The Caveman Read online

  ‘Urban rather than natural settings are the stamping grounds of Jorn Lier Horst, whose Dregs (his first book to be published in English) is immensely impressive. The writer’s career as a police chief has supplied a key ingredient for the crime fiction form: credibility.’

  Barry Forshaw, author of Nordic Noir

  ‘Jorn Lier Horst is a phenomenal new voice in Nordic Noir. His handling of landscape and location matches that of Henning Mankell. The narrative concern with digital technology is on a par with Stieg Larsson. What makes Lier Horst distinctive is his haunting ability to find the feasible in the psychopathic.’

  Steven Peacock, author of

  Swedish Crime Fiction: Novel, Film, Television

  Praise for The Caveman

  ‘Superbly constructed, The Caveman is a novel that should see Jorn Lier Horst placed firmly in the finest class of Scandinavian Noir. Horst’s beautifully paced and compelling narrative ensnares the reader as it unveils the darkest side of human nature. Wisting and Line are both believable and complex characters. That combined with the superb backdrop of winter in Norway makes this dark tale a ‘must read’.’

  Caro Ramsay, author of the

  Anderson and Costello series

  ‘The Caveman is not just an intriguing, fast-paced thriller, but a thoughtful meditation on loneliness, and a moving testament to the value of each and every human life.’

  Nicola Upson, author of the Josephine Tey series

  ‘A thrilling mixture of journalism and police work.’

  VG

  ‘The Caveman is a high intensity thriller from page one. It will stand as one of this year’s best crime novels.’

  Tvedestransposten

  ‘He is the new Nesbo . . . smart. Jorn Lier Horst demonstrates that he is one of our best crime fiction writers.’

  Dagbladet

  Praise for The Hunting Dogs

  ‘Yet again the novelist convinces with a satisfying, credible police procedural. This time, William Wisting faces a major life crisis: he is himself investigated, and forced to examine his police career in a new light. His journalist daughter Line plays an important role in the book, turning the novel into both a depiction of the father-daughter relationship and a portrayal of the relationship between the police and the media.’

  The judges of the Riverton Prize Golden Revolver,

  won by Jorn Lier Horst for The Hunting Dogs

  ‘An immaculately plotted, beautifully structured novel, complex and full of tension, both in terms of the action and the personal complications.’

  Bob Cornwell in Crimetime

  ‘There’s a gritty atmosphere and a good sense of pace, while Wisting and his daughter make for excellent and companionable protagonists.’

  Russell MacLean in The Herald

  Praise for Closed for Winter

  ‘Painstaking and swift, Closed for Winter is a piece of quality craftsmanship, with Horst meticulously bringing together an unexpectedly windy plot, highly intelligent characterizations and a delectably subtle ‘noir’ mood to create a very engrossing crime novel.’

  Edinburgh Book Review

  ‘On the evidence of Closed for Winter, which is the seventh book in the series but only the second to be translated into English, it would appear that we are about to be treated to another classic series.’

  Bay Magazine

  ‘Top class crime writing.’

  Sindre Hovdenakk, Verdens Gang

  ‘Jorn Lier Horst has pulled it off again.’

  Svein Einar Hansen, Østlands-Posten

  ‘This is a thoroughly good crime novel.’

  Finn Stenstad, Tønsberg Blad

  ‘Classic police procedural from an author who knows what he is doing . . . I recommend that every fan of crime novels should dedicate some time to Jorn Lier Horst’s writing. Make a pleasurable start with Closed for Winter.’

  Torbjørn Ekelund, Dagbladet

  Praise for Dregs

  ‘Jorn Lier Horst has, right from his debut in 2004, set a sensationally good pace in his crime novels, and has today gained entry into the circle of our very best writers in that genre.’

  Terje Stemland, AftenPosten, Norway

  ‘Just as good are the descriptions of the characters in Jorn Lier Horst’s book. They are nuanced and interesting, absolutely human. Many have known it for a long time, but now it ought to be acknowledged as a truth for all readers of crime fiction: William Wisting is one of the great investigators in Norwegian crime novels.’

  Norwegian Book Club

  (Book of the Month, Crime and Thrillers)

  Jorn Lier Horst was born in 1970, in Bamble, Telemark, Norway. Between 1995 and 2013, when he turned to full time writing, he worked as a policeman in Larvik, eventually becoming head of investigations there. His William Wisting series of crime novels has sold more than 500,000 copies in Scandinavia, UK, Germany, Netherlands and Thailand. Dregs, sixth in the series, was published in English by Sandstone Press in 2011, and Closed for Winter, winner of Norway’s Booksellers’ Prize, in 2012. Closed for Winter was also shortlisted for the prestigious Riverton Prize or The Golden Revolver, for best Norwegian crime novel of the year, as well as the prestigious Petrona Prize in Great Britain in 2014. The Hunting Dogs, successor to Closed for Winter, won both the Golden Revolver and The Glass Key, which widened the scope to best crime fiction in all the Nordic countries, in 2013.

