Rites of Spring

62

She takes Emee for a walk and buys lunch at the local pizzeria. Tries to force it down at her desk.

She thinks about the wellington boots in Sebastian’s car; were they the same as the ones she saw at Svartgården? A pair of boots doesn’t make him a suspect, and what would Sebastian have to hide? He was twelve years old when everything happened.

Thea gets out her finds from Svartgården: the bubbly Polaroid Elita took of herself sitting on the bed, and the beret without its badge.

She looks at the photograph first, the blue case under the bed. Elita had packed her best clothes. She was planning to run away, not to die. But the case is missing.

She fingers the beret. The fabric smells of damp. Leo’s handwriting inside is unexpectedly neat. 223 Rasmussen.

There are several things about the beret that bother her. David and the others claimed that Leo was dressed as the Green Man when he came galloping into the glade, that he had a pair of antlers on his head, not his beret. He could have had it in his pocket, of course, but in that case how did he lose the badge? And what was the beret doing on the kitchen floor?

However, that’s far from the greatest mystery at Svartgården. The remaining three inhabitants clearly left in haste. Judging by the handprint, one of them was injured. Possibly Lasse.

So what happened? Why did they flee without packing any clothes or even grabbing their medication? And where did they go?

Thea adds those questions to the growing list in her head. What should she do next? She googles the book about false confessions.

The author has a homepage with both an email address and a mobile number. He answers almost right away. Kurt Bexell has a soft, melodic voice, and seems pleased that someone is interested in his work. Thea spins him a line, tells him she’s also a writer and is planning to write a true crime book about the case.

‘The spring sacrifice? Oh yes, I remember it well. It was an old friend in the probation service who gave me the heads up and put me in touch with Leo Rasmussen. The whole thing seemed very promising at first.’

‘Did you meet Leo?’

‘No, we spoke on the phone a few times. He was living overseas. I explained the premise of my book and told him about some similar cases. I said I’d read the transcripts of his interviews and thought he’d been affected by memory distrust syndrome. Do you know what that means? I describe it in considerable detail in the book.’

He doesn’t wait for her response; he’s excited to have the opportunity to hold forth on his area of expertise.

‘The suspect is under so much pressure that he no longer trusts his own memories. Eventually reality, fantasy and police claims merge, until he believes in his own guilt, or at least doubts his innocence. Stress, sleep deprivation and isolation combined with lengthy, difficult interviews and leading questions are strong contributory factors, and Leo was subjected to all of those things. He was also mentally fragile after his stepsister’s violent death, and the fact that his family had left him in the lurch.’

‘What did he say about your theory?’

‘Very little; he was pretty vague. He said he didn’t remember much, and that he’d served his time. I tried to get him to open up, but his answers became shorter and shorter, then he ended the call. However, I got the feeling that he’d started to think about what had happened. I put together a short chapter and moved on to other cases, hoping he’d come back to me in the future.’

‘And did he?’

‘Yes, but not exactly in the way I’d hoped.’ There was a brief silence on the other end of the line. ‘Leo called me a month or so after our original conversation. He was crying, and was obviously drunk. He kept saying that he loved his stepsister, and could never have hurt her.’

Thea can almost hear her heart beating.

‘I asked him to call me back when he was sober, but he never did. Instead his phone number stopped working. I finished the book, and after some hesitation I decided to include the case anyway. There weren’t many Swedish examples to choose from.’

‘Do you have an address for him?’

‘I’m afraid not – he never gave it to me. I believe he was living in the USA. That’s all I can tell you, I’m afraid.’

Thea thinks for a moment.

‘Did you ever hear that Elita Svart was pregnant when she died?’

‘No.’ Bexell sounds a little taken aback. ‘Was she? I have no recollection of that at all.’

‘I’m pretty sure she was, but the information seems to have been removed from the autopsy report.’

‘Interesting. I always had a vague feeling that not everything had come out. I actually drove down to Ljungslöv to speak to the officers who’d conducted the interviews. I really had to lean on the chief of police just to get a copy of the preliminary inquiry. Things got quite nasty towards the end; one of his heavies threatened to beat me up if I didn’t stop poking around in the case.’

Thea presses the phone closer to her ear.

‘What did he look like? Do you remember?’

‘Oh yes – it’s not often you get threatened by a cop in full uniform. He had a moustache; he was a nasty piece of work.’

‘Arne Backe?’ She can hear the agitation in her voice.

‘He never introduced himself – he just made it clear that it would be best if I got in my car and drove away, unless I wanted my balls crushed. I followed his advice,’ Bexell said dryly.

Thea tries to gather her thoughts. She has one more question.

‘Do you believe . . .’ She pauses, decides to carry on. ‘Do you believe Leo was telling the truth, that he really was innocent? After all, there were witnesses and forensic evidence.’

There is a brief silence.

‘It’s true that a lot of things pointed to him. Wasn’t some part of his uniform found at the scene?’

‘Yes, a cap badge. Plus there were hoof prints from a horse that was stabled at Svartgården, and the witnesses said they’d seen him on the horse.’

‘But those witnesses were children, and they ran away immediately, as I understand it. Except for the boy who came back, they can’t have seen much.’

‘David Nordin.’

‘That’s right, that was his name. David was the only one who said he’d seen Leo without the Green Man costume. He could easily have influenced his friends. They were interviewed together, which is highly irregular. Children have a tendency to back up one another’s stories. If one of them claimed that it was Leo they’d seen, and that person held a strong position within the group, it’s not impossible that the rest would just go along with him.’

‘So you do think Leo was innocent?’

Another silence.

‘Let me put it this way,’ Bexell says eventually. ‘I think there are certain aspects of Leo’s confession, the witness statements and the investigation as a whole that suggest he might have been.’