The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau by Graeme Macrae Burnet Page B

something his mentor, Ribéry, had taught him – not just to look at what was there, but to look for things that should have been there but weren’t. Adèle’s toothbrush was in the bathroom, along withother bottles and potions Gorski was familiar with from his own wife and daughter. On top of the wardrobe was a battered suitcase. Gorski lifted it down and placed it on the coffee table. It was dusty. It was the sort of place where a girl might keep her private bits and pieces. He flicked open the brass clasps. The case was empty. Adèle, it seemed, was a girl with no secrets. He put the suitcase back in its place. In the bedside table drawer, he found a half-finished tab of contraceptive pills. That was something. The last pill that had been taken was Thursday’s, suggesting that she had not returned home since then. Of course, it was possible Adèle was the absent-minded type, but if she had chosen to disappear, she had certainly not done so in a premeditated manner.
    Afterwards, Gorski knocked on the doors of the neighbouring apartments. No one had ever done more than greet Adèle in passing. They had never seen her bring anyone back to the apartment or heard voices from inside.
    â€˜Is she in some sort of trouble?’ a grey-haired woman, two doors along the landing, had asked.
    People often asked this, their glee poorly disguised as concern. Gorski had no doubt the old woman would be quite delighted to be told that her neighbour had been brutally raped and done to death.
    Gorski’s train of thought was interrupted by Yves taking a fresh glass of wine to the man in the shabby suit. The workmen who had been standing by the bar had gone, but he had not even noticed them leave. Perhaps it was not so unlikely that Manfred Baumann had seen nothing on the night of Adèle’s disappearance.
    As Yves placed the glass on the man’s table, he looked up from his newspaper and caught Gorski’s eye. He pretended that it had not happened and immediately lowered his gaze. Gorski remembered him. He was a schoolteacher who had left the profession after a male pupil made some unsavoury allegations. Gorski had conducted a cursory investigation, but the pupil’sclaims had proved malicious. Nevertheless, as happens in such cases, a cloud hangs over the accused and the man resigned his position. Gorski would have liked to convey with a cordial look that he did not regard him as guilty, but the former teacher had not given him the opportunity to do so. Most likely, the man did not wish to be reminded of an unpleasant episode in his past.
    Gorski ordered a second beer. Yves brought it over and wordlessly removed his paper plate and napkin. The man finished his drink and left without looking in Gorski’s direction. Now that the bar was empty, Gorski felt vaguely ridiculous. The proprietor studiedly busied himself polishing glasses and wiping down the surfaces behind the bar. There was a telephone on the wall next to the door to the WC. Gorski thought of phoning the station to check on the progress of the investigation, but it would be impossible to do so without being overheard. There was nothing else for it but to return to the station. He drank his beer, paid at the counter and left.
    He passed the rest of the afternoon in his office, typing a report on the investigation for the examining magistrate. Why, even in this official document, did he feel the need to present matters in a positive light? The men he had despatched to question residents in the area about further sightings of Adèle or the young man on the scooter, had not turned up anything. It was frustrating. Having dismissed the idea that the waitress had disappeared of her own accord, Gorski was left with three further possibilities: she had met with an accident, committed suicide, or she had been murdered. The first of these could also be dismissed. Nobody answering Adèle’s description had been admitted to a hospital in