Robert Harris - The Fear Index

‘Neither. Alex invited me.’

‘ Alex? ’ She did a double-take. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know Alex sent out any invitations. It’s not the kind of thing he does.’

‘I was a little surprised myself. Especially as the last time we met we had something of a disagreement. And now I have come to make amends and he isn’t here. Never mind. I like your work.’

‘Thank you.’ She was still trying to assimilate the idea that Alex might have invited a guest of his own, and without telling her. ‘Perhaps you’ll buy something.’

‘I fear the prices are somewhat beyond the means of a CERN salary.’ And for the first time he gave her a smile – all the warmer for being so rare, like a flash of sun on a grey landscape. He put his hand into his breast pocket. ‘If you ever feel like making art out of particle physics, give me a call.’ He gave her his card. She read:

Professor Robert WALTON

Computing Centre Department Head

CERN – European Organisation for Nuclear Research

1211 Geneva 23 – Switzerland

‘That sounds very grand.’ She slipped the card into her pocket. ‘Thank you. I might well do that. So tell me about you and Alex-’

‘Darling, you are clever,’ said a woman’s voice behind her. She felt someone squeeze her elbow and turned to find herself confronted by the wide pale face and large grey eyes of Jenny Brinkerhof, another Englishwoman in her mid-thirties married to a hedge-fund manager. (Geneva had started to teem with them, Gabrielle had noticed: economic migrants from London, fleeing the UK’s new fifty per cent tax rate. All they seemed to talk about was how hard it was to find decent schools.)

She said, ‘Jen, how lovely of you to come.’

‘How lovely of you to invite me.’

They kissed and Gabrielle swung round to introduce her to Walton, but he had moved on and was talking to the man from the Tribune. This was the trouble with drinks parties: getting stuck with a person you didn’t want to talk to while someone you did was tantalisingly in view. She wondered how long it would be before Jen mentioned her children.

‘I do so envy you just having the sheer space in your life to do something like this. I mean, if there’s one thing that having three kids just absolutely kills, it’s the creative spark…’

Over her shoulder Gabrielle saw an incongruous figure, strange yet familiar, enter the gallery. ‘Excuse me a minute, Jen, would you?’ She slipped away and went over to the door. ‘Inspector Leclerc?’

‘Madame Hoffmann.’ Leclerc shook her hand politely.

She noticed he had on the same clothes he had been wearing at four in the morning: dark windcheater, a white shirt now distinctly grey around the collar, and a black tie that he had knotted unfashionably close to the thick end, just as her father always did. The stubble of his unshaved cheeks reached up like a silvery fungus towards the black pouches beneath his eyes. He looked utterly out of place. One of the waitresses approached with a tray of champagne, which Gabrielle assumed he would refuse – wasn’t that what policemen did when they were on duty: refuse alcohol? – but Leclerc, brightening, said, ‘Excellent, thank you,’ and took the glass cautiously by the stem, as if he feared he might break it. ‘That’s very good,’ he said, taking a sip and smacking his lips. ‘What is it? Eighty francs a bottle?’

‘I couldn’t tell you. My husband’s office arranged it.’

The photographer from the Tribune came over and took their picture standing side by side. Leclerc’s windcheater gave off the musty smell of ancient damp. He waited until the photographer had moved away and then said, ‘Well, I can tell you forensics obtained an excellent set of fingerprints from your mobile telephone and from the knives in the kitchen. Unfortunately we can find no matches in our records. Your intruder does not have a criminal record, in Switzerland at least. Quite the phantom! Now we are checking with Interpol.’ He seized a canape from a passing tray and swallowed it whole. ‘And your husband? Is he here? I can’t see him anywhere.’

‘Not yet. Why? Do you want him?’

‘No, I came to see your work.’

Guy Bertrand sidled over, plainly curious. She had told him about the break-in. ‘Is everything okay?’ he asked, and Gabrielle found herself introducing the policeman to the owner of the gallery. Bertrand was a plump young man dressed from head to toe in black silk – Armani T-shirt, jacket, trousers, holistic Zen slippers. He and Leclerc regarded one another with mutual incomprehension; they might have been different species.

‘A police inspector,’ repeated Bertrand, in a tone of wonder. ‘You would be interested in The Invisible Man, I think.’

‘ The Invisible Man?’

‘Let me show you,’ said Gabrielle, grateful of an opportunity to separate them. She led Leclerc over to the largest exhibit, a glass case lit from beneath in which a full-size nude man, apparently composed of pale blue gossamer, seemed to hover just above the ground. The effect was ghostly, disturbing. ‘This is Jim, the invisible man.’

‘And who is Jim?’

‘He was a murderer.’ Leclerc turned sharply to look at her. ‘James Duke Johnson,’ she continued, rather pleased to have elicited this reaction, ‘executed in Florida in 1994. Before he died, the prison chaplain persuaded him to donate his body for scientific research.’

‘And also for public exhibition?’

‘That I doubt. You’re shocked?’

‘I am, I confess.’

‘Good. That’s the effect I wanted.’

Leclerc grunted and set down his champagne. He moved closer to the glass case and put his hands on his hips, staring at it intently. His stomach flopping over his trouser belt reminded her of one of Dali’s melting watches. He said, ‘And how do you achieve this impression of floating?’

‘Trade secret.’ Gabrielle laughed. ‘No, I’ll tell you. It’s quite simple. I take sections from an MRI scan and trace them through very clear glass – two-millimetre Mirogard, the clearest you can get. Only sometimes instead of using pen and ink I use a dentist’s drill to engrave the line. In daylight you can hardly see a mark. But if you shine artificial light on to it from the right angle – well, that’s the effect you get.’

‘Remarkable. And what does your husband think of it?’

‘He thinks I’ve become unhealthily obsessed. But then he has obsessions of his own.’ She finished her glass of champagne. Everything seemed pleasantly heightened – colours, noises, sensations. ‘You must think we’re a pretty strange couple.’

‘Believe me, madame, my work brings me into contact with people far stranger than you can even begin to imagine.’ Suddenly he turned his bloodshot eyes upon her. ‘Would you mind if I asked you a couple of questions?’

‘Go ahead.’

‘When did you first meet Dr Hoffmann?’

‘I was just remembering that.’ She could see Alex in her mind with perfect clarity. He had been talking to Hugo Quarry – always bloody Quarry in the picture, even right at the start – and she had had to make the first move, but she had drunk enough not to care. ‘That would have been at a party in Saint-Genis-Pouilly, about eight years ago.’

‘Saint-Genis-Pouilly,’ repeated Leclerc. ‘A great many CERN scientists live round there, I believe.’

‘They certainly did then. You see that tall, grey-headed guy over there – Walton, his name is. It was at his house. I went back to Alex’s apartment afterwards and I remember there was nothing in it except computers. It got so hot that one day it showed up on an infrared monitor in a police helicopter and he was raided by the drug squad. They thought he was growing cannabis.’