The Caveman (10 page)

The patrolmen spent less than half an hour investigating the break-in at Viggo Hansen’s house. Line spoke to them when they arrived and watched from the window of her upstairs workroom. One of them took photographs of the entrance and brushed the surfaces with fingerprint powder, but it did not look as if he found anything. The other officer stood, notebook in hand. She took a photo of them using her telephoto lens.

When they had completed their external examination, they went inside the house, where they stayed for a quarter of an hour before re-emerging to sit in their car until a tradesman arrived to repair the damaged door frame.

Line watched both vehicles disappear along the snow-covered road, picked up the key and her bag and returned to the house.

The door was dusty with fingerprint powder. She removed her gloves, took out her camera and snapped another photograph. The black powder over the door created a dramatic effect.

The key turned easily in the lock. She removed it again as she pushed the door open and stepped inside, this time noticing how cold the place was. Probably around fifteen degrees Celsius, she thought, and decided to keep her jacket on, but the cold lessened the oppressive atmosphere, and she quickly grew used to the slightly sweet odour that permeated the walls.

Putting her bag on a stool in the hallway, she took a quick look inside every room before embarking on a more thorough examination. There was a bedroom behind the door on the left: flowery wallpaper on the walls, rag rugs on the floor, a wide bed and two small bedside tables with identical reading lights. An old wedding photograph hung on the wall.

His parents, she thought, entering to take a closer look. There was dust on the glass and frame, and the picture itself had faded with the passage of time. The bride wore a coloured dress with no veil, held a lavish bouquet of flowers, and looked up at the groom. The man wore a grey suit.

She could see no similarity between them and Viggo Hansen, at least not as she recalled him. This man was tall and well-built, his face round with a flat nose and sharp chin. His age was difficult to estimate, but he had to be about twenty-five years old. The bride was skinny with a delicate bone structure that made her look girlish and frail, with tiny hands, slim wrists and breasts barely noticeable under her clothes. Her face was round with a broad mouth, small nose and high cheekbones.

As she closed the door behind her it occurred that there might be a photograph album somewhere. She could use photos from the time when Viggo Hansen had a family.

The bathroom needed to be cleaned. The walls were mouldy and a stiff towel hung beside a ceramic wash-hand-basin speckled with yellow stains. The mirror was mottled. A slatted clothes pulley was suspended from the ceiling above the bathtub. Line tugged at the cord and the frame creaked as it swayed precariously.

The kitchen was equipped with the basic necessities: cupboards, worktops, cooker, fridge and a deep enamel sink. The linoleum on the floor was broken at the seams, and the edge of the worktop was damaged with the chipboard visible beneath the layer of plastic. An empty coffee cup sat on the Formica of the table at the window. A dead fly was spread-eagled on the window ledge.

She opened the fridge but the stench hit her so forcefully she immediately regretted it, stepping back, holding her breath as she shut the door again. It contained food coated in greenish fur and a carton of milk, a good image to capture with the milk out of date so long ago.

From the living room she entered a narrow corridor. The door to a bedroom was ajar. One bed stood against the wall, with the quilt in disarray. A pair of glasses sat on the bedside table beside a reading lamp and an alarm clock. The hands on the clock were stopped at 7.42. This must be the room Viggo Hansen had used.

In the centre of one bare wall hung a framed picture, a pencil drawing of a boy with a fishing rod, wearing a sou’wester and a pair of oversized Wellington boots. Line thought she recognised the fine details and drew closer to read the title
Boy Fishing
in the right-hand corner, and the name Eivind Aske, the artist she had arranged to meet in a few hours’ time. He and Viggo Hansen had been in the same class at school fifty years before. When Line phoned, he had hardly remembered Viggo Hansen’s name, but the dead man had a signed picture on the wall of his bedroom.

A desk was placed in front of the window, and the wall beside it had an embroidered landscape picture of white mountains with a deer grazing beside a lake. The only other furnishings were a chest of drawers and a brown armchair with worn armrests.

Line opened the drawer on the bedside table, where she found a packet of paper handkerchiefs, a box of throat pastilles, a ballpoint pen and an old paperback book entitled
Eight Black Horses
.
She opened it at random. The pages were brittle and dry and she was surprised to see that the text was in English.

Two more doors remained. One led to the basement stairs; an icy blast smacked her face when she opened it. The grey concrete steps ended in darkness. She located a light switch and a solitary light bulb shed its light on the room below.

Her footfall on the stairs echoed off the walls and the ceiling was so low she had to stoop to avoid hitting her head on the pipes that ran along the roof lining.

At the foot of the staircase she found a spacious open room equipped with a washing machine and a utility sink fixed to the wall. In the centre was a kitchen chair with a length of coiled rope hanging from the back, coarse rope with thick brown fibres. Line picked up one end and ran her thumb over its frayed edge before letting it fall.

