The Accident on the A35

by Graeme Macrae Burnet

  Lucette rose and fetched the decanter of brandy. She topped up his glass.

  ‘I sense your marriage was not a happy one,’ he said.

  She sat down, a little closer to him this time. She had not replenished her own glass.

  ‘It was not unhappy,’ she said. ‘I don’t suppose it was a great love affair, but I’m not sure such things really exist, do they, Georges? My husband was a very busy man. He hadn’t time for romantic gestures. And I was a disappointment to him. He should have married someone more forceful. I suppose it shouldn’t come as a shock to hear that Bertrand had a mistress. You men have your needs, don’t you?’

  ‘And you?’ said Gorski.

  ‘Me?’

  ‘You must also have needs.’

  Lucette did not appear to object to this impertinent question. It was almost as if she relished having Gorski delve into the intimate details of her marriage. ‘Oh, we girls can be quite creative, Georges,’ she said.

  It was Gorski’s turn to blush. He took a sip of brandy, then leant forward to take a cigarette from the wooden box on the table. Lucette observed him.

  ‘And you?’ she said.

  In the course of a normal investigation, Gorski would never have tolerated the tables being turned in this way.

  ‘Is your marriage a happy one?’

  He instinctively fingered his wedding band.

  ‘Actually, my wife and I are separated.’ Aside from his drunken ramblings the previous night, this was the first time he had admitted it to anyone.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Lucette replied. But a little smile played across her lips.

  Gorski was tempted to tell her the whole story there and then, but it would have been wholly improper. He had quite forgotten that since his ill-advised trip to Strasbourg, his enquiries had taken on a more official character. He stood up, cigarette in hand, and took a turn around the room. The French windows looked out onto a sloping lawn, which in turn gave onto a copse of trees. A gardener was raking leaves from the grass, a cigarette dangling from his mouth. Gorski turned and stood with his back to the windows.

  ‘If you wish me to continue with my enquiries, it might be beneficial to inspect your husband’s financial records,’ he said.

  Lucette looked questioningly at him.

  Gorski explained that withdrawals Maître Barthelme might have made could indicate his movements. ‘Of course, perhaps you would prefer not to know,’ he said.

  She gave a little sigh. ‘No,’ she said. ‘But you will have to see Maître Corbeil about anything like that. He removed my husband’s papers from the house.’

  ‘When did he do that?’

  ‘The day after my husband’s death. He said they were required to conclude my husband’s will.’

  Gorski nodded. It was inconceivable that Maître Corbeil would allow him to see Barthelme’s accounts in the absence of the appropriate paperwork. He waved his hand casually in the air, suggesting that it was a matter of no importance. There was nothing more to say. He approached the table and stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray.

  ‘Perhaps you would like to stay to lunch,’ said Lucette. ‘I need only tell Thérèse to set another place.’

  Gorski would have liked nothing more than to have lunch with Lucette Barthelme, but not there in the dead atmosphere of the house on Rue des Bois. Not under the disapproving eye of the housekeeper. He would have liked to drive Lucette to a little country inn, or to take a turn around the lake in the Petite Camargue. He politely declined the invitation. Afterwards, he reflected that he should have suggested lunch another time, but the moment had passed. Lucette stood up and they shook hands with awkward formality. He showed himself out. Thérèse observed his departure from the kitchen doorway, as though she expected him to pilfer a candlestick.

  By the time Gorski arrived at the Restaurant de la Cloche, lunch service was winding down. The pot-au-feu was finished. Gorski ordered the lamb cutlet and followed it with a slice of apple tart. He drank the glass of wine that was included in the menu du jour, but resisted the temptation to order a second with his dessert. He had decided that he would go directly to see Céline at her boutique. Then, when he was settling his bill at the counter, he asked Pasteur for a marc. The proprietor placed the little glass on the counter.

  ‘That’s on the house, Inspector,’ he said.

  Gorski did not demur, but he left a gratuity large enough to cover the cost of the drink.

