The Fifth Element Page 5

  He finished his coffee, which was now lukewarm. Then he leafed through the first pages of the document, in which he and the chief investigator, Kurt Melhus, from Internal Affairs, Central Norway Division, went over the formal aspects of the case. He came to the page where his chronological account of the events began, and he read:

  Page 5 of 48

  Melhus: When exactly did you arrive at the station that day?

  Singsaker: I don’t remember. It was in the morning.

  Melhus: On the morning of Saturday, February 19?

  Singsaker: Yes.

  Melhus: On February 17 you were discharged from the hospital after suffering a stab wound to your calf during the Music Box case. Is that right?

  Singsaker: Yes, that’s right. I helped to apprehend a murderer who kidnapped and killed young women. The media dubbed it the Music Box murders because the perp repaired a music box and placed it near one of his victims. During the apprehension, the perp attacked me with an ax. The injury was not life-threatening, but it did put me out of action for a while.

  Melhus: And you were still on sick leave when you were discharged from the hospital?

  Singsaker: That’s correct.

  Melhus: Would you say that you were feeling weak? Was the wound bothering you at that point?

  Singsaker: I was aware of it. But it wasn’t hampering my mobility.

  Melhus: Perhaps there were other things that were bothering you more?

  Singsaker: What do you mean?

  Melhus: While you were still in the hospital, you received a phone call from your wife, Felicia Stone. Isn’t that right?

  Singsaker: Yes.

  Melhus: What was the phone call about?

  Singsaker: She told me that she was in Oslo but she was coming home. She was going to catch a flight on Wednesday, February 16.

  Melhus: And you didn’t know she was in Oslo before she called that day, did you?

  Singsaker: We’d had a fight during the Music Box investigation. She’d gone away, I guess to take a breather. I don’t really know. She didn’t tell me why she left.

  Melhus: Can you tell us what the fight was about?

  Singsaker: It’s a private matter. I’m not sure it’s important.

  Melhus: Singsaker, you know as well as I do how things work. You have to tell us everything, and I’ll decide whether it’s important or not.

  Singsaker: It had to do with the fact that on one occasion I’d had a—what shall I call it? An intimate relationship with a friend of hers. But it happened before Felicia and I were together. Actually, before I’d even met her. Felicia and the person in question weren’t friends at the time. So I guess we were fighting about the fact that I hadn’t told Felicia about this.

  Melhus: Who was the person you had this relationship with?

  Singsaker: Her name is Siri Holm. She’s a librarian at the Gunnerus Library.

  Melhus: I see. So you and Felicia had a falling out because of this Siri Holm, or rather because of something you and Siri had done before Felicia knew either of you. So she went to Oslo and was gone for several days while you were working on the murder case. How did you feel when your wife finally called and told you where she was?

  Singsaker: I was relieved. The fight hadn’t done any damage that couldn’t be repaired. I was sure about that. We just needed to talk to each other.

  Melhus: What happened after she called?

  Singsaker: She wasn’t on the plane she said she was taking.

  Melhus: I see. And three days later you went to the police station, even though you weren’t supposed to be working, even though you were still on sick leave. Would it be correct to say that you were worried about your wife at that point?

  Singsaker: Of course I was worried. But I thought it had something to do with us. With the fight we’d had. That she’d decided to stay away.

  Melhus: But isn’t it also correct that one of the reasons you went to the station that day was because you were hoping to find out more about what had happened to her?

  Singsaker: I can’t deny that.

  Melhus: So what did you do when you got there?

  Singsaker: I talked to Jensen.

  Melhus: Chief Inspector Thorvald Jensen?

  Singsaker: Yes.

  Melhus: He’s a close colleague of yours, right?

  Singsaker: Without a doubt.

  Melhus: Also a good friend?

  Singsaker: Yes, a good friend.

  Melhus: And you asked him for a favor, between friends?

  Singsaker: I asked him to check the passenger list of the plane Felicia was supposed to take.

  Melhus: And what did he find out?

  Singsaker: That she’d checked in for the flight, but never showed up at the boarding gate. So she’d gone to the airport, but didn’t board the plane.

  Melhus: What did you think about that?

  Singsaker: I thought maybe she’d gotten cold feet.

  Melhus: Is that all?

  Singsaker: To be perfectly honest, I feared something worse.

  Melhus: Like what?

  Singsaker: To be blunt: I thought she’d fallen off the wagon.

  Melhus: Did you have reason to think that?

  Singsaker: She’d been sober for a long time. I’ve never seen her touch a drop in the time we’ve been married. She wasn’t tempted at all. But she told me that when she was young, she’d been in rehab, and she considered herself a recovering alcoholic ever since. I also thought about something my son said.

  Melhus: What was that?

  Singsaker: When she called me from Oslo, that’s where she was. At my son’s place. Felicia got along well with him and my daughter-in-law. He said something to me after I talked to Felicia. He mentioned that he could smell booze on her when she arrived.

