Rites of Spring, Anders Motte [reading diary .TXT] 📗

She takes out her phone, opens a search window and enters ‘Tornaby 1986 murder’. She finds articles from various Skåne newspapers that have been scanned in; they don’t tell her much more than she already knows.

The reporting seems to have died down pretty quickly after the lurid headlines of the first week. Words such as ‘ritual murder’, ‘sacrificial rites’ and ‘child killer’ are replaced by the significantly less charged ‘family tragedy’ and ‘sibling drama’. The size of the typeface clearly shows how interest has waned. Olof Palme had been assassinated only two months earlier, and the twists and turns into the investigation still preoccupied almost every media outlet.

However, one of the tabloids does try to squeeze the last little bit out of the story by running a summary piece with the headline:

SPRING SACRIFICE VICTIM MADE BROTHER KILL HER!

The article is illustrated with photographs of both Elita and her stepbrother. Leo seems to be in uniform; his hair is cropped, and his eyes are covered with a black rectangle that is theoretically supposed to protect his identity. The image is grainy, but Thea can make out a straight nose and a square chin.

Elita is smiling confidently in what is presumably a school photo. She looks very different from the girl in the Polaroid. Bolder, angrier in a way that Thea recognises all too well.

Elita is referred to throughout as the sacrificial victim, while Leo is either the stepbrother or the elite soldier. The writer revels in the details surrounding Elita’s death, and much is made of the fact that she left behind a letter in which she said she was planning her own death.

The last article Thea can find is from August 1986, a brief report stating that the court in Helsingborg had convicted Leo of murder and sentenced him to six years in jail, but that the sentence had been reduced because he was only twenty years old and was heavily influenced by his stepsister. Then nothing. The press pack has moved on, and no one cares about a dead gypsy girl anymore.

She switches off her phone, lies back on her pillow and closes her eyes.

Fucking gyppo . . .

She was twelve years old when the word was spat in her face for the first time. A boy yelled it at her in the school playground after he’d asked her to be his girlfriend and she said no.

Admittedly she’d heard whispers about her family before, but there was something about that particular word that made her flinch. It hit her hard, even though she wasn’t really sure what it meant.

Ronny had beaten the shit out of the kid the next day. Her big brother dealt with everyone who used that word. Not that it helped.

Ronny never understood that the more violently he tried to fix things, the worse they would get. The word became branded into his skin until it was impossible to remove, like an invisible tattoo that marked him for life.

It would be many years before she did anything about the situation, but she’d already realised what she had to do.

Before you can become the person you want to be, you have to get rid of the person you are.

21

Walpurgis Night 1986

I know that Eva-Britt is worried about Leo too. She’s done her best to keep us together, while keeping Lasse and Leo apart, but it’s getting more and more difficult. The walls and the ceiling in the house are closing in. We are heading for a catastrophe, if no one does anything to stop it. If no one sacrifices himself or herself.

Walpurgis Night is fast approaching. You haven’t forgotten what’s going to happen, have you? How this story ends for Elita Svart?

Everything had gone exactly as Leo had hoped. The bitter coffee burned in his belly as he stood there in the middle of the kitchen, his head buzzing with intoxication and pride. He’d broken the spell, shown them all that it was possible to defeat Lasse Svart.

Now he wanted to speak to Elita alone, tell her about the cottage, show her the key. Tell her that it was all for real, that they could leave, just as he’d promised her before he went off to join the army.

Unfortunately, after Lasse had walked out and slammed the door, Lola had run upstairs and Elita had followed her, leaving only Leo and his mother in the kitchen.

‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ Eva-Britt whispered as she fastened the top button of his shirt and straightened his tie.

‘Why not? I’ve been practising all winter. One of the guys in my platoon is a Swedish champion in arm wrestling.’

Eva-Britt shook her head. ‘Lasse’s dangerous. You need to be careful – you saw the knife!’

Leo snorted. ‘He was only trying to scare me. Have you ever seen him stab someone?’

Eva-Britt didn’t reply.

‘I’m not scared of Lasse,’ Leo went on. ‘Not anymore.’ He placed his hands on his mother’s shoulders. ‘And you and Lola and Elita don’t need to be afraid either. We can take the car and leave right now, all four of us. One of my comrades has a cottage outside Ystad that we can borrow. Elita and I have already talked about it. I’ve got the key in my duffel bag. It’s all set up.’

Eva-Britt removed his hands, glanced around with a worried look on her face.

‘Don’t say that. Lasse will never let us go. You and me maybe, but not Lola, and definitely not Elita. He would never allow it – never! He’d rather kill both of you.’

22

‘By the way, do you remember the man in the window that I mentioned earlier? Hubert Gordon – he lives in the west wing. A strange man with a strange story. Or rather a sad story, maybe. You can make up your own mind, Margaux. There are many stories here, if you just scrape beneath the surface.’

Dr Andersson picks her up just before eight. Thea couldn’t get back to sleep; she cannot shake off