She had heard crying and low, excitable voices, and sometimes the unmistakable sound of slaps. The man responsible for the blows-Salander assumed he was the woman’s husband-had straight dark hair parted down the middle in an old-fashioned style, and he seemed to be in Grenada on business. What kind of business, Salander had no idea, but every morning the man appeared with his briefcase, in a jacket and tie, and had coffee in the hotel bar before he went outside to look for a taxi.

He would come back to the hotel in the late afternoon, when he took a swim and sat with his wife by the pool. They had dinner together in what on the surface seemed to be a quiet and loving way. The woman may have had a few too many drinks, but her intoxication was not obnoxious.

Each night the commotion in the next-door room had started just as Salander was going to bed with a book about the mysteries of mathematics. It did not sound like a full-on assault. As far as Salander could tell through the wall, it was one repetitive, tedious argument. The night before, Salander had not been able to contain her curiosity. She had gone out to the balcony to listen through the couple’s open balcony door. For more than an hour the man had paced back and forth in the room, declaring that he was a jerk who didn’t deserve her. Again and again he said that she must think he was a fraud. No, she would answer, she didn’t, and she tried to calm him. He became more intense, and seemed to give her a shake. So at last she gave him the answer he wanted… Yes, you are a fraud. And he immediately took this as a pretext to berate her. He called her a whore, which was an accusation that Salander would have taken measures to combat if it had been directed at her. It had not been, but nevertheless she thought for a long time about whether she ought to take some sort of action.