The Fifth Element

by Jorgen Brekke

  Then he caught sight of her. She was sitting on a burned sofa in front of a window with no glass. Her smile was calm, very, very calm, as if none of what had just happened was real.

  “I prefer a pistol,” she said, holding up a weapon.

  Singsaker looked at her, uncomprehending.

  She laughed.

  “He had a pistol when he came in. It was loaded. He was going to shoot me. But I shot him with the shotgun that I found in his car. The pistol must have been in the car the whole time too, but I didn’t see it. That’s where he must have gotten it. His car is still out there. Shouldn’t the police have come to get it long ago?”

  “Up until now this has been considered an accident. The police don’t have the manpower out here, and their priority was what happened out at sea,” said Singsaker. “But backup is on the way from Trondheim,” he added, mostly in an attempt to worry her.

  “I wonder where he got this gun from. It’s not a service weapon, is it?” she said.

  Singsaker looked at it. A Glock 19, nine millimeter. Used by PST’s security service, among others, but not standard issue for a police officer. The gun was also popular among criminals. But for both policeman and crook, the gun worked the same. It didn’t discriminate.

  “Is the man lying on the floor a police officer?”

  She nodded, casually motioning with the gun.

  “Do you know him?”

  “He’s my husband. He came here to kill me.”

  “So you shot him in self-defense?”

  She didn’t reply.

  “I’m looking for a woman,” said Singsaker. “Dark hair, brown eyes, in her thirties, with an American accent.”

  She still didn’t speak.

  “Why don’t you give me the gun?” He held out his hand.

  “Are you from the police?”

  Singsaker nodded.

  “What are you doing here alone?”

  “I came to inspect the site.”

  “Alone? Just you? You’re not telling me the whole truth, are you?”

  Singsaker looked at her. The sweat on her face, the makeup that was smeared all over, her hair sticking out in all directions, her intense gaze fixed on a spot somewhere above his head.

  “You know her personally,” she said then.

  Singsaker didn’t answer. Now she lowered her gaze and looked him in the eye. The gun was still aimed at him.

  “It’s love, isn’t it?”

  “Why don’t you give me the gun and we can go outside and talk about it. It’s not safe in here. The floor could collapse at any minute.”

  “I was once in love too,” she said, pointing the gun at the dead man on the floor. It looked like she was pointing at the patch of blood and the heart that had stopped beating.

  “Why don’t you tell me about it outside?”

  “I’ll tell you everything. But we have to stay in here.”

  Then she aimed the gun at Singsaker before lowering it again.

  “I was the one who killed her.”

  “Killed who?”

  “You’ll find out sooner or later. I know that now. But this really shouldn’t end with prison time.”

  “Who? Who did you kill?”

  “The person you just asked me about.”

  “Felicia?”

  “Was that her name?”

  “What have you done?”

  “I beat her to death with a baseball bat.”

  “When did you do that?”

  “Hours ago. Since then I’ve been sitting in here waiting. Except when the fire department was here. I went for a walk then. I’ve had time to think about what I did.”

  She laughed, a strange, hollow-sounding laughter, as if she’d said something funny far away outside the windows, something that had nothing to do with them.

  “I’ve been sitting here holding the shotgun.” She pointed at the floor. “Stuck the muzzle in my mouth several times. This shouldn’t end with prison time. Why couldn’t I stay calm? I could have learned a lot from that shithead.”

  Singsaker didn’t understand what she was talking about, but he wanted to get back to the only thing that mattered.

  “I talked to her less than an hour ago,” he said.

  “Who?”

  “Felicia.”

  “Impossible. I beat the living daylights out of her.”

  “But she didn’t die. Did she have a phone on her?”

  “I tried to pull the trigger,” she said, ignoring Singsaker. “I tried, but I couldn’t do it. I stuck the muzzle in my mouth, but my fingers were shaking so badly. There was no strength in them. No matter what I’ve done up to now, I can’t finish it.”

  “I don’t know half of what’s gone on here. The only thing I need to know is where she is. You don’t have to tell me anything else. What did you do with her after you hit her with the bat?”

  Singsaker gave her a fierce look. He didn’t know whether to believe her or not. Did she kill her husband in self-defense? Had he come out here to kill her? Why was she confessing to murdering Felicia?

  “You think this is some sort of mystery?” she said as if she could read his mind. “This is no a mystery. It’s a thriller. I don’t watch thrillers. I like mysteries. They have such a meditative calm about them. But this has been too much of a thriller. Don’t you agree?”

  The gun in her hand was still not pointed directly at Singsaker as she talked, but more or less in his direction. The whole time he kept glancing at the floor between them, at the shotgun and the man’s body. He was surprised at how cold and calm she sounded, talking about what had happened as if it were all images in a movie. How was it possible for her to distance herself like that?

  “I know you want to shoot me, but as a police officer there are certain rules you have to follow. So let me make it easy for you: Pick up the shotgun!”

  Singsaker didn’t move. Now he was looking straight down the barrel of the gun, which was twenty-five or thirty feet away.

  “Pick up the shotgun, or I’ll shoot you!” The voice didn’t waver. The tone remained flat.

