The others turned up at the same time. Torunn Borg, Christine Thiis and Benjamin Fjeld. There was no one else. Only a few years before, the report of a serious crime such as murder, aggravated robbery, actual bodily harm or the discovery of a dead body, as now, would lead the police to muster more than ten detectives in a team. Nowadays it was difficult to gather more than a handful around the conference table.
Benjamin Fjeld was the youngest and least experienced of the group. Blond and blue-eyed, with close-cropped hair, he retained the fit, lithe body of a newly-qualified police officer. Enthusiastic and knowledgeable, he possessed an enormous capacity for hard work as well as a good eye for detail. Previously on placement in the department, he had now become one of the permanent investigators.
Torunn Borg’s length of experience as a detective was equal to his own. She was the most methodical of the group, and had a particular talent for thinking logically and systematically in a succession of precise deductions. In this way she frequently caught links and connections that were crucial to the outcome of a case.
Christine Thiis was a lawyer who had been appointed to the station just over a year before, but Wisting had already learned to appreciate her qualities as a reflective person with excellent judgement. Perhaps she had greater insight into psychology and the knowledge of human beings than investigative tactics, but that made her a competent police prosecutor in her own way.
Wisting took his seat at the head of the table, placing a blank notepad before him. ‘Thanks for attending such a late meeting,’ he said. ‘We don’t know yet what we’re faced with, but it’s important to make a start all the same.’
‘What do we know, actually?’ Hammer asked, biting the rim of his plastic beaker.
Wisting unfolded a map and leaned across the table to point out the discovery site. His finger followed the road at Brunlanesveien across towards Helgeroa. Beside the lake at Hallevannet he located the turn-off to a pale green shaded area. Taking hold of a ballpoint pen he drew a cross at the discovery site.
‘From the shoes and clothing, it looks like we’re talking about a man,’ he said. ‘He’s been lying there since the summer.’
‘We don’t have any missing person to fit that time scale?’ Christine Thiis asked.
Wisting shook his head.
‘During the summer months we have about 40,000 tourists here,’ Hammer reminded them. ‘Maybe we should widen our search through the records.’
‘That’s been done.’ Torunn Borg withdrew a print-out from a bundle of papers in front of her. ‘There’s not much to make us any wiser. Two German tourists disappeared during a fishing trip in Western Norway in the middle of July, but only one body was recovered, and a Dutch tourist on a walking holiday is still listed as missing on the Hardangervidda.’
Wisting glanced at the clock. ‘Mortensen’s expected at any moment from the discovery site,’ he said, writing ID on the notepad. Identity was the most important information they required now. ‘Perhaps we’ll find out more when he gets here.’
‘How’s the boy who found him?’ Christine Thiis asked.
‘His father’s obviously resourceful. High school teacher, or something like that. In any case, he didn’t want professional help. We’ll just have to hope for the best.’
‘Are the media involved?’ Hammer asked.
Christine Thiis nodded. She was responsible for the prosecution of crimes, and media enquiries were directed to her in the first instance. ‘As long as we’re not sure a crime has been committed they’ll keep a low profile. There’s a lot to suggest that we may be dealing with a suicide.’
Hammer agreed. ‘We’ve seen it before. Someone takes a bottle of pills and ventures out into the woods.’
The others nodded.
‘Besides, it’s a strange place to hide a body,’ Benjamin Fjeld suggested, pulling the map towards him. The distance from the cross Wisting had marked to the farm buildings was only a few hundred metres. ‘He wasn’t concealed in any way, really, and would have been found sooner or later.’
‘Who lives on the farm?’ Christine Thiis asked.
Wisting consulted his notes. ‘Per and Supattra Halle.’
‘Supattra?’
‘She’s from Thailand. She’s the one who looks after the Christmas trees.’
Hammer rolled his eyes.
‘The patrolmen have spoken to them, but they didn’t really have anything to contribute,’ Wisting said. ‘They’ll come here tomorrow to give formal statements, but couldn’t think of anything from last summer.’
