The Caveman

by Jorn Lier Horst

  He drew the papers out of the folder. The top sheet was from a typewritten duty record: 24th May 1969 at 07.48, a message had come from the on-call doctor requesting police attendance at Herman Wildenveys gate 4. Solveig Hansen had found her husband hanging in the basement. The responding patrol reported that Dr. Gravdahl had declared forty-one-year-old Gustav Hansen dead at the scene. There was also a correction recorded to the on-call doctor’s report. Nineteen-year-old son Viggo Hansen had found his father dead in a basement storeroom. Report from Police Officer Thorsen.

  The report was enclosed with a copy of the death certificate and amounted to only three-quarters of a page. Gustav Hansen had hanged himself from an exposed sewage pipe in a basement storeroom. The ceiling was low, so the suicide had been accomplished by the deceased leaning forward in a kneeling position. The man’s extreme determination to carry this through was reinforced by his wife’s statement that her husband had been very depressed because he was now unemployed after working on the building of a power station in Western Norway on a lengthy contract.

  No photographs were included in the folder but, forty years ago, it was not common to make use of photographic material in such cases.

  Wisting gathered the documents and placed them at the corner of his desk. Even greater tragedies, recorded in even shorter reports, were stored in the historical archives. He held that thought for some time.

  ‘Of course,’ he muttered irritably.

  He activated his computer and clicked into the folder of Bob Crabb’s photographs, browsing through them until he found what he was looking for, double-clicked and let the farmyard well in front of the ramshackle farmhouse fill the screen. Now that he knew what might be at the bottom it drew his attention, but of more interest was the barn in the background that had been destroyed by fire. Probably the homestead had been abandoned before the fire, but it must have been serious, leading to attendance by the police and fire service.

  They did not have many fires of such proportions in this area, barely one or two per year. Somewhere in the historical archives there had to be a report describing the scale, damage and possibly even the cause.

  He looked again at the picture. It looked as if vegetation had completely taken over. It must be at least ten years since the fire.

  He opened the computer program for processing criminal case files. Designed not only to identify quickly where in the system a case was located, it also allowed extraction of statistics and analysis. To learn how many cars had been stolen in the police district in the previous year, it was a simple matter of filling in the type of crime and the time period in the search fields. The result could be broken down into areas of the town and even street and on what day of the week or time of day. Thus the volume of cases could also become a management tool the police could utilise to target intervention.

  Wisting was not trained in its use. He keyed in a time interval between 1989, the year Robert Godwin went on the run from the USA, and an end date of 2005. The problem was that fires were entered in the statistics in many different ways, depending upon the cause of the fire and extent of the damage. In addition, some fires were registered as cases under investigation in the same way that a single death could be registered, to establish whether grounds existed to suspect a crime.

  The computer froze before finally coming up with 1,132 results. Everything from fires in refuse bins and cars to fires in detached houses and schools. Too much. He leaned back, deciding on a different approach. Finn Haber had been crime scene technician and fire investigator at the station until his retirement. Wisting had his number stored. He took out his mobile and called.

  The voice that answered was calm and steady, as it had always been, even when Wisting had called him at night to scenes of the most dreadful crimes. ‘I need your help,’ he said after exchanging a few pleasantries. ‘And I can’t explain why.’

  ‘With what?’

  ‘I’m sitting here with a photo taken some time during the summer. We’re trying to find out where it was taken.’

  ‘Have you asked the person who took it?’

  ‘He’s dead.’

  There was a moment’s silence before Finn Haber continued. ‘What makes you think I can contribute something?’

  ‘It’s a picture of an old smallholding with the barn burned to the ground. I thought it might have been a place where you had worked.’

  ‘I’d really have to see the picture,’ Haber said. ‘Or is it so secret that’s not possible?’

  ‘I can send it to you via my phone.’

  ‘Go ahead,’ Haber replied, hanging up without another word.

