The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau (15 page)

‘I simply want you to admit that you saw the girl on the night in question, so that we can move on,' said Gorski.

‘He must be lying,' Manfred said.

Gorski shook his head slowly. ‘It would be something of a coincidence, I think you'd agree, if he invented this figure who just happened to match your description. In any case, having come forward of his own volition, why would he lie?'

‘Perhaps he wanted to throw suspicion on someone else.'

‘I don't think so,' said Gorski, as if he and Manfred were all of a sudden engaged in mutually trying to solve a puzzle. ‘But it's an interesting question nevertheless: why would he lie? You'd agree, I imagine, that if a person lies they must have some reason for doing so.'

He let this last comment hang in the air for a few moments.

Manfred stared at the table. It had a chipped formica top and a metal rim. Previous visitors had scratched their names on the
surface. It seemed a curious place, Manfred thought, to advertise one's presence. Gorski sighed, leaned forward over the table.

‘After this mysterious figure walked off – in the direction of your apartment, I might add – Ackermann asked Adèle who he was. She replied that he was a customer from the restaurant and that he “gave her the creeps”.'

Manfred felt like he had been kicked in the stomach.
He gave her the creeps
. The phrase made him nauseous. Why would Adèle say such a thing? Their relations had always been polite, cordial even. He had never treated her with anything other than courtesy. If anything, he had gone out of his way to be pleasant in order that she would understand that he did not look down upon her as a mere waitress. On top of that, on the night in question, they had passed a few pleasant moments together and she had called him by his first name. And yet she had told this young upstart that he gave her the creeps. It did not make sense. Perhaps she had said this because in fact she felt some attraction to Manfred and had not wished to arouse the jealousy of her boyfriend. Perhaps he was the hot-headed type and would have made a scene. This tallied with the fact that when they had said goodnight, she had addressed him as monsieur, clearly in an attempt to cast their relationship in a more formal light.

Gorski had paused and was looking at Manfred, but his words had washed over him. He had obviously asked a question.

‘I'm sorry?' said Manfred. He could hardly explain how offensive Adèle's words were since he had previously claimed that he had no feelings one way or the other about her. If this were the case, why would he be so concerned with what she thought of him? Or perhaps Gorski had reached the same conclusion about the hurtful words Adèle had used – that there was more to their relationship than either of them wished to admit, something which would be quite understandable given the difference in their ages and standing in the community.

Gorski shook his head. ‘Manfred, I've given you every opportunity to put your version of events right. All I want to do is
piece together Mlle Bedeau's movements before she disappeared. By your own admission, on the night in question, you left the Restaurant de la Cloche shortly after the girl. You walked in the same direction, yet you claim to have seen neither Adèle nor this young man. And now Ackermann, who has never seen you before, describes a man precisely answering your description. You must recognise that I can hardly do anything other than conclude that you're hiding something from me.'

Was it, even now, too late to revise his story?

‘I understand,' said Manfred.

‘So you maintain that you saw neither Adèle Bedeau nor Alex Ackermann that night?'

Manfred nodded sadly.

Gorski stood up and walked towards the door. Manfred took this to mean the ordeal was over, but he merely shouted along the corridor for two cups of coffee. He sat down again, and the two men waited in silence for the coffee to arrive. Manfred stared at the names on the tabletop. Perhaps like him, these previous occupants of this room felt that they were disappearing into the netherworld of the penal system. The impulse to write a tabletop epitaph to oneself seemed suddenly less strange.

The cop with the drooping moustache brought the coffee in two plastic cups and wordlessly placed some sachets of sugar on the table. Gorski tore three open and emptied them into his cup. Manfred found it incongruous that the detective would load his coffee with so much sugar. He took a sip before resuming, leaning across the table, his face close to Manfred's.

‘The following night, the night of Adèle's disappearance,' Gorski was speaking rapidly now, ‘Ackermann saw the same man pass the park at the Protestant temple, then wait in the shrubbery at the edge of the park until Adèle arrived. When they rode off on his scooter, the man ducked into a doorway, clearly in order to conceal himself.'

Manfred felt his throat tighten. He should say something. What would someone falsely accused say?

‘He must be mistaken.'

‘Mistaken?' said Gorski. He shook his head slowly.

