The Fifth Element

by Jorgen Brekke

  Singsaker put the cell on the kitchen counter and looked at her.

  Her red hair was pulled back into a ponytail. She held her head tilted slightly to one side, as usual. She looked at him with those green eyes of hers.

  “How did it go?”

  “Hard to say. But I don’t think I’m going to be charged with anything.”

  “That wasn’t exactly what I meant. How did it go having to talk about everything? It must have been hell.”

  Siri Holm had spent a lot of time with him after it happened. She’d truly been a huge support. In many ways they’d felt as if they were sharing this fate, especially the same feeling of guilt. This was something neither of them could escape. It was a fact that Felicia had gone to Oslo because of them. It was irrelevant that they couldn’t have known what the consequences would be, or that it would have been impossible to undo what they’d done. Their feeling of guilt had nothing to do with rational thought. But it eased the burden a bit that they shared it.

  “You know how sorry I am about everything,” she said.

  He wasn’t listening to her. From the cupboard he got out two glasses and a bottle of Red Aalborg.

  “Let’s have a drink before bed,” he said. “There’s not much else we can do at the moment except drink and hope.”

  No sooner did he say those words than his phone rang. It was late. There weren’t many who would call at this hour. He stared at the number on the display.

  “I have to take this,” he said and went into the bedroom.

  He was gone for quite a while, carrying on a lengthy conversation. When he came back into the kitchen, he felt as if he was floating on warm air. He filled the glasses that were still on the counter, and handed one of them to Siri. Then he raised his glass, and broke into a tentative smile, as if his face had forgotten how to smile and needed practice.

  “Felicia woke up,” he said.

  Siri Holm shrieked like a teenager.

  “Really? Did she really?”

  “Yes. That was the hospital. She woke up!”

  “They said it was next to impossible.”

  “I know, but she woke up.”

  “So how’s her condition now?”

  Singsaker turned serious.

  “Of course she’s very weak. But they say that she’s able to answer their questions. She’s conscious, and she has mobility and feeling in every part of her body. It seems very likely that she’s going to be okay.”

  “What were the chances of that happening?”

  “I don’t remember what they told us. But what difference does it make now?”

  “It’s a miracle,” said Siri Holm.

  No, he thought, sending a warm thank-you to Kurt Melhus, it’s the fifth element.

  “Shall we drink a toast?”

  “No,” he said. “Actually, I think I’m giving up Red Aalborg.”

  “That’s probably wise,” she said with a somber expression. “For her sake.”

  “For her sake,” he said, noticing how amazing it felt to talk about Felicia like that, as if she was once again part of his future.

  * * *

  “I want to give you a present to take to her,” said Siri. She rummaged through her bag.

  Singsaker waited impatiently, wanting to go out the door.

  “A book?” he said when he saw what she was holding.

  “It’s old.”

  “I can see that. Latin?”

  “Some Latin and some English, from the 1600s.”

  “Not exactly easy reading.”

  “No, but if you guys don’t like it, you can always sell it. I think you’d get a pretty sizable amount for it, if you sold it to the right antiquarian bookseller in London. Actually, that’s what you should do. Sell it and take Felicia on a long trip when she’s back on her feet. That’s what you both need right now.”

  “Maybe. But where did you get this book?”

  “From somebody who can’t appreciate it anymore.”

  “Did you borrow it?”

  “Trust me. The person who owned this book doesn’t need it anymore. That’s for sure. It’s mine now, a souvenir from him. But I’m giving it to you and Felicia.”

  “This seems a little weird.”

  “Odd, do you always have to act like a policeman? Can’t you just take the book? I don’t know exactly how much you can get for it, but I think it’ll be enough for a nice vacation. Treat yourselves. Let your hair down. Life is short.”

  Singsaker looked at her. He was used to regarding this young woman as smarter than himself.

  “Maybe we do need to live a little more, to say what the hell and do something wild when all this is over,” he said. “Thanks for the book.”

  He put it in his leather briefcase. Then he gave Siri a hug.

  27

  Four weeks after it happened …

  “Odd, do you remember the well?”

  “Do you think I’ll ever forget it?”

  It was their second night home together. They’d turned in early.

  “I lay there for a long time. It felt like I died several times, and I was dreaming. I dreamed about his eyes. They were totally white. That’s how I remember them, anyway. They probably had some color, but I remember them as completely white out there in the woods. He could have just shot me. Why didn’t he?”

  “He found a less bloody way to render you harmless. Either he was sure that he’d given you an overdose, or else he didn’t want another murder added to the charges unless it was necessary.”

  “But he fired at me on the road. He could have killed me then.”

  “Sure, but at that time he wasn’t in control of the situation. He needed to stop you. Maybe he didn’t shoot to kill. Maybe he just wanted to scare you and throw you off guard. He was a policeman, you know. Don’t you think he would have shot you if he really meant to?”

  “But why do you think he decided to set me free on Hitra, even though I might be a threat to him as a witness?”

