The Caveman

by Jorn Lier Horst

  ‘Good to see you again,’ Leif Malm said, introducing Wisting to the other woman in their company. ‘This is Police Inspector Anne Finstad from the international joint operations section.’

  She was the only one wearing uniform. It hung loosely from her shoulders. Her face was narrow and her complexion pale.

  Wisting spoke first, in English. He invited them to sit down, thanked them for coming and encouraged them to help themselves to food and drink.

  The FBI agents filled the room with a kind of authority he was unaccustomed to. He cleared his throat, but waited until the coffee cups had been distributed and the coffee pot passed round before speaking. ‘Three days ago, the body of an unidentified man was found in a forested area, approximately ten kilometres from the centre of town,’ he said, before handing over to Mortensen.

  The image of the dead man lying underneath the fir tree at Halle filled the screen.

  ‘The forensics team estimates he had been lying there for approximately four months,’ Wisting went on.

  The FBI special agents nodded, giving their full attention as the images were shown. They were already familiar with the facts of the case from the briefing material, but the photos were new to them.

  Wisting gave an account of the contusions on the skull, the height and weight of the cadaver and the manufacturers’ labels on his clothing. ‘He had a sealed plastic bag in the inside pocket of his jacket.’ He paused while Mortensen located the appropriate picture. ‘It contained a brochure that was handed out in Stavern on 9th and 10th August. On that brochure, we found Robert Godwin’s fingerprints.’

  Wisting paused again, this time to allow the FBI agents to say something. The oldest of them, Donald Baker, cleared his throat. ‘Well, it ain’t Godwin’s body,’ he said, opening his document folder with an unruffled motion. ‘We’ve compared his DNA profile with the reference samples you gave us. There isn’t a match.’

  Wisting took the papers, annoyed that the Americans had not sent the test results in advance of the delegation’s arrival. ‘That’s not quite what we expected,’ he commented tersely, calling on Torunn Borg to speak.

  ‘In that case the body is most likely to be a sixty-seven-year-old widower from Minneapolis,’ she told them, explaining Bob Crabb’s background. ‘We’ve been in touch with investigators from the 3rd Precinct of the Minneapolis police, requesting that they visit his apartment and search it thoroughly.’

  Espen Mortensen supplemented this by showing pictures of the newspaper cuttings about the Godwin case found in Bob Crabb’s luggage.

  Donald Baker exchanged a look with John Bantam. ‘They went in three hours ago,’ he said. ‘The apartment shows signs of being vacant for some considerable time. Our people are going through his papers and belongings. We’re also expecting to find material to use for a DNA profile, with the intention of conclusively establishing identity.’

  ‘Robert Godwin and Bob Crabb taught at the same university,’ Torunn Borg said. ‘We’d like to know as much as possible about what specific connections there were between the two of them.’

  ‘Our people are on the case,’ Donald Baker said. ‘From the initial feedback we’ve received, it does seem that Bob Crabb showed a great interest in Robert Godwin.’ The FBI agent nodded in the direction of the screen. ‘He has a workroom where they found similar news cuttings.’

  Wisting filled his coffee cup before continuing. ‘So, we can also consider it probable that Bob Crabb, through his own investigations, had come to believe that Robert Godwin had fled to Norway and taken up residence here. Then he himself travelled here in an attempt to find him.’

  ‘A great deal suggests that he managed to do so,’ Police Inspector Anne Finstad commented. ‘That he found Godwin, I mean, and that it was Godwin who killed Bob Crabb.’

  ‘That’s the most obvious theory,’ Wisting agreed. ‘But we have contradictory forensic evidence.’

  Espen Mortensen showed a picture of the strands of hair in the dead man’s hand.

  ‘This hair belonged to a woman,’ Wisting said, watching as Anne Finstad’s mouth snapped shut.

  ‘Are these test results absolutely watertight?’ the female FBI agent asked.

  ‘Incontrovertible,’ Mortensen said. ‘A mitochondrial DNA analysis was carried out. The sex-typing markers prove a very clear female origin, but we have asked that the samples be analysed again.’