Manfred did his best to maintain eye contact with Gorski. Then he looked at the table. There was a wasp on the lip of his coffee cup, moving sluggishly as they always did at this time of year. Gorski pushed down on the table, his fingertips evenly spread. He had small delicate hands. The wasp dropped to the table and struggled to right itself. Gorski scraped his chair back, stood up and leant on the wall to Manfred's right. He adopted a more conversational tone, as if they were two friends passing the time of day over a drink in a bar. That night, he informed Manfred, Adèle and Ackermann had visited what could only be described as a shebeen, where they had drunk a large quantity of alcohol and smoked joints.

‘Afterwards they went to a house party in a basement on Rue de la Gare,' he went on. ‘To cut a long story short, they had an argument and Ackermann left. That, he claims, was the last he saw of Mlle Bedeau. From what I can gather, she later left the party alone and in a state of some intoxication.'

Manfred lowered his eyes. He took a sip from the plastic cup in front of him. It tasted foul. The wasp was slowly making its way around the metal rim of the table. He was relieved that the interview had at least moved on from his own actions that night. Gorski appeared to be waiting for him to respond, but he said nothing. What could he expect him to say about Adèle's actions on the night in question?

‘Surely you can see why I'm telling you this,' said Gorski.

‘I'm sorry, I can't,' Manfred replied.

‘Rue de la Gare is not three hundred metres from your apartment.'

‘And?'

‘You say you went home directly that night.'

‘Yes.'

‘What did you do?'

Manfred thought for a few moments. ‘I read for a while, drank a whisky or two and went to bed.'

‘Watch any television?'

‘I don't own a television.'

‘Make any telephone calls?'

‘No.'

‘Anyone call you?'

‘No'

‘Did you speak to anyone in the building?'

‘No.'

‘So, really you could have been anywhere.'

‘I was at home.'

‘But you couldn't prove that.'

Manfred shrugged.

Gorski drained the remains of his coffee, placed the cup carefully back on the table.

‘Have you ever harboured any thoughts about Adèle Bedeau?' he asked.

‘What sort of thoughts?'

Gorski fixed him with his gaze. ‘You know what sort of thoughts, carnal thoughts.'

Manfred could hardly tell Gorski that he spent his evenings surreptitiously spying on her and often went home and masturbated thinking about her heavy breasts and wide behind.

‘Certainly not,' he said, ‘I have nothing but respect for Mlle Bedeau.'

‘So you think it would be disrespectful to have sexual thoughts about a woman?'

Manfred felt besieged. ‘I don't think about Adèle Bedeau that way.'

‘Are you a homosexual?'

‘No,' said Manfred.

‘Some people seem to think you are.'

This came as no surprise to Manfred. He had heard whispers to this effect in the bank. Lemerre often liked to taunt him with such insinuations. He could all too clearly imagine the hairdresser gleefully telling Gorski that he was that way inclined.

‘I'm not queer,' he said.

‘A pity that,' said Gorski, ‘since it's unlikely that a homosexual would be involved in crime like this.'

‘A crime like what?' said Manfred. He raised his voice slightly. Gorski ignored his question.

‘What about women?' he went on. ‘Do you have a lover?'

Manfred thought of Alice. He felt suddenly that he would never see her again.

‘No,' he said.

‘But a man of your age has needs.'

‘I take care of those,' said Manfred. He had started to grind his back teeth.

‘In what manner?' Gorski's tone was affable, curious, as if he was enquiring about an innocuous hobby.

Manfred clamped his jaw firmly shut. He wanted to cry out for Gorski to stop. He could not bear this relentless delving into his business. His fingernails whitened as he gripped the table.

‘Has Adèle Bedeau ever been in your apartment?'

The suggestion came so out of the blue that Manfred exhaled sharply. He attempted to pass off his response as laughter.

‘I'm glad you find this amusing, Manfred,' Gorski went on. ‘The last time this girl was seen alive was in the vicinity of your apartment. You have consistently lied about seeing Mlle Bedeau on the two nights in question, leading me to conclude that there is something in your relationship with her that you wish to conceal.'

‘I have no relationship with Mlle Bedeau.'

‘Then why lie about it?'

Manfred said nothing.

‘Did Adèle Bedeau visit your apartment in the early hours of Friday morning?'

‘No,' said Manfred. ‘She has never been in my apartment. She doesn't even know where I live.'

