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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 Göteborg 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