The apartment building began to reveal more details to him. To the left of the door was a patch of fresh paint where someone had clumsily covered over some graffiti. Above the door was a small gargoyle, with a horned head, bulging eyes and a tongue protruding lewdly from its mouth. The pavement to the left of the door was strewn with cigarette ends, presumably dropped from one of the balconies above. The windows of the apartment on the ground floor to the right of the door were hung with yellowing curtains. The glass did not appear to have been cleaned for years. It seemed remarkable that Raymond should not have noticed these things immediately. Similarly, it was only after he had been there for an hour that he noticed the stale smell in the archway. And if he took a step out onto the pavement, a breeze from the far end of the street carried a faintly industrial smell, perhaps from a tannery.
The old woman with the pug returned. She was carrying a canvas bag of vegetables and moving even more slowly than before. Raymond did not want her to see him again. It would seem odd that he had been loitering there since she had left the building. He emerged from the archway and ducked into the philatelist’s. A little bell rang above the door. The shop smelled of old books. It was more of a bric-a-brac shop than a philatelist’s. Aside from a glass counter displaying pages of stamps, behind which sat the proprietor, there seemed little to justify the sign above the door. A cabinet to the left of the counter was filled with items of costume jewellery. The walls were hung with old-fashioned ski shoes, musical instruments and tatty hunting trophies. The sound of the bell caused the proprietor to look up from the catalogue he was reading. He looked at Raymond without interest. The window was piled high with goods, so that it was difficult to see out into the street. Raymond positioned himself where he could see through the glass panel of the door and occupied himself by flicking through a leather-bound edition of the complete works of Balzac. The old woman must have been walking exceptionally slowly, for it seemed an age before she passed the door. Raymond felt the eyes of the proprietor on his back.
‘You can have the set for fifty francs,’ he said.
Raymond glanced over his shoulder. The shopkeeper was looking at him over the rims of his spectacles. Raymond nodded and moved away from the books. It was then that his eyes alighted on the knife. It was set atop a stack of battered leather suitcases. The blade was ten or twelve centimetres long, curving elegantly to a point. The handle had been carved from horn or antler. It came with a dark leather sheath, stitched with yellow thread and worn to a smooth sheen. Raymond picked up the knife and weighed it in his hand. He was aware that the shopkeeper was observing him.
‘How much is this?’ he asked, trying to make his enquiry sound as casual as possible.
The proprietor told him the price, then added by way of explanation: ‘It’s antique. A nice piece.’
Raymond nodded and put it down. He did not have the amount in question or anything like it. He had not seen the old woman pass by, but he had been distracted by the knife. He bid the shopkeeper good day and left. The street was deserted. It was now five o’clock. Raymond was not dissatisfied with his afternoon’s work. There was no evidence to suggest that his father had ever visited this place, yet the scrap of paper had clearly lain in the drawer for years. At some point it had been of sufficient importance for his father not to have discarded it. Raymond was not accustomed to thinking of his father as someone with secrets. Until this point he had accepted, as all children do, the image that his father presented to the world. But this scrap of paper written in feminine hand represented a crack in that façade. Raymond could happily have spent the evening maintaining his vigil on the apartment building, but he was due at home for dinner at half past six and he had no desire to elicit any questions about where he had been. As he walked back to the railway station, he was already planning to return the following day.
Nine
The accident investigation and post-mortem reports were on Gorski’s desk. The former began with a banal description of the stretch of the A35 on which the incident occurred, this accompanied by a map with arrows showing the direction of travel and final resting point of the vehicle. The climatic conditions were described, supported by data from a local weather station. The report then moved to the vehicle itself. The specification and general condition of the vehicle were painstakingly detailed. A full service history had been recovered from the glove compartment and there was nothing to suggest that the vehicle was not in perfect running order. This more or less eliminated the possibility that the crash had been caused by mechanical failure. There then followed a list of twenty-nine separate items of damage to the vehicle, each with a description and probable cause. The cause of almost every item of damage was listed as ‘Impact of collision with tree’. It was tedious stuff, but Gorski read every word. The report ended with a series of calculations and the conclusion that the vehicle had left the carriageway at the point indicated on the map while travelling at between 104 and 110 kilometres per hour.
