The Fear Index

by Robert Harris

  ‘Artificial intelligence. But again, you’d have to ask him about the details. I’m afraid it’s always been way over my head.’

  Leclerc paused.

  ‘Has he sought psychiatric help, do you know?’

  The question startled her. ‘Not that I’m aware. Why do you ask?’

  ‘It’s just that I gather he suffered a nervous breakdown when he was at CERN, which someone there told me is the reason why he left. I wondered if there’d been any recurrence.’

  She realised she was staring at him with her mouth open. She clamped her jaw shut.

  He was studying her closely. He said, ‘I’m sorry. Have I spoken out of turn? You didn’t know that?’

  She recovered her composure just enough to lie. ‘Well, of course I knew about it – I knew something about it.’ She was aware of how unconvincing she sounded. But what was the alternative? To admit that her husband was mostly a mystery to her – that an immense amount of what occupied his mind every day had always been impenetrable territory for her, and that this unknowable quality was both what had attracted her to him in the first place and what had frightened her ever since? ‘So you’ve been checking up on Alex?’ she said in a brittle voice. ‘Shouldn’t you be trying to find the man who attacked him?’

  ‘I have to investigate all the facts, madame,’ said Leclerc primly. ‘It may be that the assailant knew your husband in the past or had a grudge against him. I merely asked an acquaintance at CERN – off the record and in the strictest confidence, I do assure you – why he had left.’

  ‘And this person said he had had a breakdown, and now you think Alex may be making up this whole story about a mysterious attacker?’

  ‘No, I’m simply trying to understand all the circumstances.’ He emptied his glass in one swig. ‘I’m sorry – I should let you get back to your party.’

  ‘Would you like another drink?’

  ‘No.’ He pressed his fingers to his mouth and suppressed a burp. ‘I must get on. Thank you.’ He bowed slightly, in an old-fashioned way. ‘It really has been most interesting to see your work.’ He stopped and stared again at the executed murderer in his glass box. ‘What exactly did he do, this poor fellow?’

  ‘He killed an old man who caught him stealing his electric blanket. Shot him and stabbed him. He was on death row for twelve years. When his last appeal for clemency was turned down, he was executed by lethal injection.’

  ‘Barbaric,’ muttered Leclerc, although whether he meant the crime, the punishment, or what she had made out of it, she was not entirely sure.

  AFTERWARDS LECLERC SAT in his car on the opposite side of the street, his notebook on his knee, writing down as much of what he had just been told as he could remember. Through the window of the gallery he could see people milling around Gabrielle, her small dark figure lent an occasional touch of glamour by a camera flash. He decided he rather liked her, which was more than he could say for her exhibition. Three thousand francs for a few bits of glass with a horse’s skull scribbled on them? He blew out his cheeks. Dear God, one could buy a decent working animal – the whole thing, mark you, not just the head – for half that amount.

  He finished writing and flicked back and forth through his notes, as if by a process of random association he might find some clue that had so far eluded him. His friend at CERN had taken a quick look at Hoffmann’s personnel file and Leclerc had jotted down the highlights: that Hoffmann had joined the team operating the Large Electron–Positron Collider at the age of twenty-seven, one of the few Americans seconded to the project at that time; that his head of section had considered him one of the most brilliant mathematicians on site; that he had switched from the construction of the new particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider, to the design of the software and computer systems needed to analyse the billions of pieces of data generated by the experiments; that after a prolonged period of overwork his behaviour had become sufficiently erratic for his fellow workers to complain, and he had been asked to leave the facility by the security department; and that finally after extensive sick leave his contract had been terminated.

  Leclerc was fairly sure that her husband’s mental breakdown had come as news to Gabrielle Hoffmann: another of her endearing qualities was an obvious inability to lie. So it seemed Hoffmann was a mystery to everyone – his fellow scientists, the financial world, even his wife. He circled the name of Hugo Quarry.

