The Caveman (2 page)

The dead man was completely desiccated, leaning back in a chair, his lips lacerated and blackened, yellow teeth exposed. Wisps of dusty, wizened hair were still attached to his skull and pale, glossy bones visible through the skin on his face. His fingers were shrivelled, black and cracked.

William Wisting flicked through the remaining photographs. The man had been of relatively slight build, but his tissues had contracted and rotted away, making his body seem even smaller than it had been while alive.

The case folder was marked Viggo Hansen and the photos of him were taken from various angles. Wisting studied the different portrayals of the almost mummified corpse. Normally he was unmoved by what he saw in these folders. He was accustomed to death and had cultivated the ability to distance himself. In the course of more than thirty years on the police force he had seen so many dead bodies that he no longer kept a tally, but this was different. Not only because he had never seen anything like it, but also because he had actually known the man in the chair.

They were virtually neighbours. Viggo Hansen had lived on the bend three houses from his, and his dead body had been sitting for four months without Wisting or any of the other neighbours having the slightest concern.

He stopped at an establishing shot taken from the kitchen door, looking into the living room. Viggo Hansen was sitting in front of a television with his back to the photographer. The set was switched on, as it had been when the police patrol entered the house.

The room was sparsely furnished. In addition to the TV console and the chair on which the man was seated, Wisting noted an oblong coffee table, an extra chair and a settee with cushions and a tartan rug. A shelving unit with low cupboards was placed against one wall. On the opposite side of the room, the grey curtains at the window were closed. To the right of the television stood a standard lamp with brown scorch marks on the shade. Three landscape paintings hung on the walls. On the table in front of the man he could see a magazine and a remote control beside a glass and a plate with some indeterminate food leftovers. Apart from that, the room was tidy.

There was no sign of a struggle. Nothing to indicate that this solitary person had been visited by an intruder during his final hours. No reason to suspect that anything criminal had taken place. Nevertheless, the circumstances demanded that the police investigate the death, and Espen Mortensen had done a thorough, though routine, job.

The next photograph was a close up of the magazine, open at the list of TV programmes for Thursday 11th August.

Wisting glanced through his office window at the snow falling in wet, heavy flurries. The calendar showed Friday 9th December. Viggo Hansen would have been lying dead for even longer if it had not been for an unpaid electricity bill. The power company had sent out several reminders, eventually threatening to cut off the supply. In the end they had sent a man. Only by sheer chance had he gone to the bother of investigating beyond what was strictly necessary, catching a glimpse of Viggo Hansen through a gap in the living room curtains.

On the list of programmes, a circle had been drawn round the time of the TV programmes he had obviously intended to watch, in addition to an asterisk placed in the margin. One of them, called
FBI’s Archives,
was on the Discovery Channel. Wisting was familiar with the series that showed reconstructions of the most sensational cases investigated by the American Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The next picture showed the dead man’s face, dark and bloated, gashed where the skin had peeled off, the row of teeth slanting down to the back molars. What was left of his tongue sat like a bluish-black lump. His eye sockets were large and empty and seemed to stare straight ahead.

Returning the photographs to the folder, Wisting crossed to the window. It was growing dark, the leaden grey dusk of winter. He should make his way home, except he had nothing to go home to other than his own TV set. Down in the backyard, one of the patrol cars rumbled from the garage, its wheels spinning in the snow before taking grip. As the blue light struck the snowflakes, it was reflected in tiny sparkles.

Back at his desk Wisting gazed at the slim case folder. Viggo Hansen had no family, no friends nor any other relatives. He had departed this life in just as lonely a fashion as he had lived.

He was inclined to push the folder into the bundle for filing, but something unknown held him back. Neither experience nor intuition suggested anything other than that the case should be regarded as closed. The most important task for the investigators had been to establish the identity of the dead man. There were no family members available for DNA comparison, but reference samples from a toothbrush and a comb were consistent and the test results established that the dead body was DNA identical with the man who had lived in the house: Viggo Hansen, aged sixty-one.

