Read Online The Caveman by Jørn Lier Horst - Free Book Online

doctor certifying the death. Next, an account of the interview with the man from the power company who had found Viggo Hansen when he visited to disconnect the electricity.
    Successive documents included copies of correspondence with his general practitioner and reports from an investigator who had spoken to the postman and the nearest neighbours. A document headed Report of search and seizure with a list of what the police removed from the house for further examination. Finally she read the report from the crime scene technician, accompanied by a folder of illustrations in which the body was sketched on a floor plan showing the layout of the rooms in the small building: two bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom, two storerooms, a porch and a staircase leading down to the basement.
    The photographs were black and white, those depicting Viggo Hansen’s corpse morbid and unpleasant, reminiscent of a mummified body. The cadaver was totally dehydrated and shrivelled. The dry, hard skin had shrunk and stretched across the knuckles. Sitting in a chair, it resembled a grey-black doll. There was something sinister and surreal about it, making Viggo Hansen a stranger even in death.
    In front of the chair with the body was a table and, in front of that, a television set, still switched on. Line recognised the Discovery Channel logo.
    One of the images showed a TV magazine open on the table with the list of programmes for 11th August. An asterisk was drawn beside FBI’s Archives . Despite the tragic circumstances, Line could not suppress a smile. The news editor at VG would get to read what he was watching when he died after all.
    None of the case documents conveyed anything about who Viggo Hansen really was as a person, only as he was after his life had ended. Of greatest interest was the report from Espen Mortensen which not only described the corpse, but also the house, in a level-headed and objective fashion. Both the front and verandah doors at the back had been locked, all the windows closed, and there was no sign of a break-in. The house was tidy, and showed no evidence of a struggle or that he had received a visit of any kind.
    On the basis of the open TV guide, the technician concluded that the death had taken place at some time on the evening of Thursday 11th August.
    The post-mortem report supported that conclusion: There is nothing about the condition of the body to contradict the assumption that death occurred as long ago as 11 th August, she read. The pathologist described how low humidity in the deceased’s house was the reason for the body being in such a good state of preservation. Dry air caused bodily fluids to evaporate and the rest of the corpse was conserved by being dried out instead of decomposing.
    The bundle of case documents also included results of various tests and analyses. Though the language was bureaucratic, Line understood that they dealt with DNA analysis. As there were no family members to use for comparison purposes, Viggo Hansen’s profile was compared with DNA retrieved from his toothbrush and hair from a comb found in a trouser pocket. By this means, his identity was established.
    The interview the police had conducted with his neighbour, Steinar Brunvall, provided answers to some of the things Line had speculated about her childhood sweetheart. The report recorded how he had grown up next door to Viggo Hansen, and that he had taken over his childhood home after his parents had moved to Spain three years ago. He worked as a teacher and had a partner called Ida. They had two small children together.
    Steinar had little to say about Viggo Hansen. He could not recall when he last saw his neighbour, but thought it must have been during the summer. On the few occasions he had caught sight of him, he was making his way home with a shopping bag in either hand. They had never exchanged a word.
    The conversation the police had with Greta Tisler, the other next-door neighbour, was not of much help either. She