‘Very well,' said Gorski. He shook his head slowly, as if Manfred had disappointed him. Then he pushed himself off the
wall he had been leaning against and left the room. Manfred exhaled. His heart was pounding. Slowly his breathing subsided. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with his handkerchief. Things were getting out of hand. He felt nauseous.

The officer from the reception desk appeared and asked Manfred to follow him. They walked back along the corridor leading to the reception area. The policeman pressed a buzzer and held the door open for Manfred.

‘Am I to wait?' Manfred asked.

The policeman shook his head. ‘You're free to go.'

Manfred stood bemused in the reception area for a few moments. Plainly Gorski was toying with him. He hesitated before exiting. Nobody intervened. He came to a halt on the pavement at the foot of the steps. His hands were shaking. The late afternoon air was still hot. He felt conspicuous in front of the police station, but the few passers-by paid no attention to him. Why should they? There was nothing out of the ordinary about him. He was just a man wiping his brow on a warm day. He stepped to the side of the pavement to allow a woman in North African dress and her three children to pass.

M
ANFRED LOOKED AT HIS WATCH
. It was quarter past four. The bank would still be open. He should go back to work to put a stop to any gossip. He could say that he had been called in to identify a witness or something of that sort. He could even make light of the experience. That was what an innocent man would do – go back to work as if nothing untoward had occurred. Or perhaps an innocent man would be so shaken by the experience of being hauled into a police station that he would duck into the nearest bar and down a good measure of alcohol to calm his nerves. Manfred set off along the street in the opposite direction from the bank.

It struck him that Gorski must surely be having him watched. Having come close to accusing him, as he just had, of having something to do with Adèle's disappearance, he would hardly let him walk free from the station without placing him under surveillance. Manfred stopped abruptly and looked around. Nobody ducked into a doorway or appeared to suddenly avert their gaze. There were no men in dark glasses leaning against lampposts reading newspapers. Of course, these were stereotypes. It could be anyone – the woman across the road scolding her son, the teenager loitering at the kiosk, the man looking out from inside the door of the travel agent's waiting for customers. More likely, it would not be any single individual, but a whole
team. Perhaps Gorski had already asked those who knew him to keep an eye on him and report back if he behaved strangely. He must act naturally. All along, his mistake had been not to act naturally. He kept walking. He must behave exactly as he would if he were not being watched. It should not be too difficult. Did he not, after all, already live his life as if he was constantly being watched, as if he expected at any moment to be challenged to explain his actions or to answer charges unknown? Did he not fully expect everyone around him to be called at any time to give evidence against him?

He passed a side street and then, as if on the spur of the moment, double-backed and turned into it. It was a quite ordinary road with houses that opened directly on to the pavement. An old woman in a headscarf with an overweight lapdog on a leash approached on the opposite side, but otherwise the street appeared to be deserted. Manfred looked over his shoulder. Nobody was following him. In the next street was a seedy-looking bar that he occasionally passed. He had never been inside, but it had always held a certain attraction for him. He turned the corner and entered the place, as he had secretly known he would since he left the police station. It was dark and cool inside. There was a smell of indeterminate meat and dark tobacco. The walls, ceiling and even the light in the place were the colour of mustard. Behind the counter hung the drinks tariff and a calendar with pictures of half-naked women. Nobody so much as glanced in Manfred's direction. He quickly surveyed the room before taking a table next to the wall. The proprietor appeared, wiping his hands on his apron.

‘Monsieur?' His manner was neither friendly nor unfriendly.

Manfred ordered a glass of red wine and then, as the proprietor turned away, changed his order to a carafe.

‘A carafe, it is,' the man said.

The carafe and tumbler arrived without ceremony. Manfred filled the glass to the brim and downed it. The wine was cheap and had a metallic tang, but it was like having a cool compress
placed on his brow. Manfred refilled his glass and took another long swallow. He closed his eyes for a few moments, letting the alcohol take its soothing effect. Then he rolled his head back on his shoulders. His hands were still shaking slightly.

Three men in workman's overalls were standing at the counter, arguing about immigration. The proprietor dropped the odd comment into the conversation as he went about his business. At another table a single man in a slightly shabby suit was reading a newspaper and drinking a white wine. He suddenly raised his eyes and caught Manfred looking at him. He nodded a short greeting and returned his attention to the paper. He did not appear to recognise Manfred, nodding merely as one afternoon drinker to another. Manfred felt a sudden sense of liberation. Here he was nobody. If he got up and left, no one would even notice, far less comment. He meant nothing at all to anyone in the bar.

