He was about halfway across when he slipped, pitched forward, hit his head on the tree and dropped both the torch and the ghetto blaster. He heard the splash as the black water swallowed them up; he scrabbled wildly at the slippery surface to stop himself from following them. If he fell he would sink deep into the stinking mud, just like in his nightmare. The thought made his body begin to shake uncontrollably. His mouth was filled with the taste of iron.
Pull yourself together, for fuck’s sake.
He heard the sharp crack of a branch breaking in the forest behind him. Was someone there? Someone who’d seen him, seen what he’d done? Someone who was following him . . .
Arne managed to get up on all fours. Crawled along the fallen tree with trembling arms and legs until he reached the other side. He staggered up the slope to the car, fumbling for his key. His hand was shaking so much he had difficulty unlocking the door.
He slumped down on the driver’s seat, pressed the button to lock the car and managed to pull off the heavy binoculars; the strap was cutting into his neck. The relief at having reached safety was so great that he was close to tears again.
After a while he looked up and saw his reflection in the rear-view mirror. Jesus. His face was streaked with dirt, his lips were swollen, a huge graze covered one cheek. When he raised his left hand to rub away the worst of the mud, he saw several rusty-red stains on the cuff of his shirt.
Blood.
Elita Svart’s blood.
The nausea overcame him again. He covered his mouth with his hand and just managed to get the door open before the contents of his stomach spurted out between his fingers. Now his mouth was filled with the taste of shame.
He really ought to switch on the police radio, call it in, get his colleagues over here and tell them what had happened. But if he did that, his life would be smashed to pieces. All those who’d fucked him around, called him Downhill Arne, would be proved right. Bertil and Ingrid wouldn’t be able to hold their heads up for the rest of their lives.
He had to get out of here, right now. Get as far away as possible from this terrible place. Cover his tracks.
The fact that the ghetto blaster had his name on it was unfortunate, but he didn’t think it would ever be found. The canal was several metres deep, and by now it must be buried in the mud, along with his police-issue torch.
The car started immediately. His right hand had turned into a swollen blob, but he managed to push the gear stick with his knuckles. He put his foot down.
But where the hell could he go? In six hours this car had to be at the station in Ljungslöv, spotlessly clean. It was also his job to make the coffee ready for morning briefing at eight o’clock, then sit at the back of the room, smartly dressed and with some kind of reasonable explanation for his injuries.
Elita’s body would be found, there would be a murder inquiry. A team from Helsingborg would move in. He had to think, had to work out what the fuck . . .
The animal appeared in the headlights right in front of the car; Arne’s heart almost stopped. For a second it felt as if time had done the same. He could see the animal hanging in the air. Slender legs, a powerful, dark body, like something from his nightmares.
Somehow he managed to swerve to the side. The right-hand wheels chewed up a considerable part of the ditch before he was able to get the Saab back on the track. He stared in the mirror, but the animal had disappeared into the forest.
It must have been ten seconds before Arne realised what he’d almost hit. Not an imaginary creature, but a black horse with no saddle, reins dangling. A black horse with a white sock on one hind leg. The same horse he’d seen just a few hours earlier in the paddock at Svartgården.
Suddenly a thought began to take shape in his head. It grew bigger and stronger the further he got from the marsh. Things he’d seen and heard during the day came together, and a crystal clear picture emerged of what he’d actually seen at the stone circle.
And he knew what had to be done. What he had to do.
44
Thea can’t find the phone at first, she fumbles around on the bedside table for a while before she manages 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.