‘Eight-point-eight,’ repeated Mould. He looked sick. ‘Good for you.’
Easterbrook called down the table, ‘I’m coming to live in Geneva!’
‘Yeah, but try telling that to Uncle Sam,’ said Klein gloomily. ‘The IRS will hunt you down to the ends of the earth as long as you have a US passport. And have you ever tried getting rid of American citizenship? You can’t do it. It’s like being a Soviet Jew trying to emigrate to Israel in the seventies.’
‘No freedom,’ repeated Elmira Gulzhan, ‘as I say. The state will take everything from us, and if we dare to protest, we will be arrested for not being politically correct.’
Hoffmann stared at the tablecloth and let the discussion flow around him. He was remembering now why he didn’t like the rich: their self-pity. Persecution was the common ground of their conversation, like sport or the weather was for everyone else. He despised them.
‘I despise you,’ he said, but nobody paid him any attention, so engrossed were they in the inequities of higher-rate taxation and the inherent criminality of all employees. And then he thought: perhaps I have become one of them; is that why I am so paranoid? He examined his palms under the table, and then the backs of his hands, as if he half-expected to find himself sprouting fur.
At that moment the doors swung open to admit a file of eight tail-coated waiters, each carrying two plates capped with domed silver covers. They stationed themselves between their allotted pair of diners, set the plates down before them, grasped the twin covers with their white-gloved hands, and at a signal from the maitre d’ lifted them away. The main course was veal with morels and asparagus, served to everyone apart from Elmira Gulzhan, who had a piece of grilled fish, and Etienne Mussard, who had a hamburger and chips.
‘I cannot eat veal,’ said Elmira, leaning confidingly across the table to Hoffmann, offering him a brief glimpse of her pale brown breasts. ‘The poor calf suffers so.’
‘Oh, I always prefer food that’s suffered,’ said Quarry cheerfully, wielding his knife and fork, his napkin back in his collar. ‘I think fear releases some especially piquant chemical from the nervous system into the flesh. Veal cutlets, lobster thermidor, pate de foie gras – the nastier the demise the better, that’s my philosophy: no pain, no gain.’
Elmira flicked him with the end of her napkin. ‘Hugo, you are wicked. Isn’t he wicked, Alex?’
‘He is wicked,’ agreed Hoffmann. He pushed his food around his plate with his fork. He had no appetite. Over Quarry’s shoulder he could see the Jet d’Eau probing the dull sky on the opposite side of the lake like a watery searchlight.
Lukasinski began calling across the table some technical questions about the new fund, which Quarry laid down his cutlery to answer. All money invested would be subjected to a one-year lock-up, with a redemption day thereafter four times per annum: 31 May, 31 August, 30 November and 28 February; all redemptions would require a notice period of forty-five days. The structure of the fund would be as before: investors would be part of a limited-liability company registered in the Cayman Islands for tax purposes, which would retain Hoffmann Investment Technologies to manage its assets.
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
