‘The last confirmed observation we have is around dinner time on Wednesday 10th August at the Skipperstua restaurant in Stavern,’ he said. ‘We’re working on charting all his movements during his stay in Norway.’
‘Have you any theories about what might have happened?’ The journalist sounded enthusiastic.
‘Nothing specific.’
‘Why have you waited so long to make this statement?’
‘We wanted to be certain.’
‘So you’re not holding anything else back?’
‘In an investigation such as this, we always keep something back. What makes our work difficult is that four months have elapsed since the homicide, making it more challenging for both the forensic scientists and crime scene technicians to draw conclusions. Now we hope someone can provide information to help us find out what happened.’
The reporter had several more questions, but was impatient to conclude the conversation and meet his deadline.
After he hung up, Wisting stretched out on his back and looked at the shadow patterns cast by the moonlight on the wall. He felt sure the case was about to accelerate, and then the room darkened as a blue-black cloud covered the moon.
66
Overnight the weather became milder. As Wisting parked in the backyard of the station, the first snowflakes fell. He met Christine Thiis on the way into the building, carrying a copy of VG. ‘Shouldn’t we have discussed this?’ she asked, holding up the folded newspaper.
As police lawyer, she had responsibility for the legal aspects of the case. All media contact, strictly speaking, should be conducted through her, or at least cleared with her first.
He admitted she was right, but that there had not been time. ‘They were going to write about it anyway,’ he said, holding the door open for her, ‘one way or another. I thought we should try to make them do it our way.’
Christine Thiis nodded. She had been in the police force for only a couple of years and was wary of criticising experienced investigators. Moreover, she was not the type to be overly concerned with principles and formalities.
Leif Malm had given them prior warning that he would arrive at ten o’clock with a detective from Sweden’s National Bureau of Investigation. Wisting kept the morning briefing short, informing them of the latest news from the Swedish side of the border, and asking Nils Hammer and Espen Mortensen to stay behind for the meeting with the Swede. He related the background to the coverage in VG, which had published a picture of Professor Bob Crabb and quoted Wisting.
The younger FBI agent had not appeared, but he could see from Donald Baker’s face that he did not like what he was hearing. ‘We’re in danger of pushing him away,’ Baker said, without introducing any direct criticism.
‘The police in Minneapolis had already confirmed most of the story,’ Wisting said. ‘This turns it to our advantage.’
Hammer held up the article with the picture of Bob Crabb. ‘It’s doubtful whether anyone will remember him from a busy summer’s day four months ago.’
Christine Thiis drew a line under any further discussion. ‘I agree with the decision taken. We can’t fool the press forever. This has been well handled and could be to our benefit. Meanwhile I plan to invite our communications adviser to handle the media and control the flow of information.’
Though grateful for her support, Wisting would have preferred to do without the newspaper coverage. Others would make approaches now, and it was only a question of time until the presence of the FBI became known, as well as what they were actually dealing with.
‘We have a lot to do,’ he said. ‘Torunn has come up with forty-six possible names and it’s about time we made use of them. We’d do well to take a photo of Bob Crabb, knock on doors and ask if anyone remembers seeing him last summer. Make it look like a general door-to-door operation, a plausible enquiry. Then we’ll just feel our way forward and see who we might want to check out.’
He passed the practical implementation details to Torunn Borg. ‘Just remember, though,’ he said, ‘you go in pairs. Anyone you meet might be the killer.’
Wisting returned to his office, where he had been burning the midnight oil after his colleagues had gone home, closely reading the documents on the twelve missing persons. Not contenting himself with the investigation reports, he had dug down into the bundles of paper for particulars and details that might form a pattern. Checking whether observations of the same make of car had been reported, or repeated similar descriptions.
What alerted the American investigators to a pattern when they arrested the notorious serial killer, Ted Bundy, was that witnesses at several crime scenes had noticed a young man with his arm in a sling. Under the pretence of having injured his arm, Bundy had asked for help to do practical things, such as lifting shopping into his car. At the same time, the sling made him appear harmless.
Wisting leaned back in his chair. This type of work could not be left to a computer. It meant absorbing every tiny detail to isolate the one element that would slot everything into place. The problem was, though, he had no idea what that detail could be, was not even certain that it existed. Even if it did, there was no guarantee he would appreciate it first time, but the information would be retained to gnaw away at him, until a single sentence from some report or other allowed him to see everything, the whole picture.
All he had found in these piles of papers, however, was a tremendous degree of variation. All the women had gone missing during the summer months, but on different days of the week, at different times of day and from different places. Some had been on their way home from work, others were on their way to college, or to meet friends. The only common denominator was that they had been in the vicinity of a motorway with a huge volume of through traffic.
He peered at the map with the women’s faces, having removed the picture of the dark-haired girl from Oslo with a pierced eyebrow and Diana from Drammen, leaving ten blond women.
Beside the overview of the assumed victims hung a map of the police district. It bordered Telemark to the west, to the north Lardal and the inner part of Vestfold region, and to the east the towns of Andebu and Sandefjord. Around five hundred square kilometres. Approximately 43,000 inhabitants.
