Robert Harris - The Fear Index

He’d decided to make contact on New Year’s Eve: he had figured even a recluse might be forced to put up with company on New Year’s Eve. So he had left Sally and the kids in the chalet in Chamonix – which they had rented together with the Bakers, their perfectly ghastly neighbours in Wimbledon – and, ignoring their reproaches, had driven down the valley alone to Geneva, glad of an excuse to get away. The mountains had been a luminous blue under a three-quarters moon, the roads empty. There was no satellite navigation in the hire car, not in those days, and when he got close to Geneva Airport he had had to pull off the road and look at the Hertz map. Saint-Genis-Pouilly was straight ahead, just past CERN, in flat arable land that glistened in the frost – a small French town, a cafe in its cobbled centre, rows of neat houses with red roofs, and finally a few modern apartment blocks built of concrete in the last couple of years and painted ochre, their balconies festooned with wind chimes, folded-up metal chairs and dead window boxes. Quarry had rung Hoffmann’s doorbell for a long time without getting a response, even though there was a pale strip of light beneath the door and he sensed that someone was inside. Eventually a neighbour had come out and told him that tout le monde par le CERN was at a party in a house near the sports stadium. He had stopped off at a bar on the way and picked up a bottle of cognac, and had driven around the darkened streets until he found it.

More than eight years later he could still remember his excitement as the car locked with its cheerful electronic squawk and he set off down the pavement towards the multicoloured Christmas lights and the thumping music. In the darkness other people, singly and in laughing couples, were converging on the same spot, and he could somehow sense that this was going to be it: that the stars above this dreary little European town were in alignment and some extraordinary event was about to occur. The host and hostess were standing at the door to greet their guests – Bob and Maggie Walton, English couple, older than their guests, dreary. They had looked mystified to see him, and even more so when he told them he was a friend of Alex Hoffmann’s: he got the impression no one had ever said that before. Walton had refused his offer of the bottle of cognac as if it were a bribe: ‘You can take it with you when you leave.’ Not very friendly, but then in fairness he was crashing their party, and he must have looked a misfit in his expensive skiing jacket surrounded by all these nerds on a government salary. He had asked where he might find Hoffmann, to which Walton had replied, with a shrewd look, that he wasn’t quite sure but that presumably Quarry would recognise him when he saw him, ‘if you two are such good friends’.

Leclerc said, ‘And did you? Recognise him?’

‘Oh yes. You can always spot an American, don’t you think? He was on his own in the centre of a downstairs room and the party was kind of lapping around him – he was a handsome guy, stood out in a crowd – but he wasn’t taking any notice of it. He had this look on his face of being somewhere else entirely. Not hostile, you understand – just not there. I’ve pretty much got used to it since then.’

‘And that was the first time you spoke to him?’

‘It was.’

‘What did you say?’

‘“Dr Hoffmann, I presume.”’

He had flourished the bottle of cognac and offered to go and find two glasses, but Hoffmann had said he didn’t drink, to which Quarry had said, ‘In that case why did you come to a New Year’s Eve party?’ to which Hoffmann had replied that several very kind but overprotective colleagues had thought it was best if he was not left on his own on this particular night. But they were quite wrong, he added – he was perfectly happy to be on his own. And so saying he had moved off into another room, obliging Quarry, after a short interval, to follow him. That was his first taste of the legendary Hoffmann charm. He had felt pretty pissed off. ‘I’ve come sixty miles to see you,’ he said, chasing after him. ‘I’ve left my wife and children crying in a hut on a freezing mountainside and driven through the ice and snow to get 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.’