When It Grows Dark (William Wisting series)

by Jorn Lier Horst

  ‘Ragnar Gustafsson. He said that Marvin Bergan hadn’t mentioned the money to anyone.’

  Ruth Skaugen clasped her hands around her coffee cup again. ‘That’s right. Everything about the consignment had to be kept secret. If it got out that anyone had taken the strikers’ work there would be a real fuss. Marvin and Martinius could be accused of strike breaking, but it’s such a long time ago that it can’t be dangerous to talk about it now. The company went bankrupt because of what happened.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell this to the police at the time?’

  It seemed Ruth Skaugen did not understand the question.

  ‘Because it was a secret,’ she answered. ‘Marvin wasn’t supposed to talk to anyone about it.’

  It took some time before Wisting could fathom the old woman’s train of thought. ‘What you’re saying is that you were scared Marvin had done something wrong by telling you about it, and so you refrained from telling the police.’

  ‘We didn’t want to create any problems for him, you see.’

  Ruth Skaugen crossed to the stove to fetch the coffee pot while Wisting remained seated, lost in thought.

  The family’s misplaced loyalty had given the investigation a totally misguided starting point. The simplest character of a lie is the embellishment of truth, smoothing over your own mistakes or those of other people. Before him now was a fresh opportunity that had been denied the investigation in 1925.

  Ruth Skaugen poured more coffee. Wisting waited until she had sat down again. ‘Who suggested that you shouldn’t say anything about what Marvin had revealed?’

  ‘It was probably a joint decision. A joint understanding.’

  ‘Someone must have been first to say it out loud?’

  The old woman gave this some thought. ‘Well . . .’ She shook her head. ‘Dagfinn and I talked about it that evening before the Swedish policeman turned up. When we were gathered together, it seemed as if the others had come to the same conclusion.’

  ‘What do you mean by “when we were gathered together”?’

  ‘We were all here the day the policeman was to arrive. He was a bit late, but took each of us, one by one, into the parlour to interview us. Dagfinn went first and, when he came out, he told us that he hadn’t said anything about the consignment of money. All the rest of us followed suit.’

  ‘It was your husband’s idea?’

  Ruth Skaugen shook her head. ‘It was more that he said he’d done what we had all already agreed.’

  ‘But who suggested it? Who introduced the idea?’

  It seemed as if the old woman did not understand the question. ‘It was just something we were all agreed upon. No one disagreed.’

  Wisting leaned back in his chair. ‘What did you think had happened?’

  She folded her thin fingers. ‘At that time we probably thought Marvin had driven off the road and the car must be lying in a ditch. Now, I haven’t a clue. I can’t bring myself to believe what the police concluded, that he had taken the money for himself. He must have been attacked by someone who knew about it.’

  ‘Someone here that evening Marvin stayed the night?’ Wisting held up the old photograph.

  The suggestion terrified her. He could see in those big eyes that this was the first time the thought had struck her.

  ‘Could one of them have passed on the information?’ he asked. ‘Someone who came into a lot of money afterwards?’

  Now the response came swiftly. ‘No. Certainly not. On the contrary, we all struggled to make ends meet.’

  ‘The hired man too?’

  ‘I don’t remember his name, but he did casual work on other farms later. I don’t think he ever made much of himself.’

  Wisting’s attention returned to the list of names, and went through them one more time. The only one still alive was her sister-in-law, Anna Skaugen.

  ‘As far as I know, she lives in town,’ Ruth Skaugen said.

  Wisting sat for a while longer, eating yet another of the delicious lefse, asking the same questions again, this time from a different angle in the hope that more details might emerge. They did not, but he had gained more from the meeting than he had dared anticipate.

  This investigation depended on recreating the past, he thought, as he got into his car and drove off. Finding out who was where, as well as when and why, was a matter of asking questions and digging. Manoeuvring his way forward to people who might be in possession of answers. Obtaining fresh information and stacking it on top of what he already knew, so that a picture of what had happened became increasingly clear. He revelled in this work.