Manfred imagined throwing it all in with the Restaurant de la Cloche. He could come here to Le Pot instead. Of course, within a very short time the proprietor would learn his name and start to greet him with the words ‘The usual?' or perhaps even set out his carafe as soon as he stepped through the door. The men who stood at the counter would quickly come to regard Manfred as too good for them, on account of his choosing to sit at a table – the same table every day – rather than drink at the bar. Before long they would have come up with a nickname that they would use behind his back. No, this anonymity was inevitably short-lived. The only way to preserve it would be to constantly drift from bar to bar, but Saint-Louis was not large enough to sustain such a practice for long. Soon he would lapse into some sort of routine, of visiting certain bars on certain nights. What Manfred needed was to get out of Saint-Louis for good, to head to a city like Strasbourg or Paris where one could drink every night in a different bar for the rest of one's life. The idea was intoxicating. And yet there was no question of actually upping sticks and doing such a thing, at least not while this business with Adèle was hanging over him. It would look as if he was absconding.

Manfred poured himself more wine. The man with the paper got up and left, bidding a cursory goodbye to the proprietor. Manfred was surprised that he did not feel more self-conscious. Normally in such a situation he craved some reading material in which to bury his head and avoid eye contact. A newspaper made one invisible. He thought about his grandfather's nickname, how as a teenager he had skulked around the shadows of the house, sometimes taking off his shoes to avoid disturbing his grandparents. He had always felt like an imposter in their home and sought to avoid reminding them of his presence. And hadn't he even now, in this bar, taken an inconspicuous table by the wall? When he arrived at work it took a supreme effort for him to walk in boldly, in a manner befitting his status as ‘the boss' and greet his staff in an audible voice. Every morning he breathed a minor sigh of relief as he slipped onto the leather chair behind his desk.

Yet, Manfred reflected, he felt a rare sense of comfort in this slightly rancid smelling bar where no one knew him. He felt like a man, entitled to stop where he wanted and drink a carafe of wine, alone, at four o'clock on a weekday afternoon. The proprietor cleared the glass and water jug from the nearby table, then unhurriedly wiped it down. He did not so much as glance in Manfred's direction.

Manfred finished his wine, but he did not feel like leaving. He felt like he was abroad. He raised his hand to the proprietor and ordered a second carafe. To hell with the Restaurant de la Cloche. Pasteur would have to do without his money tonight. And the rest of them? Let them gossip all they liked. If they had nothing better to talk about, that was their problem.

The second carafe arrived and Manfred got stuck in. Things had to change. He was in a rut, but now was time to get out of it. For years he had told himself that there was nothing he could do about his situation, that circumstances, his temperament, dictated how he behaved. But he had been deceiving himself. There was nothing to prevent him doing anything he wanted. He could easily apply to the bank for a transfer to another city,
to a place where he could live unencumbered by the weight of his past, a place where nobody called him ‘Swiss'. But why stop there? He recalled how, as a teenager, he had burned with the desire to write, how he had sat up through the night scribbling in notebooks. Why not take up writing now? Perhaps he had talent. He only had to rediscover the fire-in-the-belly of his youth. It was not even impractical. For years he had earned a good salary and spent no more than he needed. His savings were substantial, more than enough to fund himself as a writer for years. Manfred became oblivious to his surroundings. In his reverie he saw himself sitting in front of a typewriter at the open window of an
atelier
in Paris, strolling along a cobbled street in Montmartre in bohemian clothes, notebook in hand, casually greeting the whores and tradesmen of the district. Was there really anything to stop him? He was brought back to earth by a familiar voice. Lemerre was standing by his table.

‘Slumming it a little, aren't you, Swiss?' he said with characteristic hostility.

Manfred felt disorientated, as if he had been abruptly woken from a deep sleep. Before he had time to tell himself that he had no need to excuse his presence in the bar to Lemerre, he began to feel his way towards an explanation.

‘I… I sometimes pop in here for a quick one after work.' He regretted the lie as soon as he had said it.

Lemerre weighed this up with theatrical bewilderment. He looked at the two carafes on Manfred's table. Manfred remembered that his barber's shop was not five minutes' walk away.