  Céline’s shop was a two-minute walk from la Cloche. He loitered in the little park outside the Protestant temple for a few minutes. The leaves of the chestnut trees had started to fall and the November drizzle had made them slippery underfoot. There was a single customer in the shop. Céline was standing at the counter, turning the pages of a magazine. The customer left without making a purchase. Gorski stepped over the low perimeter wall of the park and entered the shop. Céline looked up when the little bell sounded above the door. She gazed at him impassively.

  ‘Hello, Céline,’ he said.

  ‘Hello, Georges,’ she replied in a weary tone.

  She allowed him to kiss her on both cheeks.

  ‘Have you been drinking?’ she said.

  ‘Just a glass of wine with lunch.’ But he took a step back from her.

  She folded her arms. ‘Your eyes are bloodshot,’ she said.

  Gorski explained that he hadn’t been sleeping well. He could not help recalling how, when they had first met, they had often gone into the back of the shop to have sex.

  ‘I wanted to apologise,’ he said.

  ‘It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?’ She returned her gaze to the magazine on the counter.

  ‘All the same,’ he said, ‘it was inexcusable.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Céline drily, ‘no one’s about to excuse you.’

  The remark almost constituted a joke and Gorski took a little encouragement from it.

  ‘I was in Strasbourg. I’m working a murder case up there.’

  Despite herself, Céline’s eyes betrayed a flicker of interest.

  ‘It was impossible to get away,’ he continued.

  ‘I suppose it would have been too much to ask to call the restaurant?’

  Gorski had tried not to picture his wife sitting alone in the draughty surroundings of the Auberge du Rhin, nursing a vodka tonic and ignoring the pitying looks of the waiters. If he had set out to humiliate her, he could barely have come up with a more apposite scheme. And of course it was true, it would have been a simple enough matter to call. He had known as soon as he ordered the second bottle in the little bar with the zinc counter that he would not be keeping their date. And as the alcohol had exerted its grip, he had become bloody-minded: it was Céline who had left him. It was not for him to go running after her. It was she who should be making amends with him. But he did not really believe that. If he had not telephoned, it was not out of bravado. It was because he could imagine the derision Lambert would heap upon him. The truth was, he had not called because he had not wanted to look spineless in front of his colleague.

  Of course, he did not say any of that. He merely repeated that it had not been possible to call. He explained vaguely that he and Lambert had been in the midst of an interrogation.

  Céline exhaled wearily. It was impossible to tell if she believed him or not. If he expected a tirade, it did not come.

  ‘To tell you the truth, Georges, I only agreed to meet you to please my mother,’ she said.

  ‘Even so,’ said Gorski, ‘there are things we need to discuss.’

  ‘Are there?’

  ‘Well, yes,’ he said. ‘Clémence for one.’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘We’ll need to come to some agreement about… access.’ He hated even using such a bureaucratic term.

  ‘You’ve had access to her for the last seventeen years. You never seemed so concerned about it then.’ She looked at him, defying him to disagree.

  Gorski ran his palm over his brow. It was
prickled with sweat.

  ‘All the same,’ he said.

  He took a step closer to her. She turned her head to avoid the smell of his breath. Gorski could see her clavicles beneath the collar of her blouse. It was true that they would have to make certain arrangements, Céline agreed with an air of resignation, ‘but I’d prefer to do it when you don’t reek of stale booze.’

  Gorski assured her that he would not be late next time.

  Céline turned to face him. ‘I’m sure you won’t,’ she said. She ran the tips of her fingers along the line of the clavicle he had been staring at. He left without attempting to kiss her goodbye.

  Madame Gorski was asleep. The room was overheated and stuffy. Gorski turned down the convector heater that his mother had used since her arthritis had made it impossible for her to set a fire. He opened the casement to let in a little air then unpacked the shopping he had brought. Mme Gorski’s hands were too weak to grip a knife, so he had taken to bringing her powdered soups. Her favourite was asparagus. His mother insisted that it was every bit as good as her own soup. Why go to all the trouble of chopping vegetables, when one need only boil up some water? But Gorski missed the smell of simmering stock that used to waft down to the pawnshop below when he was helping his father after school.

