The reception for the funeral of Bertrand Barthelme took place in the house on Rue des Bois. Trestle tables covered with crisp white tablecloths had been set out in the hallway with a selection of hors d’oeuvres and beverages. Uniformed staff had been hired for the occasion and new arrivals were immediately provided with a glass of sherry. A fire had been set in the drawing room where Gorski had had his interview with Lucette Barthelme. All the available seating was taken. Other guests stood around in huddles, as if wary that their conversation would be overheard. Two waitresses circled the room with trays of drinks. The housekeeper, Thérèse, flitted between the two rooms, keeping a watchful eye on the operation.
Lucette was sitting on the chaise longue. She was dressed in a black skirt and jacket, with a pillbox hat and veil. The dark clothing had the effect of making her complexion appear even paler than usual. A grey-haired woman was sitting next to her and talking animatedly, but Lucette did not appear to be listening. Her gaze was directed towards her son, who was loitering in the corner of the room. He had been fitted with a suit for the occasion. The collar and tie made him seem more masculine than before. Despite the delicacy of his features, he was quite handsome. He sipped a glass of sherry. His eyes followed a pretty, dark-haired waitress as she made her way around the room. When he saw Gorski, he wandered over to the casement and gazed fixedly out at the rain.
Nobody spoke to Gorski, but he did not feel ill at ease. That was another good thing about funerals: it was perfectly acceptable to hover on the edge of things. When the waitress reached Gorski, he took a third glass of sherry. Lucette glanced around to see where Thérèse was, anxious that the reception was meeting with her guests’ approval. She caught Gorski’s eye and smiled in a way that made it clear she would be happy when the gathering was over. He could not help feeling that a moment of intimacy had passed between them.
Gorski’s father-in-law was warming his rump by the fire. He had donned his mayoral sash for the occasion. He greeted Gorski with a cordial wave before returning to his conversation with a group of the town’s worthies. Maître Corbeil was among them. A sour-faced woman Gorski assumed to be Mme Corbeil stood at his side. It did not surprise him that the great and good of Saint-Louis had turned out for Bertrand Barthelme. Nor did it surprise him that no one seemed particularly concerned to affect sorrow at the old man’s demise.
Bertrand Barthelme was a prominent enough figure to merit a slim file of cuttings in the archive of L’Alsace newspaper, and in a town like Saint-Louis the inhabitants have little better to do than to repeat and embellish rumours about their betters. Gorski was shrewd enough to treat much of what he heard with a degree of scepticism. Nevertheless, the Barthelme that emerged did not entirely conform to the austere image he had presented to the world. There had been no need for Gorski to be explicit in his enquiries. He needed only to mention, as if in passing, how unfortunate the accident had been in order to elicit a response. Even the cheerful Mme Beck, who kept the florist’s beneath his mother’s apartment, had made a face suggesting distaste. When Gorski asked whether she had known Barthelme, she replied: ‘Only by reputation.’ Gorski had gently prompted her, but she busied herself with the wrapping of a bouquet and said that she had taken a little soup to his mother.
Lemerre was less reticent. Gorski had his haircut at the shop on Avenue Général de Gaulle once a month. Céline had often urged him to use one of the town’s smarter establishments, but it would not have gone unnoticed, or unremarked upon, if Gorski were to take his trade elsewhere. In any case, Lemerre was one of those people who made it his business to know what was going on in the town. It was expedient to maintain good relations.
Despite the less than hygienic nature of Lemerre’s shop, it did not surprise Gorski to discover that Barthelme was a regular customer. Not only were the solicitor’s offices only a short walk away, but it was a repeated assertion that he was not a man who liked to spend more money than necessary.
‘A stuck-up bugger,’ was Lemerre’s verdict. ‘Never uttered a word. And never tipped neither.’
Gorski tutted his contempt for such behaviour.