  “I don’t know. At that point he’d suffered serious injuries. Things hadn’t gone as planned. Maybe he thought one more witness wasn’t going to make any difference. He’d already burned all his bridges. I think the whole time he was planning to flee. I think he was going to take his daughter and leave the country. If that didn’t work out, then plan B was to put an end to it all, maybe after killing both Ane and Tina. I don’t think he pictured himself ever being brought to trial. But you shouldn’t let all this keep bothering you, Felicia.”

  “Don’t ask me to forget. I’m never going to forget. And I’m never going to understand it either. But I don’t think he was capable of pulling the trigger. He might have shot me when I was on the move, when I was running away from him. But when I sat there, motionless, right in front of him, he couldn’t do it. And I think you’re right about it being a matter of control. At that moment he did have control, and if he shot me, he would have felt like he’d lost it. I think Rolf Fagerhus was all about being in control.”

  “Control.” Singsaker thought about that word. “Do you think that’s why he took you along in his car instead of leaving you behind in Østerdalen?”

  “He probably realized that I wasn’t going to die of a heroin overdose, but I’d still been put out of commission, so he had total control over me. It was safer to take me with him.”

  Felicia put her hand on Singsaker’s shoulder. They lay in bed, facing each other, breathing in the same air. Both of them knew they would spend weeks, maybe months, going over all these events. So they were discussing only small details at a time. They were both happy when they got into bed. That afternoon he’d received a letter informing him that all charges against him had been dropped.

  “Do you remember me saying that I needed you to forgive me for something?”

  He nodded.

  “I slept with someone else.”

  He turned onto his back and stared up at the ceiling.

  “Aren’t you going to say anything?” she said.


  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “You should get mad. That’s the least you can do.”

  “It feels like that was a whole different lifetime. That wasn’t us.”

  “Yes, it was. Aren’t you mad?”

  “No.”

  He wasn’t sure that was true. Or if it would always be true. But right now he didn’t feel angry. He felt dizzy.

  “Who was it?”

  “Just somebody I met in Oslo. I was drunk.”

  “Are you going to start drinking again?”

  “All I can promise is that I’ll try not to.”

  “I had a feeling that’s what happened.”

  “I had a test done in the hospital. I’m not pregnant.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “I’ve been thinking, Odd. Thinking and thinking. I want to have a baby. With you. If you can forgive me.”

  He looked at her.

  She was talking about forgiveness. But he still hadn’t forgiven her for almost dying. He remembered holding her body, limp and lifeless. It was something he would always feel in his hands. He couldn’t forget the way she was hoisted up into the helicopter, strapped onto a stretcher. Somewhere up in the air above him she had regained consciousness for a brief moment, very brief. They’d told him about that afterward. Then she had slipped away again, and they put her on the respirator that had kept her alive for almost two weeks. They said that her heart had kept beating the whole time, but her pulse had been so weak down there in the well that in the end he couldn’t feel it. How would he ever get over that?

  “A baby?” he said now. “I don’t know how long I’m going to live.”

  “I think you’ll live longer than you expect.”

  “It’ll be your child.”

  “It’ll be ours. Maybe I’ll have to take over raising the child by myself in the future. But it will always be ours.”

  “Shouldn’t we think about this some more? You’ve just come back.”

  “You can think about it,” she said.

  “Because you already have?”

  “It feels like I thought about a lot of things while I was asleep, and somewhere in that darkness I made a decision that I don’t want to change.”

  “But I need time to think.”

  “So think. Take all the time you need.”

  “While we’re thinking, could we do something wild?” he said, hearing an echo of an old dream.

  “You never want to do anything wild.” Then she laughed.

  Finally, she laughed. That had happened so seldom since she’d awakened from the coma. This was how he wanted to see her. He wanted her to laugh more. Then he could forgive her for anything.

  “I can be wild,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve never been to Virginia. I hear it’s nice this time of year.”

  “Odd,” she said, bending over him so he could see her face. She was giving him a teasing smile. “You know that for me, going to Virginia isn’t exactly wild.”

  “It is for me. I’m always dreaming about traveling, but I never go anywhere. It’s been like that my whole life.”

  “Virginia isn’t wild.”

  “Okay, but is it romantic?”

  “Richmond? Romantic? You’ll have to show me.”

  “So you’ll go?”

  “Can we afford it?”

  “I have money. But maybe we’ll take a trip to London first.”

  He thought about the book that Siri had given him. He’d decided to follow her advice. It wasn’t that he didn’t have the money for plane tickets. But it felt right to do it this way. He needed to do something reckless. He needed that in his life. They both needed it. They couldn’t allow themselves to get mired in regret, partial forgiveness, and deadly seriousness. If they were going to bring a new life into this cruel world, as Felicia suggested, then they first had to prove that they were capable of truly living.

