Rites of Spring

by Anders de la Motte

  ‘Come on, Leo!’ Elita called out again, and her voice sent a shard of ice into Arne’s heart.

  Leo repeated the manoeuvre. Lasse stopped grinning and frowned as doubts began to creep in. He couldn’t believe what was happening. Leo continued to move his body to the side, and Lasse did his utmost to stop their hands from doing the same. Sweat was pouring down his face, and a prominent vein was throbbing at his temple. Leo did it again.

  One of Lasse’s nostrils twitched, his hand began to tremble and then slowly, slowly sank towards the table. Arne held his breath. There wasn’t a sound in the little kitchen, as if everyone there had realised that something incomprehensible was happening.

  The colour drained from Lasse’s face and his eyes were transformed into two pieces of coal. He drew back his lips, exposing all his teeth, and the vein at his temple looked as if it was about to burst. However, his resistance was futile. Leo’s technique forced Lasse closer and closer to inevitable defeat.

  Lasse leaped to his feet and overturned the table, sending the moonshine, cups and cake flying. The three terrified women pressed themselves against the worktop. Leo got to his feet, showing no sign of fear. He was a head taller than Lasse, and at least as muscular, but in spite of this Arne thought Lasse was about to attack the younger man. He probably ought to do something to calm the situation; after all, he was a police officer. Then again, that cocky little soldier boy deserved a beating.

  Lasse stepped forward, fist raised. Leo still didn’t have the wit to be scared. Instead he clenched his fists, lowered his chin and bent his knees; he knew exactly what he was doing.

  At the last second Lasse realised the same thing. He dropped his arm and produced a large flick knife from somewhere. Released the blade with one thumb.

  Someone gasped, and out of the corner of his eye Arne saw that Lola and Eva-Britt’s faces were rigid with fear. Elita, however, was looking from Lasse to Leo and back again, seemingly unaware of Arne’s presence. The kitchen stank of spilt booze.

  Lasse tightened his grip on the knife. ‘You little fucker! You come back here thinking you’re something – this is my fucking house!’

  Arne had to do something.

  ‘OK,’ he began in his most authoritative tone of voice. He stepped forward, positioning himself between the two men. ‘Let’s all calm down, shall—’

  ‘Shut the fuck up!’ Lasse yelled.

  Arne recoiled as if he’d been punched, but stood his ground. One foot had landed in the remains of the cake, and the alcohol fumes were making the membranes in his nose smart. What the fuck was he supposed to do now? His baton was still in the car, and it would take too long to draw his gun.

  He heard the dogs barking outside, followed by the sound of an engine.

  This seemed to bring Lasse to his senses. In a second he flicked the blade shut and slipped the knife into his pocket.

  ‘Get this mess cleaned up!’ he shouted at the women, who didn’t move a muscle.

  He gave Leo one last filthy look, pushed past Arne without so much as a glance, and slammed the door behind him.

  20

  ‘I’m sure you’re wondering what it is about this story that fascinates me, Margaux. Why I’m so interested in something that happened over thirty years ago.

  ‘I’d like to say it’s for David’s sake, because whatever went on back then, it still torments him. I want to help him, just as he helped me.

  ‘But that’s not the whole truth. There’s another reason, but you’ll have to be patient for a while longer. Wait until I’ve gathered the courage to tell you.’

  T

  hea wakes early, as always. It’s just before four; Emee is asleep on the floor next to her bed. The nightlight is on. The moonlight seeps through the blind, drawing a pattern of stripes on the ceiling. Thea gazes up at it, following the lines. She notices a small patch of damp where the wall meets the ceiling. Best not to mention it to David, at least not at the moment. He’s got enough to think about. Things she could never have imagined.

  Poor child. You must never tell anyone. Never, never, never . . .

  What did Bertil mean by that? What was it that must never be told, and why had he reacted so strongly to Elita’s name?

  She takes out her phone, opens a search window and enters ‘Tornaby 1986 murder’. She finds articles from various Skåne newspapers that have been scanned in; they don’t tell her much more than she already knows.