  Leif Malm straightened up. ‘Do you have anything more?’

  Wisting gave an account of the more traditional elements of the investigation, explaining how they had lost out on potential electronic evidence because the body had not been found until long after death.

  Donald Baker had taken notes while Wisting was speaking. Now he put down his pen. ‘What we can conclude with certainty,’ he said, ‘is that Robert Godwin has been here, and he’s probably been here for some time. What steps have you taken to find him?’

  ‘This information is only a few hours old,’ Wisting replied, aware that he was adopting a defensive position. ‘Until this meeting, there was a theoretical possibility that it was Robert Godwin we had found dead.’ He cleared his throat and continued. ‘At present we’re in the process of extracting lists from the Population Register in an effort to chart men in the relevant age group who live in this area.’

  ‘Do you think he’ll have registered as an immigrant?’ Anne Finstad asked, a faint smile playing on her lips. ‘Is it not more likely he’ll be living here illegally?’

  ‘It’s still a job that has to be done.’ More than 25,000 people in the country were not recorded in any registers, and preferred to remain under the radar. ‘Our greatest hope, all the same, is that the police in Minneapolis will find what set Bob Crabb on the right track and made him travel here.’

  ‘The lists from the Population Register are a good idea,’ Donald Baker said. ‘It’s possible that he’s registered there, but he could still be difficult to track down.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, you’ll need to go through the lists person by person, but I do think he’ll be listed there.’ The experienced FBI investigator leaned across the table. ‘I’ve come across this sort of thing before,’ he said. ‘The way this case is looking, there’s every reason to assume that Robert Godwin has become a Caveman.’

  ‘A caveman?’ Nils Hammer repeated. ‘What does that mean? That he’s hidden himself in a cave somewhere?’

  ‘That’s what we call them,’ Donald Baker explained. ‘People on the run who eventually find an empty life. They take over the identity and the anonymous existence of a person no one will miss. In a sense they fill an empty space and continue to live, just as isolated and lonely as the person whose place they have taken.’

  ‘What happens to the other person?’ Torunn Borg asked. ‘The one they replace?’

  Donald Baker shrugged, but they all knew the answer.

  Wisting leaned back in his chair. A caveman, he thought. Someone who has crept inside the life of another person. That was what they were searching for. A demon who had taken up residence in another person’s life.

  31

  A combination of guilty conscience and self-interest made Line pay a visit to her grandfather. Her grandmother had died when Line was four years old, and he had lived alone for many years. Eleven years ago, he had retired from his job as a doctor at the town’s hospital. Although he fulfilled honorary roles in various societies and associations, she knew he spent a lot of time alone and that her father was not a frequent visitor. The clock on the living room wall struck twelve.

  She cut the Danish pastry she had brought, placing the slices on a plate and carrying it through to the living room.

  Her grandfather sat in front of the television set where a foreign channel was broadcasting a documentary about the prison island of Alcatraz. She picked up the remote control to turn down the volume. The roomy armchair on which he sat was extremely worn: the cushion behind his back was flattened, and the velour on the armrests almost
threadbare. Something about this shabby armchair stopped her in her tracks, with the odd sensation of something opening up inside only for a second before it was gone. It felt as if something important had occurred to her, something she had to tell someone, but that vanished before she could put it into words.

  She sat in the other chair, struggling to recall what it had been. Her grandfather’s back was now stooped and she wondered if he was lonely, but could not bring herself to ask. Perhaps she was afraid of his answer. ‘It’s cold,’ she said instead.

  He leaned towards the window ledge, squinting at the electronic weather station she had given him one Christmas. ‘Minus 16.3 degrees Celsius,’ he said. ‘Last night it was down to 18.7. I’m glad I don’t need to go out.’

  Smiling, Line helped herself to a slice of pastry.

  ‘How’s your brother getting on?’ he asked.

  ‘I think he’s really busy at work,’ she said. ‘It’s a while since I spoke to him.’

