The Fear Index

dress – a kind of heavily woven black and fawn toga with a matching hat – waved an immense pink palm in her direction. He was another of Bertrand’s protégés, Nneka Osoba, who specialised in fashioning tribal masks out of Western industrial detritus as a protest against imperialism. ‘Goodbye, Gabrielle!’ he shouted. ‘Well done!’
    ‘Goodbye,’ she called back, forcing a smile. ‘Thank you for coming.’ The door chimed again.
    Bertrand smiled. ‘My dear Gabrielle, you seem not to understand. We are in a legal situation. In an auction, when the hammer comes down, the lot is sold. It’s the same for us in a gallery. When a piece of art is purchased, it’s gone. If you wish not to sell, don’t exhibit.’
    ‘I’ll pay you double,’ said Hoffmann desperately. ‘You’re on fifty per cent commission, so you just made nearly a hundred thousand francs, right? I’ll pay you two hundred thousand if you’ll give Gabrielle her work back.’
    Gabrielle said, ‘Don’t, Alex.’
    ‘That is impossible, Dr Hoffmann.’
    ‘All right, I’ll double it again. Four hundred thousand.’
    Bertrand swayed in his Zen silk slippers, ethics and avarice visibly slugging it out on the smooth contours of his face. ‘Well, I simply don’t know what to say—’
    ‘Stop it!’ shouted Gabrielle. ‘Stop it now, Alex! Both of you! I can’t bear to listen to this.’
    ‘Gabby …’
    But she eluded Hoffmann’s outstretched hands and darted towards the door, pushing between the backs of the departing guests. Hoffmann went after her, shouldering his way through the small crowd. He felt as if it were a nightmare, the way she constantly eluded his grasp. At one point his fingertips brushed her back. He emerged on to the street just behind her, and after a dozen or so paces he finally managed to grab her elbow. He pulled her to him, into a doorway.
    ‘Listen, Gabby …’
    ‘No.’ She flapped at him with her free hand.
    ‘Listen!’ He shook her until she stopped trying to twist away; he was a strong man – it was no effort to him. ‘Calm down. Thank you. Now just hear me out, please. Something very weird is going on. Whoever just bought your exhibition I’m sure is the same person who sent me that Darwin book. Someone is trying to mess with my mind.’
    ‘Oh, come off it, Alex! Don’t start on this again. It’s you who bought everything – I know it is.’ She tried to wriggle free.
    ‘No, listen.’ He shook her again. Dimly he recognised that his fear was making him aggressive, and he tried to calm down. ‘I promise you. It’s not me. The Darwin was bought in exactly the same way – a cash transfer over the internet. I bet you that if we go back in there right now and get Monsieur Bertrand to give us the purchaser’s account number, they’ll match. Now you’ve got to understand that although the account may be in my name, it’s not mine. I know nothing about it. But I’m going to get to the bottom of it, I promise you. Okay. That’s it.’ He released her. ‘That’s what I wanted to say.’
    She stared at him and began slowly massaging her elbow. She was crying silently. He realised he must have hurt her. ‘I’m sorry.’
    She looked up at the sky, gulping. Eventually she got her emotions back under control. She said, ‘You really have no idea, do you, how important that exhibition was to me?’
    ‘Of course I do …’
    ‘And now it’s ruined. And it’s your fault.’
    ‘Come on, Gabrielle, how can you say that?’
    ‘Well it is, Alex, you see, because either you bought everything, out of some kind of mad alpha-male belief that you’d be doing me a favour. Or it was bought by this other person who you say is trying to mess with your mind. Either way, it’s you – again.’
    ‘That’s not true.’
    ‘Okay, so who is this mystery man? Obviously he’s nothing to do with me. You must have some idea. A competitor of yours, is he? Or a client? Or the CIA?’
    ‘Don’t be silly.’
    ‘Or is it Hugo? Is this one of Hugo’s funny public-schoolboy japes?’
    ‘It isn’t Hugo. That’s one thing I am sure of.’
    ‘Oh no, of course not – it couldn’t possibly be your precious bloody Hugo, could it?’ She wasn’t crying any more. ‘What exactly have you turned into, Alex? I mean, Leclerc wanted to know if money was the reason why you left CERN, and I said no. But do you ever stop to listen to yourself these days? Two hundred thousand francs … Four hundred thousand francs