B0031RSBSM EBOK

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 Ambjörnsson. 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 Ambjörnsson 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