  He took two steps forward, still not sure what he was going to do. Now he was standing with the shotgun between his feet. His heart was pounding. He didn’t know what he was feeling. Was it hate? Was this what hate felt like? No, more like sorrow or anger, rage, but also hope.

  Then he picked up the shotgun and took aim.

  “You know I’m never going to kill you. Not as long as you haven’t told me where Felicia is and what you’ve done with her,” he said.

  “Shoot!” she said. “I killed your girlfriend with a baseball bat. Shoot me! That’s what you want to do.”

  He was breathing hard. He realized he needed to change tactics.

  “Why do you want me to shoot you? Why don’t you want to live anymore?”

  “What do I have to live for? I’ve killed someone. I’ll end up in prison. Tina.”

  “Tina?”

  “My daughter.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “She’s staying with my sister.”

  “It’s not certain that you’ll get prison time for this,” said Singsaker. “It was self-defense. Was he the one who blew up the house?”

  She nodded.

  “And Felicia. I don’t know what you’ve done with her. But she can be saved.”

  “No, she can’t. You said so yourself. You don’t know what I’ve done.” For the first time a hint of vulnerability appeared in her voice.

  He saw her finger beginning to curl around the trigger of the gun. He saw it in her eyes. A deathly calm came over her. He knew from experience that he couldn’t wait any longer.

  “Do it before I do!” she said.

  Those were her last words. There was nothing more to say. And he pulled the trigger.

  The buckshot sprayed into her right thigh. She fell to the floor with a shriek. The gun fell out of her hand as she grabbed her thigh. In a flash, Singsaker ran over to her and picked up the gun, took out the ma
gazine, and stuck it under his belt. She lay on the floor, squirming. When she realized that he hadn’t shot to kill, rage took over.

  “You fucking bastard, you motherfucker!” she howled.

  Singsaker looked at her. Some part of him might have felt sorry for her, but mostly he was furious. And in a hurry. Now that he’d started on this path, there was no going back. He was under the command of the sweat pouring out of him, urged on by his own nerves, with a flickering, wild feeling all over his body, as if his brain were vibrating at a totally unfamiliar frequency.

  With his bare right foot, he rolled her over onto her back. Then he planted his heel on her thigh.

  She screamed.

  He pointed the muzzle of the shotgun at her head.

  “Where is she?”

  “Just shoot me, you bastard!”

  “Tell me where she is and I’ll shoot you if that’s what you really want.” He’d never heard himself talk like this before.

  She fell quiet, lay there for a long time with her eyes closed and breathing hard. Her hair was soaked with sweat.

  Then she screamed again, and now it felt like they were both part of the same pain. As if pain were everywhere.

  They were breathing in time. Then she spoke.

  “In the well.”

  “What well?” Singsaker racked his memory.

  “The one outside. You must have seen it.”

  He crossed the room in one bound.

  Behind him he could hear her screaming, but he didn’t know what she was saying. He was relieved that he’d resisted the temptation to fill her head with buckshot. It had scared him. That dark impulse coming from somewhere inside of him, a place that he hadn’t known existed. He could have killed her. He’d been very close to doing it, very close.

  When he reached the well, he looked down over a high edge that was walled up with granite. He was still wearing his wet clothes and had neither a flashlight nor phone to give him any light. At first he saw nothing but darkness down there. But after a moment his eyes adjusted to the dark and he could make out a figure against a lighter backdrop, with slender limbs stretched out to either side, looking like dark cracks in the bottom of the well.

  “Felicia!” he shouted.

  But there was no answer.

  He yelled her name over and over, as if that might be enough to keep her alive. But he didn’t hear a sound. The figure down there didn’t move. So there was nothing else to do. He dropped over the side of the well and hung from his hands. A smell of mold and decay rose up from the well. Because of the dark, it was impossible to judge the distance. He’d just have to chance it. He let go, hoping he wouldn’t hit her when he fell.

  About ten feet down his feet landed on a mattress. He deliberately turned his body toward the stone wall so as not fall on her. Luckily he managed to use his hands to break his fall so the only injury he suffered was bruised wrists. Crouching down, he turned to face her.

  The dry well was full of trash. Paint cans, broken furniture, boards. A lot of discarded electronics piled on top of each other. For a moment his gaze rested on a twisted piece of gray plastic that didn’t look like anything else. But he couldn’t say why it had caught his eye.

  Felicia lay on the rough, gray mattress.

  She almost looked like she was asleep. But if so, it was a deep sleep. Now he could clearly see her face, her fair skin, her closed lips. There were dark stains on the mattress under her head. He reached out to touch them, then sniffed at his fingers. It was blood. Behind her lay a cell phone. He grabbed it and saw that it was turned on. The display lit up. He punched in the number of police headquarters in Trondheim.

  “This is Chief Inspector Odd Singsaker. I’m at the site of the explosion on Hitra. Are you familiar with the case?”

  A female officer answered in the affirmative.

  “There’s a woman with gunshot wounds inside the house. Another woman with unknown injuries is down in the well. A man has been killed. Send an ambulance and a helicopter! Now!”

  As soon as he was certain that his colleague on the phone had grasped the seriousness of the situation, he ended the call.

