The Fifth Element

by Jorgen Brekke

  Then he seemed to reconsider. As if he’d realized something. A strange calm came over his face. The decrepit old man leaned forward and turned off the motor. Then he stood there at the stern, and it was as if he knew what was about to happen. He was waiting for it. When Knut leaped toward him and gave him a shove in the chest so that he toppled over against the gunwale, he was almost sure he saw Gjessing smile.

  “The money in the mattress,” Knut said. “You have to tell me where it is.”

  “So it was you,” said the old man. He sat with his back to the gunwale, his arm stretched out along the edge. “You were the one who broke in? I thought as much.”

  “Yes, it was me.”

  “What sort of trouble are you in?”

  “Just tell me where you put the mattress with the money that you’ve been talking about.”

  “Sorry,” said the old man. But he didn’t seem sorry at all. Again a smile slid across his face.

  “Are you laughing at me?”

  “No. I’m laughing, but not at you. There’s nothing laughable about you, my boy.”

  “Maybe you don’t think I’m serious.”

  “Oh, I know you are.”

  “So tell me. Tell me where the money is, and I’ll let you go back with me.”

  He grabbed hold of the old man’s jacket and lifted him up so he was sitting on the gunwale, swaying.

  “And if I don’t?” asked Gjessing calmly.

  “If you don’t, there won’t be any more trips to London for you.”

  “I’ve started to lose faith that QPR will make it back on top,” said Gjessing.

  This time he was definitely laughing.

  “You think this is a game? Huh? Do you?”

  He flung the old man around so he landed on his back in the bottom of the boat. Then he launched himself forward so he was sitting on top of him.

  “You old bastard! That money would save me!”

  Save me from what? Knut thought to himself. What was he talking about? Was this how he would be saved?

  He had an urge to punch the old guy, but then he saw it.

  Gjessing was lying very still, his face as white as in a black-and-white movie. What the fuck? What have I done? shouted a voice inside of Knut. The old man had hit his head on the bottom of the boat when Knut tackled him with his full weight. Knut put his hand under Gjessing’s neck and felt the blood. Then he opened his hand and slapped Gjessing in the face several times. But there was no life left in him. Guttorm Gjessing was dead. All those ninety years of his were now gone.

  Knut howled. He tipped his head back and screamed at the clouds up above. Then he got up in a daze. The nausea had subsided, to be replaced by numbness, or maybe it was a bizarre form of relief, dark and paralyzing. It was all over now. Everything ended here.

  He put his arms around the old man and lifted him up. His body weighed almost nothing, as if only his soul had kept him here on this earth the past few years. Then Knut threw him over the side.

  “That was the kind of death you wanted,” he said aloud. “Wasn’t it?”

  The thought was intoxicating. Was this what Gjessing had wanted? Was this his personal wish? One last trip out to sea, a burial on the seafloor? What did it matter? Knut stood there, watching the bubbles rise to the surface at the spot where Gjessing had disappeared. Were they trying to tell him something?

  That was when he noticed the sound. A furiously roaring motor and the slapping of a big hull against the water. He realized that he’d been hearing it for a while. It was getting louder. He turned around and saw what the sound was coming from. It was a speedboat, at least twenty-five feet long.

  It was heading straight toward him at full speed. Knut stood up to his full height, waving at whoever was steering the other boat, but he couldn’t see anyone on board, and it didn’t change course. It couldn’t be more than a hundred yards off now, and it was definitely going to collide with him. He stumbled over to the dashboard but couldn’t find the key to start the engine. Gjessing must have stuck it in his pocket. So it was now several hundred fathoms deep. He spun around and grabbed the biggest life vest, which was on top of the blue mattress on the bench along the gunwale. A wild thought occurred to him as he put it on.

  No, that couldn’t be possible, he thought.

  Then he jumped into the sea.

  A second later the big boat struck the smaller one. The speedboat rose up from the water in an arc. It turned 180 degrees in the air, like a breaching whale, and crashed back down about fifty yards farther on. Gjessing’s boat, where he had stood only seconds before, was split in half by the impact, and soon both parts were on their way down to join Gjessing. A crazy thought occurred to Knut.

