Graeme Burnet - The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau

‘My condolences, Madame Paliard,’ he said.

‘What are you doing here?’ Manfred said, his customary meekness cast off.

Gorski reiterated his condolences to Manfred. ‘I thought we might take a little drive together,’ he said.

‘That’s out of the question,’ he said.

They reached the limousine that was to take them back to the house and Madame Paliard was helped in. Gorski subtly blocked Manfred’s entrance to the vehicle and in a single motion, bent inside the car showing his ID.

‘Madame, my apologies, but I have some pressing business with your grandson. Could you spare him for an hour?’

The old woman appeared confused, but nodded her assent and Gorski led Manfred towards his car. Gorski waited patiently as Manfred was accosted by one of the decorated old men. ‘I was with your grandfather in Algeria,’ he told Manfred, shaking him vigorously by the hand. ‘I could tell you a few tales.’

Manfred had no idea his grandfather had ever been in Algeria. ‘I have a piece of business to take care of first,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back in an hour. Look after my grandmother for me.’ The old man gave a little salute, comic in effect if not intention, and Manfred followed Gorski to his car.

Gorski’s Peugeot smelt strongly of smoke. Manfred did not say anything, embarrassed that his determination of a few moments before had crumbled so easily. He knew he should behave as if he was outraged at Gorski’s intrusion, but it seemed pointless after so meek a surrender. In reality he was relieved not to have to attend the reception.

Gorski made a U-turn and headed north. He lit a cigarette and wound down the driver’s side window. ‘You weren’t close to your grandfather?’ he said.

‘Not especially,’ Manfred replied.

‘Not especially?’ said Gorski, ‘My impression is that Monsieur Paliard had very little regard for his grandson.’

Manfred felt his forehead prickle. ‘Your impression?’ he repeated dumbly, fully aware that this was exactly the response Gorski wished to elicit.

‘Yes,’ said Gorski, ‘I spoke with M. Paliard a couple of times shortly before his death. We talked a little about you.’

Manfred said nothing. He was trying to absorb the implications of what Gorski had just told him. He could not imagine his grandfather having anything positive to say about him. Gorski turned the car into a minor road that ran north, parallel to the Rhine. They drove along in silence for a few minutes.

‘Where are we going?’ Manfred asked eventually, although it was becoming increasingly clear.

‘You’ll see,’ said Gorski. ‘Somewhere quiet.’

‘If you have more questions for me, I’d like to be interviewed in the presence of a lawyer.’

Gorski nodded slowly. ‘Let’s not worry about that for the time being.’

They drove for a few more minutes before pulling up in a lay-by. There was a white painted gate leading to a footpath into the woods. Gorski turned off the engine and got out. He took off his jacket and hung it on the hook above the window in the back seat. Manfred got out. Gorski asked if he would like to leave his jacket in the car. Manfred was perspiring, but he declined and instead loosened his tie and opened the top button of his shirt.

Gorski led the way through the gate. The air was cooler in the forest. The path was too narrow for them to walk two abreast and Gorski indicated that Manfred should lead the way.

‘I’ve been coming up here for years,’ Gorski began, his tone conversational. ‘Almost exactly twenty years, in fact. You know, there aren’t too many murders around here, but two decades ago a young girl was strangled in these woods. I was just a young cop then. The case fell in my lap through circumstance. I was out of my depth.’

Manfred was relieved that the detective could not see his face. He recalled the sight of the younger Gorski standing with his back to the mantelpiece in the chilly reception room where the funeral-goers would now be gathering. He had not changed so much. His hair was grey and he was perhaps a little thicker around the midriff, but his face retained some of its youthfulness. They came to a fork on the path.

‘To the left here,’ Gorski said from behind his shoulder. ‘In the end, we secured a conviction — your grandfather remembered all this — a tramp named Malou, but I was never convinced. It stays with you, a thing like that. That’s why I kept coming back. Your grandfather told me you were very fond of these woods back then. Never out of them in fact.’

He paused and tapped Manfred on the arm, indicated with his finger that they should leave the path. They scrambled down a slope, their trousers snagging in the thorny undergrowth. The forest floor was tinder dry. A woodpigeon cooed incessantly. Then they were there, in the clearing.

Manfred swallowed audibly. The back of his eyes stung. When he closed them, he saw Juliette’s body lying broken in the middle of his grandparents’ rug. He felt his knees weaken and for a moment thought he was going to faint. Gorski pointed to a fallen tree on the far side of the clearing and suggested they sit down. The tree trunk had not been there previously, but otherwise the place was as Manfred remembered it. The two men made their way across the clearing and sat down. Manfred took off his jacket and laid it carefully next to him. Gorski lit a cigarette. Manfred could smell the dryness of the forest floor. It had not rained for weeks.

‘So,’ Gorski said, ‘here we are.’

Manfred did not say anything. He understood that his silence was tantamount to an admission of guilt. But Gorski could not expect him just to come out with it — to blurt out that he killed Juliette, that he had choked her to death and calmly packed up his belongings before running off into the woods. Nevertheless, like twenty years before, he had no intention of denying anything. If Gorski had done his job the first time around, Manfred would have served his time by now and been done with the matter.

Gorski got up from the trunk and walked to the middle of the clearing. He was still smoking. Manfred imagined the ash from his cigarette igniting the tinder and engulfing the forest in flames.

‘It was just here that the girl was found. The body was in a peculiar position, as if she had been dumped here. Of course, we considered the possibility that she had been killed elsewhere and then brought here, but it didn’t add up. Why carry a body this far into the forest and then make no attempt to conceal it? Why not weigh it down and throw it in the Rhine? Of course, I considered the idea that the killer actually wanted to be caught, to take credit for his crime, but I didn’t place much credence in that kind of theory. Still don’t.’

He said all this as if he was reliving his thought processes for his own benefit. He paused and looked at Manfred.

‘My mistake was that I was looking for the wrong kind of person. I’d never investigated a murder before and all I had to go on was what I’d read in books.’ He stopped and looked at Manfred. ‘What the books don’t tell you is that sometimes murder is just a matter of chance. And you can’t investigate chance. Two people meet and something bad happens. Maybe even by accident.’ He carefully stubbed out his cigarette with the toe of his shoe and resumed his place next to Manfred. The two men sat in silence for a few moments staring ahead at the spot where Juliette had died. Manfred bore Gorski no ill will. It had never occurred to him before that if he had taken the opportunity to confess all those years before, he would by now have been free of the thing. Perhaps due to his age and the circumstances, he would have been shown leniency and would have spent only a few years in jail. He might have been out by his mid-twenties. Instead, every moment of his life since had been determined by what happened here in the clearing.