  EPILOGUE

  Six weeks after it happened …

  There were at least a hundred reasons for Sving to be furious with her. And this was one of them: Why hadn’t she told him that she was married to a cop? Karlstad had told him after the fact that even he wasn’t aware of his occupation. She’d never told him either. Maybe it wasn’t so strange, since they were old friends who hadn’t been in contact for a long time, and because Karlstad had chosen a slightly different career than Rolf Fagerhus. Karlstad assured Sving that he would never have given him the assignment if he’d known they were dealing with a police officer. Sving believed him. But had Ane really intended for him to kill a cop without knowing who he was murdering? And would he have still done it if he’d known? There were definitely plenty of reasons to be furious. But in the end, he’d started asking himself whether there might also be some love left.

  Ane had done the job that he should have done. She had removed the boxes with the sensors and remote control and most likely any other equipment she could find. And she hadn’t mentioned his name during any of the interrogations. Plus she’d killed her husband all on her own. That might seem like love. Of course there were other reasons why she’d want to keep him out of the matter. Maybe she was protecting Karlstad, her childhood friend. Maybe she thought Sving might be a dangerous witness against her if the police turned the spotlight on him. But maybe that too was love. Sving noticed that, against his will, he’d begun hoping that was true. No matter what, it was to his benefit that she’d kept her mouth shut. If only she’d used her head when she got rid of all the wreckage.

  If everything had gone as planned, Ane could have put all the blame on Rolf Fagerhus and claimed self-defense, even though she’d apparently been careless enough to confess to the first policeman who showed up that day. As soon as she got a lawyer, the confession had been retracted. She’d been confused and delirious after the attack by her husband, and she hadn’t known what she was saying. Besides, the police officer wasn’t on duty and was subsequently investigated by Internal Affairs. But then that same cop got curious and found the evidence against Ane. Now she was in real trouble. It looked as if she might get prison time. So far she still hadn’t roped Sving into the whole thing. But the police hadn’t put much pressure on her yet. She was still in the hospital, and the investigation was far from over. Sving did not feel safe, by any means.

  And then there was Ane’s sister. Karlstad had called her, and she’d agreed to keep Sving out of it, for her sister’s sake, and for Tina’s sake too. But she wasn’t 100 percent reliable, and if the police really went after her, he had no idea how things might go.

  The worst part was that they couldn’t see each other. He couldn’t sit next to Ane’s hospital bed and comfort her. What if she was never able to walk again, which now seemed most likely? Maybe that was why she hadn’t turned him in. She needed someone to push her wheelchair when she got out of prison someday. Sving noticed that in a strange way he liked that idea. He really wished he could talk to her so they could have planned what she should say when she was questioned. But it would be too risky to meet. He didn’t even dare go out to Hitra to see Tina, who was still staying with her aunt. But he’d promised himself to do that when this was over, provided he managed to stay out of it all.

  Right now Sving was driving his VW Polo from Karlstad’s car repair shop to an address in Byåsen. He was playing music in the car, Polish tunes by the Norwegian-Polish band Karuzela. He was singing along. He was in such a good mood that he was singing sad ballads from his native country.

  He and Karlstad were on good terms again. Even though that Stang guy had slit his wrists in a clinic out on Hitra, the money Sving had found in Rolf Fagerhus’s fanny pack—which Ane had tossed onto the backseat before they’d parted—had been more than enough to cover the debt. He even had some money left over. Now things were mostly back to the way they’d always been.

  That fanny pack had been useful in other ways too. Inside Sving had found confirmation of what he’d been hoping. Rolf Fagerhus really h
ad been planning to kill Ane. How else was he supposed to interpret the documents he’d found? It was true that it didn’t look like Tina’s life had ever been in danger, since there were phony passports and plane tickets for both Rolf and his daughter.

  As Sving saw it, that was enough proof that Ane had plenty of reason to fear her husband. She was a complicated woman, not easy to understand, and her motives for wanting Rolf dead were also complex. Yet it seemed as if there was also a kernel of truth in what she’d told Sving the first time they’d met. Rolf Fagerhus had definitely presented a danger to her.

  When it came to Ane hitting him, he’d overreacted. He realized that now. It was only a few slaps to his cheek. Okay, maybe a few punches too, but he’d let her do it. He hadn’t tried to stop her. None of that would have happened if he’d grabbed her immediately and held her tight. And besides, it wouldn’t happen again, whether she was able to walk or not. She’d been in a horribly stressful situation. He understood that now. That’s what had caused her to act that way.

  Sving had decided to keep the promise he’d made to himself and get out of the business. And he needed to do it now, before he ended up feeling completely dead inside. That’s why he was interested in checking out this one last job. It might be his ticket out.

  This wasn’t something that Karlstad was personally involved with. He’d just found out about the job through his network of contacts, and now he was passing along the information to Sving. Meaning that Sving could do whatever he liked with it, no strings attached. If he chose to take the job, it was his, with no restrictions, no quid pro quo. And it was supposed to be a straightforward job, a simple assignment, and a lot of money. If I pull it off, he thought, then I’m going to retire. With the rest of the money from Rolf Fagerhus’s fanny pack and what he earned from this job, he’d be a free man. Maybe he’d be able to get his son out of bed so he could move out of Norway. Find himself a place in the sun and wait for Ane. Or maybe move back to Poland, where the money would go much further. He could take Sondre there. A change of scene would do the boy good.