The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau by Graeme Macrae Burnet

activity. They became incapable of maintaining eye contact. Women toyed with their hair. Men fingered their beards or moustaches. Gorski liked to question people in their everyday surroundings. Once a person had been dragged to the police station they were already disoriented and it became harder to discern whether their behaviour should be attributed to their unfamiliar surroundings or to the fact that they were trying to hide something. Gorski recalled that when he had visited Baumann at his apartment, he had, despite being initially reluctant to invite him inside, offered him coffee. It was a typical gesture – at once overcompensating for his previous hostility and attempting to postpone the start of the interview. Even at that point, when he had no way of knowing what Gorski’s visit was about, Baumann had behaved in a way that suggested he was uncomfortable.
    Often, when confronted with their lies, people feigned indignation. How many times Gorski had heard the phrases
This is outrageous!
and
How dare you!
or been idly threatened with legal action. He took such outbursts, if not as a sign of guilt, at least as an indication that the person in question had something to hide. Something perhaps completely unrelated to the object of his enquiry, but
something
nonetheless. Manfred Baumann had not done this. He was, Gorski suspected, too meek an individual for such a course of action. Neither had his demeanour betrayed much of his inner thoughts. He struck Gorski as the type who, for whatever reason, was accustomed to keeping a lid on things. He was repressed.
    On the other hand, the possibility that Baumann had not seen anything could not be entirely dismissed. People were unobservant, especially when going about their daily routines. They walked or drove to and from work, sat in the same offices and cafés every day without giving the least thought to their surroundings. Often, when questioned, people were unable todescribe the furniture or decor of places they visited regularly. Still, Manfred Baumann intrigued him. Whether he was lying or not, there was something in his manner that piqued Gorski’s curiosity. He was at once evasive and obsequious, as if he wanted to be liked or at least approved of.
    Nevertheless, it was a measure of how poorly the case was progressing that Gorski was spending so much time thinking about Baumann, who had, in all likelihood, nothing whatsoever to do with the girl’s disappearance. The case was of the worst sort. It was not even clear whether a crime had been committed. Yet the disappearance of a young woman always garnered press attention and the police were obliged to investigate, or at least be seen to investigate. Had it been a middle-aged man who had disappeared, someone like Manfred Baumann, for example, the case would not even make the ‘In Brief’ section of
L’Alsace.
    Thus far, Gorski had been unable to form more than a rudimentary picture of the young woman whose disappearance he was investigating. Adèle Bedeau’s mother had died some years before and her birth certificate recorded no father’s name. Mme Pasteur was fond of her and plainly harboured maternal feelings towards the girl, but Adèle had revealed little to her employer. She was a good worker, punctual and polite, but little more. It did not seem to matter to her whether she was scrubbing the kitchen floor, chopping onions or waiting tables. She carried out whatever task she was allotted with the same world-weary air. Marie Pasteur described her as diligent. It seemed to Gorski that she was resigned. She simply didn’t care what she did. Her relations with her employers and the patrons of the Restaurant de la Cloche were cordial enough, but she did not ask questions, talk about herself or joke around with the other employees. She was entirely self-contained. And outside work, Gorski had discovered little more. The tiny furnished apartment she rented in a building on Rue de