He carried a cup of coffee into the Criminal Investigation Department. Ove Dokken’s office door was open, as usual, and the case files for the past week were lying on his desk. Wisting stood in semi-darkness and leafed through them until he located the folder marked ‘Simon Becker’.
The man they had arrested had appeared in court and been remanded in custody.
He flicked through the papers to the interview statement. Within the first few paragraphs Simon Becker confessed to the attempted car theft and assault of the police officer who had arrested him.
This was a common strategy of habitual criminals, confessing to crimes impossible to escape. Often the police would content themselves with what was handed to them on a plate, and the suspect would avoid further scrutiny.
However, Simon Becker had not evaded such attention. In the next paragraph, he was confronted with two car stereos found under the bed at his home. He claimed he had bought them from a man whose name he did not know.
Questions were also asked about a pair of sunglasses, a white college sweater carrying the Ball logo in pink letters, and music cassettes picked up in his apartment: David Bowie’s Let’s Dance, Thriller by Michael Jackson, and Sunday People by The Monroes. Simon Becker explained that he had bought these in various service stations, and that he had owned the sunglasses for a long time. He said the same about the sweater.
Towards the end of the interview, he was asked about a black Sierra, stolen a fortnight earlier. He denied having anything to do with it.
Wisting browsed through the case notes to a report that referred to another case. One of the investigators had taken an additional statement from the man whose stolen car had been used in the bank raid. He had described items left in the vehicle, including a white Ball sweater, a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses and a number of cassettes, including the latest albums by David Bowie, Michael Jackson and The Monroes.
Wisting smiled with satisfaction. The report confirmed his suspicions. Simon Becker had stolen the car used in the robbery. Wisting thought he had probably not been involved in the robbery itself. He would be most unlikely to go out only a few nights later to steal another car. More probably he had emptied it of valuables before getting rid of it, but it meant that the robbery had a local connection.
He flipped through to the report dealing with the confiscated items. In addition to the two car stereos and items from the Sierra, notebooks, diaries, loose memos and papers had been seized. Wisting followed the investigators’ line of thinking. They had been looking for a link between Simon Becker and the person to whom he had delivered the stolen Sierra, a tie-up with the robbers.
The evidence store was situated farther along the corridor, but protocols had been tightened after Wrangsund had been caught stealing. The key now had to be signed for through the Chief Inspector, but the main key was kept down at the duty desk.
He descended the stairs to his own section, where Haugen and Storvolden were sleeping in their armchairs in the staffroom. Crossing the room to the Duty Sergeant’s desk, he pulled out the drawer where the key was kept, and took it with him.
The evidence store had no windows, so he turned on the ceiling light. The Simon Becker items were on one of the nearest shelves: the music cassettes, sunglasses, sweater, stereo equipment and a cardboard box containing various papers. These were little notes with only a phone number or sum of money scribbled on them, sometimes accompanied by initials or a date. It would take time to sort through these, with no guarantee of anything to take the investigators forward.
He studied a small notebook filled with phone numbers, different forenames and nicknames. Mostly they were local numbers, but there was a sprinkling for Sandefjord and Tønsberg. No Oslo numbers. He reflected for a few minutes, and decided to take a photocopy to check whether he could find any names from previous cases in which Simon Becker had been found guilty.
He brought the notebook through to the photocopy room and switched on the machine. It took a while to heat up. While he waited, his portable radio crackled.
‘Wisting to the duty room!’
He lifted the radio and gave a response.
‘Report of house fire in Byskogen,’ Storvolden said.
‘Received.’
The photocopier was ready. He pressed the big green button and heard the machine labour slowly underneath the lid, finally dropping a photocopied sheet into the tray at the side.
Although the copy was difficult to read, it would have to do. He turned off the machine and returned the notebook to the evidence store before dashing downstairs.
‘Haugen’s waiting in the car,’ Storvolden said from his desk. ‘Where the hell have you been?’
