Lucette burst into tears and hid her face in her hands. Raymond regretted upsetting her, but there was no question of backing down. He stood up and threw his napkin on the table, spilling the remains of his wine. Then he strode out of the room. He did not have the heart to slam the door, but he stomped noisily up the staircase. He was angry with his mother. She had given him no choice but to act as he did.
Raymond prowled the perimeter of his room for some minutes. He thought of punching the wall, but did not do so for fear of hurting his hand. There was, in any case, little point in doing so if there was no one there to witness the act. When he had calmed down a little, he sat on the edge of his bed. The straight-backed chair had been pushed neatly under his desk. It was a sign that Thérèse had been in to tidy his room. Raymond wondered if she had taken it upon herself to go through his things. He got up and opened and closed the drawers of his desk, but there was no sign that anything had been disturbed. It crossed his mind to sneak into Thérèse’s quarters and secrete the money somewhere. The thought made him smile, but it would be impossible to convince his mother to search her rooms. Instead, he resolved to buy a padlock for his bedroom door. He got up and pressed his ear to the back of the door. He could hear the sound of dishes being washed in the kitchen below. He fetched his satchel from the back of the wardrobe and took out his new knife. It was the first opportunity he had had to properly examine it. He pulled it out of the sheath and weighed it in his hand. It felt good. He ran his finger along the blade. It was not particularly sharp. He pressed it tentatively against the fleshy part of his hand. It did no more than leave a pale line on the skin. One day, when Thérèse was out, he would borrow the steel from the kitchen and sharpen it. Not that he had any intention of ever using it. He stood in front of the mirror on the inside of the wardrobe holding the knife casually by his side. He imagined being confronted by two older boys, like the ones he had seen in Mulhouse. He smiled, then returned the knife to its sheath. He looked around for a suitable hiding place, but there was nowhere that Thérèse might not find it. Until he procured a lock for his room, he would have to keep it with him at all times.
He went into his father’s study and sat at the desk. He already felt more comfortable there. He picked up the telephone receiver and dialled Yvette’s number. Madame Arnaud answered. She was a diminutive woman in her late thirties, with the same neat features as her daughter. She was a teacher at a local elementary school and often spoke to Raymond as if she was addressing one of her pupils. Early one Sunday afternoon, when Raymond had called for Yvette, she had answered the door while pulling on her robe. He had been surprised that she had been in bed so late.
On the phone, Madame Arnaud expressed her condolences and asked how his mother was. Raymond did not know what to say. Lucette did not seem particularly upset. If she had been more subdued than normal, he assumed that that was only because she was expected to act that way. Certainly until the incident at the dinner table, he had not seen her crying.
‘I think she’s coping,’ he replied.
‘If there’s anything we can do,’ she said.
This struck Raymond as odd, since as far as he knew the two women had never met.
‘Thank you,’ he said.
Yvette came on the line.
‘Hello, Raymond,’ she said.
‘Hi.’
Raymond disliked talking on the telephone. There was something about speaking into the plastic handset that made the conversation feel fake. And he always imagined that Thérèse was listening on the other line. In any case, as he saw Yvette every day at school they rarely had cause to talk on the phone. Despite the fact that it had been he who had called her, he waited for Yvette to say something. She asked how he was.
‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘A little bored.’
‘When will you be coming back to school?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘After the funeral, I suppose.’
‘Why don’t you come over? I could fill you in on what you’ve missed.’
‘I don’t think I can,’ said Raymond. ‘Maman is upset.’ In truth, he would have liked to see her. Yvette’s parents never objected to Raymond spending time in their daughter’s bedroom. But he felt that in some way, although nothing meaningful had occurred, he had already betrayed her with Delph.
‘I’m sitting in my father’s study,’ he said, by way of changing the subject. ‘At his desk.’
‘How does that feel?’
‘Weird. Like I’ve ascended to the throne.’
He could hear Yvette’s breathing. ‘What about Saturday?’ she said.
‘Saturday?’ said Raymond. He thought of his assignation with Delph. ‘I’m sorry. I have to help Maman. Funeral arrangements and all that.’