  20

  Anna Skaugen.

  Wisting spoke the name aloud. He wanted to take the sealed envelope with him when he called on her, which meant he had to return to the barn.

  Unsure whether Knut Heian had put a new padlock on the double doors, as he had promised, he drove out to Tveidalskrysset.

  Tractor tracks in the snow indicated that Heian had visited recently. Wisting followed these to the barn, where he could see the new padlock from the driving seat; bulkier than the old one, it looked more robust.

  He reversed out again and found his way to the farmstead where Knut Heian was examining the blades on the snowplough. He pulled off his work gloves and shook Wisting’s hand in welcome.

  ‘Have you found out any more about the car?’ he asked.

  Wisting drew his lapels together at the neck as wet, heavy snow buffeted his face. ‘I’ve tracked down the owner’s descendants.’

  ‘Are they willing to sell?’ Heian asked. ‘If not, I thought I should really charge them rent for storage.’

  ‘I think it will sort itself out, but a couple of things have cropped up. The car is registered as misappropriated.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It originally belonged to a haulage company in Oslo, and the police concluded that one of the drivers made off with it in 1925.’

  ‘Stolen?’

  ‘In a way,’ Wisting answered, pleased not to have to go into detail. ‘The driver’s name was Marvin Bergan. He was related to Ruth and Dagfinn Skaugen who live here in Larvik. Do those names mean anything to you?’

  Knut Heian shook his head emphatically. ‘Skaugen is a name I’ve heard, of course, but I don’t know of any connection.’

  ‘Now that the car has been found, it’s become a police matter again. There are a couple of things I need to investigate inside the barn. Is that okay with you?’

  Heian glanced at the tractor. ‘Can you see to it on your own?’

  Wisting nodded and Heian made for the farmhouse. ‘You’ll need to take the key for the new padlock with you,’ he said. He returned with a key attached to a label marked BARN in capital letters.

  ‘I’ll bring it back in an hour or so,’ Wisting promised.

  ‘Just drop it in the mailbox if I’m out.’

  Wisting drove back but was held up behind a lorry with slushy snow whirling in its wake. It sped onwards through the treacherous conditions when Wisting turned off at Tveidalskrysset.

  When he picked up his police radio and a flashlight, it crossed his mind that he should really have brought a camera too. He would have to come back later with a crime scene technician to document his findings.

  It occurred to him that a camera would be an excellent Christmas present for Ingrid. They already had one, but she complained about picture quality and that the flash did not function properly. It would be an expensive gift, but the money would come from the twenty hours of overtime Dokken had allocated him. Anyway, it was something they needed. It would be lovely to have good pictures of the children from the time when they were little. He would buy two photo albums, and wrap them up to present to each of the twins as a Christmas gift.

  Snow had accumulated again in front of the barn doors. He cleared it away with his boots, smiling all the while and feeling pleased with his bright idea for such suitable Christmas gifts.

  The key turned easily in the new padlock and he o
pened the doors as far as possible to let in the maximum amount of daylight.

  Snow that had had fallen through holes in the roof or blown in through gaps in the walls lay in patches here and there.

  He picked his way to the makeshift bed, where he located the old rucksack and extracted the letter.

  He considered reading it, but felt a sense of respect for other people’s mail. He also thought he recalled, from his hours spent studying criminal law, that opening other people’s letters was punishable by up to two years’ imprisonment; also, the police needed a court order to do so in the course of an investigation.

  Putting the letter inside his jacket pocket, he checked the name on the rucksack once more. It most resembled Danielsen. Alfred Danielsen was Anna’s father. It probably meant that he was the one who had written the letter and slept like a down-and-out in the barn in 1973.

