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

stepfather. He now says he arrived home at about midnight and found the stable door open and Bill gone. Bill is a horse that was stabled at the farm because Lasse was breaking him in.

Thea assumes that this remark is aimed at Leo’s defence lawyer. She reads on.

INTERVIEWER: Lasse thought that Bill must have somehow broken out of his stall and escaped. He went to wake you so that you could help him search, but you weren’t there.

LEO RASMUSSEN: Lasse’s talking crap, as usual.

INTERVIEWER: Lasse says that he began to suspect that something was wrong. He returned to the stable and realised that Bill’s bridle wasn’t on its hook. He took his truck out to search. At about one o’clock he found Bill on one of the dirt tracks in the marsh, less than two kilometres from the stone circle. The horse was muddy, wet, and dripping with sweat. He was wearing his bridle, but the reins had been torn off. Lasse led him back to his stall and washed him down. It was gone two o’clock by the time he finished. He checked your cabin again, but you still weren’t there. He went up to bed and says that he saw you from his bedroom window, limping across the yard.

LEO RASMUSSEN: That’s crap.

INTERVIEWER: In what way?

LEO RASMUSSEN: He’s lying. Lasse can’t have seen me from his bedroom window; – it doesn’t even face that way.

INTERVIEWER: But you did come home and cross the yard?

(SILENCE)

INTERVIEWER: Do you want to change your statement, Leo?

LEO RASMUSSEN: Er . . . C-can we take a break? Is that possible?

INTERVIEWER: No problem. Interview suspended 14.16.

Thea eagerly turns to the next page. The interview resumes less than twenty minutes later.

INTERVIEWER: OK, Leo, so you’ve had the opportunity to speak to your lawyer. Do you want to change your statement?

LEO RASMUSSEN: Mm . . . I did go out for a while on Walpurgis Night. I’d had an argument with Elita. I needed to speak to her.

INTERVIEWER: What was the argument about?

LEO RASMUSSEN: I . . . I wanted her to . . . to run away with me. Get away from Svartgården and Lasse. I’d arranged for us to borrow a cottage near Ystad – it was all sorted. But she didn’t want to come.

INTERVIEWER: Why not?

LEO RASMUSSEN: She said she had other plans.

INTERVIEWER: What other plans?

LEO RASMUSSEN: She wouldn’t tell me. Elita could be very secretive.

INTERVIEWER: Did that bother you? The fact that she was keeping secrets from you?

LEO RASMUSSEN: A bit, maybe.

INTERVIEWER: Were you in love with her?

LEO RASMUSSEN: (INAUDIBLE)

INTERVIEWER: Could you please repeat that, Leo? Were you in love with her?

LEO RASMUSSEN: Yes. Yes, I was.

INTERVIEWER: So you got angry when she refused to run away with you?

LEO RASMUSSEN: Mm. I said a whole lot of stuff. Stupid stuff. Then I locked myself away in the cabin and drank. I was hurt. Then I started to regret what I’d said. I wanted to talk to her, maybe apologise. I don’t really remember what I was thinking.

INTERVIEWER: So what did you do?

LEO RASMUSSEN: I knew she was going to be at the stone circle, that she’d planned to act out the spring sacrifice ritual. But it was too far to walk, so I took Bill.

INTERVIEWER: What time was that?

LEO RASMUSSEN: I’m not sure – eleven thirty? I’d drunk quite a lot. I rode off towards the castle forest. There was a full moon, so it was easy to see the way, but Bill was skittish.

INTERVIEWER: Skittish?

LEO RASMUSSEN: Agitated. The least sound spooked him. He’s not fully broken in yet. Something in the forest scared him, an animal maybe. He went crashing straight through a thicket and a branch hit me on the head and knocked me off.

INTERVIEWER: Go on.

LEO RASMUSSEN: I lay there for a while, I think. I don’t know if I passed out, or if it was just the effects of the booze. When I came round Bill was gone. I knew Lasse would be furious, so I spent ages looking for him before I went back to Svartgården. When I got there Bill was back in his stall, so I went to my cabin and got into bed. I was bruised and drunk – I fell asleep right away.

INTERVIEWER: Why didn’t you tell us this from the start?

LEO RASMUSSEN: Because Lasse hates me. Because I knew he’d try and blame all this on me. I thought the less I said, the better.

INTERVIEWER: So if I’ve understood you correctly, you never made it to the stone circle.

LEO RASMUSSEN: No, I didn’t. I never even reached the ford over the canal.

INTERVIEWER: You didn’t see Elita?

LEO RASMUSSEN: No.

INTERVIEWER: And your injuries? How do you explain the scratches on your face and hands?

LEO RASMUSSEN: I got them when Bill was galloping through the trees. It was pitch dark, I couldn’t protect myself.

INTERVIEWER: And you still deny that you murdered Elita?

LEO RASMUSSEN: (INAUDIBLE MUMBLE)

INTERVIEWER: Could you please repeat your answer. Did you murder Elita Svart?

LEO RASMUSSEN: (CLEARS HIS THROAT) No, I didn’t.

Thea takes a break, stretches as she tries to digest what she’s just read. To begin with, Leo had lied about where he’d been on Walpurgis Night. Then, when Lasse suddenly and unexpectedly made a statement dropping him in it, he’d changed his story so that it explained Lasse’s story and his own injuries. It sounded a lot like something he’d come up with after the event. Not a word about a death pact – not yet, anyway.

Emee has started wandering around the room. Thea grabs her jacket and puts the dog on the lead. The corridor outside the surgery is still empty. Maybe the weather is keeping people at home? At least it’s almost stopped raining.

She puts a BACK SOON sign on the door and takes Emee for a walk around the former schoolyard, then crosses the road and enters the churchyard.

The church itself is in darkness, and the wind is whistling through the tall poplars. The rose is still on Elita’s grave, but a few