Read an Excerpt

1

Margot Silverman hears the thudding of the horse’s hooves against the bark chips as it gallops along the illuminated trail.

The sky is dark, the August air cool.

The trees race by on either side of her, fading away into the night before reappearing in the glow of the next lamp post.

Margot is head of the National Crime Unit in Stockholm, and she goes riding in Värmdö, to the east of the capital, four times a week. 

It helps to clear her head and centre herself.

The horse charges along the narrow trail, and the quick pace makes her heart race.

She catches brief glimpses of things in her periphery: fallen trees, the far edge of the field, a damp sweater with a smiley face on it, draped over a barrier.

The horse’s movements are asymmetrical as it gallops, its left hip higher than the right.

Each three-beat gait ends with its right front leg pushing off from the ground, followed by a moment of suspension.

In those few seconds as they fly through the air, she feels a tingle in her thighs.

Catullus is a Swedish warmblood gelding with long legs and a powerful neck, and Margot needed only to shift her outside leg back and push her hip forward to help spur him into a gallop.

Her braid thuds against her back each time his hooves hit the ground.

She sees a deer bolt across a clearing through the swaying ferns.

The lights are broken on the last part of the trail, and Margot can no longer see the ground in front of her. She closes her eyes and puts her faith in Catullus, allowing herself to be carried forward.

When she opens her eyes, she spots the bright stable between the trees and slows to an extended trot.

Margot’s chest and back are sweaty, and she can feel the lactic acid burning in her muscles after an hour’s interval training.

She walks Catullus in through the gates and dismounts.

It is almost 11 p.m., and Margot’s silver Citroën is the only car still parked outside the stable block.

She leads the horse through the darkness towards the building. His bit clinks, hooves beating softly against the dry, trampled grass.

From one of the stalls inside, she hears a couple of loud thuds.

Catullus stops dead, lifting his head and pulling back slightly.

‘Hey, what’s up?’ Margot asks, squinting into the darkness between the tractor and the nettles.

The horse is afraid, exhaling heavily through his nostrils. She strokes his neck and tries to coax him towards the stable, but he refuses to budge.

‘What’s going on, buddy?’

He shudders and veers sharply to one side, as though he is about to bolt.

‘Whoa-oh-ho.’

Margot grips the reins and firmly leads him in a half-circle, through the tall meadow grass and out onto the gravel. The lights outside the stable block give everything nearby three sharp shadows.

Catullus snorts and lowers his head.

Margot squints at the end of the building, and though she can’t see anything, she shudders.

Once they are safely inside the bright stable building, she takes off her helmet. The tip of her nose is red, her blonde braid heavy against the back of her quilted jacket. Above the tops of her long boots her jodhpurs are dirty.

The smell of hay and manure hangs heavy in the air.

The other horses are quiet as she leads Catullus to the wash stall, takes off his saddle and hangs it up in the heated tack room.

A couple of stirrups clink against the wooden wall.

Her first job is to rinse Catullus down and give him a blanket, then she needs to take him to his stall, feed him, give him a little extra salt and turn out the lights before heading home.

She reaches into her pocket to make sure she hasn’t lost her father’s old hip flask. She uses it for hand sanitiser rather than liquor—not because it’s especially practical but because it brings her luck and amuses her.

The door onto the yard creaks, and Margot feels a rush of unease. She steps out into the main area and peers towards the front of the building.

She hears Catullus shuffling in the wash stall behind her. The hose is dripping, a dark trickle of water flowing around the sweat scraper towards the drain.

Several of the other horses snort, their hooves striking the ground, while the electrical cabinet on the wall emits a low hum.

‘Hello?’ says Margot.

She holds her breath, standing perfectly still with her eyes on the door and the dark window for a moment before turning back to Catullus.

She can see the ceiling light mirrored in the curve of his black eye.

Margot hesitates, then takes out her phone and calls Johanna. Her wife doesn’t pick up, and she feels a knot of anxiety in the pit of her stomach. For the past two weeks, Margot has had the sense that someone is watching her. She even began to wonder whether Special Investigations or the Security Service has her under surveillance. She isn’t a paranoid person, but a number of anonymous calls and a pair of missing earrings have left her wondering whether she or Johanna have themselves a stalker.

Margot tries calling again. The phone rings and rings, but right as the voicemail is about to kick in, she hears a crackling sound.