Forensics had been surprised at how well preserved the corpse was. A combination of low humidity, low temperature and an almost hermetic seal on the room in which all the doors, windows and air ducts had been shut, ensured that Viggo Hansen had slowly but surely dried into a mummy instead of rotting and disintegrating. All the same, it had been impossible to ascertain a cause of death, and on his death certificate it stated simply
mors subita
. Sudden death.

The computer beeped and a red square appeared signalling an express message from the central switchboard. Five words:
Body found at Halle farmhouse
.

He placed the Hansen file at the top of the bundle of cases ready for filing.

The editorial office was silent; moist snow clung to the windowpanes, muffling the outside world. The interior was already hung with Christmas decorations, its television monitors, soundlessly displaying images from international news channels, decorated with silver tinsel garlands and red baubles. The
VG
logo, adorned with white angels and colourful lights, blinked along the partition walls dividing the work stations.

The man in charge of the News section was Knut A. Sandersen, and his office was equipped with glass walls so Line could see him clutching his mobile phone between shoulder and ear as he worked. He had become a Dad again two and a half months earlier and should really have gone home long ago. It was approaching seven o’clock and he had worked his third hour of overtime.

Ending his conversation, Sandersen took a swig of coffee and threw his head back. Someone had hung a bunch of mistletoe on the ceiling light fitting. Line was on the point of entering to make a pitch when the phone rang, and again Sandersen was tied up.

She lifted her cup and fell into thoughts of Christmas, wondering how she would celebrate the occasion. She had not spoken to her father yet, but expected it would be the two of them and grandfather at home in Stavern, but perhaps her twin, Thomas, would come too. He was a helicopter pilot in 330 Squadron and had not had time off at Christmas since their mother died, a memory that prompted an unwelcome prick of sorrow.

Five and a half years had passed. In the beginning, the hopeless longing had been difficult to bear and there had been mornings when she was reluctant to get up. Sometimes she had burst into tears in the middle of meetings, and she continually worried about how her father would manage on his own. Now the sense of loss was duller, less despairing, but she knew it was not by chance that she worked such long hours. She had come to depend on that feeling of focus and concentration when she was involved in a story.

The news editor finished talking, but took another call before she could stir herself. Knut A. Sandersen’s temples had acquired a number of grey hairs over the years since Line embarked on her first post on the newspaper. Her proposal was outside her usual sphere of interest, but they had enough spare capacity to allow her a few days on the weekend magazine.

Rising from his seat, Sandersen bumped his head on the mistletoe which Line suspected he had hung himself. He continued his phone conversation
en route
to the coffee machine but had concluded by the time he returned with a fistful of ginger biscuits and a mug brimful with coffee. Behind his desk, he stretched out and she knew she had to be quick. She would have no more than three sentences to sell her idea.

She picked up her coffee and went in to see him. Sandersen’s eyes swept over the mistletoe.

‘I want to write about Viggo Hansen,’ she said.

‘Never heard of him,’ Sandersen replied, sorting papers into bundles. ‘What’s he been up to?’

‘He’s dead.’

‘Murdered?’

She shook her head. ‘He was dead in front of his TV for four months before anyone found him.’

‘Extremely dead, then.’

‘I want to write about how such a thing can happen,’ Line said. ‘How it’s possible to be so lonely and forgotten that it takes four months before anyone makes the chance discovery that you are dead. I think it could be a good story to print over Christmas. We’ve just been hailed by the UN as the best country in the world to live in but, in research into citizens’ experience of happiness, Norway is in 112th place. Some country in the Pacific Ocean topped the list, a little island community where people have time for one another and take care of their fellow human beings.’

Sandersen seemed to like the idea. The story would suit the mix of material at the festive season, a counterweight to Christmas joy, slimming advice and reports about exchanging Christmas gifts. Nevertheless, he looked thoughtful.

‘We really must write about something other than the weather,’ she said, nodding at that day’s edition with its front page announcement:
Siberian Cold Front Approaching
.

