Graeme Burnet - The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau

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.

Manfred entered the restaurant at more or less the usual time. Lemerre and Cloutier were already there. Neither of them acknowledged Manfred as he passed. Lemerre absentmindedly shuffled the cards and spoke to Cloutier in an unusually low voice. Under normal circumstances, the Restaurant de la Cloche was the one place where Manfred felt at ease. His routine was so well-established that he did not feel, as he did elsewhere, that he had to act naturally. People generally paid him little heed. He approached the bar. Pasteur would have thought it presumptuous to set out his drink before he ordered. As he did every night, he greeted Manfred with a nod and the words, ‘The usual?’ and Manfred replied, ‘The usual, yes.’

Tonight, however, those familiar nods and greetings, the very walk to the counter were challenging, as if he was walking into a bar in a foreign country where he did not speak the language or understand the customs. He felt as if he was reading a sentence from a phrasebook. Pasteur, for his part, merely nodded curtly, poured his drink and placed it on the counter before returning his attention to polishing the glasses beneath the gantry. Manfred attributed this aloofness to the fact that he was drunk. Lemerre would already have informed Pasteur of their encounter in Le Pot. Of course, it was none of Pasteur’s business if Manfred once in a while took a glass in another bar, but the chilly atmosphere suggested that his nose was out of joint.

Dominique squeezed past Manfred at the hatch and carried two steak frites to a couple in the corner. Manfred watched her reset two tables in the mirror above the bar. She could not have been more different from Adèle. She was skinny and flat-chested. Manfred could still perceive the outline of her slim buttocks beneath her skirt. After she had placed the plates in front of the customers she remained at the table fidgeting until the couple satisfied her that they did not require anything else. As she passed through the hatch on her way back to the kitchen, she almost flattened herself against the counter in order, it seemed, to place the maximum distance between herself and Manfred.

‘How’s the new girl getting on?’ he asked Pasteur.

Pasteur glanced up as if he had forgotten that Manfred was there.

‘Fine,’ he said.

‘Your niece, I understand?’ said Manfred. He didn’t know why he was trying to continue the conversation. Was it a perverse response to the curt answer Pasteur had just given or was it the effect of the alcohol he had already drunk? He felt himself slur a little on the word ‘niece’.

‘That’s right,’ Pasteur replied without looking in Manfred’s direction.

Petit arrived and took his seat. He poured himself a glass from the carafe on the table. Manfred awaited the summons that signified the commencement of the dreadful ritual. But, instead, the three men engaged in a huddled conversation over the table. Then Pasteur carefully folded his dishtowel and without a word, walked across the restaurant and took the remaining seat at the table. Manfred was astonished. He watched the vignette unfold in the mirror above the bar. Pasteur took his place as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Lemerre placed the pack in the centre of the table and the four men cut the cards as if it was a custom they had been performing for years. None of them looked in Manfred’s direction. His cheeks burned. The whole thing must have been arranged with Pasteur in advance. Even the niece, who now took his place behind the bar, the proprietor’s place, which Pasteur never gave up for anyone, must have been in on it. Not to mention Marie, who must be holed up, mortified, in the kitchen. They could not have humiliated him more if they had blatantly accused him of murdering Adèle. Of course, he should march right over to the table and demand to know what was going on. Was he supposed to just stand there for the entire evening drinking his wine as if nothing untoward had taken place?

Manfred’s heart pounded in his chest. Of course, they would like nothing more than for him to make a scene, to demand to know what was going on, to start protesting his innocence. Manfred could imagine what the other customers in the restaurant would make of such a spectacle. How amusing it would be. And the four men would just sit there, cards in hand, expressions of mock innocence on their faces. Lemerre’s victory would be complete. Manfred determined not to give them the satisfaction. He was under no obligation to assert his innocence to Lemerre, Pasteur or anybody else. So what if he was excluded from the infernal game! They were welcome to it. And they were welcome to their petty conspiracies. Manfred finished his glass and calmly ordered another from the girl. She poured it out and placed it in front of him. Manfred thanked her and took a sip.

It was a long, long evening. At regular intervals Dominique took a fresh carafe to the table by the door. Slowly the restaurant emptied of diners until the only customers were Manfred and the card players. The clatter of dishes and cutlery from the kitchen died away. The only remaining sound was of the players’ bids. There was none of the usual banter between hands. Even Lemerre refrained from his usual provocations. By the time Manfred neared the end of his bottle, he was aware that he was swaying slightly. His back had become painful from the effort of standing rigidly at the bar. He finished his bottle and asked for the bill. The waitress placed it on the counter and Manfred paid, leaving, for once, a generous tip in the pewter salver. He did not blame her for her part in his humiliation. Probably she had little idea of the significance of the plot in which she had been an accomplice. She accepted the tip with a barely audible thank-you and gave Manfred what he interpreted to be an apologetic smile.

Manfred took his raincoat from the hanger and clumsily put it on. Then he turned and walked unsteadily towards the exit. The men kept their eyes conspicuously on their cards as he passed.

MANFRED WOKE WITH A HEADACHE. His mouth was dry and he reached for the tumbler of water he kept on the bedside table. It was not long before the events of the previous evening returned to him. He felt a kind of numbness. He lingered in bed a few minutes longer than normal, listening to the sounds from behind the apartment building, the clunk of car doors closing and engines being started, the faint murmur of birdsong. It was quite normal, but Manfred experienced it as if his head was submerged in water. Everything was muffled.

He sat up and drank the remains of the glass of water. His clothes lay on a crumpled heap on the floor rather on the chair where he normally left them neatly folded. A horizontal slat of sunlight crept in at the foot of the window where the blind did not quite reach the sill. A paperback lay on its spine on the floor, its pages fanned out. He must have knocked it off the bedside table. Manfred felt a sudden sensation that he was not in his room, but instead standing outside looking on, as if he was a detective leafing through photographs of a crime scene. Then quite suddenly, he saw himself in the room, bare-chested, propped up against two pillows and he had a strong sense of being watched. Manfred shook his head and dismissed the idea. The feeling must merely be the effect of having drunk, the previous evening, three times as much as he normally did. Nevertheless, when he got out of bed, contrary to habit, he put on a robe to walk the few steps along the passage to the shower room. He felt like an actor playing the role of himself. The headache did not worry him. It was dull and throbbing, quite unlike the migraines which felt as if shards of glass had become lodged in his skull. He found some aspirin in the bathroom cabinet and swallowed three tablets, before splashing cold water on his face.