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 arrived. 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.
‘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.
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.