  The reporting seems to have died down pretty quickly after the lurid headlines of the first week. Words such as ‘ritual murder’, ‘sacrificial rites’ and ‘child killer’ are replaced by the significantly less charged ‘family tragedy’ and ‘sibling drama’. The size of the typeface clearly shows how interest has waned. Olof Palme had been assassinated only two months earlier, and the twists and turns into the investigation still preoccupied almost every media outlet.

  However, one of the tabloids does try to squeeze the last little bit out of the story by running a summary piece with the headline:

  SPRING SACRIFICE VICTIM MADE BROTHER KILL HER!

  The article is illustrated with photographs of both Elita and her stepbrother. Leo seems to be in uniform; his hair is cropped, and his eyes are covered with a black rectangle that is theoretically supposed to protect his identity. The image is grainy, but Thea can make out a straight nose and a square chin.

  Elita is smiling confidently in what is presumably a school photo. She looks very different from the girl in the Polaroid. Bolder, angrier in a way that Thea recognises all too well.

  Elita is referred to throughout as the sacrificial victim, while Leo is either the stepbrother or the elite soldier. The writer revels in the details surrounding Elita’s death, and much is made of the fact that she left behind a letter in which she said she was planning her own death.

  The last article Thea can find is from August 1986, a brief report stating that the court in Helsingborg had convicted Leo of murder and sentenced him to six years in jail, but that the sentence had been reduced because he was only twenty years old and was heavily influenced by his stepsister. Then nothing. The press pack has moved on, and no one cares about a dead gypsy girl anymore.

  She switches off her phone, lies back on her pillow and closes her eyes.

  Fucking gyppo . . .

  She was twelve years old when the word was spat in her face for the first time. A boy yelled it at her in the school playground after he’d asked her to be his girlfriend and she said no.

  Admittedly she’d heard whispers about her family before, but there was something about that particular word that made her flinch. It hit her hard, even though she wasn’t really sure what it meant.

  Ronny had beaten the shit out of the kid the next day. Her big brother dealt with everyone who used that word. Not that it helped.

  Ronny never understood that the more violently he tried to fix things, the worse they would get. The word became branded into his skin until it was impossible to remove, like an invisible tattoo that marked him for life.

  It would be many years before she did anything about the situation, but she’d already realised what she had to do.

  Before you can become the person you want to be, you have to get rid of the person you are.

  21

  Walpurgis Night 1986

  I know that Eva-Britt is worried about Leo too. She’s done her best to keep us together, while keeping Lasse and Leo apart, but it’s getting more and more difficult. The walls and the ceiling in the house are closing in. We are heading for a catastrophe, if no one does anything to stop it. If no one sacrifices himself or herself.

  Walpurgis Night is fast approaching. You haven’t forgotten what’s going to happen, have you? How this story ends for Elita Svart?

  E

  verything had gone exactly as Leo had hoped. The bitter coffee burned in his belly as he stood there in the middle of the kitchen, his head buzzing with intoxication and pride. He’d broken the spell, shown them all that it was possib
le to defeat Lasse Svart.

  Now he wanted to speak to Elita alone, tell her about the cottage, show her the key. Tell her that it was all for real, that they could leave, just as he’d promised her before he went off to join the army.

  Unfortunately, after Lasse had walked out and slammed the door, Lola had run upstairs and Elita had followed her, leaving only Leo and his mother in the kitchen.

  ‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ Eva-Britt whispered as she fastened the top button of his shirt and straightened his tie.

  ‘Why not? I’ve been practising all winter. One of the guys in my platoon is a Swedish champion in arm wrestling.’

  Eva-Britt shook her head. ‘Lasse’s dangerous. You need to be careful – you saw the knife!’

  Leo snorted. ‘He was only trying to scare me. Have you ever seen him stab someone?’

  Eva-Britt didn’t reply.

  ‘I’m not scared of Lasse,’ Leo went on. ‘Not anymore.’ He placed his hands on his mother’s shoulders. ‘And you and Lola and Elita don’t need to be afraid either. We can take the car and leave right now, all four of us. One of my comrades has a cottage outside Ystad that we can borrow. Elita and I have already talked about it. I’ve got the key in my duffel bag. It’s all set up.’

