Rites of Spring

54

The prison looks nothing like the institution Thea had imagined. No walls, no watchtowers, no steel gates. Just a simple fence enclosing a number of red two-storey buildings.

The visitors’ room smells of coffee and cinnamon buns. The walls are painted in a familiar shade of hospital orange.

Everything becomes clear when her father shuffles slowly into the room. He is gaunt, his clothes hanging off him, eyes sunken, his skin so thin that she feels as if she can see the blood vessels through it.

Before she went in she hung around in the car park for at least ten minutes. Smoked four cigarettes and tried to gather her courage. Not that she succeeded. She has broken out in a cold sweat, her mouth is as dry as dust and she is sitting on her hands to stop them shaking.

He stops by the table. Thea isn’t sure whether to stand up. Chooses to remain seated.

‘So here you are. The runaway. The lost child.’ His voice is hoarser than she remembers.

‘Hi, Leif.’ It’s the best she can come up with. She is surprised that her own voice holds.

He pulls out a chair and sits down. It is clearly an effort. The weight loss, the skin taut over his scalp, the little tufts of hair – they all tell the same story. Chemotherapy. Cancer. Poor prognosis.

His smile makes him look like a grinning skull.

‘I searched for you, little Jenny. Wondered where you’d gone with my money. I left no stone unturned, from Ystad in the south to Haparanda in the north.’

Thea stays silent. Tries to stop her hands from trembling.

‘Imagine my surprise when I got a call from an old friend, telling me he thinks he’s seen you on TV. Says you’re a doctor, married to a man who owns a castle.’

‘David doesn’t have any money,’ Thea says as firmly as she can. ‘The castle doesn’t belong to him.’

‘Oh, you want to get straight to the point. Fine, let’s do that.’ He leans forward, fixes his gaze on her. Thea swallows hard. ‘I trusted you. Let you take care of my affairs. And what thanks did I get? You stole from me.’

‘It was our money. Mum . . .’

‘Your mother was an idiot,’ he snaps. ‘A stupid woman. You, on the other hand . . . you were smart. You knew how to get people exactly where you wanted them. Ronny, Jocke, even me.’ He shakes his head. ‘I had such high expectations of you, Jenny. But you let me down. Let your family down.’

He coughs a couple of times.

‘But the past always catches up with us sooner or later, doesn’t it?’

She doesn’t answer. For some reason she can’t take her eyes off his hands. They used to be rough and hard, now they look like thin birds’ claws. The backs are covered in brown liver spots, the nails are clean.

She and Ronny used to be so scared of those hands.

‘And now you’re living in a castle,’ he goes on. ‘In a lovely little village, with a lovely little husband. But no children? Why not?’

She shrugs. ‘Because I didn’t want any.’

‘Aha. You don’t like being tied down. You don’t want the responsibility of being a parent. The disappointment you risk when your child lets you down.’

She knows he’s trying to provoke her, and yet she can’t help taking the bait.

‘Or maybe I didn’t want to risk the child inheriting your genes.’

His mouth twitches, then the death’s head grin returns.

‘Sometimes I think about how different things would have been if you hadn’t lost Jocke’s child.’

Thea doesn’t speak. She has no intention of pursuing that particular topic.

‘Poor Jocke – he was completely devastated when you left. He’d believed the two of you were going to get married. I was planning on giving you the house next door to Ronny’s, so that the whole family could be together. You and me, Jocke, Ronny and all the grandchildren.’

‘What do you want from me, Leif?’ She is surprised at how calm she sounds.

Scorn is written all over his face.

‘Thea Lind. A fine name, much more elegant than Jenny Boman. A perfect name for the lady of the castle.’

He coughs, more violently this time. He takes out a handkerchief, wipes his mouth, leaving a blob of yellow sputum at one corner of his lips.

‘Did you know that I worked at a castle when I was a boy? From the age of twelve. In the stables. I had to groom the horses, clean their hooves, muck out – all the jobs the fine folk didn’t want to do themselves. I liked horses. The owner used to give me riding lessons sometimes, and he’d slip me a bit of extra cash now and again. One Christmas he and his wife came to our house with two bags of second-hand clothes for me and my brothers and sisters. Playing Lord and Lady Bountiful.’

He clears his throat, spits into the handkerchief. A dark stain appears on the white cotton.

‘Do you know what my father did?’

She shakes her head.

‘He burned the lot in the back garden. Beat the crap out of me and forbade me from ever setting foot in that fucking stable again. People like that look down on the likes of us, he said. They can smell us, like dog shit on the sole of your shoe.’

He points at her with a skinny finger.

‘The same thing will happen to you, Jenny. You can do your best to try and scrape us off the sole of your shoe; you can change your name, lose your accent, pretend to be someone you’re not. But sooner or later people will smell you. Expose you.’

He sits up a little straighter. ‘Unless someone else gets there first, of course.’

‘You, for example.’

‘This is an open prison. I can move around freely, call whoever I want, use the internet. One well-aimed Facebook post is all it would take for your husband to get a whole lot of unwanted publicity around his restaurant project. Married to the daughter of a convicted criminal . . . well, you can imagine.’