Bertrand was born to Honoré and Anaïs Barthelme in April 1923, the second of three brothers. Honoré had established the firm of Barthelme & Barthelme with his brother, Jacques, in 1920 and quickly gained a reputation for competence and discretion. Portraits of the two brothers still adorned the walls of the company’s offices. Bertrand’s elder brother—also Honoré—was run over by a motor car in 1942, and the expectation to carry on the family business fell upon the middle son. Bertrand’s younger brother, Alain, was arrested during the war for black-marketeering, a transgression for which his father never forgave him. Bertrand joined the firm in 1950 having completed his national service and graduated at the top of his class from the University of Strasbourg.
Photographs of Bertrand Barthelme as a student in Strasbourg showed a handsome, fashionably dressed young man, clean-shaven and without the stern demeanour of his later years. He acquired, at this time, the reputation as something of a dandy. He was never short of female company and seemed to have no difficulty combining his studies with nights spent carousing in the city’s most disreputable drinking dens. It was at this time that he made the acquaintance of Camille Masson, the daughter of a well-to-do Strasbourg banker, Guy Masson. Camille was a wild child and aspiring dancer, always attired in the latest fashions. Bertrand met her in the Lapin Rouge cabaret, a well-known haunt of artists and musicians. Camille was immediately taken with the well-dressed student, who impressed her on their first meeting with an impromptu recitation of Baudelaire’s Hymn to Beauty. It was not so much his performance that captivated her, but the way he fixed her with his narrow, flickering eyes. Bertrand refused to join her on the dance floor, but he watched her intently when she danced with others. The couple were soon established as a fixture in the city’s cafés and nightclubs. Their courtship was uneventful, aside from an incident in which Bertrand punched a young painter named Marcel Daru, when his dancing with Camille became too earthy. Daru was left with a broken jaw, but no charges were ever laid. Such incidents were commonplace in the nightclubs of the time and it would have been vulgar to involve the authorities. The episode probably did no harm either to Barthelme or Daru’s reputations.
Bertrand was introduced to Camille’s family and was more than capable of playing the role of respectable future son-in-law. His prospects were good, and neither his manners nor speech betrayed his provincial roots. Guy Masson must have thought he was just the fellow to tame his daughter’s wilder tendencies. Camille longed to move to Paris to pursue a career in dance and frequent the cafés of Montparnasse. It is not known whether she had any talent. Certainly she took part in a number of semi-professional revues, but the likelihood is that it was the lifestyle that attracted her more than any desire to express herself artistically. In any case, a month after Bertrand graduated in 1949, the couple were married at a lavish ceremony in Strasbourg town hall. Until then, Bertrand had not introduced Camille to his parents, presumably calculating that a trip to a backwater like Saint-Louis would do little for the image he had carefully constructed for himself. Honoré and Anaïs Barthelme were charmed by Camille, but the provincial lawyer was heard to voice his disapproval of the extravagance of the reception.
The newlyweds set off on a month’s tour of Italy, paid for by the father of the bride. It was during their honeymoon that Bertrand informed his wife that he intended to take up a position in his father’s firm, and that they were going to live with his parents in the house on Rue des Bois. Camille was devastated. This was not at all what she had envisioned, but she had little idea of just how dreary her new home would be. Maître and Madame Barthelme did their best to make their exotic new daughter-in-law welcome, but their provincial ways—they retired to bed at ten in the evening—appalled her. A soirée was arranged to introduce her to what passed for society in Saint-Louis, but Camille made no secret of how tedious she found the company of the lawyers,
merchants and, worst of all, clergymen that were invited. In a letter to a girlfriend in Strasbourg, she wrote that she felt that she had been imprisoned. Bertrand did his best to amuse her in the evenings and at weekends, but there was little he could do. Honoré’s health began to deteriorate and Bertrand was forced to take greater responsibility for the family business and work ever longer hours. He grew out his beard, believing it added gravitas to his still-youthful features, and joined the town’s various professional guilds. He did not involve himself in local politics, but made sure that he attended events where influential people would be present. Evenings spent reading in the draughty parlour of the house on Rue des Bois, or making polite conversation with petit-bourgeois councillors, were not at all what Camille had in mind when she married the rakish student of Strasbourg. She grew depressed. When a first miscarriage was followed by a second, Bertrand suspected that she had sabotaged the pregnancies. The relationship became characterised by mutual resentment. Camille’s death from an overdose of barbiturates in 1955 was recorded as accidental, but the verdict probably had less to do with the truth than with the desire of an influential family to avoid the stigma of suicide.
