Unknown ak-3

by Mari Jungstedt

  "How are you doing?" asked Knutas after they sat down across from each other.

  "This is so terrible, what happened to Martina. I can't understand it."

  "I want to start by talking some more about the student group. We understand that Martina was quite popular. Was there anyone who didn't get along with her?"

  Mellgren shook his head.

  "No, not as far as I know."

  "Do you know of anyone who was particularly fond of Martina? Or maybe even in love with her?"

  "Not exactly," he replied hesitantly, "but there are two guys who paid a lot of attention to her."

  "Who are they?"

  "Jonas is a Swede, from Skane, probably no more than twenty years old. Mark is American, a little older, about twenty-five, I would guess. Those two really get along-Mark and Jonas, I mean. They're as thick as thieves."

  "In what way did they show an interest in Martina?"

  "Well, they were always hovering around her. Both of them liked to talk and joke with her."

  "Did one of them seem more fond of her than the other?"

  "No, I don't think you could say that. I think they both liked her equally."

  "Was the interest mutual?"

  "I think Martina thought they were fun and nice as friends, but nothing more than that."

  "How do you know that?"

  "It's just a feeling."

  "Are the two of them also staying at Warfsholm?"

  "Yes."

  "Have you noticed any strangers hanging around the excavation site?"

  "Just the usual. People we know or one of the neighbors who drops by to talk for a while. Small groups of tourists show up several times a week, but they usually keep a safe distance away."

  "As the leader of the course, do you have any idea who might have murdered Martina?"

  "No."

  "I've asked you this question before, but I'm going to have to ask it again: What was your relationship with her?"

  "She was a student that I liked and respected, as a student, " said Mellgren in a sharp voice. "Of course there was nothing going on between us. I've already told you that."

  "Where were you on Saturday night?"

  "I was actually out having a beer."

  "Alone?"

  "Yes."

  "Where?"

  "First at Donner's Well and later at the Monk's Cellar."

  "Did you meet anyone you know?"

  "I always run into a few acquaintances."

  "When did you get home?"

  "I don't know. I didn't look at my watch."

  "But you must be able to say whether it was 9:00 p.m. or 3:00 a.m.," said Knutas impatiently.

  He was starting to be genuinely annoyed, and he wondered what a married father of four was doing out on the town alone on a Saturday night. Why wasn't he home with his family if he hadn't planned to meet someone?

  "I guess it was almost three."

  "What's your marriage like?" asked Knutas.

  Mellgren was slow to answer. His jaw visibly tightened.

  "You'll have to excuse the question, but I need to ask it," Knutas went on as he stared back at the man.

  "Things are fine between Susanna and me. Did she tell you otherwise?"

  Knutas raised his hand in protest. "Absolutely not. I was just wondering."

  The room in which the press conference was going to be held was buzzing with life. The reporters were taking seats in the rows of chairs, and microphones were being set up on the podium at the front of the room. Up until now the police had declined to issue any statement, so everyone was very curious about what they were going to hear about the murder of the young archaeology student.

  The murmuring automatically stopped when Anders Knutas and Lars Norrby took their places up front.

  "Welcome to the press conference," Knutas began. "The young woman who has been missing since Saturday, Martina Flochten, who was born in 1983, has been found dead outside of Vivesholm. That's just outside of Klintehamn, approximately nineteen miles south of Visby on the west coast. There is no doubt whatsoever that she was murdered."

  He glanced down at his notes.

  "The body was found at 5:45 a.m. by an individual who was out walking in the area. Many of you already know that Martina was born and raised in the Netherlands, but her mother was from Hemse here on Gotland. The mother died three years ago. Martina has lived in the Netherlands all her life. She came here in early June to take part in a course on archaeological excavation that is offered by the college. She had been on Gotland for a month before she disappeared on the night that a concert was held at Warfsholm. July third. We'll now take questions."

  "Can you tell us anything about how she was murdered?"

  "No."

  "Why not?"

  "Because the investigation is ongoing."

  "Was some sort of weapon used?"

  "Yes, but I don't intend to say anything more on the subject."

  "Was she sexually assaulted?"

  "We won't know until an autopsy is performed on the body."

  "When will that happen?"

  "The body was examined by the ME at the site this afternoon. Tonight it will be transported to the forensic medicine lab in Solna. The autopsy will be done in the next few days."

  "Do you know how long she's been dead?"

  "Not yet. The autopsy report will tell us that."

  "Surely you must be able to say something about how long she'd been dead when she was found. Was it a matter of an hour? Or had she been dead since she disappeared?"

  "This much I can tell you: It was most likely that she'd been dead at least twenty-four hours."

  "Is it a question of one killer, or were there more?"

  "We don't know at the present moment."

  "So there could have been more than one?"

  "That's possible."

  "Do you have any suspects?"

  "Not at the moment, no."

  "Are there any witnesses?"

  "We've been knocking on doors all day, and we're compiling statements from everyone in the area who might have seen something."