  Returning from the kitchenette, he sat down in his father’s chair at the table by the window. It was dark outside. He looked at his reflection in the window, disfigured by the condensation that had formed on the glass. He closed the window then got up and sat in the armchair opposite his mother. His mother’s chin rested on her chest, her hands clasped across her bosom. Her breathing was even and peaceful. One day, he would come to the apartment and find her in exactly that repose, her chest still and her skin cold. Gorski felt his own eyes become heavy. He let his head fall forward. It was, after all, quite pleasant to surrender to the warmth.

  When he woke up, his mother was standing by the stove.

  ‘Tell your father the soup’s ready,’ she said.

  Gorski ran the palm of his hand over his eyes then massaged his temples. His mouth was dry. He looked at his watch. He had been asleep for over an hour. He got up and walked to the door. He called down the stairs towards the shop. There did not seem any harm in it. It seemed less cruel than reminding his mother for the umpteenth time that his father was no longer with them. By the time they sat down to eat, she would have forgotten all about him. Gorski fetched the placemats, napkins and cutlery from the sideboard and arranged them on the table. He then fetched two glasses and a carafe of water. There was little by way of conversation over dinner. Mme Gorski chewed each mouthful of bread for an inordinate length of time. Gorski was aware of the quiet smacking of her lips.

  ‘And how is Céline?’ she asked.

  ‘Fine,’ Gorski replied. ‘Busy at the shop, of course.’

  ‘And Clémence?’

  ‘The same. Busy with her schoolwork, I mean.’

  ‘I’d like to see her,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, I’ll tell her to stop by.’

  Mme Gorski turned and looked towards the door.

  ‘What’s happened to your father?’ she said with a little shake of her head. When she turned back, she started a little. ‘Ah, there you are,’ she said. ‘I was just going to call you again.’

  Gorski smiled at her. He had always shared some of his father’s mannerisms and patterns of speech, but now that his own hair was grey and his face had grown gaunt—he had recently lost a few kilos—he had started to resemble his father physically.

  Gorski cleared the table and washed up. There was enough soup left for his mother’s lunch the following day.

  Fourteen

  Johnny’s was tucked between two other bars on a narrow street called Rue de la Loi. Raymond had been loitering on the pavement outside for half an hour. It was raining lightly. Johnny’s had no windows, so he could not see if Delph was inside. There was only a door, above which was a wooden sign in the style of an American saloon. A few people had entered or left the premises, but from the pavement opposite Raymond could see only into a dimly lit passage. Whenever the door opened, a burst of rhythmic music issued from within.

  Raymond had gone over and over Delph’s words. I’ll be at Johnny’s on Saturday. At least, that was what he thought she had said. There had been no mention of whether she would be there in the afternoon or evening, certainly not of an actual time. Still, there was no question of not entering. If she was not there, he could drink a beer and leave. What was the worst that could happen?

  He walked to the end of the street, doubled back and then, when he reached the door of the bar, went straight in as if he had just happened on the place. The first thing that hit him was the music: all percussion and double bass, a deep semi-spoken baritone. The passage opened into a dark barroom. Raymond scanned the room for Delph. To the right of the room was a raised area separated by a balustrade and reached by two wooden steps. A group of students was gathered round a table there, deep in conversation. Delph was nowhere to be seen. Directly ahead was the bar. Raymond spotted an unoccupied table in the corner. He hung his satchel over the back of the rickety wooden chair and sat down. He removed his scarf and hung it next to his satchel, this done with the intention of giving the impression that he was entirely at ease. It was only then that he was able to properly take in his surroundings.