  His thoughts were interrupted by the noise of a powerful engine, and he glanced across the road to see a big charcoal-coloured Mercedes with its headlights on pulling up outside the gallery. Even before it had come to a stop, a bull-like figure in a dark suit jumped out of the front passenger seat, quickly checked the road ahead and behind and then opened the rear door. The people on the pavement, with their drinks and cigarettes, turned round lazily to see who was emerging, then looked away without interest as the unknown newcomer was escorted swiftly through the doors.

  9

  Even when we are quite alone, how often do we think with pleasure or pain of what others think of us – of their imagined approbation or disapprobation; and this all follows from sympathy, a fundamental element of the social instincts. A man who possessed no trace of such instincts would be an unnatural monster.

  CHARLES DARWIN, The Descent of Man (1871)

  HOFFMANN’S NON-EXISTENT PUBLIC profile had not been achieved without effort. One day, quite early in the history of Hoffmann Investment Technologies, when the company still only had about two billion dollars in assets under management, he had invited the partners of Switzerland’s oldest public-relations firm to breakfast at the Hotel Président Wilson and offered them a deal: an annual retainer of 200,000 Swiss francs in return for keeping his name out of the papers. He set only one condition: if by any chance he was mentioned, he would deduct 10,000 francs from their fee; if he was mentioned more than twenty times in a year, they would have to start paying him. After a lengthy discussion, the partners accepted his terms and reversed all the advice they normally gave their clients. Hoffmann made no public charitable donations, attended no gala dinners or industry awards ceremonies, cultivated no journalists, appeared on no newspaper’s rich list, endorsed no political party, endowed no educational institution and gave no lectures or speeches. The occasional curious journalist was steered for background to the hedge fund’s prime brokers, who were always happy to take the credit for its success, or – in cases of extreme persistence – to Quarry. The partners had always kept their full fee and Hoffmann his anonymity.

  It was, therefore, an unusual experience, and frankly an ordeal for him to attend his wife’s first exhibition. From the moment he stepped out of the car and crossed the crowded pavement and entered the noisy gallery, he wished he could turn around and leave. People he suspected he had met before, friends of Gabrielle’s, loomed up and spoke to him, but although he had a mind that could perform mental arithmetic to five decimal places, he had no memory for faces. It was as if his personality had grown lopsided to compensate for his gifts. He heard what others were saying, the usual trite and pointless remarks, but somehow he didn’t take them in. He was conscious of mumbling things in reply that were inappropriate or even downright odd. Offered a glass of champagne, he took water instead, and that was when he noticed Bob Walton staring at him from the other side of the room.

  Walton, of all people!

  Before he could take evasive action, his former colleague was making his way through the crowd towards him, determined to have a word, his hand extended. ‘Alex,’ he said, ‘it’s been a while.’

  ‘Bob.’ He shook his hand coldly. ‘I don’t believe I’ve seen you since I offered you a job and you told me I was the devil come to steal your soul.’

  ‘I don’t think I put it quite like that.’

  ‘No? I seem to recall you made it pretty damn clear what you thought of scientists going to the dark side and becoming quants.’

  ‘Did I really? I’m sorry about that.’ Walton gestured round the ro
om with his drink. ‘Anyway, I’m glad it all turned out so happily for you. And that’s sincerely meant, Alex.’

  He said it with such warmth that Hoffmann regretted his hostility. When he had first come to Geneva from Princeton, knowing no one and with nothing except two suitcases and an Anglo-French dictionary, Walton had been his section head at CERN. He and his wife had taken him under their wing – Sunday lunches, apartment-hunting, lifts to work, even attempts to fix him up with a girlfriend.

  Hoffmann said, with an effort at friendliness, ‘So how goes the search for the God particle?’

  ‘Oh, we’re getting there. And you? How’s the elusive holy grail of autonomous machine reasoning?’

  ‘The same. Getting there.’

  ‘Really?’ Walton raised his eyebrows in surprise. ‘So you’re still going on with it?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Gosh. That’s brave. What happened to your head?’

  ‘Nothing. A silly accident.’ He glanced over towards Gabrielle. ‘I think maybe I ought to go and say hello to my wife …’

  ‘Of course. Forgive me.’ Walton offered his hand again. ‘Well, it’s been good talking to you, Alex. We should hook up properly some time. You’ve got my email address.’