  Eva-Britt removed his hands, glanced around with a worried look on her face.

  ‘Don’t say that. Lasse will never let us go. You and me maybe, but not Lola, and definitely not Elita. He would never allow it – never! He’d rather kill both of you.’

  22

  ‘By the way, do you remember the man in the window that I mentioned earlier? Hubert Gordon – he lives in the west wing. A strange man with a strange story. Or rather a sad story, maybe. You can make up your own mind, Margaux. There are many stories here, if you just scrape beneath the surface.’

  D

  r Andersson picks her up just before eight. Thea couldn’t get back to sleep; she cannot shake off the tale of Elita Svart and her fate.

  Did Elita persuade her stepbrother to kill her? Did she really have that kind of power over him? And why would a pretty sixteen-year-old with her whole life in front of her want to die on a cold stone?

  The whole thing reminds her of a jigsaw puzzle. She already has a picture of what it will look like in the end; the challenge is to put together the pieces. Although of course this story is something very different from a five-thousand-piece Ravensburger.

  ‘I thought we’d call on Erik Nyberg,’ the doctor says when they’ve turned onto the main road. ‘He’s diabetic and is having problems with the sight in one eye. He still refuses to slow down, so I drop by occasionally, check his levels and make sure he’s taking his medication properly. Erik is the biggest farmer in the area, but these days it’s his son Per who runs Ängsgården.’

  Per Nyberg, the smiling man with the tractor. Thea thinks back to last night’s incident, which she has absolutely no intention of sharing with Dr Andersson.

  Out here in the country we help each other. We keep each other’s secrets.

  ‘Oh yes, I think David’s mentioned him,’ she lies. ‘Something to do with the castle, maybe?’

  The question is innocent and so vague that it could be referring to almost anything. Dr Andersson doesn’t need any more encouragement.

  ‘That’s right, the Nybergs take care of the estate – they mow the grass, cut the hedges, clear the snow when necessary. They’ve done it ever since the foundation took over Bokelund. Per’s a good boy. Well, I say boy – Erik’s seventy-five, so Per must be in his fifties. He’s a bit of a local celebrity.’

  ‘Oh?’

  The little nudge is unnecessary. Dr Andersson is in full flow; all Thea needs to do is sit quietly and listen.

  ‘Yes indeed! Per plays the guitar and sings in his spare time – he travels all over the area. He’s good – I’ve heard some of his songs on the local radio. Per and the little count are childhood friends too, of course.’

  Thea has heard the nickname before, but the doctor misinterprets her silence.

  ‘The little count – Hubert Gordon. I thought you knew each other. You’re neighbours up at Bokelund, after all.’

  ‘I have seen him, but only from a distance. He tends to stay in the west wing.’ Thea thinks back to the night of the storm.

  ‘Yes, Hubert is something of a loner. Most people feel sorry for him – a lodger in his own castle. I assume you know the story?’

  Thea doesn’t even need to answer. The doctor turns onto a dirt track between green fields; several large buildings are visible over by the edge of the forest.

  ‘The old count, Rudolf Gordon, married late; he was almost fifty when Hubert arrived. Unfortunately the boy bore no resemblance to his father, either in his appearance or character. Rudolf sent him to the best boarding schools in England, determined that Hubert should carry on the family traditions, but poor Hubert was a dreamer, and had issues with his nerves, like his mother. Rudolf gradually came to realise that his son wasn’t cut out to run a large estate, with all that entails.’ The doctor shook her head. ‘In the early Nineties, when Rudolf’s health began to fail, he set up the Bokelund Foundation and transferred the castle and most of the grounds. He also gave several hundred acres of land to the Åkerlunda monastery. Rudolf was a Catholic – I believe there’s a small chapel in the castle?’

  The doctor raises her eyebrows, making it clear that this is a question.

  ‘Maybe. In which case it must be in the west wing; I’ve never been in there.’

  They arrive at Ängsgården, passing a row of well-kept stables and storage sheds.

