The Caveman (8 page)

Wisting phoned the duty desk to tell them what had happened. This was not the first time they had found that someone had broken into the property of a deceased person. Empty houses where the heirs had not yet completed the necessary paperwork were attractive targets for thieves. A few years ago, they had investigated a series of cases in which the criminals had scoured the death announcements and broken in while relatives were attending the funeral.

The other detectives arrived: Nils Hammer, Torunn Borg, Benjamin Fjeld and Espen Mortensen.

Inside the conference room, someone had set up an Advent candlestick. They gathered round the table while Torunn lit three of the lilac candles and Wisting felt the calming effect of the tiny flames as the tension in his body relaxed its grip. He waited until she blew out the match before starting the meeting.

‘We’ve received an interesting tip-off,’ he said. ‘An American rented a flat in the centre of Stavern from the middle of July until he vanished four weeks later.’

‘Vanished?’

‘He was supposed to quit the flat on 14th August, but when the house owner went to collect the keys, she found only his luggage. His name is Bob Crabb.’ He handed Torunn Borg a sheet of paper with the name on it. ‘Can you check out that name?’

‘Do we have anything more than just the name?’

‘An American phone number and email address,’ he said, pointing at the sheet. ‘He’s thought to be about sixty years of age.’

‘Bob’s a short form of Robert,’ Hammer said. ‘That could have been him. Robert Godwin. Perhaps he’s calling himself Bob Crabb these days.’

‘I’ve an appointment to see the house owner, an Else Britt Gusland, at eleven o’clock,’ Wisting said. ‘I want you to be with me for that.’

Hammer nodded.

‘How do we stand with the FBI and their comparison of the DNA profiles?’

Mortensen, slightly discouraged, shook his head.

‘It’s being processed through the international section at
Kripos
, and it’s a bureaucratic nightmare,’ he explained. ‘The Americans won’t send Robert Godwin’s profile here, but they’ll do a comparison themselves, so we’ll send our candidate’s profile over as soon as it’s ready. I expect we’ll have an answer by the end of the day.’

Wisting leafed through his notes in order to proceed, but Benjamin Fjeld spoke first. ‘What sort of clothes was he wearing?’

‘Who?’

‘This man Crabb who stayed in Stavern last summer. Did the woman who rented out the apartment remember what sort of clothes he wore?’

‘I didn’t ask her that,’ Wisting admitted.

‘Did he have a car?’

‘We’ll raise that as well when we speak to her. Before that, I’d like to know what else we have. Torunn?’

‘I’ve spoken to Stefan Johnsson,’ Torunn Borg said.

‘Who’s that?’

‘He’s the captain of the
Elida
and confirms that they berthed in Stavern on 9th and 10th of August. They distributed flyers on both days inviting people to their evening services on the quayside. In total he reckons there were between two hundred and two hundred and fifty leaflets. They’re not missing any crew, and he doesn’t recall any particular incidents on the days they were here.’

Wisting made some notes. ‘What about this relief worker who looked after the farm while Per and Supattra Halle were in Thailand?’ he asked. ‘Have we interviewed him?’

Benjamin Fjeld waved his pen in the air. ‘Jonathan Wang. He’s coming at eleven.’

‘Do that in the video room. He must have been out on the farm when the body was hidden there. Every tiniest detail he comes out with could be of interest, and I don’t want to lose sight of anything.’

Having reached the end of his working notes, Wisting raised his coffee cup to his mouth, but discovered it was empty. ‘What electronic traces do we have?’ he asked, putting down his cup. ‘Can we capture any phone traffic in the area in question?’

This was Nils Hammer’s province. He shook his head.

‘We’ll have to manage without the usual support mechanisms. Telephone data are deleted after three months. Transit information from toll booths and CCTV videotapes are wiped long before that.’

Wisting refilled his cup with coffee from the pot on the table and drank thoughtfully. There was always a connection between the victim and the perpetrator. Charting the victim’s movements in advance of the murder usually suggested a direction for the investigation to follow, but the length of time that had passed diminished their chances considerably. Important witness observations could slip away because people forgot, and evidence stored electronically was deleted.

They remained seated around the table, discussing the case, trying to establish links and connections. Different theories and possibilities were presented as casual conjecture and supposition. When they knew as little as they did now, that was how things had to be. Constructing hypotheses that they could test as work progressed. After half an hour Wisting drew the meeting to a close.

This case really has two branches, he thought. Naturally it has to do with finding the killer, but the victim’s identity is just as great a mystery.

The snowplough had left a huge snowdrift in front of the driveway of the house, a substantial old building with icicles hanging from the roof. Wisting dropped Hammer before parking as close as possible to the pile of snow at the side of the road. They heard the faint sound of the doorbell as they waited. Wisting rubbed his hands and blew into them. He was about to ring again when Else Britt Gusland opened the door. It was obvious that the previous night had been a late one. Her eyes were moist and red-ringed.

