Inside it stank of damp and mould. Arne’s uniform shirt had sweat patches under the arms, and his shoes were covered in mud. He should never have come here, he should have stayed far away from this fucking swamp, far away from Svartgården. Instead he’d allowed himself to be dragged back, down into the morass.
He’d been seventeen when the incident happened. It had all started on the school bus, coming home from Ljungslöv. He’d been secretly in love with Ida Axelsson for years, and she was sitting just a few rows in front of him. She’d always been pretty, but that particular evening there was a kind of glow about her. All their contemporaries on the bus had flocked around her, and when they reached their destination, Arne wanted to see more. He wasn’t ready to say goodbye just yet. And so he’d followed Ida at a distance. He hadn’t meant any harm.
Without knowing exactly how it had happened, he found himself standing in the darkness outside her window. He didn’t remember how long he was there. Five minutes maybe, or ten. He watched Ida as she moved from room to room. She played a record, sang along, danced.
For a few short, wonderful moments it was as if he was sharing it all with her. As if he was inside in the warmth. Until her mother arrived home, and he was caught in the car headlights. He’d fled, ran home, jumped on his moped and got as far away as he could. He went to Svartgården. Lasse was one of the few in the area who didn’t look down on him or call him Downhill Arne. Lasse had even given him work, made him feel important.
When the police started asking questions, Lasse had provided him with an alibi, and since neither Ida nor her mother could be absolutely certain that it was Arne they’d seen in the garden, the matter was soon forgotten.
Stupidly, Arne had assumed that all the favours he’d done for Lasse over the years would have evened things out, but he should have realised that a debt to Lasse Svart could never be paid off. Then again, maybe there was hope? He hadn’t said anything to Lasse about what he’d heard at the bank, but it sounded as if the count and Erik Nyberg were going to solve the problem for him. Make sure Lasse disappeared for good.
‘Hi, Arne.’
He gave a start; Elita was standing right behind him, carrying a little case with a strap.
‘Nice car.’
She took a step closer and slowly adjusted his tie.
‘You look good in uniform.’
‘Thanks!’ Arne didn’t know what to do with himself. She was standing so close that he was all too aware of her smell: sweat, horse and something else, something incredibly appealing. In some ways Elita reminded him of Ida Axelsson; she was a dark-haired, much prettier version of Ida. She was still fiddling with his tie, her hip brushing against his. Arne swallowed hard.
‘There you go.’ Elita stepped back, dangling the case in front of him. ‘Thanks for the loan.’
Only now did Arne recognise the case; it contained the Polaroid camera Ingrid and Bertil had given him when he graduated from high school.
‘No problem. Can I see the pictures?’
‘Maybe. If you’re nice to me.’ Elita winked at him, just as she’d done in the paddock.
Arne chewed his moustache. ‘And the ghetto blaster?’
‘I need that a while longer, if that’s OK.’
‘No problem,’ he said again. He turned and closed the boot of the car so that she wouldn’t see the containers.
‘Are you going into the village?’
‘Yes!’ His hands were wet with perspiration; he wiped them on his trousers.
‘Can you give me a lift to the castle forest?’
‘And why do you want to go there?’
She shrugged. ‘I’ve got to get something ready for tonight.’
‘Tonight? Don’t do anything silly now, will you?’ Arne swore silently to himself. Why did he suddenly sound like such an old killjoy?
‘We’ll see,’ she said with a smile. ‘We’re meeting up at the stone circle. Why don’t you come? I think you’ll enjoy it.’
Her voice was inviting. Arne realised he was staring at her lips. They were so perfect, so soft, so . . .
‘Who knows – maybe the Green Man will turn up,’ she added.
Arne tried to speak, but his mouth refused to co-operate. The sound of a car engine made Elita spin around.
‘Leo!’ she shouted, and began to run. Something in her voice made Arne feel as if a rusty knife had just been plunged into his heart.