  "Martina Flochten was half Swedish, and her mother was from Gotland. Is that significant?"

  "Of course we're working on a broad front and will follow up on all possible leads."

  "Does she have any relatives here on Gotland?"

  "No. Her only relatives here were her maternal grandparents, and they've been dead for years."

  "Has the area out there been cordoned off?"

  "The wooded area where the body was found has been cordoned off."

  "For how long?"

  "Until the technical work is completed."

  "How much contact did she have with Gotland?"

  "She used to come here once a year on vacation."

  "What could be a possible motive for the murder?"

  "It's much too early to speculate about a motive," snapped Knutas.

  "Was Martina Flochten known to the Dutch or Swedish police?"

  "No, not as far as we know."

  "She'd been missing for several days-why wasn't Vivesholm searched by the police earlier? It's so close to Warfsholm, after all."

  "We didn't see any reason to do so. The police have to work on one area at a time, so we start with the location where the individual was last seen, and then we gradually expand our efforts from there."

  "Was there any evidence left by the murderer?"

  "A perpetrator always leaves evidence. I can't discuss what it might be, since the investigation is ongoing."

  "What are the police going to do now?"

  "As I said, we're working hard to interview people and take their statements. The police would like to appeal to the public for any tips, both from those who were at the Warfsholm hotel on the evening when the Eldkvarn concert took place, and from others who may have seen Martina with someone who could be of interest to the investigation. It's especially important at this early stage."

  Knutas stood up to indicate that the
press conference was over. He ignored the flood of questions directed at him. Various journalists began taking him aside for separate interviews.

  An hour later the whole spectacle was finally over, and he could escape to his office. In all his years as a police officer he had always found it trying to deal with the press whenever major events occurred. It was a balancing act, trying to tell reporters enough without giving away too many details that might harm the investigation.

  When Knutas was back in his office, the ME called. He had finished examining the body at the site.

  "I must say that I've never seen anything like this before. We're dealing with a truly deviant killer."

  "We've already realized that."

  "I've done a preliminary examination, and I don't want to draw any definite conclusions, but there are a number of things that I can tell you."

  "Let's hear it."

  "I would say that she's been dead for at least three or four days."

  "So it's possible that she was killed on the same night that she disappeared?"

  "That might very well be. She was subjected to several types of violence, and I won't be completely sure of the cause of death until after the autopsy. Judging by the look of the injuries, I would guess that she was not killed by the knife wound in her abdomen."

  "Sohlman suspected as much."

  "On the other hand, there are signs that she may have died from drowning."

  "Is that right?"

  "I've found residue of a certain type of foam. When the victim drowns, foam gets whipped up in the windpipe and lungs. It gathers around the mouth and looks a bit like egg whites that have been whipped and then hardened. In addition, she has traces of seaweed and sand in her hair, as well as under her fingernails, which indicates that the killer may have pushed her head underwater somewhere along the shore. When she struggled, she buried her fingernails in the sea floor-that's where the seaweed and sand came from. She also has hand and fingernail marks on the back of her neck and on her upper arms. I've found sand and sludge from the sea floor in her mouth. And there are tiny specks of blood in her eyes, which she could have gotten from fighting back or from lack of oxygen. As I said, I don't want to be more specific about the cause of death right now, but judging by appearances, she was dead before she was hanged from that noose. The most probable scenario is that he first drowned her by holding her head underwater. In all likelihood she was drowned somewhere else. Her body was then transported out to Vivesholm."

  "Why do you think she was killed somewhere else?"

  "Simply because that type of sand isn't found out at Vivesholm."

  "So she was killed near a sandy beach?"

  "Not necessarily, but the sea floor was sandy. Out at the bird promontory where she was found, it's mostly rock. She would have had more injuries to her hands if she'd been drowned there."

  "I see."

  Knutas was taking copious notes. He was impressed by how much information the ME could read from a body.

  "There's one thing that surprises me. How did the perpetrator manage to hang the body up there? He must have hoisted her up in some way, or else he didn't do it alone," the ME went on. "She looks as if she weighs between 130 and 145 pounds, at any rate. That much dead weight is difficult, if not almost impossible, to hoist up single-handedly."

  "So you think there were more people involved?"

  "Either that, or else we're dealing with a physically strong man with some sort of ingenious hoisting method." The ME cleared his throat. "There's something else that has me confused. It's that incision she has in her abdomen and the blood from it."

  "What about it?"

  "The incision looks to be deep enough to have damaged the aorta, which would result in a great deal of blood loss. The accumulation of blood on the ground under the body should have been bigger. It's almost as if the killer collected some of the blood."

  "Is that right? Sohlman said the exact same thing about another recent case. Do you know about the horse that was decapitated a little more than a week ago?"

  "Sure."

  "The perp did the same thing."

  "I didn't hear about that." The ME sounded surprised.

  "Well, it's true. According to the veterinarian who examined the horse, the blood had been collected and removed. When can we get a preliminary autopsy report?"

