Marc Tarrou was on the telephone when Gorski entered the prefabricated hut which served as his office. The cabin was set on breeze blocks in the potholed car park of his concrete factory. He gestured in a friendly manner for Gorski to take a seat on a plastic chair. The walls were lined with plywood veneer and covered with miscellaneous year planners and advertisements for building supplies. Most of the floor space was taken up with piles of paper and bulging ring-binders. It could hardly be more different from the offices of Barthelme & Corbeil. Gorski remained standing. His eyes were drawn to a calendar, five years out of date, displaying a photograph of a girl in a bikini kneeling in the shallows of the sea on a Caribbean beach. Her legs were parted and her head thrown back as a wave broke over her.
Tarrou continued his conversation, which concerned a delay in an order, for some minutes, occasionally breaking into a language Gorski guessed to be Arabic, while theatrically rolling his eyes and shaking his head at his visitor. He was a handsome man with an olive complexion and thick dark hair, swept back from his forehead. Despite the fact that there was no heating in the cabin, he was in his shirt-sleeves. A blue blazer with gold buttons hung over the back of chair. Beneath the desk, the cuffs of his trousers were spattered with pale clay mud from the car park. Tarrou ended his conversation with a series of gaudy oaths and settled the receiver gently back in its trestle with a wink.
‘Fucking Arabs,’ he said. ‘That’s the only language they understand.’ Then, as if to legitimise his sentiments, added: ‘I’m half-Arab myself, on my mother’s side. A Marseillaise mongrel, ha ha.’
Gorski wondered how often he had trotted out that line. It was hard to believe that Bertrand Barthelme and his cronies would associate with such a man.
Tarrou emerged from behind his desk, his hand outstretched. ‘So the cops, eh? What have I done this time? Inspector Gorski, isn’t it?’
Gorski grimaced at the joke. The manufacturer cleared the papers from two plastic chairs and they sat down. Then Tarrou leapt to his feet. He produced a bottle of wine from the top drawer of a filing cabinet.
‘A snifter to oil the wheels, eh?’
There were two unwashed glasses on the table between them. One was stained with lipstick. Tarrou found a paper towel and gave them a cursory wipe. He poured out some wine and handed one to Gorski. He kept the lipstick-stained glass for himself.
‘Chin-chin,’ he said.
He sat down opposite Gorski, leaning forward with his elbows resting on his splayed knees. ‘I expect you’re wondering how I know who you are,’ he said. ‘Well, I’ll tell you. That snake Corbeil rang and told me you were sniffing about. Told me I could expect a visit from you.’
‘I see,’ said Gorski. ‘And why do you think he felt the need to do that?’
Tarrou puffed out his lips. ‘You’d have to ask him that, wouldn’t you, Inspector?’
Gorski did not know what to make of this apparent openness. In his experience, such tactics were usually a smokescreen. He had encountered plenty of these hail-fellow-well-met types, whose eagerness to parade their candour only raised the suspicion that they had something to hide. Nonetheless, there was something likeable about Tarrou. Bogus or not, his genial manner was preferable to the veiled hostility of Corbeil and Martin.
‘So,’ he continued, ‘if you’ve got some sniffing around to do, sniff away!’
Gorski placed his glass on the table between them. ‘How would you describe your relationship with the deceased?’
‘The deceased? Is that what we’re calling him?’ He gave a great shrug.
‘Would you describe him as a friend?’
‘A friend?’ He seemed to find the suggestion amusing. ‘I don’t think Barthelme had any friends.’
‘What then?’
‘We did a bit of business together. You don’t need me to tell you that there’s not much gets done in Saint-Louis without old Barthelme getting his nose in the trough.’
Gorski nodded as if he knew exactly what he was referring to. Perhaps Tarrou was actually as ingenuous as he appeared.
‘And when did you last see him?’
Tarrou ran through a whole repertoire of gestures: pulled a face, shook his head, puffed out his cheeks, exhaled noisily. ‘Not sure I could say… couple of weeks ago. Three maybe.’
‘No.’
‘Tell me about this club of yours.’
‘What club would that be?’
‘The club you belonged to with Barthelme, Corbeil and Martin.’
Tarrou looked genuinely puzzled. He shook his head. Then he knocked back his wine and topped up their glasses.