  Anne Bruce, who lives on the Isle of Arran in Scotland, formerly worked in education and has a longstanding love of Scandinavia and Norway in particular. Having studied Norwegian and English at Glasgow University, she is the translator of Jorn Lier Horst’s Dregs, Closed for Winter and The Hunting Dogs, and also Anne Holt’s Blessed are Those who Thirst (2012), Death of the Demon (2013) and The Lion’s Mouth (2014), in addition to Merethe Lindstrøm’s Nordic Prize winning Days in the History of Silence (2013).

  Also published by Sandstone Press

  Dregs

  Closed for Winter

  The Hunting Dogs

  THE CAVEMAN

  JORN LIER HORST

  First published in Great Britain

  and the United States of America

  Sandstone Press Ltd

  Dochcarty Road

  Dingwall

  Ross-shire

  IV15 9UG

  Scotland

  www.sandstonepress.com

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.

  Copyright © Gyldendal Norsk Forlag AS 2013

  [All rights reserved.]

  Translation © Anne Bruce 2015

  Published in English in 2015 by Sandstone Press Ltd

  English language editor: Robert Davidson

  The moral right of Jorn Lier Horst to be recognised as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patent Act, 1988.

  This translation has been published with the financial support of NORLA.

  The publisher acknowledges subsidy from Creative Scotland towards publication of this volume.

  ISBN: 978-1-910124-04-8

  ISBNe: 978-1-910124-05-5

  Cover design by Freight Design, Glasgow

  Ebook by Iolaire Typesetting, Newtonmore

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  C
hapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  WILLIAM WISTING

  William Wisting is a career policeman who has risen through the ranks to become Chief Inspector in the Criminal Investigation Department of Larvik Police, just like his creator, author Jorn Lier Horst. The Caveman is the eighth title in the series, the fourth to be published in English, and finds him aged fifty-three, the widowed father of grown up twins, Thomas and Line. Wisting’s wife, Ingrid, went to Africa to work on a NORAD project but was killed there at the end of The Only One, the fifth title in the series.

  Thomas serves in the military and is a helicopter pilot with 330 Squadron at the time of The Caveman. Daughter Line is an investigative journalist based in Oslo, whose career frequently intersects with that of her father. Wisting, initially apprehensive, has come to value how she is able to operate in ways that he cannot, often turning up unexpected clues and insights.

  After Ingrid’s death, Wisting became involved with another woman, Suzanne Bjerke, but their relationship foundered in the course of The Hunting Dogs and at the beginning of The Caveman, Wisting is again unattached and living alone.

  Wisting’s father, Roald Wisting, a retired doctor, is still living and features in both The Hunting Dogs and The Caveman. His medical background and knowledge of the history of the Larvik and Stavern area occasionally proves useful.

  Crucial to the series are Wisting’s colleagues in the police. Audun Vetti, the arrogant Assistant Chief of Police, came to the fore in Dregs, when the question of how much information to divulge to the press was bitterly contested between the two. In Closed for Winter, he had been promoted to the post of Deputy Chief Constable and was no longer in daily contact with Wisting. In The Hunting Dogs, when Vetti was working as Acting Chief Constable, the part he played in an earlier investigation is uncovered and he is removed from office, to Wisting’s satisfaction and relief.

  Wisting has more positive relationships with certain trusted colleagues: old school Nils Hammer, whose background in the Drugs Squad has made him cynical, the younger Torunn Borg whom Wisting has come to rely on thanks to her wholly professional approach and outlook, and Espen Mortensen, the crime scene examiner who is usually first on the scene. Christine Thiis, who took over from Audun Vetti as Assistant Chief of Police and police prosecutor in Closed for Winter, has established herself and consolidated her position as a trusted colleague. Benjamin Fjeld, introduced to CID as a young probationer in Closed for Winter, returns as a valued member of the team in The Caveman.

