The Golden Calf by Helene Tursten

mind when she saw him sitting between the newly red-haired Kajsa and Birgitta Moberg-Rauhala. Instead, she slid onto a chair next to Fredrik Stridh. Fredrik was so absorbed in what he was seeing on the screen that he did not notice when she sat down.
    “… both bodies were in the kitchen. They were fully clothed. There are no signs that they’d been tortured or abused in any way before they were shot. As you can see in this picture—”
    The superintendent stopped mid-sentence as his pointer hit the cement wall instead of the soft screen.
    “That damned thing. Can we get someone in to fix this piece of crap?”
    “I’ll take care of it as soon as you’ve finished your run-through,” Tommy promised.
    “Why don’t you do it now?” growled Andersson. He tried to take several deep breaths to bring down his blood pressure. Andersson was supposed to retire this coming summer. He’d turned sixty, and he’d already had a one-year extension. Irene was always worrying about his health, since she knew he had asthma and high blood pressure. The fact that he was extremely overweight contributed to the severity of the conditions he already had.
    “I’ll need a ladder, and it’ll take some time for me to find one,” Tommy said patiently.
    “Fuck the screen and just show the slides on the wall,” Jonny Blom said.
    For once, Irene agreed with Jonny. It didn’t happen that often. They’d had a frosty relationship ever since they’d worked on the packing murder case that had taken them from Göteborg to Copenhagen. In recent months, though, their relationship had begun to thaw. There were signs that Jonny was actively trying to get his drinking under control. Rumor had it that Jonny’s long-suffering wife had made an ultimatum: the family or the bottle. It seemed there was something to the rumor. While nobody discussed it openly at work, Jonny was actually showing up on Fridays and Mondays, and he didn’t come to work hung over or reeking of alcohol as often as he used to. He had a lot to lose. With four children, he had the biggest family in the department. Only Åhlén beat him when it came to children, but he was a technician and not an investigator.
    Muttering to himself, Andersson tried to focus the slide-show images on the wall. The picture showed two men lying on a polished wooden floor. They could see a glimpse of a fireplace in one corner of the photo and the bases of some kitchen cabinets. One of the men was on his back. He had two shots in his forehead right above his nose, and he stared unseeingly into the camera. The other man was on his stomach. Itlooked like he’d fallen flat on his face. Blood had run onto his shirt collar and the floor. Both men looked fairly young. Andersson turned to Blom and said, “Why don’t you take over? You were at the crime scene.”
    “Sure.” Jonny stood up and took the pointer from the superintendent. “The bodies are lying two meters from each other. The man lying on his back owns the house. His name is Joachim Rothstaahl. We have not yet identified the second man.”
    “When were they shot?” asked Tommy.
    “Monday evening. Sometime between six and ten P.M . At least, that’s what forensics can say so far. They’d been lying there for over a day and a half by the time they were found.”
    “Who found them?” asked Tommy.
    “Rothstaahl’s father.”
    “What do you know about the owner?” asked the superintendent.
    “Joachim Rothstaahl is thirty-two-years-old, and he’s some kind of finance guy. He calls himself a consultant. The father informed us that Joachim had taken over his grandfather’s summer house. He was supposed to move into it with his girlfriend this weekend. She lives in Vänersborg. She was working during the day, and on Monday and Tuesday evening, she was at home packing for the move. Rothstaahl had already told her that he had an important meeting on Monday, and he wouldn’t be at home, so she didn’t call him that night. But when she