The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau

Twenty

MANFRED WAS WOKEN BY a loud knocking and a voice shouting something he was too drowsy to make sense of. He half opened his eyes. Sunlight filtered through dirty voile curtains. He was not at home. His head hurt and his mouth was dry. He closed his eyes. His trousers were loosened round the waist but he was still wearing his shirt and shoes. He squinted through his eyelids. The light from the window hurt his eyes and he raised a hand from under the blanket to shield them. The knocking at the door came again, more insistently. It was followed by a male voice that made no concession to Manfred’s fragile condition.

‘Monsieur! Eleven o’clock, time to clear out.’

Manfred turned towards the source of the sound. The movement triggered a shooting pain at the back of his skull. He was in a hotel room. Next to the door was a chest of drawers. At the foot of the bed was a cracked wash hand basin. There was a small plastic bucket on the floor beneath it to catch drips from the supply pipe. Manfred’s jacket lay in a crumpled heap on the floor. The chipboard at the bottom of the door was broken where someone had put their foot through it. There was no bathroom. Manfred hauled himself into a sitting position on the side of the bed. He became aware of a keen pressure in his bladder. He got up and relieved himself in the basin. He ran some water and, with some difficulty keeping his balance, splashed cold water on his face. His left cheek stung. He looked around for a towel. He picked up his jacket and took his handkerchief from his pocket and patted his face dry. He looked in the mirror above the basin. His left cheekbone was bruised and the right-hand side of his face and temple was grazed. The scratches were superficial, but the skin around them was red. Dried blood was congealed around his nostrils.

The door opened and a cleaner came in. She did not appear surprised to see Manfred, and she withdrew in the same languid manner as she had entered, muttering a cursory apology. Manfred hurriedly washed the blood from his nose and wiped it with his handkerchief, which already had bloodstains on it. He glanced around the room to see if any of his possessions were there. His wallet was safe in the inside pocket of his jacket. He left the room and found himself in a passage that had the sickly smell of vomit. The cleaner gazed at him impassively. Manfred squeezed past her trolley. The smell made him retch. He found the stairs and half ran down four flights. He found himself in a dimly lit reception area. A middle-aged man in a cardigan with half-moon glasses looked up from a newspaper spread on the counter. He greeted Manfred cordially enough. Manfred wondered if he was the same man who had rousted him from his room a few minutes before.

Manfred said good morning and reached into his jacket for his wallet.

The man waved his hand and spoke as if he didn’t expect him to understand French. ‘You paid last night,’ he said.

‘Oh,’ said Manfred, ‘thank you.’

Outside, he found himself in a narrow lane. He was still in Strasbourg, somewhere in the vicinity of the station. He spotted a kiosk at the end of the lane and bought a bottle of water. He sipped a little and swilled it around his mouth before spitting into the gutter. Then he took a proper swallow. He was unaware of the people milling past him on the pavement. He felt dizzy and sticky with sweat. He went into a café and ordered a black coffee. The last thing he remembered was being in the bar, drinking whisky. He had no memory of leaving the bar or of going to the hotel. Nor could he remember how he got the scratches on his face. Probably he had fallen over. He was sure he had not been in a fight. He would remember such a thing. The unpleasant odour had followed him from the hotel. He realised that there was dried vomit on his shoes and the cuffs of his trousers. He downed his coffee, placed some coins on the table and left. The coffee oriented Manfred a little in the present. He remembered his arrangement with Alice for that afternoon and looked at his watch. It was twenty past eleven.

On the train back to Saint-Louis, the light began to flare, as if hot sunlight was being smeared on the inside of his eyelids. Manfred lodged the heels of his hands in his eye sockets. The familiar drilling sensation in his right temple commenced. Manfred was the only person in the carriage. He drew his knees up towards his chest and sat there, rigid, waiting for the journey to pass. The trick was to empty his mind, to ignore the coming onslaught. He tried to think gay thoughts and imagined himself walking hand in hand with Alice through a pleasant, verdant wood. Birds were singing. The sun was warm. Manfred’s jacket was slung casually over one shoulder. He made amusing small talk. But it was no good, the pain continued to mount.

A hand was placed on his shoulder. Manfred jumped.

‘Your ticket, monsieur.’

Manfred took his hands from his eyes and drew his knees down. The ticket inspector’s face was a pink blur. Behind his head, light flared like a halo. Manfred raised his hand to shield his eyes. The official repeated his request.

Manfred reached into the breast pocket of his jacket where he always kept his ticket. He handed it to the inspector who gave it a cursory glance. He asked Manfred if he was all right. He nodded that he was. The conductor did not move away. Manfred could not tell what expression he wore. It might have been concern or perhaps disgust.

‘I’m fine, thank you, I have a headache,’ he said. He was suddenly anxious that he had missed his stop, but the conductor, having looked at his ticket, would have informed him if this had been the case. The official made his way off along the aisle without another word. Manfred squinted out the window and saw that they had only just left Strasbourg. As the train picked up speed, the motion made Manfred want to vomit. He did not trust himself to make it to the WC at the end of the carriage. He threw up a little in his mouth and forced himself to swallow. He wiped his lips with his handkerchief. He longed to be at home in his darkened bedroom with the covers pulled over his face.