‘Drenched and naked,’ Johanna answers.

Margot smiles. ‘How do I always manage to call at the right time?’

‘Hang on, let me put you on speakerphone.’

Something rustles and the background noise changes. An image of a nude Johanna, standing in the middle of their brightly lit bedroom, fully visible from the apple orchard outside, flashes through Margot’s mind.

‘Sorry, I’m just drying off,’ says Johanna. ‘Are you on your way back?’

‘Need to give the little man a quick hose down first.’

‘Remember to drive carefully.’

Margot can hear Johanna rubbing herself with a towel as they talk.

‘Make sure you close the curtains and check the door is locked,’ she says.

‘It’s like we’re in Scream. You’re watching me from the garden right now, aren’t you? And by the time I manage to lock the door, you’ll already be in the house.’

‘This isn’t funny.’

‘OK, boss.’

‘Ugh, I don’t want to be the boss anymore; I’m no good at it. I was fine as a detective, even if I was a bit cocky, but now that I’m in charge—’

‘Stop,’ Johanna interrupts her. ‘I’d have you as my boss any day.’

‘Oh la la,’ Margot laughs, her mood improving.

She hears Johanna lower the blind, the cord clinking against the radiator.

‘Put the blue lights on and come home,’ Johanna tells her. Her voice sounds faint, distant.

‘Were you able to get the girls into bed?’

‘Yeah, although Alva asked me whether you like your horse more than you like her.’

‘Ouch,’ Margot says, laughing.

The minute they hang up, the feeling of unease comes creeping back up on her. She can still hear a faint clinking sound, which continues for a moment or two before stopping. It must be coming from somewhere in the stable building, Margot thinks. It sounds like when the buckets hanging in the aisle knock together.

One of the horses pushes up against the wall, making it creak. 

Margot turns towards the door.

It looks like someone tall is trying to hide in the shadows over by the feed room. The rational side of her knows it’s just the cabinet where they keep the brooms, but it seems to be standing much further out than usual.

The wind barrels over the metal roof, shaking the windowpanes. 

Margot walks down the aisle. She sees the bars of the stalls flickering at the edge of her vision, heavy horseheads gleaming in the light’s glow.

She has to make a real effort to stop herself calling Johanna again to ask her to double check the outside door; the kids always have trouble bolting it properly. All she is going to do is see to Catullus, drive home, take a shower, and crawl into her nice, warm bed to go to sleep.

The light flickers and dims.

Margot stops to listen, peering past the wash stall to the changing room.

The stable block is quiet, but then she hears a rapid ticking sound, like something metal rolling across the floor.

She turns around, but the noise stops. She can’t tell where it was coming from.

Margot steadies herself against one of the stalls and peers over to the main door.

She hears the ticking again, getting closer and closer now behind her.

Catullus anxiously raises his head, and Margot feels something slam
into her back. One of the horses must have kicked her, she thinks as she falls.

The world disappears for a moment, and she hears a roaring sound in her ears.

Margot is lying face down on the floor, her lips and forehead bleeding where they struck the concrete. She feels a strange burning, tugging sensation in her spine, and can smell something sharp in the air.

As it dawns on Margot that someone has just fired a gun at her, her ears start ringing. The horses are frightened, shifting in their stalls, bumping against the walls, stamping their feet and snorting.

She has been shot, she thinks.

‘Oh God, oh God . . .’

She needs to get up, drive home and tell her daughters that she loves them more than anything.

She hears footsteps, and feels a sudden jolt of fear.

There is a creaking sound, followed by the same clicking she heard earlier.

Margot’s lower body is numb, but she realises that she is being dragged towards the door by her legs.

Her hips scrape against the rough concrete.

Margot tries to cling to a trough of feed, but she is too weak.

A bucket tips over and rolls away.

Her jacket and undershirt ride up.

Her breathing is shallow, and she knows that the bullet must have hit her spine.

Wave after wave of pain shoots up through her torso.

It feels like she’s been struck with an axe.

As she’s pulled across the floor, Margot feels like an animal being dragged away to slaughter, like a bark boat caught in a current, like a zeppelin floating above the fields.

She knows she can’t give up, that she has to keep fighting, but now she’s so weak she can no longer keep her head up.

Her face has been torn to shreds by the rough floor, and the last thing Margot notices before she loses consciousness is the slick trail of blood on the floor.