14
‘The story behind the photograph is horrible. It’s about a dead girl, and it touched me deeply, in a way I daren’t explain to you – not yet. There’s so much you don’t know about me, Margaux. So much I haven’t told you. About the person I used to be. About the people I’ve left behind.’
T
hey say goodbye to Kerstin Miller and drive back the way they came. Dr Andersson remains silent, as if she doesn’t know what to say – for once.
‘So the girl in the photograph is Elita Svart,’ Thea says. ‘And she was murdered in the forest.’
That’s all Kerstin was prepared to tell her. Maybe she thinks it’s up to David to fill in the rest, but Thea can’t wait that long.
The doctor drums her fingers on the wheel, as if she is engaged in some kind of internal battle.
‘What happened to Elita was very sad,’ she says eventually. ‘A family tragedy. They lived at Svartgården, deep in the marsh. There used to be a track, but it’s gone now. Elita’s father, Lasse Svart, was a farrier, but he did all kinds of other things as well. Water divining, curing sick animals, breaking in horses. There were rumours that he had other irons in the fire too . . . He went to prison more than once, and a lot of people were afraid of him.’
The doctor pauses while she negotiates a water-filled pothole in the road.
‘Lasse lived with two women, Eva-Britt and Lola. Eva-Britt was about the same age as Lasse. She took care of his business affairs, and she made and sold homeopathic medicines. Her son Leo lived at Svartgården too.’
Another pothole, another pause.
‘Lola, Elita’s mother, was a little . . . strange. She never really went anywhere, couldn’t look you in the eye. The whole family was . . .’ Dr Andersson hesitates. ‘I don’t really know what the right word is these days, but back then people like that were described as gypsies.’
Thea’s skin crawls, her upper lip twitches.
‘Right,’ she hears herself say in a surprisingly neutral tone.
‘As you can see from the photograph, Elita was a very pretty girl with a special aura. And she knew how to exploit all of that.’
‘In what way?’ Thea asks, mainly to stop her brain repeating that word.
‘Elita loved to be the centre of attention, and she could wrap boys and men around her little finger. Including her stepbrother – Leo did everything she asked him to do. Everything.’
The doctor takes a deep breath.
‘On Walpurgis Night 1986, Elita had set up a little performance. It turned out later that she’d seen the photographs in the Folk Museum and wanted to recreate the old rite of spring. And that she’d persuaded four younger children to help her.’
‘David, Nettan, Sebastian and Jan-Olof.’
‘Exactly,’ the doctor says with a sigh. ‘They gathered at the stone circle in the forest, lit a fire, then Elita and the children danced, just like in the old ritual. Then her stepbrother turned up on horseback.’
She breaks off again, searching for the right words.
‘Leo killed Elita. Laid her down on the sacrificial stone with her hands folded across her chest. The newspapers called her the Spring Sacrifice.’
Thea inhales sharply. ‘And David and his friends saw all this?’
‘More or less. It was a terrible business, as you can imagine – both for the children and their families. They were questioned by the police, then there was the trial . . . Has David really never said anything about this? Or Ingrid?’
‘Not a word.’
There is a silence as Thea tries
to process what she’s just heard. With hindsight, it’s hardly surprising that David lost the thread during the TV interview, but why wouldn’t he tell her what was going on?
‘Why did the stepbrother do it? What was his motive?’
Dr Andersson shakes her head.
‘Elita had left a letter in her bedroom. She wrote that she didn’t want to grow up, along with a lot of other teenage nonsense. She’d planned the whole thing. Planned to die.’
‘And Leo agreed to kill his stepsister?’
The doctor nods slowly. ‘He confessed, and was convicted of murder – but with a reduced sentence, because the court believed that Elita had manipulated him. A terrible business, as I said.’
It’s clear that the doctor is trying to bring the conversation to an end, but Thea isn’t done yet.
‘Were you their GP?’
‘No, I was working at the hospital in Helsingborg back then, so I wasn’t involved – except that we lived in Tornaby and knew the family.’
