The Fifth Element

by Jorgen Brekke

Two weeks after it happened …

  Odd Singsaker threw up into the toilet. After flushing, he sat down on the toilet seat and sucked on a Fisherman’s Friend lozenge.

  They’d been at it for hours now. He’d told Melhus everything that had happened, without embellishing. The only thing he’d kept to himself was the part about stepping on her thigh and grinding his heel in the wound when he was desperate for an answer. Nor had he said anything about wanting to kill her. That was a feeling that had only grown stronger as he sat on the ground next to the well and watched as Felicia’s lifeless body was hoisted into the helicopter and flown up toward the dark, starless sky.

  Ane Fagerhus had tried to get up after he ran out of the house to find the well. Then she had fallen through the floor, which collapsed as she was about to leave, and she’d ended up in the basement. It took so long to saw through all the building materials and get her safely out of there that Felicia had long ago been transported away by the time Ane was carried off on a stretcher, right past Singsaker. He now remembered how he’d wanted to strangle her then and there. He wasn’t proud of that, but in many ways it was the simple, brutal truth—he had wanted revenge. And that urge hadn’t entirely faded over the past two weeks. It had diminished and taken on a more dreamlike quality, most prevalent in the evening and morning, but it was still there. The thought, the fantasy of killing her. If only he could understand why she’d done it, why Felicia had been made to suffer for something that was between Ane and her husband.

  There was no doubt that Rolf Fagerhus had intended to kill his wife. Why else would he have taken the trouble to get rid of Singsaker first? Maybe he didn’t want any witnesses, but Singsaker thought there was another, simpler reason. He no longer cared whether or not he got caught. The only reason he threw Singsaker into the water was because otherwise the detective might have reached Ane before he did. At that point, of course, he didn’t know that she was sitting inside the blown-up house. Singsaker had tormented himself with the thought that she must have seen everything from the window. Fagerhus had probably been on his way to steal another small boat from the marina so he could go out to where Ane’s sister lived. In his eyes, that must have been the most natural place to look for his wife. And presumably he was worried that Singsaker had had the same idea when he arrived, so he decided to get rid of him first. The fact that Fagerhus went back to check the house before leaving had to be because, as a policeman, he’d been trained to be thorough. The main thing was that he hadn’t wanted anyone or anything to stop him from killing his wife. That was the only thing of importance. By then, it was most likely that the murder of Ane Fagerhus was the very last thing Rolf Fagerhus intended to do in his life. Unfortunately for him, she was more than capable of defending herself.

  * * *

  Singsaker went back to the interview room.

  Kurt Melhus was still there, but Attorney Gregersen had left. The session was over, and Singsaker had no obligation to tell Melhus anything more. Plenty of people would have advised him to refrain from saying another word. But he wanted to say a proper good-bye. He no longer feared Melhus or the interview process. Not the way he had when it began. He now realized that it had done him good to go through the entire course of events with a man who was such a lucid thinker, someone from whom he couldn’t hide. It had been a form of therapy for him.

  “How much do you have left to do?” asked Singsaker.

  Melhus looked up. He was busy packing up his briefcase.

  “I’m done with my part. But I’m only concerned with the role of the police in the case. The actual investigation is far from finished.”

  “I’m aware of that.”

  “Singsaker,” said Melhus, standing up. “I’m really sorry about what happened. No matter what conclusion we come to, I’m really sorry.”

  “Melhus,” said Singsaker, “do you ever feel the effects of what we do?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “All the brutality.”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Things have gotten a lot worse in a very short time, haven’t they?”

  Melhus nodded.

  “A lot of people still say that we’re spoiled, that Norway is so peaceful, that we live in a peaceful time. I know what the murder rate was in Norway during the Viking period, and I know what it is in the slums of Rio, but it’s gotten worse here too. I think it gets worse every year. And it’s happening so fast. It feels like something is about to happen soon that will really shake us up.”

  “You’ve just been through a terrible experience. You need to get your mind off it.”

  “I suppose it’s too early to say anything about your findings?”