It gradually dawned on Line that the worried furrows on his forehead had nothing to do with her story as such. There were twenty-five staff members working on the weekend magazine on the floor above, and they should be capable of filling it themselves. Sandersen had nothing to gain by releasing a journalist. On the contrary, they would be one person short for their own work.

‘I need three or four days,’ she said, knowing that she would take more than that. ‘His funeral is on Tuesday.’

‘What was he watching?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘What TV programme was he watching when he died?’

‘No idea,’ Line answered, ‘but you can read about it in the paper.’

Sandersen nodded. ‘It’s a deal. I’ll offer them the story and say they can borrow you for three days.’

‘Three days,’ she confirmed, leaning forward and kissing him on the cheek.

An approaching snow plough swirled up a cloud of white powder. Wisting slowed until he was able to make out the road ahead again. A patrol car and an officer with snow frosting the brim of his cap were positioned on the turn-off to the farm. A sign announced the words
Cut Your Own Christmas Tree
in huge red letters.

He nodded to the policeman as he drove along the farm track. In the distance he saw car headlights and people busily working in an open area.

The body had been found in a felling patch of fir trees. The first patrol had reported that it had been lying for a long time. Wisting knew what that meant, how little would be left after time and nature had done their work. He turned into the parking space and stepped out of the car, suddenly realising how inadequately dressed he was.

Two uniformed officers stood at the entrance to the felling area. A sign stated that a real fir tree cost 380 kroner, and the price for an ordinary Norwegian Christmas tree was 220 kroner. ‘Do we know anything more?’ he asked.

The older of the two officers shifted his weight from one foot to the other. ‘No,’ he replied, blowing a frosty mist into his hands. ‘Mortensen is working in there,’ he nodded in the direction of the forest, ‘but I don’t think there’s much to work on. From the clothes and shoes it seems to be male, but it’s impossible to say for certain.’

Wisting peered along the row of Christmas trees. Fifty metres away, a spotlight had been set up and Mortensen, the crime scene technician, was stooped over something. ‘Who found him?’

‘An eight-year-old boy, here with his father to cut down a Christmas tree. The corpse is lying under the branches, close to the tree trunk, as though he’d been pushed as far underneath as possible.’

The other policeman took over. ‘They kicked away the snow to make room for the axe, and didn’t realise what it was at first.’

Wisting nodded, envisaging the newspaper headlines:
Boy (8) finds dead man under Christmas tree.
‘Where are they now?’ he asked. ‘The father and son?’

‘We’ve sent them home.’

Thanking them, Wisting trudged forward, snow crunching under the soles of his feet.

Mortensen, wet snowflakes covering his hair, stood up and said hello with a nod of the head.

Wisting observed the body from a distance of one metre, crouching to look under the fir branches at a curled back, clad in a discoloured, frozen-stiff blazer, light-coloured trousers and a pair of brown leather lace-up shoes with flat soles. A few tufts of hair were still evident on the back of the head. Marks on the neck made by birds or small rodents showed where they had feasted themselves. ‘What do you think?’ he asked, getting to his feet.

Espen Mortensen shrugged. ‘We’ll have to move him and let the forensics team take a look. Then we’ll set up a tent and get a roof over the discovery site while we remove the snow. There might be evidence lying here.’

‘The whole shooting match? You don’t think this might simply be a death from natural causes?’

Mortensen shook his head. ‘If we’d been in some remote place with no one in the vicinity, it could be that he’d lain down to shelter, but it’s only fifty metres to the farm track, and a few hundred to the nearest buildings.’

Wisting hunkered down again. Mortensen was right. They couldn’t be dealing with an accident either. Suicide was a possibility. Perhaps they would find an empty pill container underneath the branches, beside the body. That would make the case more straightforward, but something told him they would not find anything of the kind. ‘How long do you think he’s been lying here?’

‘Since the summer.’ Surprised by the answer, Wisting waited for an explanation. ‘His clothing,’ Mortensen said. ‘He’s wearing summer clothes.’

Wisting straightened up again and took a step back. ‘We don’t have anyone listed,’ he said. ‘No missing persons.’