and stretched. Everything was quiet aside from the rattle of the falling sleet. A relatively new black Skoda was parked inside the open wooden gates. It was remarkably dirty, and there was a star-shaped crack in the windshield. They started toward the cottage on a path of slippery snow- and moss-covered stones. No sign of life could be seen. The superintendent tried the door handle, but the door was locked.
“The outside light is on,” he remarked loudly.
Irene started to walk around the house in order to look through the mullioned windows.
When she looked in through the first window, she spotted him right away.
“Sven!” she called.
The superintendent lumbered over to her. She pointed.
They were looking into a simple kitchen. Through its open door, they could see a man’s body lying on its back in the hall. His legs and lower body weren’t visible, but his upper body and head were. Or what was left of his head. It was enough to determine that he was dead. Under his open jacket, the front of his light-colored shirt was covered with rust-red blood. One hand was resting on the threshold to the kitchen. Inside the threshold was a plastic bag with food. Some of the items had rolled out onto the kitchen floor.
Andersson turned toward Irene with a grim face. “Call for backup. This is no suicide.”
Chapter 2
LATER THAT AFTERNOON, IRENE and Superintendent Andersson told the remaining inspectors in the unit about the murder in the cottage. Irene began. “The body we found was that of Jacob Schyttelius. We’ve not succeeded in reaching his parents for a positive identification, but his boss gave us a description which matches the victim’s exactly. He was thirty-one years old. Sven and I found him at twelve thirty, shot, in a summer cottage. We found the key to the front door under a large plant on the steps and unlocked the door. The body was lying in the hall and didn’t didn’t appear to have been moved after the murder. A gunshot wound to the chest near his heart had been inflicted by a large-caliber weapon, and the head was partially blown away. We didn’t find a weapon. We made a quick survey of the area while we were waiting for the technicians. The house has two small bedrooms, and apparently he used one of them as an office. He’d squeezed a desk into it, and there was a computer on top of the desk. Someone had drawn a symbol on the monitor, probably in blood.”
“What kind of symbol?” Fredrik Stridh interrupted to ask.
“A star inside a circle. Svante says that it might be a magical sign, the kind that witches and Satanists use during their rituals. He has come across similar ones in past investigations of church fires and the like. The technicians are still working out there.”
“Satanists! What a bunch of shit!” Jonny Blom snorted.
Irene shrugged and nodded at Hannu Rauhala, who had raised his hand.
“Why was the victim living in a summer cottage?” he asked.
“According to the principal of the school where he worked, he had recently been divorced and moved back to Göteborg after spending a few years up north. It’s hard to find housing, so he borrowed his parents’ cottage, which is winterized. He’s lived there all fall and winter. The last time he was seen was yesterday afternoon when he left work at around four thirty. Some damp gym clothes were in a bag, so he may have worked out at a gym. We found a membership card to a gym in his wallet and will check with them to see if he went there after work. He had bought food at Hemköp on Mölndalsvägen, and we’re also going to check there to find out if someone remembers him. His school was somewhere near Heden. His parents don’t live far from the cottage but, as I said, we haven’t been able to reach them yet. The father is rector of the church in a small community called Kullahult. We’re thinking about how to tell the parents that their son has been murdered. I mean, after all, normally we take a pastor with us when we deliver the news. But what do you do when the recipient of such news is a pastor?”
Irene stopped her report and looked at her colleagues around the conference table. It was just after five in the afternoon. As usual, Jonny Blom was half asleep in his chair. When his head nodded, Irene noticed that his bald