The Caveman

by Jorn Lier Horst

  ‘Who’s Frank?’ Line asked, thinking he had to be the sender of the Christmas cards she had found at Viggo Hansen’s house.

  ‘Frank Iversen. He was the son of the ship pilot. He would have been a year or so older than Viggo Hansen. They worked together at the prawn factory.’

  ‘You mean the pea canning factory?’

  ‘No, no. The Reimes prawn factory. The Reime family lived four houses from here. The factory was in the garden behind their house. I used to shell prawns there myself.’

  ‘Do you know of someone called Irene that Viggo might have known?’

  Annie Nyhus dipped the almond stick in her coffee again. This time she could not assist.

  ‘Do you know where Frank lives now?’

  ‘Iver Iversen was appointed master of the ship pilots’ guild in Langesund, so the whole family moved there in the sixties. I heard his wife died soon after, but since then nothing.’

  They heard the front door open and footsteps in the hallway. ‘That’ll be Greger,’ Annie said. ‘I promised him a piece of cake if he called in. He’s so good at snow clearing and helping me out.’

  She stood up to give a warm welcome to a man of her own age with thick, curly hair and huge fists. ‘You have a visitor?’ he asked with a smile.

  ‘It’s the Wisting girl,’ Annie said. ‘The grand-daughter of Roald Wisting from the hospital.’

  Line was amused by the way she was introduced. Her grandfather was a well-known figure from when he practised as a doctor.

  The burly man offered her a cold hand, introducing himself as Greger Eriksen. ‘You write for the newspaper,’ he said, sitting down.

  Annie Nyhus placed another cup in front of him, pushing the plate of almond sticks closer. ‘She’s going to write about Viggo Hansen who lived in the Carlsen house in the fifties and sixties.’

  Greger Eriksen helped himself from the plate. ‘There was something about him in the paper,’ he said. ‘No name given, but it was him they were writing about. It was four months before they found him.’

  As Line gave an account of her planned project, Greger Eriksen stole a glance at Annie Nyhus. ‘No, it’s not so easy being alone,’ he said. ‘But neither is finding someone to share your life with.’

  ‘We were just talking about the ship pilot’s son,’ Annie said. ‘He and Viggo Hansen used to spend time together. They both worked in the prawn factory.’

  ‘You mentioned one more name,’ Line said. ‘German Ole?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what they called him, poor boy. It’s still a thorn in his flesh.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘Pia Linge’s boy. He was a few years older, but hung out with the younger boys. Pia lived in the annexe, behind the Reime family’s house, and also worked in the prawn factory.’

  ‘Did Ole work there too?’

  ‘No, he worked for a while at the refuse tip in Bukta. After that I’ve no idea what became of him.’

  ‘Does he still live in Stavern?’

  ‘I honestly don’t know. I haven’t seen him for a long time. He’s always kept himself to himself.’ She turned to face Greger Eriksen. ‘Have you seen anything of him?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Neither Ole nor Pia had an easy time of it,’ Annie Nyhus continued. ‘Ole was the son of a German soldier, you see. Pia ran about with the Germans during the occupation, right up until the liberation, and she had Ole in January of the year after that.’

  ‘That was just a rumour,’ Greger Eriksen added. ‘Nobody knows who his father was.’

  ‘But she did spend time with the German soldiers out at Rakke.’

  ‘She was probably in both camps,’ Eriksen said. ‘It was said that she worked for the Home Front as well, that she was an infiltrator.’

  ‘She had to live with the shame for the rest of her life,’ Annie Nyhus concluded. ‘Although that wasn’t very long. She wasn’t even fifty when she died.’

  The conversation turned to Christmas baking and little birds, the cold and the weather. Half an hour later, Line stood up and thanked her hostess. Before she reached her car, she cast a glance at the windows of the upper storey in the building known as the Carlsen house, where the curtains had always remained shut. She was on her way now, she felt.

  On her way into the shadows and darkness where Viggo Hansen had lived.

