The Fear Index

had been switched off.
    For a moment he stood panting on the step, imagining the distance he had to cross, calculating his chances, then he lunged towards the staircase, screaming, ‘Gabrielle! Gabrielle!’ and was halfway across the marble floor when the house seemed to explode around him, the stairs tumbling, the floor tiles rising, the walls shooting away from him into the night.

2

    A grain in the balance will determine which individual shall live and which shall die …

    CHARLES DARWIN, On the Origin of Species (1859)

    HOFFMANN HAD NO memory of anything after that – no thoughts or dreams disturbed his normally restless mind – until at last, from out of the fog, like a low spit of land emerging at the end of a long voyage, he became aware of a gradual reawakening of sensations – freezing water trickling down the side of his neck and across his back, a cold pressure on his scalp, a sharp pain in his head, a mechanical jabbering in his ears, the familiar sickly-sharp floral smell of his wife’s perfume – and he realised that he was lying on his side, with something soft against his cheek. There was a pressure on his hand.
    He opened his eyes and saw a white plastic bowl, inches from his face, into which he immediately vomited, the taste of last night’s fish pie sour in his mouth. He gagged and spewed again. The bowl was removed. A bright light was shone into each of his eyes in turn. His nose and mouth were wiped. A glass of water was pressed against his lips. Babyishly, he pushed it away at first, then took it and gulped it down. When he had finished, he opened his eyes again and squinted around his new world.
    He was on the floor of the hall, laid out in the recovery position, his back resting against the wall. A blue police light flashed at the window like a continuous electrical storm; unintelligible chatter leaked from a radio. Gabrielle was kneeling next to him, holding his hand. She smiled and squeezed his fingers. ‘Thank God,’ she said. She was dressed in jeans and a jersey. He pushed himself up and looked around, bewildered. Without his spectacles, everything was slightly blurred: two paramedics, bent over a case of gleaming equipment; two uniformed gendarmes, one by the door with the noisy radio on his belt and another just coming down the stairs; and a third man, tired-looking, in his fifties, wearing a dark blue windcheater and a white shirt with a dark tie, who was studying Hoffmann with detached sympathy. Everyone was dressed except Hoffmann, and it suddenly seemed terribly important to him to put on some clothes as well. But when he tried to rise further, he found he had insufficient strength in his arms. A flash of pain arced across his skull.
    The man in the dark tie said, ‘Here, let me help,’ and stepped forward with his hand outstretched. ‘Jean-Philippe Leclerc, inspector of the Geneva Police Department.’
    One of the paramedics took Hoffmann’s other arm and together he and the inspector raised him carefully to his feet. On the creamy paintwork of the wall where his head had rested was a feathery patch of blood. More blood was on the floor – smeared into streaks, as if someone had skidded in it. Hoffmann’s knees sagged. ‘I have you,’ Leclerc reassured him. ‘Breathe deeply. Take a moment.’
    Gabrielle said anxiously, ‘He needs to go to a hospital.’
    ‘The ambulance will be here in ten minutes,’ said the paramedic. ‘They’ve been delayed.’
    ‘Why don’t we wait in here?’ suggested Leclerc. He opened the door on to the chilly drawing room.
    Once Hoffmann had been lowered into a sitting position on the sofa – he refused to lie flat – the paramedic squatted in front of him.
    ‘Can you tell me the number of fingers I’m holding up?’
    Hoffmann said, ‘Can I have my …’ What was the word? He raised his hand to his eyes.
    ‘He needs his glasses,’ said Gabrielle. ‘Here you are, darling.’ She slipped them over his nose and kissed his forehead. ‘Take it easy, all right?’
    The medic said, ‘Can you see my fingers now?’
    Hoffmann counted carefully. He ran his tongue over his lips before replying. ‘Three.’
    ‘And now?’
    ‘Four.’
    ‘We need to take your blood pressure, monsieur .’
    Hoffmann sat placidly as the sleeve of his pyjama jacket was rolled up and the plastic cuff was fastened around his bicep and inflated. The end of the stethoscope was cold on his skin. His mind seemed to be switching itself back on now,