Free The Final Murder by Anne Holt Page A

well toned and he
    realized he should look up.
    ‘Were you a friend of Vibeke’s?’ asked the woman.
    ‘No.’ He cleared his throat and held out his hand. She took it.
    ‘Adam Stubo,’ he said. ‘NCIS. Pleased to meet you.’
    Her eyes were blue and alert and he registered a hint of curiosity in the way she tilted her head as she passed her glass from one hand to the other. Then she stopped herself with a quick nod.
    ‘I just hope that you get to the bottom of this,’ she said before turning into the room, where the newly retired party leader, Kjell Mundal, had positioned himself by a rostrum, presumably borrowed from a nearby hotel.
    ‘Dear friends.’ He coughed to get everyone’s attention. ‘I
    would like to welcome you all warmly on behalf of Kari and
    myself. We felt that it was not only right, but also very important to mark this sad occasion.’ He coughed again, but this time more.
    ‘Sorry,’ he apologized and continued. ‘It is only two days since we heard the terrible news that Vibeke had been so brutally taken from us. She…’
    Adam could have sworn there were tears in the older man’s
    eyes. Real tears, he thought, astonished. In public. Real, salt tears were wetting the weathered face of a man who for three decades had proved to be the toughest, most cunning and most resilient politician in Norway.
    ‘It is no secret that Vibeke was …’ The man stopped and took a deep breath before continuing. ‘I don’t want say “like a daughter to me”. I have four daughters and Vibeke was not one of them.
    But she was someone who meant a lot to me. Politically, of course, as we worked together for many years, despite her young age, but also personally. To the extent that it’s possible in politics …’
    He stopped again. The silence was intense. No one touched
    their glasses. No one scraped their feet or chair on the dark cherry wood floor. People hardly dared to breathe. Adam glanced round the room, without moving his head. Over by one of the other
    rooms, squeezed between a couple of imposing armchairs and two men that Adam didn’t recognize, was the chairman of the
    Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, with his hands inappropriately deep in his pockets. His brow furrowed in expectation, he
    stared out of the window, as if he hoped that Vibeke Heinerback would surprise them all by waving from the deck of a small boat approaching the jetty just below the house. One of the Labour party’s youngest MPs was standing weeping openly and silently beside an arrangement of white lilies in a huge Chinese vase. She sat on the Standing Committee for Finance and Economic Affairs and therefore knew Vibeke Heinerback better than most, Adam
    assumed. The Minister of Finance was standing next to the rostrum, with his head bent. He discreetly adjusted his glasses. The
    Storting’s President was holding a woman by the hand. Adam
    looked down and concluded that the villa in Tveistveien must be one of Europe’s least guarded terrorist targets right now. He shuddered.
    On his way out here, he had only seen one uniformed
    police car, just outside the house.
    ‘… And to the extent that politics is a friendly place,’ concluded the elderly man. ‘And it can be. I am glad that…’
    Adam nodded lightly to the blonde with the good legs, who
    gave a brief, sad smile back. He slowly withdrew from the room, while the man in front continued his speech.
    ‘Excuse me,’ he whispered to irritated faces as he made his way towards his goal. ‘Excuse me, I just…’
    At last he was out in the hall. It was empty. He carefully closed the double doors and sighed.
    Perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea to come. He had had a
    reason for coming, thinking that the memorial service would give him a better picture of Vibeke Heinerback. She was obviously not the person he had taken her to be. She was more. Even though he never for a moment imagined that the pictures of public figures drawn with broad strokes in the press