  If I hadn’t killed the old man, he’d be dead anyway right now. I stole five minutes from him. Five minutes. That’s all.

  Knut Andersen Stang floated there in the life vest, feeling the icy cold of the water. He wouldn’t survive here for long.

  Who the hell had run him down?

  16

  Two weeks after it happened …

  Odd Singsaker always sat with his back to the door whenever he conducted an interview in this room. It gave him the upper hand, psychologically.

  Now he was sitting on the other side of the room with his back to the wall.

  The room was still white. The size was the same. But it felt smaller, more claustrophobic. Only the ventilation system seemed unchanged. The air was just as bad as always.

  Next to Singsaker sat Attorney Gregersen, moving his papers into neat stacks and lining up three pens parallel to his notepad. Singsaker studied the man’s hands. Long, thin fingers, perfectly manicured nails, the wedding ring that was a tad too big so that it was loose on his finger. It looked as if it might slide off if he wasn’t careful.

  Kurt Melhus sat across from them. His hair had grown grayer with age than Singsaker’s. Whiter.

  The white hair of a philosopher, thought Singsaker.

  The Philosopher. Mr. Gray Matter. There was something so innocent about the nickname. That’s what made it so deceptive.

  The two policemen, contemporaries, looked at each other and smiled.

  “What do you make of the term quintessence?” asked Melhus, fidgeting with the tape recorder that sat on the table between them.

  “Has the interview started?” asked Singsaker.

  Melhus paused to consider.

  “Yes, I suppose it has,” he said. He pressed a button and cleared his throat. Then he read off the day’s date and who was present in the room.

  “Quintessence. You’ve heard the term, haven’t you?”

  “Of course. It means the core of the matter, or something like that.”

  “Today, yes. But the word comes from alchemy, the prescientific chemistry of the Middle Ages. It’s the fifth element.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “I like to warm up. Don’t you?”

  Now Gregersen intervened.

  “If this isn’t relevant to the case, then I suggest we move on to more factual issues.”

  “This is a complicated case,” said Melhus calmly. “I don’t yet have a full picture of what is relevant and what isn’t. Do you, Singsaker?”

  “I agree that it’s complicated.”

  “The factual circumstances are starting to become quite clear. It’s the meaning behind the various events that we’re looking for. Right? The motives, causes, and connections.”

  Melhus paused, but no one spoke, so he went on.

  “The strange thing about this case is the way in which completely unrelated events become strangely intertwined. On the surface, it seems to be random. And there are undoubtedly a number of sheer coincidences, but still. What we’re looking for are the connections. As you know, Singsaker, I have a weakness for Aristotle. In his teachings about physics, he says that all things are composed of four elements. Do you know about this?”

  “Sure. I took a philosophy class back in my day.”

  “The
four elements are earth, fire, air, and water. All real things, but since there was no such thing as an empty void, Aristotle maintained that outer space had to be filled with something. He called this ether. And this is what the alchemists termed quintessence, the fifth element.”

  “I understand,” said Singsaker, who was amused at the long introduction that Melhus was making. He dreaded the moment when he would get to the point.

  “In many ways, our case can be viewed as multiple cases. Multiple different stories that coincide and lead to one hell of a mess. Do you agree?”

  “Mess?”

  “Maybe that’s a rather insensitive term to use. A tragedy. Shall we call it that?”

  Singsaker merely looked at Melhus and nodded. Melhus was good with words, yet he’d never be able to get anywhere close to describing what Singsaker felt about this matter.

  “But what interests me is all the things that bring these different stories of ours together, the space in between them, the ‘fifth element’ of the case, the flow of events, the coincidences that cause things to evade us. No matter how much we wish to understand a crime and human nature, we aren’t always successful because frequently they can only be understood in a hazy context marked by coincidences. The job of the investigator is to move around in this space between the various events, in the lost time, the unknown rooms, in the silence between incidents. And that’s where you and Jensen come in.”