  “It’s not solely up to me, Singsaker. You’ll hear from us soon if there’s any question of filing charges.”

  Melhus’s handshake was as firm as Singsaker remembered from Horten. Then the brilliant investigator, who once might have been a friend, picked up his briefcase and left.

  * * *

  Singsaker remained sitting in the interview room, giving himself time to think before Jensen came to join him.

  “How’d it go?”

  “Fine, I think. You know what, Thorvald? It feels good.”

  “I hope you’re right. They can’t get us for breaking any specific law. Melhus knows that. But I should never have taken you along.”

  “I know. But I shot a witness in the thigh. It was self-defense, but I can’t deny doing it. The question is whether they believe that I had to shoot, that I had no choice. And that my actions weren’t prompted by some other motive, or based on emotion. I had a sense that Melhus left here in a different frame of mind than when he arrived. I think that’s significant for both of us, but only time will tell. What about Brattberg? Is she in a better mood now?”

  “Improving, I think. As you know, the case is now being handled by Kripo. So she’s not about to let me anywhere near it. Right now I’m working on a different case. A father was severely beaten by three men in his own home in the center of town. All indications are that two men living in Charlottenlund were involved. We’ve dealt with them before. And we’re convinced that they know who the third man is. Unfortunately, the victim changed his story over the last few days, and now he claims he can’t recall what any of the intruders looked like.”

  “Shit. How do they manage to do that?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. But we’re working with the technical evidence and hope to make some progress in the case. Some of the physical evidence as well as accounts from witnesses point to a connection with the Rosenborg Park case. That student who was beat up and, according to the autopsy report, most likely died from allergic shock after drinking beer. There’s also something about the MO in each case that links them together.”

  “So we’re suddenly back to Knut Andersen Stang, that young man in the boat.”

  “Right. He was a witness in the Rosenborg Park case. By the way, they’ve dismissed any consideration of possible criminal actions on his part in connection with the boating accident and the break-in at Guttorm Gjessing’s house. Because of the state of the evidence.”

  “So Melhus was onto something,” murmured Singsaker.

  “What did you say?”

  “It’s strange how there seems to be a connection between all these cases that the police are working on.”

  “I agree.”

  “What do you know about Ane Fagerhus?”

  Finally, Singsaker had gotten around to what he really wanted to talk about.

  “You may not have heard, but she’s still in the hospital. She broke her back when she fell through the floor, and she’s paralyzed from the waist down. She’s probably never going to walk again.”

  “Is there enough evidence to indict her?”

  “All we have is the confession that she made to you. The weapon, the alleged baseball bat, is gone. And she’s no longer cooperating with the police.”

  “Felicia thought it was a woman who attacked her.”


  “Felicia was badly injured. And…”

  Jensen stopped himself. Singsaker knew why. It was too hard for him to say it out loud. Felicia could not be used as a witness in the case.

  “What about everything else?” said Singsaker to keep the conversation going.

  “As far as I know, we’re working on the theory that everything can be ascribed to Rolf Fagerhus.”

  “Everything?”

  “Now listen here, Singsaker. Rolf Fagerhus killed a drug dealer in Oslo, a man named Isaac Casaubon that he was actually supposed to be investigating. We assume that Fagerhus took a large amount of cash from the man, but the money hasn’t been found.”

  “Do we actually know that he killed Casaubon?”

  “The man died from an overdose of heroin. Yet there are no indications that he ever used the stuff. We also interviewed his son. He said that he watched Fagerhus force his father to shoot up the heroin. After that he kidnapped the son and tried to kill him out in the woods. We assume it was in that connection that Fagerhus came in contact with Felicia. We know that she rented a car at Gardermoen Airport and was planning to drive to Trondheim. We have to assume that for some reason she ended up witnessing Fagerhus’s attempt to kill the boy. The boy says that she rescued him by hiding him in a cabin. Blood tests have also shown that Felicia had heroin in her bloodstream. Fagerhus most likely subjected her to the same treatment as Casaubon, but this time he didn’t manage to give her as big a dose. Felicia survived, but Fagerhus still had a motive for killing her.

