Cnut - Deadly Relations

By Stig Larssen

The partial remains of thirteen teenagers are found in a cave – souvenirs of a killer emulating the crimes of a father, who murdered fifty years earlier.

Finding the identities of the victims is hard enough, but finding the location of the rest of the bodies is much harder.

Only by researching the life of the murdering father does Cnut find those bodies, and deals out a deadly punishment that he believes justified.

• Language: English
• Publisher: TONY NASH
• Release date: Jun 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223624929

Stig Larssen

Stig Larssen is the Norwegian pen name of Tony Nash – acclaimed author of over thirty detective, historical and war novels, who began his career as a navigator in the Royal Air Force, later re-training at Bletchley Park to become an electronic spy, intercepting Russian and East German agent transmissions, during which time he studied many languages and achieved a BA Honours Degree from London University. Diverse occupations followed: Head of Modern Languages in a large comprehensive school, ocean yacht skipper, deep sea fisher, fly tyer, antique dealer, bespoke furniture maker, restorer and French polisher, professional deer stalker and creative writer.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Bim Jansen urged, ‘Come on, Silje. Just a bit further.’

We have to be somewhere no one can stumble on us when we’re doing it.

At least, he hoped they would be doing it. He’d thought of nothing else for months, and Silje Jacobsen featured in all of his wet dreams.

He knew she was a virgin, but virgins had to give it up sometime, didn’t they? Besides, it was her thirteenth birthday, and she’d told him that some of her friends had already done it on their birthdays. She wouldn’t have told him that unless she was hinting that she was ready to do it too – she had agreed to bunk off school with him for the day, and she’d made the sandwiches for them. That had to mean she wanted to as much as he did.

It had to. He’d even bought condoms, in case she insisted on using one.

He’d only been to this valley once before, with his dad, on his sixth birthday. For his birthday treat, he had been allowed to fish the lake at the far end – a private lake that held some enormous carp.

The valley held that happy memory for him, and he wanted to add this one too.

He remembered every moment of that day – the fish that his dad had to help him land – the photographs that he still had of him beside them – they were too big and heavy for him to lift – one almost as heavy as he was - and the meal in the roadside café that they had shared on the way home, with his dad making him laugh with stupid jokes – the last time that they had shared anything.

The next day, when he woke, his mother was sobbing her heart out, and his dad was gone – never to return.

He thought he knew every metre of the valley – he’d thought of that day so many times over the years, but he couldn’t remember any of it. He knew it was the right one – it had that strange old cross on the side of the road, where his dad had left the car, and they had left their bikes, but it had changed so much.

Half way up the slopes, the belt of trees that formed a dark girdle around the whole valley, gave the impression of the fringe on the inverted head of a cartoon monk. They were much larger than he remembered, and more thickly bunched.

Silje was worried. What she had thought of as a bit of a light-hearted lark – bunking off school, and having a picnic for her birthday -was not turning out as she expected.

Bim was too insistent, as if he had a hidden agenda.

She didn’t love him – she had no idea what love felt like, but she did like him a lot. They had kissed and fondled, some of it a little intimately lately, but she had not allowed him to touch her lower parts, only her developing breasts, which had delighted and excited him, but done nothing whatsoever for her, and though she had once allowed him to guide her hand onto his crotch, she had refused his request to stroke it, and pulled her hand away as if scalded.

She had expected them to sit down and have the food and the bottles of water they had brought as soon as they got off their bikes at their destination, but he had said, ‘Let’s go and explore.’

She had gone along with it, but now she was not so sure.

She asked, ‘Why do we need to go so far, Bim? I’m tired and hungry.’

He looked, she thought, almost scared at her words, and insisted, ‘Please, just a bit further.’

‘Why, Bim? What do you want to do?’

He stuttered, ‘D-do? Nothing.’

‘Then we stop here. I’m not taking another step.’

He could see she meant it, so had to agree, but suggested, ‘Look, Let’s go up into the trees. We can sit there in the shade.’

She sighed, but gave in, ‘All right.’

They clambered the forty metres or so up the steep slope to the tree line, and when they pushed their way through the undergrowth under the trees, in front of them they saw the entrance to a cave.

Bim was overjoyed. It was the perfect place. No one would see them there.

‘Come on,’ he urged again, ‘Let’s explore.’

Reluctantly, she followed him in.