The post-mortem was similarly meticulous. Following an account of the height, weight, age and general condition of the body, each injury was described and ascribed a probable cause. The style of language and even some of the vocabulary—‘abrasion’, ‘fracture’, ‘rupture’—was indistinguishable to that of the vehicle report. There was no reason it should be any different. Barthelme’s body, like his car, was no more than a piece of evidence. The fact that one was composed of tissue, skin and bone and the other of metal, glass and plastic, was immaterial. Gorski read the two reports with the same detachment. Aside from the injuries to the cranium, which would have proved instantly fatal, the ribcage had collapsed on impact with the steering wheel and the damage to the organs in the chest cavity would also have resulted in death. None of this added much to the observations that Gorski had made at the scene. Yet this thoroughness reassured him. The state was not satisfied with vague impressions or probabilities. The state—like Gorski—required certainty. And if certainty could not be achieved, then any conclusions about probable cause must at least be based on quantifiable, verifiable evidence. No matter how clear the cause of a citizen’s death appeared, due process must be adhered to. Ribéry always derided these niceties as a waste of money and refused to even open the manila covers of such reports. ‘If you learn something from a post-mortem that you didn’t see with your own eyes, then you’re not doing your job, my boy,’ he liked to say. ‘God put two eyes in your head, not a pen in your hand.’ Gorski always nodded along with this chapter from the Ribéry gospel, but in truth he found it simple-minded. While there was no substitute for keen observation of a crime scene, there was much the eye could not see. In this case, the post-mortem report contained two pieces of information that could not be discerned from a visual examination of the evidence. The first of these placed the time of death, based on the ambient temperature recorded at a nearby weather station, at between 22:25 and 22:40. This meant that the accident had occurred between five and twenty minutes before the call reporting the incident had been placed. There was nothing untoward in that. The road had been quiet and the vehicle had not been immediately visible from the carriageway.
The second noteworthy piece of information was that a considerable amount of alcohol—the equivalent of more than one bottle of wine—was present in the victim’s bloodstream. Such a quantity of alcohol, the report concluded, greatly increased the possibility that the driver had fallen asleep at the wheel and would have significantly impaired the subject’s ability to bring the vehicle under control.
It was all very neat and tidy. But, ironically, it was Ribéry’s advice that caused Gorski to turn back to the accident report. Everything contained there led to a single conclusion, but there was an omission. Gorski lit a cigarette and ran his finger down the twenty-nine enumerated points of damage to the Mercedes. He then turned to the signature at the end of the report. He consulted the directory he kept on the window sill behind his desk and dialled the number of the investigating officer. His name was Walter Lutz.
He had attended the scene on the night of the accident, and Gorski and he had exchanged a few words while they stood on the verge smoking. He was a stocky man, with a brusque, down-to-earth manner.
He picked up on the third or fourth ring. ‘Lutz,’ he said.
Gorski explained why he was calling.
‘Everything’s in the report,’ said the investigator.
‘Yes, of course,’ said Gorski. ‘I just wanted to clarify a couple of details.’
‘It’s all pretty clear, isn’t it?’
‘Very clear.’
‘So?’ Lutz was trying hard not to sound impatient.
Gorski had no desire to aggravate his colleague by suggesting that his report was shoddy. ‘I just had one question, a very small point. I’m sure you can put my mind at rest.’
Lutz made a grunting to noise to indicate that Gorski should continue.
‘It’s about the scratches on the offside of the vehicle.’
‘What about them?’
‘There’s no mention of them in your report.’
‘And?’
‘Any reason why not?’ said Gorski. He kept his voice casual.
