His own people! He didn’t have any people, not anymore. There was no one he could contact, no one who could help him find out what was going on. He could hardly put in a call to Louisa Whitman to ask if they’d had him under surveillance for the last year.
He neared his building and saw Ethan Portman standing in the window of their apartment. He seemed to respond to Finn’s appearance, and walked rapidly away. Finn hoped he wasn’t about to be intercepted. He needed time on his own, space to think through his own problems, not theirs, and only as he stepped into the elevator did he acknowledge to himself that the two were related.
How did he tell the Portmans about that? How did he tell them that their daughter’s disappearance might be linked to his own past? The simple answer was that he wouldn’t, that for the time being he would deploy the truth the same way he always had—to his own ends.
The elevator reached the floor below his and stopped. The door opened and, as he’d suspected, Ethan Portman was standing there.
“Hey, Finn, sorry to trouble you, but you did say to tell you if we found out anything.”
Ethan kept his finger on the button but stepped aside, suggesting it wasn’t a piece of information that could be quickly exchanged before allowing Finn on his way.
“Of course,” said Finn. He stepped out and followed Ethan back to the Portmans’ apartment.
Debbie Portman was sitting exactly as he’d last seen her, as if she hadn’t moved at all in the intervening period. She’d merely eroded a little more, become less herself. She struggled to find a smile for him.
Ethan said, “Sit down, Finn.” He reached into his pocket and took out a small piece of paper. “I spotted this in Hailey’s room earlier. It had fallen between the bed and the bedside table, and I guess she didn’t notice it.”
He held out the piece of paper, and Finn took it and studied it. She’d bought a hundred euros. He looked at Debbie, then up at Ethan, trying to gauge what this meant to them—a source of new hopes or of new fears.
Ethan sat down, and sounded like someone who’d found a big lead as he said, “It means she isn’t in Switzerland, but it’s not a lot of cash, so maybe she’s close by—France or Italy, Germany . . .”
“She could be anywhere,” said Debbie in a defeated tone.
She was right, too, though Finn wasn’t sure how even the three countries already mentioned could fill Ethan with any hope—he was talking about three large countries, all of which had their seedy corners.
“This is one receipt. There could be another five that she didn’t drop. Even if it’s the only one, she could be anywhere in the euro area—if she got a bus or a train from here, she wouldn’t need to use a lot of money until she got to where she was going.”
Ethan looked deflated.
They looked as though they needed to be left alone, but now that Finn was here he was eager to move things on. “I spoke to Jonas this evening—it seems there are a few things you didn’t tell me.”
They both looked at him, even Debbie appearing more alert in response.
Ethan said, “I don’t understand—what things?”
“I asked about your involvement with Gibson. Jonas says that a couple of weeks ago Gibson knocked on your door and asked if Hailey might have accidentally accessed his network.”
It was immediately obvious that it was true. Debbie looked horrified, seeing the incident in a new light, perhaps wondering if it should have been mentioned to the police. Ethan looked dismissive, but it was a veneer, not quite masking his nervous lack of certainty.
“It slipped our minds, I guess, no more than that. But Finn, it was nothing, he just knocked on the door one night, mentioned it, and that was it. He didn’t come in, didn’t seem unduly upset or concerned.”
“Did you ask Hailey if it was true?”
“Of course! It wasn’t.”
“It was,” said Finn. They looked shocked, defensive, and fearful. “Don’t worry about it—it’s the kind of thing kids do. Hailey and Jonas hacked into Gibson’s network, just to prove to themselves that they could.” Ethan looked ready to respond but Finn said, “You didn’t tell me that Hailey thought someone had searched her room.”
Debbie laughed, suddenly animated. “Finn, it was just some random comment she made—said and then forgotten. If you had children you’d soon learn to pay little attention to such things.”
“True, until that child disappears, leaving a note that you believe suggested she was in danger. As it happens, I don’t agree with that interpretation of the note, but given that you do, I’m amazed that you wouldn’t mention either of these things.”
He thought of bringing up the third omission, but didn’t, because he was certain they would have told him and the police if their daughter had claimed she’d been followed by a car. In truth, his instinct told him that both the curb-crawling car and the break-in had been fabricated by Hailey to justify her disappearance.
Debbie’s eyes were glistening now and Ethan shook his head slowly, as if they were both struggling to come to terms with their own petty failings.