Rites of Spring Anders Motte (classic children's novels txt) 📖

of things that crept and crawled and transformed what had recently been alive into earth and mould.

He screamed, but no sound came out of his mouth, just a stream of white grubs that stripped the flesh from his legs. Emptied him completely and let the night into his head.

*

He woke as usual right in the middle of that silent scream. Automatically checked whether he’d wet himself, which was ridiculous because he was a grown man, not a teenager who was easily scared.

His clothes were sticking to the car seat, his mouth felt like grade three sandpaper. The full moon shone high above the treetops.

Arne belched loudly and shook off the unpleasant dream. Once when he was a little boy he’d got lost during a mushroom foraging expedition, and had fallen into a sump of mud. His boots had stuck fast, and he hadn’t been able to get out. His father had found him after fifteen minutes – filthy, scared and covered in mosquito bites, but otherwise unharmed.

His father had told him off, firstly for straying from the path, and then because Arne couldn’t stop crying. It was nothing, really, and yet for some reason the incident had stuck in his mind, got mixed up with Ingrid’s ghost stories about the Green Man, tormenting him with nightmares that meant he’d had to sleep with a rubber undersheet until well into his teens.

It must have been ten years since he’d last had that fucking dream. All Lasse Svart’s fault, of course. His eyes, that burning stare.

There are many forces on the move tonight, let me tell you. Nature is hungry and the Green Man will ride through the forests, so you be careful, little Arne.

Arne shuddered. He’d parked the police car on a narrow track. The smell of newness had gone, replaced by a miasma of perspiration, the marsh itself, and fried food. He glanced at the Coke can and the screwed-up foil tray on the passenger seat. Checked his tie and discovered greasy stains left by his supper, just as he’d suspected.

He could have stayed in Ljungslöv after delivering Lasse’s moonshine, but instead he’d returned to Tornaby. Now he was sitting here in the middle of nowhere, half-dozing while he waited for . . . what? He had no idea. He just knew that he had to be here, that she’d invited him. He took out the Polaroid again.

Come to the stone circle at midnight.

Bewitched. That was how he felt. And maybe that was the truth?

It was because of Elita that he’d driven out to Svartgården this afternoon, because of her that he’d been dragged back down into the mud. He’d been well aware of the risks, and yet he couldn’t stay away. And now he was sitting here.

There are many forces on the move tonight.

He picked up the container on the passenger seat, unscrewed the lid and took a deep slug of neat alcohol. It seared his throat, offering a brief respite.

He sat there with the container on his knee, fingering his tie. Found a new patch of grease, on his shirt this time. Then several more on his trousers. He spat on his thumb and rubbed it over the coarse fabric, to no avail.

Suddenly he felt sick. Everything was going downhill. He was going downhill. And it was all because of her. Elita Svart. He ought to get out of here. Right now, before it was too late.

He looked at his watch. The luminous hands showed eleven thirty. Time to make a decision.

He took one last swig, then put the container back on the seat beside him. Took his binoculars out of the glove compartment, then opened the car door and stepped out into the night.

34

‘OK, I admit it. I’ve become completely obsessed with the mystery of Elita Svart. A dead girl whose spirit seems to hover over the area, even though her house was boarded up the day after her funeral. A dead girl whom nobody wants to talk about, yet someone still lays flowers on her grave.’

The drive to Lund takes just under an hour in the morning traffic, which gives Thea the opportunity to consider the events of the previous day.

Why are Erik Nyberg and Arne so interested in what Bertil might have said? The broken blood sugar monitor was clearly an excuse; Erik wanted to question Thea about her father-in-law. How did he even know that Bertil had been in the forest that morning? Was it Kerstin who’d told him, or Arne? Or someone else?

One thing she is sure of: there is something going on around her that everyone is trying to hide. Something to do with Elita’s death, but she still can’t see the pattern.

*

A friendly clerk in the regional office deals with her declaration. Fortunately he doesn’t ask any questions about her protected ID; he simply taps away on his keyboard.

‘There you go, all done. I’m sorry you had to come down, but now everything’s updated on our system. Sometimes there’s a bit of a mismatch between hard copies and digital documents.’

‘No problem – it’s nice to get it sorted.’

Thea is struck by a thought as she reaches the door.

‘By the way, I was looking for some patient notes the other day, but they haven’t been digitised. Do you happen to know where I can access a copy?’

‘Absolutely. All documentation is stored in the regional archive, which is only ten minutes from here. I can tell you how to get there if you like.’

*

The regional archive in Lund turns out to be housed in an enormous complex called the Archive Centre, which occupies an entire block on an industrial estate on the edge of the city.

On the way, Thea has had time to think about what she’s doing. Requesting the notes of a person who is not her patient isn’t allowed, strictly speaking, and there is a risk that she will get a flat refusal. However, the archivist on reception is unexpectedly helpful, possibly because Thea is a doctor and the notes are