  Then he gathered his courage and held his hand to Felicia’s lips. He stayed like that until he was sure about what he felt, until he could determine that there was in fact a faint, rhythmic puff of warm air coming from her mouth. She was breathing.

  He felt for her pulse to confirm what he almost didn’t dare believe. It was there. She was alive.

  He shouldn’t move her head. That much he knew about head trauma. But he needed to revive her. He began blowing air into Felicia’s face at the same time as he massaged her hands. Her fingers were ice cold.

  He kept it up for a long time as he listened for the sounds of the rescue team. Suddenly she opened her eyes. Blinked several times. Her gaze was dazed and damp, like a child with fever.

  “Felicia?” he said calmly.

  She heard him. That was immediately apparent in her face, although it took her a moment for her eyes to find his in the dark.

  “Odd?”

  Her voice still sounded as garbled as it had on the phone. He saw why she was having trouble talking. Her jaw was swollen from a violent blow. It was probably broken. Blood was still trickling out of her mouth.

  “It’s me,” he said.

  “Where are we?”

  “Inside a well on Hitra.”

  Unexpectedly she smiled, as if he’d said something funny.

  “What are we doing here?”

  “Somebody threw you down here.”

  “I remember a woman with a baseball bat. Where is she?”

  “You saw her? You know that it was a woman who did this?”

  “I think that’s what I remember. I’m not sure.”

  “It’s not important. We’re safe now.”

  “Everything hurts, Odd,” she said.

  “I know. It’s going to be all right, sweetie. Everything’s going to be fine.”

  “Really? I’m so cold.”

  “The ambulance is on its way. They’re sending a helicopter.”

  She smiled again. She seemed more lucid.

  “I can’t be rescued by helicopter every six months.”

  She was talking about something that had happened when they first met, and she’d been wounded by the perpetrator in a homicide case out on Fosen.

  They both smiled.

  “This is the last time. You just have to get through this too.”

  He put his hand on her hair.

  “Odd,” she said, suddenly serious. “I don’t know if I can make it. It doesn’t feel like I will this time.”

  “Of course you’re going to make it. The helicopter is on the way. They’ll be here any second. They have equipment to get you out of here quickly. You’ll be at St. Olav Hospital in less than an hour.”

  “I need to tell you something, Odd.”

  “You can tell me tomorrow, when you’re feeling better.”

  “I’ve done something.”

  “Tomorrow, I said.”

  “Something that you won’t be able to forgive.”

  “Do you love me?”

  “I can’t lie to you, Odd. Not now. I had doubts. I’ve had doubts.”

  “About us?”

  She nodded, very cautiously.

  “It’s natural to have doubts.”

  “I don’t have doubts anymore. I know what I did was wrong.”

  “What?”

  “It was me. I don’t know what it is. But I panicked. I fell in love with you, and then I panicked. I didn’t think I could handle it, that it would all be too much. You know. Us. This whole life.”

  “And now?”

  “Now I know better. I could have handled it. You’re the one, Odd. It can’t be anyone else. But I need you to forgive me for something.”

  “We’ll talk more about it tomorrow.”

  “Odd, look at me. There’s not going to be any tomorrow. All we have is now.”

  “Only now?�
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  “Only now, sweetheart. That’s all.”

  She was crying. Wasn’t she? He thought it sounded like crying.

  “You can’t give up.”

  “It’s not a matter of giving up, Odd. This is bigger than us. It’s not something I can control. I want you to hold me.”

  “Felicia. I can hear them now. The sirens. They’re coming.”

  “Please hold me, Odd.”

  He lay down next to her. Put his arm around her waist and pressed close.

  “Felicia?” he whispered into her ear. “Felicia, can you hear me?”

  He thought she nodded. A gurgling sound came from her throat.

  “Sweetie. It doesn’t matter, whatever it is. I forgive you. But you can’t die. We’ll make it through together. I can hear them coming.”

  “I don’t want to leave you, Odd,” she said. “Not now. Not now that I’m finally sure.”

  “You’re not going to leave. I love you. You know that?”

  Neither of them said a word for a while. The sound of the sirens got louder. Then she spoke, so faintly that he almost couldn’t hear what she said.

  “I love you too, Odd.”

  Then she took a breath that seemed to go on forever.

  “Good-bye, my love,” said the weary voice of Felicia.

  Then the silence seemed different, a silence that was no longer anything but silence, the silence that was left behind. She suddenly felt heavy in his arms. Singsaker sat up and looked at her. Her face was unmarked from that angle. It seemed clean and freshly washed, as if she were suddenly surfacing from the water in a bathtub. She was smiling. The way she smiled when she teased him.

  He raised her head, felt for her breath, her pulse, tried to breathe life back into her, massaged her, wept on her breast, listened to the calm inside. Her heart didn’t beat again. Life didn’t return.

  Finally, he lay down beside her and looked up. The sky had turned pitch dark while he was inside the well. It was night. The sun had set, and the eternal night of space had settled over the earth.

  Overhead he could hear the sound of sirens from the vehicles screeching into the yard, and then came the whirring of the helicopter’s blades.

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