Robert Harris - The Fear Index

Herxheimer said, ‘How soon do you require an answer from us?’

Quarry said, ‘We’re looking to hard-close the fund again at the end of this month.’

‘So three weeks?’

‘That’s right.’

Suddenly the atmosphere around the table was serious. Side conversations ceased. Everyone was listening.

‘Well, you can have my answer right now,’ said Easterbrook. He waved his fork in Hoffmann’s direction. ‘You know what I like about you, Hoffmann?’

‘No, Bill. What would that be?’

‘You don’t talk your book. You let your numbers do the speaking. I made up my mind the moment that plane went down. There’ll have to be due diligence and all that crap, blah-blah-blah, but I’m going to recommend that AmCor doubles its stake.’

Quarry glanced quickly across the table at Hoffmann. His blue eyes widened. The tip of his tongue moistened his lips. ‘That’s a billion dollars, Bill,’ he said quietly.

‘I know it’s a billion dollars, Hugo. There was a time when that was a lot of money.’

The listeners laughed. They would remember this moment. It would be an anecdote to savour on the quaysides of Antibes and Palm Beach for years to come: the day old Bill Easterbrook of AmCor put up a billion dollars over lunch and said it used to be a lot of money. The look on Easterbrook’s face suggested he knew what they were thinking; it was the reason he had done it.

‘Bill, that is so generous of you,’ said Quarry hoarsely. ‘Alex and I are overwhelmed.’ He glanced across the table.

‘Overwhelmed,’ repeated Hoffmann.

‘Winter Bay will be in as well,’ said Klein. ‘I can’t say how much exactly – I’m not cleared to Bill’s level – but it will be substantial.’

Lukasinski said, ‘That goes for me too.’

‘And I shall speak to my father,’ said Elmira, ‘and he will do as I say.’

‘Do I take it that the mood of the meeting is that you’re all planning to invest?’ asked Quarry. Murmurs of assent ran around the table. ‘Well, that sounded promising. Can I ask the question a different way – is anyone here not planning to increase their investment?’ The diners looked from one to another; several shrugged. ‘Even you, Etienne?’

Mussard looked up grumpily from his hamburger. ‘Yes, yes, I suppose so, why wouldn’t I? But let’s not discuss it in public, if you don’t mind. I prefer to do things in the traditional Swiss way.’

‘You mean fully clothed with the lights off?’ Quarry rose to his feet on the tide of laughter. ‘My friends, I know we are still eating, but if ever there was a time for a spontaneous toast in the Russian manner – forgive me, Mieczyslaw – then I think this must be it.’ He cleared his throat. He seemed on the point of tears. ‘Dear guests, we are honoured by your presence, by your friendship, and by your trust. I truly believe we are present at the birth of a whole new force in global asset management, the product of the union of cutting-edge science and aggressive investment – or, if you prefer, of God and Mammon.’ More laughter. ‘At which happy event, it seems to me only right that we should stand and raise our glasses to the genius who has made it possible – no, no, not to me.’ He beamed down at Hoffmann. ‘To the father of VIXAL-4 – to Alex!’

With a scrape of chair legs, a chorus of ‘To Alex!’ and a peal of clinking cut glass, the investors stood and toasted Hoffmann. They looked at him fondly – even Mussard managed to curl his lip – and when they had all sat down they carried on nodding and smiling at him until he realised to his dismay that they expected him to respond.

‘Oh no,’ he said.

Quarry urged him softly: ‘Come on, Alexi, just a couple of words, and then it’s all over for another eight years.’

‘Really I can’t.’

But such a good-natured round of ‘No!’ and ‘Shame!’ greeted his refusal that Hoffmann actually found himself getting to his feet. His napkin slid off his lap and on to the carpet. He rested one hand on the table to steady himself and tried to think of what he might say. Almost absently he glanced out of the window at the view – which, because he was now elevated, had widened to take in not only the opposite shore, the towering fountain and the inky waters of the lake but also the promenade where the Empress had been stabbed, directly beneath the hotel. The Quai du Mont-Blanc is especially wide at this point. It forms a kind of miniature park with lime trees, benches, small trimmed lawns, elaborate belle epoque street lamps and dark green topiary. A semicircular embankment with a stone balustrade radiates out into the water, leading down to a jetty and a ferry station. On this particular afternoon a dozen people were queuing at the white metal kiosk for ferry tickets. A young woman with a red baseball cap skated by on rollerblades. Two men in jeans were walking a large black poodle. Finally Hoffmann’s eyes came to rest upon a skeletal apparition draped in a brown leather coat standing under one of the pale green limes. His skull was gaunt and very white, as if he had just vomited or fainted, and his eye sockets were deeply shadowed by his bulging forehead, from which all his hair had been scraped back into a tight grey ponytail. He was gazing directly up at the window from which Hoffmann was looking down.

Hoffmann’s limbs locked. For several long seconds he was unable to move. Then he took an involuntary step backwards, knocking over his chair. Quarry, staring at him in alarm, said, ‘Oh God, you’re going to faint,’ and began to rise, but Hoffmann held up his hand to ward him off. He took another step away from the table and his feet became entangled in the legs of the upended chair. He stumbled and almost fell, but that seemed to those watching to break whatever spell he was under, for suddenly he kicked the chair sideways out of his path and turned and ran towards the door.

Hoffmann was barely conscious of the astonished exclamations swelling behind him, or of Quarry calling his name. He ran out into the mirrored corridor and down the sweep of staircase, grabbing the handrail to pivot around the landings. At the bottom he jumped the last few steps, sprinted past his bodyguard – who was talking to the concierge – and out on to the promenade.

Across the wide highway the pavement beneath the lime was empty. Hoffmann halted amid the rows of guests’ luggage, looked left and right, and swore. The doorman asked if he wanted a taxi. Hoffmann ignored him and walked straight past the front of the hotel to the street corner. Ahead was a sign, HSBC Private Bank; to his left, running parallel with the side of the Beau-Rivage, a narrow one-way thoroughfare, the Rue Docteur-Alfred-Vincent. For want of a better idea he set off down it, jogging about fifty metres, past scaffolding, a line of parked motorbikes and a small church. At the end was a crossroads. He stopped again.

A block further along, a figure in a brown coat was crossing the road. The man paused when he got to the other side and glanced back at Hoffmann. It was him, no question of it. A white van passed between them and he was gone, limping off down a side street.

And now Hoffmann ran. A great righteous energy flooded his body, propelling his legs in long, fast strides. He sprinted to the spot where he had last seen the man. It was another one-way street; once again he had vanished. He ran down it to the next junction. The roads were narrow, quiet, not much traffic, a lot of parked cars. Wherever he looked there were small businesses – a hairdresser’s, a pharmacy, a bar – people going about their lunchtime shopping. He spun around hopelessly, turned right, ran, turned right again, working his way through the narrow maze of one-way streets, reluctant to give up but increasingly sure that he had lost him. The area around him changed. He registered it only vaguely at first. The buildings turned shabbier; more were derelict, sprayed with graffiti; and then he was in a different city. A teenaged black woman in a tight sweater and white plastic micro-skirt shouted at him from across the road. She was standing outside a shop with a purple neon sign, VIDEO CLUB XXX. Ahead, three more very obvious hookers, all black, patrolled the kerbside while their pimps smoked in doorways or observed the women from the street corner: young, small, thin men with olive skin and cropped black hair – north Africans, maybe, or Albanians.