Finn didn’t get it. Assuming Anders Tilberg was in Scandinavia, she couldn’t have met him until a few days ago. Finn was fully conversant with the online world, but couldn’t understand how an entirely digital exchange could be described in that way—perhaps it was the twee little heart that troubled him most.
Jonas had clearly seen it at the same time and seemed to tense up like someone braced against a blow, but he sounded oddly casual as he said, “So now we find out who Anders Tilberg is.”
He clicked on a link and another page opened. With some relief, Finn saw that he was a young guy, looking not much older than Jonas. He was studying at Uppsala University, and he was in a relationship with Hailey Portman, a declaration that was in some way still astonishing to Finn.
“So I guess she’s in Uppsala,” said Jonas. He stared at the screen, his hand poised over the mouse, then turned to Finn and asked, as if it were the only thing that intrigued him, “How would you get there on an InterRail pass?”
“I don’t know. Through Germany, naturally, Copenhagen maybe? Then Stockholm. Uppsala’s north of Stockholm.”
“Have you ever been there?”
“Not to Uppsala. But how can they be in a relationship? Allowing for the journey, she could only have been there a day or two.”
Jonas smiled at him. “People of your generation are doing it all the time. So is Hailey, apparently, even though we used to joke about people having virtual friends. I’m sure we could find the whole history of it on here if we wanted to, but that’s not what we’re looking for, is it?”
Finn wondered if Jonas would be able to resist looking at the page again later, in the privacy of his own room. It was hard to know. The only sure thing was that he was an extraordinary kid trapped in that most ordinary of youthful traps: an unrequited love.
Jonas scrolled down the profile page of Anders Tilberg, copied a block of text from a friend, opened a new page and brought up Google Translate, then converted it from Swedish into English. He took his notebook out and scribbled something in it, then repeated the process with another couple of blocks of text. Then he copied a single word and searched for it on Google, making notes the whole time.
Finn looked at the text as it appeared and was highlighted and disappeared, taking in snippets even though Jonas worked remarkably quickly. He understood immediately that Jonas had allowed the puzzle-solving instinct to take over, perhaps as a way of pushing her betrayal to the back of his mind.
Finally, Jonas tore a piece of paper out of his notebook, the contents once again capitalized, and said, “A group of them are meeting for dinner at Domtrappk?llaren—a restaurant next to the cathedral. Someone asked him when they’d get to meet Hailey. He said they’d meet her Thursday at the dinner. Sounds like quite a few of them are going. Their table’s booked for eight thirty.”
“That’s tomorrow night.”
“Is it too soon? I could look for something else, maybe an address, though I don’t think most people list their addresses.” He looked back at the screen.
“No, I’m sure I’ll be able to get a flight out tomorrow.”
Jonas started tapping away at the keyboard as he said, “Of course, it would make more sense for Mr. and Mrs. Portman to go, or for them to alert the police, but I guess you want to go because you want the memory stick.”
“And because we haven’t found her yet. We have an idea where she might be tomorrow, but not where she’s staying.” Jonas was looking at him with a knowing smile. “But yes, I want the memory stick.”
Jonas pointed at the screen. “There’s a flight out of Geneva just after midday tomorrow.”
“You’re good at this.”
He smiled, then asked, “What will you do with it? The memory stick, I mean?”
Finn shrugged. “Try to find out why they’re watching me, what they want, who they are. But I don’t want you thinking I’ve only searched for Hailey because of the memory stick. I could have looked into who these people are just by using the notes you gave me—running an information trail on BGS.”
“What’s BGS?”
“The company that rented Gibson’s apartment.”
Jonas tapped the keys without even looking, then glanced at the screen and did a double take. “British Geological Survey?”
Finn laughed. “No, some things aren’t quite as easy as doing a Google search. But anyway, don’t worry, I’ll find out what’s going on, and in truth it’s probably nothing.”
Jonas looked thoughtful for a moment, and stared at the screen as if expecting something new to appear there. He shut down some of the pages, then logged out of Facebook.
“Are you a bit disappointed?”
Finn said, “What do you mean?”