‘You never met these gentlemen for dinner?’
‘I did. On occasion,’ said Tarrou. ‘But I wouldn’t call it a club. Is that what Barthelme called it? Ha ha. The pompous asshole!’
‘But, regardless of whether you called it a club, you were in the habit of dining with these gentlemen?’
‘In the habit? No. We met now and again to discuss… to discuss our mutual interests. There was nothing more to it than that. If there was some sort of club, I wasn’t part of it.’
He put down his wine, as though afraid that he might become loose-tongued.
Gorski nodded. It was of course perfectly possible that this club was nothing more than a fiction Barthelme had invented to deceive his wife. But there was clearly some kind of association between the men, and it intrigued him that it was one from which they were all so keen to distance themselves. Nevertheless, he sensed an ally in Tarrou and did not wish to push his luck.
‘In any case, you did not have dinner with Maître Barthelme yesterday evening?’ he asked.
‘No.’
‘And you didn’t see him between 4pm and the time of his death?’
‘Well, I don’t know what the time of his death was, but no.’
Gorski drained his glass and stood up.
‘I was under the impression that this was nothing more than an accident,’ said Tarrou.
‘All I can say is that an investigation is underway,’ replied Gorski. Then he added, knowing that Tarrou would be the last person to keep any titbits of information to himself: ‘There are a couple of loose ends.’ He made a throwaway gesture with his hand, as if it was a matter of no consequence, but he noted the inquisitive expression that passed across the factory owner’s face.
Tarrou walked him to the door.
‘Give my regards to Madame Barthelme,’ he said as they shook hands.
Gorski looked at him. He felt the colour rise to his cheeks. Tarrou nudged him on the upper arm: ‘Wouldn’t want a nice bit of stuff like that to go to waste, would we?’ He laughed heartily at his own joke.
Gorski stepped down the breeze-block steps of the hut into a pothole. Muddy water seeped into his shoe. He got into his car and lit a cigarette. He was not thinking straight. Barthelme’s death was in all likelihood an accident, yet here he was running round making baseless insinuations. He had allowed himself to get carried away. So what if a group of businessmen got together for dinner once in a while. And so what if the victim of a road accident had lied to his wife about his whereabouts. There was no reason to believe the two things were connected. And Tarrou’s lewd remark suggested he had seen right through him. He was less interested in the affairs of Bertrand Barthelme than in the agreeable Lucette.
Gorski had always hated the house on Rue de Village-Neuf. The development on the northern edge of Saint-Louis had been built twenty years before. The houses were ersatz rustic. Fake beams mimicked the style of the traditional Alsatian farmhouse. The shutters on the windows were PVC rather than wood. Before they married, Gorski had imagined taking an apartment like that of his parents, but Céline would not hear of such a thing and before he knew it the matter had been taken out of his hands. Céline’s father, already by that time deputy mayor of the town, had purchased the house and presented it to the couple as a wedding gift. Céline was delighted and swept from room to room, pronouncing about colour schemes and furnishings, while Gorski and M. Keller stood awkwardly in the hall.
The size of the couple’s new home did not go unnoticed at the station, and Schmitt and his cronies missed no opportunity to make insinuations about how he could afford such a house on a detective’s salary. ‘Perhaps he’s taking kickbacks,’ was the usual refrain. ‘Do you have to apply for planning permission to fuck your wife?’ was Schmitt’s favourite line. It had been Gorski’s mistake not to put an end to this from the outset. If he had not done so, it was out of a misplaced desire to be one of the boys—to show that even though he was the boss, he could take a joke as well as anyone. He had only succeeded in making himself a figure of derision.
If Gorski avoided returning to the house on Rue de Village-Neuf, it was because, even after twenty years, he felt like a caretaker wandering onto a stage set after the theatre had emptied. There was nowhere he could sprawl out with his newspaper or put down a bottle of beer without worrying about making a ring on the table. Tonight he had at least forced himself to leave Le Pot before Yves wearily turned around the little sign on the door. But as he pulled up outside the house, he regretted having gone to the bar at all. He could see the glow of the hall lamp through the glass panel at the side of the door.
