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.’
She smiled at the memory, and so did Leclerc – but for form’s sake, she suspected, to encourage her to keep talking. She wondered what he wanted.
‘Were you at CERN yourself?’
‘God, no, I was working as a secretary at the UN – your typical ex-art student with bad prospects and good French: that was me.’ She was talking too fast and grinning too much, she realised. He would think she was tipsy.
‘But Dr Hoffmann was still at CERN when you got to know him?’
‘He was in the process of leaving to set up his own company with his partner, a man called Hugo Quarry. We all met for the first time on the same night, oddly enough. Is this important?’
‘And why exactly did he do that, do you know – leave CERN?’
‘You’d have to ask him. Or Hugo.’
‘I will. He is American, this Mr Quarry?’
She laughed. ‘No, English. Very much so.’
‘I assume one reason Dr Hoffmann left CERN was because he wanted to make more money?’
‘No, not really. Money never bothered him. Not then, anyway. He told me he could pursue his line of research more easily if he had his own company.’
‘And what line was that?’
‘Artificial intelligence. But again, you’d have to ask him about the details. I’m afraid it’s always been way over my head.’
Leclerc paused.
‘Has he sought psychiatric help, do you know?’
The question startled her. ‘Not that I’m aware. Why do you ask?’
‘It’s just that I gather he suffered a nervous breakdown when he was at CERN, which someone there told me is the reason why he left. I wondered if there’d been any recurrence.’
She realised she was staring at him with her mouth open. She clamped her jaw shut.
He was studying her closely. He said, ‘I’m sorry. Have I spoken out of turn? You didn’t know that?’
She recovered her composure just enough to lie. ‘Well, of course I knew about it – I knew something about it.’ She was aware of how unconvincing she sounded. But what was the alternative? To admit that her husband was mostly a mystery to her – that an immense amount of what occupied his mind every day had always been impenetrable territory for her, and that this unknowable quality was both what had attracted her to him in the first place and what had frightened her ever since? ‘So you’ve been checking up on Alex?’ she said in a brittle voice. ‘Shouldn’t you be trying to find the man who attacked him?’
‘I have to investigate all the facts, madame,’ said Leclerc primly. ‘It may be that the assailant knew your husband in the past or had a grudge against him. I merely asked an acquaintance at CERN – off the record and in the strictest confidence, I do assure you – why he had left.’
‘And this person said he had had a breakdown, and now you think Alex may be making up this whole story about a mysterious attacker?’
‘No, I’m simply trying to understand all the circumstances.’ He emptied his glass in one swig. ‘I’m sorry – I should let you get back to your party.’