‘In the evening, then?’
‘No,’ he said too quickly. ‘I can’t. Maman will need me.’
Yvette said goodnight. She sounded disappointed. She hung up. Raymond turned off the lamp on his father’s desk and sat in the dark for a few minutes. He could hear Thérèse moving around downstairs.
Thirteen
Gorski awoke with a feeling of dread. The curtains were open. The sky outside was a yellowish-grey and seemed to be pulsating slightly. He raised his head from the pillow. His clothes were strewn across the floor. The bedroom door was wide open. There was an acrid taste in his mouth. He looked at the clock on the bedside table. It was 10:25. He swung his legs out of bed and sat for some time with his forehead in his hands. He felt nauseous. He forced himself off the bed and got into the shower.
The previous night began to come back to him. After the bar with the zinc counter, he and Lambert had eaten steak-frites in a brasserie on Place Kléber. The Strasbourg cop had then insisted on taking Gorski to what he called a ‘special little place’. Gorski had put up no resistance. He was already drunk and had lost his bearings in the winding streets. Lambert’s special little place was located in an alleyway basement. It was a tiny establishment with nine or ten tables, half of them unoccupied. The room was illuminated only by the candles on the tables and the backlit bottles of liquor behind the bar. A soundtrack of chansons was loud enough to drown out the murmur of conversation from neighbouring tables. The place was presided over by a gaunt woman in her fifties perched on a high stool at the end of the bar. When she saw Lambert, she wafted across the room and greeted him warmly. She led him by the arm to a table, around which there was a semi-circular velvet banquette. Lambert introduced Gorski, and—he was embarrassed to recall—he had made a little bow and kissed her hand. Lambert made a remark about him being from the provinces.
‘I think it’s charming,’ the patronne—Simone—had responded. ‘So few people have any manners anymore.’ She gave Gorski a wide smile. Her eyes were heavily made-up, and she had a large, hooked nose. Her profile reminded Gorski of a figure from a book of Egyptian pictograms he had had when he was a boy.
A bottle of champagne was brought to the table and they were joined by two girls, one of whom appeared barely older than Clémence. Lambert took it upon himself to make the introductions. Gorski did not catch either girl’s name. At some point—either in the bar with the zinc counter or at the brasserie—Gorski had made the mistake of telling Lambert that Céline had left him. Lambert cheerfully relayed this information to the girls and instructed them to be nice to him. Gorski smiled apologetically. Lambert carelessly filled their glasses, splashing champagne over the table, and toasted Simone, who had returned to her perch by the bar. She inclined her head in acknowledgement. Gorski’s head was spinning. He placed his glass on the table.
Lambert leant in towards him. ‘Come on, Georges, you’re a free man. Drink up! It’s on the house. Everything’s on the house.’ He tipped his head towards the girl sitting next to Gorski and elbowed him in the ribs. The girl was drinking her champagne through a straw. She did not make any attempt to take part in the conversation. She looked bored but did not seem to be ill at ease.
A second bottle of champagne arrive
d. Lambert demanded a bottle of whisky also be brought. Gorski realised he was required to do little more than laugh at Lambert’s jokes and appear to be drinking his share. New arrivals frequently paused at the table to greet Lambert. They were cops, journalists, or perhaps politicians, local or otherwise. No one seemed in the least concerned about being seen in such an establishment.
A little later, Lambert nudged the girl next to him off the banquette and they disappeared through a door to the rear of the bar. Gorski assumed they were going to the WC, but they were gone too long for that. He took a sip of his champagne and filled his companion’s glass. She was a pretty girl, with yellow-blonde hair and a down-turned mouth. Even in the warm glow of the candlelight, her skin seemed exceptionally pale. Without Lambert’s stream of anecdotes, the silence between them was uncomfortable. Gorski asked where she was from. He did not hear her reply, but her French was heavily accented. Gorski nodded as if he had understood her perfectly.
‘What brings you to Strasbourg?’ he asked.
The girl rolled her eyes to indicate that the answer was self-evident. Gorski nodded. ‘Of course,’ he said, embarrassed by the naivety of his question.