‘Strange that I've never seen you in here.' He turned to the proprietor. ‘You seen our Swiss in here before, Yves?'

The proprietor gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head, as if reluctant to provide Lemerre with the confirmation he desired.

Lemerre massaged his jowly chin and shook his head slowly, as if stumped by the puzzle and went over to the bar, where the proprietor had already placed his drink. Manfred cringed.
Lemerre engaged in some coarse banter with the men at the bar. Then he lowered his voice and the men turned in unison to look at Manfred, before he muttered something else and they all burst into laughter. Manfred felt the colour rise in his cheeks. He wanted to jump up and run out into the street, but he hadn't paid for his drinks and doing so would entail either going over to the counter or summoning the proprietor, both of which were out of the question.

Lemerre downed his drink swiftly and left without another word to Manfred.

Manfred suddenly felt the gloomy effect of the wine. His head swam. The bar had fallen silent. The regulars had suddenly run out of topics of conversation, or perhaps felt self-conscious on account of the previously unnoticed stranger in their midst. The place was tainted now. He was no longer a nobody, but somebody who had been observed and whose behaviour was being noted. His carafe was two-thirds full. He would look ridiculous if, having ordered it only minutes before, he got up and left. He refilled his glass and forced himself to drink. He tried to return to his daydream about escaping Saint-Louis, but the idea that he had even for a moment entertained the thought of running off and becoming a writer was ludicrous. And all the more so with Gorski sniffing around. Manfred drained his glass as if making a private toast to the death of his dream.

There were more pressing issues with which to occupy his thoughts. Gorski had already questioned Lemerre and his cohorts and might well do so again. Already Manfred had broken his golden rule and failed to follow his routine. And now that Lemerre had caught him red-handed, it was bound to come to Gorski's attention. The detective would be sure to ask why he had come to this out-of-the-way dive where one could not be seen from the street. Who was he hiding from? Why, since the disappearance of Adèle, had he been behaving in this out-of-character manner? Manfred would have no plausible explanation. Regardless of having been caught by Lemerre, it had
been a mistake to come here, but he must not compound one mistake with another. He must revert to his routine and go to the Restaurant de la Cloche as usual. Manfred struggled to drink the rest of his carafe. The workmen at the counter left and for a few minutes Manfred and the proprietor were the only people in the bar. Unlike Pasteur, who could always find some task with which to occupy himself, this man – Manfred had heard Lemerre call him Yves – stood staring blankly into the space above the tables. He was stocky and unattractive, with narrow beady eyes. The fawn sports shirt he was wearing was stained with grease or mustard. He did not appear to be watching him, but Manfred felt that every movement he made was being noted. The effect of the wine was no longer pleasant. If called upon to speak, he felt that he would slur or stumble over his words. Neither man spoke. Manfred glanced at his watch as if to suggest that he had some appointment to keep. His bladder pressed against the waistband of his trousers. The WC was on the opposite side of the bar. Under the scrutiny of the barman Manfred felt it was beyond him to get up from the banquette and walk across the room. He wondered what Alice would make of the sight of him, sitting getting sozzled in this dive, incapable of walking to the WC to relieve himself. Yves unfolded his arms and exhaled loudly. Manfred wondered whether he was about to speak.

Thankfully, the door opened and two men in their twenties entered. They were talking loudly in derogatory terms about their boss. The proprietor greeted them with a single word, ‘Messieurs,' and an upward motion of his head. The young men ordered large beers and stood at the bar. Manfred took the opportunity to leave his seat and make his way to the WC. When he returned, the two young men were crudely discussing the attributes of various females colleagues. They paid no attention to Yves and had not so much as glanced around the bar. Manfred simultaneously despised them and envied their lack of self-consciousness. Still, they formed a kind of barrier between him and the proprietor. He was no longer the centre of attention.
When another older man came in and sat at a table beneath the high windows, he barely seemed to notice Manfred, before taking out his newspaper and carefully opening it on the table in front of him.

Manfred finished his carafe and paid. Outside the sun was low over the buildings and the air had taken on a chill. His stomach was rumbling, but there was no time to go home and eat. Of course, he could eat at the Restaurant de la Cloche, but he would not do so. He never took his evening meal there and if he were to do so, it would certainly be commented upon. In any case, he would not have time to eat before the infernal card game began.