The Caveman (7 page)

Line stood at the window, pondering whether to walk to the bend in the road and let herself into Viggo Hansen’s house. Now that it was dark outside, she could not see much more than its outlines. In addition to the outside light at the front door, a light was shining inside, from what had to be the kitchen.

A car drove along the street, its headlights casting moving shadows from the crooked trees onto the snow.

The house seemed not merely empty but deserted. Something about it robbed her of the desire to venture inside on her own, at least in the dark. Sinister was not the right word. It was more that it held something ill-fated in a way that made it frightening. She decided to wait until the next day, and instead descended to the kitchen for something to eat.

Only a couple of packs of processed food and a few sausages were stored in the fridge. Tinned food in the larder did not tempt her. She wondered whether to go out and do some shopping, but the snow enveloping her car made her drop that idea. Anyway, she was far from certain it would start.

Instead she fried two eggs, laying them on top of two slices of dry bread, and took them through to the television in the living room. Eating as she flicked through the channels, she located CNN. The wintry weather dominated the news coverage In America as well. A reporter stood in front of a snow-covered road sign welcoming drivers to Minnesota, snowflakes sweeping almost horizontally across the hill behind him. The text in the bottom corner of the screen stated that he was in Fargo on the border of North Dakota. Snow clung to his clothes and shrouded his eyes as he spoke. One metre of snow had fallen in the past twenty-four hours, he explained, and more was expected. The snowplough drivers were struggling to keep the roads open. Suddenly a weather warning was announced and Line switched to a documentary channel.

Dust had collected on the TV screen; she took her dirty plate through to the kitchen and returned with a duster and spray can from the utility room. The television set was not the only thing covered in dust: a fine layer coated the sideboard, picture frames and the rest of the furniture. She filled a bucket and began to wipe the surfaces, fetched the vacuum cleaner for the floors before washing them, and spent almost two hours cleaning the house.

Afterwards, she found the box in the loft where the Christmas decorations were stored. She placed an Advent candleholder on the window ledge in the kitchen and hung a star in the living room window. While she kept busy she hoped her father would not arrive, but at almost eight o’clock asked herself whether she ought to phone him. A car door slammed outside and he appeared at the door.

She rushed to meet him. ‘You’re late,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ he replied, without saying what had detained him. ‘Have you eaten?

‘I had a couple of eggs. I thought I’d do some shopping tomorrow.’

‘I’ll fix myself something simple too,’ he said, accompanying her into the kitchen.

Line sat at the kitchen table while her father threw three sausages into the same frying pan she had used for the eggs. ‘Have you made a start?’ he asked. ‘I heard you’d been in to collect the documents.’

‘Yes, I’ve read through them,’ Line said. ‘There wasn’t actually much to say who Viggo Hansen actually was. I thought I’d speak to some of the people who went to school with him so I’ve made an appointment to see Eivind Aske.’

‘The artist?’

‘Yes, I’m seeing him tomorrow.’

Wisting turned the sausages and switched on the extractor fan above the stove. ‘Have you been inside the house?’

‘Not yet. I’ll do that tomorrow.’ She remained seated as he took potato salad from the fridge. ‘What do you know about him?’

He shrugged. ‘I didn’t know him.’

‘What about his family? I remember rumours that his mother was in a psychiatric hospital, and his father had been in jail.’

‘Yes, now you come to mention it,’ Wisting replied, pushing the frying pan aside. ‘Both his parents were dead before we moved here, and there was talk about it not being so strange that Viggo turned out the way he did. I don’t recall what the problem was, but his mother had gone through some kind of mental breakdown.’

He transferred the sausages onto a plate and sat opposite her.

‘What about his father?’ Line asked. ‘Why was he behind bars?’

‘No idea.’

‘Who do you suggest I should speak to about that?’

‘If he was sentenced to a prison term you should get hold of the court judgment. You’d best speak to someone at the National Archives. Of course, it must have been more than forty years ago.’