  When she and Thomas were children, they had been not only siblings but also friends who shared secrets and protected each other. She still felt a strong bond with him, but they had developed differently and gradually lost contact as they started to live their own lives.

  Finally Line told her grandfather about Viggo Hansen and the article she was researching. ‘Did you know them?’ she asked. ‘His parents were Solveig and Gustav Hansen. They lived just beside the old pea canning factory before they moved to Herman Wildenveys gate.’

  ‘The pea canning factory,’ he said. ‘I had a summer job there after the war. Sonny Hermetikk was the name. It wasn’t only peas. All sorts of fruit, meat, fish and vegetables were canned there. Before that, there was a vehicle manufacturer on that site. They built lorries that ran on batteries, did you know that?’

  Line shook her head. ‘Did you know them? Solveig and Gustav Hansen?’

  ‘I grew up on the other side of town, in Fjerdingen, but if they lived on the same side as the canning factory they must have rented from Carlsen. They had lodgers on the first floor. The poet Herman Wildenvey used to live next door, directly across the street from the house where the famous writer, Jonas Lie, used to live. At the time we are speaking of, the grandchildren of Colin Archer, the ship-builder, lived there.’

  He produced a sheet of paper and sketched the main road to Stavern. ‘There was an extensive orchard in front of the canning factory by the main road,’ he said. ‘On the corner – here - was where the ship pilot lived, and behind him was the Rakke family’s house. On the other side of the street, the Nyhus folk stayed, and Doctor Welgaard had his surgery beside them.’

  Line watched his pencil strokes.

  ‘If they lived beside the canning factory,’ he said, ‘they must have rented the upper storey in Carlsen’s house.’

  ‘Does Carlsen still live there?’

  ‘No, the old folk are long since dead. I think they had only one daughter, about my age. I think she got married and moved to Moss.’

  ‘Does anyone live there now who might remember something from the old days?’

  ‘That would have to be Annie Nyhus,’ he said, placing a cross on a house across the street from where the Hansen family had rented. ‘She was born during the war and has lived there ever since.’

  They continued to chat until the wall clock struck one and Line stood up. The elusive thought had plagued her for the entire hour but when her grandfather rose from his well-worn armchair she felt a shift, not a sudden flash of inspiration, but a slow uneasiness spreading through her body. No, the physical details around Viggo Hansen’s death did not add up.

  She rushed to her car and tried to start the engine at the same time as opening her laptop. Turning the heating up full-blast she tapped her way into the Viggo Hansen folder and then into the sub-folder where she had assembled the photographs. Searching for her picture of the two empty armchairs, she finally located the image. The chair on the left was discoloured with stains from the dead body, but it was the other that was worn. It had a grubby, flattened cushion on the back, and the fabric at the front edge was almost entirely threadbare where the occupant’s thighs had chafed. It was the chair on the right that had been Viggo Hansen’s usual place in front of the TV set. However, his body had been found in the other armchair.

  32

  The fine layer of ice on the windshield slowly melted. Raising her eyes from the computer screen, Line adjusted the heater fan.

  It need not be significant that Viggo Hansen had not been sitting in his habitual armchair. He might have noticed that the chair he normally used was becoming worn and shabby, and decided to re-arrange the furniture. But it could also mean that someone put him there to make it look as if he had died in his sleep in front of the TV. She could not shake this thought off, and felt compelled to return to his house for another look. When she was inside before, she had been looking for other things: stories from his life, glimpses of what kind of person he had been. Now a seed of doubt was sown and she wondered whether his death might not be from natural causes after all.

  An email arrived from the newspaper’s fact-checking department. A researcher had located Viggo Hansen’s old school friend, Odd Werner Ellefsen, in Bugges gate in Torstrand, the old working-class district in Larvik. According to the Population Register he lived alone and had done so since he moved there in 1972.

  She decided to visit Annie Nyhus first, who still lived in the street where Viggo Hansen had grown up. After that, she would drive into town and see if she could get hold of Odd Werner Ellefsen. Then she could do some shopping to stock the fridge before paying another visit to Viggo Hansen’s house.

