Rites of Spring

10

Thea and Dr Andersson get into the Toyota. They’re going to visit a patient on the way home. Apparently Kerstin Miller used to be David’s teacher. She lives in the hunting lodge, deep in the forest. Thea tries to remember if David has ever mentioned her, but the name doesn’t ring any bells.

‘When you’re doing home visits, it’s important to press the business journey button on the sat-nav so that it matches your travel log. The foundation likes to keep an eye on its outgoings.’ She groans at the effort involved in turning her upper body as she reverses away from the centre. ‘I thought this morning went very well. I was afraid that people might be a little shy, especially with someone from Uppland, but they talked to you as if they’d known you for years. I think you’re going to fit in very well, Thea.’ She nods with satisfaction at her verdict. ‘You haven’t worked as a GP before, have you?’

‘No. I was a pathologist for a few years.’

‘What made you want to change?’

Thea shrugs. ‘I became good friends with a woman I met at a conference, and she got me into Doctors Without Borders. She convinced me I could do more good among the living.’

She stops; she has no desire to say any more about Margaux.

Dr Andersson seems satisfied with her answer. She remains silent for all of five seconds before changing the subject.

‘Ingrid and I went to school together – maybe she already told you that?’

Thea shakes her head.

‘I’ve known her and Bertil ever since we were little. Ingrid was the class organiser even back then. Bertil was a couple of years above us. He was a good footballer. And he was very handsome.’ She laughs. ‘Well, handsome for Tornaby! He looked a bit like Elvis, with eyes like velvet and wavy hair. A lot of the girls were after Bertil – much prettier girls than Ingrid, but she decided she wanted him, and all the rest just had to step aside. Even Bertil didn’t have much say in the matter.’ The doctor laughs again. ‘They were made for each other, those two. They were both strong-willed and ambitious, both with a fierce sense of responsibility. Ingrid’s father owned the general store and chaired the sports association, while Bertil’s father ran the bank and was a local councillor. The cream of the village, if you know what I mean. Ingrid was twenty-one when they got married, and David came along the following year.’

The doctor lowers her voice.

‘It could have gone very badly. Ingrid haemorrhaged – she almost died.’

‘Oh goodness – I didn’t know that.’

‘Yes, it was a close thing. Bertil sat by her side at the hospital, refused to move until she was out of danger.’

‘Is that why David’s an only child?’

The doctor nods sadly. ‘They had to perform a hysterectomy, which was very sad, because I know she’d always wanted a big family. Life hasn’t been easy for Ingrid.’

She turns to Thea with a wry smile, pauses briefly as if to let her into the conversation.

‘Anyway,’ she continues when the silence has gone on for a little too long, ‘Ingrid’s parents died when her brother Arne was in his early teens, so she and Bertil more or less brought him up. Have you met Arne?’

‘Only in passing.’

The doctor tilts her head to one side as if she’s waiting for a continuation. She looks disappointed when Thea fails to oblige.

‘Arne’s a bit . . . different. He was married for a while, to a girl from Thailand that he brought over here with her little boy. It didn’t work out, and they went back home. He took it pretty hard.’

Dr Andersson seems to have exhausted the topic, or maybe she’s finally realised that Thea isn’t going to supply her with any tasty details about David’s family.

They take a different road out of the village, past the sports ground and the school. On the common people have started building a bonfire for Walpurgis Night, but there is something unusual about this one; it has been constructed around a pole with a crossbar at the top.

‘What’s that?’ Thea asks, pointing at the structure.

‘Sorry? Oh, that’s for the Green Man. It’s a local custom – some say it came over from England with the Gordon family, but others believe it’s much older. Maybe you’ve already heard of the Green Man?’ The doctor doesn’t wait for an answer. ‘Every year the residents of Tornaby burn an effigy of the Green Man on top of the bonfire. They make it together – a bit like the midsummer maypole. You’ll see for yourself; it’s put in place on the day before Walpurgis Night. It’s really an old fertility rite, just like the fire – burning the old and the dead to make room for the new and the living.’

‘There’s an oak tree in the forest with a Green Man’s face on it,’ Thea interjects. ‘People seem to have put small gifts into its mouth.’

The doctor nods. ‘There must be half a dozen similar trees in the area. The business of the gifts or offerings is left over from pagan times, as I’m sure you know. Quite a lot of people around here make their own small Green Man figure and hang it on the door just before Walpurgis Night, so that the Green Man and his huntsmen won’t frighten their pets.’

Thea is reminded of the figure made of twigs that she found in the tin.

‘Once upon a time,’ Dr Andersson continues, ‘long before my day, they used to hold a ceremony when the Green Man was burned. A beautiful young girl was selected, and they pretended to sacrifice her to the Green Man before the bonfire was lit. I think the tradition died out at the beginning of the last century, but there are some old photographs in the Folk Museum, if you’re interested?’

