comfortable armchair upholstered in clear plastic. It squeaks.

He regards Blomkvist calmly. Sips his drink. Then almost sighs.

Martin smiles, appreciating, perhaps, Blomkvist’s “easy” manner in this dire circumstance.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 126.126.

Blomkvist doesn’t say. Martin looks like he has all the time in the world to wait, and does. Then -

Nothing from Blomkvist. Martin shrugs ‘okay,’ gets up, goes to his workbench and takes a plastic shower curtain from it. As he’s laying it on the floor around his victim, Blomkvist changes his mind -

Martin doesn’t see the significance, but is pleased Blomkvist has decided to “participate.” He rewards him by suspending his shower curtain work to return to the chair. It squeaks again.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 127.127.

Blomkvist isn’t sure how to play that question ...

He holds up the keys he took from Blomkvist’s pocket when he was out cold.

As Salander gets the door open with her key and comes in -

He’s clearly not here. She goes to the closet. Takes out the surveillance PC. Puts it on the desk - next to Blomkvist’s laptop which is now displaying - not the photo of Martin he left for her - but the Apple default “light spider” screen saver.

As Salander begins rewinding the captured surveillance images backwards at high speed to get to earlier in the day -

Martin reframes the video camera to include part of himself in the shot, sits again and crosses his leg like this is a talk show.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 128.128.

There are so many things, but also no point, so Blomkvist says nothing.

Nothing from Blomkvist. Which is okay with Martin; he can do this alone -

Nothing from Blomkvist, but he is wondering now what happened to Gottfried if the drowning wasn’t accidental.

Nothing from Blomkvist, but Martin nods.

(”How do you do this and still function in normal society?”)

(MORE)

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 129.129. MARTIN (CONT'D)

you have secrets. You had one when you came up here. It made you feel - special. Didn’t it?

Blomkvist doesn’t say. Martin is a little thrown by Blomkvist’s next unspoken comment -

(”Yes, but my secrets aren’t rape and murder”)

(gathers his thoughts to explain it)

A rapist, Mikael, gets off on domination. I need ...

(discards a few other words before:)

- destruction.

Martin gets up and sets about the business of immobilizing Blomkvist further with a block-and-tackle contraption of chains and straps.

(pause)

You’d never think the fear of offending could be stronger than the fear of pain - but you know what? It is. They always come willingly.

It amazes him. It always amazes him. He keeps working.

(regards Blomkvist)

And then the moment comes when they realize ... no, all hope is gone.

(MORE)

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 130.130. MARTIN (CONT'D)

And when that happens - when I see the hope draining from their face like it is from yours right now - (whispers like it’s just between them) - well, I feel myself getting hard just watching it.

Silence ...

Blomkvist, of course, doesn’t answer, or comment, yet Martin considers what the journalist hasn’t said ...

(”Martin, civilized people don’t do what you do.”)

Martin regards Blomkvist in a silence. Then -

He yanks a chain that feeds through the pulleys that lift Blomkvist up onto his feet -

Salander watches the surveillance images, forward -

Blomkvist leaving the cottage and property on foot. Blomkvist returning to the cottage, going back inside. Blomkvist coming out and attempting a call on his cell. Blomkvist going back inside the cottage. Blomkvist coming out again and leaving the property. Blomkvist not coming back. Nothing but the sky darkening to night. Then -

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 131.131.

Headlights coming through frame. A figure appearing on foot at the front gate. The figure just standing there, looking at the cottage. The figure approaching it, and, as it’s trying the locked front door, the motion detection light snapping on and illuminating Martin. Martin moving to the side, looking in a kitchen window, coming around front again, walking to the gate, turning around, looking back, then walking out of frame.

Blomkvist hangs from the block-and-tackle rig, leather strap around his neck now, fed through a ceiling eyelet. With a big sewing scissors, Martin cuts through and removes Blomkvist’s pants and underwear -

He returns to his work bench to lay out various tools next to his gun and a desk phone.

Martin comes back quickly and yanks a strap that cinches the noose tighter around Blomkvist’s neck as it lifts him onto his tiptoes.

Martin just stares at him confused. Then -

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 132.132.

He lets go of the strap and Blomkvist’s feet come back down to the floor. As Martin returns to his workbench, Blomkvist is not only scared to death, but confused now. Did Martin not kill her?

Then Martin is back in front of him with a roll of cellophane, pulls on the strap again until Blomkvist is balancing on his tiptoes, and ties it off.