‘So what happened to Lasse and the others?’
‘They’re long gone, all of them. The thing is, Thea . . . What happened to Elita Svart was dreadful, and we’ve put it behind us. Tornaby is so much more than . . .’ Dr Andersson fumbles for the right phrase.
‘A dead gyppo kid,’ Thea supplies before she can stop herself. The words taste of poisonous mushrooms, perhaps bitter almonds.
‘Well, yes, no, I don’t . . .’ Dr Andersson shifts uncomfortably in her seat. ‘What I mean is, people don’t want to be reminded of all that. Dragging it up isn’t going to help you fit into the village community. Do you understand?’
Thea nods, but that word is still reverberating in her head. She hasn’t heard it since she was a teenager, when other people used to spit it at her the way the residents of Tornaby no doubt did at Elita.
In another life, another time.
Gyppo, gyppo, gyppo . . .
15
Walpurgis Night 1986
Leo is my big brother, even though we’re not actually related.
Eva-Britt has an old photograph of us on her bedside table. Leo’s ten, I’m six. We’re sitting on a bench together. He’s looking at something behind the camera, his expression serious. I am gazing admiringly at him, as if he’s the most fantastic person I’ve ever seen.
Now he’s the one who looks at me almost the same way. He wants us to run away together. He’s put it in his letters. Leo would do anything for me. Whatever I ask of him.
L
eo lifted his duffel bag out of the baggage compartment of the minibus. He slung it over his shoulder, adjusted his moss-green beret and straightened his shoulders. Waved to his comrades as the minibus drove off.
He’d been looking forward to this moment for a long time, fantasising about every detail. How he would stand there in the middle of the yard in his uniform, what the place would smell like, sound like.
The dogs rushed towards him, wagging their tails and whimpering with excitement. His mother came down the rickety steps, with Lola following cautiously.
‘Leo! Leo!’
The voice made him turn around. Elita was running along the track from the paddock, mud splashing up over her riding boots, eyes sparkling. Leo’s heart began to pound. This was exactly how he’d imagined it, even down to the sun peeping through the clouds.
Elita threw her arms around his neck and he drew her close. Her hair smelled of horses and the herbal shampoo that Eva-Britt and Lola made themselves. Leo closed his eyes, determined to hold this moment in his memory forever.
‘My turn,’ Eva-Britt said, and Elita stepped aside. ‘Let me look at you! You’ve certainly grown – the food must be good up there in Norrland.’
Leo nodded; he still couldn’t take his eyes off Elita.
‘And you’ve got medals!’ His mother touched the row of small gold-coloured merit awards on his breast. ‘But your hair . . .’
She reached up as if she were about to remove his beret; he turned his head away and laughed.
‘Everyone has a buzz cut, Mum. It’s the most practical solution – we’re on our bellies in the mud nearly every week.’
‘I think it looks good,’ Elita said.
Her words made Leo’s heart beat even faster. He looked her up and down.
‘Have you been riding Bill? You wrote that he was almost broken in.’
Elita nodded. ‘They’re coming to pick him up after the weekend, but there’ll be time for you to try him out. Dad’s not around this evening.’
‘What does ND stand for?’ Lola pointed to the badge on his beret. Her expression was distant, and Leo guessed that she was having one of her ‘absent days’ as his mother called them – days when a part of her was somewhere else.
‘Norrland Dragoons,’ he said proudly. ‘You’re given the beret when you’ve completed the winter training and the commando assessment.’
Lola didn’t appear to have heard him; she just carried on staring at his beret.
Elita took his hand, wove her fingers through his. Her skin was warm, almost burning him.
‘Let’s go in. Eva-Britt and I have baked you a cake.’
They set off up the steps, but paused by the door. Lola was still in the yard, staring up at Leo. She raised her chin as if she could hear sounds that were inaudible to everyone else.