  “Yet everything that happened up to that point was just preparation for Fagerhus’s real plan. He wanted to kill his wife and daughter. We’re talking here about a classic case of wiping out a whole family. One theory is that he blew up the house believing that his wife and daughter were inside. The idea was to take them with him when he killed himself. The autopsy report confirms that he most likely had survived an extreme explosive event before he got into the boat. We don’t know what went wrong. We have no good answer for why he survived the explosion, but such things do happen. Hitler survived the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944, in his bunker because the bomb was placed underneath a table. The theory is that Fagerhus had not intended to survive. His wild maneuvering of the speedboat and the subsequent collision with the other boat can be seen as another suicide attempt. We also don’t know why he blew up the house when his family was not in fact inside. It shouldn’t have taken much effort for him to find out where his wife and daughter were. But traces of heroin were also found in his blood. He may have been acting under the influence of the drug. Maybe he just happened to find the dynamite, which his sister-in-law had left to be picked up by the sheriff. Maybe he convinced himself that his wife and daughter were asleep upstairs. And then he decided to blow the house to smithereens.”

  “That doesn’t really mesh with what I’ve heard about his personality.”

  “It’s true that everyone has described him as an extremely calm and rational person. But there’s no doubt he had a dark side that no one knew about. He hid behind a mask, concealing what was really going on inside. You know as well as I do that even the most peaceful person can have a dark side. And besides, from what I heard, Fagerhus never got over the loss of his father when he was a kid. So his cold demeanor may have been an unhealthy defense mechanism against the grief that was never resolved.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “Nothing else seems plausible, Odd.”

  “But what about Felicia?”

  “Most likely he beat her nearly half to death before they reached Hitra. Maybe he saw the well and thought it would be a good place to get rid of her.”

  “But he had a gun with him. She wasn’t dead when he threw her into the well.”

  “He felt sure that she wouldn’t survive. And he didn’t want anybody to hear the sound of a gunshot.”

  Singsaker got up.

  “Is this the direction the investigation is taking?”

  “Think about it, Odd. I know it’s not easy, but we have a story line that makes sense. How far from the truth could it be?”

  “I don’t know, Thorvald. Maybe you’re right. Or maybe we’re just looking for what’s most plausible and neglecting other possibilities.”

  “It’s the nature of an investigation to search for the truth. And in almost all instances, we do get very close to the truth.”

  Jensen looked at Singsaker. He knew him better than most.

  “I don’t know whether it will give you any peace of mind,” he said. “But it’s no longer our case. We have to let it go.”

  “But you realize that if the police allow this theory about Ane Fagerhus to stand, then my credibility is undercut. Who will believe that I shot her in self-defense? Who will believe that she aimed a gun at me and threatened to pull the trigger?”

  “No one here at the station has any doubt about that part of the story.”

  “But Melhus doesn’t work here.”

  “I know what you’re getting at. But there could have been other reasons why Ane Fagerhus aimed a gun at you. She had just shot her husband. Maybe she was afraid he had accomplices. You weren’t wearing a uniform, after all.”

  “I saw her. There was no fear in her eyes. By the way, Melhus said something interesting during the interview.”

  “What’s that?”

  “He said something about the connection between things. What we were just talking about. The link between all these different cases. Melhus has a theory, or something like it, that the solution can be found in the unknown, in what he called the fifth element. And there are things here that don’t add up. You know that yourself.”

  “Maybe, Odd. Maybe. But as I said, it’s no longer our case. All I want is for you to find peace.”

  * * *

  Peace, thought Singsaker. He’d forgotten how that felt. He had no idea how he’d ever find peace again.

  During the drive out to Hitra that night he definitely didn’t find it.