It is. Blomkvist can utter no sound but a gag.

He wraps Blomkvist’s head in cellophane, completely cutting off his ability to breathe, and calmly watches him struggle. ...

Blomkvist desperately nods as he’s about to suffocate. Martin watches another several moments ... then pokes a finger through the cellophane into Blomkvist’s gasping mouth.

He frames a wide shot of his naked prey. Turns on some music. Takes a moment to collect himself from all this strenuous work. Brushes back his hair like he wants to look presentable in the shot. Then smiles pleasantly -

The circulation to Blomkvist’s head is being cut off by the strap. His fingers behind his naked back claw at the concrete wall to try to relieve some of the weight on the noose, but can’t get a grip. Martin watches the struggle calmly, and just as calmly offers:

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 133.133.

He puts on a plastic rain poncho. A painter’s mask. Plastic goggles. Surgeons gloves. Picks up a hunting knife. Steps up to Blomkvist. Looks at his eyes. Brings his own head close to his victim’s -

He pulls the strap, lifting Blomkvist’s toes off the floor, closing off his air again ... and is about to gut him like a wild boar ... when he hears a sound like some kind of animal behind him ...

He turns and sees her - coming at him from out of the shadows by the steel door -

He darts for the gun he left on the workbench -

Salander just as quickly swings a 5-iron - his 5-iron - like a baseball bat. Its metal-wedged end arcs through the gloom and slams into the side of his head, sending him tumbling to the floor.

He struggles up to his knees, and she swings the club again, splitting flesh and crushing bone as he crumples the floor.

She takes the gun from the bench and shoves it in her other back pocket. Grabs the hunting knife and shackles key and hurries over to Blomkvist who only witnessed part of the spectacle before losing consciousness -

She saws through the leather strap around his neck. Unlocks the chain. As he sinks to his knees on the floor, blood rushes to his head, bringing him back to life just enough to see what she can’t behind her -

Martin, blood streaming from the gash in his head, getting to his feet. But he’s not coming at them; he’s trying to get out -

Blomkvist tries to say her name to get her to look. Lifts a hand to try to point. She turns and glimpses the monster as he disappears out the steel door. Looks back at Blomkvist, still handcuffed on the floor, and, like a child asking a parent for permission -

Nothing in his life would allow him to agree to such a thing - until now. Now it’s as if her years of violence and degradation have been passed to him.

He nods.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 134.134.

She puts the hunting knife in his hand. Pulls the gun from her back pocket, checks the clip, flicks off the safety, and turns to leave -

She comes up the basement stairs, leading with her gun. Distant thunder rumbles. She crosses through the kitchen to the living room, and down the hall to the study. She eases around the doorway - the room is empty - looks to the gun case - sees there are only two rifles there now.

She hears an engine start outside. Hurries back through the house. Sees out the picture window the taillights of Martin’s car receding fast down the road as clouds burst.

She bangs out the front door. Runs halfway down the hill in the rain to where she left her motorcycle, jumps on and kick-starts it.

She roars onto the bridge, chasing the taillights. Guns the bike to full throttle. Comes alongside him. He swerves to try to crush her against the railing - but she hits the brakes, avoiding the impact -

She accelerates again and comes up on the other side of the car. He swerves again at her, but this time the bike pulls ahead of him. Now he’s chasing her -

He gains on her as they near the end of the bridge. As they race off it, he goes in for the kill, but she veers hard to one side, leaving him headed straight for the gas station Blomkvist makes his pay phone calls from - and the tanker truck parked there -

Martin hits the brakes - hydroplanes into the truck - and its, or his own tank, or both, explode -

Salander circles back. Regards the fire engulfing the car. The rain does nothing to dampen it. She could probably brave it to pull Martin out - but doesn’t.

As the flames burn his clothes, he manages to get his hands on the rifle he took from the den, turns its barrel to his bloody head - but before he can pull the trigger, she hurries over, yanks it from his grasp and stands back again. It’s much more cathartic to watch him burn ...

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 135.135.

She finds Blomkvist in the living room. Sitting in a chair, his coat wrapped around him. The hunting knife in his hand. Distant sirens echo. He can still just barely manage to speak -

Reminiscent of the last photographs taken on the Hedeby Island bridge forty years ago, police and firemen finish up at the crash site. A winch drags Martin’s charred black wreck of a car onto a tow truck.

