The Fear Index

co-operation.’ He wondered what the financier was trying to hide.
    Quarry backed down immediately. ‘Yes, of course.’
    Inside Hoffmann’s office there was still debris on the floor. The hole in the ceiling gaped above the desk. Leclerc looked up at it in bewilderment. ‘When did this happen?’
    Quarry grimaced with embarrassment, as if having to confess to the existence of a mad relative. ‘About an hour ago. Alex pulled down the smoke detector.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘He believed there was a camera inside.’
    ‘And was there?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Who installed it?’
    ‘Our security consultant, Maurice Genoud.’
    ‘On whose authority?’
    ‘Well …’ Quarry could see no escape. ‘Actually, it turns out to have been Alex.’
    ‘Hoffmann was spying on himself?’
    ‘Yes, apparently. But he couldn’t remember ordering it.’
    ‘And where is Genoud now?’
    ‘I believe he went down to talk to your men when Gana’s body was discovered. He also handles security for this whole building.’
    Leclerc sat at Hoffmann’s desk and started opening the drawers.
    Quarry said, ‘Don’t you need a warrant to do that?’
    ‘No.’ Leclerc found the Darwin book, and the CD from the radiology department of the University Hospital. On the sofa he noticed a laptop lying discarded. He went across and opened it, studied the photograph of Hoffmann, then went into the file of his exchanges with the dead man, Karp. He was so absorbed, he barely glanced up when Ju-Long came in.
    Ju-Long said, ‘Excuse me, Hugo – I think you ought to take a look at what’s happening on the markets.’
    Quarry, frowning, bent over the screen, switching from display to display. The slide was beginning in earnest now. The VIX was going through the roof, the euro sinking, investors pulling out of equities and scrambling for shelter in gold and ten-year Treasury bonds, the yields of which were falling fast. Everywhere money was being sucked out of the market – in electronically traded S&P futures alone, in the space of little more than ninety minutes, buy-side liquidity had dropped from $6 billion to $2.5 billion.
    Here it comes, he thought.
    He said, ‘Inspector, if we’re done here, I need to get back to work. There’s a big sell-off underway in New York.’
    ‘What’s the point?’ asked Ju-Long. ‘We’re not in control anyway.’
    The edge of despair in his voice caused Leclerc to look up sharply.
    ‘We’re having a few technical problems,’ explained Quarry. He could see the suspicion on Leclerc’s face. It would be a nightmare if the police inquiry moved on from Hoffmann’s mental breakdown to the breakdown of the entire company. The regulators would be all over them by morning. ‘It’s nothing to worry about, but I ought just to talk to our computer people …’
    He started to move from the desk, but Leclerc said firmly: ‘Wait, please.’ He was looking out over the trading floor. Until that moment he hadn’t really registered that the company itself might be in difficulties. But now he noticed, in addition to the anxious groups of employees, several others scurrying around. There was a definite message of panic in their body language, which at first he had ascribed to the death of their colleague and the disappearance of their leader, but now he realised it was separate to that, wider. ‘What sort of technical problems?’ he asked.
    There was a brief knock on the door and a gendarme stuck his head into the room.
    ‘We’ve got a trace on the stolen car.’
    Leclerc swung round to face him.
    ‘Where is it?’
    ‘A guy at a petrol station in Zimeysa just called. Someone matching Hoffmann’s description driving a black BMW just bought a hundred litres of fuel.’
    ‘A hundred litres? My God, how far is he planning to go?’
    ‘That’s why the guy called. He says he didn’t put it in the tank.’

    FIFTY-FOUR ROUTE DE CLERVAL turned out to be at the end of a long road that took in a cargo-handling facility and a waste-recycling plant before dwindling into a cul-de-sac beside the railway tracks. The building stood out pale in the dusk through a screen of trees: a boxy steel structure, two or three storeys high – it was difficult for him to estimate the height in the absence of any windows – with security lights mounted along the edge of the roof and video cameras protruding from the corners. They turned to follow Hoffmann as he passed. A small slip road led up to a set of metal gates; beyond was an empty