neglecting his family. He couldn't even count how many times he'd heard all this before. He regretted calling her, and he tried to placate her by offering to feed the chickens when he got home.
They lived in Larbro, about twenty miles north of Visby, so it was a bit of a drive. He turned up the volume on the stereo as loud as it would go, enjoying the music. It helped him to unwind.
He wondered when the love between them had disappeared. He couldn't remember when he'd last seen any warmth in his wife's eyes. He was living in a loveless, phony marriage. The laughter had gotten stuck in his throat long ago. Maybe a divorce was unavoidable, but he was too much of a coward to take the first step.
The children kept him in the marriage. They were still so young; the oldest was only ten. He had neither the energy nor the desire to get out of the marriage right now. It would have to wait. In the meantime he would do whatever he could to make it bearable.
When he drove into the yard, everything was quiet. The kids were probably asleep by now. He might as well go out to the chicken coop right away.
Their farm had a view of the pastures and fields. He looked at the whitewashed limestone house, the blue- painted trim around the windows with their curtains and potted plants, and the porch with its ornate gingerbread carvings. On one side was the studio where his wife made her pots; she even had her own kiln. How he used to admire her work. When was the last time they had talked about her pottery?
The dilapidated barn that they had planned to paint this summer looked the same as always. So far nothing had come of their plans. Why bother to paint it? Why should they fix up anything? No reason.
A sudden feeling of melancholy came over him, and he sat down on the bench outside the potter's studio and buried his head in his hands. He would feed the chickens in a minute; he just needed to gather his forces first. They had turned half of the barn into a chicken coop. Whatever good that would do. When they were newly in love and had moved out of Visby to live in the country, they both thought it seemed romantic to have chickens. Since then the years had passed and the romance had disappeared, but the chickens were still here.
He had a feeling that life was slipping away from him as he stood on the sidelines and watched. The days came and went, and nothing changed. He and his wife kept up their usual bickering, their sex life was largely nonexistent, and one routine followed another in a never-ending stream.
It had been a good long time since they'd had a real fight. Neither of them seemed to have enough commitment even to argue. Nothing but surliness and a steadily growing distance. Not that he wanted any closeness with her. Not anymore.
He stood up and sauntered across the yard toward the chicken coop. It was a lovely, quiet night. The scent of jasmine from the bushes in front of the house mixed with the smell of chicken manure.
The chickens were strutting around the yard, pecking here and there, and clucking softly. They were unusually quiet this evening.
Suddenly he caught sight of something sticking out above the open barn door. He was too far away to make out what it was, but something was definitely there, he was sure of that. He kept catching a glimpse of it from behind the maple tree's swaying branches that stretched over the building on this side.
He hesitated without knowing why and then stopped abruptly. He glanced around uncertainly but couldn't see anyone. All of a sudden an ominous feeling had settled over the yard.
When he got close enough, he was seized with horror. At first glance he had a hard time taking in what he saw. Slowly it became clearer, and the thoughts swirling around in his head gradually formed a coherent image.
The sight of the bloody horse's head shocked him at first, but it didn't take long before he understood exactly what the whole thing was about.
SUNDAY, JULY 25
The summer heat made people slow their pace, and Knutas was forced to change shirts several times a day. His thoughts flowed like sluggish syrup, often straying far away. The chances of the investigative team finding a solution to this unusual case seemed more remote than ever.
Lina and the kids had gone out to the country, but he couldn't stand the idea of sitting there twiddling his thumbs.
It hadn't rained a single day since early June, but that didn't make him any less irritable. He was in a wretched mood, and when the phone rang he barked an angry hello.
'Hello, my name is Susanna Mellgren,' said the voice on the line.
'Yes?'
'My husband, Staffan Mellgren, is in charge of the excavation in Frojel,' the woman explained.
'Oh, right,' Knutas hurried to say. He hadn't immediately made the connection.
'He didn't want me to call, but I felt that I had to.'
'Yes?'
'The thing is that yesterday evening we found a very odd thing outside our chicken coop.'
'Is that right?'
'It was a horse's head stuck on a pole.'
Knutas snapped to attention.
'Someone put it there during the evening. Staffan found it when he came home from work.'
'What did it look like?'
'It was stuck on a really heavy wooden broomstick. Actually I don't know what kind of pole it was, but on the very end someone had wedged a severed horse's head. It was from a real horse.'
'Where was this pole?'
'We have an old barn that is partially used as a chicken coop. It was standing outside the door, leaning against the wall-in full view.'
'When did this happen?'
'Last night.'
'And you didn't call until now?'
Knutas looked at his watch. It was two fifteen in the afternoon.
'I'm sorry, but Staffan didn't want to tell anyone. He said it would just upset the children for no reason. He didn't want to make a big deal about the matter. In fact, it doesn't seem to have bothered him at all. As if it wasn't important. But I happen to think that it's awfully disgusting, so I felt that I had to contact the police, regardless of what he said.'
'It's good that you called. Is the horse's head still in the same place?'
'No. Staffan drove a short distance away and threw it into a ditch. He didn't want the children to see it. They don't even know that anything happened.'
'Do you know where?'
'Yes, I actually went out there to have a look. I covered it with some grass and branches so no animals would destroy any evidence.'
'We need to drive out there and look at it, of course. Right away.'
'Okay. Staffan left this morning and said that he was going to be gone all day. He refused to tell me where he was going. I'd prefer it if he doesn't find out that I called you.'
'I'm afraid that's probably impossible,' said Knutas. 'We're in the midst of investigating an earlier crime against a horse, as well as the case of the young woman who was murdered-the one who was a student in your husband's course. There seem to be too many points of connection for us not to link these cases together. I hope you'll understand.'
'I guess so,' said Susanna Mellgren, sounding resigned. 'But what does Staffan have to do with all this?'
Knutas didn't answer the question.
Knutas, Erik Sohlman, and Karin Jacobsson all rode in the same car up to Larbro.
The farm was located a mile or two outside town. It consisted of a farmhouse, a smaller wooden building that appeared to be some kind of workshop, and a barn. About two dozen hens were strutting around, pecking at
