The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau

by Graeme Macrae Burnet

  The two men stood face to face in the kitchen. Manfred felt that the detective was scrutinising him. If there was a flicker of recognition in his grey eyes, he would most likely ascribe it to the fact that in a town like Saint-Louis the inhabitants crossed paths a great deal. Indeed, though he generally kept to the opposite pavement, Manfred walked past the police station on his way to and from the Restaurant de la Cloche every day. It would, in fact, be odd if the detective had never seen him.

  Manfred felt like he was in a scene from a film. Next the cop would say, You haven’t asked me what this is about? and he would immediately fall under suspicion. But Manfred had missed his opportunity. Whatever he said now would sound stilted and unnatural. Of course, he suspected why Gorski was there. In a sense he had been expecting him. He should have confined himself to a polite How can I help you? Or he should have said straight out that he assumed the policeman’s visit was something to do with the waitress. Gorski did not appear to notice Manfred’s discomfort. He must be accustomed to people behaving awkwardly in the presence of the police. Indeed, to behave in a relaxed manner might suggest that one was used to dealing with the law and was therefore a suspicious character.

  Gorski patted the back of the chair that Manfred had been sitting in.

  ‘Do you mind?’ he said, sitting down without waiting for an answer.

  Manfred asked if he could offer the detective a cup of coffee. Gorski declined and Manfred sat down on the opposite side of the table. He would have liked to occupy himself with the business of making coffee. Gorski had done nothing to put him at his ease. He picked up the book Manfred had been reading and examined it. Manfred smiled apologetically. He contemplated telling the policeman that he was well versed in more elevating literature, but he did not do so. Perhaps the policeman read only detective novels, or read nothing at all and would think him snobbish. In any case, what was wrong with passing a Saturday afternoon with a popular novel?

  Gorski laid the book carefully back on the table.

  ‘This shouldn’t take long,’ he said, but he did not appear to be in any hurry.

  Manfred clasped his hands and set them on the table in front of him in an attempt to stop fidgeting. He did not feel he was making a good impression.

  Gorski suddenly pushed his chair back and stood up. This instantly made Manfred feel that he was about to be interrogated, but he could hardly now jump to his feet to put himself on an even footing with the policeman.

  ‘I’m investigating the disappearance of Adèle Bedeau,’ said Gorski.

  ‘Disappearance?’ said Manfred. He was pleased with the way it came out – as if he was genuinely surprised. It was better, Manfred decided, that he had not mentioned Adèle before this point. Just because a girl did not appear for work and failed to inform her employers of the reason for her absence, it did not mean that something untoward had happened.

  Gorski shrugged. ‘Perhaps “disappearance” is too strong a word. A couple of days ago she was around and now she isn’t. Nobody knows where she is. So, to all intents and purposes, she has disappeared.’

  Manfred nodded.

  ‘I take it that you know Mlle Bedeau?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Manfred. It would be stupid to deny it. ‘She’s a waitress at the restaurant where I eat lunch.’

  ‘And that is that the extent of your relationship?’

  ‘I’m not sure I would say we had a relationship. Until just now I didn’t even know her second name.’

  He felt a little more relaxed. Gorski did not give the impression that he was going to unduly press him. The detective sat down.

  ‘She is a waitress and you are a customer. Nothing more?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’ve never seen her outside the restaurant?’

  ‘You mean in a social sense?’

  ‘In any sense.’

  Manfred shook his head slowly, as if giving the matter some thought.

  Gorski gave no indication of disbelieving him.

  ‘Mlle Bedeau hasn’t been seen since she left work on Thursday evening. You haven’t seen her since then?’

  It was on Thursday that he had spied on Adèle and the young man in the little park. Manfred had no wish to become embroiled in a police investigation, but perhaps what he had seen was of significance. What if the youth on the scooter was a suspect in Adèle’s disappearance? What if he was the only one who had seen them together? But only a moment before, he’d told Gorski he had never seen Adèle outside the restaurant. It was not advisable to contradict himself.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, I haven’t.’