  Wisting held his mobile phone in front of his computer screen and took a photograph of the image. The result was surprisingly good. He fumbled with the keys and managed to send the photo as an attachment to a text. Ten seconds later, Haber called back.

  ‘Hagatun,’ he said. ‘Abandoned in the seventies, it has stood empty ever since. Burned down in August 2000. Children playing with matches, apparently. There was no electricity supply, and no other obvious reason.’

  Wisting remembered the case now. Two small boys from one of the neighbouring farms had been brought in for questioning, but denied having anything to do with the blaze.

  ‘There’s an overgrown track leading to it directly opposite the old Tanum school,’ Haber continued. ‘It might be difficult to reach after the last snowfall.’

  Wisting took a map from his desk drawer and unfolded it. Two large and three smaller buildings were shown on the site. The place was surrounded by forest.

  ‘Good luck, whatever you plan,’ Haber concluded. ‘And have a good Christmas when it comes.’

  ‘Merry Christmas to you too,’ Wisting said, ‘and thanks for your help.’

  He hung up as Benjamin Fjeld entered the office, immediately followed by Nils Hammer. ‘I think I’ve located one of the places,’ Fjeld said, laying the picture of the abandoned smallholding on the desk before Wisting.

  Wisting looked from the photograph to the same image on his computer screen. ‘Hagatun,’ he said.

  The young detective opened his mouth but did not say a word. Hammer showed his teeth in a broad grin.

  ‘I found out just two minutes ago,’ Wisting said, recounting his conversation with Finn Haber.

  ‘What do you want me to do now?’ Fjeld asked. ‘Continue with the local history society and that sort of thing?’

  Wisting thought about it. The information embedded in the digital files implied that all the photographs were taken on the same day within a time period of less than two hours. The farm was impossible to access by car, as the road did not go as far as that. This meant that the photographer had probably not travelled very far and that the other locations in the photographs had to be in the vicinity. ‘Concentrate on the landowners in that area,’ he said, drawing a wide circle round Hagatun on the map.

  Fjeld nodded and left the room.

  ‘He deserved a little praise,’ Hammer remarked, sliding his snuffbox from his pocket.

  Wisting gave a brief nod. He was not good at praising the investigators when they had done an outstanding job although, as leader of the investigation, it fell to him to maintain the enthusiasm and commitment of the team.

  Wisting leaned back in his chair. ‘Can you take responsibility for this?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Wisting waited until Hammer had placed the pinch of snuff behind his top lip. ‘I want you to think of a plan to get into that farmyard and empty the well,’ he said. ‘Without anyone knowing a police operation has been instigated.’

  40

  At almost half past eight, Line stood and stretched. She photographed the contents of the room and arranged the items in the suitcase as they had been, before taking some close-up pictures of the names on the family tree. Closing the door behind her she hooked the padlock back on the hasp.

  Outside, a wind had risen, a freezing, biting blast that cut to the bone. She walked with short, hurried
steps along the street towards her home. She had done her shopping earlier and left the groceries in her car. Now she carried them into the kitchen.

  Her father was not home yet, so she stowed the food before making herself a cup of coffee and taking it upstairs to her workroom. It had been a fruitful day, she felt, opening her laptop on the desk. Although she was unsure how to use all the information, she was at least making a picture of Viggo Hansen and his life in the shadow of his parents’ mistakes.

  In the centre of a blank sheet of paper she wrote his name and drew a circle round it, jotting down the names of the people who in some way or other had found themselves in his orbit. She recorded the names of his parents closest to the inner circle with a cross at the end to show that they were dead. On the other side, she wrote the names of friends and acquaintances: Eivind Aske and Odd Werner Ellefsen from school, Frank Iversen from the prawn factory, German Ole, and Irene followed by a question mark. In a separate group, she listed the names of the neighbours, finally adding the public personages she could think of. She had already spoken to the clergyman, and really ought to contact the doctor who had declared him unfit for work. Perhaps she could also speak to someone who knew him when he had been admitted to the psychiatric unit. He must also have had a case worker at NAV, the Labour and Welfare administration.

