When It Grows Dark (William Wisting series)

by Jorn Lier Horst

  Beside the newspaper were a couple of issues of Kriminal-journalen, a true-crime magazine aimed at a mainly male readership. The front pages were in colour, with pictures of scantily clad women. One of them contained, among other things, an interview with the celebrity lawyer Alf Nordhus in addition to accounts of real-life crime dramas.

  Wisting glanced at the barn doors. The magazines were not pornographic, but exciting enough to entertain teenagers in the seventies. The mattress could have been left behind by boys who had played in the barn in the same way that Knut Heian had done in the thirties. That could explain the padlock on the inside of the doors.

  Laying aside the magazines, he discovered a grey rucksack jammed between a milk churn and a wooden packing case. Something sticky brushed against his ear when he crouched to remove it: a spider’s web laden with dead flies that he swept away with his hand.

  A stale smell arrived with the bag as he pulled it towards him. In a cavity behind its hiding place was a pair of brown boots with the tops turned down. He lifted them out and noted they were worn, almost entirely ruined, with lopsided heels and holes in the leather.

  The rucksack had three exterior pockets, one on either side and one in the centre at the front. In the left pocket, he found a screwdriver, pincers and a knife. The other side pocket was empty. In the middle pocket he found a white, sealed envelope addressed to Anna in sloping letters.

  He weighed up whether to open it and decided it was better to leave as much as possible untouched, so he put it back.

  The large compartment in the rucksack held a sweater, a shirt, a pair of thick socks and a pair of trousers.

  As he packed everything into the bag again, he noticed that it was marked with a name, at the top of the interior flap, and written with a black felt-tip pen. The first name was Alfred, but the surname was more difficult to make out. The dampness had caused the letters to run, but to his mind it looked like either Danielsen or Davidsen.

  He returned the rucksack and shone the flashlight around to search for any other belongings that might have been left behind, or signs that might tell him more about the person who had been holed up in the barn.

  A noise on the eastern wall made him stiffen. He switched off the flashlight and stood still, listening. Streaks of grey winter light filtered in through gaps in the wall planks. A shadow of something on the move caused the dim light to change shape. Again he heard the noise, and it took some time for him to realise that it was only the wind rushing through the trees outside. The strongest gusts scraped against the walls and roof.

  He switched on the flashlight once more. A dead pigeon lay on the floor, its legs in the air – all that was left of it was fragile bones and bluish-grey feathers.

  Stepping over the bird, he lifted the mattress on its side to peer underneath. The dark earthen floor was covered in tracks made by insects that had burrowed through passages and tunnels. Two dried-out, grey beetles lay squashed on the ground.

  He was about to put the mattress down again when he discovered a key. It was almost completely caked in earth, so he had to dig it out. Small and flat, when he rubbed it between his fingers to clean it, he found a brown encrustation that he was unable to remove, no matter how hard he tried.

  It struck him that this must be the key for the padlock. He crossed to the barn doors, where he retrieved the chain and tried. It slid in easily. However, the lock had been so badly damaged by Knut Heian’s axe that he could not turn the key.

  He threw down the padlock and chain with the key still inside.

  A massive truck passed on the road outside. It was past four o’clock now and he was hungry. Ingrid would be wondering what had become of him.

  Directing the light at the old car at the far end of the barn, he picked his way through the debris. Clearing enough space to move it out of here would be a major task when the time came.

  Motes of dust danced around him as he pulled the tarpaulin halfway to one side, so that he could study the bullet hole again.

  It was almost one centimetre in diameter, indicating a relatively high calibre gun. The percussion power also suggested that. The bullet had traversed the bodywork and entered the back of the rear seat. The vehicle would have to be dismantled to remove it: only then could they ascertain what kind of ammunition they were dealing with.

  He opened the car and sat inside. The rear seat was shaped like a settee. It was slightly uneven, but far from uncomfortable.