‘In the loo,’ Wisting answered, tossing the key back in the drawer. Storvolden gave him a quizzical look as he rushed out to the waiting car.
The house was in flames when they arrived, and enormous sheets of sparks swirled into the night sky. The fire service was already on the scene, but were having difficulty with their equipment. The house owner stood in the snow with a blanket around his shoulders and a pair of green Wellington boots on his feet. Wisting approached.
The entire family had managed to escape, he explained, nodding at his neighbour’s kitchen window where four faces watched the fire.
Wisting updated Storvolden by radio and faced the man again, conscious of how difficult it was to acknowledge another person’s despair while behaving professionally.
‘Do you know how the fire started?’
It transpired that the man had been redecorating the living room, and thought that was where the fire had started. It was possible that oily rags had burst into flames.
At last the fire crew managed to get their hoses going. Wisting stood with the householder until the man had seen enough and withdrew into the neighbour’s house.
When he left the scene a few hours later, nothing but a smoking ruin was left.
The night shift was nearing its end. Before he went home he sat at a typewriter and produced a report. In a matter of months, all thought of the incident would be gone. In a few years’ time, he would probably have experienced so much else that he would struggle to remember the fire at all. For the people affected, however, the recollections would be scorched into their memories and remain there for the rest of their lives.
In the street outside the police station, a snowplough rumbled past. Wisting stood up, wondering what Ruth Skaugen would be able to recall from the summer of 1925.
18
Monday morning found Wisting on a wooden chair in the corridor outside Chief Inspector Ove Dokken’s office. On his lap was a report of everything he knew about the vintage car in the barn at Tveidalen and the cash consignment in 1925.
Off duty at the weekend, he had stayed at home with Ingrid and the twins, but had gone over the wording in his head repeatedly. On Sunday afternoon, they had visited his parents-in-law and he had borrowed an old typewriter from Ingrid’s father to fill in a blank report form he had brought home.
One of the women from the records office offered him coffee in a paper cup while he waited. He knew her, but could not for the life of him remember her name.
‘They usually keep going until quarter to nine,’ she said, with a nod in the direction of Dokken’s office door. He thanked her.
At ten to nine the door opened and the section leaders came out, leaving Dokken sitting alone behind a stack of case papers. Grabbing a packet of cigarettes, he coaxed one out.
Wisting popped his head round the door. ‘Do you have a minute?’
‘Is this about the robbery again?’ Dokken asked, lighting his cigarette.
‘No, it’s another case. An old case.’
The Chief Inspector inhaled. ‘It’s Monday morning, Wisting,’ he sighed, letting smoke ooze through his nostrils. ‘It’s a bad day and a bad time to raise the subject of old cases.’ He laid his hand on the pile of documents on his desk. ‘I’ve more than enough on my plate.’
‘I can come back tomorr
ow, then.’
‘Sit down!’ Dokken growled, glancing at the clock. ‘You’ve got five minutes before I have to go to a meeting about the night safe raid.’
Wisting sat down smartly. ‘I’ve written a report,’ he said, putting down the papers.
Dokken let them lie.
‘It’s to do with a consignment of cash that disappeared nearly sixty years ago. I think I might have stumbled on something.’
Dokken sat back to listen, without asking any questions or interrupting until Wisting had said all he had to say.
‘Are you on duty just now?’
‘No, I just came in to deliver the report.’
Stubbing out his cigarette, Dokken took another look at the time. ‘Do you have a plan?’ he asked.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I hope you haven’t come to unload all this on to me without any suggestion as to what should be done. What would you do, if you were a detective?’
‘I would try to locate the old case files. I would remove the car, examine the barn and conduct another interview with Ruth Skaugen.’
Dokken rose from his chair. ‘Do that. I can give you twenty hours’ overtime.’
Wisting stared at him.
‘Do you mean I should work on the case, as the investigator?’