‘I’m from Saint-Louis myself,’ Gorski said for the sake of something to say. He was aware that he was slurring. The girl gazed blankly around the room and he made no further attempt at conversation. Lambert reappeared a few minutes later, wearing a roguish grin. The girl was not with him. He slid back onto the banquette.
‘Your turn,’ he said.
‘I’m sorry?’ said Gorski.
‘Your turn,’ Lambert repeated. He jutted his chin towards the girl. ‘I told you, everything’s on the house.’ He then addressed the girl: ‘Hey, whatsyourname, take our friend through the back, will you?’
The girl shrugged and stood up, waiting for Gorski to follow her.
‘Really, I’d rather not,’ he said, before adding lamely: ‘I’m feeling a little nauseous.’
The girl looked at Lambert, who shook his head in exasperation. To Gorski’s relief, the girl resumed her seat. Lambert leaned into his ear. ‘Freedom’s wasted on you, chum,’ he said.
In an attempt to prove that he was not a stick-in-the-mud, Gorski ordered another bottle of champagne. Lambert’s girl reappeared. She had changed her blouse. Lambert put his arm round her shoulder and playfully bit her on the neck, making a noise like a big cat. The patronne joined them at the table. She smiled charmingly, but Gorski had the feeling she did not like Lambert. Gorski found himself telling her about Céline. She appeared to listen intently, but after a few minutes she slipped silently away to welcome some new guests. She must have heard a thousand such stories.
Gorski could not recall how many more bottles were brought to the table. At a certain point, he stumbled into the WC and vomited, disinterestedly noting his tie dangling in the pan as he did so. He took it off and attempted to flush it away, but it floated there like a malevolent snake. He fished it out and stuffed it behind the pipes of the wash-hand basin. Céline had bought it for him.
Gorski did not remember driving home, but when he had showered and made some coffee, he looked outside. His car was in the drive.
Shameful though it was, it was not the memory of his evening with Lambert that now filled him with dread. It was the fact that he had missed his dinner with Céline.
The housekeeper showed Gorski into a drawing room at the back of the Barthelme house. It was a large room, old-fashioned and over-furnished. Barely a foot of floor space was not occupied with a chair, occasional table or a large urn filled with dried stalks. The walls were decorated with murky landscapes in ornate gold-leaf frames. The French windows were hung with velvet drapes secured with gilt cords. Gorski disliked such rooms. The accumulation of generations of junk was not as haphazard as it might appear. It served to remind visitors of the unassailable permanency of old money.
Despite the fire burning in the hearth there was a chill in the room that Gorski suspected never lifted. Lucette Barthelme was standing with her back to the fireplace, a cigarette in her right hand. Gorski had the impression that she had lit the cigarette only when she had heard the doorbell and adopted this pose quite knowingly. She was dressed in a white silk blouse and beige knee-length skirt. He noted, with pleasure, that she had applied a little make-up in anticipation of his visit. In order to avoid the embarrassment of again being received in her bedroom, Gorski had disregarded Ribéry’s dictum and telephoned in advance of his visit. There was, in any case, no reason not to do so. Lucette Barthelme was not herself suspected of any wrongdoing.
She crossed the room to shake hands and thanked him for coming. They stood looking awkwardly at each other for a few moments. Lucette invited him to take a seat. Gorski sat on a brocade chaise longue in the centre of the room. She sat at the opposite end. She stubbed out her cigarette in an ashtray that already contained several butts. Gorski did not have the impression that this was the sort of household where the ashtrays would go unemptied overnight.
‘Perhaps you would like some coffee?’ she said. ‘I could ring for Thérèse.’
Gorski shook his head.
She was then struck by another idea. ‘Perhaps a brandy then?’
Gorski did not refuse. It was just what he required to clear his head. He had spotted the decanter on the sideboard as soon as he had entered the room. Lucette got up and poured two large measures. There was something in her gait that made her seem out of place in the grand surroundings. She stepped lightly—tentatively even—around the room, as if she was afraid of being detected. It was clear that nothing in the room had altered since her arrival in the household. Even after twenty years of marriage, she was more akin to a lodger than the mistress of the house. She was the sort of woman Gorski should have married. She would have been comfortable in the modest apartment above the shop in Rue des Trois Rois. Gorski found himself picturing them there, sitting in the evening light, reading or playing a hand of cards at the table by the window.
