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handkerchief. She could hardly bear to look.
    “What is it?” Ambjörnsson seemed terrified.
    Both the detectives gave him a solemn look.
    “Do you know about the horse that was found decapitated recently?”
    Ambjörnsson nodded without speaking.
    “Well, this head,” said Knutas, “doesn’t belong to the same horse.”

FRIDAY, JULY 9
    WHEN KNUTAS CLOSED the door to his house and set off for work, it was only six thirty in the morning on the day after the discovery in Ambjörnsson’s shed. He had lain awake most of the night, and by five he gave up all attempts to sleep. As soon as he got outside, he perked up. The morning air was fresh and clear, and the city was quiet and still.
    It was 11:00 P.M. by the time they left the house in Klinten the night before. Ambjörnsson had reluctantly agreed to be taken to the hospital to be examined. He’d had a weak heart for many years and had to take medicine for it. Afterward he was given a police escort over to his girlfriend’s place in Stånga. The police refused to allow him to spend the night alone in his house. The horse’s head on the pole couldn’t be regarded as anything less than a threat.
    The conference room had a charged atmosphere when the investigative team took their places. A certain anticipation could be felt in the air. What had happened was definitely out of the ordinary.
    “Good morning,” Knutas greeted his colleagues. He then reported on the horrifying scene they had found at the home of the municipal politician Gunnar Ambjörnsson the night before.
    When Knutas told them that the horse’s head that had been stuck on a pole did not belong to the decapitated horse in Petesviken, everyone was utterly silent.
    “What was that you just said?” The words were hesitantly spoken by Martin Kihlgård.
    “It’s not the same head. The horse’s head in Ambjörnsson’s shed belonged to a standardbred trotter; the horse in Petesviken was a Gotland pony.”
    “So that means that somewhere on Gotland there’s another decapitated horse.”
    “Exactly,” said Knutas. “We interviewed Ambjörnsson last night, and he says he has no idea what this is all about. He hasn’t had any quarrel with anyone, as far as he knows. But I think we still have to assume that this is a threat. What do you think?”
    “Politicians are always being threatened in one way or another,” said Wittberg with a snort. “It’s obvious that Ambjörnsson has reason to be frightened. Methods like this are straight out of the Mafia. It makes me think of drug deals.”
    “Do you really think the noble Ambjörnsson would be fooling around with drugs? That’s going a little too far.” Jacobsson looked at her colleague in disbelief.
    “I agree.” Norrby shook his head. “The Italian Mafia in Visby? You’ve been watching too many action films, Thomas. This is real life—and on Gotland.”
    “The crime is a sophisticated one. That much we can agree on,” interjected Sohlman. “Allow me to go over the technical details. The perpetrator shoved the pole up through the horse’s neck, under the mandible, and in that way he could affix the head without using rope or anything like that. The pole was placed so that it would fall forward into Ambjörnsson’s arms when he opened the shed door. The man suffers from a weak heart; it’s incredible that he didn’t have a heart attack. The head remained attached, even when the pole fell to the ground, which indicates that the perp knew what he was doing. We called in Åke Tornsjö, the veterinarian, who examined the head last night. According to him, the horse was probably killed in the same way as the one we found decapitated in Petesviken, but he won’t be sure until he examines the rest of the body. Unfortunately, we have no idea where to find it. At any rate, this head had been frozen and then thawed before it was fastened to the pole. We know this because it’s swollen up, and the flesh is looser than it would normally be. It’s impossible to say how long the perp may have preserved the head in a freezer—in principle it could have been for any amount of time. We’ve found a good deal of evidence on Ambjörnsson’s property: footprints, a cigarette butt that doesn’t belong to him, and a button that he doesn’t recognize. The grass has been trampled in several places, which indicates that the perp first had a look around, presumably to find a suitable place to position the horse’s head. By the way, the head has