Identifying the farm where they had found the skeleton at the bottom of the well, he drew a circle around the spot, and put crosses where they had found the two empty wells, and something in his subconscious began to surface.
All the farms probably had a well, as Espen Mortensen had pointed out before they identified the three places Bob Crabb had photographed. Something fell into place when he recalled that sentence, as if a lamp had gone on in a corner of his mind.
He returned to his desk and took out the statement given by Per Halle, owner of the forest of Christmas trees where the body was found, and located his phone number among the personal details at the top of the interview form. ‘Just a quick question,’ he said, after introducing himself. ‘Is there a well on your farm?’
Per Halle hesitated before giving his answer. ‘Not one in use nowadays.’
67
The sound of the shower woke Line. She propped herself up, rocking slightly on the unfamiliar soft mattress before letting her head fall back on the pillow. Waking in a strange hotel room was something she was unused to, but it felt neither wrong nor embarrassing.
John emerged from the bathroom, hair dripping, with a towel round his waist. ‘Awake?’ he asked with a smile.
Line sat up, wrapping herself in the quilt with a modesty that was several hours too late. He leaned over the bed and kissed her. ‘I have to go to a meeting. Is that okay?’
She smiled in response. Not having any clothes other than the ones she arrived in, she would really prefer to be alone while she dressed.
‘It might be a long day, but I hope we can meet again this evening. Maybe you could show me some more of this town of yours?’
‘I have to work too,’ she said, ‘but text me if you decide on something.’
&n
bsp; He disappeared into the bathroom again, appearing five minutes later in a white shirt, dark suit and tie. He kissed her again, this time tasting of toothpaste, picked up the Do not disturb sign and crossed to the door. ‘Stay for as long as you like,’ he said.
Line threw back the quilt and sat on the edge of the bed as soon as he closed the door. They had not shut the curtains before going to bed, and she could see it had started to snow again. Dense white flakes whirled through the air, covering the skies with a semi-transparent, hazy veil.
Retrieving her underwear from the floor, she made for the bathroom and the shower. The water was exactly the right temperature. She soaped herself, closing her eyes and turning her face into the warm spray, letting the water wash over her as she rested her back on the shiny white tiles. For a long time she thought over the previous evening and night, and found she regretted none of it. Her mind turned to Viggo Hansen.
She turned off the water, picked up a towel and began to dry herself, pulled on her underpants and leaned over the wash basin to wipe the condensation from the mirror and examine the smile on her own face.
John Bantam’s toilet bag sat beside the basin with an ID card caught between a toothpaste tube and a deodorant stick. It bore the photograph of the man she had spent the night with, but that was not what drew her attention. It was the letters FBI. She lifted it out and studied it more closely.
Special Agent John Bantam of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, United States Department of Justice.
She took a step back, clutching it in her hand. She felt her blood run cold.
He said he was an analyst, she recalled, that his work consisted of gathering information for public authorities and looking at things in context. Her thoughts churned inside her head. John Bantam worked for the FBI. What on earth was he doing in Norway? What sort of assignment was he on?
A number of small details suddenly fell into place, details that gathered into a single mass of great enormity. The case her father would not talk about. Sandersen who had phoned from the news section and the forensic scientists who were ordered to work overtime. The team of crime scene technicians from Kripos who were on standby. All of it centred on a man found dead among the Christmas trees at Halle farm. She had no idea what was going on, but knew now it was something really major.
The case had brought an FBI special agent to Norway. That must be how it all fitted together. Line felt her heart sink. She felt dizzy and confused.
She left the bathroom, located her bag and took out her phone to find it had run out of juice overnight. Anyway, she did not know who to call, her father or Sandersen at the news desk. Obviously there was a story here, a massive story. She could not remember the last time the FBI had assisted or cooperated with Norwegian police. The paintings The Scream and Madonna had ended up on the FBI’s top ten list of the world’s most wanted stolen works of art when they were swiped from the Munch museum in Oslo, but she could not recollect the FBI being involved in an investigation in Norway.
Her hair was still damp when she departed through the hotel’s front entrance and swept a fresh layer of snow from the windscreen. Lobbing her bag onto the front passenger seat she sat behind the wheel. She heard slipping and grinding noises from under the bonnet before the motor fired up and stabilised into a regular rhythm. The heating system blasted cold air through the interior and she dipped her head to peer through the opening in the layer of condensation at the bottom of the windscreen.
After a few hundred metres, the engine began to misfire, jerking and spluttering worse than ever and the speedometer dial dropped from sixty to fifty. She tried the old trick of pumping the accelerator, and for a few minutes the engine ran as normal, the dial crept from forty to forty-five, but then the rattling began again. She pressed the accelerator to the floor, but this time it had no effect. Instead the engine began to knock, and she was thrown forward in fits and starts. The warning lights on the dashboard flashed, the car was reduced to a crawl, and traffic started to pile up behind her. She used the remaining forward momentum to turn into a bus stop. When she lifted her foot to brake, the car shuddered one last time before coming to a complete standstill.
