Rites of Spring by Anders Motte (hardest books to read txt) 📕

to silence the alarm. She’s had a dream she only partly recalls: a rider in a dark forest, and stagnant, muddy water. Hardly surprising, but she’s also dreamed about her father, which as always makes her uneasy.

Suddenly she realises she’s in David’s bed, not her own. He must have brought her phone in before he left. She stiffens, jumps out of bed and runs into her room. The file with the transcripts is under the bed. Is that where she left it last night before she went to join David? She’s not sure, but eventually manages to convince herself that she must have done.

She pushes the file into her work bag so that David won’t find it. After reading the transcript she understands why he doesn’t want to talk about Elita Svart, yet at the same time she’s keen to know more. Get even closer. She takes Emee to work with her; she daren’t leave her at home and risk her running away again. The wind seems to be blowing from several directions at the same time, lashing the side windows with rain as she drives along the narrow track between the fields.

When they arrive Emee wanders around the surgery looking miserable, but after a while she flops down on the blanket by the radiator with a loud sigh.

There are no patients waiting, which means that Thea can go back to the file. After the interviews with the four children, Elita’s mother Lola was questioned. Her responses are disjointed; presumably she was still in shock. As before the interview was recorded, then transcribed.

INTERVIEWER: What was Elita doing in the stone circle in the middle of the night?

LOLA SVART: She was the spring sacrifice.

INTERVIEWER: What does that involve?

LOLA SVART: Something old must die so that something new can rise again.

INTERVIEWER: I don’t really understand.

LOLA SVART: (INAUDIBLE MUTTERING)

INTERVIEWER: Who do you think killed her?

LOLA SVART: Him.

INTERVIEWER: Who?

LOLA SVART: The Green Man. He was the one who took her.

INTERVIEWER: Who is the Green Man?

LOLA SVART: (CRIES)

INTERVIEWER: Who is the Green Man, Lola?

LOLA SVART: (CRIES)

INTERVIEWER: Interview suspended 14.08.

The Green Man took her. What does Lola mean by that? It could, of course, be a way of dealing with the incomprehensible, because she can’t bring herself to utter Leo’s name. Or perhaps Lola has simply lost her grip on reality.

The next interview is with Eva-Britt Rasmussen, Leo’s mother.

She is more matter-of-fact, but doesn’t say much either. She and Lola both went to bed at about eleven o’clock. Lasse was out working, and Eva-Britt assumed that Elita was in her room. She didn’t see Leo, because he lived in a small cabin behind the main house.

Lasse Svart is even more taciturn in his interview, and yet Thea thinks she can read both suppressed grief and anger in the short lines. Lasse is quite hostile towards the police, but when pressed he confirms that he was in the Reftinge area, dowsing for water. He reluctantly gives the name of the farmer who asked for his help, then adds that he got home around midnight, went straight to bed and didn’t see either Elita or Leo. That’s all he has to say.

Thea recognises his attitude. The distrust of the police and the authorities – everyone outside the family, in fact. Her father was exactly the same.

There is a short interview with Kerstin Miller, who says that she went to bed just after ten on Walpurgis Night, as always. Erik Nyberg turned up at six thirty in the morning, told her the terrible news and asked to use the telephone.

Then comes the first interview with Leo. It was conducted at the police station on the evening of 1 May. Leo claims that he spent the evening alone in his little cabin, drinking. He got drunk and fell asleep, and has no memories of that night. When the interviewer asks about the scratches and bruises on his face and hands, he replies that he doesn’t remember how he got them. He insists that the last time he saw Elita was just before ten o’clock. The interviewer then states that Leo is suspected of murdering Elita Svart, which Leo denies. The interview ends.

Thea finds a total of nine interviews with Leo, but she decides not to read the rest of them until she is more familiar with the details surrounding the murder. She finds a report from the scene of the crime, and several pages of photographs. These are copies of copies, but the quality is surprisingly good.

Elita is lying on her back on the sacrificial stone. Her hands are folded across her chest. In the first picture her face is covered by a handkerchief that is sodden with dark blood. In the subsequent pictures the handkerchief has been removed, and just as Thea has already read in the doctor’s report, the upper part of Elita’s face is a bloody pulp.

She takes out the Polaroid and places it on the desk.

Elita is dressed in exactly the same way in both images. The dress, the ribbons around her wrists, the antlers, all identical. Which means that the Polaroid must have been taken on Walpurgis Night.

Thea flicks through the remaining interviews. The same names recur: Lasse, Eva-Britt, Lola and Leo. No one else. No outsiders.

A family tragedy.

She goes back to the crime scene report and reads through the summary of the forensic evidence.

The ground inside the stone circle consisted mainly of flattened grass with clearly visible hoof prints. Dogs were brought in, and a search of the terrain revealed a track with freshly broken branches and trodden-down undergrowth, heading directly east towards a ford where the canal was shallower. Again, hoof prints were found. The track continued on the other side of the canal, coming to an end when it reached the road. The technicians stated that as far as it was possible to tell, this coincided with the time of the murder, and that it involved a large horse. The animal must have been both wet and muddy after crossing