David laughs. ‘Yes, Dad’s always kept an eye on Arne. He was the one who got him into the police back in the day, otherwise God knows what would have happened to him.’
‘What do you mean?’
David shrugs. ‘He used to get into trouble when he was a teenager, but Dad sorted him out. He’s always been something of a father figure to Arne.’
Thea glances at Arne. He’d come rushing over to the lodge the other morning, treated Bertil with a kind of respectful reverence that can be seen in his anxious glances this evening. He’d probably do anything for Bertil, just as Ronny would for their own father.
Dad wants you to come home. Right now.
50
‘You’re right, Margaux. It’s time for me to talk about my own ghosts. About the ones I’ve left behind. About the person I once was.
‘Jenny Boman. That was my name.
‘At a different time. In a different life.’
Mum is so thin lying there in the bed, her cheekbones look as if they could pierce holes in her skin, which is almost transparent. The little hair she has left almost disappears into the pillow.
They’ve been sitting with her for half an hour, maybe more, and Dad is getting restless. Even though he is in cancer’s innermost room, he is desperate for a cigarette. One heel waggles up and down, his fingers drum on his thigh. Mum is sleeping. Her eyelids flicker like a butterfly’s wings. Her breathing is shallow.
Dad looks at his watch for at least the third time. Gets to his feet.
‘We need to go. There’s something I have to do on the way home.’
There’s always something he has to do, but no one is allowed to ask what it is. He tosses the car key to Ronny.
‘Fetch the car and I’ll see you out the front. I’m just going for a smoke.’
Ronny nods, kisses Mum gently on the cheek before he leaves the room.
Dad’s hand on her shoulder. ‘It’ll be OK, Jenny. You can always try again.’
She knows he’s trying to console her, and yet she can’t take in what he’s saying. Her head is empty. Her belly hurts.
Miscarriage. A bloody fragment in her knickers a few mornings ago. A child she didn’t even realise she was expecting.
‘I’m sure it’ll work out next time,’ Dad whispers, his breath smelling of cigarette smoke. ‘You and Jocke have your whole lives in front of you. He’s a good lad. Reliable.’
She knows what he means by that. What Jocke must have done to deserve that accolade. Dad heads for the door.
‘Are you coming, Jenny?’
‘In a minute.’
He nods, disappears into the corridor.
She goes over to her mother. Bends down and kisses her cheek. The tears are not far away. She really wants to push aside all the tubes and crawl into the bed. Be six or seven years old again, be comforted. For a moment she is on the way to becoming a child again, and Mummy is no longer dying, but young and healthy.
Then Mum opens her eyes and Jenny is back in the moment. Mum’s expression is clear, full of sorrow. She takes Jenny’s hand, squeezes it, pulls her close. Her fingers are cold and warm at the same time.
‘The life insurance,’ Mum whispers. ‘Take the money, Jenny. Get away from here. Forget about us!’
It is still dark in the bedroom when Thea opens her eyes. The only point of light is the faint glow of the nightlight by the door. It is just after five, and as usual she is wide awake.
She switches on the bedside lamp. The damp patch on the ceiling has grown, it reminds her of a handprint, its long yellow fingers reaching further and further into the room.
Mum’s words echo in her mind.
Forget about us!
Thea has tried, done her absolute best, but clearly her family haven’t forgotten her. So what should she do? Ignore them?
What if Ronny sends his next letter to David? What if David finds out that she’s lied about her background? That she isn’t an orphan after all, that she’s just a fucking . . . gyppo, like Elita Svart.
The idea that her father’s world might somehow be linked to David, the castle or Tornaby is so unpleasant that her stomach turns over. A part of her brain, a terrified part, just wants to pack a bag, leave everything behind once more. Another part is resisting. For a while longer, at least.
She picks up her phone and opens a search engine. As usual she can’t find any trace of her father. Leif stays away from the internet, he doesn’t even have a registered address. Ronny is still at the same address as usual, which doesn’t necessarily mean that he lives there. However, she’s pretty sure he does. Dad wants you to come home!
She gets out of bed and goes over to the window. Emee looks up, watching her with those grey, ghostly eyes. The forest is dark and forbidding beyond the moat.
Thea fell pregnant at nineteen. Elita Svart was only sixteen. She must have been so frightened, but would she really have planned her death if she was carrying a child?
And an equally interesting question: who was the father? Could it have been Leo? For some reason Thea doesn’t think so.
Because no secret is greater than mine . . .
What did Leo actually know? Maybe the book she ordered can throw some light on the matter, or at least help her to focus, shut down the part of her brain that is screaming at her to pack a bag.
False Confessions is a slim, stylishly written volume. The author, Kurt Bexell, lists a number of psychological mechanisms that can lead to false confessions; he also provides lots of statistics. The phenomenon of false confessions, he states, is more common among younger suspects, particularly if the crime may have been committed under the influence of drugs, and the suspect is subjected to aggressive interrogation methods combined with isolation.
Bexell goes through various cases that strengthen his hypothesis, all overseas. Thea recently saw a documentary about one of them: the police in New York got five young men to confess to a rape they hadn’t committed.
She turns to chapter twelve.
In 1986, Leo Rasmussen confessed to the brutal murder of his stepsister Elita, who was four years his junior. At the time he was only twenty. Rasmussen stated that he was drunk when the crime took place, and couldn’t remember his actions in detail. However, he flatly denied any involvement during eight interviews, and confessed only in the ninth. By then he’d been held in isolation for almost four weeks.
Rasmussen admitted killing his stepsister, and explained that he had acted in accordance with her wishes. He was convicted of manslaughter, and because of his age and the circumstances surrounding the crime he was sentenced to six years in prison. On the advice of his lawyer he decided not to appeal, since there was a significant risk that he would be handed a much longer sentence.
Rasmussen served his time, but later expressed doubt about his guilt. He claims he was subjected to enormous psychological pressure while in custody, that he was deliberately deprived of sleep, and was isolated from his family.
The witnesses who claimed to have seen Rasmussen at the scene of the crime were all children, and were initially interviewed together. This type of interrogation is against police regulations, and means that the children could have influenced one another’s testimony.
The forensic evidence in the case was largely circumstantial, and certainly not definitive. There were no blood traces or fingerprints linking Rasmussen to the crime, and no murder weapon was found.
However, no alternative perpetrator for the murder of Elita Svart was ever sought. All resources in the police investigation were immediately concentrated on Leo Rasmussen.