‘I didn’t consider them to be evidence.’
It was impossible for Gorski to proceed without implying some criticism of his colleague. ‘Surely all damage to the vehicle should be accounted for in your report,’ he said.
‘All damage relevant to the incident,’ said Lutz.
Gorski resisted the temptation to disagree on this point. ‘So you didn’t consider the scratches relevant?’
Lutz exhaled loudly. ‘They weren’t caused by the impact on the vehicle, so, no, I don’t consider them relevant. They could have been there for months, for all I know.’
Bertrand Barthelme did not, Gorski thought, seem like the kind of man who would drive around in a less than pristine vehicle. ‘So because the scratches did not fit with your conclusion about the cause of the accident, you do not consider them evidence.’
‘Correct,’ said Lutz.
Gorski was silent for a moment. With his free hand he tapped a cigarette out of the packet on the desk. ‘I’m sorry,’ he went on, ‘but if your conclusion cannot account for how the scratches came to be on the vehicle, shouldn’t you then revise it?’
‘I don’t see why,’ said Lutz. ‘All the evidence points to the conclusion I reached.’
Gorski did not see anything to be gained in pointing out that that was inevitable if one discounted any evidence which contradicted the said conclusion. Instead, he adopted a conciliatory tone.
‘Just to satisfy my curiosity, what in your professional opinion might have caused the scratches?’
He could almost hear Lutz shrug.
‘Is it possible,’ Gorski suggested, ‘that the car turned on its side as it made its way down the slope and righted itself before it collided with the tree?’
‘It’s possible,’ said Lutz. Clearly he would accept anything Gorski suggested, if only to bring the conversation to a close.
‘But if that was the case, would you then not have to revise your estimate of how fast the vehicle was travelling prior to the accident?’
‘I suppose so,’ said Lutz, ‘but it wouldn’t have any bearing on the general conclusion.’
‘No, it wouldn’t,’ Gorski agreed. ‘What about this: could the scratches have been caused by a collision with another vehicle?’
‘How do you mean?’
Gorski was already resigned to making an enemy of Lutz. ‘For example, if another vehicle came alongside and forced the Mercedes off the road.’
Lutz was silent for a few moments. ‘I think that’s highly unlikely.’
‘No, not likely, of course.’ Gorski gave a little laugh as if he was dismissing his own suggestion. ‘But it would account for how the scratches came to be there.’
Lutz seemed to cheer up a little, as if he accepted that they were merely engaged in a hypothetical discussion which did not imply any criticism of his work. ‘If that had been the case, the driver would have applied the brakes or taken some other avoiding action. There would have been tyre tracks on the road.’
‘But it had been raining,’ said Gorski. ‘The road surface was greasy. Wouldn’t that mean that no skid marks would be left?’ He also recalled that the amount of alcohol in Barthelme’s bloodstream would have impaired his ability to take avoiding action.
Lutz grudgingly conceded the point.
‘So, given the evidence of the scratches to the side of the car,’ Gorski went on, ‘the idea that the car was run off the road by another vehicle cannot be entirely discounted.’
‘Look, Inspector,’ said Lutz, ‘you’ve got my report. The evidence supports my conclusion. If you want to pursue fantasies, go ahead. I’ve got better things to do.’
Gorski apologised for taking up his time and hung up. In all likelihood, Lutz was right: he was a fantasist. That was what Ribéry would have called him. He would have laughingly told him to stop overthinking things. Gorski stubbed out his cigarette and went to Le Pot.