Dokken picked up a sheaf of papers and headed for the door. ‘Start with Ruth Skaugen, and keep me posted.’
Wisting got to his feet and made his way to the empty office he had borrowed a few days earlier. He would have to tell Ingrid he would not be home anytime soon.
19
Ruth Skaugen lived in Brekke. Wisting phoned ahead to find that Jan Bergan had already called. She gave Wisting directions and agreed to meet him at eleven o’clock.
He used his own car but took a portable police radio. After he had left the main road and driven some distance through a snowy white landscape of rolling fields, he came to a group of houses surrounded by tall pine trees. These were the buildings attached to Brekke farm.
The farmyard had been cleared of snow. He parked, picked up the radio and stepped out.
Ruth Skaugen was waiting at the door by the time he reached the steps. She had silver grey hair, glasses and a network of wrinkles on her face. She used a walking stick for support as she ushered him into the kitchen where a stove was lit. Coffee cups were ready on the table, together with a jug of cream and a plate of buttered lefse. He sat while the old woman lifted the coffee pot from the hotplate and poured.
‘You’ve found the car at last?’ She took a seat by the window.
‘Not very far from here.’ He went on to tell her about the barn in Tveidalen.
‘But no sign of Marvin?’
‘I’d hoped you could tell me about the last time you saw him. Do you remember that evening?’
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘It was the last time we saw him. What’s more, we had to talk to the police about it, time after time afterwards.’
Wisting waited for her to go on.
‘Really there’s not much to tell,’ she said.
‘Yes, but all the same . . .’ Wisting took out his notebook.
‘He arrived here without warning,’ she began. ‘That wasn’t so good. He had received short notice himself, you see, and we didn’t have a telephone in those days.’
She gazed through the window to the road. ‘He turned up just before dinner time. Fortunately, I had made a big pot of chicken stew. It was so hot that summer we were sitting outside. He’d been thinking of staying overnight at the Hotel Wassilioff, which had just been rebuilt after the fire. Of course, we wouldn’t allow that and insisted he stay here. I made up a bed in Guttorm’s room. He’s our youngest son, and he slept with us that night.’
‘Who was here that evening, apart from you and your husband?’
‘Dagfinn’s brother was here all day with Johannes from the farm on the other side of Furubrekka.’ She pointed out the window to the west. ‘There was a hired man as well. They were working on the construction of the new hay barn.’
Wisting leaned across the table. ‘Who was the hired man?’
Ruth Skaugen raised her cup to her mouth. ‘I can’t remember now,’ she answered, taking a sip. ‘He was a man Johannes had got hold of. Dagfinn wasn’t entirely happy with him. The work was progressing slowly, and he was slipshod. You should find his name in the old papers. The Oslo police were here and spoke to him too.’
‘What about Johannes? Is he still alive?’
She shook her head as she pushed the plate across the table to him. ‘You have to taste the lefse,’ she insisted. ‘My daughter made them. I’ve stopped baking nowadays.’
Wisting helped himself as he glanced at his notes. ‘What was his full name?’
‘Johannes Brekka,’ the old woman replied, and she too helped herself to one of the lefse.
‘What about Dagfinn’s brother, what was his name?’
‘Kai. Kai Skaugen.’
Wisting jotted this down.
‘After dinner Hans cycled over to see us. He brought some strawberries and cream.’
‘Hans?’ Wisting asked.
‘Hans Ole Manvik.’
‘So, the people who were here, apart from you and Dagfinn, were your brother-in-law, Kai Skaugen, your neighbour Johannes Brekka, Hans Ole Manvik, and a hired workman.’
‘And Johannes’s eldest son, Karstein.’ She rose abruptly. ‘I’ve got a photograph. Karstein was an apprentice photographer at Ludwigsen’s in town. He wanted to photograph them while they were building the barn. He stayed for dinner and took photos.’