She handed him the glass, then resumed her seat. They drank. The spirit caused her to give a little cough.
‘Perhaps it’s a little early for brandy,’ she said. Then she gave a silly, schoolgirlish laugh, which Gorski found at once affected and endearing. She brushed a strand of hair from her cheek.
‘So, Madame—’
She interrupted to ask him to call her Lucette, as he knew she would.
‘Of course,’ he said, repeating her name.
‘And I shall call you Georges.’ She seemed pleased to have established this intimacy between them.
Gorski cleared his throat. He adopted a more formal tone. ‘As requested, I have made some enquiries about your husband’s movements on the night of his death. Of course, these enquiries have been of an informal nature.’
‘You make it sound so grave, Georges,’ she said.
‘It seems that your husband did not, as he told you, have dinner with Maître Corbeil, or any of his other associates. He left his office around four o’clock and, as yet, his movements between then and the time of his death are unaccounted for.’
‘I see.’
‘I’m afraid this club he spoke of appears to have been no more than an invention.’
Lucette did not say anything. She reached for a carved wooden box of cigarettes on the coffee table and lit one.
‘Please go on,’ she said. ‘Don’t feel that you need to spare my feelings.’
Gorski explained as delicately as he could that the most obvious explanation for Barthelme’s duplicity was that he kept a mistress. ‘Did you ever suspect that your husband might be deceiving you?’
Lucette gave another silly laugh. She glanced at the brandy glass she was cradling in her lap, then said quietly: ‘My husband did not have much interest in such things.’
‘I could not help but notice when I called on the night of the accident,’ said Gorski, ‘that you and your husband kept separate chambers.’
‘Yes.’ She glanced up at him.
&nbs
p; ‘May I ask how long this arrangement had been in place?’
‘Since the beginning of our marriage. We never shared a bedroom.’
‘But you—?’ Thankfully he did not need to complete the sentence.
‘At first, of course, but my husband did not think it convenient to share a bed. He was a light sleeper and said we would only disturb each other. He was very practical.’
Gorski nodded. He noted that Mme Barthelme never used her husband’s name. She put her cigarette to her lips and exhaled a stream of smoke.
‘And did you ever have any suspicion that Maître Barthelme might be satisfying his needs elsewhere?’
‘My husband did not give the impression of having any sexual needs. Even when we were first married he treated the act as an obligation, rather than as’—she glanced bashfully towards the fireplace—‘rather than as a pleasure.’
A little colour rose to her cheeks. Gorski thought of the modish apartment in Strasbourg and of the silk ties that were still fastened to the bedstead there. Lucette brushed a little cylinder of ash from her skirt. And suddenly she seemed the betrayed wife. Gorski felt that he was being cruel. No matter how chilly the couple’s relations, it must have been preferable for Lucette to believe that her husband had no interest in sex, rather than that he indulged himself with a mistress.
He had liked the gay Lucette Barthelme, no matter how put-on her breezy demeanour had been. And what if the tables were turned and his own marriage was placed under similar scrutiny? Even as his marital relations with Céline had dwindled, he had never suspected her of having a lover. She would have had no end of opportunities. As she had grown older, she had only become more attractive. She had retained her boyish, willowy figure, but her face now had more character. The little lines around her eyes only had the effect of drawing one’s gaze towards them. And she was charming. Gorski had often observed how men looked at her. They liked to be in her company. It did not make him jealous. Céline enjoyed the attention of other men, and Gorski enjoyed observing her. It was often after they had attended a social event together that their lovemaking was most passionate. If Céline was aroused by the attentions of other men, what did it matter if he was the beneficiary? And if their sex life had waned a little in recent years, was that not the case with all couples? Or was it that, like Maître Barthelme, Céline had taken to satisfying her needs elsewhere? It was perhaps only because he had never himself been tempted to stray that the thought had not crossed his mind.
The Accident on the A35 Page 14