‘Many things are on the move tonight,’ she said loudly. ‘Nature is hungry, the Green Man is riding through the forests, and the old must be replaced by the new.’
‘What did you say, sweetheart?’ Eva-Britt went back down the steps and gently took Lola by the arm. ‘Come along – let’s go inside and celebrate Leo’s homecoming.’
16
‘I’ve told you about David’s father, haven’t I? Bertil has dementia, but both David and Ingrid are determined to pretend that everything is OK. They cling to Bertil’s lucid moments, blame tiredness, a cold, the wrong medication for any aberrations. Support each other in their denial while Bertil slowly disappears into his own mind. Sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. Some things are just so sad. Losing the person you love is bad enough, but to do it slowly, until all that remains is an empty shell, is almost unbearable.’
T
hey have dinner with David’s parents. The house, which is Ingrid’s childhood home, is in the middle of Tornaby, and is one of the oldest and largest in the village. Enormous garage, guest accommodation at one end of the perfectly manicured garden.
To the right of the front door hangs something that Thea recognises: a Green Man figure. This one is made of pale green hawthorn twigs instead of brambles.
‘Welcome! I was just telling Bertil how well the TV recording went.’ Ingrid hugs her with unexpected warmth. ‘You saved the day,’ she whispers in Thea’s ear. ‘But don’t tell David I said so!’
*
After pre-dinner drinks David and his mother disappear into the kitchen, leaving Thea in the library with Bertil. She doesn’t really mind. They’ve met on only a handful of occasions, but she’s fond of him.
David bears a close resemblance to his father. The same square face and well-defined nose, the same neatly trimmed beard, although Bertil’s is white and rather more sparse.
The library is spacious, with fitted shelves. One wall is covered with framed photographs, awards, pennants – so many that the wallpaper is barely visible. Most of the photographs feature Bertil with politicians, businessmen and women, and sports stars. Her father-in-law is always equally smart; he appears only occasionally without a jacket or blazer. In fact, Thea has never seen Bertil in anything other than a shirt and tie. Tonight is no exception, although he has replaced his blazer with a cardigan.
In one of the photographs ten-year-old David is standing with Ingrid outside a wintry Stockholm City Hall along with a young man in a peaked cap and an old-fashioned police uniform. This must be Ingrid’s younger brother Arne, probably on the day he qualified as a police officer. The uniform and the cap are a little too big, and hi
s moustache seems out of place on his childish face.
Christmas 1985, it says at the bottom. Only four months before Elita Svart’s death.
Thea had intended to ask David about the spring sacrifice in the car on the way over, but he was on the phone all the time, so she didn’t get the chance.
In another photograph David must be about thirty. He’s wearing his chef’s whites, standing in the doorway of his first restaurant with his arm around his mother. He looks happy – so does Ingrid. She is looking at her son with such pride.
The best picture is right in the centre of the display: Bertil and Ingrid’s wedding. They’re so young – not much more than twenty. Their faces are smooth, unmarked, but it’s the expression on their faces that moves Thea. They are gazing at each other with so much love that it still, almost forty-five years later, radiates from the frame.
A low, subtly lit display cabinet completes the collection. Cups, plates, vases, bowls, most with the date, the name of the award and some special citation engraved.
‘Look at this, Thea.’
Bertil opens the cabinet and takes out a pewter goblet. It’s not the biggest in the collection, but Thea already knows it’s the most important piece.
‘The national bridge championship in 1980,’ he says proudly. ‘We won the whole thing!’
Thea nods, giving no indication that he showed her the goblet the last time she was here.
‘Fantastic, Bertil.’
He beams, for a moment looking much younger than his sixty-nine years. Then the expression vanishes, replaced by confusion as soon as he puts the goblet back in the cabinet.
‘So how’s it going with . . .’ Bertil frowns, waves his hand.
‘The castle. Very well, I think. David’s working extremely hard.’
Bertil nods, then looks irritated, as if he didn’t mean the castle at all. He shakes his head.
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