The Cruel Stars of the Night - Kjell Eriksson [73]
He walked out into the central corridor and was again hit by the feeling that he wasn’t alone. There had been a “visitor” about six months ago, someone who had broken in late one evening. It had frightened Ellinor but Palmblad had reassured her with the fact that it was probably just some teenagers out having a good time. Nothing had been stolen but some of the equipment had been thrown around and the stall doors had been covered in meaningless graffiti.
But burglars in the middle of the afternoon? Palmblad walked silently down the corridor, pushed on a storage room door, and peeked in. The smell of apples wafted out and he remembered that Ellinor had brought in a couple of boxes of winter fruit.
The break room was empty, just like the room where they stored the saddles, and this eased his mind somewhat.
Then he heard a scraping sound, as if a stall door was being opened. I’m hearing things, Palmblad thought. It’s the horses moving around. Get a grip on yourself, he told himself and walked over to Mirabelle’s stall. She neighed. Justus, an ungovernable stallion on the other side of the corridor, answered. Carl-Henrik Palmblad said something soothing, opened the stall door, stepped in next to Mirabelle, and patted her on the side.
Carl-Henrik died with a smile on his lips. The last thing he felt was warmth, a burning sensation down his back that radiated down to his legs. He fell headlong. Mirabelle had to receive his body and she shied away, neighed anxiously, circling the box but managing—as horses do— to avoid stepping on a prone human.
Justus became all the more nervous and egged on the other horses. The whole stall seemed to vibrate with restless hoofs. The nervousness only died down a good while after the stable door had creaked and shut again.
Mirabelle tossed her head and looked down at her caretaker. He was lying curled up with his right arm stretched out and the hand clenched around a few stalks of hay. The horse walked carefully around the box. She knew that something was wrong, Her nostrils widened, the muscles under the shiny skin vibrated, and she poked Palmblad’s lifeless body tentatively with her muzzle.
Ellinor Niis walked into the stables at a quarter past four. She let out a whistle as she usually did, a shrill signal intended as greeting: I’m here. It was as much directed at the horses as her grandfather.
Mirabelle neighed. Otherwise silence reigned.
Twenty-two
Once more Berglund stood over a corpse. For which time in his professional life he was not sure. He had worked as a police officer for thirty-five years, the past fifteen in the Violent Crimes Division.
“Can someone cut the music?”
His voice echoed in the stables. One of the horses in the box next to them answered with a whinny. Berglund turned and looked at the mare whose eyes were fixed on him.
“Poor bastard,” he said and Ola Haver didn’t know if he meant the man at their feet or the horse.
Ola Haver hadn’t even registered the soft music playing from the loudspeakers in the ceiling.
“Thanks,” Berglund said when the music stopped.
“Could he have been kicked to death?”
Berglund made a gesture with his head and shoulders to show that it was perhaps possible but that he personally thought they had a new case of murder on their hands.
“You sure got that horse out easily.”
“I grew up with horses,” Berglund said, still in the somewhat whiny voice that Ola Haver found increasingly irritating. It was hardly his fault that the guy had kicked the bucket, murdered or not.
“Don’t you like Britney Spears?”
Berglund stared at Beatrice, who came walking down the corridor, as if she had insulted him.
“I hate Muzak,” he said, with equal emphasis on each word, “regardless of whether it is in an elevator, in a department store, or at a crime scene.”
“Maybe it calms the horses,” Beatrice said lightly and smiled.