Suddenly he felt sick. Everything was going downhill. He was going downhill. And it was all because of her. Elita Svart. He ought to get out of here. Right now, before it was too late.
He looked at his watch. The luminous hands showed eleven thirty. Time to make a decision.
He took one last swig, then put the container back on the seat beside him. Took his binoculars out of the glove compartment, then opened the car door and stepped out into the night.
34
‘OK, I admit it. I’ve become completely obsessed with the mystery of Elita Svart. A dead girl whose spirit seems to hover over the area, even though her house was boarded up the day after her funeral. A dead girl whom nobody wants to talk about, yet someone still lays flowers on her grave.’
The drive to Lund takes just under an hour in the morning traffic, which gives Thea the opportunity to consider the events of the previous day.
Why are Erik Nyberg and Arne so interested in what Bertil might have said? The broken blood sugar monitor was clearly an excuse; Erik wanted to question Thea about her father-in-law. How did he even know that Bertil had been in the forest that morning? Was it Kerstin who’d told him, or Arne? Or someone else?
One thing she is sure of: there is something going on around her that everyone is trying to hide. Something to do with Elita’s death, but she still can’t see the pattern.
A friendly clerk in the regional office deals with her declaration. Fortunately he doesn’t ask any questions about her protected ID; he simply taps away on his keyboard.
‘There you go, all done. I’m sorry you had to come down, but now everything’s updated on our system. Sometimes there’s a bit of a mismatch between hard copies and digital documents.’
‘No problem – it’s nice to get it sorted.’
Thea is struck by a thought as she reaches the door.
‘By the way, I was looking for some patient notes the other day, but they haven’t been digitised. Do you happen to know where I can access a copy?’
‘Absolutely. All documentation is stored in the regional archive, which is only ten minutes from here. I can tell you how to get there if you like.’
The regional archive in Lund turns out to be housed in an enormous complex called the Archive Centre, which occupies an entire block on an industrial estate on the edge of the city.
On the way, Thea has had time to think about what she’s doing. Requesting the notes of a person who is not her patient isn’t allowed, strictly speaking, and there is a risk that she will get a flat refusal. However, the archivist on reception is unexpectedly helpful, possibly because Thea is a doctor and the notes are so old. Whatever the reason, he raises no objections.
‘Take a seat on the sofa – this could take a while,’ he says before disappearing through a door.
Thea fetches a cup of coffee from the machine, then settles down with a magazine. The archivist returns after about fifteen minutes.
‘I’m so sorry – I can’t find the notes you wanted.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’m afraid I don’t know. We have very strict rules on how items are archived. Of course things end up in the wrong place occasionally, but my guess is that these notes were never sent over from the clinic in Ljungslöv.’
‘But isn’t that compulsory?’
‘Well yes, but we handle millions of documents every year. No one would notice if one set of notes goes missing – unless someone asks for them.’
‘You mean like now?’
He nods. ‘Once again, I’m sorry. Anything else I can help you with?’
Thea is about to say no when she notices an information board on the wall, listing all the types of documentation held in the archive.
‘What about court cases?’
‘Yes – anything that took place within the district of Skåne before 1990. For anything after that date you’d have to contact the relevant court directly. Or the police.’
‘I’m interested in a police investigation and the subsequent court case from 1986.’
‘That shouldn’t be a problem.’
It’s almost midday when the archivist returns with a thick blue file under his arm.
‘There you go. We have private areas if you’d like to read it in peace?’
Thea checks her work phone and her own. No calls from patients or from David. The surgery is closed today, so she has plenty of time.
‘Please – that would be good.’
He shows her to one of several glass cubicles. Lingers for a little too long until she almost exaggeratedly thanks him for his help.
‘No problem – just let me know if you want anything copied.’
There must be a hundred documents in the file. The verdict is at the front, so she begins with that.
It states in formal language that the court sentences Leo Rasmussen to six years’ imprisonment for the murder of Elita Svart, and that this term is significantly reduced because of the fact that he was only twenty years old at the time of the offence, and that he was also ‘heavily influenced by his stepsister’.
This is followed by a summary of the reasons for Leo’s conviction, namely his own confession and forensic evidence linking him to the scene. He was also identified by four witnesses. As Thea had already guessed, these witnesses are David, Nettan, Sebastian and Jan-Olof.
She turns to the police investigation – pages and pages of typewritten records of interviews and handwritten notes that will take her many hours to go through. The initial report was made by the first officer on the scene. It describes how Elita’s body was found on the sacrificial stone in the middle of the circle on the morning of 1 May. The body was lifeless, the face covered by a white handkerchief. It was immediately clear that she had been killed, and the area was cordoned off to allow for a crime scene investigation to take place. Erik Nyberg and Bertil Nordin were present; they were the ones who contacted the police.
Thea looks up from her reading. So Erik and her father-in-law were at the scene together, before the police arrived. She raises an eyebrow and continues.
As she was hoping, there is a short interview with both men. Bertil says that he was on his way home from a Walpurgis Night party at the community centre and met David and his three friends, shocked and terrified. They told him that something terrible had happened to Elita at the stone circle. Bertil initially thought it was a joke, but his wife persuaded him to check out the situation. He called Erik Nyberg, who was responsible for the castle estate; there had been problems in the past with teenagers and unplanned Walpurgis celebrations. Erik set off to investigate.
Erik states that he arrived at the stone circle just after six o’clock in the morning and found what he thought was a pile of clothes on the sacrificial stone. Only when he came closer did he realise that it was a body. He hurried to the nearest telephone, which was in the hunting lodge.
Thea thinks about that; he must have told Kerstin Miller about his horrific discovery, which explains why she seems so invested in the tragedy.
After contacting the police, Erik called Bertil Nordin, who arrived shortly before the police. Neither of the men saw anyone else near the scene of the crime.
Thea turns to the post-mortem report from the duty doctor called to the scene to pronounce Elita dead. Severe damage to the os frontale, ossa nasalie, maxilla and os zygomaticum, which in plain language means that someone has violently smashed the poor girl’s face. She wonders if David and his friends saw it happen. Saw the terrible injuries.