Finn walked through into one of the bedrooms, then the other, then a procession through all the rooms with Grasset behind him. The apartment was the same layout as Finn’s, and he ended up in the living room. The entire place was empty, with nothing to indicate someone might have been bedding down here for a few nights.
The rooms were almost more than empty, without even the telltale shadows and fittings on the walls to suggest that pictures had once hung there. The polished wooden floorboards completed the effect, giving the apartment a desolate acoustic.
“Isn’t this odd, Monsieur Grasset? When a company owns an apartment, there’s usually some furniture left in place—or at least pictures? Isn’t it quite unusual for a company to give their employee a completely unfurnished flat?”
“No,” said Grasset, unimpressed by the theory. “Perhaps he wanted no furnishings from them.”
Finn pointed at the walls. “He didn’t appear to have a single picture hanging on his walls—not a mark in here.”
“So he didn’t like art, or he was a minimalist. There is nothing suspicious in that.”
“True.” He didn’t want to tell Grasset about Jonas, but the boy’s interest in this apartment had convinced Finn that there was a link, even if only tangential, between Gibson and this apartment and Hailey’s disappearance. “Did the company . . . BGS . . . Did BGS have anyone in here before Gibson?”
“Yes, Gibson was here for a year. Before that, a woman—I can’t remember her name. She was also here for a year. Not very friendly.”
“And before her?”
“No, BGS bought the apartment then. Before that was Madame Schafer . . . you must remember her—such a lovely old lady, but fierce!”
“Yes, I think so.” Finn had no memory at all of Madame Schafer, nor of any old ladies at all—it wasn’t really that kind of building. “There’s nothing suspicious here, I suppose. But I’ll speak to the Portmans again tomorrow, find out how much they had to do with Gibson. Hopefully we can rule him out.”
Except for Jonas, he thought to himself—unless the kid was completely unhinged, his behavior seemed to suggest there was a connection.
“If there is a link, at least we know how to find him.” Finn looked at Grasset, who said, as if stating the obvious, “Through his company, through BGS.”
“Of course.”
They parted in near-silence at the elevator. Grasset descended, and Finn took the stairs back to his apartment. He tried to work but couldn’t, his mind flashing back again and again to the memory of Jonas standing out there in the cold, of his loyal and lonely vigil.
Nor did he sleep well. Having toured Gibson’s empty apartment, he kept hearing noises. At one point, as he slipped into sleep for the first time, he thought he heard footsteps on the wooden floors below, the sound so realistic that he got up to look over the edge of his balcony, to make sure there was no light coming from Gibson’s living room.
He stood for a moment then, braced against the cold, shocked and exhilarated by it, and looked out across the dark lake to the mountains beyond, with their snowy peaks standing out like a painted glass backdrop.
He couldn’t help thinking of Hailey Portman. She should hardly matter to him, because he hadn’t really known the girl, and the family were Adrienne’s friends, not his—and, anyway, nothing much had mattered to him for a long time. But he thought of her all the same.
If she was still alive, then she was out there somewhere. Was she traveling, sleeping rough or in a cheap hotel? Had she reached the place and person she was aiming for? Was she scared and alone—or happy, liberated from a life she’d come to resent or simply tired of?
They were compelling questions, appealing to his natural intellectual curiosity. It was as if, in becoming a mystery, Hailey Portman had become interesting to him in a way she had never been as the lively girl who lived on the floor below. He was intrigued, but also aware that the questions only applied if the first part of it were true—if she was still alive.
Chapter Seven
Finn called on the Portmans the next morning, and could hear voices even as Ethan let him in. He was introduced to a sympathetic-looking policeman, who was just on his way out. The officer assured them before leaving that the police were as keen as anyone to find Hailey.
Once Finn was on his own with Ethan and Debbie, he looked at them properly and felt an ever more urgent need to find their daughter. They seemed to have aged a few years during the course of the night, a decline so rapid that he wondered how long they could go on like this.
For want of anything better, he said, “Well, at least the police are taking it seriously now.”
Debbie’s expression didn’t so much as flicker.
Ethan gave a sardonic smile. “I think the embassy probably put some pressure on them, that’s why we got the visit—the message was still pretty much the same.”
“Oh, I see.”
Debbie emerged out of her torpor and said, “Have you heard from Adrienne?”
Ethan looked at her as if at someone he suspected might be an impostor, so odd did he find the change of subject.