Just inside the entrance, it was quite light, but as they moved further in, it became dark, and she pulled at his hand, ‘No, Bim. That’s it. I don’t like it. We stop, or I’m going to leave you here right now, and go home.’

He nodded, ‘Okay. Let’s sit down here.’

There was a kind of raised bank of hardened earth, and they sat down.

He immediately put his arm around her and tried to kiss her.

She pulled away sharply and demanded, ‘Have you brought me here to try and have sex with me?’

He shrugged, ‘I thought, on your thirteenth....’

‘Well, you can think again. I don’t intend to lose my virginity until I’m at least sixteen. I’m not like some of those other girls, who’ll be pregnant before they know it.’

He looked like a small boy who has lost his favourite toy, and her resolve melted a little.

Look, I can see you’re disappointed, and maybe I gave you some false vibes. If I did, I’m sorry. As a one-off, never to be repeated, I’ll use my hand on you. Don’t ever expect it again.’

His grin was as wide as the cave mouth, ‘Oh, thanks, Sil. That’s fab!’

He began to undo his zip, and she insisted, ‘Stop! Not here. I don’t want to see it. We’ll go further back, into the dark. You’ll have to help me, because I don’t know what to do.’

Breathless, he agreed, ‘Okay. Come on.’

He looked so comical that it made her laugh, ‘Is sex really that urgent, Bim?’

He groaned, ‘Oh, God! Yes!’

She let him take her hand, and they moved deeper into the cave.

When she could see almost nothing, he guided her hand down.

What she felt was like a small piece of damp sponge - nothing like she had been led to expect, from what the other girls had told her.

She asked, ‘Is that it?’

She realised he was sobbing, ‘Oh, God. It won’t stand up. What is it? What the fuck is wrong with me?’