‘What about the post-mortem?’
‘Tomorrow morning. If we’re lucky, the new videolink will work and allow us to follow it from here.’
Hammer stretched for the coffee pot. ‘It’s odd that we don’t have him listed in missing persons. Surely someone should have missed him?’
Wisting picked up a plastic cup without making any comment. He had seen this before. People who were invisible to everyone else did exist and it did not fit that anyone would want to kill them.
6
He had left his mobile phone in his office: one missed call from Line, and two from Espen Mortensen. The young crime scene technician had also sent him a text, saying that the body had been removed, and that he had found something on the corpse. He would call in at the police station before ten o’clock.
That was half an hour away. Wisting was tempted to phone and ask what it was about. Maybe they had found a pill container when they lifted the dead body, or perhaps they had discovered a wallet with ID.
He would phone Line later. She would often call during a quiet spell in the office to ask how he was and what he was doing, but he preferred not to explain. The discovery of the body had not been disclosed yet in the media, and that suited just fine as they had no explanations to offer.
He yawned, blaming the snowy weather for making him feel tired. Large fluffy flakes were tumbling down outside the window.
At 10.10 Espen Mortensen appeared in the office. Working outdoors had freshened his face and his hair was sprinkled with melting snowflakes. With a camera slung over his shoulder, he held a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and a little cardboard box in the other.
‘They’ve taken the body away,’ he said as he sat down. ‘The post-mortem will take place tomorrow morning.’ He set the cardboard box down on the desk. ‘We went through his pockets before he was taken away.’
‘What did you find? A wallet?’ Wisting asked.
Mortensen shook his head.
‘Keys?’ Wisting had past experience of security keys leading them to an address.
The crime scene technician opened the lid of the small box and lifted out a clear plastic bag that he placed on the desktop. Wisting leaned forward. Inside the evidence bag was a similar transparent bag containing a crumpled sheet of glossy paper, a leaflet. On the front was a picture of a boat with huge white sails, with the title Elida in capital letters. Sailing for Jesus.
Wisting carefully picked up the plastic bag. ‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘Welcome to the harbour for worship with Elida!’ he read in Swedish on the back. ‘We offer live music and life stories direct from the ship’s deck.’
‘It’s a flyer from a Swedish religious sect,’ Mortensen explained. ‘They describe Elida as a floating church, and they travel round the world in it to proclaim the word of Jesus.’
‘Have you leafed through it?’
‘Internet. They were on a summer tour of Norway in August. Stavern was their first stop. They were berthed here on the ninth and tenth of August before travelling onwards to Stavanger.’
Wisting did not believe that the dead man was a member of the crew on this sailing church. A missing person report about a Swedish citizen would have been registered in the Norwegian records, regardless, if he had disappeared from a foreign vessel while tied up in a Norwegian harbour.
He put down the evidence bag and flicked four months back on his desk calendar. Past the days when he had been suspended fr
om the police force, searching for a solution to a seventeen-year-old missing person case, back to the late summer days of August when he had still been with Suzanne. He had been at work, but had not had many appointments. In the space at the foot for notes, on Wednesday 10th August, he had written Summer Concert, and remembered that he and Suzanne had attended a jazz concert at Bøkeskogen. That was four months ago and, in the course of those four months, he had become a single man again. For all that time, the unknown man had been lying underneath a fir tree beside Halle farmhouse.
Of course, the leaflet gave them a fixed reference point in a time frame. The man had most probably acquired it sometime after 9th August when the boat had docked in Stavern. This was the first tangible evidence they had, in reality a major step forward in the investigation. He picked up the bag again and studied the contents more closely. The inner plastic wrapper was reminiscent of the evidence bags they used themselves, though faded and bearing signs of being exposed to wind and weather.
‘It was in the inside pocket of his jacket,’ Mortensen explained.