Later, Manfred did not remember getting off the train, walking the short distance to his apartment or getting undressed and into bed, but all these things must have occurred, because at a certain point, he was disturbed by a knocking on the door of his apartment. He had arranged to meet Alice in the foyer of the building. He looked at the alarm clock by his bed. It was ten past two. The knocking came again, a little louder, then Alice’s voice:

‘Baumann, are you in there?’

Manfred crawled out of bed. He was completely naked. He found his robe and padded along the passage to the door.

Alice looked taken aback.

‘What happened to you?’ she said.

Manfred focussed on her face. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail.

‘I’m sorry, I…’ He did not want to admit to feeling unwell. Migraines were not a manly complaint. ‘I must have slept in,’ he said.

Alice gripped his chin and jerked his head around, examining his injuries.

‘Fall out of bed, did you?’ she said. She pushed past him into the passage, wincing as she inhaled his breath. She was wearing a waterproof jacket and tight blue jeans tucked into thick socks. Manfred followed her into the kitchen. She suggested that he take a shower and get himself ready. It did not occur to Manfred to do anything other than comply. In the bathroom, he swallowed four painkillers and forced himself to drink three glasses of water. The shower helped. He brushed his teeth, but did not bother to shave. He dressed and returned to the kitchen. Alice had made coffee and was sitting at the kitchen table. She laughed when she saw Manfred in his suit.

‘I thought we might take a walk at the Camargue,’ she said. ‘Don’t you have anything more suitable to wear?’

Manfred shook his head. Alice poured him some coffee and he sat down and drank it. It was quite clear that he would do whatever Alice had decided. It was liberating. He was not required to make decisions or even venture an opinion. He need only submit to Alice’s will.

Although there was an autumnal chill in the air, Alice insisted on taking down the roof of the car. She did not speak for the duration of the journey, but concentrated on driving at alarming speed along the country lanes, which were barely wide enough for two cars to pass. The pain in Manfred’s head became a backcloth to the sensation of hurtling along through the hedgerows. At every bend, it seemed that the little car would career off the road. Manfred experienced a feeling of calm. Whether the car remained on the road was a matter of no consequence to him. He felt a kind of disappointment when Alice pulled safely into the pot-holed car park at the nature reserve.

They got out. Alice opened the rear of the car and retrieved a pair of muddy walking boots. She sat down on the bumper to change into them. Manfred watched her. Even in her manly outdoor clothes she was tremendously attractive. She was not at all like the other women he knew. Her thighs were taut and defined under the denim of her jeans and her skin had a pleasing elasticity. The women who worked at the bank were flabby and loose-skinned, their flesh barely contained by a scaffold of brassieres and corsets. When Manfred addressed them, it always appeared that they had been woken from a trance. Alice, by contrast, was alert to everything going on around her. There was a precision and purpose in her movements, even in the way she threaded the laces around the eyelets of her boots.

When she had finished, she looked up. Manfred was too groggy to disguise the fact that he had been staring at her.

‘Your feet are going to get wet,’ she said.

He exhaled wearily. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

Alice led the way out of the car park towards a narrow gravelly path. Manfred was surprised how many people were around. They were all dressed like Alice and most of them had small children or dogs straining on leads. Whenever they met another group of walkers they were obliged to fall into single file to let them pass. People generally uttered some kind of greeting or cheery comment about the weather as they passed. Manfred left it to Alice to return these greetings on his behalf. As he inevitably fell in behind Alice it would have seemed superfluous for him to contribute. Once or twice dogs pushed their noses forcefully towards Manfred’s crotch before their owners laughingly hauled them back. This seemed to be quite acceptable behaviour among the habitués of the path.

Manfred assumed that a walk such as this must be one of the activities with which his colleagues filled their weekends. The people they met appeared to be enjoying themselves and to feel some sort of camaraderie towards each other. Manfred was aware that his unsuitable attire drew puzzled glances from some of the passers-by, but this did not bother him. Perhaps he looked like a detective on his way to examine a crime scene deep in the woods.

Alice strode ahead, now and again passing comment on the scenery or some plant or other. Manfred realised that he was not required to contribute much to the conversation. The further they walked, the fewer people they encountered. After twenty minutes or so they reached a large, flat lagoon surrounded by trees in varying shades of yellow and brown. A light breeze brought the occasional leaf spiralling slowly to the ground.

Alice paused. ‘There’s a path around the lake, if you’d like to go on,’ she said.

‘Of course,’ said Manfred. The walk had at least had the effect of soothing the pain in his skull. It was now no more than a dull throbbing.

The path, which was now just hardened earth, narrowed. Alice put her hand round the crook of Manfred’s elbow, just as she had when they had walked back from the restaurant together. She gave every appearance of feeling some affection for him. He could smell her hair. She broke away and crouched at the side of the path.