The front door was locked. When he stepped into the hall, he called out a tentative greeting. There were no other lights on in the house and no one replied. He turned on the light in the kitchen and then went upstairs. The door to his daughter’s room was ajar. Clémence must have come to collect some of her things. Gorski cursed himself for missing her. He went back downstairs and uncorked a half-empty bottle of wine. As he poured himself a glass he spotted the little note propped against the cruet set on the kitchen table.
Hi Pops. Swung by to pick up some bits and pieces. Expect you’re busy busting some international criminal gang. Maman’s driving me crazy by the way! C x
PS You’re not thinking of wearing that tie with that shirt are you!?
Gorski smiled. The last line was a private joke between them. But at the same time he felt a smarting at the back of his eyes. He had to swallow hard to suppress a sob. How wretched to have been sitting in Le Pot like a pitiful drunk when Clémence had been here. He knocked back the glass of wine he had poured and transferred the remains of the bottle into his glass.
At that moment, the telephone rang. Gorski snatched up the receiver. The set was attached to the wall next to the kitchen door.
‘Clémence?’ he said.
‘Georges! I’m so glad I’ve caught you.’ It was his mother-in-law. She addressed him in her usual sing-song voice, as if nothing was amiss.
Gorski felt a sinking in his chest. ‘Evening, Madame Keller,’ he said. Despite her many rebukes, he could never bring himself to call her by her first name. He would have felt somehow that he was flirting with her.
‘Now, Georges,’ she began in a mock-reproachful tone, ‘what is going on with you and Céline? She’s moping around here like a lost child. You need to give her a little ring. I’m sure you can sort all this out. It’s so silly.’
Gorski liked his mother-in-law and did not resent her interference. He was even rather heartened to hear what she had to say. Nevertheless, he felt obliged to put up a bit of resistance. ‘Don’t you think it’s she that should be calling me?’ he said.
He prised his shoes from his feet. They were caked with the pale mud from Tarrou’s car park. He had left a trail of footprints across the parquet. He drained the dregs of the wine from his glass.
‘Georges, you know how stubborn she is. You’re the sensible one. One little phone call is all it will take.’
He stretched the telephone cable to its limit and opened the fridge. He took a bottle of beer from the door and held the receiver in the crook of his neck while he opened it. ‘I’ll think about it,’ he said. ‘Perhaps I could have a word with Clémence though?’
‘Céline’s here now if you want to speak to her,’ she said.
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’ But he could already hear Mme Keller calling her daughter.
She must have put her hand over the mouthpiece, because some moments of muffled conversation ensued. Gorski took a good swallow of beer and rolled his head on his shoulders. He did not want to hang up out of courtesy to Mme Keller. She came back on the line.
‘Here she is now,’ she said. ‘She was just powdering her nose. Ta ta!’
Gorski could imagine Céline holding the receiver warily with the tips of her fingers, as if it carried the danger of infection.
‘Georges,’ she said. Her tone was as it always was: flat, a little curt.
‘How are you?’ he said.
‘I’m fine. Is that what you called to ask me?’
Gorski was about to tell her that it was not he who had called at all, but thought better of it.
‘And Clémence?’
‘Clémence? Fine, I suppose. Why shouldn’t she be?’
Gorski could not think of an appropriate response.
‘Was there anything else?’
‘Perhaps we should meet?’ he suggested, without conviction. Part of him wanted Céline back, but, as yet, the novelty of not having to answer to her had not entirely worn off. ‘I miss you,’ he added, because he felt that he should.
‘Oh, come on, Georges,’ said Céline. ‘Let’s not get sentimental. Have you been drinking?’
‘I just got in,’ he said. It was not—technically—a lie.
There was a silence. Then Céline said: ‘Was there anything else?’
Gorski pressed on. ‘Perhaps we should have dinner or something. I suppose there are certain things we need to discuss.’ Even if she refused, he would be able to tell Mme Keller he had tried.
Céline gave a great sigh before, to Gorski’s surprise, agreeing.
‘Is Clémence around?’ he asked.
‘Sulking in her room, as usual,’ said Céline.
‘Perhaps you could—’ But Céline had hung up. Gorski took his beer to the living room. He turned the television to a current affairs discussion. He took off his jacket and loosened his tie. He sat down on the sofa and was asleep within minutes. The bottle of beer slipped from his hand and emptied its contents onto the carpet.