A hot water tank was situated in one corner; beside this was a shelf with various boxes and an open door leading to a storeroom. Inside were shelves piled with empty jam jars, boxes of old magazines, used paint tins and a variety of tools, as well as a pair of skis and poles propped against the wall in a corner.

Retracing her steps, she lifted the lids of some of the boxes on the shelves. They mainly contained the same sort of junk. An old tea service, candlesticks, old curtains packed away, and worn shoes. A teddy bear’s head popped out from one. Line lifted down one of the boxes for a closer look. It held old-fashioned baby clothes, a pair of tiny shoes and a few toys. From the time Viggo Hansen was a toddler, it dawned on her, as she returned the box to its place.

She noticed something behind the shelf and all these boxes, a door into another storeroom. She took down all the boxes and stacked them on the floor behind her, before pushing the shelf unit aside. The door was similar to the one leading into the other storeroom, an ordinary wooden door, but this one was padlocked. Line studied the lock. Old and coated in verdigris, it did not appear to have been used for a long time. She was tempted to find a screwdriver to break it open, but decided to wait. Instead she climbed back upstairs to investigate the last room.

This door had been kept closed, there was no heating of any kind, and it appeared to be the room where Viggo Hansen stored everything he had no space for elsewhere. The windows sparkled with ice crystals.

A Santa Claus figure stood on the floor, and fragments of a Christmas garland dangled from a cardboard box. Old magazines, instruction leaflets and brochures lay on a wall shelf. There were books, an old radio, ornaments and a pile of clothes. On the top shelf she spotted the heads of two display mannequins, both sporting wigs. One had straight hair, the other curly, almost exactly like his mother’s hairstyle in the wedding photograph. Line reached for one and lifted it down. Using both hands she turned it this way and that, before replacing it on the shelf.

After she had closed the door behind her, she headed for the living room where she examined the two armchairs in front of the coffee table. One had a dark stain, all that was left of Viggo Hansen. He had sat there, night after night, she thought, beside an empty chair. Never anyone to listen to his opinion on a news item; no one to talk with about a TV programme. She took a picture of the two vacant chairs.

A dining table was placed against the wall at the other end of the living room. One of the chairs had been pulled out slightly and playing cards, worn at the edges and most lying face-up, were laid out for a game of solitaire. A card game for a solitary person. Line had spent hours playing it on her first computer. She snapped a photo of the cards that must have been dealt a thousand times.

Below the shelf unit on the living room wall were four low cupboards. She opened one, smiling to find a leather-covered photograph album. At the very front were faded pictures pasted in of the couple whose wedding photograph she had studied in the bedroom. They looked like holiday snaps. Then a child who must be Viggo Hansen appeared, sitting on his father’s knee. Photos from Christmas Day and a birthday party followed. Line counted seven adults round a table. A picture of a little boy with a school satchel was dated 23rd August 1957. Beside the final photograph, someone had written
Summer 1962
. Viggo Hansen was pictured sitting on a jetty, legs dangling from the edge. The last ten pages were empty.

Line flicked back to the beginning and looked through the photographs one more time. She would be able to use some, but would need more recent ones as well. It struck her that no one was smiling. They all looked so serious, there was some kind of absence of joy. Even in the photo of Viggo Hansen in front of a cake with five miniature candles, his mouth was clamped shut and his expression sombre. She closed the thick binders.

A document folder lay beside the photograph album. Insurance certificates, receipts, tax returns and bank statements. Viggo Hansen was in receipt of a disability pension and his taxable income amounted to just over 200,000 kroner. She was taken aback to see that he had assets worth almost three million, 2.5 of which was deposited in a bank account.

Also among his papers, she found a yellowed invitation to a class reunion on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of their graduation from Stavern Junior High School in 1964. The celebration was to be held on Saturday 15th May 2004. She took a photograph of the invitation instead of copying the name and phone number of the organising committee’s chairperson.

One of the receipts attracted her attention, from a locksmith who had mounted a double set of locks on the front door on Monday 1st August. She took a photo of the receipt which showed that the locksmith’s name was R. Nicolaysen. He might have been the last person to speak to Viggo Hansen before his death.

The next cupboard was bare; the other two contained glasses and crockery.

Replacing the album and papers, Line straightened up and looked again at the two empty chairs. On the table between them and the television console she spotted the TV magazine, just as it had been depicted in the police documents.

Line leafed through it, finding it easy to deduce his television habits. He had circled the broadcast times for various reality series, nature programmes and documentaries, among them a programme about the FBI which was also asterisked.

Line took out her camera yet again to photograph the TV listings. There was something subtle about the motif. It illustrated how Viggo Hansen had sat at home alone, but nevertheless still observed life in the outside world.

After spending an hour or so rummaging through drawers and cupboards, she found something of interest in the bedroom chest of drawers: a shoebox full of Christmas cards.

