He nods in the direction of his father, who is deep in conversation with Bertil and Ingrid.
‘Your father and Lasse Svart didn’t get along,’ Thea says, working her way back to Elita’s story.
A bark of laughter. ‘You could say that.’ Per takes a deep breath, as if he’s not too happy to be discussing the Svart family again. ‘Lasse Svart was a terrible person. He was violent towards his women and Leo. Several times he beat them so badly that they had to jump in the car and flee for their lives.’
‘Where did they go? To the police?’
‘No, no – they wouldn’t have dared.’
‘So where did they go?’
Per lowers his voice. ‘To Kerstin Miller. She was teaching Lola English.’
Thea nods, remembering that Kerstin had mentioned it.
‘Lasse wasn’t afraid of anything or anyone, but he did have some respect for Kerstin.’
‘And your father – was he afraid of Lasse?’
Another mirthless laugh.
‘I remember when the count sent us over to give Lasse notice to quit. Dad wasn’t usually nervous, but he had an old-fashioned lead cosh at home, and he slipped it into his pocket when he thought I wasn’t looking.’
‘So how did it go?’
‘It was a bit of an anti-climax in the end. Lasse yelled for a couple of minutes then drove off, so we served the papers to Eva-Britt. Then the count relented after Elita died, and said they could stay. I guess he didn’t want to seem heartless.’
Thea is taken aback; she hasn’t heard anything about this.
‘But then they suddenly disappeared,’ she says. ‘And the count was very quick to board the place up and destroy the track.’
‘Exactly. You seem to know most of the story already – you don’t need me.’ This time the laughter is slightly over the top.
‘But why did the family take off if the count had rescinded the notice to quit? If they were allowed to stay at Svartgården?’
Per shrugs. ‘I’ve no idea. As I said, Lasse Svart was a bastard. Nobody around here was sorry when he left, and nobody asked why. Anyway, it’s time for dancing!’
The big band strikes up and Per immediately offers her his hand. He’s a good dancer – very good, in fact. Occasionally he holds her a little too tightly, and she can feel Hubert’s eyes on her again. Why is he watching her like that? And what did he mean by his comment about Per? Be careful with him. Was Hubert jealous, or was this about something else?
She sees David dancing with Nettan and Sebastian with Bianca. Dr Andersson is dancing with Bertil, Ingrid with Erik Nyberg.
Thea doesn’t really like dancing, being so close to a stranger’s body. After the two dances that politeness requires, she makes her excuses. Per is obviously disappointed, and makes her promise to come back soon.
She goes out into the hallway, steps over the rope with the STAFF ONLY sign and creeps upstairs. She needs some peace and quiet to think.
Arne’s surprising confession definitely fills some of the gaps in the story, but there are still pieces of the puzzle missing. Why did the Svart family disappear? What happened to the animal masks the children were wearing? And the blue suitcase, into which she is convinced Elita had packed her best clothes?
She stops outside the bridal suite in the east wing, which was once Hubert Gordon’s schoolroom. The lonely little boy in the castle. She remembers when they sat in his library drinking coffee; he told her he’d lost someone close. She’d assumed he meant his mother, but what if it was actually Elita?
The strongest love is unrequited love.
A sound from inside the room interrupts her train of thought. A thud, as if something has fallen on the floor.
She knocks on the door. ‘Hello?’
No reply. She pushes down the handle; the door isn’t locked.
Jan-Olof is lying face down on the bed, breathing heavily. His shoes are on the floor; presumably he’s just kicked them off.
Tell everyone what happened, Bertil. Tell them, for fuck’s sake!
She thinks about the words he yelled out during Bertil’s speech, before Arne managed to get him out of the dining room.
After thirty years, Jan-Olof is still tormented by Elita’s death. He’s not the only one. David, Nettan and Sebastian can’t shake off Elita’s ghost either. Arne, who’s kept a Polaroid photograph of her. Bertil, who wanders around in the forest by the stone circle. Erik Nyberg, who is worried about what Bertil might let slip. Not to mention the person who secretly donated money for the grave, and still lays flowers on it. And then there’s Hubert and his poetry book.
Tell everyone what happened, Bertil.
Tell them what? What is it that hasn’t come out? What secrets is Bertil keeping, and whose are they?
She recalls Hubert’s strange behaviour this afternoon when she returned the poetry book. The open door of the old chapel. Hubert rarely leaves his wing, but tonight the hermit is out of his cave. Which means that the cave and any secrets it might hold are unguarded.
She glances up at the loft hatch. The ladder the builder was using has been left in a corner. She puts her handbag on the table and takes out her phone. Carries the ladder over, opens it out and places it beneath the hatch, then slips off her shoes.
78
‘Everyone seems to be hiding something, Margaux. They’re all stuck in a mire of lies and half-truths. And high above them floats Elita Svart.’
Thea has already begun to regret her impulse when she clambers into the loft. The darkness, the smell, the frightening thought of bats. She can still hear the music from the dining room, mingled with Jan-Olof’s faint snores, which makes the whole thing feel even odder.
The torch on her phone illuminates only a few metres at a time, so she has to move cautiously. The wooden floor creaks beneath her feet, and she has to duck under thick beams that must have been here for centuries.
She glimpses a silhouette; she directs the beam at the figure and sees a chalk-white, distorted female face.
Thea gasps, then realises it’s the statue of the saint that David mentioned. A woman with her hands clasped in front of her and two gaping holes where her eyes should be. It looks as if it’s several hundred years old. The wood is cracked, the colours faded. It’s about one and a half metres tall, and is standing on a square plinth. ST LUCIA, it says at the bottom. Not exactly the usual dressed-in-white-with-candles-in-her-hair version.
The statue is surrounded by a number of items which presumably come from the chapel. Two crosses, a couple of tall candlesticks and a large wooden chest. Beyond them she finds what she’s looking for: a hatch just like the one she came up through. The bridal suite’s position in the east wing matches that of the chapel in the west wing, which should mean that the hatch will lead her there.
She is right. The windows are covered and the torch on her phone isn’t strong enough to enable her to see much more than the stone floor directly below the hatch, but it’s obviously the chapel. The drop is around three metres, and if she hangs by her hands she should be able to jump down. She’s not very heavy, her arms are strong and she’s pretty fit. However, it will be considerably more difficult to get back up.
She turns the beam this way and that, hoping to spot something that she’ll be able to stand on, but the darkness swallows the light and all she can see are silhouettes – presumably statues like the one in the attic. She must either take a chance and risk being locked in the chapel, or return to the dinner without having accomplished her mission.
Neither alternative appeals to her, but she might not get another opportunity. Hubert is hiding something, she’s sure of it. Something that might be in the darkness below her.