  He peered at the old car, still hidden beneath the tarpaulin, but could not make any connection between the events of 1925 and those of 1973. Anna and her husband Kai knew about the consignment of money. Was it mere coincidence that her father, almost fifty years later, had holed up in the same place where the car was hidden? Or did he play some part in the story?

  He moved the flashlight beam around, stopping at the ladder on the opposite side. He still had not shaken off the idea that whoever had been staying in the barn was still somewhere inside. He was not entirely sure what gave him that feeling; some kind of intuition that told him the letter was a farewell missive and the remains of whoever had written it were here among the junk.

  Old men hang themselves or shoot themselves. That was what sprang to his mind. In his brief police career, he had already cut down a man who had hanged himself in the stair well between two floors while the rest of the family lay asleep. Another had shot himself in the head with a shotgun. As a trainee, he had assisted in resuscitation efforts on a woman who had taken an overdose and fallen asleep in the bathtub.

  He aimed the flashlight at the beams high on the ceiling, with ropes and chains hanging from them. It would be easy to hang yourself if you did not have access to a gun. Suicide by gunshot would be quicker and less painful but, if he had used a gun, he must have hidden it somewhere. It was not logical, but people who had decided to commit suicide seldom thought in a rational fashion.

  Somewhere above his head the old wooden beams creaked, and snow drizzled from one of the holes in the roof.

  There was only one way to find out for certain. He put down the rucksack and placed the flashlight on an oak barrel so that it shone over the barn interior. Lifting the corrugated metal sheets, he found a wheelbarrow with no wheels and a few rolls of chicken wire. He moved these and stood in front of the empty potato crates that Knut Heian had played with as a child.

  Stacked with the open ends facing him, they were like partition walls in a colossal dolls house. A little log chair was perched on one corner of the top crate, and he could see some childish drawings hanging on the walls. The opening on the bottom crate was covered. A woollen blanket was tucked beneath the crate that formed the storey above, and was suspended like a curtain to conceal whatever might be inside.

  He stepped back and picked up his torch, took hold of the blanket, lifted it to one side and directed the beam of light into the crate.

  Two wooden swords lay inside, as well as a bow with no string and a bundle of arrows. In the corner, old cowboy magazines: Hopalong Cassidy and Tex Willer.

  He dropped the curtain again. The secret play area had been left untouched since Knut Heian was a lad, or else other children had come across it later and played the same games.

  He shone the light around the vast space inside the barn. A passageway led past parts of an old wood-burning stove and a whetstone. Farther in was a horse-drawn carriage with its collapsible hood up.

  He moved an old demijohn and pushed his way forward. He used a few milk churns and a stack of margarine packing cases for support and finally brought himself level with the carriage.

  Inside, on the seat, were human remains.

  21

  Wisting moved the flashlight from one hand to the other. Bones, with no trace of skin or flesh, lay scattered. Some were on the floor, but he had no doubt that they were from a human being. The skull, with empty eye sockets and a gaping mouth of splintered teeth, lay on the carriage seat. A few dirty rags were all that was left of the clothes.

  It felt unreal. He had worked out that there must be a body somewhere in the barn, but nevertheless was astonished. At the same time, he felt a certain satisfaction that his suspicions had been confirmed. His gut feeling was something worth listening to.

  The sight filled him with a sense of solemnity, as he had experienced several times before, whenever he came close to other people’s sorrow, despair, or death.

  He put one foot on the running board and hoisted himself to a better vantage point. It took a while for him to find what he was looking for. Between scraps of fabric and pale bones on the floor, the muzzle of a gun protruded. A pistol. He could not see all of it, and was reluctant to touch anything, but he thought it looked like a Luger. The muzzle indicated a relatively heavy calibre, perhaps nine millimetre.

  A gust of wind whistled through the exterior walls and the joints of the old building creaked, like the rigging on a sailing ship in a storm.

  As Wisting stood up, he leaned over the skull and used the flashlight to study it properly. It had crush injuries at the back of the head and parts of the skull itself were missing. The frayed edges around the star-shaped opening were folded outwards.