  Gorski nodded curtly, as if this was precisely what he had expected Manfred to say. Did he already know that Manfred had seen Adèle on the night in question?

  He stood up abruptly. ‘I won’t detain you any further, monsieur. Thank you for your time.’ He handed Manfred a card and told him to call if he thought of anything.

  Having seen Gorski out with the same awkwardness in the narrow passage, Manfred returned to his chair at the kitchen table. How stupid it had been to lie. The policeman had disconcerted him. It would have been a simple matter to tell him what he had seen on Thursday evening, to have described the young man and in which direction they rode off. He need not have mentioned how he had loitered at the edge of the park. Now he had withheld evidence from the investigation. What was more, when his omission came to light, as it inevitably would, he would be sure to fall under suspicion.

  Later Manfred sat with his forehead against the window of the train to Strasbourg. It was done now. Short of calling the number on Gorski’s card and pretending that he had suddenly remembered what he had seen, there was nothing he could do to remedy the situation. And in any case, if the situation arose again, would he not behave in exactly the same way? What benefit would there have been in divulging what he had seen? More questions would certainly have followed. He would become involved in the investigation and Manfred did not like to be involved in anything. And where, after all, did the truth end? Should he have confessed his silly crush on Adèle, a crush based on nothing more than the girl concealing their familiarity from her friend? Should he have told Gorski how he surreptitiously watched Adèle go about her chores in the restaurant, hoping, like a schoolboy, for a glimpse of her brassiere?

  Before heading to Chez Simone, Manfred went to a large brasserie near the station. The waiter recognised him and acknowledged him with an upward movement of his head. Manfred ordered a mushroom omelette with frites and a half-bottle of wine, as he always did. A group of students, three boys and two girls, sat around a nearby table by the window, scarves knotted fashionably around their necks. Manfred opened his book on the table, but he did not read it. He observed the students with the detachment of an anthropologist. They were entirely oblivious to his presence. Manfred was not close enough to hear the subject of their discussion, but it was obvious that the boys were competing to impress their female companions with witty or learned remarks. At a certain point a third girl joined the group and an elaborate round of handshakes and kisses was exchanged. The new arrival was exceptionally pretty and the boys now unashamedly directed their attentions towards her. The two other girls engaged in a separate conversation. Manfred felt like he was witnessing a ruthless evolutionary ritual.

  He paid his bill. He had to pass the students’ table on the way to the door and as he did so, he slowed his pace and inhaled the scent of the newcomer. None of the students so much as glanced at him.

  Manfred always had a couple of drinks at Simone’s before engaging on the actual business of his visit. When it was free, he took the seat at a table in the corner and sat watching the other customers. The place was lit only by the lights illuminating the bottles behind the bar and by the candles on the tables. Madame Simone sat on a high stool at the end of the bar with a glass of wine, a cigarette constantly burning in her hand. The smoke made languid coils in the lights behind the bar before dispersing into the general fug. She was close to fifty years old
and dressed in a black wraparound dress fastened beneath her breasts. She had a pronounced nose, a wide red mouth and darting, twinkling eyes, thickly painted with mascara. She always greeted Manfred with great warmth, called him darling and kissed him on both cheeks. She greeted all her patrons in this way, but Manfred was always touched by her welcome. Simone never dispensed drinks. Such duties were performed by whichever of the girls were in the bar at the time. In all his visits, Manfred had never seen Simone take a sip of her drink. It was a prop to create the illusion that one was not in a public establishment, but a personal guest, sharing a drink with the hostess. Now and again Simone joined a group of men at their table and gracefully passed a few minutes with them.

  Chez Simone was located in a basement in an alley off Rue des Lentilles. There was no sign outside. It was not a brothel, at least Manfred did not think of it as such. It was perfectly acceptable to come in, drink a glass of wine (Simone did not serve beer) and leave. Girls did not approach you and ask you to buy them drinks, but such a thing could easily be arranged with a word or a look to Simone. When the time came, Manfred caught Simone’s eye and she indicated with a brief nod that everything was in place.