She takes a deep breath, holds it for a few seconds. Her head is pounding.

‘What do you want? I’ve already told you we don’t have any money.’

He leans back, watches her for a little while.

‘As I’m sure you’ve realised, I’m sick. Lung cancer. The doctors have given me four months, six at the most. I want to die in my own home, in my own bed, not in the cheap fucking sheets of the criminal justice system.’

He pushes the handkerchief into his pocket.

‘I want someone to write me a petition for a reprieve. Not some fancy lawyer, but someone who knows me, who can explain why I ought to be allowed to die in freedom. A reliable citizen with a snow-white past.’

Thea places her hands on the table. They’ve stopped shaking. At last she knows what he wants.

‘And you think I’m going to do that?’

He reaches out, rests one hand on hers. His long fingers are ice-cold.

‘You’re still my little girl, Jenny, in spite of everything. Whether you like it or not.’

She slowly withdraws her hands.

‘And if I do it, you’ll leave me and David in peace?’

He winks at her. ‘Maybe. You’ll just have to trust me, Jenny. You don’t have a choice.’

She goes through the scenario in her head. A petition for a reprieve is presumably a matter of public interest, a traceable document that will reveal that she’s his daughter, even if he keeps his word. She needs to play for time. Time to think things over, work out a plan.

He’s leaning back on his chair again, watching her carefully.

‘If . . .’ She clears her throat. ‘If I agree to consider it, I want a favour in return. Proof that I can trust you.’

He raises his eyebrows.

‘What makes you think you have the right to ask for anything?’

‘Because I’m your only option. Who else is going to give them your sob story? Ronny?’

He stiffens, narrows his eyes.

‘Are you trying to blackmail me, little Jenny?’

‘No, I just want your help with something.’ Now it’s her turn to lean forward. ‘In 1986 a girl was killed in the forest by the castle where we live. Her stepbrother confessed and was convicted of murder. His name is Leo Rasmussen.’

‘And why does this interest you?’

‘Because I don’t believe the whole truth has come out.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘She was pregnant, but someone made sure that information was removed from the case file.’

‘Aha – so things ended badly for a pregnant young girl. I can see the appeal. Go on.’

Thea swallows her irritation.

‘There is also a suggestion that the stepbrother retracted his confession. He claimed that the police had put him under extreme pressure, brainwashed him.’

Her father continues to gaze at her with that annoying smile, making it clear that he’s enjoying himself at her expense.

‘So what do you want my help with?’

‘I’d like to find out whether any of your friends knows someone who might have been in jail with Leo. Whether he talked about the murder when he was inside. Where he went after he got out.’

Her father chews his lower lip, keeping her in suspense.

‘Why should I waste my time on this, little Jenny? I’m the one who’s holding the trump card. I can crush you like a louse if you don’t do exactly as I ask.’

He taps his index finger on the table, just like he used to do when he wanted to scare her.

‘Be a good girl and do what Daddy says, then I might consider forgiving you for what you did. For abandoning your own family.’

She looks down, eyes burning with anger. She has to submit. Let him walk all over her if she’s going to have any chance of sorting out this tangled mess. Because nobody fucks with Leif Boman.

She takes a deep breath, suddenly remembers what Ronny said just before she left. It’s worth a try.

‘By the way, what happened to Jocke?’

Her father becomes very still, apart from his eyes, which are darting from side to side for the first time during this conversation.

‘Jocke’s dead. He died in ’96.’

‘How?’

He shuffles in his seat.

‘How did Jocke die?’ She’s determined to push him.

‘Car accident. He tried to get away from the cops in a stolen car, high as a kite. They crashed into a truck.’

It takes a few seconds for her to process what he’s just said. They. Before she realises why Ronny handed her this tiny piece of kryptonite.

‘Who else was in the car with Jocke?’

Leif’s lips are a thin white line.

‘His girlfriend, Jossan. She was pregnant. None of them survived.’

She can see the rest in his eyes. The logical conclusion to this tale.

It could have been me in that car with Jocke. It probably would have been if I hadn’t left. Me and our child. Leif’s grandchild.

They sit in silence for a few seconds.

‘OK,’ he says eventually. ‘I’ll ask around about Leo Rasmussen. Do you have an ID number or anything else I can use?’

‘I’ve got the case file in the car if you want to read it.’

It’s a throwaway remark. She isn’t expecting him to bite, but he does.

‘Good. Ask Sigurdsson in the guards’ office to make a copy. Tell him I said so, if he complains. And leave a phone number where I can reach you.’

He gets to his feet laboriously, then stands beside her as he did when he came into the room.

‘You’re not trying to fool me again, are you, Jenny?’

‘Maybe, maybe not. You’ll just have to trust me, Leif. You don’t have a choice.’

The corner of his mouth twitches. A tic, perhaps, or the hint of a smile.

‘You haven’t changed, Jenny,’ he says as he shuffles towards the door.