“How about it,” said Finn, and they walked through and sat at the kitchen table. Grasset seemed to have a predilection for industrial-strength schnapps and grappa, but with some relief Finn saw that there was an open bottle of red wine, probably left over from his lunch—the old man always drank good Swiss wine.
After Grasset handed him his glass and they drank and Finn nodded his approval, Grasset said, “I apologize, Monsieur Harrington, if I was intrusive when you arrived back this morning. It was not for me to say, and actually none of my business.”
The apology was hollow because Grasset loved to know what was going on in people’s lives. This in itself was probably an attempt to get Finn talking about Adrienne leaving.
“Don’t worry about it. Anyway, Adrienne leaving isn’t the worst thing that happened while I was away.” Grasset looked blank for a moment, so Finn said, “The Portmans?”
“Of course, their daughter! She’s a beautiful girl.” He shrugged as if dismissing his failure to bring up the topic himself. “I forgot that you were a friend of theirs.”
“Well, they’re Adrienne’s friends, really. But I’ll do what I can for them.”
Grasset nodded and waved his hand at a family photograph of himself and his late wife and their three grown-up children, two boys and a girl.
“They say boys are more likely to die or be in an accident, but one always worries more about a daughter—of course, my children all have families of their own now, so the worry is theirs.” He laughed to himself as if sharing a family joke.
Finn smiled, too, and allowed a suitable pause to insinuate itself before saying, “Monsieur Grasset, I wanted to ask you about the apartment beneath mine. Who lives there?”
Grasset looked confused, perhaps suspecting this was a complaint about noise, and said, “Nobody. The man who lived there was Gibson, but he left . . . four days ago.”
“Four days ago? The day before Hailey Portman disappeared?”
The question hung there for a moment.
“Oui, mais . . .” The implication had shocked him into French, and then into a further silence.
“Who was he?”
Grasset shrugged. “I don’t know. The apartment is owned by a company.”
“Called?”
“BGS, that’s all. I think probably financial—Monsieur Gibson I could imagine in finance, or hedge funds perhaps. Today, everyone is in hedge funds.”
“What did Gibson look like? Was he friendly, did he have family?”
“He was average height. Quite a young man, but he was losing his hair already. He wore a suit when he went out . . . he was friendly. One day he was wearing glasses and he stopped to tell me he had no more contact lens fluid.”
“When you say ‘young’?”
“Thirty? Maybe younger.”
“Good-looking?”
Grasset looked bemused, as if asking how Finn expected him to judge that. The real question for Finn was whether Gibson was young or attractive enough to appeal to a fifteen-year-old girl. He’d have to speak to Ethan and Debbie again, find out how much they’d had to do with their neighbor.
And Jonas—he clearly thought Gibson had something to do with it, or that the apartment did. Finn was briefly struck by the thought that Hailey might not have run very far, that the clothes and the passport might be a distraction from a less glaring truth.
“I imagine you have a key to that apartment, Monsieur Grasset. Would it be possible to take a look inside?”
“I have a key to your apartment, Monsieur Harrington, but I would not have allowed anyone to go in there while you were away.”
Finn smiled. “Of course, I respect that, but this is a corporate owner, not a private one. Last week Mr. Gibson—next week someone else living there. If there was a complaint, you could say one of the neighbors had a concern about the apartment.”
“But they don’t.”
“Actually, they do. See, I think I can hear water running down below.”
Grasset laughed politely, but then grew serious. “Monsieur Harrington, I know you wouldn’t ask if you didn’t think it was important, and as the apartment is empty . . .” He finished the wine in his glass. “But you don’t think this Gibson has something to do with Hailey’s disappearance?”
“I hope not. What I was actually thinking was that Hailey might be using the apartment—that she might have run no farther than across the hall.”
“Ah!” Grasset was impressed.
Finn drained his glass while Grasset went and got the key, and they took the elevator up to the floor where the Portmans lived. Grasset remained silent until they were inside the apartment, perhaps worrying about being seen. Finn was relieved, having feared that the sound of a conversation might have drawn Ethan and Debbie out.
“The removal people came the same day as Monsieur Gibson left, and I checked the apartment—it was as you see now, quite empty.”