  33

  Hard-packed snow made the roads treacherous and slow. Impatient to get on, Line phoned directory enquiries as the queue of cars crawled slowly forward. The woman who answered also took her time, but eventually found an Ole Linge living at Brunlanesveien 550. Line asked for the number to be relayed as a text message and made the call. A man with a soft voice answered as she was about to hang up.

  ‘Is that Ole Linge?’ she asked.

  ‘Who is this?’

  Line introduced herself. ‘I’m calling with regard to Viggo Hansen. You know he’s dead?’

  ‘I saw the announcement.’

  ‘I’m writing a story about his life for VG and I’m looking for people who knew him and can tell me about him.’

  There was silence at the other end, and Line thought for a moment that the connection had been severed.

  ‘About his life?’ Ole Linge asked.

  ‘Actually about what it’s like being on your own; going through life without having anyone to share it with. To that end, I’m keen to talk to people who knew him.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Are you going to his funeral tomorrow?’

  ‘I don’t go out much.’

  ‘Would it suit for me to come to see you tomorrow afternoon?’

  ‘Why do that?’

  ‘To talk about Viggo Hansen. I’m trying to find out what he was like.’

  Again there was silence at the other end. An impatient motorist moved out and overtook two cars before squeezing back into the queue again.

  ‘What time exactly?’ Ole Linge asked.

  ‘Three o’clock?’

  He repeated the time as if he had to ensure it would not interfere with another appointment. ‘Yes, that would be okay.’

  They ended their conversation and Line was left thinking that the man Ole Linge’s life was as lonely as Viggo Hansen’s had been.

  The traffic came to a standstill in Storgata, stopped by a tractor clearing huge piles of snow, with the town lying like an amphitheatre on Line’s left. She looked up at the police station, just able to make out the top floors where her father’s office was located.

  She thought about the coil of frayed rope down in Viggo Hansen’s basement and could not believe it was the same rope his father had used to hang himself in 1969. Taking out her mobile phone she keyed in Wisting’s number. Possibly there was a report in the police archives. The traffic moved forward again while the number rang out.

  She turned right into Bugges gate, past the old soft drinks factory, and drove almost to the end where the residential street ended at a fenced-off industrial area. A modest, square house, it was smaller than the other houses in the street and surrounded by a tall picket fence.

  Line parked in the street and stepped into cold dry air, filled with the tang of the sea, which stung her nostrils when she inhaled. Nothing was marked on the mailbox, neither name nor house number, but the house was obviously occupied. The area in front of the garage had been cleared of snow, as well as a passageway to the front door.

  The elderly man who opened it stood in the doorway, looking at her. Pale and sallow, he looked as if he seldom ventured into the fresh air, and a greyish beard concealed his shirt collar. His hair was spiky in an uneven, cropped haircut, as if he had cut it himself.

  ‘Are you Odd Werner Ellefsen?’ The old man nodded. ‘We have an acquaintance in common. Viggo Hansen was a neighbour of mine.’ He did not seem to understand. ‘You were in the same class at Stavern school. His funeral is tomorrow.’

  A glimmer of understanding appeared in the man’s eyes, and he nodded tentatively.

  ‘I wondered if I coul
d have a few words with you?’ Line said, moving her bag to her other shoulder.

  ‘What about?’

  ‘About Viggo. Maybe I could come inside?’ She crossed her arms close to her chest as if to show that it was too cold to stand around. Ellefsen cast a fleeting glance into the hallway behind him and gave a quick nod that she could come in, leading her into a tidy kitchen where everything had its place. It was clean and neat, with a small Christmas decoration in the centre of the table where they sat facing each other. The old man did not offer her anything.

  Line told him about her job at VG and explained that the article she intended to write was the reason for her visit. ‘You knew him,’ she rounded off.

  ‘I didn’t know him,’ the man said.

  ‘But you went to school together?’

  ‘That was years ago.’

  He answered in short sentences and stared down at the tabletop.

  ‘When did you see him last?’