  Although he was no expert, it was not difficult to envisage a chain of events. The man had sat down in the carriage, opened his mouth over the muzzle and pulled the trigger.

  He aimed the light at the hood and rapidly spotted what he was after: at head height, a hole caused by the projectile’s onward trajectory.

  His hypothesis tallied: suicide. At least, it was difficult to deduce anything else. He had no idea how long it took for there to be nothing but a skeleton left of a body, but imagined that it had to be years. If he used the newspaper on the mattress as an indication of the date, the dead body had been here for ten years. Most of the clothes had rotted away or been eaten by rodents. What was left was a leather belt with a metal buckle and man’s wristwatch. In addition, there was a pair of grey woollen socks that looked fairly well preserved. The boots were beside the mattress, probably size forty-five or forty-six, almost confirming that the skeleton belonged to a man. Experts would establish the sex by examining the bones. Maybe they would be able to say something about the age as well.

  The police radio looped over his chest crackled into life: a patrol calling in that their assignment had been completed.

  He speculated whether he should report his discovery over the radio, or whether he should go out, lock the door behind him and drive to the police station. Before he had reached a decision, the timbers above him made noises he did not much like. He pointed the flashlight beam at the ceiling, where the beams were buckling and tensing under the weight of snow that had fallen in recent days. A loud bang sounded as one of the beams cracked.

  Splinters of wood exploded in every direction, and parts of the roof gave way with a splitting, slicing clatter. Heavy, wet snow cascaded through the hole that opened up. With a tremendous crash, half the barn roof came tumbling down and he was sent flying in a horrendous tumult of dust, roof tiles, wooden planks, and snow. The splintering noise overhead warned of more to come and, with another clap of thunder, the rest of the roof came loose.

  22

  Wisting checked that he was uninjured. The barn had collapsed around him, but he had managed to fling himself into one of the empty potato crates. Quick thinking had saved his life and he was now curled inside a protective little pocket. He did not know how thick the layer of snow and building materials above him might be, but it was probably just a matter of time before the packing crate caved in.

  His flashlight was gone and his p
olice radio hung by a strap, diagonally across his chest. He pressed the send button and released it again, but did not hear the usual hissing and click that would confirm contact with base. The signal out here was bad, and would have deteriorated beneath the heavy load that had buried him. Nevertheless, he tried to call the Duty Sergeant at the police station. No answer.

  Struggling to find his bearings, he crawled to the side of the crate where the snow had piled up in front of the opening and sealed off the confined space. He dug his way forward, shovelling snow behind him with his hands. His fingers touched something that felt like one of the wooden swords and he pushed it into the snow, diagonally upward, and then withdrew in the hope of seeing daylight. It was too thick. Using his hand to grip the sword, he pushed his arm into the snow to extend its range. This time, when he pulled the sword back again, he could make out a glimmer of dim, grey light that gave him renewed strength.

  As he dug his way upwards, he succeeded in loosening some of the clumps and wriggled forward through the passageway he had created. He forced the excavated snow backwards with both hands, under his stomach. Halfway through, he took a break and tried the police radio again. Still no contact.

  He scrabbled back, casting about for the wooden sword to push ahead of him as he slithered up along the snow tunnel. This time he broke right through, and a blast of fresh, cold air hit his face.

  It took him another quarter of an hour to dig a hole big enough to squeeze his whole body through. He clambered out of the snow and rubble, found his footing and trudged out of the demolished barn. Wet and chilled to the bone, he gazed at a scene of devastation.

  The interior wall, where the veteran car was located, was still standing. The remains of a pair of lopsided roof beams hung down, and the car itself was blanketed in snow.

  He returned to his car, sat behind the steering wheel, and looked at himself in the mirror. His drenched hair was plastered to his scalp, and he was bleeding from a cut beside his left eye.