  "The body is being taken to the lab now. I'll try to finish the whole autopsy by tomorrow, so I can fax over a preliminary report to you tomorrow evening."

  "That's great," said Knutas gratefully. "One more thing-could you tell if there was any sign of a sexual assault?"

  "She has no external injuries to indicate that. Whether she'd had intercourse is something that we will hopefully know by tomorrow."

  Knutas thanked him and put down the phone. He leaned back in his chair. A perpetrator who killed horses and women and drained the blood from their bodies. A ritual murderer.

  It pained him to think about Martina Flochten. She'd had her whole life ahead of her. She was a student interested in archaeology. She had come to Gotland to help out on an excavation of the island's cultural treasures-and here she had met with such a cruel fate.

  Patrick Flochten had fallen to pieces when the police told him the news of his daughter's death. Knutas was going to visit him later in the day, and he shuddered at the thought of seeing him. Dealing with family members of a victim was one of the most difficult parts of his job; he'd never gotten used to it. It was worst of all when young people were involved.

  Possible connections between the decapitated horse and the murder of Martina were now being investigated. The question was: What kind of person would drain the blood out of his victim?

  The police had to start by looking at the circle of people surrounding Martina, which included the students taking the course and their teachers. Knutas had gone over the list of students. Most of them were young, and there was almost an equal number of Swedes and foreigners.

  He looked at the names and addresses and birth dates. Nearly all were between the ages of twenty and twenty-five, with a few exceptions. One woman from Goteborg was only nineteen, the British woman was forty-one, and one of the Americans was fifty-three. Knutas slowly spun his chair around.

  Who was present during Martina's stay here? The students in the course, the teachers, the staff at the Warfsholm hotel and youth hostel. Surely she couldn't have met very many other people. That was where they had to start. Take them one by one as fast as possible, and at the same time find out who she'd met during the weeks she'd spent in Visby studying theory. Knutas sighed. He realized that his upcoming vacation was going to have to be postponed. Lina had probably already realized as much. He knew that it would be difficult for her to change her vacation, so she and the children would probably take the planned trip to Denmark. He could join them if the case was solved quickly. Even though at the moment it seemed very complicated, he could always hope for a miracle.

  He might as well contact the National Criminal Police at once; they were going to need help. He thought about Martin Kihlgard. Although the inspector from the NCP had his bad points, they knew each other so well by now that he would probably be the easiest person to deal with. Knutas picked up the phone and punched in the number. It surprised him how relieved he felt when he heard his colleague's voice on the line.

  Anyone who passed by the building wouldn't suspect a thing. It looked like any other dreary warehouse made of gray sheet metal with several parking slots near the unremarkable entrance. No one would believe that inside those walls were unimaginable treasures that had lain buried and forgotten for thousands of years, treasures that had been used by people in a different era, a different life. Utterly unlike anything that was familiar to people nowadays.

  He used to come over here late at night when he was sure that all the employees had gone home. Then he had the whole place to himself. The same feeling of reverence struck him every time he opened the door and entered the first room.

  He could
roam up and down the aisles for hours. Pull out an archive storage rack here and there, take out something at random: an animal bone, a bead, a spearhead, or a nail. It didn't matter. For him no relic was more valuable than any other. Sometimes he would sit on the floor, holding an artifact in his hand. Everything around him would melt away, and the treasure in his hand became the focus. It spoke to him, whispered to him. He thought he could hear voices, echoes from the past. It was the same magical experience each time. Occasionally he had tried to transport himself into the same state as he did at home, but it never worked. This place had something different about it, maybe because it contained so much history from so long ago.

  He was convinced that spirits lived in these objects. In here he also sensed a contact with the gods-they listened to him, and he heard their voices. They told him what he was supposed to do, gave him solace, and stood by him when he needed them. Nor did they hesitate to give him praise when he'd done something that was to their liking. He received guidance from them; he didn't know how he could have managed without their help. They told him what they wanted for themselves and what things they thought he could keep. He gladly did their bidding and was offered rewards when the time was ripe. His relationship with them went both ways, based on give and take, just like any human relationship.

  Some of the artifacts he kept at home; others he sold off. That was a necessity. He had a responsibility, and he didn't hesitate to accept it. All the hidden things that were dug out of the earth belonged to him and his kinsmen; that was a feeling that had become stronger and stronger over the years. It was better for him to take care of the relics than for them to end up in a display case in some museum in Stockholm. If they were going to disappear from the island, he might as well be the one who decided where they would go. With his fingertips he caressed the shelves in the aisles. They were neatly marked with stickers and numbers, yet it was seldom that anyone checked to see that the drawers actually contained what was listed on the labels. That was why he was able to keep going, undetected. He had started out slowly many years ago and then just kept on. This was his world, and no one could take it away from him. He would never let go of his hold on it.

  For the first time in his life he felt that he truly had something important to do. It was a task that he undertook with the greatest seriousness.