As she wrenched her hand away, she saw something in front of them in the almost stygian darkness. She leant forward, peering hard, and screamed.

~~~oOo~~~

Cnut had just landed his second trout of the day – one of at least two kilos, and had sat down with Ilse for a cup of coffee and a biscuit.

His cell played the four-note intro from Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, and he took the phone from his pocket and drew back his arm, as if he intended throwing the offending article into the river.

Ilse laughed, holding her hand out, ‘Let me answer it, darling. I don’t want you upsetting whichever of your detectives has had the shocking temerity to phone you while you’re out fishing.’

He handed it over, and she switched it on, pressing the green button twice, to put the phone on ‘speaker’ before saying, ‘Sheriff Cnut’s phone. Ilse Karnweg speaking.’

The duty DI - Sigurd Kvindstrom, knew that his boss would be furious at being disturbed on only his second day of leave, but he also knew that Cnut would be more so if not informed of what looked like a highly unusual new murder case.

He kept his voice level, without a hint of an apology.

‘For your info, boss. Two kids have come across a human head in a cave, and I’ve alerted the SOCOs and the pathologist.’

Cnut held out his hand for the phone, his expression grim, and Ilse, trying not to laugh, handed it over.

Gruffly, he said, ‘Cnut here, Sigurd. Are you sure they aren’t pissing us about? You know the trouble we’ve had with teenagers making false calls for kicks.’

Sigurd hesitated for a moment, wondering if his boss could be right, but then decided, ‘Well, I’m no expert on teenagers, sir, but the girl sounded genuinely terrified.’

‘How old is she?’

‘Thirteen, she says.’

‘Younger than the usual prankster. Okay then, let’s assume it is genuine. Any idea of the sex and age of the victim?’

‘We don’t know yet, sir. The kids phoned it in, and were scared stiff. It was in the dark, and they ran away from it.’

‘A head in the dark? Are they sure that’s what they saw? It could have been a funny shaped rock, or a sack someone had left there.’

‘We considered that, and asked them if they could have been mistaken. That made them think, but they stuck to their story. Anyway, once Ari Blank and his team get there – any time now – we’ll have a firm answer. I just thought you should know.’

‘Yes, Sigurd. It was good thinking on your part. Can you phone back when you know if the head is real?’

‘Certainly, sir.’

Cnut finished his coffee and stood up, reaching for his rod.

‘Looks as if I’d better make haste and catch a couple more, before this leave ends like so many others before it.’

Ilse grinned, ‘Now tell me honestly, would you enjoy your fishing after today, knowing that another detective was doing the job you love? That’s what supposed to happen, when you take leave, you know. What if we’d flown to Bermuda? You would have to let it go then.’

‘And I would be on the phone every ten minutes, spitting feathers, because I wasn’t on the case, ruining the holiday.’

‘Exactly. Now, go and cast that fly, and leave your phone with me.’

He was playing a fourth fish when he heard his ring tones again.

Knowing that if he played the fish too hard he would lose it – it felt like a good one - he made sure that he tired it sufficiently before bringing it to the net.

It was the largest he’d caught that year – a beautiful rainbow of about five kilograms.

As he used the priest to dispatch it, he was already considering the recipes he would use the fillets for, after he had used the tail ends to make gravedlax. The larger fillets from the front he would toss in seasoned flour and fry in butter, adding the juice of half a lemon and a good splash of Riesling, turning up the heat until the sauce was beautifully thick. The centre fillets would be baked, after being painted with olive oil laced with Ras el-Hanout.

His reverie was broken by Ilse’s approach.

She was smiling, ‘I can see you smacking your lips, thinking of when you eat that whopper.’

He nodded, ‘You’re right, darling. What’s the word?’

‘Ari and his team got there first. It certainly is a head – that of a female teenager, and it has been there for some time – Ari thinks maybe a month, but animal and insect depredation may have given a false impression. You’ll need Viv’s expertise with that.’

He put his head to one side, looking into her eyes, ‘Come on – out with it. That isn’t all, is it?’

‘They are continuing with their search, further back in the cave, but so far they have found an arm with hand attached, a humerus and radius, a foot, another head, what looks like a tibia, a shoulder blade, two skulls without the jaws, and a leg with part of the foot, though it has been there so long that the two might be from different bodies.’

‘Jesus Christ on a bike! Someone has been busy. We must go now.’

‘Ari said not to bother. You won’t even be able to get close to the site. They expect to find even more, but you can’t do anything until Viv has all the bits secured back at base, and they doubt if that will be today. Ari said you might as well keep on enjoying your fishing. It will be the last time that you’ll be able to do it for a while. He suggests you wait to visit the site until you know exactly what you’re looking for. In case you were thinking of habitations nearby, he has one of his men listing the few that there are, and obtaining the names of the inhabitants, and of any who have moved away. He knows that is one of the first things you would have your detectives do, and the man he is using for that is a trainee, not skilled enough for the job they have today.

‘That’s kind of him. As usual, he’s thinking outside the box. So, we have a serial killer, who’s been getting away with it for years, and one we’ve known nothing about. Let’s hope it will clear up some of those MissPers.’

‘See if you can catch another one like this beauty.’

He did catch another two good trout, but not as large as the big one, and packed up an hour earlier than he had intended to.

Ilse knew he was itching to get stuck into the investigation, and half expected him to go to headquarters after their evening meal.

He was like a cat on hot bricks until Ari rang again, just after eight thirty that evening.

He sounded weary.

