He immediately went to Rundström, who was in charge of emergencies, and explained the situation. Just twenty minutes later he was on his way to Sveg in a police car with blue lights flashing. The forensic boys were making preparations to follow as soon as possible.
They reached the house some time after 7:30. Hanna Tunberg was waiting for them at the turnoff, along with Inspector Erik Johansson, who was stationed in Sveg and had just returned from another call, a truck laden with timber that had overturned outside Ytterhögdal. It was already dark by then. Larsson could see from the woman’s eyes that the sight awaiting them would not be a pretty one. They went first to the spot on the edge of the forest that Hanna Tunberg had described to them. They found themselves gasping for breath when they shone their flashlights on the dead body. Larsson understood the woman’s horror. He thought he’d seen everything. He had several times seen suicides who’d fired shotguns straight into their faces, but the man on the ground in front of them was worse than anything he’d been obliged to look at before. It wasn’t really a man at all, just a bloody bundle. The face had been scraped away, the feet were no more than blood-soaked lumps, and his back had been beaten so badly that bones were exposed.
They then approached the house with guns drawn. They established that there was indeed a Norwegian elkhound dead in the pen. When they entered the house they found that Hanna’s description of what her husband had told her was in no way exaggerated. The floor was covered in bloody footprints and broken glass. They closed the door to make sure that nothing was disturbed before the forensic team arrived.
Hanna was in the car the whole time, her hands clutching the steering wheel. Larsson felt sorry for her. He knew that what she’d been through today would stay with her for the rest of her life, a constant source of fear or a never-ending nightmare.
Larsson sent Johansson in Hanna’s car to the junction with the main road to wait for the forensic team. He also told him to write down in detail everything the woman had to say. Precise times especially.
Then Larsson was on his own. He suspected he was faced with something he wasn’t really up to dealing with, but he also knew that there was nobody else in the entire Jamtland police force who was better equipped than he was to lead the investigation. He decided to tell the chief of police immediately that reinforcements would have to be called in from outside.
He was approaching Stenstavik. It was still dark. Several days had passed, but they were no closer to solving the mystery of the murdered man in the forest.
There was another major problem. It had transpired that the dead man was a retired police officer who had moved up to Harjedalen after working for many years as a detective in Borås. Larsson had spent the previous evening at home, reading through documents faxed to him from Borås. He was now familiar with all the basic information that forms an individual’s profile. Nevertheless, he had the impression he was staring into a vacuum. There was no motive, no clues, no witnesses. It was as if some mysterious evil force had been let loose, emerged from the forest to attack Molin with all its might, and then disappeared without trace.
He passed through Stenstavik and continued towards Sveg. It was getting light now, and the wooded ridges surrounding him on all sides were acquiring a shade of blue. His mind turned to the preliminary report he’d received from the coroner’s office in Umea where pathologists had been examining the body. It explained how the wounds had been inflicted, of course, but hadn’t provided Larsson with any clues as to where this savage attack might have come from, nor why. The pathologist described in detail the violence inflicted on Molin. The wounds on his back appeared to have been caused by whiplashes. Because there was no skin left on his back, it was only when they discovered a fragment of the lash that they realized what had happened. A microscopic examination revealed that the whip had been made from the hide of an animal. Just what animal they were unable to say, as it did not correspond with any animal in Sweden. It was highly probable that the injuries to the soles of Molin’s feet had been caused by the same instrument. He had not been beaten in the face: the scrape marks indicated that he had been dragged facedown over the ground. The wounds were full of soil. The doctor was able to state that on the basis of bruises on the victim’s neck, it was clear that an attempt had been made to strangle him. An attempt was a wording that should be taken literally, the report stressed. Molin had not been choked to death. Nor did he die from the residue of tear gas found in his eyes, throat, and lungs. Molin had died from exhaustion. He had, literally, had the life whipped out of him.