  “Are you saying we’re the quintessence?”

  “No, but it’s what you’re looking for. So, to get back to the case: When did the two of you realize how complicated and intertwined the case on Hitra actually was?”

  “The first connection that we—or rather, Jensen—discovered was between the boat wreck and a case the police were already working on. The homicide in Rosenborg Park.”

  “The law student who was beaten and thrown off a balcony?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Please explain.”

  “Jensen recognized him.”

  “Let’s go back to the beginning. I’d like you to describe in your own words exactly what happened when you and Jensen arrived on Hitra.”

  “We got to the island around 5:30 P.M. There we were told that there were two survivors of the boat wreck out in open waters, and that they were under the care of the chief physician at the Hitra clinic. Subsequently, we drove over there. At that time the site of the explosion had already been secured by the Hitra fire department.

  “At the clinic we found out that both survivors had escaped the accident with only minor injuries. Both were going to be kept under observation for a few hours, but it wasn’t necessary to move either of them to Orkdal or St. Olav Hospital. Both would be discharged from the clinic during the course of the evening and would be able to leave on their own.”

  “At that point did you know anything about the nature of the accident?”

  “Yes, an officer from the sheriff’s department met us at the clinic. He told us there were witnesses to the accident.”

  “And who were they?”

  “Two fishermen on their way to an island farther out had seen a big motorboat moving at high speed collide with a smaller fishing boat. That’s all they saw because they were far away from the actual collision site, but they could tell it was serious, and they went right over to help. They pulled the two survivors into their boat and notified the police and the coast guard.”

  “Did they mention any other people?”

  “They were too far away to determine whether anyone else was in the boats. But one of the survivors, the young student, told them an elderly man had been with him. They made an initial search for the man. The coast guard continued the search when they later arrived on the scene. But by the time we got to the clinic, everyone assumed that he was gone.”

  “And this was the man named Guttorm Gjessing?”

  “That’s right. A retired physician from Trondheim, ninety years old. When Jensen heard the name, he decided that the first survivor he wanted to talk to was the young student.”

  “Knut Andersen Stang?”

  “Yes. He had been taken to one of the rooms in the clinic. It wasn’t until we entered his room that I realized Jensen knew who he was. I remember what he said to the student: ‘Who would have thought we’d meet again so soon, and under such circumstances?’ Stang was a quite a large young man. He looked pale, and his expression was glum, but he still managed to crack a smile. He didn’t seem surprised by Jensen’s words. He’d probably been told who was coming to see him. Then Jensen said something about how accidents seemed to follow him. First his friend fell from the balcony of an apartment building. Then he almost drowned on a fishing trip. Stang didn’t offer any comment, and Jensen then asked him if the man in the boat with him was his landlord. When Stang nodded, Jensen asked him what he thought about the fact that the very man who was his alibi in the Rosenborg Park case had now disappeared into the sea. It was clear that Stang was no longer happy about Jensen’s questions. I sat on a chair and listened without interrupting.” At this point Singsaker took a brief pause.

  “Because you weren’t on duty, right?” said Melhus.

  “I was not on duty.”

  “And maybe you were more interested in news about Felicia Stone?”

  “Of course I was.”

  “So you would have preferred to go over to the site of the explosion?”

  “To be honest, I really didn’t know where I wanted to be. If your wife is missing and you fear that something serious might have happened to her, there’s really only one place you want to be.”

  “And where’s that?”

  “Back home. Back home with her.”

  Melhus sighed heavily. Was it sympathy that Singsaker saw in his eyes? A vague memory of the camaraderie they’d had during that year in Horten?

  “Let’s go back to the clinic on Hitra. That’s where you were, since you had no choice but to accompany Jensen. But at that point the two of you must have heard that Felicia’s rental car had been found at the scene of the explosion.”

  Singsaker thought for a moment, decided he was on safe ground.

