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THURSDAY, AUGUST 5

The cruise liner Nordic Star arrived from Riga, Lativa, and majestically slid into berth number eleven in Visby harbor on this Thursday morning. The city couldn't have presented a more beautiful image. The sun colored the facades with a warm, golden sheen, and the temperature had already reached sixty-eight degrees. The American tourists, who had only one day at their disposal to explore Gotland before they continued their journey to Stockholm, were delighted before even stepping off the gangway. The cathedral tower, the ring wall, and the medieval buildings looked fascinating, and a mood of enthusiastic anticipation hovered over the harbor. Ten shiny, air-conditioned tourist buses were parked in a row, ready to swallow up the hundreds of chattering tourists who came streaming off the boat. They wore shorts, T-shirts, and caps, and every single one had a camera around his or her neck. The average age was somewhere between fifty and sixty, although there were a few younger couples. Waiting on the dock, the local guides were clearly visible in their blue vests from the guide association. The buses quickly filled, and one by one they rolled out of the harbor, ready to explore the island.

Matilda Drakenberg's bus was one of the first to leave. The guides had divided up the sightseeing tour so as not to overlap with each other. Matilda's bus was supposed to start outside the city and then proceed inward from there. First stop was the nature preserve of Hogklint, just south of Visby. From there they would have a wonderful view of the city and the sea. Next would be the Botanical Gardens and a stroll inside the wall. The tour would end at the East Gate, when the tourists would be free to have lunch and go shopping on their own.

She welcomed the visitors, and before the bus had even reached the coast road heading for Hogklint, she had already started telling them about Visby's history. The tourist groups were all strangely similar. Americans were positive, full of questions, and fascinated by anything that was more than a hundred years old. When she told them that the ring wall had been built in the thirteenth century, they all looked amazed.

The bus stopped as close to Hogklint as possible. Americans were not known to be a people fond of walking, and several in the group were seriously overweight. An older man used a cane, and he seemed to have a great deal of trouble getting around.

Mathilda was already dreading the walk through Visby's cobblestone streets. She waited until everyone was off the bus and then led the way up the little hill toward the overlook.

When Matilda later had to recount what she saw on that morning, she had a hard time remembering the order in which everything occurred. She had a strong memory of the cheerful chatter of the group and of the man from Wisconsin who ended up walking beside her, asking a hundred questions about everything from the average income in Sweden to where Ingmar Bergman had lived on Gotland. He also wanted to know who the Swedes thought had murdered Olof Palme. There was always one of those in each group, someone who showed up and asked tons of questions in private, draining her energy. Afterward she recalled how she had tried to evade his questions, explaining to him that she would answer them later in front of the whole group, so that everyone could hear. The man didn't seem to get the message. He kept on asking questions.

The group gathered at the top of the slope and enjoyed the magnificent view of Visby and the dramatic coastline.

The plateau was 165 feet above the sea, and the cliffs dropped straight down to the foaming waves far below. Here the wind almost never stopped blowing. Matilda told the tourists about the ledge a short distance below the precipice that was called the Starving Goat Ledge. Goats that managed to climb down to eat the succulent grass down there were never able to get back up. Eventually they starved to death. Some of the tourists braved the steep stairs and made their way, with varying degrees of success, down to the place where the goats met their grim fate. Others chose a more comfortable alternative and made their way over to the grove of trees a short distance inland. From there they could enjoy the view in the shelter of the trees.

Suddenly a hair-raising scream was heard. For a few seconds Matilda was afraid that someone had fallen from the precipice, but the cry had come from the grove of trees. She rushed over there-and she would never forget the sight that met her eyes.

The naked body of a man was hanging from a tree, dangling lifelessly from a noose. Someone had used a knife to slice open his belly, and the blood had run down his legs and onto the ground. When Matilda saw his face and his wide-open eyes staring down at her, she recognized him at once.

Twenty minutes after the call came in to police headquarters, Knutas and Jacobsson climbed out of their car at Hogklint. Without uttering a word, they made their way through the crowd of agitated tourists, who had been given a sightseeing tour far beyond the usual fare. Police officers were cordoning off the area. More tourist buses had arrived, only to be stopped in the parking lot by officers who ordered them to turn around and drive off. No explanation was given. The astonished guides and their drivers did as they were told without getting any answers to their questions. Knutas heard in passing how some people were murmuring about suicide; it was not an unlikely theory. Hogklint was a place that was regularly used by people wanting to kill themselves.

As they reached the plateau, Sohlman, Wittberg, and Kihlgard came up to join them. From a distance they could see the body as it swung freely in the air with the glittering sea and the cornflower-blue sky in the background. Knutas slowly shook his head as he recognized every single sign from the previous victims.

Gunnar Ambjornsson had returned to Gotland.

The murder of the Visby Social Democratic politician was the lead story all over Sweden on that Thursday. At the press conference the police held in the afternoon, reporters from the Norwegian, Finnish, and Danish press were also present. Given the large number of witnesses this time, it was impossible even to try to keep secret the macabre circumstances surrounding the murder. The air was buzzing with speculations about sects, ritual killers, and occultism, and the police were bombarded with questions about the way in which the previous murders had been committed. They had to admit that there were certain similarities, but they declined to be specific.