  Odd Werner Ellefsen shrugged. ‘Don’t remember.’ His voice was so faint it barely reached across the table.

  ‘Are you in touch with the others from that time? Frank Iversen or Ole Linge?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘When did you move away from Stavern?’

  ‘A long time ago.’

  There was something simple about him, so much so that she doubted whether he entirely understood her questions. She took out her camera and searched through the images for the class photograph.

  ‘That’s you,’ she said, pointing at the young boy standing next to Viggo Hansen.

  Leaning forward to peer at the tiny screen, Odd Werner Ellefsen nodded in agreement. ‘Me, yes,’ he said.

  ‘Do you remember when that photograph was taken?’

  He responded by turning his head to one side and back again.

  Line posed a few more questions, but he continued to answer in monosyllables. Nothing that he said contributed to her picture of Viggo Hansen.

  She snapped her notebook shut without writing many key words, but perhaps with an improved appreciation of why the two boys had found each other. Both of them shy and reserved, perhaps it had not been so much that they were friends as that they were both outsiders.

  34

  Towards the end of the meeting, formality between the local investigators and FBI agents broke down, conversation flowed more smoothly, and it became easier to find the right words in English.

  ‘There’s one thing I don’t understand,’ Nils Hammer said. ‘Why did he choose to come to Norway? There are countries where the regulations are less stringent and the weather is better.’

  ‘I would think he feels at home here,’ John Bantam said. He looked through the window at the frozen landscape. ‘This reminds me of the weather at home in Minneapolis. Winters are cold with a lot of snow, but the summers can be warm and pleasant. What’s more, I think the people who live here are like the people in Minnesota. They keep their doors closed and their curtains drawn. They hide their feelings and keep their secrets.’

  Before Wisting drew the meeting to a close, they agreed to meet again three hours later for an update.

  Torunn Borg had arranged office accommodation for the visitors and showed them where they could sit and work. Wisting returned to his own office where he checked his mobile phone and saw that he had an unanswered call from Line. He phoned her back. ‘Are you driving?’

  ‘I’ve been to Torstrand to speak to someone who went to school with Viggo Hansen,’ she said.

  ‘Made any progress?’

  ‘Some, but I don’t know how much I can use. Did you know that Viggo Hansen’s father hanged himself in the basement of their home?’

  Wisting, taken aback, had to admit he did not.

  ‘It was Jarle Lunden who told me.’

  ‘The clergyman? Have you spoken to him?’

  ‘He was around when it happened. The police had been there too. Do you think you might have a case file on it?’

  ‘When was it?’

  ‘1969.’

  ‘Case files older than twenty-five years that we were not duty bound to archive were shredded in 1995 when we moved into the new station, but I’ll take a look. I know some were kept. Old duty records, for example.’

  ‘Brilliant. When will you be home tonight?’

  ‘I don’t know yet, but it’ll be late. What are you planning to do now?’

  ‘I’m going back to Viggo Hansen’s house. I want to check a few details.’

  ‘What sort of details?’

  ‘Just something I overlooked. Something I didn’t think of the last time I was there.’ She did not allow him to quiz her any further. ‘Also, there’s a room in the basement you didn’t examine when he was found dead. A storeroom hidden behind some shelves.’

  ‘What was inside it?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s locked.’

  Wisting smiled wryly. ‘And that held you back?’

  ‘For the moment, yes.’

  ‘Let me know about it, then, if there’s anything the police have overlooked.’

  ‘By the way, I visited Grandad today. He was asking after you.’

  ‘How was he?’

  ‘Fine, he helped me get in touch with someone who knew Viggo Hansen before the family moved to Herman Wildenveys gate, an old woman who told me Viggo’s father was convicted of robbery.’

  ‘Robbery? The extract from the criminal records said aggravated theft.’

  ‘It might have been just a rumour. I’ve sent an email enquiry to the National Archives in Bergen, but haven’t received an answer yet.’

