The Final Murder Read Online Free PDF

after a while. But one thing was certain and irrefutable: sometimes everything went wrong. That’s just the way it was, and Adam Stubo didn’t waste time dwelling on his defeats.
    This was different.
    This time he hadn’t seen the victim. For once he hadn’t been involved from the start. He had limped into the case, disoriented and behind. But in a way that made him more alert. He thought differently from the others and noticed it most clearly in meetings, gatherings of increasing collective frustration, where he generally kept shtum.
     
    The others got bogged down in clues that weren’t really there.
    With care and precision, they tried to piece together a puzzle that would never be solved, simply because the police only found clear blue skies wherever they looked for dark, murky shadows. They had found a total of twenty-four fingerprints in Fiona Helle’s house, but there was nothing to indicate that any had been left by the murderer. An unexplained cigarette stub by the front door didn’t lead anywhere; according to the latest analyses it was at least several weeks old. They might as well cross out the footprints in the snow with a thick red pen, as they couldn’t be linked to any other information about the killer. The blood at the scene of the crime gave no more clues either. The saliva traces on the table, hair on the carpet and greasy, faint red lip marks on the wine glass told a very ordinary story of a woman sitting at her desk in peace and quiet, going through her weekly post.
    ‘A phantom killer,’ Sigmund Berli grinned from the doorway.
    ‘Buggered if I’m not starting to believe the grumblings of the Romerike guys, that it’s suicide.’
    ‘Impressive,’ Adam smiled back. ‘First she half strangles herself, then she cuts out her tongue, before sitting down nicely to
    die from blood loss. But before she dies, she musters up enough energy to wrap the tongue up in a beautiful red paper package. If nothing else, it’s original. How’s it all going, by the way? Working with them, I mean?’
    ‘The guys from Romerike are nice enough. Big district, you
    know. Of course they like to throw their weight around a bit. But they seem to be pretty happy that we’re involved in the case.’
    Sigmund Berli sat down on the spare chair and pulled it closer to the desk.
    ‘Snorre’s been selected for a big ice-hockey tournament for tenyear-olds this weekend,’ he said and nodded meaningfully. ‘Only
    eight and he’s being selected for the top team with the tenyear olds!’
    ‘I didn’t think they ranked teams for such young age groups.’
    ‘That’s just some rubbish the sports confederation has come up with. Can’t think like that, can you? The boy lives for ice-hockey, twenty-four seven - he slept with his skates on the other night. If they don’t learn the importance of competitions now, they’ll just get left behind.’
    ‘Fair enough. He’s your child. I don’t think I’d …’
    ‘Where are we going?’ Sigmund interrupted, casting his eye
    over all the files and piles of documents. ‘Where the hell are we going with this case?’
    Adam didn’t answer. Instead he picked up the hourglass and
    turned it round again.
    ‘Adam, stop it. Are the sleepless nights getting to you, or what?’
    ‘No. Ragnhild’s lovely.
    ‘Where are we going, Adam?’
    Sigmund’s voice was insistent now, and he leant towards his
    colleague and continued: ‘There isn’t a single fucking clue. Not technical at least. Nor tactical, as far as I can tell. I went through all the statements yesterday, then again today. Fiona Helle was well liked. By most people. Nice lady, they say. A character. Lots of people reckon it was her complexity that made her so interesting.
    Well read and interested in marginal cultural expression. But also liked cartoons and loved Lord of the Rings’
    ‘People who are as successful as Fiona Helle always have…’
    Adam tried to find the right word.
    ‘Enemies,’ Sigmund