‘I was really thinking about someone who might be able to tell me something about him. Someone who knew him.’

‘That would have to be Greta. She’s his next-door neighbour and was living there for a long time before we arrived.’

‘She didn’t have much to say to the police.’

‘It may be that she knows more about what happened forty years ago than about Viggo Hansen at the time of his death.’ He put a piece of sausage into his mouth, but stopped chewing. ‘Did you put up the decorations?’ he asked, pointing at the Advent candles in the kitchen window.

‘It’ll soon be Christmas, you know,’ Line reminded him.

‘Yes, that’s right. What do you want for Christmas?’

She didn’t really know, and could not give an answer. ‘It said on the internet that a body had been found at Halle,’ she said instead. Nodding, her father took his time chewing his food. ‘Is that why you got home so late?’

‘We’re working on identifying the body,’ Wisting answered. ‘We don’t have anyone reported missing who fits.’

‘What do you think happened?’

‘It’s probably a foreigner.’

‘A tourist from last summer?’

‘That’s entirely possible.’

Line noticed he had retreated into his professional role and did likewise, asking questions like a journalist. ‘Have you discovered the cause of death?’

He stood up and crossed to the kitchen sink, where he rinsed his plate before placing it in the dishwasher.

As she glanced at him, it suddenly struck Line what this diffident manner was really about. ‘Suspicious death?’ she asked, using the expression investigators employed when they could neither confirm nor deny what kind of case they were faced with.

‘Line,’ he said. ‘I can’t talk about it.’

‘What do you mean?’

He did not answer.

‘I’m seconded to the weekend magazine,’ she continued. ‘But is there anything I ought to let my news colleagues know?’

Leaning on the kitchen worktop, Wisting rested his palms on the surface behind him. ‘The way things are now, I’d prefer you didn’t do that. And that you didn’t ask any more questions.’

After the snow came the overnight freeze. Wisting moved quietly around the house to avoid waking Line, still asleep upstairs. The thermometer outside the kitchen window showed minus fourteen degrees Celsius, a drop of more than ten degrees.

Standing at the window, holding his morning coffee, he was aware how stiff his body felt. He had lain awake in the darkness for a long time before falling asleep, and experienced his most restless night for a long time. The case had expanded enormously and what he had read about Robert Godwin terrified him. He had witnessed many things in his job over the years, but never come across a systematic serial killer with so many dead victims on his conscience. This kind of evil was totally foreign to him, and at this point he had a strong sense that they had only vaguely glimpsed the outlines of the case.

He drained his cup and put it into the dishwasher before heading for the bathroom to splash his face with cold water. He got dressed, pulling on a chunky sweater, sturdy boots, a padded jacket, hat and gloves.

Outside on the steps he took the snow shovel by the shaft and chopped into the hard crust of ice that had formed over the snow. He cleared a path for himself to his car and swept off the outer layers of snow before opening the door and stepping inside. While the engine spluttered, he turned the fan and heating to the maximum, leaving the engine running as he cleared the rest of the driveway. Once he had finished, the engine had heated and the car windows were clear of ice.

It was Sunday morning. It dawned on him that this was the third in Advent when he let himself into the police station. He would have to talk to Line about their Christmas plans.

The criminal investigation department was empty, and the fluorescent tubes on the ceiling buzzed as he switched them on. The lights flickered and the entire room was flooded with white light.

When the computer sprang to life, a message appeared on the screen. Someone called Else Britt Gusland had called the central switchboard at 02.16 hours. One of the operators had recorded her name and phone number with a message for him to return her call.
Regarding the dead body at Halle
, the operator had added.
She thinks it might be an American lodger who disappeared in August
.

Wisting read the message twice before glancing at the clock: 8.10. The woman was probably asleep, but he picked up the receiver and dialled her number anyway. The voice that eventually answered was lethargic and drowsy.