  ‘Anyway,’ Dr Andersson says. ‘When Rudolf died in 1994, Hubert received only a small amount of money plus the right to use a number of rooms in one wing of the castle for the rest of his life. Oh, there’s Erik.’

  She nods in the direction of the farmhouse where an elderly man is leaning on a stick at the top of the steps. He is wearing dark glasses, a scruffy moleskin jacket and trousers that don’t match.

  ‘He was the old count’s administrator for many years – one of the few people Rudolf trusted. He’s been the treasurer of the foundation ever since the start.’

  Erik raises a hand in greeting as they get out of the car. ‘Welcome.’ His voice is rough. ‘Erik Nyberg.’ The dark glasses hide his eyes, yet Thea immediately has the feeling that he’s examining her very closely.

  *

  Erik is small and sinewy, and there is an innate dignity about him. He’s polite, but doesn’t say any more than he has to.

  The house smells of cleaning fluid. The wellington boots and clogs by the kitchen door are in a dead straight line. Erik Nyberg seems to be the kind of man who gets things done – and done in the right way.

  He sets out coffee and cake while the doctor chats to him. The kitchen is warm. On one wall there is a tapestry of a Bible quotation, while on the others small oil paintings depict English fox-hunting scenes with horses and dogs.

  When they are seated at the table a red-and-white spaniel appears and shows a great interest in both Thea and Dr Andersson’s shoes and trouser legs. The dog is well-trained and obeys its master’s slightest gesture. Thea sees an opportunity to get Erik to open up.

  ‘I’ve got a dog too – a street dog I brought back from Syria.’

  ‘Oh?’ Erik sounds interested.

  ‘Her name is Emee. She looks a bit like a cross between a greyhound and a dingo.’ Margaux’s description; not very flattering, but fair. ‘My colleague and I found her in a ditch outside Idlib. She was badly emaciated, so we took turns to feed her with milk substitute whenever we were off duty. We hadn’t intended to keep her, but as soon as she’d recovered, she started to follow us wherever we went.’

  Or Margaux, at any rate, she adds to herself.

  ‘What colour is she?’ Erik asks.

  ‘Grey – both her coat and her eyes. Like a ghost. Emee means ghost in the Yoruba language, which is spoken in Nigeria.’

  She stops herself, leaves
out the fact that she and Margaux first met in Nigeria. Sixteen years ago now . . . She pushes aside the thought.

  ‘A street dog, you say? And she looks like a ghost.’ Erik leans forward, full of curiosity. ‘How did you get her into Sweden?’

  Thea describes the import procedure, doesn’t say that it was David who flew down and took care of all the practicalities while she lay in a hospital in Cyprus. Or that she remembers very little of the time immediately after the bombing.

  The story clearly interests Erik. His initial reserve has gone, and he chats away as if they’ve known each other for a long time.

  ‘How did you get on the other night?’ he asks. ‘Any damage from the storm?’

  Thea tells him about the lightning strike and the power outage.

  ‘We once talked about getting both lightning rods and a reserve generator,’ Erik says. ‘But the count decided it was too expensive. Rudolf didn’t like spending money. We have both here on the farm; it would be too risky to do without. Most of our operations are mechanised nowadays – feeding, mucking out, the machinery. You can never be too careful.’

  ‘So shall we start the examination, Thea?’ Dr Andersson opens her bag and hands Thea the blood pressure cuff.

  Thea wraps it around Erik’s arm; he needs no encouragement to keep the conversation going.

  ‘Have you and David settled into the coach house?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘That’s good. I’m looking forward to seeing what David does with the castle. How’s his father, by the way? I haven’t bumped into Bertil for a long time.’

  ‘He has good days and bad days,’ Thea answers truthfully. She thinks about how upset he’d become during dinner, and feels a pang of guilt at having caused it by bringing up Elita Svart.

  ‘Growing old is no picnic,’ Erik mutters. ‘Alzheimer’s, isn’t it?’

  Thea doesn’t reply. David’s father isn’t her patient, but she still prefers not to discuss other people’s medical conditions.