Castle reached into his briefcase again and pulled out two folders, sliding one across the table to Finn, the other to Louisa. They opened them simultaneously, and Louisa started talking. But as important as it was for him to listen, a part of Finn was distracted, wishing for more time, to think through the consequences of this operation for the other things he’d planned, for Sofi, for Katerina.
Most of all, he wished he had more time to think through whether this stacked up in any way that was good for him. Just as he had one foot out of the door, he was being asked to step back inside, to put himself on the line in a complex and potentially dangerous operation, and he couldn’t help but wonder if maybe his resignation had suddenly made him expendable in Louisa’s eyes—expendable in every sense.
Chapter Twelve
Finn had often wondered who still used Internet cafés. The answer seemed to be predominantly a mix of backpackers and immigrants. The place was busy, with a friendly coffeehouse vibe to it. Jonas wasn’t there but came in just as Finn was deciding whether or not to go ahead and book a session.
Once they were sitting down in front of a screen—Jonas on the keyboard, Finn just off to one side like a late learner—Jonas brought up the Facebook homepage and started typing. Finn looked closer; it was Hailey’s email address. Jonas clicked in the password box, then turned to Finn.
“Let’s hope she’s as much a creature of habit as I think she is.”
He smiled, and typed Patch22. He hit the “Enter” button and Hailey Portman’s Facebook homepage appeared before them.
“That’s amazing. How did you know that—Patch22?”
“Hailey’s wanted a dog for as long as I’ve known her, so much that she’s always known exactly what it would look like and what she’d call it. So some time when she had to make a password for a site she tried to use ‘Patch,’ but she needed to use numbers, too, so she used ‘Patch22’—you know, kind of like the novel. She’s used it ever since, for almost everything.” As if he’d completely forgotten the Facebook page in front of him, he said, “Have you read Catch-22?”
Finn shook his head. “Friend of mine at college recommended it to me, but I couldn’t get on with it. I’ve seen the film.” He pointed at the screen and said, “I do have one question. You’re a smart guy—so why didn’t you think of doing this before? You know, you were wandering up and down outside the apartment, but you didn’t think of checking Facebook?”
Jonas glanced at the screen, Finn sensing he almost didn’t want to look at it, perhaps fearing what it might reveal, then said, “I thought about it after we met this afternoon. I guess she made a fool of me because we were meant to be best friends and I didn’t get what was going on, not at all. See, I had an idea she had a Facebook page but I didn’t think it’d tell me anything because I thought she was on the run. I never realized it might be her choice to run away. I was wrong about that. I think maybe I’ve been wrong about a lot of things to do with Hailey.”
The look of resignation on his face was total, as if he couldn’t understand why he’d ever expected any more from her.
Finn nodded. “For what it’s worth, she probably didn’t think it through. People let you down in life, but they don’t usually mean anything by it, it’s just that they’re fallible—weak.”
“Is that why you became corrupt?”
A burst of laughter sounded across the room—three Africans laughing at something on the screen in front of them, full of a joy that struck Finn as nostalgic, tinged with sadness.
Finn smiled. “I shouldn’t have used the word corrupt, but yeah, I suppose it’s why I went off the rails—I was curious, I got off on the machinations of it all, like it was a puzzle or a game, not real life.” He looked at the kid, feeling for him, and said, “I’m sure Hailey will come to her senses sooner or later.”
“We’re just friends.”
“I know.”
Jonas looked at the screen, scrolling down as he said, “I think these are updates by her Facebook friends.”
“Do you know any of them?” Jonas shook his head. Finn noticed the text in a number of the updates, and said, “Quite a few of these are in Swedish or Danish.”
It filled him with a certain degree of hope for her—it was fanciful, perhaps, but he imagined there was less chance of her coming to harm in a Scandinavian country. It also filled him with a strange sense of nostalgia and sadness of his own.
Jonas scrolled back up and said, “I think we need to go to her profile page.”
He hit a button and another page opened, with a picture of Hailey in a hat and sunglasses, skillfully obscuring enough of her face that she could have been any age. There was some information along the top of the page: a line saying she was studying at the University of Geneva; then, after a small heart, another saying she was in a relationship with Anders Tilberg.