  Melhus: I understand. When you say she was in rehab in her younger days, are we talking about just alcohol? I have to ask because the blood tests showed that she …

  Singsaker: I know what they showed. Apparently she’d also taken a lot of pills back then. I don’t know what kind.

  Melhus: What about heroin?

  Singsaker: Only once, as far as I know. I think it was a suicide attempt. As I understand it, that was the incident that made her parents intervene and send her to rehab.

  Melhus: For the record: How much time did Chief Inspector Jensen spend finding out that she wasn’t on the plane?

  Singsaker: I’m not sure exactly. He told me the day after I’d asked him to check on it.

  Melhus: So that was on Sunday, February 20?

  Singsaker: That’s right.

  Melhus: And it was on that day that you decided to report her missing?

  Singsaker: Yes.

  Melhus: And you were still on sick leave, which meant this was a matter for your colleagues to handle, right?

  Singsaker: Initially, yes. But of course it wasn’t a high priority. There was nothing to indicate that she wasn’t acting of her own free will.

  Melhus: So everyone continued to view this as a private matter, between you and your wife? Yet that didn’t prevent the police department from devoting resources to finding her. I’m thinking in particular about the rental car. Which ended up playing a crucial role, not only in her case but in the whole tragic story. Do you agree?

  Singsaker: Unfortunately, that’s all too true.

  PART II

  BLACK BILE

  If the human being were one, he would no longer feel pain.

  —Hippocrates

  5

  The day before it happened …

  Felicia Stone’s thoughts were dark and muddy.

  She was afraid to open her eyes. When she finally realized where she was and who she was, she wished she’d never have to look at the world again. She especially didn’t want to see the room where she’d spent the night. She remembered the black-and-white bedding and the mirror. What kind of person had a mirror on the wall over their bed? The mere thought of that mirror made her sick to her stomach. Not to mention th
e smell in the room. The stench of suffocating desperation. He’d released something inside of her last night. At first she’d thought it was desire. But that wasn’t it. It was something else, a dark insanity. Will I ever know myself again, after this? she thought, burrowing her head into the pillow.

  She could hear him whistling in the bathroom. Then he came into the bedroom, stinking of aftershave. She heard him set something on the nightstand next to her. Finally, he left the apartment. She lay still for a long time, listening to make sure he’d gone. Then she rolled onto her back and took a couple of deep breaths before opening her eyes. The ceiling was painted gray. What was she doing here?

  She threw off the covers and was struck by a terrible realization: It’s the same smell. I smell the same right now. This mixture of male and female scent she always awoke to the next day. The one she knew from up in Trondheim after Odd left for work, while some of his smell still clung to her skin. A scent she thought of as the fragrance of love. Right now the smell was the same. Is this how it always smells? She had so little experience. She was in her mid-thirties, but she hadn’t had enough sexual partners to know whether it always smelled like this after every man. Her thoughts involuntarily drifted back to her youth, to Richmond, to that time in her life when everything fell apart. Had it smelled like this back then too?

  She reached out to pick up the note and read what it said. As she’d hoped, he’d gone to the office. Felicia had a vague sense that it was Sunday, but she didn’t think it was unusual for a defense attorney to work on the weekend. That gave her time. She went straight to the bathroom to take a shower. Afterward, she looked for her clothes. Her panties and top were lying next to the bed, the rest strewn about on the cherrywood floor in what was a combination living room and kitchen. Strangely enough, this small two-room apartment reminded her of a spiffier version of her own place back in Richmond. The apartment she’d owned for only six months before she moved to Trondheim.

  She got dressed and made herself a cup of strong black coffee.

  Then she found the old red bag made of Italian leather that her father bought for her years ago. She pulled out a pack of Camels. It was hiding under the printout she’d made at Lars and Eline’s apartment in Oslo. She’d slept on the sofa belonging to Odd’s son for several days after that stupid fight they’d had. The printout was her e-ticket for the flight back to Trondheim.

  Felicia lit a cigarette. The first puff made her cough.

  Her plane ticket was dated Wednesday, February 16, which was four days ago. On that day Odd was still in the hospital and expecting her to come visit him. After that she’d turned off her cell. What had gone wrong? Why had she done it? If only she could answer those questions.

  Don’t I love him? she asked herself.

  She sat at the kitchen counter in front of a bay window. From there she looked down on the quiet street in what she assumed was central Oslo, trying to recall as many details as possible from the preceding days.

  She remembered a baby crying.

  6

  Five days before it happened …

  For some reason she stayed where she was, studying the tiny, angry face, the baby’s lips losing all color when he opened his mouth for each new shriek. His slender, taut neck. The wrinkles on his forehead, like on the face of an old man, merely painted with a softer brush. His eyes, which looked like they would never close, never blink. The crimson flush on his skin that ebbed and waned.

  You can say that again, Felicia thought as she listened to his angry cries.

