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

five, and as usual she is wide awake.

She switches on the bedside lamp. The damp patch on the ceiling has grown, it reminds her of a handprint, its long yellow fingers reaching further and further into the room.

Mum’s words echo in her mind.

Forget about us!

Thea has tried, done her absolute best, but clearly her family haven’t forgotten her. So what should she do? Ignore them?

What if Ronny sends his next letter to David? What if David finds out that she’s lied about her background? That she isn’t an orphan after all, that she’s just a fucking . . . gyppo, like Elita Svart.

The idea that her father’s world might somehow be linked to David, the castle or Tornaby is so unpleasant that her stomach turns over. A part of her brain, a terrified part, just wants to pack a bag, leave everything behind once more. Another part is resisting. For a while longer, at least.

She picks up her phone and opens a search engine. As usual she can’t find any trace of her father. Leif stays away from the internet, he doesn’t even have a registered address. Ronny is still at the same address as usual, which doesn’t necessarily mean that he lives there. However, she’s pretty sure he does. Dad wants you to come home!

She gets out of bed and goes over to the window. Emee looks up, watching her with those grey, ghostly eyes. The forest is dark and forbidding beyond the moat.

Thea fell pregnant at nineteen. Elita Svart was only sixteen. She must have been so frightened, but would she really have planned her death if she was carrying a child?

And an equally interesting question: who was the father? Could it have been Leo? For some reason Thea doesn’t think so.

Because no secret is greater than mine . . .

What did Leo actually know? Maybe the book she ordered can throw some light on the matter, or at least help her to focus, shut down the part of her brain that is screaming at her to pack a bag.

False Confessions is a slim, stylishly written volume. The author, Kurt Bexell, lists a number of psychological mechanisms that can lead to false confessions; he also provides lots of statistics. The phenomenon of false confessions, he states, is more common among younger suspects, particularly if the crime may have been committed under the influence of drugs, and the suspect is subjected to aggressive interrogation methods combined with isolation.

Bexell goes through various cases that strengthen his hypothesis, all overseas. Thea recently saw a documentary about one of them: the police in New York got five young men to confess to a rape they hadn’t committed.

She turns to chapter twelve.

In 1986, Leo Rasmussen confessed to the brutal murder of his stepsister Elita, who was four years his junior. At the time he was only twenty. Rasmussen stated that he was drunk when the crime took place, and couldn’t remember his actions in detail. However, he flatly denied any involvement during eight interviews, and confessed only in the ninth. By then he’d been held in isolation for almost four weeks.

Rasmussen admitted killing his stepsister, and explained that he had acted in accordance with her wishes. He was convicted of manslaughter, and because of his age and the circumstances surrounding the crime he was sentenced to six years in prison. On the advice of his lawyer he decided not to appeal, since there was a significant risk that he would be handed a much longer sentence.

Rasmussen served his time, but later expressed doubt about his guilt. He claims he was subjected to enormous psychological pressure while in custody, that he was deliberately deprived of sleep, and was isolated from his family.

The witnesses who claimed to have seen Rasmussen at the scene of the crime were all children, and were initially interviewed together. This type of interrogation is against police regulations, and means that the children could have influenced one another’s testimony.

The forensic evidence in the case was largely circumstantial, and certainly not definitive. There were no blood traces or fingerprints linking Rasmussen to the crime, and no murder weapon was found.

However, no alternative perpetrator for the murder of Elita Svart was ever sought. All resources in the police investigation were immediately concentrated on Leo Rasmussen.

Thea puts down the book. The sun is beginning to rise. She dresses quietly so as not to wake David. Emee comes out with her, reluctantly allowing herself to be put on the lead outside the front door. The birds in the forest are slowly waking.

Emee pulls on the lead, turns her head and glares at Thea to show that she wants to run free, but the incidents with the deer mean that Thea daren’t let her go.

Her mind is darting between what she’s just read, and Ronny’s letter.

Was Leo the victim of a miscarriage of justice? And if so, is the doctored autopsy report a part of something much bigger?

Her father and her older brother want her to come home. It must have something to do with money. The money she took, the money she can’t repay. So what is she going to do?

A branch snaps somewhere behind her. The sharp sound makes her stop dead. Emee flattens her ears and growls.

Suddenly the feeling Thea had in the churchyard is back. The feeling of being watched.

‘Hello!’ she calls out. ‘Is anyone there?’

The only answer is the wind, soughing in the treetops.

51

‘It feels as if everything is falling apart. The dampness has destroyed my walls, and is slowly seeping into what remains of my world. Maybe it would be best to leave, float away like a dragonfly. After all, I’ve done it before.

‘Would anyone even miss me here? Would you miss me, Margaux?’

Sebastian Malinowski arrives just after ten. He is driving an expensive sports car and is accompanied by a young woman who can’t be more than twenty-five, and is much too attractive for him.

He hasn’t changed a great deal since the school photograph. He’s about the same height as