‘Ceps,’ she said lightly fingering some yellow-brown fungi growing at the foot of a tree. ‘We should have brought a basket.’

‘Aren’t they dangerous?’ said Manfred.

Alice gave a little snort through her nose. ‘I’ve been coming here since I was a girl,’ she said. ‘I used to cycle out and find a quiet spot and just lie back and watch the clouds go by. Sometimes in the summer, I’d go skinny-dipping with friends.’

Manfred found himself blushing at the thought of the teenage Alice leaping naked into the water.

‘But this is my favourite time of year,’ she went on. ‘I love the colours of the trees and the smell of the earth.’

‘Yes,’ said Manfred, ‘it’s nice.’

She stood up and took Manfred’s arm again. Their footsteps crunched on the dry leaves. There was nobody about. Somewhere a woodpigeon cooed. Manfred did not feel the need to say anything. He was thinking about the days he had spent with Juliette in the woods behind his grandparents’ house. Alice paused at the edge of the lake. A formation of geese approached and landed clumsily on the water in a cacophony of honking.

‘They come here for the winter,’ Alice said.

Manfred nodded.

When they reached the furthest point of the lake, Alice scrambled onto some rocks on the shore and sat down. Manfred sat next to her. It was very quiet.

Alice took a packet of cigarettes from the pocket of her jacket and lit one with her chunky lighter. Manfred inhaled the metallic odour. He wondered if she was going to lean over and kiss him. He would not resist if she did. She drew deeply on her cigarette and, tipping her head back, exhaled slowly through her lips. Manfred watched the stream of milky smoke disperse into the air.

‘I had a visit from a policeman,’ said Alice, turning to look at him. Her cheeks were flushed from the fresh air. Manfred was taken aback.

‘A stocky guy, about fifty, short hair. I’ve forgotten his name.’

‘Gorski,’ said Manfred.

‘Gorski, yes,’ she said. ‘He was asking about you.’

‘What about me?’

‘He wanted to know what sort of relationship we had, how long I’d known you, that sort of thing.’

‘What did you tell him?’

‘I told him it was none of his business.’

Manfred nodded. ‘What did he say?’

‘Not much. He gave me his card and left.’

‘He came to your apartment?’

‘Yes.’

‘How did he find out where you lived?’

Alice shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I didn’t ask. He gave me the creeps.’

Manfred stood up. Had she cooked up this story to explain why he had seen Gorski leave the apartment building two days before? Sunlight glinted on the ripples of the water. His head hurt. He could not make sense of things. Perhaps Gorski had put her up to this little outing. Perhaps she was recording their conversation and the woods were crawling with cops waiting to spring out when he said something incriminating. Manfred scanned the trees around them. Alice was staring at him.

‘Manfred?’ she said.

Then it hit him: He gave me the creeps. It was the same expression Gorski said Adèle had used about him. His head swam. He closed his eyes tight, then opened them and looked at Alice. He was having trouble focussing.

‘I don’t believe you,’ he said.

Alice’s eyes widened. ‘I’m sorry?’ she said.

She stood up and took a couple of steps away from him.

‘You’re lying,’ he said. The sunlight on the lake was dazzling. Manfred closed his eyes for a moment. He felt dizzy. He turned and faced the trees. He imagined the men in the woods, waiting for a sign from Gorski to move in. His eyes darted around the undergrowth. Nothing stirred. His breathing subsided a little.

Alice took a step towards him. ‘Is there something wrong with you?’ There was a hint of fear in her eyes.

Manfred shook his head as if to rouse himself from sleep. He was aware that he might, at this moment, appear quite insane. He must try to seem reasonable.

‘I just want you to tell me the truth about you and Gorski,’ he said, keeping his voice as even as possible. Alice tucked her chin to her chest and looked at him, open-mouthed.

‘There is no me and Gorski,’ she replied.

‘He put you up to this whole thing,’ Manfred blundered on. He took a step towards her.

Alice stood her ground. Her face had hardened.

‘I just wanted to know why the police are asking questions about you. If you’ve done something wrong, you can tell me.’

‘Of course, I can.’ Manfred laughed through his nose and shook his head. ‘I actually thought you liked me.’

‘I thought I liked you too,’ said Alice. She looked at him as if she had never seen him before. Then she turned and started back towards the path. Manfred watched her. They appeared to be quite alone. He could hear the distant honking of the geese. The water lapped gently on the rocks. It was a pleasant spot.

Manfred called her name. She did not turn round. He felt a strong desire to run after and tell her everything: how he had lied to Gorski, what had occurred between he and Adèle, even how he had killed Juliette. He suddenly felt that it would all seem quite reasonable — that he would seem reasonable. He called her name again. She strode on, making a dismissive gesture with her hand over her shoulder. She vanished into the woods. Manfred stood staring dumbly at the spot where she had disappeared for a few minutes, then followed her.