  The setting is Vestfold county on the south-west coast of Norway, an area popular with holidaymakers, where rolling landscapes and attractive beaches make an unlikely setting for crime. The principal town, Larvik, where Wisting is based, is located 105 km (65 miles) southwest of Oslo. The wider Larvik district has 41,000 inhabitants, 23,000 of whom live in the town itself, and covers 530 square km. Larvik is noted for its natural springs, but its modern economy relies heavily on agriculture, commerce and services, light industry and transportation, as well as tourism. There is a ferry service from Larvik to Hirsthals in Denmark.

  At the beginning of The Caveman, Wisting has returned to work following his suspension from duty that featured in The Hunting Dogs, and is readjusting to life on his own after parting from Suzanne. As the winter weather closes in, he is faced with his most challenging case to date, in which he has to collaborate with transatlantic colleagues as well as the national crime team and Emergency Squad from Oslo. Jorn Lier Horst’s own deep experience of police procedures and processes brings a strong sense of the novels in the William Wisting series being firmly grounded in reality.

  Jorn Lier Horst worked as a policeman in Larvik between 1995 and 2013 when he turned to full time writing.

  Further information on Jorn Lier Horst and the earlier books is available in English at http://eng.gyldendal.no/Gyldendal/Authors/Horst-Joern-Lier

  1

  The dead man was completely desiccated, leaning back in a chair, his lips lacerated and blackened, yellow teeth exposed. Wisps of dusty, wizened hair were still attached to his skull and pale, glossy bones visible through the skin on his face. His fingers were shrivelled, black and cracked.

  William Wisting flicked through the remaining photographs. The man had been of relatively slight build, but his tissues had contracted and rotted away, making his body seem even smaller than it had been while alive.

  The case folder was marked Viggo Hansen and the photos of him were taken from various angles. Wisting studied the different portrayals of the almost mummified corpse. Normally he was unmoved by what he saw in these folders. He was accustomed to death and had cultivated the ability to distance himself. In the course of more than thirty years on the police force he had seen so many dead bodies that he no longer kept a tally, but this was different. Not only because he had never seen anything like it, but also because he had actually known the man in the chair.

  They were virtually neighbours. Viggo Hansen had lived on the bend three houses from his, and his dead body had been sitting for four months without Wisting or any of the other neighbours having the slightest concern.

  He stopped at an establishing shot taken from the kitchen door, looking into the living room. Viggo Hansen was sitting in front of a television with his back to the photographer. The set was switched on, as it had been when the police patrol entered the house.

  The room was sparsely furnished. In addition to the TV console and the chair on which the man was seated, Wisting noted an oblong coffee table, an extra chair and a settee with cushions and a tartan rug. A shelving unit with low cupboards was placed against one wall. On the opposite side of the room, the grey curtains at the window were closed. To the right of the television stood a standard lamp with brown scorch marks on the shade. Three landscape paintings hung on the walls. On the table in front of the man he could see a magazine and a remote control beside a glass and a plate with some indeterminate food leftovers. Apart from that, the room was tidy.

  There was no sign of a struggle. Nothing to indicate that this solitary
person had been visited by an intruder during his final hours. No reason to suspect that anything criminal had taken place. Nevertheless, the circumstances demanded that the police investigate the death, and Espen Mortensen had done a thorough, though routine, job.

  The next photograph was a close up of the magazine, open at the list of TV programmes for Thursday 11th August.

  Wisting glanced through his office window at the snow falling in wet, heavy flurries. The calendar showed Friday 9th December. Viggo Hansen would have been lying dead for even longer if it had not been for an unpaid electricity bill. The power company had sent out several reminders, eventually threatening to cut off the supply. In the end they had sent a man. Only by sheer chance had he gone to the bother of investigating beyond what was strictly necessary, catching a glimpse of Viggo Hansen through a gap in the living room curtains.

  On the list of programmes, a circle had been drawn round the time of the TV programmes he had obviously intended to watch, in addition to an asterisk placed in the margin. One of them, called FBI’s Archives, was on the Discovery Channel. Wisting was familiar with the series that showed reconstructions of the most sensational cases investigated by the American Federal Bureau of Investigation.

  The next picture showed the dead man’s face, dark and bloated, gashed where the skin had peeled off, the row of teeth slanting down to the back molars. What was left of his tongue sat like a bluish-black lump. His eye sockets were large and empty and seemed to stare straight ahead.

  Returning the photographs to the folder, Wisting crossed to the window. It was growing dark, the leaden grey dusk of winter. He should make his way home, except he had nothing to go home to other than his own TV set. Down in the backyard, one of the patrol cars rumbled from the garage, its wheels spinning in the snow before taking grip. As the blue light struck the snowflakes, it was reflected in tiny sparkles.