In his heart he was sure that they were moving in the right direction, that one day they would finally be together. This was what he had believed all along, and he hadn't become any less convinced. Emma had chosen to carry his child to term; that was enough for him. At least for the time being.
As far as his work situation on Gotland was concerned, there was much that he liked, including the independence and his collaboration with Pia, which functioned well. It was great not to have an editor breathing down his neck, too, even though the pressure sometimes felt just as intense, even from a distance. Of course, he missed the big-time crime stories in Stockholm, as well as his apartment and his friends, but his life had taken new turns, which meant that Gotland was where he most wanted to be.
There were also numerous advantages to working as part of a small team in a local office. He had a lot of freedom, and he found great satisfaction in setting his own work schedules. He and Pia tried to do one story each day, and that was sufficient. They were on their own. As long as they delivered broadcastable and more or less relevant reports, the home office was satisfied.
Right now they were planning a series about the high cost of housing. Johan was fascinated by the fact that people would pay several million kronor for a small house in Visby inside the medieval wall, and the amount they had to cough up for an apartment could be as much as the price tags in the most fashionable sections of Stockholm. No matter how charming the old city of Visby was, there was a big difference in the choice of services, jobs, and entertainment, and Visby could only be reached by boat or plane. He wondered who the two thousand people were who lived inside the ring wall and could afford those incredible prices, at least by Gotland standards. The residents with normal salaries could only dream of living downtown, unless they had inherited a place.
Johan had been stationed on Gotland since May 1, and up until now he hadn't lacked for story ideas. Unemployment was a big problem on the island. During the past few years several large companies had cut back on the number of employees or had shut down completely. Some had moved their production to the mainland. The latest death blow came when the government decided to close P18, the old military base, as part of the big wave of cuts in the defense budget that had swept across Sweden.
Now, though, the team hadn't managed to squeeze out a single story for several days, and Johan was clearly feeling the pressure from Grenfors in Stockholm.
When the phone rang, he answered without much enthusiasm.
It was Pia, and there was an eager tone to her voice. He could hear that she was driving as she talked.
"Hey, a horse has been found in a pasture with its head cut off."
Pia had a habit of skipping any introductory greetings, which she viewed as unnecessary, especially when she was in a hurry and had something important to say.
"When?"
"This morning. Two little girls found it in a pasture out by Petesviken. Do you know where that is?"
"No clue."
"It's in southern Gotland, on the west coast-it's probably about thirty-five miles from the city."
"How did you hear about this?"
"I have a friend who lives there. She called me."
"Who owns the horse?"
"A completely ordinary farm family."
"We should drive out there right away. How soon can you get here?"
"I'm out in front now."
Johan hung up the phone and immediately called Detective Superintendent Knutas on his direct line. He got no answer, and the switchboard told him that the entire investigative team would be tied up all morning.
A decapitated horse sounded weird, but that was exactly what he needed. He grabbed a notebook and pen and locked the door to the office. He decided to wait to call Grenfors in Stockholm; he had nothing against keeping the editor on tenterhooks for a while.
He sat in the kitchen, thinking about how palpably a room could change, depending on who was in it and what was taking place. The gloom that had previously emanated from the walls, and the guilt and shame that had fallen from the ceiling onto his head, were now gone. In the past the walls had pressed in and threatened him whenever he sat at his place at the table, which was always the same. Whatever food was served gave him no pleasure; it merely swelled up inside his mouth until he had a hard time swallowing. A plateful of anxiety lay hidden under the gravy.
Things were different now that he could do whatever he pleased. He had made himself a hearty breakfast. The exertions of the morning demanded a solid meal.
On the plate in front of him were three thick slices of toasted white bread with pieces of Falun sausage and eggs dripping with fat. He topped them off with a generous squirt of ketchup, along with salt and pepper. The cat was meowing greedily and rubbing against his leg. He tossed her a piece of sausage.
The clock on the wall showed that it was nine forty-five. Through the dusty windowpane he could see the sun lighting up the yard outside. He ate the food with a good appetite and gulped down some of the cold milk. When he was done, he pushed away the plate and belched loudly. He leaned back in his chair and took a pinch of snuff.
His body was tired; his arms ached. It had been more difficult than he'd anticipated. For a moment he had even thought that he might not be able to do it. Finally, he had managed it. The finishing work had taken a good long time, but now it was done.
He stood up and picked up his plate. Carefully he rinsed off the scraps of food under the faucet and then washed the plate.
All of a sudden he felt very tired. He had to lie down and sleep. He let out the cat, who soundlessly slunk off. Then he went up the creaking stairs to the second floor and went into the far room, at the end of the house. The room had never been repaired after the fire. Patches of soot covered the walls, and even the burned bed was still there, like some sort of charred log in the corner. He thought he could even sense a faint whiff of smoke, but it was probably just his imagination. On the floor was an old mattress, and that was where he lay down. This room made him feel good. It gave him a sense of calm that he otherwise never felt, and he slept well.