  Hoffmann called after him, ‘Actually, I haven’t.’

  Walton turned. ‘Yes you have. You sent me an invitation.’

  ‘An invitation to what?’

  ‘To this.’

  ‘I haven’t sent any invitations.’

  ‘I think you’ll find you have. Just a second …’

  It was typical of Walton’s academic pedantry, thought Hoffmann, to insist on such a minor point, even when he was wrong. But then to his surprise, Walton handed him his BlackBerry, showing the invitation plainly sent from Hoffmann’s email address.

  Hoffmann said reluctantly, for he too hated to admit an error, ‘Oh, okay. Sorry. I must have forgotten. I’ll see you around.’

  He quickly turned his back on Walton to hide his dismay and went in search of Gabrielle. When he finally managed to get across to her, she said – rather sulkily, he thought – ‘I was starting to think you weren’t coming.’

  ‘I got away as soon as I could.’ He kissed her on the mouth and tasted the sourness of the champagne on her breath.

  A man called out, ‘Over here, Dr Hoffmann,’ and a photographer’s flash went off less than a metre away.

  Hoffmann jerked his head back instinctively, as if someone had flung a cup of acid in his face. Through his false smile he said, ‘What the hell is Bob Walton doing here?’

  ‘How should I know? You’re the one who invited him.’

  ‘Yeah, he just showed me. But you know something? I’m sure I never did that. Why would I? He’s the guy who closed down my research at CERN. I haven’t seen him for years …’

  Suddenly the owner of the gallery was beside him. ‘You must be very proud of her, Dr Hoffmann,’ said Bertrand.

  ‘What?’ Hoffmann was still looking across the party at his former colleague. ‘Oh yes. Yes, I am – very proud.’ He made a concentrated effort to put Walton out of his mind and to think of something appropriate to say to Gabrielle. ‘Have you sold anything yet?’

  Gabrielle said, ‘Thanks, Alex – it isn’t all about money, you know.’

  ‘Yes, okay, I know it isn’t. I was just asking.’

  ‘We have plenty of time yet,’ said Bertrand. His mobile emitted an alert, playing two bars of Mozart. He blinked at the message in surprise, muttered, ‘Excuse me,’ and hurried away.

  Hoffmann was still half-blinded by the camera flash. When he tried to look at the portraits, the centres were voids. Nevertheless, he struggled to make appreciative comments. ‘It’s fantastic to see them all together, isn’t it? You really get a sense of another way of looking at the world. What’s hidden beneath the surface.’

  Gabrielle said, ‘How’s your head?’

  ‘Good. I hadn’t even thought about it till you just mentioned it. I like that one very much.’ He pointed to a nearby cube.

  ‘That’s of you, isn’t it?’

  It had taken her a day simply to sit for it, he remembered, squatting in the scanner like a victim of Pompeii with her knees drawn up to her chest, her head clasped in her hands, her mouth opened wide as if frozen in mid-scream. When she had first shown it to him at home, he had been almost as shocked by it as he had been by the foetus, of which it was a conscious echo.

  She said, ‘Leclerc was here earlier. You just missed him.’

  ‘Don’t tell me they’ve found the guy?’

  ‘Oh no, that wasn’t it.’

  Her tone put Hoffmann on his guard. ‘So what did he want?’

  ‘He wanted to ask me about the nervous breakdown you apparently had when you worked at CERN.’

  Hoffmann wasn’t sure he had heard properly. The noise of all the people talking, bouncing off the whitewashed walls, reminded him of the racket in the computer room. ‘He’s talked to CERN?’

  ‘About the nervous breakdown,’ she repeated more loudly. ‘The one you’ve never mentioned before.’

  He felt winded, as if someone had punched him. ‘I wouldn’t exactly call it a nervous breakdown. I don’t know why he has to drag CERN into this.’

  ‘What would you call it, then?’

  ‘Do we really have to do this now?’ Her expression told him they did. He wondered how many glasses of champagne she had drunk. ‘Okay, I guess we do. I got depressed. I took time off. I saw a shrink. I got better.’

  ‘You saw a psychiatrist? You were treated for depression? And you’ve never mentioned it in eight years?’