‘We found more bones, including a pelvis. We think we’ve found it all, but will go back tomorrow, with heavier digging tools, and stronger lighting, just in case we have missed something We’ll also have ground penetrating radar, and we’ll search around the cave, in case the killer has buried bones too. The other parts of those bodies have to be somewhere, and probably local.

Viv says that the first head we found – the one the kids saw – had been in the cave for at least two months, and insists that it will be two days or more before she can give a more accurate estimate. Some of the bones she believes have been there for years. You’ll want to start with the most recent one, I imagine. Anyway, sleep well, as I am certainly going to do, and come to it fresh in the morning. I’ve left the list of dwellings within five kilometres of the site, and their inhabitants, on your desk.’

‘You’ve done us proud, as usual, Ari. Thank you very much. I’ve got the feeling you’re holding something back. What is it?’

He heard a heavy sigh before Ari told him, ‘We also found dried flowers – not bunches, or anything like that, but just odd ones, and they certainly didn’t belong in the cave.’

‘Someone has been treating it like a shrine, you think?’

‘It is a possibility.’

‘One that adds another macabre side to an already gruesome enough story, and leaves an intriguing question. Were they from the killer, from an accomplice, or from an innocent outsider.’

‘My thinking exactly. Changing the subject, did you catch anything?’

‘Yes. I had a good day. Would you like a couple of trout?’

‘Does a bear shit in the woods?’

‘Filleted or whole?’

‘Go on – spoil me.’

‘Filleted then. Fresh or frozen?’

‘You couldn’t make me some of your great gravedlax with one of them, could you?’

‘Consider it done. I’ll make it now, and you can have it in three days’ time, but I’ll bring the fresh ones to you tomorrow.’

‘Great stuff. Thanks.’

‘No. Thank you. Just one thing, while I think of it – could you have a stealth camera fixed up to cover the site – just in case our killer returns in the next couple of days?’

‘Already done, Cnut. Three of them, and well hidden, but I’ve got the site under guard anyway.’

‘Good thinking, Ari. I should have known you’d be on top of it. Ses i morgen.’

He found Ilse smiling at him, and shrugged, ‘I know it’s my turn to cook, but would you mind, while I make the gravedlax for him?’

She hugged him, ‘Of course not. Anyway, its easy tonight. You’ve prepared the crab, all I’ve got to do is season it and make the omelette. I’ll hang fire till you’ve filleted the fish, or it will be ready before you are.’

Cnut set to work on the trout, and had them filleted and de-boned in under half an hour.

Ilse put the large frying pan on the heat and added butter, waiting for it to melt.

Cnut mixed sixty grams of caster sugar with twenty grams of salt, a third of a teaspoon of white pepper, and two dessertspoonfuls of chopped dill, laid one of the fillets skin down on a piece of foil in a dish, spread his mixture on the fillet, and laid the other fillet on top, skin up. With a flourish, he folded the foil over the fillets, placed another dish on top of the one with the fish in, and laid two half-kilo weights on top.

‘There we are. All done in less than two minutes. Turn it ever twelve hours, and voilà – fabulous gravedlax in three days.’

Ilse had cracked the eggs into a bowl, added the brown crabmeat, chives, parsley, and seasoning, and was stirring to mix them.

While Cnut put his gravedlax into the fridge, to begin its cure, she poured her mixture into the melted butter, and turned the heat up.

He began to cut the loaf into slices, and had just finished doing so when Ilse pushed her thickening mixture to the sides of the pan, and poured the white crab meat into the centre.

As the omelette finished cooking, she folded it over and dished it up, almost in one motion.

Cnut sat and picked up his knife and fork, murmuring, ‘Mmm.’

When he replaced his utensils on the table, he sighed happily, and said, ‘You know, when it comes to world-beating recipes, that must be up there in the top ten. So simple, and yet so superb.’

He was in good form, and she knew it was because he was looking forward to the new puzzle that he would be presented with the next day. Detecting was what he lived for, and what he was so good at.

They had their hot chocolate and went to bed early.

After they had made love tenderly, he was asleep before her.

She expected him to toss and turn all night – his mind full of possibilities concerning the new case, but he slept like a contented baby, and only woke when the alarm rang.

He found Ilse’s eyes gazing into his when he opened them, and chuckled.

‘Do I detect a trace of lust there, darling?’

She shrugged, and pursed her lips.

He grinned, ‘I take it that’s a yes?’

She raised her eyebrows.

Breakfast was late, but they were still early when they arrived at the office, smiling.

Cnut found the papers Ari Blank had left him, and walked down to Dag Tromsø’s work position.

He handed the sheets to him and asked, ‘See if any of these people have rap sheets, please, Dag, with full details if they have.’

He could have easily accessed the local police files himself, but knew Dag would do it faster, and include a wider net. Besides, he knew he would have only a short time before Viv called him and Ilse down to the pathology suite.

In actual fact, it was after ten when she finally rang, to tell them that she had the grisly remains laid out, if they wanted to come and have a look. Dag had long since given him the details of three men with criminal records who lived near the drop site.

One, Geir Kilsen, 42, had done two stretches in Halden – one for GBH, and a second for attempted murder. Presently working at a chicken farm, he was listed on the census as an abattoir worker.

Rafe Kristiansen, 67, had been on the sex offenders’ list for over thirty years, after serving three years for rape. His occupation was listed as carpenter.

Kristian Kristiansen, his son, 38, had been given a year for attempted rape as a juvenile of 17. He had been assessed while in prison and found to be mentally unstable. Transfer to a mental institute followed that assessment.

Four years later, he had been released from the facility when it closed down, and was living with his mother and father in one of the widely spread eight houses at the road end of the valley.

Cnut showed the item to Ilse, complaining, ‘How can they do that? All those inmates, some of them