  He’d gone out there after receiving a text message from Melhus a short time after he left the police station. He wondered why his old colleague had sent it to him. It couldn’t be regarded as merely an expression of concern. Even if Internal Affairs hadn’t yet decided what to do about him and Jensen, Melhus knew how much it meant to Singsaker that the case involving Felicia shouldn’t get stuck on the track that the police had settled on. As usual, Melhus had put his finger on a crucial point, something that didn’t mesh. But why his concern? Maybe, thought Singsaker, Melhus is more biased than we expected. They’d shared something back then in Horten. Hadn’t they? When it came right down to it, were they actually friends, after all?

  For the first time in two weeks Singsaker returned to where it all happened. Everything still looked the same. Because of the ongoing investigation, the house hadn’t yet been torn down. It was still standing, threatening to collapse all on its own.

  He parked his car in the driveway and went straight to the well. The police had covered it with a plank and then placed a rock on top of the board. Singsaker removed them, and shone his flashlight down inside. The well hadn’t yet been cleaned up. Presumably the crime techs had done a number of inspections down there, looking for organic evidence and fingerprints. But since the police had settled on the theory that the well was important only because Felicia had been thrown into it, nothing had been cleared away. Nor had the police done a thorough examination of all the trash inside.

  This time Singsaker took the trouble to get a ladder that he’d seen lying next to the wall of the house. He lowered it down to the mattress, which was still in the well, and climbed down.

  Then he began rummaging through all the garbage. Among some rusty junk he found what he was looking for, something that he’d seen the last time he was down there. The police hadn’t separated it out from the other useless trash, probably because they hadn’t had any reason to look for something like that. It was a gray box that was cracked in several places and look half-melted. It
was not normal household garbage, that much was clear. Singsaker shone his flashlight on what he’d found and then used his cell to take a picture of the battered object.

  * * *

  On his way back to town he phoned Jensen.

  He asked him the exact same question that Melhus had asked in his brief text message:

  “How did she know that Felicia was in the well?” he said as soon as Jensen picked up.

  “Odd? Is that you?”

  “Ane Fagerhus was the one who told me that Felicia was in the well. If Rolf Fagerhus had thrown her in before he blew up the house, how did his wife know about Felicia? Ane wasn’t there at the time.”

  “Odd, what are you getting at?”

  “The well. You need to ask the crime scene investigators to take a closer look at the well.”

  “I think they’ve planned to do a thorough inspection. But there’s just a bunch of old junk down there. It’s a time-consuming job, and the house has to be their first priority.”

  “The junk isn’t all old,” said Singsaker. “I’ve just been out there to take a look.”

  “What did you find?”

  “It’s something that CSI will have to look at. But ask them to look at a broken gray box that’s partially melted. No labels on it, but it contains a lot of electronics. Reminds me of some sort of sensor, like a laser, or maybe a detonator of some kind. Looks much too sophisticated to be normal household trash. If I’m not mistaken, this is going to knock the wind out of the theory that Rolf Fagerhus blew up the house in a state of emotional agitation. We may be talking about a carefully staged ‘accident.’ Something that took a lot longer to rig up than the time Fagerhus had at his disposal.”

  * * *

  It was past midnight by the time he got home. She was standing at the kitchen counter, right where she was when he got up in the morning, as if she hadn’t gone anywhere in the meantime. She handed him a cup of coffee again, though not in a paper cup this time.

  He felt like he’d been away for weeks, as if everything he’d recounted during the interview had been played out again in real time.

  Singsaker went past her into the laundry room. In a box on top of the washing machine he found what he was looking for. The cell phone from the well. He’d stuck it in his pocket before they’d pulled him out. The phone had stayed in his filthy pants until he washed them a few days ago. Then he’d put it in the box. All along he’d intended to hand the phone over to the police, but he’d had other things on his mind lately. He had no idea how it had ended up in the well, but he was positive now he knew who it belonged to. He also realized how out of it he’d been over the past few weeks, and how far he was from being able to return to work as a police detective. He should have done this long ago. Now he put the cell in a plastic bag he found in the drawer under the washing machine, and then he took it with him to the kitchen. The lab needed to take a closer look at it. Yet another item that linked Ane Fagerhus to the well and to Felicia, he thought.