She turned the key in the ignition. The starter motor cranked slowly, but there were only a few grunts from the engine. She moved the ignition key backwards and forwards, took it out and inserted it again several times while pressing the accelerator. The wipers slid halfway across the windscreen and stopped. Beads of perspiration broke out on her forehead.
‘Come on!’ she shouted, turning the ignition yet again as she pumped the accelerator pedal, but to no avail. She remained seated with her hands on the steering wheel, staring straight ahead. Heavy grey snowflakes were falling, already blanketing the windscreen.
As she was not suitably dressed for walking, she rooted around in the glove compartment and centre console to see if she had a mobile phone charger. In the pocket on the driver’s door she found a bright yellow reflective waistcoat, still packed in transparent plastic. She felt idiotic, but pulled it on and stepped into the snowy landscape. If luck was on her side, it would not take long until some acquaintance happened along and gave her a lift.
She skirted to the back of her vehicle, opened the boot and removed the warning triangle. As she had never needed to use it before, she struggled to set it up. When she turned to place it on the road verge, a car pulled into the bus stop and drove right up to her before stopping. The driver got out and asked, ‘Do you need help?’
At first she was pleased to see a familiar face. Then she noticed the darkness in his eyes and realised that something was very wrong.
68
The National Bureau of Investigation detective was called Ingemar Bergquist and he was a kriminalkommissarie, a detective superintendent, one of the highest ranks attainable without a law degree in the Swedish police hierarchy. A serious man of around fifty, Wisting suspected his wavy black hair was really a toupee. He carried five thick case files that he stacked on the table.
In addition to Wisting, six others were seated: Leif Malm from Kripos seated beside his Swedish colleague, Christine Thiis, Espen Mortensen, Donald Baker and John Bantam, who had just arrived, breathless, in the conference room.
Wisting would have liked to have Nils Hammer with him, but had sent him to Halle farm to locate the well, apparently situated about fifty metres from where Bob Crabb’s body had been found. He asked Donald Baker to give an account of the FBI’s investigation twenty years earlier, before summarising their own case in broad brushstrokes.
First the dead body among the Christmas trees, followed by the brochure with Robert Godwin’s fingerprints, the strands of female hair in Bob Crabb’s fist and the list of missing women.
‘A woman’s hair?’ the Swedish police officer queried. ‘Are you quite sure of that?’
‘We’ve conducted two independent tests,’ Espen Mortensen said. ‘The conclusion is absolutely unambiguous.’
Ingemar Bergquist shook his head uncomprehendingly. The stiff hairs on his toupee moved unnaturally. ‘How do you explain that?’
‘A wig,’ Wisting said. The word emerged just as the idea entered his head. ‘Robert Godwin has in all likelihood changed his appearance. That also applies to his hair. He is probably using hair extensions, a wig or toupee. They use real hair when they make them. Poor women in eastern Europe and India sell their hair to wig-makers.’
Espen Mortensen stared at him open-mouthed, before closing it and nodding in agreement. ‘That could certainly be an explanation,’ he said.
Wisting gave Donald Baker leave to speak again, to report on Robert Godwin’s origins, and explain their theory that he had decided to go on the run to Scandinavia, and how he now lived, having assumed another man’s identity.
‘A caveman,’ the Swedish policeman said. ‘Interesting.’
‘We are attempting to close in on him in two ways,’ Wisting continued. ‘Firstly by trying to find the alias he is now living under. Secondly, we believe he
has chosen to hide in our area because this is where his family originated. This is the same trail that Bob Crabb spent years tracking and that brought him here last summer. We believe Godwin may have come back to his roots and are investigating the branch of his family that remained in Norway.’
The Swedish police officer made notes while Wisting was speaking. Now it was his turn.
‘On 27th July 1996, Agneta Gunnarson disappeared,’ he said, placing a picture of a young woman on the table. Her blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail tied with a fur-fabric elastic band. ‘She took a bus to Torp shopping centre, seven kilometres outside Uddevalla town centre. All trace of her ends with an image from a CCTV camera outside the H & M department store at 15.23.’
He took out another photograph. Another young blond woman. ‘Sonia Thuv was last seen at the Daftö campsite outside Strömstad. She had a summer job at the kiosk there, but never arrived home after it closed on the evening of 4th August in 1999.’
The third woman’s name was Lisbeth Larsson from Gothenburg. ‘She intended to hitch a lift to Kungsbacka on the evening of 11th June 2002. The last sighting we have was at an intersection near Mölndal, just south of Gothenburg.’
‘We have a hitchhiker too,’ Espen Mortensen interjected.
‘Several of the victims in Minnesota were too,’ Donald Baker said.
‘Anja Lundgren also tried to hitch a lift,’ Bergquist told them, placing an image from a CCTV camera dated 28th June 2008. ‘The last witness observation was from a Q8 petrol station at Hisings Backa, north of Gothenburg.’
The Swedish detective arranged the four photos already lying side by side on the table and added a missing person poster showing a short-haired girl in her late teens with big blue eyes and freckles on her nose. ‘Last summer Kikki Lindén went missing. They found her bike behind a bus shelter at the exit road north of Trollhättan.’
The Caveman Page 23