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  "In general the opposition seems quite weak and ineffectual," he went on. "There haven't been any threats. Of course, there have been a number of protests, and the authorities have received letters and such, but nothing that seems particularly serious. It seems very unlikely that we're going to find any sort of motive there. Don't you agree?"

  He looked at Jacobsson, who nodded.

  "Have you gone through the letters of complaint sent to the authorities?"

  "Not yet."

  "Do that as soon as possible," Knutas urged them. "Is there anything of archaeological interest out at Hogklint?"

  "Doesn't seem to be. The area has been partially excavated before. There doesn't seem to be any major find, although we still need to talk to more people."

  Wittberg took a big gulp of Coke.

  "I had an interesting conversation with Susanna Mellgren," said Jacobsson. "She called me this morning to tell me that the report about her husband's infidelities was true."

  "Is that right?" said Knutas in surprise. "It was only yesterday that she denied the whole thing."

  "I know, but now she claims that it's been going on for several years, with different women. On the other hand, she wasn't sure whether he'd been seeing Martina Flochten or not. She says that she can usually tell whenever he takes up with someone new. She claimed not to mind that he's unfaithful. To be honest, I had the impression that she stays in the marriage because it's the most practical thing to do at the moment, financially speaking. She's in the process of studying to be a massage therapist and wants to start her own business. I'm guessing that she's probably planning to divorce him as soon as she can stand on her own feet."

  Knutas frowned. "We're going to have to talk to Mellgren about this again, since he said their marriage was so great," he muttered, making a note on a piece of paper.

  Knutas then asked Larsvik to give them a report on how she viewed the perpetrator. She went to stand at the head of the table.

  "First and foremost, I want to emphasize that these are preliminary thoughts; nothing can be confirmed for sure at such an early stage. Take what I say as a screening instrument, a working hypothesis, nothing more. Yet there is much to indicate that we're dealing with a perpetrator who is seriously mentally disturbed. He probably carried out these acts alone, which indicates that he possesses great physical strength. The perpetrator most likely had no personal relationship with Martina Flochten. I don't think that they even knew each other. The crime doesn't seem to have been directed at her. On the other hand, I think the way it was carried out indicates that he harbors a hatred toward other people and a contempt for women in particular. There is some sort of symbolism in this, although it's hard to say what it might mean after only one homicide. I think he wanted to humiliate his victim and inject as much powerlessness into the situation as possible. By doing that, he becomes the one with power, and that's something he enjoys. It's possible to imagine that as a child he was abused or in some other way mistreated by one or both of his parents. Now he wants revenge by placing his victim in the same position of powerlessness that he experienced as a child. It wouldn't surprise me if he has a complicated relationship with his mother."

  "How the hell do we go looking for a bad mother-son relationship?" Kihlgard threw out his hands, almost knocking over Jacobsson's plastic coffee cup.

  Agneta Larsvik smiled. "It might be a good thing to keep in the back of your mind during the interviews, for instance. In case anyone expresses scorn for women or has cut ties with his parents, especially his mother."

  "You say that he wanted to put the victim in a position of powerlessness," said Jacobsson, "but why would he keep tormenting her after she was dead? At that point she would no longer be able to feel her powerlessness."

  "Keep in mind that the important thing is the feelings of the murderer-it's not a matter of logical or rational thought processes. He's so engrossed in his own emotional state of possessing power, and he's enjoying it so much, that he can't think along logical lines. He reduces his victim to a thing, an object, something that helps him to enter into the state that he's trying to achieve. It's a way for him to ease his own anxiety, at least for the moment."

  "Then what do you think about the ritualistic element-the fact that the murder was carried out like some sort of ceremony?" asked Wittberg.

  "The one doesn't have to exclude the other. He could be a fanatic who devotes himself to some type of ritual voodoo arts as well."

  "What does it mean that she was naked?" asked Knutas.

  "Nudity makes us think that the murder has a sexual connotation, of course. Curiosity, perhaps. It might mean that he's sexually inexperienced. We might also ask ourselves what he did with her clothes, and whether there could be some type of fetishism involved."

  "The same thing with the blood. What the hell does he want with the blood?"

  "For him, collecting the spilled blood might be a way to hold on to the positive feelings the murder has given him. In the same way that a serial killer usually takes with him something belonging to the victim. A lock of hair, a piece of clothing, anything at all."

  "A serial killer?" Jacobsson looked shocked.

  "Yes, exactly." Larsvik had a serious expression on her face. "Of course it's important not to get locked into one idea, but I think we need to consider the possibility that this murderer may strike again."

  SUNDAY, JULY 11

  The Antiquities Room, which was the historical section of the Gotland Regional Museum on Strandgatan in Visby, was deserted on this Sunday morning. The entrance hall seemed chilly in contrast to the heat outside on the street, and there wasn't a sound. His footsteps echoed across the stone floor. In the museum reception area, the girl sitting behind the glass window was deeply absorbed in her book. She didn't seem to hear him approach. He was forced to clear his throat twice before she finally looked up. He met her gaze behind the horn-rimmed glasses and paid for a ticket without uttering a word. For appearance's sake he strolled without interest through the rooms with the picture stones, the prehistoric graves, and the reconstructed Stone Age settlements. He seemed to be the only visitor. On a dazzling Sunday during summer vacation, people preferred to spend the day at the beach or in their summer houses rather than in a museum. The weather suited his purposes perfectly.