‘Else Britt Gusland?’ The woman confirmed her identity before Wisting introduced himself. ‘You called about an American lodger who disappeared?’

She coughed and cleared her throat. ‘Yes, I don’t know if it has anything to do with the man I read about on the internet, of course, but we were sitting here last night talking about it, and my sister-in-law suggested it might be Bob. She said it mostly as a joke, but it did say that he had been lying there for some time. So we agreed I would phone.’

‘Tell me about Bob.’

‘There’s not much to tell. He didn’t make a lot of fuss, and didn’t really say very much about himself.’

‘But he was staying with you?’

‘Yes. That is, we live in Eikelundveien, but my husband has a flat in the centre of Stavern, above the pub. We let it out to students during term and to tourists in the summer.’

‘When did Bob stay there?’

‘From the middle of July until he disappeared.’

‘And when was that?’

‘It’s not easy to say. Our agreement was that he would stay for four weeks, until Sunday 14th August. On the Monday, the students were coming back, but by then he was gone.’

‘How was that?’

‘I was over at the flat a couple of times that weekend to arrange the keys and suchlike, but he wasn’t in. At least he didn’t open the door. So I went again on Sunday at half past eleven, since our agreement was that he would vacate the flat by twelve o’clock. No one answered the door then either, so I let myself in.’

‘And?’

‘It was empty. That is, his belongings were still there, so I tried to phone him. It was one of these long foreign numbers and there was no response. It was really hopeless. I locked up and left, and waited until the next day. When I hadn’t heard anything from him by that time, I just had to pack up his things, get the lock changed, and clean the flat so that it was ready for the students.’

Wisting leaned back in his seat, raking the fingers of his free hand through his hair. ‘And you haven’t heard anything from him since?’

‘No. I sent him an email and wrote that I had his belongings and he could have them if he paid for the new lock.’

‘What’s his name, apart from Bob?’

‘Bob Crabb. I have his phone number and email address as well. That’s how he arranged to rent the flat. He sent me an email from the USA at the end of May.’

Wisting jotted down this information and took out the FBI wanted poster with the picture of Robert Godwin. ‘What did he look like?’

‘He had a beard and glasses. Dark hair.’

‘How old was he?’

‘He was about my age, I think. About sixty.’

Wisting put down the old photograph again. The age matched, but with a beard and glasses it would be difficult for Else Britt Gusland to tell whether or not it might be the fugitive serial killer who had been living in her apartment.

‘Where are his belongings now?’

‘I still have them here. You can certainly come and collect them.’

‘Yes, please, and we’ll need a more formal statement from you. Would one hour from now suit?’

The woman hesitated. ‘What time is it just now?’

‘Half past eight.’

She sighed. ‘Could we say eleven o’clock?’

It would have been unreasonable to demur, so Wisting made an appointment with her and brought their conversation to a close. He would really have preferred not to wait. He felt an indescribable restlessness within his body, like a gentle whisper in his chest. A premonition that they had no time to lose.

Line shivered as she entered the kitchen. She switched on the coffee machine and glanced through the window. The landscape was completely white, wrapped in frost, and a chilly fog veiled the fjord.

There was something muted and comforting about all that whiteness. For the first time in ages she felt relaxed. She had no imminent deadlines, no hundreds of words to write for tomorrow’s newspaper. She could spend today and the days ahead at her own pleasure, working on a report she herself had suggested, in which no one else had an opinion about what was important, what had to be included and what should not.

She had her day planned. The first thing she intended to do was visit Viggo Hansen’s house. At four o’clock she had an appointment with Eivind Aske, the painter who had gone to school with him.

A black bird took off from a branch white with frost, flying to another tree, where it sat at the top to be joined by another.

She had woken when her father closed the door behind him. Afterwards, she stayed in bed listening to him clear the steps with the car engine running before driving off to work. It was Sunday morning and just past 8.00. There must be something special about the man who had been found dead in the woods at Halle, he had been so reluctant to talk.

