The Fear Index (34 page)

He scrambled up and shoved the crowbar back between the doors, working it into the gap, parting them a fraction. The elevator had climbed to its highest point and stopped. There was a clunk, and he heard it start to plunge again. He hoisted himself up and jammed his fingers into the narrow opening. He clung there, feet wide apart, muscles straining. He threw back his head and roared with the effort. The doors gave slightly, then flew wide open. A shadow fell across his back, and in a rush of air and a roar of machinery he launched himself forward on to the concrete floor.

LECLERC HAD BEEN in his office at police headquarters and on the point of going home when he received a call that a body had been discovered in a hotel on the Rue de Berne. He guessed at once from the description – gaunt face, ponytail, leather coat – that it was the man who had attacked Hoffmann. Cause of death, he was told, appeared to be strangulation, although whether it was suicide or murder was not immediately clear. The victim was a German: Johannes Karp, aged fifty-eight. Leclerc rang his wife for the second time that day to say he was delayed at work, and set off in the back of a patrol car through the rush-hour traffic to the northern side of the river.

He had been on duty for almost twenty hours and was as exhausted as an old dog. But the prospect of a suspicious death, of which there are only about eight per year in Geneva, always bucked up his spirits. With flashing light display, a piercing siren and an air of great self-importance, the patrol car roared up the Boulevard Carl-Vogt and over the bridge, cutting into the left-hand lane of the Rue de Sous-Terre, forcing the oncoming traffic to swerve out of its way. Thrown around in the back seat, Leclerc rang the chief’s office and left a message that the suspect in the Hoffmann case apparently had been found dead.

In the Rue de Berne there was almost a carnival atmosphere outside the Hotel Diodati – four police cars with flickering blue lights, sharply brilliant in the overcast early-evening gloom; a sizeable crowd on the opposite side of the street, including several glossy black hookers in colourful, minimal clothes, joking with the locals; fluttering lines of stripy black-and-yellow crime-scene tape sectioning off the spectators. Occasionally a camera flashed. They were like fans, thought Leclerc as he got out of the car, waiting for a star to come out. A gendarme lifted the tape and Leclerc ducked underneath it. As a young man he had patrolled this area on foot, had got to know all the working girls by name. He guessed some of them would be grandmothers now; come to think of it, one or two had been grandmothers then.

He went inside the Diodati. It had been called something else in the eighties. He couldn’t remember what. The guests had all been corralled in reception and were not being allowed to leave until they had each given a statement. There were several obvious hookers here, and a couple of smartly dressed men who should have known better and who stood apart, surly with embarrassment. Leclerc didn’t like the look of the tiny elevator so took the stairs, pausing on each deserted floor to recover his breath. Outside the room where the body had been found, the corridor was crowded with uniforms and he had to put on white coveralls, white latex gloves, and clear plastic slipovers on his shoes. He drew the line at pulling up the hood. I look like a damned white rabbit, he thought.

He didn’t know the detective in charge of the crime scene – a new fellow named Moynier, apparently in his twenties, although it was hard to tell as he had his hood up and only the baby-pink oval of his face was visible. Also in the room in their white suits were the pathologist and the photographer, both old hands, but not as old as Leclerc; no one was as old as Leclerc; he was as old as the Jura. He contemplated the corpse, hanging off the bathroom door handle. Above the tight line of the ligature, which was buried in the flesh of the neck, the head had turned black. There were various cuts and abrasions on the face. One eye was badly swollen. Strung up and skinny, the German looked like an old dead crow left out by a farmer to discourage other carrion. In the bathroom there was no light switch, but even so it was possible to see the blood smeared on the toilet bowl. The shower curtain rail was hanging away from the wall; so was the washbasin.

Moynier said, ‘A man next door swears he heard sounds of a struggle sometime around three. There’s also blood by the bed. I’m provisionally declaring it a murder.’

‘Smart work,’ said Leclerc.

The pathologist coughed to cover his laughter.

Moynier didn’t notice. He said, ‘I was right to call you? Do you think this is the man who attacked the American banker?’

‘I should say so.’

‘Well then, I hope you don’t object, Leclerc, but I was here first, and so I must insist that this is my case now.’

‘My dear fellow, you’re welcome to it.’

Leclerc wondered how the occupant of this squalid room could possibly have come to intersect with the owner of a $60 million mansion in Cologny. On the bed the dead man’s possessions had been individually bagged in clear plastic and laid out for inspection: clothes, a camera, two knives, a raincoat apparently slashed at the front. Hoffmann had worn a raincoat like that when he went to the hospital, Leclerc thought. He picked up a mains adaptor.

He said, ‘Isn’t this for a computer? Where is it?’

Moynier shrugged. ‘There isn’t one here.’