  He climbed the stone stairway that would take him to what really interested him: the treasure chamber. Whenever he stepped inside he was seized by a feeling of melancholy. Here was only a fraction of all the riches that had been plucked from the Gotland soil since the excavations on the island had started in earnest during the 1960s-caches of silver, jewelry, and coins.

  Per square mile, Gotland had produced a larger quantity of Viking Age treasures than anywhere else in the world. No fewer than seven hundred Viking Age silver hoards had been dug up. The most famous was known as the Spillings treasure, the world's largest silver cache from the Viking Age. It was dug up in Spillings in Othem parish on Gotland in 1999. The treasure weighed 148 pounds and contained, among other things: 14,300 coins, almost five hundred armlets, twenty-five rings, and loose silver.

  Several of the coins in the Spillings treasure were sensational-in particular, the one called the Moses coin, minted in the Khazarian kingdom, which was eastern Europe's most powerful state during the eighth and ninth centuries. The Moses coin was the first archaeological artifact that tied Judaism to the Khazars, which made it unique in the world.

  Sometimes he would spend long periods of time in here, lost in his own fantasies about the coin. It bore the Arabic inscription Musa rasul Allah — "Moses is God's messenger." Researchers had interpreted this to be of Jewish origin, alluding to the biblical Moses, who had led the Israelites out of Egypt and received the Ten Commandments from God on Mt. Sinai.

  He'd heard talk that the coin might be moved to the Museum of National Antiquities in Stockholm, where it could be viewed by a larger number of visitors. Yet another sacrilege.

  He sat down on a bench along the wall in o
rder to run through the plan in his mind one last time. So far no one else had turned up.

  Lining the walls were display cases holding silver coins-Arabic, German, Irish, Bohemian, Hungarian, Italian, and even Swedish.

  It was not those coins that interested him. He'd been stealing that sort of artifact for years from significantly easier venues than this museum, where any theft from one of the cases would of course be quickly noticed.

  This time he had a considerably loftier goal, and it had been carefully planned. The price he had been offered was so high that he couldn't resist the temptation, even though it did involve some risk.

  Selling ancient artifacts from Gotland was no problem for him. Since they were going to end up on the mainland anyway, he might as well earn a bit of cash from them. Then he could at least control where they would go. Besides, he used the money for a purpose that would have pleased his Viking Age forefathers. It was a way of completing the circle; that was how he chose to view it. Deep inside he felt that the artifacts belonged to him, at least much more than they belonged to the people in power who made the decisions about removing them from the island. Some of the objects he kept for himself. He had his favorites.

  In a glass case in the middle of the room was a gleaming armlet of the purest gold. It was the largest single gold object from the Viking Age on Gotland, and it had been dug up in Sundre parish. The bracelet was made of twenty-four-carat gold and had been dated to approximately a.d. 1000. It was extremely rare to find gold artifacts from the Viking Age, and here lay the largest one, with only a glass wall separating him from it.

  He got up and went out to the stairwell. He looked down at the reception area. The girl in the cashier's booth was still reading her book. He glanced at his watch. It was noon. Everyone would be going to lunch except for the cashier. That was what he was waiting for. The risk of being discovered was nonexistent, and his disguise would prevent anyone from pointing him out afterward. He summoned all his powers of concentration, pulled on the thin gloves, and made a quick round of the rooms on the upper floor. Not a soul.

  He could hear voices from the ground floor. The employees were on their way out for lunch. The front door slammed. Now he was alone with the cashier.

  The museum had no surveillance cameras, but a few years back it had been equipped with an alarm system. He had found out how it could be disconnected, so that detail had been solved.

  He took a small screwdriver out of his pocket and unscrewed the glass case from its pedestal. The whole time he kept his ears open for any sound on the stairs-he didn't want to be caught in the act. Then it was just a matter of lifting off the top part, setting it carefully on the stone floor, and taking out the armlet. He replaced the case and calmly walked down the stairs. The cashier still had her nose in her book. It almost looked as if she were asleep. Unnoticed, he slipped out the door and disappeared down the street.

  MONDAY, JULY 12

  The theft from the Antiquities Room meant that Johan was forced to leave Emma and Elin on Faro and hastily return to Visby. He had filed a report on the news story for the Sunday broadcast of Regional News.

  Now on Monday morning his editor had made it clear that he wanted a follow-up about the shock and dismay, from the angle: How could it have happened? All ready-packed in his editor's skull, thought Johan sarcastically, even though he agreed that a follow-up on the story would be natural. He himself wondered most about the fact that the thief had been able to disconnect the alarm system. Did that mean it was an inside job? If so, how many similar thefts might have been committed previously? He had requested news clippings from the press archives pertaining to the theft of artifacts on Gotland, and they had arrived by fax. Most of them had to do with individuals from abroad who had brought in metal detectors and plundered the island's silver treasures.