  A newspaper jutted from a pocket in the back of the seat in front of him. Wisting drew it out, his interest piqued. This might give a clue about when the car had been stowed in the barn.

  It was a copy of Aftenposten dated 17 August 1925, nearly sixty years before. Most of the front page was given over to an account of an ongoing rail strike. Supplies of beef and pork for Kristiania are beginning to become scarce. Roald Amundsen was preparing an expedition to the North Pole in an airship, he read, and there was a lengthy article about German reparations following the First World War.

  Of greatest interest was the date. It was likely that the newspaper had been fairly hot-off-the-press when the car had set out on its final trip.

  He replaced the newspaper and moved to the front passenger seat to look in the glove compartment. He opened it, hoping to find a registration card or other vehicle documents, but all he found was a pair of dark leather gloves. However, just as he was closing it, he spotted something else: a hole at the front of the side door. Its shape and size were very similar to the bullet hole in the rear wing.

  Opening the door, he stepped out and attempted to find the entry hole. He had to rub off moss and other deposits to locate it. The shot had entered the bodywork diagonally, two metres farther forward from the bullet hole at the back, as if the vehicle had been shot at twice while in motion.

  He sat inside the car again and tried to work out what had happened to the bullet. The front seat was in an even worse state than the one in the rear. It was discoloured and torn. To determine the exact trajectory of the bullet, he went out to fetch a metal tube he had spotted on the shelves of tools. Its circumference was slightly smaller than the bullet hole, and as he guided it carefully through the opening, he visualised how the gunman must have been hiding in a ditch, below road level.

  The tube emerged on the inside of the cabin. He continued to push until almost all of it was inside, before sitting in the driving seat to follow the sight line. The tube pointed directly at the driver, but there was no hole in the back of the seat.

  The bullet must have hit whoever was sitting in the driver’s seat, at chest height, and come to a sudden stop inside his body.

  10

  Wisting should have gone home to Ingrid and the twins, but it crossed his mind that he might call in at the library first. What Rupert had said about King Haakon had been at the back of his mind all along. The former king had driven an old Minerva that had probably been scrapped. At least, nobody knows what became of it, Rupert had said.

  He parked beside Skottebrygga and set off towards the tower block where the town’s public library was housed.

  Having no idea where he should begin his search, he joined the queue at the front desk. Two elderly women were in front of him. One of them was borrowing a dog-eared book by Dag Solstad. Ingrid had a copy at home, but Wisting had never read it. It was about a teacher at Larvik High School who had been drawn into the Workers’ Communist Party. The other woman was holding a translated book that had been recently filmed. He recognised the title from the cinema hoardings.

  When they had their library cards stamped, it was Wisting’s turn. ‘I’m looking for a book about King Haakon,’ he said. ‘Could you help me with that?’

  ‘There are several,’ the librarian answered. ‘Is there anything in particular you’re interested in?’

  ‘His cars.’

  She gave him a slightly curious look before leading him to the Biography shelves where she took out a book with a reddish cover and the king’s monogram on the spine.
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  ‘This is a relatively new biography,’ she said, handing it to him. ‘Do you have a library card?’

  ‘I don’t have it with me.’

  The librarian sighed.

  ‘Can I get a new one?’

  ‘Not if you’ve just forgotten to bring yours with you.’

  ‘I could sit down and leaf through it, and then I could come back and borrow it tomorrow,’ he suggested.

  She nodded her assent.

  An old man glanced up from his newspaper when Wisting sat in a vacant chair at one of the tables. The bank raid was still prominent on the front pages.

  It did not take Wisting long to find a picture of the king’s first motor car, with the registration number A1. The quality of the photograph was poor, but, as far as he could see, it was identical to the car in the barn.

  The king had obtained a driving licence in 1913, he read. After that he acquired not just one but, in fact, two cars, one open-top and the other a saloon-type, to drive depending on the weather. Both were from the Belgian Minerva marque.

