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country.’
    Hoffmann wondered if he was joking, but the inspector’s face was perfectly straight.
    ‘Not at all.’
    Together they went out into the hall, Hoffmann taking exaggerated care with each step, like a drunk who wishes to be thought sober. The house had become crowded with people from the emergency services. More gendarmes had arrived, along with two ambulance personnel, a man and a woman, wheeling a bed. Confronted by their heavy government-issue clothing, Hoffmann once again felt naked and vulnerable; an invalid. He was relieved to see Gabrielle coming down the stairs with his raincoat. Leclerc took it from her and draped it around Hoffmann’s shoulders.
    By the front door, Hoffmann noticed a fire extinguisher, wrapped in a plastic bag. The mere sight of it gave him a twinge of pain. He said, ‘Are you going to put out an artist’s impression of this man?’
    ‘We might.’
    ‘Then now I think of it, there’s something you should see.’ It had come to him suddenly, with the force of a revelation. Ignoring the protests of the ambulance people that he should lie down, he turned and walked back along the hall to his study. The Bloomberg terminal on his desk was still switched on. Out of the corner of his eye he registered a red glow. Almost every price was down. The Far Eastern markets must be haemorrhaging. He switched on the light and searched along the shelf until he found The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals . His hands were trembling with excitement. He flicked through the pages.
    ‘There,’ he said, turning to show his discovery to Leclerc and Gabrielle. He tapped his finger on the page. ‘That’s the man who attacked me.’
    It was the illustration for the emotion of terror – an old man, his eyes wide, his toothless mouth agape. Electric calipers were being applied to his facial muscles by the great French doctor Duchenne, an expert in galvanism, in order to stimulate the required expression.
    Hoffmann could sense the others’ scepticism – no, worse: their dismay.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ said Leclerc, puzzled. ‘You’re telling us that this is the man who was in your house tonight?’
    ‘Oh, Alex,’ said Gabrielle.
    ‘Obviously I’m not saying it’s literally him – he’s been dead more than a century – I’m saying it looks like him.’ They were both staring at him intently. They believe I have gone mad, he thought. He took a breath. ‘Okay. Now this book,’ he explained carefully to Leclerc, ‘arrived yesterday without any explanation. I didn’t order it, right? I don’t know who sent it. Maybe it’s a coincidence. But you’ve got to agree it’s odd that a few hours after this arrives, a man – who actually looks as though he’s just stepped out of its pages – turns up to attack us.’ They were silent. ‘Anyway,’ he concluded, ‘all I’m saying is, if you want to make an artist’s impression of the guy, you should start with this.’
    ‘Thank you,’ said Leclerc. ‘I’ll bear that in mind.’
    There was a pause.
    ‘Right,’ said Gabrielle brightly. ‘Let’s get you to the hospital.’

     
    LECLERC SAW THEM off from the front door.
    The moon had disappeared behind the clouds. There was barely any light in the sky, even though there was only half an hour until dawn. The American physicist, with his bandaged head and his black raincoat and his thin pink ankles poking out beneath his expensive pyjamas, was helped into the back of the ambulance by one of the attendants. Since his gabbling remarks about the Victorian photograph, he had fallen silent; Leclerc thought he seemed embarrassed. He had taken the book with him. His wife followed, clutching a bag full of his clothes. They looked like a pair of refugees. The doors were banged shut and the ambulance pulled away, a patrol car behind it.
    Leclerc watched until the two vehicles reached the curve of the drive leading to the main road. Brake lights briefly gleamed crimson and then they were