"Without having any specific technical evidence, since none of the tests are ready yet, I still say that all indications are that it's the same perpetrator who murdered Martina," said Sohlman. "The similarities speak very clearly. The marks on the body indicate that Mellgren, just like Martina, was killed before he was hanged with the noose, and the cut in the abdomen was done last of all. Then the blood was presumably collected, since very little was found on the floor. The MO has not been made public, so it can't be a copycat crime. Mellgren was also naked when he was found, and his clothes are missing."
"How was he killed? Was he also drowned?" asked Wittberg.
"It appears so. There was an old bathtub filled with water inside the barn. The water had splashed over the sides, and we found hair and blood in it. Most likely he drowned there when the perpetrator pushed his head underwater."
"That means that the killer must be very strong," said Jacobsson. "Mellgren was not a small man."
"Unless he was drugged first. We don't know that. Or knocked unconscious, but he has no injuries to indicate as much."
"How long had he been dead when his body was found?" asked Smittenberg.
"An hour at most. Our colleagues must have been right on the killer's heels."
"What sort of evidence did you find?"
"Not much. The most interesting traces are footprints that he left after walking around in the blood. The barn has a bare cement floor, so the prints are quite clear. His shoe size is interesting, too. He was wearing wooden clogs, about a size eight."
No one spoke for several seconds.
"So we might also be talking about a woman?" Jacobsson gave Sohlman a look of surprise.
"Yes. We can't rule it out, at any rate. It's rather unusual for a man to wear such a small shoe, don't you think? I'm only five foot nine, but I wear a size nine shoe."
"I know a guy who wears a size seven," said Wittberg.
"What about the wife?" said Kihlgard. "What do you make of Susanna Mellgren? She's quite a big woman, and muscular. She seems very fit. Maybe she would be capable of doing it."
"But why go to so much trouble?" countered Jacobsson. "Why chop off a horse's head and drain out the blood if really all she wanted to do was kill her husband and his lover?"
"It could be a very sophisticated way of misleading us," suggested Wittberg.
"Maybe she wanted to shift suspicion onto someone who might make use of similar methods," suggested Kihlgard.
"What do we actually know about the Mellgren family? To be honest, I don't think we've looked into their background very thoroughly," said Jacobsson. "Especially not the wife's."
"No, we didn't consider her especially interesting, and I have a hard time believing that she would be capable of these crimes," said Knutas. "If she was the one who put the horse's head there, why would she call in the police when her husband refused to do so?"
Jacobsson shrugged her shoulders. "To divert suspicion from herself, of course."
Knutas directed his next question to Agneta Larsvik. "What do you think about all this?"
"From what I've heard, there's much to indicate that we're dealing with the same perpetrator, but I'd like to see the victim and the crime scene before I draw any conclusions. The fact that he's naked and his clothes are missing also points in that direction. Presumably the perpetrator keeps the clothes to hold on to the feeling that he gets from killing. A sort of fetish. Just like the blood. But there's one other question that's important to focus on here."
They all gave their full attention to the forensic psychologist.
"I wonder why Staffan Mellgren didn't call the police himself about the horse's head. There must be some reason for this. Could it be that he knew or at least suspected who had put the head there? Maybe he thought that he could resolve the situation himself by talking to the person in question."
"And just who might that be?" Kihlgard tossed out the question without getting any answer.
Knutas broke the silence.
"Susanna Mellgren has been summoned for questioning. I'm going to meet with her at ten o'clock. I hope that then we'll be able to clear up a thing or two. Of course her alibi for the night of the murder has to be checked also-as well as for the time of Martina Flochten's death."
"This means that we have to take a fresh look at the incident of the horse's head at Gunnar Ambjornsson's place," said Kihlgard. "His life could very well be in danger, too. Should we contact him?"
"At the very least he's going to need protection the minute he gets back home," said Knutas grimly. "We need to go out and meet him at the airport."
He was interrupted by the ringing of his cell phone. When he finished the conversation he gave his colleagues a solemn look.
"Martina's cell phone was found under the porch at the Warfsholm hotel. She must have dropped it on the night of the murder. Her calls have been checked. The last one was a message that was received by her voice mail on the night of the murder at 11:35 p.m. Guess who called her."
Everyone waited tensely without saying a word.
"It was Staffan Mellgren."
The murder of Staffan Mellgren was the lead story on the television newscasts that morning. The police had sent out a press release about the homicide around midnight, and the night editor at Swedish TV's digital round-the-clock station SVT 24 instantly sent a remote van to catch the next ferry, which left at 3:00 a.m. A little less than three hours later, just before six in the morning, the van rolled onto the Visby dock. In situations like this, it was worth gold to have a news service operating twenty-four hours a day.
The SVT 24 editor had gotten Johan out of bed in the middle of the night. By the time he and Pia met the Stockholm team at the editorial office, Johan had already had the murder confirmed and had been promised an interview with Knutas outside police headquarters. One of the team members who had arrived by van was Robert Wiklander, with whom Johan had worked on Gotland before. Robert worked for the Aktuellt and Rapport broadcasts, and now they were going to collaborate. A cameraman that Johan vaguely knew had come along, too, as well as an editor who installed himself in the office. He would handle things from there during the morning, which they all realized was going to be anything but calm.
They divided up the work assignments. Pia drove up to the Mellgren farm to take pictures while Johan and Robert took turns reporting for the live newscast, using the cameraman who had come from Stockholm. Whoever was not reporting at the moment spent his time tracking down interview subjects. They got the county police commissioner, the president of the college, and the head of the tourist bureau to come to police headquarters to be interviewed. The entire archaeological community on Gotland was in a state of shock. The excavations at Frojel were halted, and no one thought they would start up again that summer. The students in the course were forbidden to leave the island for the near future. The excavations at Eksta, where archaeologists were in the process of digging up a gravesite from the Bronze Age, were also stopped. Anyone who had even the slightest connection with archaeology on Gotland was affected by what had now become a double homicide.
The head of the tourist bureau was concerned that this second murder would frighten away the tourists. The media speculated that a serial killer was on the loose on the island-someone who would continue to kill until he was caught. Anders Knutas had called in extra assistance from the NCP in Stockholm. Thirty or so people were now working on the investigation.