A dark blue suitcase sat immediately inside the door. The luggage tag, marked OSL, Oslo airport, was still attached to the handle with the arrival date 14th July. ‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘Do you know any more about what happened to him?’

‘No more than that he’s dead,’ Wisting replied. He crouched down and opened the suitcase. The clothes seemed to have been packed in a hurry.

‘Was it you who packed?’

‘Yes, I just gathered up everything scattered about the flat.’

‘So this is everything?’

She nodded.

Wisting moved a sweater and lifted a thick grey envelope. ‘What’s this?’

‘I haven’t looked.’

Wisting opened the envelope to look inside. It was a mixture of old newspaper cuttings and internet printouts. He removed one of the yellowing pages and shuddered. The article bore the headline
Remains of Lynn Adams found in drain.
As he held the cutting out to Hammer, shielding it from the woman, the two detectives exchanged a look.

The story had been published in the Minneapolis Star Tribune on 3rd September 1983 and described how a maintenance worker had found the remains of eighteen-year-old student Lynn Adams who had gone missing six months earlier. The article was illustrated with a picture of the discovery site where several detectives in suits stood in a circle around an open manhole.

He replaced the cutting, allowing himself no more than a brief glimpse of a few others. All were similar. He tucked the envelope into the suitcase and picked up a toilet bag, registering that it contained a toothbrush and shaving gear. If necessary, they could take some material for DNA analysis.

‘Did he arrive in a car?’ Hammer asked.

‘Yes, a small grey one.’

‘A hire car?’

Else Britt Gusland shrugged.

Wisting moved to close the suitcase, intending to take it with them to the police station for thorough examination of the contents, but spotted a little pocket camera. He picked it up and searched for the on-button.

‘He had a larger camera as well,’ Else Britt Gusland said. ‘And a laptop computer.’

‘It’s not here?’

‘No. He carried it in a shoulder bag.’

‘What about a mobile phone?’

‘He had one of those too. I tried to phone him a number of times.’

Wisting replaced the camera. The battery must be flat by now. ‘How did he make contact with you?’

‘By email at the end of May. He wrote that he had seen the advert on the internet and asked if he could rent the apartment. He offered to pay in advance.’

‘And did he do that?’

‘The money was transferred from the USA before he came.’

‘How much?’

‘We charge five thousand kroner a week for the apartment in the summer. It turned out that he got it for slightly less because of the dollar exchange rate and some fees that were deducted.’

‘When did you see him last?’

‘On the Wednesday of the last week he was here. We’d been at the Wednesday market and went to the
Skipperstua
restaurant afterwards to get something to eat. He was sitting there.’

‘Did you speak to him?’

‘Just some pleasantries. I got the impression he didn’t want to talk to us. He seemed a bit reluctant.’

‘Was he on his own?’

‘Yes, but it looked as if he was waiting for someone. He was looking at the people walking by, as if watching for someone.’

Hammer took over. ‘Can you remember what sort of clothes he wore, that last time you saw him?’

She thought for a few moments before answering, rather hesitantly. ‘A blazer, I think.’

‘You didn’t take any photos or anything like that?’

‘No, not us. But there were probably lots of people who did. The streets were thronged with summer tourists.’

Wisting picked up the suitcase and headed for the door.

‘I thought at first that he was the one who’d broken in, but it must have been someone else if he’s the man who’s dead,’ she said.

‘Broken in?’

‘Yes, into the flat. It was the weekend afterwards. The students had gone home. I thought he had come to collect his belongings and had broken in when he discovered I had changed the lock.’

‘Did you report it to the police?’

‘Yes, but it was never cleared up. I got a letter saying the case had been shelved six weeks later.’

Wisting nodded, listening to an old story he had heard many times before. ‘Thanks for your assistance,’ he said, opening the door with his free hand.

Outside, a glacial blast of wind struck him in the face. He clenched his fingers around the handle of the suitcase. The cold seeped into his fingers but he stood motionless all the same, shutting his eyes and taking deep breaths of freezing air before he felt ready to go on.

Line took a series of photographs while waiting for the police. The dark walls of the empty house stood out against the snow. In the viewfinder, it seemed frozen into the hillside, deserted and suffused with cold. The black birds did not appear, but the gnarled branches of the apple trees created a menacing atmosphere.

She had always liked taking pictures, and had acquired her first camera when she was ten. When her father realised this was something that really interested her, he had given her a more expensive camera for her thirteenth birthday and signed her up for a course in photography. That not only taught her the functions of a camera, but made her more creative and showed her how to compose. Later, she bought an even better camera with the money she received at her confirmation.

Her photographic skills had proved useful in her career as a journalist. The newspaper had photographers, but she preferred to take her own pictures for her own stories and so become more closely involved with them. Nevertheless she had not kept up with developments and had planned for some time to learn how to use Photoshop. It was an advanced program, and she had not found enough time to get to grips with it. During her next spell of holidays, she thought,
then
I’ll learn all about it.