  In a copy of Gotlands Tidningar from six months earlier, he found an article that caught his interest: suspected theft at regional museum warehouse.

  None of the people he had interviewed in connection with the current theft had mentioned that objects had disappeared at any previous time. This article dealt with thefts from a warehouse located in a different part of the city, so maybe it wasn't so strange that they hadn't said anything. Naturally they wouldn't want to advertise the thefts any more than necessary.

  The article said that several coins were missing from the warehouse in which all artifacts not on display were stored; the Antiquities Room only had space to show a small portion of everything that had been dug up on the island. Interviewed in the article was the person in charge of the warehouse, Eskil Rondahl, who took the matter of the missing coins very seriously.

  Johan found the phone number for the warehouse and asked to speak with Rondahl.

  He heard a voice, dry as dust, on the other end of the line say, "Hello?"

  "Hi. My name is Johan Berg, and I'm calling from Regional News, Swedish TV."

  Silence. Johan went on.

  "I'm calling about an article in Gotlands Tidningar from six months ago. It has to do with the theft of some Arabic coins from the warehouse."

  "Yes?"

  "Do you know what I'm talking about? You were the one who was interviewed in the article."

  "Yes, I know. The theft was solved."

  "What happened?"

  "It turned out that no theft had actually taken place after all. The missing coins were found. They had just been misplaced. That's all."

  "How did that happen?"

  "It was a matter of negligence, and I can only blame myself. When coins are received here, they're put in the special security section of the warehouse, where we keep everything that is particularly valuable and might be enticing to steal. In this instance, a box of coins was misplaced, but we found it later. It was quite embarrassing for me, so it's something that I'd prefer to forget."

  "I understand. Have you had any other thefts?"

  "Nothing that we can pinpoint with certainty, but of course things do disappear sometimes."

  "But surely that's a serious matter. People can't very well just walk off with objects that are thousands of years old, can they? What do the police say about it?"

  "They don't really care. There's no one on the police force who wants to get involved with the theft of ancient relics. Those kinds of things are way down on their list of priorities," said Rondahl with a snort. "I'm afraid I don't have any more time right now."

  Johan thanked him and hung up.

  He was puzzled by the conversation. Were thefts occurring and no one cared about the matter?

  He called the college and asked to speak with an archaeologist. The only person available was the theory teacher Aron Bjarke.

  Johan told him about the article he had read and what Eskil Rondahl had said.

  Bjarke partly confirmed what Johan had heard. "It's possible that individual objects have been stolen without anyone noticing, but the worst part isn't that a few things disappear here or there. The big problem is the fortune hunters who come to Gotland to search for silver treasure. Some years ago a new law was instituted to put a stop to the plundering. Nowadays it's illegal to use metal detectors on Gotland without special permission from the county council. Last year the police caught two Englishmen red-handed as they were using metal detectors to search for treasure."

  "What happens to the stolen goods?"

  "There are collectors all over the world who will pay considerable sums for silver jewelry or coins from the eleventh century, for example. Not to mention all the beautiful jewelry we find from the Viking Age. Naturally there's a big market and plenty of money involved."

  "Do thefts still occur?"

  "Without a doubt. It's just that the police aren't interested."

  "Can you cite a specific theft that you happen to know about?"

  Bjarke was silent for a few seconds.

  "No, actually I can't. Not at the moment."

  FRIDAY, JULY 23

  Almost two weeks had passed since the burglary in the An
tiquities Room. No arrests had yet been made for the murder of Martina Flochten, for the horse incidents, or for the theft. Knutas didn't actually think that there was a connection between the crimes, but he had asked the officer assigned to the burglary to keep him informed on the progress of the investigation. The crimes did have one thing in common: They were all a long way from being solved.

  Knutas hadn't felt that he could join his family in Denmark as long as the murder of Martina Flochten remained unsolved. However, that didn't stop him from longing for a vacation when he could play golf, go fishing, and sit on the porch with a glass of wine and a book. He was tired and worn out and starting to feel truly frustrated. Nothing had turned out as he'd hoped. He thought the investigative work might open up when the severed horse's head was found at the home of Gunnar Ambjornsson. That hadn't happened. Lina and the children had returned from vacation, suntanned and rested, while he had no good news to tell them when asked about the investigation.

  The fact was that the police had made virtually no progress at all. The few neighbors who lived near Ambjornsson and had been home on the night in question hadn't seen or heard a thing, with the exception of an elderly woman who had noticed an unfamiliar car on the street. She couldn't say what type of car it was or how old it was, only that it was red and big.

  It could have been the perpetrator's car-a horse's head was not something that you could carry around on foot-but so far the police hadn't received any reports of a missing horse or a mangled horse's body. Knutas wondered why that was. He knew of only one place where a horse would be able to disappear without anyone quickly taking notice: Lojsta Heath, the refuge for the wild Gotland ponies. The only snag was that the head didn't belong to a pony.