Wisting wanted to be certain he understood correctly. ‘You mean the brochure from Elida was in a plastic bag in the inside pocket of his jacket?’ he asked.
Mortensen nodded. ‘Don’t ask me why. But that gives us good prospects of finding fingerprints on it.’
Wisting sat with the bag in front of him for a few minutes longer. The question of why the dead man had taken such good care of the leaflet was taking root inside him, but he kept his reflections to himself. ‘Anything else?’ he asked, pushing the plastic bag aside.
Espen Mortensen had put his camera on the floor beside his chair. Now, retrieving it, he placed it on his lap. ‘It’s a little early to say what meaning this might have, but I have some photographs.’
He adjusted a few settings, grasped the camera lens and turned the back of the camera with the display screen to face Wisting.
The man had been rolled over and was now lying on his back. Most of the skin and tissue had been torn from his face. Where the mouth, nose and eyes had been were now only empty holes, but parts of his left cheek and ear that had been lying on the ground, were intact.
Unrecognisable, Wisting thought, but unmistakably the remains of a human being.
Mortensen continued through the sequence of images, stopping at a close-up of the dead man’s right hand. It had been lying under his chest and was relatively well preserved, although not in such good condition that they could take fingerprints. The remnants of skin were leathery and shrivelled around the pale fragments of bone. No rings or wristwatch, Wisting noted. His nails were gone, and the black fingers clenched, as if the hand had stiffened into a grasp around something he would not let go even in death.
Wisting leaned further forward and squinted at the little display screen. Something was poking out from the curled fingers. He glanced at Mortensen, seeking confirmation.
‘Here,’ his colleague nodded. It was even more distinct in the next photograph: wisps of blond hair caught in his fist.
Wisting leaned back in his chair, aware that the crime scene technician’s interpretation was similar to his own. The dead man had been involved in a fight, a fight to the death. The man depicted here had lost, but not without showing his killer some resistance.
7
Waking slowly, Line listened to the muted sounds of traffic on the street outside. She threw aside the quilt and swung her legs out of bed, and pulled on a pair of thick socks before padding sleepily across the cold floor to the kitchen. Goose pimples dotted her winter-pale complexion.
She crossed her left arm over her breasts when she approached the window to see how much snow had fallen overnight. The blizzard must have stopped several hours after she had gone to bed, but the snowfall had probably reached a depth of over half a metre. She could only just make out her car at the kerbside; the snow ploughs had made a good job of packing the snow around it. One of the smaller machines was busy clearing the pavement, and a man with a dog stepped aside to let it pass. Condensation formed on the windowpane where she stood gazing at its flashing roof light.
Grey clouds hung low in the sky, and the thermometer registered minus one degree Celsius. That meant the snow would be wet and heavy. She switched on the coffee machine, hoping one of the neighbours who had parked in front or behind her would drive away first. There was no need to shower until she had cleared the snow from her car, so she made do with pulling on a chunky sweater. It really belonged to Tommy, left behind when he had moved out more than a year earlier. They had met up after that, so she had actually had several opportunities to return the sweater, but something held her back. Although it had been ages since he had worn it, she could still smell him on it. If she missed him too much, she put on the sweater - better than phoning him, which merely prolonged the intensity of her emotions, and she had made up her mind: Tommy Kvanter was not a man to share her life with. She wanted a man she could depend on, someone responsible and safe to establish a family with. Tommy was none of those things. He was happy-go-lucky and attractive, and she knew he was not good for her. So this sweater would suffice, until something else cropped up, and she could get rid of it for good.
The coffee machine rumbled softly. She brought a full mug to the kitchen table and sat with her hands cupped around it against the chill air inside her flat. She flipped the lid of her laptop to check the front page of the online edition. More snow expected was the headline story. She could not be bothered reading it and perused her emails instead.
A reply had arrived from a researcher in the fact-checking department. They had retrieved information from the National Population Register confirming what her father had told her, that Viggo Hansen had no family.
