She turns on her heel and weaves her way towards the door.
‘Wait, Nettan!’ David follows her. Sebastian remains at the table. He picks up his wine glass and unexpectedly glances over at the window.
Thea steps back, but it’s too late. Sebastian has already seen her. He stiffens, stares at her for a moment, then raises his glass in a toast. He empties it and follows the others out of the dining room.
Thea leads Emee down the terrace steps. The new moon hangs above the forest, its reflection just visible in the moat. There are no lights on in Hubert’s apartment, but she sees a movement behind the curtains at one of the library windows.
She stops. The window is ajar, offering an excellent view of the terrace and dining room. Has Hubert seen her eavesdropping? Probably, but for some reason she thinks he was there because he was every bit as interested in the conversation in the dining room as she was.
56
‘Fuck, Margaux. How did I end up in the middle of this mess? That’s a good question, isn’t it? If you like it, I have plenty more.’
Thea wakes just before sunrise again. Emee is snoring on the floor next to her bed.
Thea has been dreaming, but she can’t quite remember the details. Something about her father, and horrible little Green Man figures.
She doesn’t switch on the light; she lies in the darkness trying to gather her thoughts. Is she really considering helping her father with his petition? Does she have a choice? And does she seriously think he’ll help her get closer to the truth about Elita Svart’s death?
This all began with her wanting to find out what David had gone through, hoping she could support him. It’s clear that both he and his friends are haunted by the experience. However, that explanation no longer holds water. She has become obsessed by the spring sacrifice, by what happened on Walpurgis Night 1986.
Bill’s hoof prints place Leo in the stone circle, as do his cap badge and the testimony of the children, mainly David. Leo confessed to having killed Elita, said she’d asked him to do it. So why isn’t Thea convinced of his guilt?
Two reasons, apart from what she read in False Confessions.
First of all, there’s the missing page from the autopsy report. Someone did their utmost to conceal Elita’s pregnancy, but who and why? Who was the father of Elita’s child, and how is the pregnancy linked to her death?
Secondly, Thea doesn’t believe Lasse Svart’s story. Why should he, after a life lived on the fringes of society, suddenly decide it’s his duty to speak to the police, make sure justice is done? The question seems even more apposite after yesterday’s encounter with her father. Leif would never have gone to the police, she’s sure of it. Lasse must have felt the same at the start – so what made him change his mind?
The discovery of the cap badge is also kind of strange. Why didn’t it turn up when the crime scene was first searched? According to the interviewer, it was found by a witness.
She switches on the light, takes out the folder and turns to the section marked Evidence. It takes her a few minutes to locate the right form.
The witness who found the badge was Erik Nyberg. He says he’d gone to the stone circle to clear up after the police, and that was when one of his dogs came across it.
She checks the date; Nyberg signed the form the day before Lasse Svart walked into the police station and changed his statement. So on a single day, Leo’s defence suffers two serious setbacks – setbacks which, possibly combined with Eva-Britt’s disappearance, finally make him confess.
Thea realises she hasn’t given much thought to where the Svart family actually went. She picks up her phone and googles first Lasse, then Lola, then Eva-Britt. Nothing, not even in the national address database or on Facebook. Have they left the country? Changed their names? Are they somehow living beneath the authorities’ radar?
Erik Nyberg said the count had ordered him to board up the windows and destroy the track leading to the farm as soon as it became clear that Lasse and his women were gone. But why? Why was it so urgent?
There are too many questions. The whole thing is a morass of questionable threads. She feels as if she can’t even trust the police investigation, but she is becoming increasingly certain that the truth hasn’t come out. Someone – more than one person? – has tried to simplify the narrative as much as possible.
Manipulative, extrovert girl murdered by her stepbrother. Case closed.
It would be best to forget all about it, of course. She has plenty of other things to think about, much more important than a long-dead teenager, and yet Elita Svart will not leave her in peace. The sense that their stories are intertwined has grown stronger since she was forced to go back home.
She gets up, opens the window and lights a cigarette. The air is heavy with dampness, carrying the distinct smell of the marsh. She can almost taste it.
The sun is slowly rising. Over to the north east she can just make out the marsh as a dark mass. She wonders if Svartgården is still there – beyond the fence enclosing the military range, in uncharted territory, untouched since the remains of the Svart family closed the door behind them.
She fetches her laptop and gets back into bed. Opens up Google Maps and types in ‘Bokelund castle’. The satellite image is crystal clear, showing the H-shaped main building, the coach house, the old stables. The green surface of the moat almost merges with the adjoining forest.
She zooms out, follows the canal down through the dip, all the way to the hunting lodge. The trees are so dense that she can barely make out the water and the track.
She changes to hybrid view so that the track is clearer, moves back and forth at random, looking for buildings. No luck. The marsh is too big, the vegetation too thick.
She tries a different tactic, starting from the hunting lodge and trying to identify the spot where Dr Andersson claimed that the way down to Svartgården lay. After zooming in and out for a while she thinks she’s found a route where the greenery is paler. She follows this route to the east, attempts to work out where it passes the fence surrounding the firing range, but it’s no good – she can’t see the fence, and the route itself becomes more difficult to discern. It changes direction, is interrupted by pools of water and thickets of trees, then disappears completely.
She zooms in as close as she can. It’s still difficult, but she thinks she can make out a right angle beneath the trees.
Nature abhors right angles, Margaux used to say. Abhors everything that is precise and identical. Mankind invented right angles to control that which is wild and incalculable.
Thea gets out of bed.
‘Come on, Emee – we’re going on an adventure.’
She drives across the marsh in the direction of the hunting lodge. She has three hours until the surgery opens; that should be enough.
What exactly is she planning to do? What is she hoping to find at Svartgården? She doesn’t really know. Maybe she’s looking for a fixed point in the story, something concrete that she can get hold of. Or maybe she just needs to do something, anything, to ease her frustration.
She finds the place where the old track probably ran, and manages to park the car on solid ground. She pulls on her wellington boots and lets Emee out of the car. Picks up her rucksack, which contains a torch, a bottle of water and a crowbar that she found in the tool shed behind the coach house.
After checking Google Maps again, she sets off through the marsh. Visibility is limited to ten to fifteen metres thanks to the bracken and undergrowth. The air is cold and damp; it smells of rotting wood and stagnant water.