It had reached the point that Yves poured him a beer before he had even taken his seat. When the bartender brought it to his table, Gorski asked for a hotdog. He did feel not hungry, but he was conscious of the need to eat something. Yves’ hotdogs were, in any case, insubstantial. The meat dissolved on one’s tongue and the bread which enclosed it was of a spongy, sugary texture that required no mastication. The only real flavour came from the thick yellow worm of mustard. Gorski reached for a copy of L’Alsace that had been discarded on the banquette. The Strasbourg murder had been relegated to the inside pages: POLICE BAFFLED BY STRANGLING. He was already familiar with the bare facts of the case. A woman, Veronique Marchal, had been found strangled in her apartment. There was no sign of forced entry nor had anything been stolen. The police had so far been guarded about the circumstances in which Mlle Marchal was found, but it was assumed—and the article made reference to sources close to the investigation—that the motive was sexual. Neighbours had testified that men often visited the woman’s apartment, although how numerous these men were, or whether they paid Mlle Marchal for her services, was unclear. The article reiterated the basic facts of the story, before quoting the lead investigator, Philippe Lambert, to the effect that the police were currently pursuing a number of leads and that he would inform the press of developments in due course. Gorski understood exactly what such a line meant: Lambert had nothing. The woman’s body had not been discovered until the following morning, and as such the time of death could not be precisely pinpointed, but it was certain that the murder had occurred sometime in the evening of the 14th of November.
Gorski sat back on the banquette. He swallowed the last of his hotdog and wiped his fingers on the paper napkin provided. Then he read the final lines of the story again. He was not mistaken. The murder had taken place during the unaccounted hours before Bertrand Barthelme’s death. Gorski’s first thought was to ask Yves for a jeton for the phone and immediately call Lambert. However, aside from the fact that it would be indiscreet to make such a call from Le Pot, he should not rush to any conclusions. He folded the newspaper under his arm and made his way back to the police station. He took a cup of coffee to his office and re-read the article. Even allowing ninety minutes for the 130-kilometre journey to Strasbourg, it would have been perfectly possible for Barthelme to drive there and back in the available time. Perhaps the alcohol he had consumed had been to fortify himself for the murder he planned to commit. Gorski shook his head: he was trying to make the facts fit his theory. Other than the fact that he had been driving back from that direction, there was nothing to suggest that Barthelme had been to Strasbourg on the night in question. Besides, the idea that he had been involved in a murder did not fit with the theory that he had fallen asleep at the wheel. Had he been fleeing a crime scene, he would—unless he was the most cold-blooded of killers—be in a state of agitation rather than drowsiness. Alternatively, had he been the perpetrator, he might have b
ecome overcome with remorse and deliberately driven his car off the road.
It had to be at least worth putting a call into Lambert. He would make it sound casual. I’m sure it’s nothing, but I thought I should bring it to your attention. It’s probably just a coincidence. And it was true; it probably was nothing more than a coincidence. What, after all, did he have? A man had been driving south on the A35 at a time roughly fitting the time of the murder. So what? The fact that he had been killed in an accident was irrelevant. Gorski hesitated. He reminded himself that Barthelme had lied to his wife about his whereabouts and had been doing so for years. He had clearly been engaged in some kind of illicit activity. He remembered the phrase Lemerre had savoured so much: ‘Was known to entertain frequent gentlemen visitors.’ Why should Barthelme not have been one of those visitors? He and his wife did, after all, keep separate chambers.
Gorski got up and paced around his office. He looked out of the window. The paint on the outer sill of the window was peeling and the wood beneath was beginning to rot. An old woman was walking slowly along Rue de Mulhouse pulling a little battered trolley of shopping behind her.
He sat down at his desk and lifted the telephone receiver from its cradle. It would be remiss not to call. If it were his case, he would want anyone with even the most tenuous lead to share it. And it was possible that Lambert, shrewd operator that he was, was withholding certain information from the press. Perhaps a man in a green Mercedes had been seen leaving the scene of the crime. Perhaps when confronted with Barthelme’s photograph, neighbours would suddenly recognise him as the man who visited Mlle Marchal every Tuesday evening.
The receptionist at the station in Rue de la Nuée-Bleue asked who was calling in a bored voice and then dialled an extension without further comment. The call was answered on the sixth ring.
The Accident on the A35 Page 9