Blomkvist is asleep in the bedroom with what looks like a neck tattoo - the black and blue mark left by Martin’s noose that nearly strangled him to death. He doesn’t hear the knock at the front door, nor -

Frode comes into the cottage looking shaken. Salander is the picture of calm, drinking a cup of black coffee.

Frode absently shakes his head no.

Frode isn’t sure he heard right. Regards Salander sipping her coffee.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 136.136.

She doesn’t say any more. Frode gets up and starts toward the bedroom -

It’s not a request; it’s a command.

Frode is ashen as he leafs through a binder Salander brought from Martin’s chamber of horrors late last night:

A scrapbook of murder. A death book. Photos of women cowering in his cage, tied to the bed, dead on the table - along with souvenirs of painted fingernails and locks of hair - all carefully taped into the ‘album.’ The older photographs are Polaroids; the newer ones digital prints.

With little to no discernible emotion, Salander watches Frode wince as he turns the pages.

Frode can’t take it anymore. Closes the book before reaching the end. Just sits there.

Salander points to a stack of video tapes.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 137.137.

Blomkvist half-wakes to find Salander lying next to him, fully-clothed, watching him. Is she actually there, or part of a dream? He looks at her a long moment, then tries out his voice -

He smiles, thinking it’s joke. It isn’t, he realizes.

She doesn’t say. Just studies him ...

Oh.

Silence. Then -

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 138.138.

She pours milk in her coffee from the carton she just bought. Pushes over two faded Polaroid photos. He picks them up:

One shows a young girl about 14, naked from the waist up, head turned half-away from the camera. The second shows her on her stomach on a bed, completely naked, face turned to the photographer, frightened.

Blomkvist can’t look at the photos long. Sets them down. Something’s troubling him -

He goes up to his wall of suspects.

He takes the photo of Anita down from the wall.

Henrik sits in one of the chairs. Blomkvist in another. Salander prefers to stand. Eventually -

Clearly, he hasn’t been shown the death book, or been told the tale of Blomkvist’s night in Martin’s dungeon.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 139.139.

Such a possibility stuns the old man. He regards Blomkvist a moment. Then Salander ...

A tiny, tiny, tiny smile finds its way to her face at the mention of the word ‘partner.’

Vanger studies him. Then -

Blomkvist and Salander read magazines in a pair of coach seats. Across the aisle - occupying two seats - is one 300-lb. sleeping figure: Plague.

They drink pints in an unpopular, almost-empty pub. A Cure song plays.

(nothing from her or Plague)

You don’t?

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 140.140.

A strange-looking young man comes in, regards the strange- looking trio at the table, comes over. To the fat man -

Blomkvist starts to offer his hand before realizing no one else has or will.

Trinity sits. None of these people have much experience with human interaction. They all look at Blomkvist, but he isn’t sure why.

Blomkvist takes an envelope from his jacket, hands it to Trinity. He begins counting it -

Alone in the back of a parked van amidst electronic components he doesn’t understand, Blomkvist anxiously stares out a tinted window at a dark row house.

Headlights flare down the street. An approaching car. He hopes it passes, but it instead pulls up to the garage - waits for the door to go up - pulls in.

He watches Anita Vanger get out of the car - the garage door come down - light go on inside the house - then dark figures hurrying along the side of the house: Trinity, Salander, and finally Plague. They climb into the van with their tools, firewires, a laptop. None speaks as they tether cables to computers in the van. Blomkvist just watches. Finally, to him -

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 141.141.

Blomkvist knocks on the door. Anita pulls it open.

She doesn’t invite him in, but doesn’t shut the door in his face either.

She has two, but doesn’t ask which -

(nothing from her)

There’s going to be a memorial in Hedestad. I know you haven’t been back there in a long time, but -

And now, she closes the door.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 142.142.

Blomkvist returns to the van. Climbs in.

He sits and watches them monitor the phone and computer taps they installed earlier. One of the laptops, without anyone touching it, blinks on to a Google screen.

A screen name and password characters on a Gmail page type themselves. They expect her to go to “Compose,” but she opens one of the messages - spam - deletes it - marks a couple more and banishes them as well.

The only new thing left in the inbox is an eBay alert. Clicking it takes her to an auction for a triple-strand faux-pearl Jackie O necklace: 49 pounds. The cursor clicks the Buy-It-Now button.

As the screen switches to Anita’s Paypal account, Blomkvist and Salander exchange a confused glance.

Salander’s laptop is monitoring Anita’s computer, her hard-line phone and cell.

Blomkvist emerges from the bathroom, rests a hand on Salander’s shoulder to peer over it at the screen: In one of the windows, cards are dealing themselves.