  She should really also cook a proper dinner one day and invite her grandfather over, she thought, as she drove off. A pre-Christmas dinner. He was fond of salted mutton, but at Christmas they always had roast pork. If she bought some later she could soak it in water overnight and serve it in the evening.

  She parked on the open gravel beside Larvikveien where her grandfather had told her there had been a large orchard when the canning factory was still operating. An Esso petrol station, now demolished, had later been situated in that spot but, in recent years, it had become a waste ground.

  The house where she assumed Viggo Hansen and his parents lived in the fifties and early sixties had been extended and modernised. Close to the road, it nevertheless had an extensive back garden. Taking her grandfather’s sketch map, she crossed the road and located a gatepost with the name Nyhus. Slightly secluded, the house stood in the lee of a clump of deciduous trees with sprawling branches. A scatter of snow fell as a pair of crows took flight from the tops.

  A narrow path had been cleared to the front door, spruce branches spread on the stairs, and a ceramic plant pot set on the top step, containing an evergreen plant decorated with red bows. Line rang the doorbell and did not have long to wait before a short, elderly woman opened the door and looked at her over the top of her glasses. Her grey hair was drawn back and she wore an apron tied round her waist.

  ‘Come in,’ she said before Line had a chance to introduce herself. ‘Don’t stand out there in the cold.’

  Line knocked the snow off her boots before scurrying inside to let the old woman close the door. ‘Are you Annie Nyhus?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, that’s me,’ the elderly woman said. ‘Who’s asking?’

  Line introduced herself and explained why she had come.

  ‘I saw the notice in the newspaper and heard that he was dead,’ Annie Nyhus said. ‘Come through.’ The kitchen was filled with the sweet aroma of Christmas baking. Four decorated almond rings sat on the worktop. ‘I honestly didn’t know he was still alive,’ she went on. ‘Far less that he still lived here in town. Can’t remember when I saw him last.’

  ‘I’m really more interested in what you remember from the time he and his family lived across the street,’ Line said, taking a seat.

  Annie Nyhus paid no heed. ‘The cakes are for the Christmas raffle at the Women’s Voluntary
Service, but I’ve a few almond sticks here.’

  She set out a dish of neatly-iced cakes, before picking up the thread of their conversation.

  ‘Well, Viggo Hansen,’ she said, setting cups on the table. ‘They lived on the first floor of the Carlsen house, him and his mother, Solveig. His father travelled around Norway building power stations. Gustav, I think his name was. He spent a lot of time in Western Norway.’

  She took out a cloth and wiped away a few imaginary crumbs before fetching a coffee pot and pouring, without asking if Line wanted any.

  ‘I think they moved when he was thirteen or fourteen, to a house up in Herman Wildenveys gate. No idea how they suddenly had the money for that.’ She leaned across the table and lowered her voice. ‘Gustav Hansen had been in jail, you know. We hardly ever saw him and thought he was working away, but Erna told us. She was married to William Sverdrup, who was in the police.’

  ‘What had he done?’

  ‘A robbery of some kind, over in Western Norway. He was caught, but whether the money was ever found, well, that’s another matter.’

  Line asked a few more questions, but Annie Nyhus had no more information.

  ‘It was said that Viggo Hansen’s mother was admitted to hospital with psychiatric problems,’ Line said.

  A glint appeared in the old woman’s eyes. ‘I didn’t hear anything about that, but it wouldn’t surprise me. She didn’t seem quite right.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘How can I put it? She didn’t really have anything to do with the other women in the street. Kept herself to herself. The curtains were always drawn. I don’t have a clue what went on inside.’

  ‘Did you have anything to do with Viggo?’

  ‘He was ten years younger than me. I just remember him as a very quiet boy.’

  ‘Was there anyone else he was friendly with? Boys of the same age, perhaps?’

  Annie Nyhus picked up an almond stick, dipped it in her coffee and sucked it. ‘That would have to be Frank,’ she finally answered. ‘And maybe German Ole.’