Knutas never ceased to be amazed at how fast news traveled. Reporters from the local radio station, TV, and newspapers had all contacted him, wanting to know what had happened. On Gotland there was enormous news value in the fact that a horse had been decapitated. Experience had taught him that nothing stirred up the public as much as the abuse of animals.
The thought had barely appeared in his mind before the organization Friends of the Animals was on the line, and several other animal rights groups would undoubtedly be calling him soon. The police spokesman, Lars Norrby, was away on vacation, so Knutas had to handle the reporters on his own. He wrote up a brief press release and said that for a change he was going to be unreachable for the next few hours.
Back at the criminal investigation division after the morning excursion to Petesviken, Knutas bought a sandwich from the vending machine in the coffee room. There was no time for lunch. He had called in his closest colleagues for a meeting at one o'clock. Sohlman should be able to make it back from the investigation out at the crime scene to join them, thanks to the fact that there were now two crime techs in the police department.
They gathered in the bright, open conference room, which had a big table in the middle. Police headquarters had recently been remodeled, and new furniture, in a simple Scandinavian design, had been purchased. Knutas had felt more comfortable with their old worn furniture made of pine. At least the view was still the same; the panoramic windows looked out on the Forum supermarket parking lot, the ring wall, and the sea.
"The crime that has been committed is a particularly nasty one," Knutas began, and he told them about what they had seen out at Petesviken. "The pasture and the surrounding area have been blocked off," he went on. "There's a highway that runs past the pasture, and that's where we're looking for traces of any vehicles. If the person or persons who did this took the horse's head with them, they most likely had a car. The
neighbors and other people who live in the area are being interviewed, so we'll have to see what turns up during the course of the day."
"How was the horse killed?" asked Jacobsson.
"Erik can tell us more about that." Knutas turned to the crime tech.
"Let's take a look at some pictures of the horse," said Sohlman. "I have to warn you, Karin, that some of them are very unpleasant." He directed this comment to Jacobsson, not only because she was the most sensitive of his colleagues when it came to blood, but also because she had a great affection for animals.
He clicked through the photos of the horribly abused body.
"As you can see here, the head was severed from the neck, or rather, hacked and chopped off. A veterinarian, Ake Tornsjo, has already taken a look at the horse. He's going to do a more thorough examination later, but he was able to tell us how he thinks it was done. According to him, the perpetrator-if it actually was the work of one individual-presumably first knocked the horse unconscious by giving him a strong blow to the forehead, most likely with a hammer, a sledgehammer, or an axe. When the horse lost consciousness, he used a large knife, like a butcher knife, to slice through the neck, and that's what killed the animal-meaning, the loss of blood. To sever the head from the vertebrae, he had to smash them apart. We've found crushed pieces of bone, and I would guess that it was done by using an axe. Marks on the ground indicate that the horse was still alive after the first blow. He lay there, kicking in his death throes. The grass had been thrashed about, and the ground was churned up. The area around the neck is ragged and rough, which indicates that the perpetrator had to go at it for a while-he seems to have known perfectly well what to do, even if he lacked a more detailed knowledge of a horse's anatomy."
"How nice. Then we can exclude all veterinarians," muttered Wittberg.
"There's one thing that I can't make sense of," Sohlman went on, unperturbed. "When the carotid artery was severed, the horse should have lost an incredible amount of blood. We can see that blood did run out of the neck and body, but there's only a small amount accumulated on the ground. Almost negligible. Even if the blood had seeped into the ground, there should still be more of it."
The others gave the tech a puzzled look.
"How would you explain that?" said Jacobsson.
"The only thing I can come up with is that the perpetrator must have collected the blood."
"Why would anybody want to do something like that?" objected Wittberg.
"I have no idea." Sohlman stroked his chin meditatively. "The owner last saw the horse at around eleven last night. The vet estimates that the animal had been dead for at least five or six hours by the time the girls found him. That means that the crime was most likely committed sometime before four in the morning. As far as the pasture is concerned, it's being searched by dogs, along with the immediate vicinity, in an attempt to find the head. So far no luck. We'll continue to widen the area of our search."
Jacobsson grimaced. "How disgusting. So the perpetrator took both the head and the blood along," she said. "What do we know about the horse?"
Knutas looked down at his notes.
"A pony, fifteen years old, castrated-so it was a gelding. A gentle, friendly animal, with no previous police record."
Wittberg snickered. Jacobsson was not amused.
"What about the owner?" she asked.
"His name is Jorgen Larsson. Married, the father of three. He took over the farm along with his brother ten years ago. It's their childhood home, and their parents still live in one of the separate wings of the house. The farm is quite large. They have about forty cows and a lot of calves. There don't seem to be any conflicts within the family. They've run their farm in peace and quiet all these years. Neither Jorgen Lars-son nor any other family member has a police record.
"The vet thinks that the crime was committed by someone who grew up on a farm or who has had previous contact with the slaughtering or butchering of animals," Sohlman went on. "He says that this isn't the sort of thing that can be done on the spur of the moment. It requires careful planning, nerve, and determination-as well as brute strength. You'd have to hit hard to make the horse lose consciousness, and you'd also have to know where to strike. The brain is located very high up on the forehead. According to Ake Tornsjo, the perpetrator must have done this sort of thing before."