  “Yes, by then we’d been told. I’m very sure about that. But the fire department and the rescue team had also told us that Felicia had not been found out there. So that wasn’t where we should be searching for her. For my part, it seemed most sensible to go with Jensen as he carried out his job.”

  “All right. Let’s continue there.”

  “Sure. Let me see now…”

  Singsaker suddenly felt disoriented. That often happened to him if the conversation jumped around. That was a consequence of his brain injury, part of his illness that at some point might do him in. He closed his eyes for a moment and in his mind went back to the clinic on Hitra.

  “Jensen questioned Stang about the accident. There wasn’t much he could tell us. Only that he and Gjessing were getting ready to do some fishing when the other boat was suddenly coming toward them. Gjessing wasn’t wearing a life vest, and he disappeared in the waves. I think that was when Jensen tried to catch Stang off guard. He knew things that I didn’t. He asked Stang if he knew that someone had broken into Gjessing’s house while he was in London. Stang asked Jensen how he knew about that. He seemed surprised and said something about Gjessing not wanting to report the break-in. Jensen said that Gjessing must have changed his mind, because he’d reported it to the police the day before. Jensen also said that the police were a bit surprised the old man had waited so long. But that happens now and then. Gjessing had apparently explained that he didn’t consider it a serious matter, and nothing had been stolen. Then Jensen asked Stang who he thought Gjessing suspected of breaking in. Stang said he had no idea, and I could see these questions were making him uncomfortable.”

  Singsaker stopped to catch his breath before going on.

  “Then Jensen told him straight out: ‘It was you. Gjessing suspected you.’ Stang tried to laugh it off. He said that Gjessing was an old fool, nin
ety years old and with little grip on reality. But Jensen was having none of it. He said that Gjessing had seemed quite lucid when he’d talked to him.”

  “From what I understand,” said Melhus, “Stang didn’t deny having been inside Gjessing’s house.”

  “That’s right. He said that he used to help Gjessing with things, and he assumed the police would find his fingerprints in the house.”

  “Can you tell me what happened after Jensen finished putting Stang through the wringer?”

  “It was at that point that the officer from Hitra came in and asked to speak to Jensen outside the room.

  “Both of us went with him.

  “The office told us that the coast guard had found some interesting pieces of wreckage. More specifically, a blue mattress covered with sailcloth was found floating on the surface of the water. They figured it had come from the fishing boat. Upon closer examination, they found a large number of banknotes inside the mattress. Soaking wet and stuck together, but a considerable sum. Maybe close to half a million kroner.” Singsaker picked up the pitcher of water on the table and filled his coffee cup.

  “What did Jensen do with this information?” asked Melhus.

  “We went back into the room and confronted Stang with the news. After some hesitation he admitted that Gjessing had talked about keeping money inside a mattress, but he hadn’t realized the old man meant the mattress on the boat. He thought it was a mattress in his house in Trondheim. At that point Stang was no longer looking so confident. He was sweating. And it was clear he knew more than he was saying. But even though things were becoming obvious, and even though he had to realize what we were thinking, he didn’t confess to the break-in. I almost felt sorry for him when we left the room again.”

  “Both of you are experienced police officers,” said Melhus.

  Singsaker didn’t reply.

  “Would it be correct to say that you should have known—no, maybe known is too strong of a word. Shouldn’t both of you have sensed that the witness you’d just spoken to was suicidal?”

  “In hindsight it’s always easy to see things like that. I’d never met the individual in question before. Jensen ran a background check on him when he was working on the Jonas Fredly Holm case. But in that connection witnesses had described Stang as a cheerful young man. He was well liked, a bit irresponsible, but a nice guy, someone who would never hurt anyone. Personally, I thought there was something in his expression as he sat in the clinic bed. We were almost sure that he was the one who’d broken into Gjessing’s house. He seemed desperate. And then he heard the news about the money that he’d missed. He’d probably been sitting on that blue mattress in Gjessing’s boat on their way out to the fishing spot. It was like the old man had made a fool of him. With hindsight, I realized it was wrong for us to leave him there, all alone with his thoughts.”