  Through the door to the right of the bar were three rooms. They were furnished like real bedrooms, complete with bookcases and dressing tables, each set out with feminine articles. As Manfred went through to the back, Simone informed him which room he should use. The girl was new, or at least Manfred had not seen her before. She was petite and blonde, perhaps eighteen or nineteen years old. Manfred was standing, as he always did when the girl entered, with his back to the far wall. He smiled a greeting without parting his lips.

  ‘Good evening, monsieur,’ said the girl. She had an eastern European accent. Manfred decided she was Hungarian. He had once read that the girls in Budapest were the most beautiful in Europe. But he did not ask her name or where she was from. Despite the fact that Manfred had been visiting Simone’s for many years, he never ceased to find the transaction embarrassing. Even with the girls he saw regularly the awkwardness never disappeared. He wondered if they ridiculed him behind his back or made excuses to Madame Simone not to service him. The girl was standing by the door, unsure what to do.

  ‘Has Madame Simone…?’ Manfred wanted to say ‘briefed you’, but he let the sentence trail off in the hope that he need not say more.

  ‘Yes, monsieur, I think so,’ she said. She was pretty and did not seem discomfited by the situation. She moved towards the bed in the centre of the room and lay on her back without undressing. She parted her legs.

  ‘Keep your legs together,’ Manfred said. It came out a little curtly, which he regretted, but he did not like to talk more than necessary. It mortified him to have to give instructions.

  ‘Yes, monsieur,’ she said.

  ‘Put your arms by your sides.’

  The girl complied. Manfred tried not to think about the fact that this was only one in a series of indignities which she would endure over the course of the night. He climbed fully-clothed on top of the girl and began to rub himself against her body. He kept his hands on her shoulders and stared into her eyes. Her face betrayed no particular emotion, boredom perhaps. To Manfred’s relief, she did not simulate pleasure, as some of the other girls did. Theatrical moaning or exhortations ruined the experience for him, but he never had the nerve to ask them to be quiet. After a few minutes it was over and Manfred rolled off the girl and sat on the edge of the bed facing the wall. He fished in his wallet for a banknote and passed it to her without looking round. This was by way of a tip, as he had already paid Simone for her services. Manfred had no idea if his tip was generous or even if the other patrons left tips. He did not want to appear tight-fisted, nor did he wish to be overgenerous, as if he was trying to compensate the girls for the unpleasantness of the experience. In reality, he believed that however strange his behaviour was, it could hardly be anything other than easy money for the girls. So, he tipped the same amount he paid Simone for his half hour, a sum he understood was split between Simone and the girl in question. He never varied his tip, even if the girl had irritated him in some way, or if, like tonight, the encounter had been close to pleasurable. He would not wish one girl to think that he was less satisfied with her services. Mainly, he did not wish the girls to think ill of him.

  ‘Thank you,’ said the girl, taking the note.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Manfred, glancing over his shoulder. The girl took this as an indication that the transaction was over and left the room. The whole episode had lasted little more than ten minutes. Manfred stood up, undid his trousers and mopped up his emission with a handkerchief he had brought for the purpose. Then he sat down on the bed for a few minutes, breathing slowly and evenly.

  He returned to the bar. Simone asked if everything had been to his satisfaction.

  ‘Yes. Thank you,’ Manfred replied, as he did every week.

  He resumed his seat in the corner and ordered a final glass of wine. These were Manfred’s favourite moments of the week. Now that the act was over, he felt quite relaxed. The blonde girl emerged from the back. She spotted Manfred in the corner and smiled at him as if what had passed between them was entirely normal. Manfred liked her. She had been nice. Half an hour later he left to catch the last train back to Saint-Louis.

