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

‘Very little; he was pretty vague. He said he didn’t remember much, and that he’d served his time. I tried to get him to open up, but his answers became shorter and shorter, then he ended the call. However, I got the feeling that he’d started to think about what had happened. I put together a short chapter and moved on to other cases, hoping he’d come back to me in the future.’

‘And did he?’

‘Yes, but not exactly in the way I’d hoped.’ There was a brief silence on the other end of the line. ‘Leo called me a month or so after our original conversation. He was crying, and was obviously drunk. He kept saying that he loved his stepsister, and could never have hurt her.’

Thea can almost hear her heart beating.

‘I asked him to call me back when he was sober, but he never did. Instead his phone number stopped working. I finished the book, and after some hesitation I decided to include the case anyway. There weren’t many Swedish examples to choose from.’

‘Do you have an address for him?’

‘I’m afraid not – he never gave it to me. I believe he was living in the USA. That’s all I can tell you, I’m afraid.’

Thea thinks for a moment.

‘Did you ever hear that Elita Svart was pregnant when she died?’

‘No.’ Bexell sounds a little taken aback. ‘Was she? I have no recollection of that at all.’

‘I’m pretty sure she was, but the information seems to have been removed from the autopsy report.’

‘Interesting. I always had a vague feeling that not everything had come out. I actually drove down to Ljungslöv to speak to the officers who’d conducted the interviews. I really had to lean on the chief of police just to get a copy of the preliminary inquiry. Things got quite nasty towards the end; one of his heavies threatened to beat me up if I didn’t stop poking around in the case.’

Thea presses the phone closer to her ear.

‘What did he look like? Do you remember?’

‘Oh yes – it’s not often you get threatened by a cop in full uniform. He had a moustache; he was a nasty piece of work.’

‘Arne Backe?’ She can hear the agitation in her voice.

‘He never introduced himself – he just made it clear that it would be best if I got in my car and drove away, unless I wanted my balls crushed. I followed his advice,’ Bexell said dryly.

Thea tries to gather her thoughts. She has one more question.

‘Do you believe . . .’ She pauses, decides to carry on. ‘Do you believe Leo was telling the truth, that he really was innocent? After all, there were witnesses and forensic evidence.’

There is a brief silence.

‘It’s true that a lot of things pointed to him. Wasn’t some part of his uniform found at the scene?’

‘Yes, a cap badge. Plus there were hoof prints from a horse that was stabled at Svartgården, and the witnesses said they’d seen him on the horse.’

‘But those witnesses were children, and they ran away immediately, as I understand it. Except for the boy who came back, they can’t have seen much.’

‘David Nordin.’

‘That’s right, that was his name. David was the only one who said he’d seen Leo without the Green Man costume. He could easily have influenced his friends. They were interviewed together, which is highly irregular. Children have a tendency to back up one another’s stories. If one of them claimed that it was Leo they’d seen, and that person held a strong position within the group, it’s not impossible that the rest would just go along with him.’

‘So you do think Leo was innocent?’

Another silence.

‘Let me put it this way,’ Bexell says eventually. ‘I think there are certain aspects of Leo’s confession, the witness statements and the investigation as a whole that suggest he might have been.’

63

‘Do you remember the time we got a puncture out in the bush, and that bull elephant appeared? He stood and stared at us, maybe only fifteen metres away, snorting and scraping at the ground. Do you remember that sense of fascination, of danger? Then you’ll understand what I’m feeling right now.’

In her dream she is back in the cellar. At first, it’s the one from her childhood. Maybe she’s little too, little and terrified. Sitting with her back pressed up against the wall, listening to Daddy shouting on the other side of the door. Then everything changes. The cellar is older, damper. The ceiling is not made of solid concrete but of planks of wood, a small amount of light seeping through the gaps.

She can hear voices in the room above, a man and two women. She moves back and forth across the cellar floor, trying to peek between the planks, but all she can see are legs. A pair of wellingtons, two pairs of clogs.

The voices grow louder, angrier. A crash as a chair is knocked over directly above her head. She instinctively closes her eyes, protects her head with one arm.

Footsteps, shouting. Then a scream of pain.

Suddenly she is somewhere else. In the stone circle. Veils of mist hover around the ancient hawthorns. She is wearing a white dress, clutching two sets of antlers in her hands. Her feet are ice cold against the stone.

Elita Svart is standing opposite her. She looks the same as in the school photo. She has a Polaroid camera on a strap around her neck, and she is carrying a blue suitcase.

‘Who killed you?’ Thea asks.

The girl doesn’t answer; she merely gives a sad smile.

‘Who killed Elita Svart?’

Suddenly there is the sound of approaching hoof beats. The girl turns her head, fear in her eyes.

‘He’s coming,’ she whispers. ‘Be careful!’

The hoof beats come closer and closer. Become a roar, become the sound of barrel bombs ripping apart a building and the people inside it.

Thea tries to scream but her mouth is full of concrete dust. The darkness envelops her, takes her back to the cellar