After half an hour she felt the cold creeping from the ground through the soles of her feet. Being aware of Greta Tisler’s eyes upon her from her kitchen window, she decided to go and see her. Line remembered her as a pleasant woman; good and round and always generous when they went from door to door singing Christmas carols. Unstinting when they rang doorbells to sell raffle tickets.

The old lady smiled just as broadly now as she had done when Line was small, and ushered her into the kitchen where the heat made her cold cheeks burn. Greta Tisler said how lovely it was to see her again, as she set the table with cups and saucers, and told her she followed everything Line wrote in the newspaper.

‘There’s been a break-in at Viggo Hansen’s house,’ Line said as she sat down.

Greta Tisler stood with a plate of little cakes in her hand, her expression changing. ‘A break-in?’ Her eyes wandered to the window and the house on the other side of the hedge.

‘It can’t have happened very long ago. There were tracks in the snow leading to the door. The police are on their way.’

Greta Tisler took a seat at the table.

‘I’m going to write an article about Viggo Hansen for my newspaper,’ Line continued, telling her about how she had been given permission by the police to borrow his house keys.

‘You are going to write about him in
VG
?’ Greta Tisler asked. ‘Why?’

‘It’ll be about more than him,’ Line said. ‘He’s only a representative of a negative development in our society, a development towards a colder society in which people no longer have time for one another.’

As soon as she had said this, she realised it could be interpreted as a complaint about the elderly woman.

‘That’s the way he wanted to live,’ Greta Tisler said. ‘It wasn’t a burden to him. He wanted to keep himself to himself. Some people are like that. I’m alone myself, and I think that’s okay.’

Nodding, Line refrained from pursuing the topic. ‘When did you see him last?’ She helped herself to one of the little cakes.

‘He was never out, really. We never saw him outside apart from late at night. He should have taken care of his house and garden.’

‘How long ago could it have been since you did, then? See him, I mean.’

‘He didn’t come to Trygve’s funeral. He was our nearest neighbour, but he didn’t even send flowers or a sympathy card.’

‘I understood that Trygve had talked to him?’

‘That’s a long time ago. In 1993 we built a garden room and had to obtain signatures from all our neighbours for the planning application. That’s when Trygve went over there, but they only stood outside on the steps.’

The old woman took a sip of her coffee. ‘He wasn’t like that before, you know,’ she said. ‘He’s always been peculiar, but not so shy of people.’

Line lifted her own cup but her hand hovered in mid-air. ‘Before what, then?’

‘Trygve said that too,’ Greta Tisler continued without answering the question. ‘When he spoke to him about the garden room. It was as if he wasn’t really himself, he said. After that he kept away from everybody and everything.’

‘What was it that happened? Why did he end up like that?’

Greta Tisler’s lips contracted, as if she were keeping back something she really ought not to say. ‘I only know this because Astrid confided in me, and that was many years later.’ The old woman held her cup in both hands, lifting it to her mouth before continuing in a low voice. ‘Astrid was the medical secretary at Doctor Gravdahl’s. She’s retired now, and it was just after she’d stopped working that she told me.’

‘What was that?’

‘Gravdahl was his doctor,’ she said with a nod to the kitchen window. ‘He was the one who had Hansen admitted.’

‘Did he have a psychiatric illness?’

Greta Tisler nodded above her coffee cup before taking a drink.

‘What was actually wrong with him?’

‘I honestly don’t know. He just snapped, I think.’

Line remained seated, immersed in her thoughts, wondering how a psychiatric condition would change the basis for her newspaper article. It was one thing to reveal his solitary life, quite another to expose a history of serious mental illness. ‘Might someone else know more about this?’ she asked, rephrasing the question before Greta Tisler could get her answer out. ‘Do you know anyone else who knew him? Somebody who might have visited him?’

‘Not after he changed.’

‘Who was there prior to that?’

‘There was a friend about the same age who came sometimes, but his visits became less and less frequent.’

‘Did you know his parents?’

‘No. His mother lived alone with Viggo when we moved here in 1972. She died only a few years later.’

‘Wasn’t his mother ill as well?’

‘Yes, poor woman. It’s hereditary, you know, that kind of thing. And it wasn’t helped by what her husband did.’

Line raised her eyebrows to show she hadn’t a clue what Viggo Hansen’s father had done.

‘He committed suicide. At least, that’s what people said. But that was before we moved here. I don’t really know any more than that.’

‘I heard he’d been in prison.’

Greta Tisler nodded, and her eyes took on a faraway look, searching out old memories.

‘Do you know any more than that?’ Line asked.

‘It didn’t happen here,’ she answered, shaking her head. ‘It was while he was working in Western Norway.’

The old woman’s attention was again directed at the kitchen window. A police patrol car had stopped outside her neighbour’s house. Line stood up but stopped in her tracks, wondering whether she could get anything more out of Greta Tisler. Something had happened twenty years earlier that had changed Viggo Hansen and put him in a psychiatric unit.

She thanked Greta Tisler for the coffee and ventured out into the cold.