‘Such as?’
‘If you worked there, I’m sure you saw them. Aggression. The desire to win at any cost. The ability to lie and deceive. The ability to manipulate other people. A certain recklessness. Even a propensity to violence.’
‘Violence?’
‘Many traders are violent people, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Some,’ said Chris.
‘Civilized society sublimates the tendency towards violence in a number of ways. The most obvious is playing sport, or watching it. But trading the financial markets seems to be another way. Come on, don’t tell me you haven’t seen the macho language, the posturing, the desire to dominate on the trading floor?’
‘I suppose I have,’ Chris admitted.
‘Well, that was what we were looking for.’
‘So what went wrong?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t say.’
Dr Horwath looked at Chris neutrally. He could read nothing from her expression.
‘My understanding is that one of the psychologists responsible for the testing, yourself, raised some concerns about some of the trainees you tested. You were afraid they might turn out to be dangerous. Your warnings were ignored and the candidates were recruited anyway. One of these, Steve Matzley, was subsequently convicted of rape. I’m concerned whether there were any others that troubled you.’
‘There may have been,’ said Dr Horwath. ‘But I couldn’t possibly discuss them with you if there were. And I’m not sure what your interest in this is. You don’t still work for Bloomfield Weiss do you?’
‘No, I left two years ago. But I witnessed the death of one of the trainees on my programme, Alex Lubron. He fell off a boat and was drowned. Did you hear about it?’
‘Yes, I did,’ said Dr Horwath. Weren’t the circumstances suspicious?’
Chris had to be cautious here. Dr Horwath owed no duty of confidentiality to him, so he had to be careful not to say anything that could be used against him, or Duncan, or any of them later.
‘I thought the circumstances were straightforward at the time,’ he said. ‘But now I’m not so sure. One of the other trainees on the boat, Lenka Němečková, was murdered in Prague a couple of weeks ago.’ Dr Horwath’s eyebrows shot up at this. ‘I believe there may be some connection with what happened on that boat.’
‘What kind of connection?’
Chris sighed. ‘I don’t know.’
‘So what do you want from me?’
‘If I give you the names of the people on the boat, can you tell me whether you were worried about any of them?’
‘The short answer, Mr, er.... is no. For reasons I have already explained.’
Chris went on regardless. ‘There were seven of us. Myself, Lenka, Alex, Duncan Gemmel, Ian Darwent, Eric Astle and one other woman whom you wouldn’t know.’ Chris listed these names slowly, watching Dr Horwath’s face very closely as he did so. Nothing. Not a blink of an eyelid. ‘Do any of those names ring a bell?’
‘All of those people told me or my associates personal details in the strictest confidence. As did you, yourself. While I didn’t approve of Bloomfield Weiss’s approach to this programme, I do have to respect that confidentiality.’
‘But Dr Horwath. A friend of mine has been killed already. I myself was attacked by a man with a knife last night.’ Chris touched the cut on his face. ‘Please. At least tell me if nothing showed up in the tests of any of us.’
Dr Horwath looked up at the ceiling for a long moment, and then returned her gaze very deliberately to Chris. She said nothing.
‘You can’t tell me that, can you?’
Still nothing.
Chris leaned forward, eager to pin her down. ‘There was something wrong with one of them. Which one? You didn’t have to look the names up in a file. One of them means something to you, doesn’t it? One of them you remember, ten years later.’
Dr Horwath looked at her watch. ‘I do appreciate the seriousness of your enquiry. But I cannot help you. I absolutely cannot. Now, I have an appointment at nine.’
Chris realized that was as much as he was going to get. But he had got something, he was sure of it.
‘Thank you, Dr Horwath. If you do change your mind, here’s my card. And,’ he paused. What he wanted to say was melodramatic, but it needed to be said. ‘If, sometime in the next few weeks, you learn that something has happened to me, please remember this conversation and pass it on.’
Dr Horwath’s eyes flashed at him. He knew he sounded paranoid, but he hoped that she would be able to tell he wasn’t crazy. ‘I’ll do that,’ she said.
Chris left the room and, as he was putting on his coat outside her office, he saw Dr Horwath looking through a drawer of her filing cabinet.
The rented four-wheel drive ground up the hill, the tyres somehow gripping to the compacted snow under the wheels. Chris knew he wasn’t being followed. All he had to do was look behind him down the ravine to the highway two miles behind and several hundred feet below him. He had taken a cab to Newark Airport, hung around International Departures, and then taken the monorail to the terminal for Burlington. So far, no one knew where he was.
There was snow in Vermont. The valley would have looked pretty on a sunny day, but the skies were leaden, the dark clouds hugged the mountainside only a couple of hundred feet above him, and Chris was pushing the four-wheel drive well beyond the limits of a normal car. So far, no skids. Which was fortunate, because there was a hundred-foot drop to his left.
What kept him going were the clear tracks of another vehicle along the road in front of him. Someone else had been along here since it had last snowed. If they had made it, so could he.
About four miles from the highway, he rounded a bend and came to a high meadow. The trees were cleared for about half a mile up a gentle slope to a white-painted house. Near it was a big red barn. Smoke trickled out of a chimney. A four-wheel drive similar to his own stood outside. Relieved that he had arrived intact, Chris parked his vehicle next to it, and got out. After the warmth of the car the cold engulfed him, making him catch his breath. He glanced up at the sky. He was no expert, but it looked to him like snow.
He approached the front door. It opened when he was still a couple of steps away. A tall woman with long greying hair eyed him suspiciously.
‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Can I come in? It’s freezing out here.’
‘What do you want?’
‘To see Marcus.’
The woman hesitated. Finally, her sympathy overcame her suspicion, and she let him in. She led him through to a warm living room and asked him to take a seat. He did so, on a strange-looking squat wooden chair that was surprisingly comfortable. The woman sat on the floor near a stove. The room was adorned with wild Indian-style fabrics. There were other pieces of furniture in a similar style to the chair Chris was sitting on, and at least a dozen pots of various sizes and shapes, all decorated in primitive browns and greens. And no TV.
‘One of Marcus’s?’ Chris asked, tapping the chair.
The woman nodded. She had a smooth face, serene. Despite her grey hair, she didn’t seem to be much older than Chris.
‘Is he here?’
‘He’s out back. He’ll be here in a moment.’
Chris heard a metallic click, and looked up. A tall man wearing a long coat was standing in the doorway. In his hands was a rifle. The rifle was pointing straight at Chris.