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

then Lola, then Eva-Britt. Nothing, not even in the national address database or on Facebook. Have they left the country? Changed their names? Are they somehow living beneath the authorities’ radar?

Erik Nyberg said the count had ordered him to board up the windows and destroy the track leading to the farm as soon as it became clear that Lasse and his women were gone. But why? Why was it so urgent?

There are too many questions. The whole thing is a morass of questionable threads. She feels as if she can’t even trust the police investigation, but she is becoming increasingly certain that the truth hasn’t come out. Someone – more than one person? – has tried to simplify the narrative as much as possible.

Manipulative, extrovert girl murdered by her stepbrother. Case closed.

It would be best to forget all about it, of course. She has plenty of other things to think about, much more important than a long-dead teenager, and yet Elita Svart will not leave her in peace. The sense that their stories are intertwined has grown stronger since she was forced to go back home.

She gets up, opens the window and lights a cigarette. The air is heavy with dampness, carrying the distinct smell of the marsh. She can almost taste it.

The sun is slowly rising. Over to the north east she can just make out the marsh as a dark mass. She wonders if Svartgården is still there – beyond the fence enclosing the military range, in uncharted territory, untouched since the remains of the Svart family closed the door behind them.

She fetches her laptop and gets back into bed. Opens up Google Maps and types in ‘Bokelund castle’. The satellite image is crystal clear, showing the H-shaped main building, the coach house, the old stables. The green surface of the moat almost merges with the adjoining forest.

She zooms out, follows the canal down through the dip, all the way to the hunting lodge. The trees are so dense that she can barely make out the water and the track.

She changes to hybrid view so that the track is clearer, moves back and forth at random, looking for buildings. No luck. The marsh is too big, the vegetation too thick.

She tries a different tactic, starting from the hunting lodge and trying to identify the spot where Dr Andersson claimed that the way down to Svartgården lay. After zooming in and out for a while she thinks she’s found a route where the greenery is paler. She follows this route to the east, attempts to work out where it passes the fence surrounding the firing range, but it’s no good – she can’t see the fence, and the route itself becomes more difficult to discern. It changes direction, is interrupted by pools of water and thickets of trees, then disappears completely.

She zooms in as close as she can. It’s still difficult, but she thinks she can make out a right angle beneath the trees.

Nature abhors right angles, Margaux used to say. Abhors everything that is precise and identical. Mankind invented right angles to control that which is wild and incalculable.

Thea gets out of bed.

‘Come on, Emee – we’re going on an adventure.’

*

She drives across the marsh in the direction of the hunting lodge. She has three hours until the surgery opens; that should be enough.

What exactly is she planning to do? What is she hoping to find at Svartgården? She doesn’t really know. Maybe she’s looking for a fixed point in the story, something concrete that she can get hold of. Or maybe she just needs to do something, anything, to ease her frustration.

She finds the place where the old track probably ran, and manages to park the car on solid ground. She pulls on her wellington boots and lets Emee out of the car. Picks up her rucksack, which contains a torch, a bottle of water and a crowbar that she found in the tool shed behind the coach house.

After checking Google Maps again, she sets off through the marsh. Visibility is limited to ten to fifteen metres thanks to the bracken and undergrowth. The air is cold and damp; it smells of rotting wood and stagnant water.

To begin with she keeps Emee on the lead, but after a few minutes this turns out to be impractical, and she lets her go. Fortunately, Emee stays close, happily exploring her new surroundings.

Thea’s conclusion about the old track was well-founded. Along a five-metre strip the trees are younger, not as tall as the rest of the forest. Nor are they covered in lichen and creepers, which explains the colour difference on the satellite image.

She hunts for some kind of path, but to no avail. Instead she has to cut across the terrain, picking her way over moss, leaves and dead wood. Here and there the huge roots of fallen trees are sticking up, and she has to circumvent rotting logs and pools of water. A couple of times her foot sinks deep into the mud, and on one occasion she almost loses a boot.

Emee is still with her, and after ten minutes they reach the fence. It’s not particularly off-putting; it’s rusty, and the barbed wire at the top is sagging. A yellow notice informs her that this is a military firing range, and that unauthorised access constitutes danger to life. After a short distance Thea finds a spot where an animal has been digging, enabling both her and Emee to crawl under the fence.

The terrain slopes downwards, and the pools of water increase; in some places they are so big that she has to take a detour. Mouldering branches, partly hidden beneath the moss, make the ground treacherous. She slips on one of them and her knee sinks into the porous surface. The cold surprises her, makes her realise that she mustn’t fall in under any circumstances.

Emee has begun to roam further afield; sometimes she vanishes for a minute or so before reappearing. The vegetation thickens, the tall trees