The Fear Index

here. The least you can do is talk to me.’
    ‘Why are you so interested in me?’
    ‘Because I gather you’re developing some very interesting software. A colleague of mine at AmCor said he’d spoken to you.’
    ‘Yeah, and I told him I’m not interested in working for a bank.’
    ‘Neither am I.’
    For the first time Hoffmann had glanced at him with a hint of interest. ‘So what do you want to do instead?’
    ‘I want to set up a hedge fund.’
    ‘What’s a hedge fund?’
    Sitting opposite Leclerc, Quarry threw back his head and laughed. Here they were today with ten billion dollars – soon to be twelve billion dollars – in assets under management, yet only eight years ago Hoffmann had not even known what a hedge fund was! And although a crowded, noisy New Year’s Eve party was probably not the best place to attempt an explanation, Quarry had had no choice. He had shouted the definition into Hoffmann’s ear. ‘It’s a way of maximising returns at the same time as minimising risks. Needs a lot of mathematics to make it work. Computers.’
    Hoffmann had nodded. ‘Okay. Go on.’
    ‘Right.’ Quarry had glanced around, searching for inspiration. ‘Right, you see that girl over there, the one in that group with the short dark hair who keeps looking at you?’ Quarry had raised the cognac bottle to her and smiled. ‘Right, let’s say I’m convinced she’s wearing black knickers – she looks like a black-knickers kind of a gal to me – and I’m so sure that that’s what she’s wearing, so positive of that one sartorial fact, I want to bet a million dollars on it. The trouble is, if I’m wrong, I’m wiped out. So I also bet she’s wearing knickers that aren’t black, but are any one of a whole basket of colours – let’s say I put nine hundred and fifty thousand dollars on that possibility: that’s the rest of the market; that’s the hedge. This is a crude example, okay, in every sense, but hear me out. Now if I’m right, I make fifty K, but even if I’m wrong I’m only going to lose fifty K, because I’m hedged. And because ninety-five per cent of my million dollars is not in use – I’m never going to be called on to show it: the only risk is in the spread – I can make similar bets with other people. Or I can bet it on something else entirely. And the beauty of it is I don’t have to be right all the time – if I can just get the colour of her underwear right fifty-five per cent of the time I’m going to wind up very rich. She really is looking at you, you know.’
    She had called across the room, ‘Are you guys talking about me?’ Without waiting for a reply, she had detached herself from her friends and come over to them, smiling. ‘Gabby,’ she had said, sticking out her hand to Hoffmann.
    ‘Alex.’
    ‘And I’m Hugo.’
    ‘Yes, you look like a Hugo.’
    Her presence had irritated Quarry, and not only because she so obviously had eyes only for Hoffmann and no interest in him. He was still mid-pitch, and as far as he was concerned her role in this conversation was strictly as illustration, not participant. ‘We were just making a bet,’ he said sweetly, ‘on the colour of your knickers.’
    Quarry had made very few social mistakes in his life, but this was, as he freely acknowledged, a beaut. ‘She’s hated me ever since.’
    Leclerc smiled and made a note. ‘But your relationship with Dr Hoffmann was established that night?’
    ‘Oh yes. Now I look back on it, I’d say he was waiting for someone like me just as much as I was looking for someone like him.’
    At midnight the guests had gone out into the garden and lit small candles – ‘you know, those tea-light things’ – and put them into paper balloons. Dozens of softly glowing lanterns had lifted off, rising quickly in the cold still air like yellow moons. Someone had called out, ‘Make a wish!’ and Quarry, Hoffmann and Gabrielle had all stood together silently with their faces upturned, misty-breathed, until the lights had dwindled to the size of stars and disappeared. Afterwards Quarry had offered to drive Hoffmann home, whereupon Gabrielle, to his irritation, had tagged along, sitting in the back seat and giving them her life story without being asked for it – some kind of joint degree in art and French from a northern university Quarry had never heard of, a masters at the Royal College of Art, secretarial college, temp jobs, the UN. But even she had shut up when they got inside