  The car was mainly used between the Royal Palace and the king’s estate on Bygdøy, but it was also used on longer trips. In the saloon he had travelled to Fagernes and Nordland among other places.

  Wisting skimmed the text, curious to know what had become of the royal vehicles. The king was described as a careful driver, but it stated that he was annoyed that the speed limit in Kristiania was only fifteen kilometres an hour.

  He could find nothing about what had happened to the cars, and continued to leaf through the book to see if there was an index. He found what he was looking for in the list of photographs. The picture of King Haakon’s Minerva had been loaned by Tynset Museum and Historical Society and taken during a private visit in July 1926.

  If the copy of Aftenposten dated Monday 17 August 1925 was dated accurately, it could not be the king’s car that was stashed away with a bullet hole in the barn at Tveidalen.

  The man opposite folded his newspaper and put it down. Wisting brought his book to the front desk, where another thought struck him.

  ‘Do you have old copies of Østlands-Posten?’ he asked.

  ‘Which year?’ the librarian asked.

  ‘1925.’

  ‘Then it’ll be on microfilm,’ she said. ‘I can set you up for an hour tomorrow, if you do want to come back and borrow the book.’

  Wisting told her that he no longer needed it, but would appreciate looking at the newspapers from the summer of 1925. The librarian promised to look them out and reserve a microfilm reader for ten o’clock the next day.

  Ingrid was out of sorts when he returned home. The twins had been awake for long periods, and she had not managed to do anything she had planned.

  ‘And where did you take yourself?’ she asked. ‘I’d arranged to meet Mona at six o’clock. I won’t make it now.’

  Wisting dashed his hand against his forehead. He had been so absorbed that he had entirely forgotten his home life.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, feeling guilty. He appreciated that the days could drag on your own with two small children, and he really ought to have eased the load in his off-duty hours. ‘I promise to pull my weight in future. It’s just that I got so engrossed.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ she said, but in a dejected tone. ‘I’ve let Mona know. We’ll meet up nearer Christmas.’

  He ate the leftovers from dinner and tried to read the newspaper with Line on his lap while Thomas slept. She kept punching the paper, babbling something unintelligible all the while, so he ended up reading out loud. The gentle, rhythmic sound of his voice persuaded her to sit quietly.

  It was still too early to determine the sum the bank robbers had made off with, but it was obviously millions of kroner. The newspaper also carried an interview with the owner of the stolen black Sierra who said that the car had been taken while he was working night shift at the chemicals factory. Apart from those minor details, it seemed as if all trace of the perpetrators had come to a halt at the burned out car in Tveidalen. The theory about the criminal gang in Oslo was clearly something that the investigators had no wish to publicise.

  He read to the end of the article, but noticed that his initial interest in the case had waned, overshadowed to some extent by what had occurred on a late summer’s day in 1925.

  Line grew restless again when he folded the newspaper and stopped reading, but settled when he placed her in the playpen beside her brother.

  In the room where he slept in the afternoons, and where Ingrid had a desk she used for correcting schoolwork, he sat and began to jot down keywords about what he knew and what questions were still open. The more he got things down, the clearer it became to him that the old car in the barn did not merely represent an unsolved mystery, but probably also an undetected crime.

  11

  More snow fell overnight; wet, heavy snow that Wisting spent an hour clearing from his front steps and driveway.

  The roads into town had been snowploughed badly, which slowed his drive to work. After struggling to find a parking spot, he had to walk two blocks to the police station.

  A notice had been pinned on the duty roster assigning overtime shifts, mostly night shifts. Wisting checked for his own entries and filled in his name wherever he found a space.

  Itching to sit in the empty office in CID, he instead installed himself in the report room downstairs near the front desk.

  Arne Vikene, in Oslo Police District’s administration department, answered almost at once. Wisting could hear from his voice that he was getting on in years.

  He explained that he was trying to trace the owner of a vintage car, and had learned that Vikene was the very man to help.

  Arne Vikene’s interest was aroused. ‘What kind of car is it?’