  The notes from her conversation with Annie Nyhus implied that Frank Iversen had moved to Langesund with his parents in the sixties, but no Frank Iversen was listed in Langesund, at least not in any register she could access. She sent what information she had to the fact-checking department to see if they could trace him elsewhere in the country.

  Now it was time to think in earnest about starting to write. Instead of drafting a layout on the computer as she usually did, she printed out the photographs she had taken, pinning them to the cork board so that she could rearrange them at will and sort them in the order she felt best represented Viggo Hansen’s life. She hung photographs of the dark, gloomy house, of the damaged door, the TV magazine on the coffee table, the crime scene photograph showing the back of his head in the armchair in front of the TV, the Christmas cards, the family photographs, the padlock on the storeroom door, his father’s death certificate and the newspaper cuttings from the safe-blowing case in 1960.

  Something like a film director setting up a storyboard, she thought, as she placed the old class photograph further down the row.

  Finally she was left with two pictures she was not sure belonged in the story. The image of the two vacant armchairs in the living room and the coffee machine in readiness in the kitchen. Holding them in her hand, she wondered whether there was any chance that someone who had been inside Viggo Hansen’s house had taken his life. Now that she had gained some distance and perspective, the possibility seemed less likely. He never had visitors, and who in the world would want to kill him?

  A car door slammed outside, immediately followed by her father’s footsteps in the hall. She put aside the last two prints and went downstairs to greet him, but could see that something was bothering him. He had dark rings under his eyes and looked very pale. The skin on his face was etched with fine wrinkles and crevices she had not noticed before, like an old oil painting.

  ‘I found the case notes for the suicide,’ he said, handing her a transparent plastic folder. ‘It’s true. He hanged himself in the basement.’

  She took the file, surprised that he had remembered. ‘Thanks,’ she said, but decided to wait to look through the papers. ‘Hungry?’

  He followed her into the kitchen, where she took out the frying pan, poured in some oil and let it heat while fetching a ready-made pack of hash from the freezer.

  ‘This was all I could think of,’ she said, holding up the packet.

  ‘I could eat anything at all.’

  She poured the contents into the pan and let it sizzle. ‘Are you going to the funeral tomorrow?’ she asked, stirring the cubed vegetables and meat, but her father’s thoughts were elsewhere and he had no idea what she meant. ‘It’s Viggo Hansen’s funeral tomorrow. I thought I would go.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ he said. ‘Have you arranged for flowers?’

  ‘I phoned the florist and ordered a wreath. It says A last goodbye from the neighbours in Herman Wildenveys gate on the card.’

  ‘Have you spoken to the other neighbours?’

  ‘I took a chance. I don’t expect any of them will come tomorrow to see it.’

  ‘How much do I owe you?’ He took his wallet from his trouser pocket. ‘For the food and the flowers?’

  ‘Don’t think of it.’ She turned to the frying pan. ‘Have you spoken to Thomas, about whether he’s coming home for Christmas?’

  Wisting crossed to the kitchen cupboard and took out two plates. ‘I can phone him tomorrow.’

  Line wanted to tell him how her story about Viggo Hansen was taking shape, but decided against it. Her father was preoccupied by other things. The case he was working on was gnawing at him in a way she had never seen before and it seemed he was keeping something from her.

  41

  The news had already spread before the morning meeting. One of the locations had been identified. ‘Benjamin Fjeld has tracked down one of the smallholdings in the photographs,’ Wisting began. ‘Now we have to find what the well contains without the news getting out.’

  Mortensen called up an aerial photo of the abandoned farm, now so overgrown it was difficult to pick out the buildings.

  ‘The farm is approximately three hundred metres from the main road,’ Nils Hammer said. ‘I got a friend of mine with a tractor to clear the path as far as he could. After about two hundred metres there’s an old landslip, which means we’ll have to cover the last stretch on foot.’

