The Fear Index

– a heavyset and mustachioed figure – levered himself out of the front seat as they approached and held a rear door open for them: he has driven me before, thought Hoffmann, and he struggled to remember his name as the distance between them closed.
    ‘Georges!’ He greeted him with relief. ‘Good morning to you, Georges!’
    ‘Good morning, monsieur .’ The chauffeur smiled and touched his hand to his cap in salute as Gabrielle climbed into the back seat, followed by Quarry. ‘ Monsieur ,’ he whispered in a quiet aside to Hoffmann, ‘forgive me, but just so you know, my name is Claude.’
    ‘Right then, boys and girls,’ said Quarry, seated between the Hoffmanns and squeezing the nearest knee of each simultaneously, ‘where is it to be?’
    Hoffmann said, ‘Office,’ just as Gabrielle said, ‘Home.’
    ‘Office,’ repeated Hoffmann, ‘and then home for my wife.’
    The traffic was already building up on the approaches to the city centre, and as the Mercedes turned into the Boulevard de la Cluse, Hoffmann fell into his habitual silence. He wondered if the others had overheard his mistake. What on earth had made him do that? It was not as if he usually noticed who his driver was, let alone spoke to him: car journeys were passed in the company of his iPad, surfing the web for technical research or, for lighter reading, the digital edition of the Financial Times or the Wall Street Journal . It was rare for him even to look out of the window. How odd it felt to do so now, when there was nothing else to occupy him – to notice, for example, for the first time in years, people queuing at a bus stop, seemingly exhausted before the day had properly begun; or the number of young Moroccans and Algerians hanging around on the street corners – a sight that had not existed when he first came to Switzerland. But then, he thought, why shouldn’t they be there? Their presence in Geneva was as much a product of globalisation as his was, or Quarry’s.
    The limousine slowed to make a left. A bell clanged. A tram drew alongside. Hoffmann glanced up absently at the faces framed in the lighted windows. For a moment they seemed to hang motionless in the morning gloom then silently began to drift past him: some gazing blankly ahead, others dozing, one reading the Tribune de Genève , and finally, in the last window, the bony profile of a man in his fifties with a high-domed head and unkempt grey hair pulled into a ponytail. He stayed level with Hoffmann for an instant, then the tram accelerated and in a stink of electricity and a cascade of pale blue sparks the apparition was gone.
    It was all so quick and dreamlike, Hoffmann was not certain what he had seen. Quarry must have felt him jump, or heard him draw in his breath. He turned and said, ‘Are you all right, old friend?’ But Hoffmann was too startled to speak.
    ‘What’s happening?’ Gabrielle stretched back and peered around Quarry’s head at her husband.
    ‘Nothing.’ Hoffmann managed to recover his voice. ‘Anaesthetic must be wearing off.’ He shielded his eyes with his hand and looked out of the window. ‘Turn on the radio, could you?’
    The voice of a female newsreader filled the car, disconcertingly bright, as if her script were unfamiliar to her; she would have announced Armageddon through a smile.
    ‘ The Greek government vowed last night to continue with its austerity measures, despite the deaths of three bank workers in Athens. The three were killed when demonstrators protesting against spending cuts attacked the bank with petrol bombs …’
    Hoffmann was trying to decide whether he was hallucinating or not. If he wasn’t, he ought to call Leclerc at once, and then tell the driver to keep the tram in view until the police arrived. But what if he was imagining things? His mind recoiled from the humiliations that would follow. Worse, it would mean he could no longer trust the signals from his own brain. He could endure anything except madness. He would sooner die than go down that path again. And so he said nothing and kept his face turned from the others, so that they could not see the panic in his eyes, as the radio jabbered on.
    ‘ Financial markets are expected to open down this morning after big falls all week in Europe and America. The crisis has been caused by fears that one or more countries in the eurozone may default on its debts. There have been further steep losses overnight in the Far East …’
    If my mind were an