“What will you do?” He looked across at her as she spoke. “If you find out it was someone else, what will you do?”
He realized now that, in some way, too many loose threads had been left hanging six years ago, in the debacle of Sparrowhawk, in his own affairs. But what could really be done? In the real world, lone operators did occasionally try to run up against organizations like that, but they never achieved anything, except perhaps an anonymous death for themselves.
“Let’s just find out what happened first.”
“But . . .”
He looked at her and could see the desperation in her eyes, as if Finn’s actions could somehow undo all of this.
“Hailey, I don’t know what I’ll do, and it’s best you don’t ask, but you can give me some information. What do his parents do?”
“His dad’s a professor at the university, his mom’s a physicist.”
“Names?”
“Sam and Maria. His sister’s called Alice.”
“I don’t think I’ll need to talk to the sister.”
Her voice was laced with contempt as she said, “I just thought you might be interested in knowing her name, as they’ve just had a death in the family.”
“Of course, I’m sorry.” He looked at her. He felt uneasy with himself, fearing that not very much had changed in the last week after all. “Jonas said she was younger.”
“Eleven,” Hailey said, grudgingly allowing him back in. “I can’t imagine what they must be going through.”
Finn nodded. “What would be worse—knowing your son killed himself, or that he’d been murdered?”
She stared at him, helpless, and after a moment she said, “Each has to be devastating in its own way, I guess, but I think murder is worse.” Finn nodded and she added quickly, “But more than anything, I think you would want to know. Wouldn’t you?”
“I think I would.”
She looked at a loss, as if there were too many things here to contemplate, not only the death of Jonas but the question of how he’d died, the equally intractable puzzle of what his family had to be going through. Finn sympathized—it was a puzzle even Jonas might have struggled with.
The car pulled to the side of the road, and he paid and they got out. It was an old building, grand, and inside it had the feel of discreet money, even by Swiss standards.
Sam Frost was quick to open the door when they reached the apartment. Finn had never seen him before, not quite as striking as his son, though there was a resemblance, and a look in his eyes that suggested the life had gone out of them.
Hailey hugged him immediately and then stepped back, grinding her words through a clenched throat as she said, “This is Finn.”
“Thanks for coming over, Finn.” Even though he’d known it in advance, he was surprised by the easy Australian accent.
Finn shook his hand and said, “I’m sorry for your loss—he was an amazing boy.”
Sam nodded, holding the muscles of his face rigid, as if he feared what might happen if he lost control of them.
“Come in.” They stepped into a large entrance hall. It looked like a big apartment. “Maria’s sedated. Her mother came in from Salzburg first thing this morning—she’s looking after Alice.”
Hailey said, “How is she?”
Sam shook his head.
“Go in and see her if you want—she’s in the living room.”
Finn said, “Sam, we’re here—”
“I know, Ethan told me. You don’t think he killed himself.”
“I think that’s a possibility.”
“So do I. I know Jonas was different, the way he thought and all that, but he wouldn’t kill himself. Someone did this to him. It’s the only explanation.”
Finn felt queasy. Far from having to persuade Sam Frost, he sensed how impossible it would be to convince him if it looked as if Jonas had killed himself.
“I need to see his room.”
“This way.” They followed him to a bedroom that once again was large when compared with the apartments Finn and the Portmans lived in. The walls were covered with posters of Escher prints, startling optical illusions that somehow seemed to sum up the boy and the riddle in front of them now. Sam saw him looking and said, “He loved Escher. They’re mostly copies, of course, but some of them are original.”
“Originals?”
“I mean he thought them up himself.” Then, understanding Finn’s confusion, he said, “Jonas drew all of these. He copied most from prints in books, but some are his own designs.”
“That’s amazing,” said Finn, and stepped closer to look at some of the drawings, seeing afresh what a remarkable kid had been lost to the world here.
The room was scrupulously tidy, but he noticed one of his distinctive hats on a chair and was caught unawares by the memory of Jonas’s last words to him, about how he had seven hats but one didn’t fit anymore. The thought of him standing there in the street, calling out an explanation of the hats, ambushed him with emotion.
He put it quickly out of his mind, and turned to a large desktop computer on the other side of the room.