Rites of Spring by Anders Motte (life books to read .txt) 📗

Emee is still scratching and whimpering on the other side.

‘Out of the way, sweetheart!’

She keeps on kicking, harder and faster. Five more kicks – the bolt gives way and the hatch flies open. Thea crawls out into the yard and Emee hurls herself at her, clambering all over her, licking her face.

Thea gets to her feet, brushes off the dirt and fills her lungs with air. Relief and Emee’s welcome have brought her to the verge of tears, but she mustn’t cry. She has to stay alert.

Someone locked her in, someone who presumably followed her to Svartgården. But who, and why?

She looks at her watch, realises that she doesn’t have time to go into that now. She also suspects that the answer isn’t here. The person responsible has too much of a head start. She must get back to the village.

She sets off as fast as she can, and finds the track almost without needing to ask her phone for help. As she walks she looks in vain for traces of the person who must have followed her, while trying to recall what she saw from the bottom of the steps. The person’s torch dazzled her, so she couldn’t make out any facial features, or even be sure if it was a man or a woman. The wellington boots aren’t much to go on.

It starts raining just as she reaches the car, a cold spring rain that hammers on the roof. She jumps in and starts the engine, but as she’s about to switch on the wipers she sees something sitting on the windscreen.

A little Green Man figure.

61

The shock doesn’t catch up with her until she’s left the marsh. Suddenly she’s sweating, feeling totally exhausted. She’s already late for work, and considers calling in sick, driving back to the coach house, taking a long shower and thinking through what she’s seen and experienced.

However, before she reaches the turning for the castle, her phone rings.

‘Where are you?’ Dr Andersson says without preamble.

‘Er . . . In the car.’ Stupid answer – she should have pretended to be ill, but the sound of the engine would probably have given her away.

‘Why aren’t you at the surgery? It should have opened half an hour ago. I’ve already had two calls at home from angry patients.’

‘I overslept. Sorry.’

‘Overslept?’

The doctor doesn’t seem to be buying the lie. For a moment Thea gets the idea that the other woman knows where she’s been.

‘Yes – I really do apologise,’ she says hastily. ‘It won’t happen again.’

‘OK.’ Dr Andersson still doesn’t sound convinced. ‘When do you think you’ll be at the surgery?’

Thea passes the turning for the castle. ‘In ten minutes.’

‘Good. It’s important to stick to the opening times, Thea. Otherwise people start talking. Rumours spread quickly in the village.’

‘I understand. As I said, it won’t happen again.’

‘Fine.’ Her voice softens. ‘We’ll keep this little blip between us, Thea. Just this once. Drive carefully!’

*

Four patients are waiting in the corridor. Thea apologises, asks for two minutes to sort herself out. The look on their faces suggests that she might need longer.

She goes into her room and inspects herself in the mirror above the hand basin. Her face is streaked with dirt, her hair is full of dust. Her legs still feel wobbly.

She cleans herself up as best she can, then starts seeing her patients. She apologises once more; they make reassuring noises, but she can’t help feeling that she’s messed up.

At twelve o’clock she has a gap. She pops out to buy something for lunch, and takes Emee along. Her head is bursting with impressions from the morning. That gloomy boarded-up house, still standing deep in the marsh, filled with silent secrets. The terror of being locked in the cellar hasn’t left her.

Someone must have followed her, watched her from a distance, hidden in the shadows. It’s a horrible thought, and it gets worse as she goes through the details. She drove straight from the castle to the marsh as soon as it was light. She didn’t meet anyone on the main road, and if a car had followed her along the narrow forest track, then surely she would have seen it.

So how had the person in the wellington boots found her? How did he or she know that she was on the way to Svartgården, and why did they lock her in? She can answer the last question at least: for the same reason as they left a nasty little Green Man figure on her windscreen. To scare her, stop her digging into Elita Svart’s death.

As she leaves the community centre, a sports car pulls into the car park. It’s Sebastian. He stops in front of her and gets out.

‘Hi, Thea. I was coming to see you.’

‘Right – I’m on my way out, so . . .’

‘It’ll only take a minute.’ He looks around as if he wants to make sure that no one is listening. ‘It’s about the conversation in the dining room last night.’

‘I wasn’t eavesdropping.’

The lie is out before she has time to think. It’s obvious that she was eavesdropping, and Sebastian knows it, but he plays along.

‘Of course not, but as I’m sure you heard, we had a slight difference of opinion. Actually, I’d like to ask you a favour.’

‘Oh?’

‘When Nettan and I were approached about the castle project we were happy to get involved, both for the village and for David, particularly when we realised that the two of you were in some financial difficulties.’

The choice of words irritates Thea, but she decides not to say anything.

‘As you perhaps heard, David has kind of gone off the rails. The project has seriously exceeded the budget, and now he’s trying to give us an ultimatum. Either we come up with more money, or we lose the capital we’ve already invested. Nettan and I were hoping you might be able to persuade David to come to his senses. Stick to the plan.’

Thea shrugs. ‘David does what he wants. He doesn’t like other people telling him what