Salander points to one of the windows on the screen. His hand comes off her shoulder.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 143.143.

He does. They watch the solitaire game together ...

It’s strange perhaps, but he does some of his best thinking during sex -

That’s fair. She finishes. They lie there. Then -

Blomkvist taps on Anita’s open office door.

He comes in and sits.

He tugs his shirt collar low enough to reveal the black and blue “tattoo” around his neck. Anita is taken aback by the sight. It’s hard to imagine how anyone would end up with a mark like that.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 144.144.

They sit together on a park bench.

Blomkvist nods, reaches for something in his jacket pocket - changes his mind - changes it again and pulls it out.

He hands her the less graphic of the two Polaroids Salander found in Martin’s basement - the young girl, face turned half-away from the camera ...

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 145.145.

Blomkvist can’t hide his horror even after all he’s seen.

Blomkvist stares. Finally -

(pause)

You still don’t understand?

He doesn’t. She studies him, and perhaps sees in him what Salander did long ago - that he can be trusted.

Harriet makes it out of the cabin in torn clothing, trying to get the belt around her neck off. Her father can heard inside ranting something from the Bible.

Gottfried emerges from the cabin and stumbles down the hill in pursuit of his almost-naked daughter.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 146.146.

As he comes onto the dock, she waits for the moment, and smashes him in the head with the flat side of an oar. It stuns and sends him toppling off the dock into the water.

He surfaces, reaches for the dock planks. As he takes hold of them to claw himself from the water, she brings the sharp edge of the oar down, burying it in his head like an axe.

He stares up her, uncomprehending. His fingers slide away from the dock. His body goes limp and sinks out of sight beneath the water.

She sees her brother up by the cabin looking down at her.

Young Harriet and her school friends walk along the town’s main street past crowds lining it, and we realize we’re seeing what we’ve only seen in still photographs.

The float with the harem girls comes past, and we watch the smile on young Harriet’s face change to fear as she notices something off to the left.

A clear shot of young Martin in his Uppsala blazer, standing by the corner, smiling at her.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 147.147.

Anita, framed in the bedroom window - like in the photograph - looks out at the activity on the bridge. Behind her, Harriet packs a few items of clothing.

Harriet puts the clothes back. Picks up her purse.

The dinner that night. Vanger noticing Harriet’s empty chair. And Anita saying nothing, taking a bite of food.

The searchers scouring the island. The boats moving along the shoreline. The crane lifting the truck from the bridge.

Anita climbs into her car outside her father Harald’s house. Drives down the road toward the bridge.

The blanket covering Harriet on the backseat floorboard moves slightly, then is still.

A policeman on the island side of the bridge waves the car across it. As it heads along the mainland service road toward the highway -

Silence. Then she gestures to Blomkvist’s neck.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 148.148.

He gestures off to the thin, strange girl sitting on another park bench too far away to hear them. Harriet does something she hasn’t done since they met: smile.

Blomkvist, Salander and Frode wait in Vanger’s study. A tea service tray sits there untouched like the first time Blomkvist came here. Anna pushes a wheelchair into the room with Vanger in it. There’s a file on his lap.

Anna leaves. Closes the doors. Before Blomkvist can say anything else -

He holds out the file. Blomkvist takes it and sees:

INSERT: Wennerstorm’s name typed on it, and a fairly recent photo of him clipped to it.

A car pulls up the drive. Parks. The back door opens. Harriet climbs out. Looks at the manor. Then walks toward the front door -

Vanger propels his wheelchair down the main hall, but stops when he sees Harriet coming in the front door with Anna. He stares, trying to reconcile how she looks now compared to when he last saw her, or maybe to convince himself she’s really alive. She sees him ...

He begins to weep. She walks to him and places a hand on his hunched shaking shoulders. Frode, Blomkvist and Salander watch. One of them isn’t particularly moved.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 149.149.

As Frode leafs through the file that Blomkvist has already read -

It happened in the 1970’s ...

Salander watches the two men from across the room ...

I swear I didn’t know this was what Henrik had on him. If I had, I never would have let him bring you up here. But he wasn’t trying to deceive you.

Frode disagrees -

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 150.150.

Blomkvist and Salander sit out by the water, sharing the last cigarette in his pack. Her arm is draped over his shoulder, which strikes him as the most tender of gestures, coming from her.

She’s not sure she likes the comment. Decides she doesn’t. Takes her arm away from his shoulder.