Knutas felt drained after the press conference, which was the longest one he had ever attended-and it was going to get worse.

During the afternoon, word had leaked out that Gunnar Ambjornsson had received a horse's head stuck on a pole. Then the news that Staffan Mellgren had been subjected to the same thing before he was killed spread like a wave through the media services in Sweden. Journalists from all the national media organizations caught the first available plane to Gotland.

After the press conference Knutas and the other members of the investigative team became unavailable-except for the much put-upon Lars Norrby, that is. In his position as police spokesperson, he had to take them on all by himself. The police realized that the intensive media attention was going to make it even harder to catch the killer.

The investigative team, along with the NCP, began the huge task of interviewing demonstrators who were opposed to the construction project, groups interested in the?sir religion with ties to Gotland, Ambjornsson's political colleagues, and anyone else who in any conceivable way might have something to do with the case.

Knutas sensed that the perpetrator was somewhere close by, partly because the places where the victims and horses' heads had been found testified to a good knowledge of the local area. He didn't think that someone from the mainland would have chosen the sites that had been used.

The police had completely given up any thought that the murderer might be a woman. Dragging Gunnar Ambjornsson's body up the hill at Hogklint and then managing to hoist it up into a tree required a physical strength that far exceeded a normal woman's ability. If their assumption that the perpetrator was a Gotlander was right, it meant that he would have had to leave the island for Stockholm late Saturday night or early Sunday morning in order to meet Ambjornsson when he arrived on his connecting flight from Paris. Somehow they must have met in Stockholm, maybe even out at the airport. There were no indications that the meeting had been planned earlier, since Ambjornsson arrived from Paris at 12:45 p.m., and the plane he had booked to Visby was supposed to leave an hour later. He would barely have had time to get his luggage, go through customs, and head over to the domestic terminal to check in.

Someone had gone to Stockholm and most likely met Ambjornsson when he disembarked from the plane. Would he have gone voluntarily with a stranger when he knew that he had been threatened? Hardly. So it had to be someone that he knew and trusted. This person had persuaded him to leave the airport instead of flying home. Why would he do that?

Later Ambjornsson had returned to Gotland, either dead or alive. They didn't yet know whether he was killed on the mainland and then transported to the island, or whether he had lost his life on Gotland. From what he could tell, Erik Sohlman thought that Ambjornsson had been dead for at least several days. The ME was on his way by plane, so it wouldn't be long before they knew more.

The police had contacted Ambjornsson's relatives in Stockholm, but none of them had spoken to him in a long time. His girlfriend in Stanga was beside herself with grief, and she had no idea where he had gone after he got off the plane at Arlanda airport. He hadn't been in touch with her since he returned to Sweden.

After the ME had examined the body at the scene, it would be taken to the forensic medicine lab in Solna for autopsy. Knutas already had some idea what the autopsy report would contain. All indications were that Ambjornsson had met the same fate as the previous victims. Knutas had now received confirmation from many different angles that the theory about the threefold death was correct. No doubt everyone would be discussing that very topic on the morning talk shows the next day.

Even so, he almost choked on his coffee when heard Dagens Eko on the radio at 4:45 p.m. Both the symbolism of the nidstang and the threefold death were mentioned. Knutas was even more surprised when he heard Susanna Mellgren being interviewed. There seemed to be no limit to what was reported. It remained to be seen how all the media attention would affect the murderer. Maybe he would crawl into the nearest hole and bide his time until the storm blew over.

Earlier in the day the police had received a call from an Estonian by the name of Igors Bleidelis who worked aboard a freighter that frequently called at Visby. He'd heard talk of the ritual murders, and he said that he'd noticed something mysterious at Hogklint almost six months ago. He'd seen a fire and people with blazing torches moving around on top of the cliff in a ritual dance. He thought they were conducting some type of ceremony. He remembered the date: March 20. That's all he could tell them. He had thought it was odd. That's why he had called, because there might be some connection with the murder of the politician who was found at the very same place.

Jacobsson came into Knutas's office. He asked her if she knew whether there was anything special about March 20. She leafed through her calendar.

"Nothing really special, except that it's the vernal equinox."

Knutas leaned back in his chair. "Would that have any significance? A form of ritual that takes place on the vernal equinox? Who celebrates that day?"

"I have no idea, but it shouldn't be so hard to find out. Couldn't you ask your expert on the?sir religion whether that particular day has some special meaning for people who worship the?sir?"

Five minutes later he had his answer from Malte Moberg in Stockholm. The vernal equinox turned out to be one of the most important days in the year for?sir worshippers.

"All the puzzle pieces are falling into place," said Knutas. "This has to do with some religious fanatics who believe in the?sir gods and who have gone too far. But I just can't figure out what their motive could be for murdering those individuals."

"This Estonian may have seen the very sect that the killer belongs to, a sect that has managed to remain so secret that no one even knows it exists. It sounds like something occult, with the fire and the dancing people. We already have a connection between Martina Flochten and Gunnar Ambjornsson through the hotel project at Hogklint. The fact that his body was found there just confirms that the connection has significance."

"So then we have Staffan Mellgren. There has to be something else besides the fact that he was having an affair with Martina."

"Could he have been a member of this?sir sect?"

"I think it's likely, and that's exactly where we're going to find the killer."