  Above the bar was a Confederate flag and a number of signs: Please use the spittoons provided—No cussin’—Kindly refrain from brawling, none of which Raymond understood. Every inch of wall space was covered with Johnny Cash record sleeves, playbills and photographs. Some of the posters were plastered directly onto the walls, others had been hung in mismatched frames. To the right of the bar was a pair of swing doors marked Restrooms. Next to that was a 1950s jukebox, its display of lights illuminating a patch of wooden floor in front of it. Leaning on the end of the bar was a short, stocky man of around fifty, dressed in a black suit, wing-collared white shirt and Cuban-heeled boots. His jet-black hair was swept back into an impressive quiff. He had a thin cigar clamped in the corner of his mouth. This, Raymond supposed, was Johnny. Aside from the table of students, the only other customers were two burly, shaven-headed men in leather motorcycle jackets standing at the bar drinking tankards of beer. On the back of one of the men’s jackets the motto Born to live, Live to die was picked out in metal studs. Once Raymond was settled at his table, the little man in the black suit walked over with a rolling gait.

  ‘Whaddaya drinkin’, buddy?’ he said in American-accented English. Even in the dimly lit bar, it was obvious that his hair was dyed.

  Raymond asked for a beer. Johnny communicated his order to a woman behind the bar with a large, placid face and long, grey hair tied in plaits at the sides of her head. His wife, Raymond assumed. She unhurriedly pulled the beer and the proprietor brought it over.

  ‘Your first time in Johnny’s?’ he asked as he placed it on the table. It was smaller than the ones the men at the bar were drinking.

  Raymond nodded cautiously.

  ‘Tell me, mon fils, who is the king?’

  ‘The king?’ Raymond repeated.

  ‘Yes, the king. Who’s the king?’

  ‘I don’t know, monsieur,’ said Raymond. ‘You?’

  The little man took his cigar from the corner of his mouth. His fingers were adorned with a number of oversized signet rings. He shook his head and tutted his disappointment. He gestured round the walls of the bar.

  ‘Now,’ he said with weary patience, ‘let’s try again. Who is the king?’ He enunciated the question as if each word was an entire sentence.

  Raymond cottoned on. ‘Johnny Cash?’ he said doubtfully.

  ‘Johnny Cash! Correct answer.’ He took a step back from the table, replaced his cigar in his mouth and gave a slow handclap. ‘Fuck Elvis. Fuck Hallyday. Fuck Gainsbourg. Johnny Cash is the king.’

  The bikers at the bar looked over, no doubt having witnessed the routine many times before. The propriet
or shouted to them: ‘The kid didn’t know who the king was.’ Then he turned back to Raymond. ‘First drink’s on the house, buddy.’

  He strutted back to his post at the corner of the bar. Raymond did not know what to make of the exchange. Any hope he had of passing unnoticed in the corner had gone. And now, if Delph did not show up, he could hardly just leave as if he had casually dropped in with no ulterior motive. First drink’s on the house. The statement clearly implied that the first drink would be followed by a second and probably by a third and fourth drink. You could not accept a drink on the house and then leave. Perhaps he should have insisted on paying, but Johnny would no doubt have taken such a suggestion as a grievous insult.

  Raymond took his book from his satchel, but there was barely enough light to read by. He took out his cigarettes and lit one. The act of smoking put him a little more at ease. The music battered on at a relentless pace. With each new song Raymond grew more accustomed to Johnny Cash’s voice and the clanking train-track rhythm. He tried to relax.

  From where he was sitting he could not see the door, but he did not want to give the impression that he was waiting for someone. He drank some beer. His father always insisted that beer was a drink for ruffians. He took a second swallow and then drained the contents. He stared at the empty glass on the table in front of him with satisfaction. Perhaps he was a ruffian. Johnny appeared at his table and placed a second beer in front of him.

  ‘You’re thirsty,’ he said. It was a statement rather than a question.

  Raymond folded open the pages of his book. He rested his elbow on the table and placed his left hand on his forehead, as if he was reading. But through his fingers he watched the group of students around the table on the platform. There were two girls and three boys. The music was too loud to hear what they were saying, but their conversation was animated. The focal point of the group was a guy in a black leather jacket who kept a cigarette pinched between the thumb and middle finger of his left hand. His chair was pushed a little back from the table and his right arm was draped around the back of his neighbour’s seat. He did not take much part in the discussion, but he seemed to exert a pull on the others. When he took a draw on his cigarette, he tipped his head back and exhaled a stream of smoke directly above him. Raymond found him loathsome.