She doesn’t. So he drapes his on hers. Then -

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 151.151.

Not a good day, that. Then -

He regards her, uncertain what she means ...

On Wennerstrom.

She nods. Then rests her head on his shoulder.

A new family tree on a wall here, more complicated than the Vanger’s: The Wennerstrom Group, made up of dozens of companies in cities worldwide. As Erika looks at it -

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 152.152.

She isn’t happy to hear that explanation.

What looks like 16-year-old tattooed runaway lets herself in with her own key. Crosses past Erika with a paper bag, takes out two bagel sandwiches, the same kind Blomkvist brought when he barged into her apartment.

As she puts some water on for coffee, Erika looks at Blomkvist. He nods. Yeah. Her.

265 TV NEWS: 265

The report continues on a TV in Blomkvist’s bedroom -

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 153.153.

The cover of the magazine features a head shot of Wennerstrom, and, rare for the magazine, a tabloid-style title: GANGLAND. Salander leafs through the article as Blomkvist brushes his teeth in the bathroom.

Salander nods, but it’s not really in agreement. Or maybe it is. In any case, she’s not as enthused about all this as he is.

Blomkvist grins and reaches for his wallet.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 154.154.

His grin stays stitched to his face a moment, then unravels. He puts his wallet away.

He’s no longer shocked or dismayed by her knowing more about his personal affairs than he does.

Several pages torn from pages of fashion magazines: Models - all of them blonde - their beautiful faces - designer clothes - accessories - make-up tips.

Applying makeup to the wasp tattoo on her neck and the “handcuffs” on her wrists, Salander pays no attention to the TV showing Wennerstrom under an umbrella, interviewed outside the building that bears his name -

Salander purchases with cash expensive designer clothes she normally wouldn’t be caught dead in.

Here she’s buying a high-end carry-on valise and portfolio briefcase.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 155.155.

Good wigs cost money - like the shoulder-length blonde one atop a black Lucite head Salander is purchasing.

A place that caters to transvestites who, among other things, require as Salander does, latex breasts.

Wearing the wig and a designer outfit she takes her own passport photo against a wall. She looks like Erika.

Not wearing the wig now, she inspects a passport Plague has acquired for her featuring the crown of Norway, and some credit cards.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 156.156.

On his TV, a pack of lawyers stand where Wennerstrom was standing before - outside the Group’s corporate offices - under, as usual, umbrellas -

A plane touches down on a Zurich Airport runway.

A customs official, satisfied with “Irene Nesser’s” Norwegian passport - not to mention her blonde hair and bustline - stamps a page.

Bellmen outside the 5-Star Zimmerstahl Hotel attend to the luggage of wealthy guests emerging from nice cars.

As a desk clerk photocopies Ms. Nesser’s passport, she neither hides from nor plays to the security camera.

Salander emerges from the bathroom without the wig on. Crosses through the suite in her underwear. Oddly - or perhaps not - she’s also wearing a pair of white gloves. She opens the balcony’s doors to let in some air. On the TV:

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 157.157.

An immigration official appears before the news cameras -

She sips at her room service coffee.

“Irene Nesser” enters Bank Hausen General under watchful security cameras.

Security cameras inside watch her and a banker at a desk in an area reserved for discreet transactions.

As she writes an account number on a slip of paper from memory, Herr Wagner notices - as she intends - the pen she’s using - from the venerable Zimmerstal Hotel.

He glances at his watch, perhaps thinking about lunch. His faux-politeness - even his appearance - reminds her of Bjurman.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 158.158.

She offers him the Zimmerstal pen.

He picks up one of his cheap pens. She hands him a long list of account numbers and clearing codes -

As she sorts through a stack of bonds, the TV shows a reporter in a colorful town square.

A snapshot of Wennerstrom, or someone who looks like him - tropical shirt, hat and sunglasses - climbing into a car.

Sitting with a different bank manager now as security cameras keep silent watch, she opens her portfolio and turns it so he can see its contents. He glances up with a polite smile that’s supposed to mask his surprise.

He works out the conversion to CHF and hands her the calculator: A “2” followed by more digits than we can count.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 159.159.

The remnants of a McDonald’s kids meal on the desk with the wig and white gloves. She bypasses the hotel’s internet service, uplinks her MacBook through her cell.

Five accounts - the ones she just established at Bank Dorfrmann - appear on the screen. She transfers all the funds into one account at Bank Kroenfeld, Cayman Islands, belonging to a Gibraltar company.