  A couple standing nearby turned to stare.

  ‘You’re making something out of nothing,’ he said irritably. ‘You’re being ridiculous. It was before I even met you, for God’s sake.’ And then, more softly: ‘Come on, Gabby, we shouldn’t spoil this.’

  For a moment he thought she was going to argue. Her chin was raised and pointing at him, always a storm signal. Her eyes were glassy, bloodshot – she had not got much sleep either, he realised. But then came a sound of metal rapping on glass.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ called Bertrand. He was holding up a champagne flute and hitting it with a fork. ‘Ladies and gentlemen!’ It was surprisingly effective. A silence quickly fell on the crowded room. He put down the glass. ‘Don’t be alarmed, friends. I’m not going to make a speech. Besides, for artists, symbols are more eloquent than words.’

  He had something in his hand. Hoffmann could not quite see what it was. He walked over to the self-portrait – the one in which Gabrielle was silently screaming – peeled a red spot from the roll of tape concealed in his palm and stuck it firmly against the label. A delighted, knowing murmur spread around the gallery.

  ‘Gabrielle,’ he said, turning to her with a smile, ‘allow me to congratulate you. You are now, officially, a professional artist.’

  There was a round of applause and a general hoisting of champagne glasses in salute. All the tension left Gabrielle’s face. She looked transfigured, and Hoffmann seized the moment to take her wrist and raise her hand above her head, as if she were a boxing champion. There were renewed cheers. The camera flashed again, but this time he managed to make sure his own smile stayed fixed. ‘Well done, Gabby,’ he whispered out of the side of his mouth. ‘You so deserve this.’

  She smiled at him happily. ‘Thank you.’ She toasted the room. ‘Thank you all. And thank you especially whoever bought it.’

  Bertrand said, ‘Wait. I haven’t finished.’

  Next to the self-portrait was the head of a Siberian tiger that had died at the Servion Zoo the previous year. Gabrielle had had its corpse refrigerated until she could get its decapitated skull into an MRI scanner. The etching on glass was lit from below by a blood-red light. Bertrand placed a spot next to that one as well. It had sold for 4,500 francs.

  Hoffmann whispered, ‘Any more of this, and you’ll be making more money than I am.’

&nbs
p; ‘Oh, Alex, shut up about money.’ But he could see she was pleased, and when Bertrand moved on and attached another red spot, this time to The Invisible Man, the 18,000-franc centrepiece of the exhibition, she clapped her hands in delight.

  And if only, Hoffmann thought bitterly afterwards, it had stopped there, the whole occasion would have been a triumph. Why couldn’t Bertrand have seen it? Why couldn’t he have looked beyond his short-term greed and left it at that? Instead he worked his way methodically around the entire gallery, leaving a rash of red spots in his wake – a pox, a plague, an epidemic of pustules erupting across the whitewashed walls – against the horses’ heads, the mummified child from the Berlin Museum für Völkerkunde, the bison’s skull, the baby antelope, the half-dozen other self-portraits, and finally even the foetus: he did not stop until all were marked as sold.

  The effect on the spectators was odd. At first they cheered whenever a red spot was applied. But after a while their volubility began to diminish, and gradually a palpable air of awkwardness settled over the gallery so that in the end Bertrand finished his marking in almost complete silence. It was as if they were witnessing a practical joke that had started out as funny but had gone on too long and become cruel. There was something crushing about such excessive largesse. Hoffmann could hardly bear to watch Gabrielle’s expression as it declined from happiness to puzzlement, to incomprehension, and finally to suspicion.

  He said desperately, ‘It certainly looks as though you have an admirer.’

  She didn’t seem to hear him. ‘Is this all one buyer?’

  ‘It is indeed,’ said Bertrand. He was beaming and rubbing his hands.

  A muted whisper of conversation started up again. People were talking in low voices, apart from an American who said loudly, ‘Well, Jesus, that’s just completely ridiculous.’

  Gabrielle said in disbelief, ‘Who on earth is it?’

  ‘I cannot tell you that, unfortunately.’ Bertrand glanced at Hoffmann. ‘All I can say is “an anonymous collector”.’