Leclerc’s mobile phone rang. It was in his jacket pocket. He couldn’t get at it through his damned rabbit suit. Irritably he unzipped the coveralls and pulled off his gloves. Moynier started to protest about contamination, but Leclerc turned his back on him. The caller was his assistant, young Lullin, who was still in the office. He said he had just been looking at the afternoon log. A psychiatrist, a Dr Polidori in Vernier, had called a couple of hours earlier about a patient of hers showing potentially dangerous schizophrenic symptoms – he had been in a fight, she said – but when the patrol got to her surgery he was gone. His name was Alexander Hoffmann. The psych didn’t have a recent address, but she had given a description.

Leclerc said, ‘Did she mention whether he was carrying a computer?’

There was a pause, a rustle of notes, and Lullin said, ‘How did you know that?’

HOFFMANN, STILL CLUTCHING the crowbar, hurried up the steps from the basement to the ground floor, intent on raising the alarm about Rajamani. At the door to the lobby he stopped. Through the rectangular window he saw a squad of six black-uniformed gendarmes, guns drawn, jogging in heavy boots across the reception area towards the interior of the building; following them was the panting figure of Leclerc. Once they had passed through the turnstile, the exit was locked and two more armed police stationed themselves on either side of it.

Hoffmann turned and clattered back down the steps and into the car park. The ramp up to the street was about fifty metres away. He headed for that. Behind him he heard the soft squeak of tyres turning on concrete and a large black BMW swung out of a parking bay, straightened and came towards him, headlights on. Without pausing to think, he stepped out in front of it, forcing it to stop, then ran around to the driver’s door and pulled it open.

What an apparition the president of Hoffmann Investment Technologies must have presented by now – bloody, dusty, oil-smeared, clutching a metre-long crowbar. It was little wonder the driver couldn’t scramble out fast enough. Hoffmann threw the crowbar on to the passenger seat, put the automatic transmission into drive and pressed hard on the accelerator. The big car lurched up the ramp. Ahead, the steel door was just beginning to rise. He had to brake to let it open fully. In his rear-view mirror he could see the owner, transformed by adrenalin from fear into rage, marching up the ramp to protest. Hoffmann locked the doors. The man began pounding on the side window with his fist and shouting. Through the thick tinted glass he was muffled, subaqueous. The steel door opened fully and Hoffmann transferred his foot from the brake to the accelerator, overstepping it again in his anxiety to get away, kangarooing the BMW out across the pavement and swerving on two wheels into the empty one-way street.

ON THE FIFTH floor, Leclerc and his arrest squad stepped out of the working elevator. He pressed the buzzer and looked up at the security camera. The usual receptionist had gone home for the evening. It was Marie-Claude who let them in. She put her hand to her mouth in dismay as the armed men rushed past her.

Leclerc said, ‘I am looking for Dr Hoffmann. Is he here?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Will you take us to him, please?’

She led them on to the trading floor. Quarry heard the commotion and turned round. He had been wondering what had happened to Hoffmann. He had assumed he was still with Rajamani and took his lengthening absence as a good sign: it would be better, on reflection, if their former chief risk officer could be persuaded not to try and shut them down at this critical moment. But when he saw Leclerc and the gendarmes, he knew their ship was sunk. Nevertheless, in the spirit of his forebears, he was determined to go down with dignity.

He said calmly, ‘Can I help you, gentlemen?’

‘We need to speak to Dr Hoffmann,’ said Leclerc. He was swaying from left to right, standing on tiptoe, trying to spot the American among the astonished quants who were turning from their computer screens. ‘Will everyone please remain where they are?’

Quarry said, ‘You must have just missed him. He stepped outside to speak to one of our executives.’

‘Outside the building? Outside where?’

‘I assumed he was just going out into the corridor …’

Leclerc swore. He said to the nearest gendarmes: ‘You three, check these premises.’ And then to the others: ‘You three, come with me.’ And finally to the room in general: ‘Nobody is to leave the building without my permission. Nobody is to make any phone calls. We shall try to be as quick as possible. Thank you for your co-operation.’

He walked briskly back towards reception. Quarry chased after him. ‘I’m sorry, Inspector – excuse me – what exactly has Alex done?’

‘A body has been discovered. We need to speak to him about it. Forgive me …’

He strode out of the offices and into the corridor. It was deserted. He had a funny feeling about this place. His eyes were searching everywhere. ‘What other companies are on this floor?’

Quarry was still at his heels. His face was grey. ‘Only us, we rent the whole thing. What body?’

Leclerc said to his men, ‘We’ll have to start at the bottom and work our way up.’

One of the gendarmes pressed the elevator call button. The doors opened and it was Leclerc, eyes darting, who saw the danger first and yelled out to him to stay where he was.

‘Christ,’ said Quarry, gazing at the void. ‘Alex …’

The doors began to close. The gendarme held his finger on the button to reopen them. Wincing, Leclerc got down on his knees, shuffled forwards, and peered over the edge. It was impossible to make out anything at the bottom. He felt a drop of moisture hit the back of his neck, and put his hand to it and touched a viscous liquid. He craned his head upwards to find himself staring at the bottom of the elevator car. It was only a floor above him. Something was dangling off the bottom. He drew back quickly.