Ruth Skaugen disappeared into the living room and returned with an album. ‘Yes, and the children were here, of course.’ She remembered when she had leafed to the appropriate page. ‘Gunnar, Guttorm and Solveig.’
She placed the album on the table in front of Wisting. ‘And Anna came for dinner too.’ She returned to her seat by the window.
Wisting felt a prickling sensation in the pit of his stomach. Sixty years ago, Anna was probably one of the most common names. It was popular today as well, of course, but it was the name on the envelope he had found in the barn in Tveidalen.
‘Who was Anna?’
Ruth Skaugen’s mouth puckered ever so slightly. ‘She’s at the very back of the photograph, on the left. She was Kai’s fiancée. They married subsequently, but I don’t have any contact with her these days. Kai is dead.’
Wisting studied the old picture. Slightly discoloured, it showed signs of age, but for anyone who knew the people, it would be possible to recognise faces. Seven adults and three children, all gathered around a table in the garden with the old Minerva standing in a corner in the background.
‘Is that Marvin Bergan?’ he asked, pointing at a young man in a white, short-sleeved shirt.
Ruth Skaugen leaned across the table. ‘Yes,’ she said, and pointed out the others.
He studied them all. The woman called Anna was standing beside her future husband, Kai. Ruth was wearing an apron and a headscarf. He could see that she was a hard-working woman: pale and thin, her face looked drawn. Anna was different. Her dark hair hung in loose curls on her shoulders and she smiled warmly at the photographer.
‘Why don’t you have any contact with Anna?’
Ruth Skaugen chewed on a piece of lefse for a long time.
‘Dagfinn had three brothers,’ she said. ‘They were all very different, but Kai was perhaps the one who stood out most. He didn’t have a regular job, and that’s why Dagfinn had him working here for a while. He didn’t want to go to sea either.’
‘And he married Anna?’
‘They had two daughters, but I don’t think things went too well for them.’
‘How’s that?’
‘I think they’d both made a poor marriage and he started to drink, just like his father.’
Wisting flicked through his notes and found the name written on the rucksack in the barn.
‘Does the name Alfred Danielsen or Davidsen
mean anything to you?’
Ruth Skaugen peered down at his notebook. ‘Anna’s name was Danielsen before she got married. I wonder whether her father’s name might have been Alfred. Why do you ask?’
‘It’s just a name that’s cropped up,’ Wisting said, leafing further through his notes. ‘The barn where the car was found belonged to Peder Heian. Are you familiar with that name?’
Ruth Skaugen shook her head.
He ran through his notes again, this time to the list of people present in August 1925. There were a lot of names.
‘Do you recall what you talked about that evening?’
The wrinkles on the old woman’s face stretched as she smiled. ‘My goodness, what did we talk about . . . well, the men were chatting about the new barn, and then we almost certainly talked about the weather. That was such a hot summer.’
‘What about Marvin? What did he talk about?’
‘He told us how things were at home. He was still living with his parents at that time.’
‘Didn’t he say anything about where he was going, or what kind of job he was on?’
‘Yes he did, of course, he was quite proud of it.’
Wisting sat upright. The prickling sensation had returned to his stomach. Stronger this time. ‘Did he tell you he was going to Kristiansand to collect money?’
She nodded. ‘He was driving to Kristiansand the next day. He was going to stay overnight at a hotel and pick up the money on the Wednesday morning. That night he was going to stop here again. We joked about what he would do with the money that night.’
‘So, everyone here that evening knew about the consignment of cash?’
‘We didn’t know how much it was,’ she said. ‘Marvin didn’t either, just that it would be stored in a sealed metal box.’
Wisting drummed his pen on his notebook, unsure how to proceed. ‘Before the weekend I met a former policeman who worked on the case and interviewed you in 1925,’ he said.
Ruth Skaugen nodded. ‘As you say, there was a policeman from Oslo here. Although I actually think he was Swedish.’
When It Grows Dark (William Wisting series) Page 10