Born in Stavern in February 1950, he had lived in Herman Wildeneys gate since the house was built in 1964. His father was listed as having died in 1969, and his mother had passed away when Viggo Hansen was twenty-four years of age. No other residents were registered at the address, and there was no information about where he had lived for the first fourteen years of his life. Line knew that older personal information was not stored electronically, and she would have to search through the paper archives if she wanted to discover facts not listed in the digital files. Since Viggo Hansen had been born in Stavern, there was reason to believe he had lived in that area all his life.
In her experience, living sources were best. One of the last things she had done the previous evening was to save the results of a search she had undertaken in the tax records, enquiring about people resident in Stavern who had been born in the same year as Viggo Hansen. That had produced fifty-six hits. Twenty-eight women and twenty-six men, of whom he was one. Several other familiar names appeared on the list, people she knew were still living in Stavern and who might be able to tell her about him. One of them was an artist she had interviewed in connection with an exhibition at the time she had been working on the local newspaper. In addition, there was a lawyer called Realfsen and a woman who had been a teacher.
The artist’s name was Eivind Aske. She googled his web page. An illustrator, painter and graphic artist, he had his own gallery, studio and printworks in Stavern. She recognised the drawings that appeared on screen, mostly portraits of children drawn with dark-coloured pencils. The expression was soft and sensitive.
Both his phone number and email address were provided at the foot of the page. She dialled the number and introduced herself, explaining that she had interviewed him a number of years earlier, but that she was now working at the Verdens Gang national newspaper. Eivind Aske assured her he remembered the interview, and wondered how he could be of assistance.
‘I’d hoped to ask you some questions about Viggo Hansen,’ she said.
‘Who?’
‘Viggo Hansen,’ Line repeated. ‘He’s dead now, but you were the same age and I wondered whether you had maybe gone to school together?’
Silence fell as her interviewee considered this. Line wondered whether she would re
member everyone from her own class at school. There had been more than twenty pupils in the same class for the nine years of primary and junior high school. If she were asked to produce a list of names, there would probably be some she had forgotten, but she would be able to call them to mind if she heard their names. At least most of them.
‘Viggo Hansen,’ the man said, as if tasting the name. ‘Yes, I do remember him. A puny little boy. He was often ill, I think. At least, he was absent a great deal. That’s really all I remember.’
‘All the same, could I drop by this afternoon?’
‘I won’t be home this afternoon and evening, but you can come tomorrow, sometime after four o’clock.’
‘Can we say four o’clock?’
‘Four o’clock it is,’ Eivind Aske confirmed. ‘You’ve been here before, so you know the way.’
Line drew the conversation to a close. One appointment would suffice in the meantime. She would like to garner some names from Eivind Aske, of people who might have known Viggo Hansen better than he, rather than waste time on appointments that may not turn out to be very productive.
Taking out a blank sheet of paper, she sketched the part of the street where she used to live. It sloped down from the old reservoir, curving round at the bottom where it met Tyrihansveien and ran back parallel again on the north side. She had not thought about it before, but these two streets formed an oval horseshoe shape. The houses on either side had extensive grounds bordering open space.
She located her father’s house as Herman Wildenveys gate number 7, and drew in Viggo Hansen’s house, number 4, down on the bend on the opposite side of the street. She then pinpointed the other houses, writing in the names of the occupants and adding arrows and dashes to indicate where people had moved in or out.
I should begin at the closest point, she thought, with his nearest neighbours, and then extend the circle outwards.
The next-door neighbour was Greta Tisler at number 2. She was a widow with no children. Silje and Steinar Brunvall had grown up in the house directly opposite. Steinar had been in her class, while Silje was three years younger. Their parents were called Tor and Marianne. She thought she recalled something about Steinar having taken over the house, and looked him up in the telephone directory, discovering that he lived there with someone by the name of Ida. She could not find anything regarding his parents.
The Caveman Page 3
