The Fear Index

side it had depth, but as one shifted one’s perspective to the front it seemed to dwindle, then vanish entirely. He could not make out whether it was finished or not. It had a certain power, he was forced to concede, but he couldn’t have lived with it himself. It looked too much like a fossilised reptile suspended in an aquarium. His wife would have thought it disgusting.
    A door from the conservatory led out to the garden. It was locked and bolted; no key nearby that he could find. Beyond the thick glass, the lights of Geneva wavered across the lake. A solitary pair of headlights made its way along the Quai du Mont-Blanc.
    Leclerc left the conservatory and returned to the passage. Two more doors led off it. One turned out to be a lavatory containing a big old-fashioned water closet, into which Leclerc took the opportunity to relieve himself, and the other a storage room filled with what appeared to be detritus from the Hoffmanns’ last house: rolls of carpet tied with twine, a bread-making machine, deckchairs, a croquet set, and, at the far end, in pristine condition, a baby’s cot, a changing table, and a clockwork mobile of stars and moons.

3

    Suspicion, the offspring of fear, is eminently characteristic of most wild animals .

    CHARLES DARWIN, The Descent of Man (1871)

    ACCORDING TO THE records subsequently released by the Geneva medical service, the ambulance radioed to report that it was leaving the Hoffmanns’ residence at 5.22. At that hour it was only a five-minute drive through the empty streets of central Geneva to the hospital.
    In the back of the ambulance Hoffmann maintained his refusal to obey regulations and lie down on the bed, but instead sat upright with his legs over the side, brooding and defiant. He was a brilliant man, a rich man, accustomed to being listened to with respect. But now suddenly he found he had been deported to some poorer and less-favoured land: the kingdom of the sick, where every citizen was second class. It irritated him to recall how Gabrielle and Leclerc had looked at him when he had showed them The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals – as if the obvious connection between the book and the attack was merely the fevered product of an injured brain. He had brought the volume with him; it was resting in his lap; he tapped his finger against it restlessly.
    The ambulance swerved around the corner and the female attendant put out her hand to steady him. Hoffmann scowled at her. He had no confidence in the Geneva police or in government departments generally. He had no confidence in anyone much, except himself. He searched his dressing gown pockets for his mobile.
    Gabrielle, watching him from the opposite seat, next to the ambulance woman, said, ‘What are you doing?’
    ‘I’m calling Hugo.’
    She rolled her eyes. ‘For God’s sake, Alex …’
    ‘What? He needs to know what’s happened.’ As Hoffmann listened to the number ringing, he reached over and took her hand to mollify her. ‘I’m feeling much better, really.’
    Eventually Quarry came on the line. ‘Alex?’ For once his normally languid voice was strained with anxiety: when is a phone call before dawn ever good news? ‘What the hell is it?’
    ‘Sorry to call this early, Hugo. We’ve had an intruder.’
    ‘Oh, God, I’m so sorry. Are you all right?’
    ‘Gabrielle’s okay. I got a whack on the head. We’re in an ambulance going to the hospital.’
    ‘Which hospital?’
    ‘The university, I think.’ Hoffmann looked at Gabrielle for confirmation. She nodded. ‘Yeah, the university.’
    ‘I’m on my way.’
    A couple of minutes later the ambulance swept up the approach road to the big teaching hospital. Through the smoked-glass window Hoffmann briefly glimpsed its scale – a huge place: ten floors, lit up like some great foreign airport terminal in the darkness – then the lights vanished as if a curtain had been pulled across them. The ambulance descended along a gently circling subterranean passage and pulled to a halt. The engine was cut. In the silence, Gabrielle gave him a reassuring smile and Hoffmann thought: Abandon hope all ye who enter here . The rear doors swung open on to what looked like a spotlessly clean underground car park. A man shouted in the distance, his voice echoing off the concrete walls.
    Hoffmann was instructed to lie down, and this time he decided not to argue: he had entered into the system; he must submit to its processes. He stretched out, the