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playing soccer . Right now she was sitting there waving her arms around and speaking in a loud and furious voice. She was petite, with dark hair. She had warm, lively brown eyes and a big gap between her front teeth. Her mood could change dramatically, and she didn’t make much of an effort to rein in her hot temper. She was a splash of color and a bundle of energy, and her sweeping gestures were in sharp contrast to the less than uplifting backdrop of closed blinds and gray-painted bookshelves.
    Knutas sank down on the chair in his office and started going through the mail from the past few days that was still untouched. Among the anonymous official letters he found a colorful postcard from Greece. The picture showed a typical Greek meal: grilled chicken on a spit with a bowl of tsatziki and a bottle of wine on a round café table. In the background was a glimpse of sunset, and light was glinting off one of the two wineglasses on the blue-painted tabletop.
    The message said: “Not exactly the same thing as grilled lamb’s head with mashed turnips—what do you say, Knutie? On Naxos for two weeks, taking it easy. Hope you’re well, and maybe we’ll have a chance to meet again soon. Martin.”
    Knutas couldn’t help smiling. How typical for Martin Kihlgård to send a postcard with a picture of food on it. The inspector from the National Criminal Police was the biggest glutton Knutas had ever met. He was always eating. They had worked together several times on various homicide cases when Knutas had asked for reinforcements from the NCP.
    His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door. The next moment the door was opened by his colleague Thomas Wittberg, who was more than twenty years his junior. Wittberg refused to cut his thick blond hair, in spite of constant kidding from everyone at work. The tight white T-shirt accentuated his suntanned torso, which was subjected to regular sessions in the gym at police headquarters. Wittberg had real charm, and he knew how to use it on vacationing women as soon as the season got started. The young detective liked to joke that his goal was to meet women from every region of Sweden, from Samiland in the north to Skåne in the south. Knutas didn’t doubt for a moment that his colleague would succeed. As far as he knew, Wittberg had never had a relationship that had lasted more than a few weeks. Every summer different women would call him at work, and some would even show up unannounced to see him.
    On the job he had also made good use of his popularity with the ladies. It had helped the police to make progress in quite a few investigations. Thomas Wittberg had quickly been promoted from a cop on the beat to the violent crimes division and then to police detective, and for the past two years he had been a regular member of Knutas’s core group. Right now his intense blue eyes testified to the fact that something special had happened.
    “You’ve got to hear this,” he said as he dropped onto Knutas’s visitor’s chair holding a sheet of paper in his hand. Knutas noticed that it was covered with Wittberg’s illegible notes.
    “A decapitated horse was found in a pasture outside Petesviken. Two little girls discovered it this morning.”
    “Good Lord.”
    “Around nine o’clock the girls were biking to the beach for a morning swim when they noticed that one of the horses was missing. They found it lying farther off in the pasture with its head cut off.”
    “Are you sure they didn’t just imagine the whole thing?”
    “Their grandfather and the owner of the farm went back with them to have a look. They just called in the report.”
    “What sort of horse is it? And who owns it?”
    “An ordinary pony. The owner is a farmer named Jörgen Larsson. He has four horses that his family keeps for riding. The other three were in the pasture.”
    “And they weren’t harmed in any way?”
    “Apparently not.”
    Knutas shook his head. “That sounds very