Honoré Barthelme died of pancreatic cancer two years later in 1957, and the following year Bertrand persuaded Gustav Corbeil, then the head of another Saint-Louis firm, to join the business, arguing that it would be mutually beneficial to join forces rather than compete with each other. Having secured a virtual monopoly on the town’s legal business, it only remained for Bertrand to produce an heir. His second marriage was arranged by his mother. Lucette Fischer was the daughter of a local insurance broker, whose wife played bridge with Anaïs. A dinner party was held, ostensibly in honour of Anaïs’s sixty-fifth birthday, and the unwitting Lucette was strategically seated next to Bertrand, who mustered some of his old charm, entertaining her with stories from his student days (though tactfully omitting any mention of Camille). Lucette, then twenty-two, was a pretty girl, but shy and unworldly. She had suffered from childhood polio and, as a result of her repeated absences from school, had difficulty making friends. She must have been quite bowled over by the attentions of the handsome and sophisticated Bertrand. On account of her illness, she had spent a good deal of her youth immersed in books, but unlike the first Mme Barthelme she had no creative impulses of her own. After dinner, Bertrand invited her to view the collection of books in his father’s study. Whether he repeated his recital of Baudelaire is not known, but by the end of the evening it had been noted with satisfaction that the pair were wholly absorbed in each other’s company. Courting Lucette did not unduly impinge on Bertrand’s work schedule. The following Sunday, he took her on a drive to Ferrette, where they took a walk around the ruins of the château and enjoyed a rustic lunch at a local inn. Lucette was smitten, and when Bertrand proposed three months later, she immediately accepted.
Bertrand’s second wedding was a modest affair, with a reception at the family home attended by the town’s dignitaries. Anaïs, who had never taken to the moody Camille, was delighted both by her son’s timid new wife and by her own role in engineering the union. Married life was dull, but Lucette seemed quite content. The drives to country inns soon ceased, and Lucette adapted to her role, which was as much as companion to her mother-in-law than as a wife. In 1963, when Lucette finally produced a son, she had fulfilled her purpose and Bertrand lost all interest in her.
Gorski made his way from the drawing room into the hall. Here, perhaps because they were not in the immediate vicinity of the widow, the guests’ conversation was more animated. As he moved through the gathering, Gorski heard little mention of Bertrand Barthelme. Marc Tarrou arrived. Gorski had not spotted him at the funeral itself, though he would certainly have done so given that Tarrou was wearing a royal blue suit with a heavy sheen to the fabric. His hair was wet and he ran both hands through it, before shaking them onto the floor. His shoes were caked with the pale clay mud from the car park of his factory. He accepted a glass of sherry, knocked it back and took a second, not omitting to give a wink to the girl standing behind the trestle table. He spotted Gorski standing at the foot of the stairs.
‘Ah, my favourite cop, still sniffing around?’ he bellowed. ‘Unearthed any of the old rogue’s secrets yet?’ He wiped his wet hands on the rump of his trousers. ‘Couldn’t get parked near the place,’ he said. ‘Who’d have thought the old bastard was so popular, ha ha.’
A few heads turned towards them. Tarrou leaned in close to Gorski’s ear. ‘Thought I should pay my respects to the merry widow,’ he whispered.