  They rounded off their conversation and he went to see Bjørg Karin at the criminal proceedings office. She not only had responsibility for recording and archiving, but also the special gift of knowing where everything was: documents in cases under investigation, court records, charges or fines. He brought a sheet of paper on which he had written the date of Gustav Hansen’s death. If any papers on the suicide remained in the archives, that date would make it easy to locate the case file.

  Back in his office, he found Torunn Borg had forwarded an email with the lists from the Population Register. 2,127 men in the local authority area fulfilled the search criteria. Robert Godwin was now sixty-one, but they had conducted a search of plus or minus three years. If Godwin was resident in the area under a false identity he might be masquerading as a person actually two or three years older or younger.

  They needed more people, Wisting thought. Even with ten staff it would take several weeks to check every single person on the list. Names could be sorted alphabetically by name and address or chronologically by age. There was also a column for those registered as immigrants or incomers after Robert Godwin had fled from the USA. That list comprised only 123 names. Here was their beginning, but even that would be an enormous task.

  35

  At 17.00, they assembled in the conference room again. Special agent Donald Baker requested permission to speak. ‘We’ve completed our investigations at Bob Crabb’s home,’ he said in a deep voice, ‘and spoken to people who knew him and what he was working on. We haven’t found any direct connection between him and Robert Godwin. Both taught at the university in the eighties, but in different faculties. Professor Crabb, however, was one of Lynn Adams’ lecturers.’

  ‘The first victim,’ Torunn Borg said.

  Donald Baker nodded. ‘She went missing in 1983. Six months later she was found in a drainage tank. It was not until six years later, when Godwin was wanted by the police, we succeeded in linking him to her homicide. Her remains were stowed in a canvas sack of the type used on his family’s apple farm.’

  ‘The homicide tormented Professor Crabb,’ John Bantam continued. ‘In 1989 yet another of his students was attacked, but she managed to flee her assailant. She identified Robert Godwin and DNA tests identified him as the Interstate Strangler.’

  ‘This upset Professor Crabb deeply,’ Donald Baker said. ‘Robert Godwin was posted wanted, but he had already d
isappeared. A reward of one million dollars was offered, which was when Bob Crabb began his own investigation.’

  He nodded for Maggie Griffin to pick up the thread.

  ‘Professor Crabb told his neighbours that he was going to search for relatives in Norway,’ she said. ‘Probably a cover story. He told his university colleagues that Robert Godwin might have fled to Scandinavia since he was fascinated by his Norwegian forebears, had studied the language and led a programme of Nordic studies.’

  ‘Hang on a minute!’ Wisting said. ‘Are you telling us that Godwin is of Norwegian extraction, from this area?’

  ‘Twenty per cent of the white population in Minnesota is of Norwegian origin,’ John Bantam said. ‘My great-great-great-grandfather came from Kristiansand.’

  ‘You say he studied the language,’ Nils Hammer said. ‘Does that mean he speaks Norwegian?’

  Maggie Griffin exchanged a look with Donald Baker. They both seemed embarrassed that this information had only come to light more than twenty years after Robert Godwin had disappeared.

  ‘He has a Ph.D. in Scandinavian languages.’

  ‘Where did his ancestors come from?’ Wisting asked.

  Maggie Griffin leafed through the papers and produced a printout she pushed across the table. ‘That’s his great-great-grandfather.’

  Wisting read with interest. Factory worker Niels Gustavsen from the parish of Brunlanæs Berg had travelled to New York on the steamship Norge on 26th April 1889.

  ‘The pictures,’ Wisting spoke in Norwegian, looking at his colleagues. ‘The old farm buildings that Bob Crabb photographed. That could be the place Godwin’s ancestors came from. That could be how to track him down.’

  The three Americans looked quizzically at him, and Wisting informed them about the pictures they had found on Crabb’s camera. Espen Mortensen switched on the projector and called them up.

  The FBI agents looked at one another.

  ‘Go back,’ Donald Baker said, loosening his tie.

  Espen Mortensen did as he was asked. The picture of the burned-down barn filled the screen, with weeds and shrubs forcing their way through the ruins.