  Five

  MANFRED HAD BEEN WATCHING his grandfather struggle to fill his pipe for fully ten minutes. The old man’s hands shook violently these days, but Manfred knew any offer of assistance would be gruffly spurned. They were sitting on the patio overlooking the garden, awaiting the summons for Sunday lunch. After a few more minutes Bertrand Paliard succeeded in lighting the pipe. A momentary expression of satisfaction passed across his face as he took his first draw, but this was swiftly overtaken by a fierce fit of coughing. His nurse, who had been standing in attendance by the French windows, took a couple of steps towards him. There was an oxygen mask to hand, but she merely stood by as he struggled for breath. She did not approve of him smoking. The tobacco had a warm nutty aroma, a smell which always reminded Manfred of his miserable teenage years.

  After his mother died, Manfred felt like a lodger in the Paliard house. In his early teens he had grown quickly. He was ill at ease with his newfound height and the unwelcome attention it attracted. Consequently he developed a stoop. His grandfather nicknamed him Nosferatu on account of the way he crept around the house, keeping close to the walls. At school he kept himself to himself. He was not picked on. He had on one or two occasions proved capable of standing up for himself, so despite his physical and social awkwardness, bullying was reserved for softer targets. He was aware, too, that the death of both his parents cast a kind of barrier around him. It made him unapproachable both to those kids who wanted to ridicule him and to those, if any, who might have wished to befriend him.

  Manfred began to long for companionship, for a pal to discuss the merits of the girls at school, or to sit with into the small hours in his room listening to records and discussing their favourite authors. This pal would invite him over and he would be welcomed into a surrogate family, in which the mother cooked lavish Sunday spreads and the father took the boys on Sunday fishing or hiking trips. There were candidates for such friendship at school. Manfred could spot the other awkward cases at a hundred metres, by the way they hovered on the fringes of the crowd, by the books they slyly fished out of their satchels at break, by their ability to disappear into the background. But Manfred was incapable of breaching the silent understanding he had – or thought he had – with his fellow maladroits.

  As for a girlfriend, it was not for the want of carnal thoughts that Manfred did not countenance the possibility of so much as a friendship with a girl. He could barely utter a word to a member of the opposite sex without his face breaking into a deep crimson blush. So he avoided girls altogether. Still, they occupied most of his waking thoughts. He observed them surreptitiously at school, and walked, unnoticed, a few metres behind them on the way home, listeni
ng to their laughter, noting the minutiae of how they dressed, admiring the smooth curve of their suntanned legs. He entertained elaborate sexual fantasies, but he also daydreamed of being introduced to a girl’s parents. He would behave in a polite and respectful manner and be regarded as a nice young man with good prospects. Most of all Manfred longed to walk through the woods hand in hand with a girl who would call him Mani, just as his mother had.

  During the summer holiday before his baccalauréat year, Manfred was more isolated than ever. In term-time, there was at least an illusion of being among people, of a routine to get him out of bed and out of his grandparents’ house. Manfred spent entire days in his room with the shutters closed, lying on his bed staring at the ceiling. His grandparents seemed to care little how he passed his time. He read voraciously, devouring Camus and Sartre and wallowing in the horrors of de Sade. The darker the work, the more he relished it. Sometimes he wrote passages in a notebook, but he invariably tore out the pages and destroyed what he had written, frustrated at the triteness of his efforts. If his grandmother suggested that he accompany her to Strasbourg for the day or asked him to carry out a chore in the garden, Manfred would most likely comply, but with such a sullen demeanour that she soon gave up and left him to his own devices. Meals in the household were generally eaten in silence.

  Manfred began to take his grandfather’s nickname to heart. He convinced himself he was most at home in the dark. He stole around the house as quietly as possible, keeping to the cool shadows of the old house, taking pleasure in startling the maids. He entertained fantasies of stealing into girls’ rooms and sinking his teeth into their necks as they slept. They would awake in an erotic reverie, addicted, like him, to a life in the shadows.