The Fear Index

there was any sign of gynaecologists or lawyers. Gabrielle couldn’t stand him.
    Nevertheless, the crisis made them temporary allies. While Hoffmann was having his wound stitched up, Quarry fetched a cup of sweet milky coffee for her from the machine along the corridor. He sat with her in the tiny waiting room, with its hard wooden chairs and its galaxy of plastic stars gleaming from the ceiling. He held her hand and squeezed it at appropriate moments. He listened to her account of what had happened. When she recited Hoffmann’s subsequent oddities of behaviour, he reassured her that all would be well: ‘Let’s face it, Gabs, he’s never been exactly normal , has he, even at the best of times? We’ll get this sorted out, don’t worry. Just give me ten minutes.’
    He called his assistant and told her he would need a chauffeured car at the hospital immediately. He woke the company’s security consultant, Maurice Genoud, and brusquely ordered him to attend an emergency meeting at the office within the hour, and to send someone over to the Hoffmanns’ house. Finally he managed to get himself put through to Inspector Leclerc and persuaded him to agree that Dr Hoffmann would not be required to attend police headquarters to make a statement immediately he left hospital: Leclerc accepted that he had already taken sufficiently detailed notes to form a continuous narrative, which Hoffmann could amend where necessary and sign later in the day.
    Throughout all this, Gabrielle watched Quarry with reluctant admiration. He was so much the opposite of Alex – good-looking and he knew it. His affected southern English manners also got on her Presbyterian northern nerves. Sometimes she wondered if he might be gay, and all his thoroughbred girls more for show than action.
    ‘Hugo,’ she said very seriously, when he finally got off the phone, ‘I want you to do me a favour. I want you to order him not to go into the office today.’
    Quarry took her hand again. ‘Darling, if I thought my telling him would do any good, I would. But as you know, at least as well as I, once he gets set on doing a thing, he invariably does it.’
    ‘And is it really so important, what he has to do today?’
    ‘It is, quite.’ Quarry twisted his wrist very slightly, so that he could read the time on his watch without letting go of her hand. ‘I mean, nothing that can’t be put off if his health really is at stake, obviously. But if I’m honest with you, it would definitely be better to go ahead than not. People have come a long way to see him.’
    She pulled her hand away. ‘You want to be careful you don’t kill your golden goose,’ she said bitterly. ‘That definitely would be bad for business.’
    ‘Don’t think I don’t know it,’ said Quarry pleasantly. His smile crinkled the skin around his deep blue eyes; his lashes, like his hair, were sandy. ‘Listen, if I start to think for one moment that he’s seriously endangering himself, I’ll have him back home and tucked up in bed with Mummy within fifteen minutes. And that’s a promise. And now,’ he said, looking over her shoulder, ‘if I’m not mistaken, here comes our dear old goose, with his feathers half plucked and ruffled.’
    He was on his feet in an instant. ‘My dear Al,’ he said, meeting him halfway across the corridor, ‘how are you feeling? You look very pale.’
    ‘I’ll be a whole lot better once I’m out of this place.’ Hoffmann slipped the CD into his overcoat pocket so that Gabrielle could not see it. He kissed her on the cheek. ‘Everything’s going to be fine now.’

    THEY MADE THEIR way through the main reception. It was nearly half past seven. Outside, the day had turned up at last: overcast and cold and reluctant. The thick rolls of cloud hanging over the hospital were the same shade of grey as brain tissue, or so it appeared to Hoffmann, who was now seeing the CAT scan wherever he looked. A gust of wind swirled across the circular concourse and wrapped his raincoat around his legs. A small but egalitarian group of smokers, white-coated doctors and patients in their dressing gowns, stood outside the main door, huddled against the unseasonable May weather. In the sodium lighting their cigarette smoke whirled and disappeared amid flecks of raindrops.
    Quarry found their car, a big Mercedes owned by a discreet and reliable Geneva limousine service under contract to the hedge fund. It was parked in a bay reserved for the disabled. The driver