LOVED. MISSED.
By whom?
Emee moves restlessly, whimpers. Maybe it’s the dog’s reaction that triggers something in Thea, because all at once she feels as if she’s being watched. As if someone is standing behind her, hidden in the gloom between the poplars and the wall, observing her.
She turns her head a fraction, thinks she sees a faint movement out of the corner of her eye, but when she spins around there’s no one there. The only thing that’s moving is the churchyard gate, slowly closing.
45
There are still no patients waiting when Thea returns. She unlocks the door, takes down the BACK SOON sign.
Emee pushes past her, stops dead in the middle of the room, ears pricked, sniffing the air.
Thea stops too. The dog is right; there’s something different about the surgery, a faint smell of wet clothes that isn’t coming from Thea.
Her heart rate increases. She checks the drugs cabinet, but it’s locked, and there’s nothing to suggest that anyone has tried to break in. Plus her laptop is still on the desk.
Next to the laptop is the bouquet of flowers with the welcome card from Monday. It was waiting for her when Dr Andersson unlocked the surgery, which means that other people have keys. Maybe all the keys are skeleton keys, like hers?
She sniffs, but any sense of an intruder has been replaced by the smell of wet dog.
Of course it could be Dr Andersson who’d forgotten something, or one of the ladies from the café who came looking for her. However, she can’t quite shake off the feeling of unease from the churchyard, the feeling of being watched.
She sits down at her desk. Elita Svart’s case file is in front of her, closed. Did she leave it like that?
Get a grip, Thea!
She opens the file, turns to the second interview with Elita’s father. She is disappointed to find a summary read out by the interviewer and formally accepted by Lasse Svart, rather than a transcript of the tape recording.
Lasse gave the same information that Thea has already read in Leo’s interview. He got home just after midnight, discovered the Bill and Leo were gone, found the horse in the forest, agitated and covered in mud. He washed the animal down, then went up to the house. Saw Leo limping across the yard at about two.
Lasse’s unexpected talkativeness clearly surprised the interviewer too.
When asked why he had chosen to alter his previous statement, Lasse Svart states that he does not want to see a murderer get away with his crime, and that the man who has killed his little girl must be brought to justice.
The answer sounds entirely logical, yet Thea finds it hard to believe. She tries to imagine her own father in the same situation. What would he have done if she’d been murdered? Certainly not this. He would probably have taken matters into his own hands.
The interview is dated 5 May, which means it took Lasse five days to decide to co-operate with the police. Five days – does that have any significance?
She turns back to the interviews with Leo. The one she read before taking Emee out was held the day after Lasse altered his statement. It is followed by five more in which Leo sticks rigidly to his second version, which is that he fell off the horse and never went to the stone circle.
The next change comes in the ninth and final interview, dated 27 May. By then Leo has been in custody for almost four weeks. Four weeks in a cell. What might that do to a twenty-year-old?
46
27 May 1986
Leo was woken by the racket from the cell next door, loud yelling followed by a rhythmic banging that passed through metal and concrete, causing a faint vibration in his bunk.
He shook his head, trying to clear his mind. Had he slept, and if so, for how long? Was it night or day? Day, presumably, because his neighbour usually kicked off just before lunch.
He’d requested a move several times, but had been told that the custody suite was full. A lie, along with the lie that the flickering fluorescent tube on the ceiling couldn’t be switched off.
Leo rolled over onto his side, covered his eyes with his forearm.
The sagging waterproof mattress stank of sweat and fear; it was almost impossible to find a comfortable sleeping position. Although sleeping was the wrong word. He hadn’t slept properly for several weeks. The closest he came was a grey fog in which his thoughts metamorphosed into images, faces, voices.
Did you kill her, Leo? Did you kill Elita?
‘No,’ he mumbled, and was shocked by the rasping sound of his own voice.
Elita was dead. It still felt so unreal – like a nasty joke, an absurd nightmare from which he would wake at any moment.
He could see her face in his mind’s eye, the way she’d looked the second after he’d beaten Lasse at arm wrestling. Her smile, the promises he thought he’d seen in her sparkling eyes. But he’d been mistaken.
You wanted her to run away with you, but she rejected you.
Elita toyed with your emotions. You were angry with her, weren’t you, Leo?
‘No,’ he mumbled again.
He tried to gather his thoughts, repeat the story he’d practised so many times, but it was becoming more and more difficult. The words slithered around, slid away in the fog that filled his head.
Yes, he’d been disappointed.
Yes, he’d drunk more than he usually did because he was upset. Yes, he’d made a stupid decision.
You dressed up as the Green Man, took Bill out, rode into the stone circle. We know that. We’ve matched the hoof prints. You scared the children who were there half to death.
And then, when they’d run away, you were alone with Elita.
He shook his head, tried to silence the voices.
Bill threw him off in the forest. He definitely remembered lying on the ground on his back, looking up at the treetops, a patch of sky, the moon and the stars. He could see them now, as clearly as the flickering fluorescent light.
Bill had thrown him.
But maybe he did that on the way back?
Maybe you were so shocked, so shaken by what you’d done that you lost control of the horse?
Maybe you fell so hard that you don’t remember what happened?
Maybe . . .
‘No!’ He shook his head, tried to blink away the scalding tears.
He hadn’t done it. Hadn’t done it, hadn’t . . .
. . . killed Elita. Are you absolutely certain of that, Leo? Are you sure it wasn’t you?
The images tormented him, disturbed his sleep even more than his crazy neighbour and the flickering light.
Elita on her back on the sacrificial stone. Her hands crossed over her chest, holding the antlers, her face covered with a white handkerchief.
A perpetrator covers his victim’s face because he’s ashamed, Leo. Because he can’t stand to see the victim’s eyes.
The next image was worse.
Elita’s face . . .
Beaten to a pulp. A single, powerful blow with a stone, according to the forensic pathologist. It takes real strength to cause injuries like that. You’re strong, aren’t you, Leo?
He turned over again, covered his eyes with his hands, desperate to escape the blinding light. He needed to talk to someone. His mother. When had he last heard from her? It must be at least a week ago.
No visits, no phone calls, no letters. Not since Elita’s funeral.
Why not?
Because she’s started to have doubts, Leo. Just like you. Not even your mother believes you’re innocent now. We have a witness who saw you bending over Elita on the sacrificial stone.