She considered phoning the editorial office to give them a heads-up to start probing, but decided to let it drop. She told herself she would be treading on personal territory, and that for the present she did not belong to the news section.

She buttered a slice of bread before searching in the fridge for juice or milk. As there was none to be found, she added a shopping trip to the petrol station to her list of the day’s duties. At the kitchen worktop she washed her simple breakfast down with coffee. Then she headed for the bathroom to take a quick shower before getting dressed and going out.

Her breath was white in the cold air, and her boots creaked on the snow. She peered at the empty house, offset five metres from the street, among old trees with sprawling branches and snow all the way up to its timber cladding. Pale, dismal curtains hung behind the dark windows. She hoped someone had left the heating on inside.

One of the birds she had spotted from the kitchen window arrived to sit on the gatepost. A crow. When she approached, it flew off and wheeled over the house as if circling a corpse. She slung her bag over her shoulder, with all the police documents, her press notebook and camera, and trudged beside the towering bank of snow at the side of the road. A trail of frozen footprints ran ahead of her, leading to the door, making it easier to progress. Someone must have been here not so long ago, immediately before the last snowfall, perhaps from the local council or the police.

The front door was equipped with a double lock, according to the police report. Two locks, one above the other. The police had drilled through both to force entry, but had only replaced one. She was taking out the key when she noticed that the door had been broken open. The old timber was splintered around the lock, and the dead-bolt pushed back. Someone had used a broad screwdriver, or something similar, and forced it between door and frame.

Line glanced at the footprints she had just followed, uncertain whether to go in or remain outside, until the journalist in her came to life. If the housebreaker had ransacked and rummaged through the house in his search for valuables, leaving a scene of devastation, she would get photographs. She entered and closed the door behind her.

The air inside was dry and stuffy, and there was a sickly odour as was common with old people. A door on her left side was closed, to her right she could see into the bathroom. Snow dropped from the soles of her boots, leaving white tracks across the floor in the hallway. She would have to admit she had gone inside when she phoned to report the break-in.

The living room entrance was further ahead, and the television set was still exactly as in the police photos. The same applied to the coffee table and the wall unit. The cupboard doors were closed, as were the drawers. It seemed that nothing had been touched, apart from the chair being pulled slightly across the floor. All that remained of Viggo Hansen was a dark stain filling the armchair where he had been sitting, continuing across the floor where it spread out in the shape of a bird with large wings extended.

She retreated outside. She could use this angle in her report: Viggo Hansen had obviously never had any visitors while he was alive, but now that he was dead they turned up uninvited. She found this humdrum detail touching, and knew many of her readers would feel the same.

She took a picture of the damaged lock before phoning her father. From the tone of his voice he was busy, but was speaking quietly so that she would not think she was disturbing him.

‘There’s been a break-in at Viggo Hansen’s house,’ she said. ‘The door’s been forced open.’

‘A burglary?’

‘Yes, I came over to see what it looked like inside. I discovered it when I was about to let myself in.’

‘How long ago do you think it happened?’

‘I don’t know. There are some footprints outside, covered by fresh snow.’

‘So there’s nobody inside now?’

The thought had not even crossed Line’s mind.

‘Okay,’ Wisting said. ‘I’ll get a patrol car to attend. You should wait there.’

They finished their conversation and Line stepped into the street to take another shot. She checked the result in the camera display. Some parts of the image were underexposed, thanks to the snow. She changed the settings before taking another in which several details were evident, and nodded in satisfaction. The motif conveyed a cold and solitary image that would look well in print.

She scanned the sky for the black birds she had seen earlier. If one of them were sitting in the tree in front of the house, it would provide an excellent focal point. She caught a movement in the corner of her eye, at Greta Tisler’s kitchen window. Someone looking out had pulled back the curtain.

Line smiled. She liked nosy neighbours.