A284 EXT. ZURICH AIRPORT - DAY - ESTABLISHINGA284

Irene cuts up credit cards, flushes them down a toilet.

Drops the scissors in a trash bin on her way to security.

Irene disembarks with the other Zurich flight passengers.

Irene’s earrings disappear down a sink drain. Necklace falls to the bottom of a paper towel bin.

Irene/Salander puts her empty portfolio in an unlocked locker, wipes the prints from it, heads for the platform.

She has a private sleeping berth, but isn’t sleeping. She’s smoking a cigarette next to a No-Smoking decal on the window that’s cracked open, and tosses the Zimmerstal Hotel pen out to the darkening countryside rushing past.

Salander - looking like Salander - enters her apartment with only her laptop bag. Holds Irene’s passport over a stove flame. Sets the burning document on a plate.

Takes a Coke from her fridge, sits with it. Puts the cold can to her forehead like a compress. Then opens it, drinks, and closes her eyes ...

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 160.160.

A dark figure is looking up at her apartment, at television light playing on a window. As he walks off into the night, we see it’s Bjurman.

The reporter stands under an umbrella on the same street Salander crossed to get from one hotel to the other.

The place is trimmed with Christmas decorations again. In a glassed-in conference room, Blomkvist, Erika, and a few others sit around the table, their production meeting interrupted by the news on the plasma TV here:

Security camera images of “Irene Nesser,” entering and leaving banks.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 161.161.

Her whereabouts are here, roaring through Stockholm on her Honda like the first time we saw her.

Blomkvist hears a motorcycle and glances out the window to see Salander pulling up outside.

He comes out, meets her at her motorcycle. She takes a cashier’s check from her jacket pocket.

She nods.

He nods. She nods.

She nods. He nods.

He nods. She nods. Erika regards them from inside the conference room. Salander climbs back on her motorcycle.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 162.162.

A294 EXT. PALMGREN’S APARTMENT - DAY - ESTABLISHINGA294

While the nurse fills a plastic days-of-the-week container with a concoction of pills, Salander sits with her Palmgren by the untouched chess table.

One of Palmgren’s hands manages to pull slightly away from the other, tries to reach for her, perhaps, but only makes it about an inch. She reaches over and holds it.

A reporter bundled-up outside a low-rent building cordoned off with police tape -

The same cafe Blomkvist retreated to after his libel conviction.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 163.163.

Blomkvist is at the counter, across from a barista, but his attention is on the TV -

Blomkvist glances blankly at the barista, then back to the TV -

A tailor brings out a garment bag bearing his exclusive insignia, drapes it across a table, returns to Salander the photograph she provided him with last week:

It’s of a much younger Blomkvist - at about Salander’s age now - wearing the black leather jacket he loved and lost track of years ago.

The tailor unzips the bag revealing an exact - though considerably more expensive - replica of the jacket.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 164.164.

A perfect Christmas card vista that actually turns out to be a Christmas card: A snowy rural landscape scene.

It’s stupid, but she’s writing under the pre-printed “Merry Christmas” inside, a personal note that’s more sincere than she thought herself capable.

She blows on the ink, puts the card in its envelope, neatly writes “Mikael” on it, gets up -

Snow’s falling, but unlike the brutal winter storms last year, it’s just heavy enough to dust the city in white powder that reflects the Christmas lights in the trees.

The beauty of her city pleases Salander as she rides through it on her motorcycle. Or maybe it’s something she’s feeling as she turns onto Blomkvist’s street.

She parks. Gathers the garment bag and card, walks under construction scaffolding toward his apartment building.

From around the corner ahead, Blomkvist and Erika appear. He says something and she laughs, puts her arm around his waist and lays her head against his neck scarf.

Salander stops mid-stride, ducks into an alcove under the scaffolding, waits as long as it should take them to get inside the building, then peers out again -

They’re not inside. They’ve stopped just outside the building’s entrance. They’re embracing. And the longer they stand there together, the sharper the pain stabs at Salander.

Finally they separate, but only to allow Blomkvist to unlock the door. Erika takes his hand then, and they disappear inside.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 165.165.

Salander can’t move. Waits for the pain to subside - which it eventually does - but only to be replaced with a sense of helplessness. Then that subsides, replaced with a facade of insouciance.

The richest girl in Sweden emerges from the alcove and walks back the way she came - tossing the garment bag and card into a construction dumpster - climbs onto her Honda - starts it - and drives off -

Probably forever.