Graeme Burnet - The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau

The nurse walked across the room and stood proprietarily behind her charge.

‘Inspector,’ she said firmly.

Gorski nodded and stood up. He bid the spluttering Paliard good day and saw himself out. Despite Paliard’s derision, he was glad he had paid the visit. Although nothing concrete had come of it, he was at least engaging with the investigation. And there was something in the atmosphere of that tomb-like room which he felt he was missing. He thought of Ribéry’s dictum to look for what was not there. His footsteps crunched down the gravel exactly as they had twenty years before. There was a heavy aroma of laburnum. Then he remembered there had been a boy, a teenager. He turned and half-ran back up the driveway. The front door was not locked. The maid appeared in the passage at the rear of the hall.

‘Inspector, you can’t…’

Gorski ignored her. The drawing room door was open. Paliard was still on the sofa, an oxygen mask now attached to his face. He was struggling even to catch the shallowest breath, one craggy hand gripping the arm of the sofa, the other over his chest. The nurse was fussing around him. She saw Gorski in the doorway and ordered him out.

MANFRED HAD ALWAYS HATED SATURDAYS. During the week, even if one hated one’s job, one went to work because one had to, because there was no choice in the matter. People congregated in their work places with a sense of communal resignation. It was relatively easy to give the appearance of being a normal member of society. Weekends were different. One was expected to enjoy oneself, to take part in healthy outdoor pursuits, family or social events. Manfred had never enjoyed such activities. If he read books or went to the cinema, it was not so much because he enjoyed doing so, but because it filled the hours. He dreaded Monday mornings when the staff at the bank would regale each other with tales of how packed with activity their weekends had been. Each seemed determined to be the one who had eked the most pleasure out of their hours of liberty. Without fail, when she brought in his coffee, Carolyn would ask her boss if he had had a pleasant weekend. Manfred always assured her that he had. If pressed, he sometimes said that he had been to the cinema in Strasbourg. This seemed to satisfy the girl’s curiosity and she would then recount her weekend’s activities for as long as Manfred would tolerate. He barely listened and often sat imagining what she would say if he told her in a matter of fact way that he had visited a disreputable club where he had committed a sexual act with a girl of about her age whose name he did not even trouble to ask.

On this particular Saturday, however, there was no question of Manfred visiting Simone’s. The prospect of that part of his routine coming to Gorksi’s attention was not appealing. On top of that, since his evening with Alice, the seedy allure of Simone’s had dissipated and Manfred felt a sort of shame in ever having visited the place. His weekend required some thorough reorganisation.

He began by telephoning his grandmother to tell her he would not be coming for lunch on Sunday. She made no attempt to conceal her disappointment. Manfred explained that he was meeting a friend.

‘A friend?’ Mme Paliard repeated. ‘What kind of friend?’

Manfred had expected her to be pleased to hear this news. Instead her tone was one of incredulity.

‘A woman who lives in my building,’ he explained.

‘I see,’ she said, as if the phrase was some kind of euphemism. ‘Couldn’t you meet this friend some other time? Your grandfather will be upset. He hasn’t been well. You know how your visits cheer him up.’

‘I’m sure he’ll get over it,’ Manfred said, immediately regretting his harsh tone. He knew, of course, that it was his grandmother who was disappointed not to see him. ‘Perhaps I could come during the week. Thursday, perhaps?’ If he visited on that evening, he could avoid a repeat of his exclusion from the card game.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘We’ll see you next Sunday.’

Manfred put the phone down feeling angry towards his grandmother, but he was glad she had not accepted his offer to visit during the week. His routine was disordered enough as it was. He decided to do his laundry this afternoon. Even Gorski could hardly interpret anything untoward in an alteration to the time at which Manfred carried out this task. Alice had agreed to call for him at two o’clock the following afternoon to ‘do something together’. Manfred had little idea what doing something together might entail, but certainly it was at least possible that it would carry on into the evening, when he would normally do his washing. Manfred did not expect this to be the case. Nevertheless it was prudent to be prepared for such an eventuality. He felt uneasy as he took the back stairs down to the scullery with his sack of washing. He did his washing on Sunday evenings precisely because the laundry room was always empty at that time. Perhaps on a Saturday morning it would be teeming with residents with whom he would be obliged to exchange pleasantries. The room was empty. The other residents of the building were most likely busy eking pleasure out of their Saturdays.

Manfred hurriedly pushed his shirts and undershorts into one machine and his socks and other garments into a second. He sat down as he always did on the plastic chair by the door and opened his book, but he could not concentrate. He was concerned that Alice might come in. He had no wish to witness the spectacle of her sifting through her underwear, but he could hardly withdraw if she arrived. They would be forced to engage in conversation for the hour or so it took the machines to do their work, exhausting topics of conversation that might be required the following afternoon. Alice would in all likelihood take such a situation in her stride, but the scenario alarmed Manfred. He decided to go upstairs to his apartment and return when the cycle was over. It was not uncommon for people in the building to leave their washing unattended. Machines were often running when he came down and clothes sometimes seemed to have been left in them for hours. Manfred disapproved of this practice, and had on occasion left anonymous notes to this effect, but the circumstances were exceptional. He would return as soon as the cycle was over and remove his washing from the machine. He spent an hour pacing restlessly around his flat. He decided that he would, after all, spend the evening in Strasbourg. Since he often told Carolyn he went to the cinema, that was what he should do. He took it as read that Gorski was fully appraised of his movements and he would place some negative interpretation on any deviation from his routine. In any case, he had no desire to spend the evening cooped up in his apartment.

Manfred returned to the laundry room just as the machine was ending his cycle. A man was loading his washing into one of the free machines. He was in his sixties and Manfred had often seen him walking his little terrier around the play park behind the building. He suspected that his dog might be responsible for the faeces that had recently been found in the stairwell, but, as he had no real evidence to back up his suspicions, he did not mention it. The space was too cramped for them both to move around, so he was obliged to loiter in the doorway while the man finished loading his machine. Neither of them said anything. The man turned on his machine and, to Manfred’s relief, left the room. Contrary to his normal practice, Manfred bundled his wet clothes into his laundry sack and took them back to his apartment. There was an old clothes horse on the balcony. Manfred unfolded it and pegged up his shirts. In an hour or so the sun would reach the balcony and they would be dry in no time. Manfred leant for a moment on the metal balustrade. Alice’s car was parked below. Manfred was tempted to wait there on the balcony just for the opportunity of seeing her come out and get into her vehicle. It would be quite normal to wave and call out a greeting to her. Of course, he would do no such thing. He would press his back to the wall of the balcony for fear of being spotted spying on her. Children were playing noisily in the park. A group of Arab women sat gossiping on a bench. One of them turned and looked up towards the balcony. Manfred retreated into the kitchen.