Everyone seated around the table was listening with interest.
"Has the farmer or anyone in his family ever received any sort of threat?" asked Wittberg.
"No, not as far as we know."
"The question is whether this was directed at the farmer personally, or whether it's a madman who's attacking animals," said Jacobsson.
"Could this be some kind of boyish prank?" Wittberg tossed out the question.
"With a butcher knife and an axe and a means of transporting the head?" said Jacobsson. "Not on your life. On the other hand, I do wonder if there are any mental patients with a history of animal abuse who have been released."
"Actually, we've already managed to check up on that," said Knutas. "Do any of you recall Gustav Persson? The guy who used to roam around the pastures putting nails into horses' hooves? He would pound the nail in partway, and when the horse set his foot down to walk, the nail would go in farther and farther. Persson didn't just make do with one hoof, either. He would put nails in several so that in the end the horse couldn't stand upright. He eluded the police for several weeks until he was finally caught. By then he had injured a dozen animals. There's also Bingeby-Anna. She would kill any cat that she saw and hang them on the fence."
"But she's super tiny and thin," Jacobsson objected. "She'd never be able to carry out this sort of crime, at least not alone. I'm the size of an elephant compared to her. She can't weigh more than ninety pounds."
Knutas raised his eyebrows at the exaggeration. Jacobsson herself was small-boned and stood no more than about five foot three.
"I don't think this has anything to do with an impulsive act by some mental patient," Wittberg protested. "It was too well planned. To commit such a crime, during the lightest nights of the summer and with people and houses nearby, must have required meticulous planning, just as Erik said. I'm amazed that the perpetrator even dared, when there was such a big risk of being seen. The road to the pasture runs along all the farm buildings. It's practically like driving right through their yards. Anyone who woke up could have seen or heard the car."
"You're right," said Sohlman, "but we've discovered that it's possible to reach the pasture from another direction." He clicked through the pictures until he came to the ones showing maps of the area. "The road ends and splits in two when you reach Petesviken. Instead of turning right and driving past the farms, you go left. A short distance away there's a tractor path along the fields that circles the whole area and goes past the pasture on the other side. If the perpetrator chose that route, and I'm convinced that he did, then he would have avoided being seen from the farms. He could have driven out to the pasture and back in peace and quiet, with no risk of being discovered. From the farms in Petesviken you can't see if a car is driving along that path. We've checked. Right now we're examining the tire tracks out there, but it's difficult because the ground is so dry."
"Good," said Knutas. "We'll continue to interview the neighbors and anyone else in the area. Let's hope we find out something. The perp must have had a car. He had to transport an axe and a knife and possibly other tools as well, along with the horse's head."
"And he was probably covered with blood," Sohlman added.
"Maybe he took a dip and washed it off. The sea is so close, after all," Jacobsson suggested.
"Wouldn't that be kind of reckless?" Wittberg gave her a dubious look. "Would he really go for a swim, with a very strong risk of being discovered? Even though the crime was committed after eleven, on these light summer nights people go out for a dip at all hours. Especially since it's been so hot."
"On the other hand, the area is relatively isolated," Knut
as interjected. "There can't be more than three or four families living on those farms and moving about, plus maybe a few people from the houses farther up the road. It's not an area that anyone would just happen to stroll through. Well, we're going to have to look more closely into the family background of the farmer. Either there's a particular reason why it was Larsson's horse that was killed, or else it was just by chance. We still have to investigate all possibilities."
"Do you think the guilty person is part of the family?" asked Jacobsson. "The wife taking revenge on the husband, or vice versa?"
"That seems rather far-fetched," said Knutas. "A person would have to be awfully sick to commit this type of crime. But we can't rule it out. We've been surprised before. We need to talk to the farmer again. He's unusually talkative, but we were there only a short time. I think someone needs to drive back out there. The girls who found the horse have to be interviewed as soon as possible."
"I can leave right now." Wittberg was already getting to his feet.
"I'll go with you," said Jacobsson. "If there isn't anything else you need me to do?"
"Go, both of you," said Knutas. "I'll stay here and deal with the press."
Martina Flochten rushed around the cramped room, grabbing up toiletries and a towel. She was going to take a quick shower and change her clothes. The students had the afternoon off from their excavating work, because an American archaeology professor was in Visby to give a lecture at the college. Martina was in a hurry for entirely different reasons, though, although her fellow students had no idea why.
They were going to take advantage of the situation. Her longing for him was burning and urgent.
She had suppressed all thought of the boyfriend she had back in the Netherlands. He kept calling her cell phone more and more often. The more she ignored her phone, the more persistent he became. One evening when she had left her phone behind in the room, he had called twenty-eight times. It was sick, and she found it embarrassing because her roommate, Eva, had been home that evening, lying in bed and trying to read. Martina planned to end the relationship when she got back home. She couldn't bring herself to do it over the phone. That would be too wretched.
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