  Wisting looked out of the window. About seventy centimetres of snow must have fallen before the weather changed and the temperature dropped.

  ‘To attract least attention, we’ll cram the maximum people and equipment into one vehicle,’ Hammer went on. ‘I’ve acquired a civilian delivery van with four-wheel drive. It’s waiting in the garage.’

  ‘Have you spoken to the landowner?’ Christine Thiis asked.

  Hammer shook his head. ‘The property was purchased by Bertram Nalum in the eighties. He was probably most interested in the forest and arable land, but in 2000 he landed a substantial sum of insurance money after the barn burned down.’

  Benjamin Fjeld’s hand shot into the air. ‘There’s a link here! When I interviewed Jonathan Wang about Halle farm, he told me he had worked on Bertram Nalum’s farm before he bought his own smallholding.’

  ‘Wasn’t he originally from Austria?’ Wisting asked. ‘When did he come to Norway?’

  ‘At the beginning of the nineties.’

  Wisting noted the name of the man with the facial scars before waving Nils Hammer on.

  ‘I’ve called in four men from the Emergency Squad, trained in abseiling, to investigate the bottom of the well. They’ll report here at ten o’clock. Of course, we don’t know what conditions will be like down there, or how big a task will face us. If there’s water in the well, it will be frozen solid.’

  ‘What will we do with whatever we find?’ Torunn Borg asked.

  ‘The crime scene technicians will have to go down and take over.’

  Espen Mortensen gripped his coffee cup. ‘If we find what we fear, then it could turn into a major job.’

  ‘We can assist,’ Leif Malm of Kripos said. ‘The team can be here at two hours’ notice if required.’

  Wisting nodded. ‘Have you produced that list of names, possible victims?’ he asked.

  Leif Malm cleared his throat and took a set of stapled sheets from his folder. ‘It’s shorter than I hinted yesterday. That means, if we confine the search to women aged between eighteen and twenty-five, the age of Robert Godwin’s victims in the USA, we’re left with a total of fourteen. If we allow that he may also have chosen older victims in line with becoming older himself, then the list is almost three tim
es as long.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Forty-six missing without trace. Assumed suicides and women missing on hiking trips in the forest or mountains have been deleted. Also deleted are a number of cases where the victim has not been found but a prosecution has been brought against the husband.’

  Donald Baker of the FBI had so far remained silent, listening intently. ‘What about proximity to main roads?’

  Leif Malm replied, ‘Twelve of the fourteen women disappeared from major towns and cities linked by the European road network.’

  ‘Is it possible to read anything else into these lists?’ Wisting asked.

  ‘There does appear to be a certain regularity,’ Malm said. ‘The first case is from 1991, and thereafter a new name is added around every other year, but there are gaps that mean it can’t exactly be called a repeating pattern.’

  ‘When was the last case?’ Christine Thiis asked.

  ‘Two and a half years ago.’

  ‘What about the other lists?’ Wisting enquired. ‘Those of men in the appropriate age group who live in this area?’

  ‘I’m working my way through them,’ Torunn Borg said.

  ‘What approach are you taking?’

  ‘I’m trying to identify the most likely candidates with regard to change of address notifications, family circumstances and other relatives, so we’re left with a shortlist we can use as a starting point. For example, it’s less likely we’re looking for a public person or someone with a management position in industry.’

  Donald Baker agreed. ‘He probably leads an isolated life.’

  ‘As soon as we have a limited selection, we can run a face recognition program to compare the old photograph on the wanted poster with passport photos or photos from other registers,’ Torunn Borg continued.

  ‘Do we have access to passport photos?’ Wisting asked.

  Six months earlier, a new regulation had denied investigating police access to the Passport Register.

  ‘It’s really more a question of how many results we can expect,’ Torunn Borg said, without specifying how she might bend the law. ‘It’s one thing what age may have done to alter his appearance, another is what he may have done.’