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“Do you know if she has a boyfriend?”
Shrugging shoulders.
They communicate in this strange way until Yasira has played the prelude twice. Then she gives up. Emil knows just as little about his sister’s whereabouts as his father does.
“That’s a beautiful piece you’re playing,” she says as they say goodbye. “Sad, but beautiful.”
In the hallway, she turns to Frank Palmer again. “If it’s all right with you, we’ll send a forensics team to go through Lena’s room thoroughly. It’s unlikely, I know, but we might find some fingerprints or DNA traces that don’t belong there.”
Frank Palmer just nods, resigned to his fate.
Yasira hands him her business card.
“If you think of anything else. Anything at all—give me a call.”
Lena’s father nods again.
“Could you...” he begins. “Could you tell the press to leave us alone?”
“Of course,” says Michael. “I can’t tell them to leave, but we’ll make it very clear that you’re not interested in an interview.”
At the front door, Yasira, following an impulse, asks Frank Palmer one last question: “Have you heard of Active Homeland-Protection? About a man who calls himself Bear?”
Palmer shakes his head.
“Should I? Means nothing to me. Never heard of it.”
On the short drive from the Palmers’ to their hotel, Yasira almost falls asleep. She finds conversations like this incredibly draining. In response to Michael’s usual question, she just shakes her head. No hotel bar today. It’s been a long day. Instead, Yasira goes to her small room. Although she’s terribly tired, she digs through Lena’s computer. She used it mainly for school. The most telling data, photos, chats, and contacts are still slumbering in her uncracked phone.
Shortly after eleven, she closes Lena’s laptop and reads through her team’s reports on her cell phone. Everyone has been working overtime and yet so far they have not been able to establish the identity of even one of the four perpetrators. Katja Jürgens writes that they are of course continuing their search, but now fear that there may be no data on the perpetrators. There could be any number of reasons for this. The most likely are illegal entry or, of course, failure on the part of the authorities. Yasira bets on the latter.
There’s little concrete information about the uploader either; it’s apparently a trail that was deliberately obscured—that much Jenny can already tell. To make matters worse, there are countless copies. “IP hopping,” “proxy server,” and “gate network” are just three of the enigmatic technical terms Jenny’s email is teeming with. About communicating with YouTube, she writes: “It’s the house that makes crazy people.” At least that, Yasira understands.
Even though she’s very tired, she knows she’ll have trouble falling asleep. So she decides to take a hot bath to relax. She has just undressed when her phone rings.
It’s Frank Palmer.
“Hello Mr. Palmer,” she says, “what can I do for you?”
“I... I,” Palmer stammers. “I got a ransom demand.”
THE INFINITE CRUELTY
A ransom demand? Yasira is surprised. “Would you like us to come over?” she asks.
“No, no!” shouts Frank Palmer. “Absolutely not! The letter says not to call the police or they’ll kill Lena.”
“Of course,” says Yasira, “that’s what it always says in letters like this.” She puts on the hotel bathrobe. This conversation could take a while. “But you’re doing the right thing by informing us.”
“Maybe, but please don’t come by. What if the kidnappers are watching my house?”
“I’m pretty sure they’re not,” says Yasira. “That would be very risky for the kidnappers. But of course we will respect your wishes and stay away. How did you receive the ransom demand?”
“An email.”
“Can you send me a copy of it as soon as possible?”
“I’ll forward it to you.” For a brief moment, Yasira hears Frank Palmer typing on his keyboard. Then the familiar sound of a MacBook sending an email. Yasira has already opened her own notebook in the meantime.