The doctor is interrupted by her mobile phone. She rummages around in her pockets and manages to find the hands-free headset.

‘Hi – no, you’re not disturbing me. We’re on our way to see Kerstin Miller.’

Thea thinks about the ancient custom, small figures made of twigs, and a young woman pretending to be a sacrifice to the Green Man. This all fits with the items she found inside the Gallows Oak – but who are the children and the girl in the photograph?

They follow the same winding road they took this morning, past the drive leading up to the castle, and after a kilometre or so they reach a deciduous wood.

Dr Andersson is still on the phone to someone who is presumably her husband. She turns left onto a dirt track. The wood closes in around them. Only a narrow strip of sky is visible through the leaf canopy. Thea can see from the sat-nav that they’re crossing the marsh on the eastern side of the moat.

Dr Andersson ends the call at last. ‘By the way, Thea, I almost forgot. The district medical board rang; apparently there’s a problem with your ID number.’

Thea inhales sharply, gives her standard response.

‘My personal details are protected,’ she says as casually as she can manage. Just like the word ‘childless’, it usually puts a stop to any further questions. Not this time.

‘Oh – why’s that?’

‘My previous post with Doctors Without Borders was sensitive. We travelled to war zones, worked with people who were being persecuted for various reasons.’

Her second line of defence; few people get past this. However, Dr Andersson isn’t giving up.

‘But I thought you left several years ago?’

‘One year ago.’

‘And your details still have to be protected? You must have experienced something really terrible.’

‘Mm.’ Thea looks away, tries to show with her entire body that she doesn’t wish to discuss the matter. Fortunately the doctor takes the hint.

‘Anyway, they couldn’t carry out a search using your ID number, so you’ll have to contact them. Technically you shouldn’t take up your post until they’ve done the relevant checks, so it’s probably best if you go down to the regional office in Lund and sort it out this week.’

‘No problem.’

Thea allows herself a smile, tries to look as if it’s the simplest thing in the world. Which it is – Dr Thea Lind’s record is as pure as the driven snow.

The road twists and turns even more, with the number of puddles increasing as the marshy forest takes over. The GPS shows that they have gone around the moat and begun to follow the canal to the hunting lodge. They drive over several culverts where the ditch or narrow, slow-flowing streams take the water from the marsh to the canal at the bottom of the dip to their left.

It’s hard to work out how wide the canal is. The banks are steep and the dip itself is full of undergrowth, reeds and fallen trees; it’s difficult to see the surface of the water, let alone the far side by the forest. Thea doesn’t believe that David’s proposed floating restaurant would be able to get through.

Almost without warning the forest opens up in front of an attractive Skåne longhouse, with a thatched roof, leaded windows and red-painted shutters. A short jetty extends into the green pool that forms the end of the canal, and behind the house, among the trees, Thea can see a stable and a barn.

A small van is parked in front of the house, and a stocky man in overalls and a cap is up a ladder painting the gable end of the stable. Just above him there is an enormous set of antlers. The sun breaks through the thin leaf canopy, the shadows play across the façade and for a brief moment Thea imagines she sees a huge, terrifying creature with long legs and horns. The vision is so real that her heart skips a beat, but then the man turns around and the spell is broken.

‘Hi Jan-Olof!’ Dr Andersson calls as she gets out of the car.

The man on the ladder merely raises his brush in greeting; Thea catches a glimpse of an unshaven, fleshy face.

‘Jan-Olof Leander,’ the doctor whispers. ‘Something of a handyman around here. His mother is one of our regular patients. She’s a little . . .’

Before she can finish the sentence, the door of the house opens and Kerstin Miller emerges. She’s the same height as Thea, and her grey hair is cut in a neat bob. Her nose is red, she is wearing a bobbly old cardigan and a scarf carelessly knotted around her neck, but somehow she manages to look elegant.

‘Thea! Welcome – lovely to meet you at last,’ she says. ‘Come on in, I’ve made the tea.’

‘Thank you.’

Thea steps forward and sees that there is something hanging on the wall to the right of the door: a figure about half a metre long, made of interwoven twigs. It looks familiar.

‘Is that a Green Man?’

The question is directed at the doctor, but it is Kerstin who answers.

‘Yes – you know the legend, then. Exciting, isn’t it? I live all by myself out here in the forest, so of course I have to keep in with the Green Man. You can never be too careful,’ she says with a laugh.

Kerstin and the doctor go inside, but Thea remains on the top step. She reaches out and touches the Green Man. It’s bigger and the twigs are still green, but there is no doubt that it’s made in exactly the same way as the figure she found in the tin.

Come to the stone circle at midnight. The spring sacrifice.

She gives a start. A thorn that was hidden under the leaves has pierced her index finger so deeply that she is bleeding. She licks the little wound, then follows Kerstin and the doctor indoors.