  The mother tried to get the baby to nurse, but it didn’t do much good. She took off the knitted sweater, which the child had probably worn all the way through security. The sweater had to be way too hot. Even though she could see the snowstorm raging outside all the huge windows at Gardermoen airport, it was warm indoors. Too warm, in Felicia’s opinion, feeling an urge to take off a layer of clothing too. But she simply sat where she was, looking at the desperate mother, who now put the baby back in the stroller. She wasn’t sure what she felt. It couldn’t be envy. Yet there was something about the situation that was strangely compelling. Trying to lull a baby to sleep was an all-consuming task, but it seldom took very long. The mother began moving the stroller back and forth. The intervals between cries grew longer, until the child finally stopped, sleepily smacking his lips and then falling asleep. The mother, who looked a little too young for the role, sat down across from Felicia to read a romance novel. She now seemed completely calm.

  Very little that goes on outside has any significance for an airport. Except the weather. There was a long wait between departures on that day. In spite of the thundering, circuitous dance of the snowplows out on the runways and the gallons of de-icing fluid sprayed on the snow-covered airplane wings, there were long delays. It didn’t help matters that weather conditions were the same in all of northern Europe, so the delays were also the result of planes that hadn’t yet arrived from other airports.

  The departure for Trondheim had been delayed by half an hour when she decided to have a beer. It was not a carefully considered decision. More of an impulse. She hesitated only long enough to persuade herself that there was nothing wrong with such an idea. Besides, she wouldn’t have time to drink enough to get drunk before the plane left. And she was on her way home. It seemed safe to have a beer.

  After she finished it, she went over to check the departure screen. Another half-hour delay. Time enough to have another drink. And then one more, since there was another thirty-five-minute delay. As she sat with her third beer, she fell into conversation with an elderly man who was going to London to sell a book at an auction. He’d inherited a small library of rare British first editions from his mother, and every year he went to London to sell one of them. Apparently that brought in enough money to finance several days of drinking in pubs and going to Queens Park Rangers football matches.

  “This book was written by a nineteenth-century scientist who was apparently brilliant. Professor James Moriarty may not have won the place in the history of science that he deserves, but his book The Dynamics of an Asteroid is actually one of the few scientific works from the Victorian era in England that is still referenced today,” said the elderly man. “You see, I take the trouble to study the books carefully before I sell them. Makes as much sense to preserve all that knowledge in this old noggin of mine as it does between the covers of dusty old tomes that are much too valuable.”

  The London flight was delayed even more than the plane to Trondheim, and Felicia had two beers with the old man. After yet another glass she suddenly realized that she’d forgotten to pay attention to her watch and the departure times.

  There were no further delays for the Trondheim flight that day. It departed at 4:35 P.M., about five minutes before Felicia Stone got up from her chair at the bar for the last time.

  When she made it over to the departure screen, she stood there staring at the words GATE CLOSED, which were flashing next to the departure time for the flight she was supposed to be on.

  She started to laugh.

  Then she cried.

  And then she simply left the airport.

  The next thing she remembered, she was sitting in a bar in central Oslo. She might have ended up there by chance. Or maybe she liked the name: Teddy’s Soft Bar. There were hardly any other customers. The place had a jukebox. She put on “When the Music’s Over” by the Doors. Ray Manzarek’s hypnotic keyboard tones resonated inside her as she went over to order eggs, bacon, and a beer. She drank the beer but didn’t touch the food. Then she played more gloomy music before stepping outside to smoke three cigarettes in a row. When she came back in, she ordered another beer, but was refused service.

  “I think you’ve had enough,” the bartender told her.

  “I’m American,” she heard herself say.

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  She switched to English:

  “That’s why I talk like this. I’m not slurring my words.
I have an accent.”

  “You could be the goddess Freyja, for all I care. I’m not serving you any more drinks.”

  She had a few more somewhere else, but she couldn’t recall the name of the place.

  At some point she found her way to Lars’s apartment and fell asleep on the sofa. She had a key. Lars had given one to Odd and one to her. Odd had never used his. It wasn’t his style to arrive somewhere unannounced. This was the first time she’d ever used her key. The whole family was out. At the movies? At a café? She couldn’t remember what they’d said they were going to do that evening. If they had been home, they could have stopped her. Then everything would have ended there. Maybe they would have let her sleep it off and then helped her to buy a new plane ticket to Trondheim. As it was, she took a shower and went into town again before they returned home. She had sobered up a little, and she left no visible trace of her visit to their apartment.

  She went out drinking again.

  Some instinct, or simply sheer good sense, made her find a hotel room sometime during the course of the night.

  The next day she was at it again.

  She went on like that for several days, new bars, new hotel rooms, until things went truly wrong.

  7

  Two days before it happened …

  “Bad day at work?”

  She was sitting in a bar somewhere in Norway’s tiny capital. The guy who sat down at her table was about her age. His head was shaved, and he looked like he’d just changed his clothes in the men’s room on the other side of the bar. His shirt seemed to cry out for the return of his jacket and tie. He dropped his bulging leather shoulder bag onto the floor and undid the top button of his shirt.

  Felicia gave him a long look before she replied.

  “I don’t know if a job exists that could give somebody days as bad as the ones I’ve just been through,” she said, unable to muster even a smile.

  “You haven’t tried my job.”