Gorski indicated where Lucette could be found. Tarrou slapped him on the shoulder and strode off towards the drawing room. Gorski took the opportunity to slip up the stairs. The housekeeper observed him from the kitchen doorway, but did not intervene. The door to Barthelme’s study was ajar. Gorski hesitated for a moment, his head inclined towards the door. When it was clear that there was no one inside, he entered and closed the door softly behind him. He would prefer not to have to explain his presence there—even to the housekeeper. The air was stale with the smell of pipe tobacco. He ran his fingers along the cracked leather of the armchair at the window. Next to it, on a small table, was a copy of Eugénie Grandet, a bookmark about two-thirds of the way through. Gorski picked it up and absent-mindedly turned it over in his hands. He had never read Balzac. He replaced the book on the table and stepped towards the desk, all this performed in a casual manner, as if to suggest to anyone observing him that he had no real purpose in mind. He sat down in the swivel chair. It was a handsome desk, with a few precisely positioned objects arranged on the green leather surface. Gorski opened each of the drawers in turn. Aside from a few miscellaneous items of stationery in one, they were empty. Just as he slid the last drawer closed, the door clicked open. Gorski started. He expected to see Mme Thérèse, but instead it was his father-in-law.
‘Thought I might find you in here, Georges,’ he said. ‘I saw you sneak off up the stairs.’
Gorski was about to protest that he had not been ‘sneaking off’ anywhere, but instead only said, ‘Paul,’ by way of greeting. He stood up behind the desk. He assumed M. Keller had come to discuss his marital situation; perhaps even to reprimand him for standing up to Céline. Gorski had never been sure to what extent he owed his position as Chief of Police to his father-in-law’s influence. The matter had never been explicitly discussed, but over the years certain comments had been made from which Gorski understood that he was expected to feel indebted to the mayor. Now and again after Sunday lunch, Keller had invited Gorski to smoke a cigar with him in the gardens of the family home and quizzed him about ongoing investigations. It was never clear where Keller got his information, but he no doubt had his sources inside the police station; Schmitt, most likely. Gorski resented these intrusions, but he never had the mettle to rebuff Keller’s enquiries, and their exchanges never failed to make him feel sullied.
Keller pulled off his sash and tossed it onto the chair by the window. ‘Ridiculous piece of tat,’ he said. ‘But got to put on a bit of a show for the citizenry, eh?’
He pointed to the cabinet behind Gorski and strode across the room. He retrieved a decanter of sherry, removed the stopper and sniffed it. ‘Who knows how long this has been in here,’ he said.
Gorski had the impression that he was familiar with the layout of the room. Perhaps he and Barthelme had spent evenings here discussing the affairs of the town.
He poured two good-sized measures and handed one to Gorski. They touched glasses. Keller took a couple of steps back and leant against the desk.
‘So I hear you’ve been looking into old Barthelme’s affairs,’ he said.
The phrase I hear was, of course, quite calculated. Gorski did not say anything. Keller raised his eyebrows questioningly. Gorski felt resentful, as if he had been summoned to the headmaster’s study and accused of a misdemeanour he had not committed.
‘Obviously I’m obliged to investigate the circumstances of his d
eath,’ he said eventually.
Keller feigned surprise. ‘Are you?’ he said. ‘I was given to understand that it was no more than an accident.’ He made it sound as though he was expressing no more than innocent curiosity.
Gorski said nothing.
‘Of course, I know you, Georges,’ he continued cheerily. ‘You can’t discuss an ongoing investigation and all that. Fair enough. It’s merely that certain people are concerned that’—he measured his words—‘that you might be over-reaching yourself.’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Gorski flatly.
‘Oh, I think you do, Georges,’ said Keller, his breezy manner suddenly gone. He drained his glass and smacked his lips together. He shrugged his shoulders. He had said what he had come to say. ‘Best get back to the party,’ he said.
As he reached the door, he realised he had forgotten his sash. He folded it up and stuffed it into the pocket of his jacket. ‘Oh and do try and sort things out with Céline,’ he said from the doorway. ‘She’s driving Hélène and me up the wall.’
When he had gone, Gorski exhaled slowly. He put his hand to his forehead and massaged his temples. He refilled his glass and stood listening to the murmur of the reception below. He would have liked to pass a few minutes alone with Lucette, but there was no indication that the party was going to end imminently. If he was honest with himself, it was this, rather than any expectation that he would discover anything new about Barthelme that had motivated him to attend the funeral.
The Accident on the A35 Page 18
