Unknown

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 Antiquities 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.

The police hadn't wanted to put out any sort of bulletin because then the incident would become public knowledge. A horse's head stuck on a pole, right on the doorstep of a highly placed politician, would without a doubt cause a stir among both the island residents and the tourists. In the worst-case scenario, it might mean the death knell for the hotel project. The foreign investors might back out, and that wasn't something Gotland could afford. Knutas had met with the police commissioner, the county governor, and the municipal executive board, and they earnestly agreed that the incident had to be kept quiet.

The fact that the media hadn't gotten wind of the matter was just as unexpected as it was fortunate. Maybe it was because the crime had occurred in the middle of the vacation season. Many of the local reporters, who had an extensive network of contacts, were away, and their places had been taken by substitutes. Knutas was extremely impressed that everyone involved had actually kept their promise not to say a word.

On the other hand, he was not nearly as pleased with the work of the police. When it came to the tragic and brutal death of Martina Flochten, they were still fumbling around blindly. They had interviewed the few people she had known on Gotland, including the hotel owner Jacob Dahlen. Unfortunately he could offer no help. He claimed that he hadn't even seen Martina this summer.

Nor had their colleagues from the National Criminal Police contributed anything particularly useful. Agneta Larsvik had gone back to Stockholm for the weekend, and even though Kihlgard was a capable detective, his contribution to the police investigation had so far been limited, to put it mildly. On the other hand, the one thing that he had managed to do was to cheer up Karin Jacobsson. She seemed much happier ever since he had arrived on Gotland. Sometimes Knutas even imagined that something was going on between those two, but he was