Settling into the clean armchair, she looked through them. A total of twenty, but only two senders. One set written in large, sloping letters, signed Frank, while the other sender, Irene, had more elegant handwriting. The oldest was postmarked 1975, the year after his mother had died.

Dear Viggo – I know you’re going through a difficult time. The first holiday on your own, without your parents, can be painful and difficult. Nevertheless, I hope you have a happy Christmas and wish you all the best for the New Year ahead. Your friend, Frank
.

The Christmas card designs changed in keeping with the times. The oldest was glossy with a traditional picture of two elves ringing a storehouse bell while the farmer’s wife arrived with a dish of porridge. The most recent showed a portly Father Christmas with a bottle of cola in one hand. Dated Christmas 1988, it conveyed no more than a wish for a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. In the lower right corner only one word:
Frank
. No longer
your friend
.

As the friendship with Frank seemed to wane, Irene took over. She had sent Christmas cards in the period from 1990 to 1995. In the first one, she wrote that she had enjoyed getting to know him and she hoped they could meet up in the New Year.

So there had been a woman in his life, Line thought, as she browsed through the next five cards. The last one ended,
See you in the summer
.

Line studied the postmarks. On the cards from Frank it was impossible to read where the sender lived, apart from one that appeared to have been mailed from Langesund. Two of the cards from Irene had been posted in Horten. She noted the names of these two people who had once been part of Viggo Hansen’s life. They had meant so much to him that he had kept their Christmas cards, but had obviously not done enough to sustain their friendships. Years had gone by since they had been in touch. She would find them.

Wisting closed his office door and sat behind his desk, knowing a myriad tasks had to be put in order. He had delegated responsibility for contacting the USA to Torunn Borg, who was also to investigate possible names Robert Godwin might be hiding behind. Benjamin Fjeld was assigned the search for local history societies and others who might be able to identify the places in Bob Crabb’s photos. It was meticulous work and far from certain to produce results, but the only way to proceed.

Logging into the data system, he tracked the break-in reported at the apartment Bob Crabb had rented in Stavern. The case had been opened on Sunday 21st August and dropped six weeks later due to lack of information. There were only two papers in the case file: a report completed by the police officers who had responded to the call and a document with photos from the crime scene.

The report contained information about time and place as well as a description of the
modus operandi
. In the section for itemising evidence obtained at the scene they had written
Nothing
. The same applied to the list of stolen goods.

The pictures illustrated the report’s verbal description. Someone had used a crowbar, or similar, forcing it between door and frame to create a gap wide enough to wrench the door open.

Wisting returned to the text. It seemed there had been two students staying in the flat and they had moved in only five days earlier. Easily saleable items such as a PlayStation, laptop computer and a few bottles of spirits had not been touched. The owner thought a previous lodger by the name of Bob Crabb might have broken in. He had rented the flat as holiday accommodation for four weeks and, as he had not moved out at the agreed time, the landlady had taken possession of his belongings.

He closed down the on-screen information and moved to the window. Smoke rose from the chimneys of countless roofs and a delicate film of freezing mist had settled over the fjord.

Staring at the white snow produced a hypnotic effect that drew out all his concentration. He could not foresee when the breakthrough in this case would come, but in all the cases he had ever worked on, hope of success had been greater than fear of failure, and that was how he felt now.

Torunn Borg knocked and entered without waiting for a response. ‘The FBI are coming,’ she said.

‘To Norway?’

‘Three special agents are already on their way. Two from the main office in Washington and one from the local office in Minneapolis. They land at Gardermoen early tomorrow and want to meet us at twelve.’

Wisting took a deep breath. If it leaked out that FBI special agents were in the country to bring in a wanted serial killer, they would not have a moment’s peace.

‘Leif Malm from the intelligence section at
Kripos
and an inspector from the international joint operations section will arrive with them.’

‘Leif Malm,’ Wisting repeated, remembering an earlier case. ‘I thought he was with the Oslo force?’

‘Well, he’s working at
Kripos
now.’

‘What about Bob Crabb’s house in Minneapolis? Have they taken any action on that?’

Torunn Borg settled into one of the vacant chairs and leafed through her notes. ‘I have direct contact with a Detective Inspector Bruce Jensen of the 3rd Precinct. It’s half past eight in the morning over there. They’ll get it done by the end of the day.’

‘Jensen?’

‘Probably a Norwegian-American. Actually, I’ve relatives over there myself, near Lake Superior.’

‘Are you in touch with them?’

‘No, but I think we have a great-great-grandfather in common or something like that.’

Espen Mortensen joined them, papers in hand, pulled up a chair and sat down. ‘We’re looking for a woman,’ he said.

Wisting and Torunn Borg exchanged a look.

‘The strands of hair in the dead body’s hand come from a woman.’