  ‘A Belgian Minerva.’ Wisting replied like an expert. ‘Probably imported between 1915 and 1925.’

  ‘There aren’t many of those left,’ Vikene said.

  ‘It’s been stored in a barn for almost sixty years.’

  ‘Sixty years! What’s the owner of the barn got to say about it?’

  ‘The car was already there when he inherited the barn. I’m trying to help him find out whether its owner is still alive.’

  ‘What sort of condition is it in?’

  ‘Pretty bad.’ Wisting hoped to avoid making him too interested. ‘It was damaged in a collision and has been destroyed by damp.’

  Vikene asked a number of questions about the car, and Wisting responded to the best of his ability before returning to the reason for his call. ‘I have the engine and chassis numbers for the vehicle. Could you help me find out more about it?’

  ‘I know where the records are stored,’ Vikene said. ‘But they can be difficult to search through if you don’t know the name of the owner or the registration number.’

  ‘Surely there’s also a register of chassis numbers?’

  ‘Yes, that’s true,’ Vikene agreed. ‘Chassis numbers, factory brand names, year of manufacture, total number of seats, number of cylinders, axle pressure . . . everything’s there, in chronological order.’

  They agreed that Vikene would search through the records and fax Wisting a copy of whatever he managed to track down. ‘I can do it later today,’ he said.

  Wisting logged the conversation before leafing through the telephone book to find Knut Heian’s phone number.

  ‘Have you discovered anything else?’ the farmer asked.

  ‘I’m working on it. A name has cropped up and I wondered if you were familiar with it.’

  ‘Fire away.’

  ‘Alfred.’

  ‘Just Alfred, nothing more?’

  ‘Could be Danielsen or Davidsen. Does that mean anything to you?’

  Knut Heian took time to mull this over, before confirming that the name was unknown to him.

  ‘What about Anna?’

  Heian said he had a distant relative called Anna. Wisting did not think this would be the right person, but noted her name in full and
concluded the conversation before Heian could ask how these names had come to light.

  The snow delayed him and he arrived ten minutes late for his appointment with the microfilm reader at the library. The librarian he had spoken to the previous day was absent, but another woman located his appointment in a book.

  ‘You’re late,’ she pointed out, as she rose from behind the counter.

  Making no comment, Wisting followed her into the local history section where two reading devices with advanced optical equipment, a mirror and a large screen were set up. None of them appeared to have been used for some time.

  ‘Have you used microfilm before?’ she asked, as she took a roll of film from a metal storage tin.

  Wisting shook his head. She mounted the film in the apparatus and showed him how to navigate through it. He quickly got the hang of it and soon old newspaper pages were sliding across the screen until he reached September 1925. The main story here was a report of the opening match at the new grass football pitch at Lovisenlund Stadium. Larvik Turn, the local team, had beaten Fram 1-0.

  The newspaper in the old car was dated 17 August 1925. He spooled back and found his way to Tuesday 18 August of that year, without being entirely sure what he was trying to find.

  The paper featured the current rail strike, but also reported prominently on Roald Amundsen’s bankruptcy. Creditors in Alaska had confiscated the polar vessel, Maud, which had been trapped in ice in the Bering Strait for three winters.

  He ran his eye over the pages and found what he was searching for: Oscar Wisting. His great-grandfather’s name virtually shone out at him from the newspaper page on the screen. He had been a member of the expedition, and Wisting wondered if this was the closest anyone in his family had come to fame.

  He browsed further, reading the headlines, but found nothing of interest.

  In the next edition, he noticed a story about a traffic accident in Storgata. A woman had been knocked down by a ‘motorised bicycle’, breaking her right forearm and ‘damaging her hip’. Two days later, another accident had occurred. In heavy rain, the service bus from Fredriksvern naval base had collided with a car on the corner of Dronningens gate and Kristian Fredriks vei. One of the passengers had sprained his hand, but both vehicles had been able to drive on after the incident.