To all my readers, because you allow me to have the best job in the world April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. T S Eliot: ‘The Waste Land’ Contents Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Chapter 48 Chapter 49 Chapter 50 Chapter 51 Chapter 52 Chapter 53 Chapter 54 Chapter 55 Chapter 56 Chapter 57 Chapter 58 Chapter 59 Chapter 60 Chapter 61 Chapter 62 Chapter 63 Chapter 64 Chapter 65 Chapter 66 Chapter 67 Chapter 68 Chapter 69 Chapter 70 Chapter 71 Chapter 72 Chapter 73 Chapter 74 Chapter 75 Chapter 76 Chapter 77 Chapter 78 Chapter 79 Chapter 80 Chapter 81 Chapter 82 Chapter 83 Chapter 84 Chapter 85 Chapter 86 Chapter 87 Chapter 88 Chapter 89 Chapter 90 Chapter 91 Chapter 92 Epilogue Author’s note Extract from End of Summer About the Author Copyright Prologue 19 May 1986 As soon as Little Stefan drove onto the marsh, he began to think about the dead girl. It was impossible not to. The game of Chinese whispers that had started on the morning of May the first had already travelled around the area several times. Filled his head with horrific images from which there was no escape. Her lifeless body on the sacrificial stone in the centre of the stone circle. Her white dress, her hair loose around her head. Her hands folded over her chest, two antlers clasped in her stiff fingers. Her once beautiful face covered by a bloodstained handkerchief, as if whoever had taken her life had been unable to look her in the eye afterwards. Most Tornaby residents were already absolutely certain that they knew who’d killed her, that the whole thing was a dreadful but simple story. A family tragedy. However, there were those who quietly maintained that something else entirely had happened during Walpurgis Night. That maybe it was the Green Man himself who had claimed his spring sacrifice. It had been a long time since Little Stefan had believed in ghost stories, but he couldn’t help shuddering. The marshy forest closed in around the dirt track, scraping at the paintwork with long, green fingers. This was the part of the castle estate he disliked most of all. The dampness, the smell of decay. The sodden ground that at one moment felt solid, at the next sucked your boots so deep into the mud that it was a real struggle to escape without help. The marsh belongs to the Green Man, his grandfather used to say. People ought to stay away. At least the superstitious old misery guts had been partly right. The track led deep into the marsh, to Svartgården, where the girl had lived. Only a month or so ago he’d given her a lift to the bus stop. She’d sat right next to him in the front seat of the pick-up. She hadn’t said much; she’d seemed lost in her own thoughts. He’d stolen glances at her from time to time, watching her face, her movements, and out of nowhere he’d been overwhelmed by a feeling he couldn’t explain. He was married, he had two young daughters, a house, a car, a good job. Things he usually valued, but at that moment, sitting beside that beautiful girl, they had felt like a burden. His whole life was already mapped out, one long, predictable journey without an ounce of the tempting, forbidden pleasures that emanated from her. He could smell it on her – sweet and sharp like newly opened lilac blossom. A perfume that evoked yearning. Desire. At one point when she looked away, he’d almost reached out to touch her, as if that would enable him to access everything he didn’t have. He’d stopped himself at the last second, but the sense of loss had lingered for several days. He had to concentrate in order to avoid the deepest potholes the further on he drove. Lasse Svart was supposed to maintain the track, according to his lease, but needless to say he didn’t bother. For years Lasse Svart had relied on the fact that the count would never be able to find another tenant; nobody was interested in a dozen or so acres of sodden forest, so he more or less did what he liked out at Svartgården. His own little kingdom, far away from laws, rules, and curious eyes. But that was before Walpurgis Night. Before Lasse’s sixteen-year-old daughter was found dead on the sacrificial stone, the ground all around ploughed up by hooves. During Walpurgis Night the veil between life and death is at its thinnest. Things are on the move, nature is hungry and the Green Man rides through the forest. Little Stefan suppressed another shudder. The forest opened out as he reached the muddy yard surrounding Svartgården. Three dilapidated buildings huddled in the gloom beneath the trees, as if they were trying to hide. Rusty agricultural tools and machinery lay among the nettles. He’d been here many times before, usually with Erik Nyberg, the castle administrator, and they’d always been met by a pack of yapping terriers before he’d even switched off the engine. Today there wasn’t a dog in sight. The place was quiet; even the birds weren’t making much noise on this spring morning. A strange, oppressive silence filled the air. Little Stefan remained standing by his truck for a minute or so as he tucked a plug of tobacco beneath his top lip and waited for Lasse or one of his women to poke their head out of the door and ask what the fuck he wanted, but nothing happened. Lasse’s red pick-up was nowhere to be seen, nor was the battered old Ford the women usually drove. He glanced at his watch: seven thirty. Who went out at this early hour? He caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. A small dog was peering around the corner of the smithy; it was little more than a puppy. ‘Hello! Come on then,’ Little Stefan said,
