Inspector Cadaver (15 page)

‘I just said I would
…'

‘The telegram will probably get here
around noon … He can take the three o'clock train … Make sure the
telegram gets here in time.'

‘Is Louise all right?'

‘Yes, she's all right …
Goodnight … Don't forget … I'll explain … Don't go
imagining things, whatever you do … Say goodnight to your wife.'

The postmistress gathered from the
expression on Maigret's face that the conversation had ended. She took back her
headphones and switched the jacks around again.

‘Hello? … Have you finished?
… Hello, Paris … How
many calls? … Two? …
Thank you … Goodnight, dear …'

And then, turning to the inspector who was
putting his hat back on and relighting his pipe, she said, ‘I could get the sack
for less than that … So, do you think it's true?'

‘What?'

‘What people are saying … I
can't believe that a man like Monsieur Étienne, who has everything a person
could possibly need to be happy …'

‘Good night, mademoiselle. Don't
worry. I'll be discreet.'

‘What were they saying?'

‘Nothing interesting. Catching up on
their families.'

‘Are you going back to
Paris?'

‘Perhaps … Goodness me, I mean
yes … There's every chance I'll be taking the train back tomorrow
afternoon.'

He was calm now. He felt himself again. He
was almost surprised to find the kid waiting for him in the kitchen. Louis was equally
surprised to see a Maigret he hardly recognized; a Maigret who barely took any notice of
him, who treated him offhandedly. ‘Or could it be contempt?' thought the
young man, hurt.

They found themselves outside, back in the
darkness and fog, back in that absurdly small universe that was punctuated only by a few
scattered lights.

‘It was him, wasn't
it?'

‘Who … What?'

‘Naud … He killed Albert.'

‘I've no idea, son … It
…'

Maigret stopped himself in time. He was
going to say, ‘It doesn't matter …'

That was what he was
thinking or, more accurately, feeling. But he realized that the young man would be
shocked if he said such a thing.

‘What did he say?'

‘Nothing very exciting … By the
way, about Groult-Cotelle …'

They were walking towards the two inns.
There were still lights on in them and, in one, figures were silhouetted like shadow
puppets against the windows.

‘Yes?'

‘Has he always been a close friend of
the Nauds?'

‘Well … Not always, no … I
was a small boy, you see? The house has been in his family for a long time, but when I
was a kid and we'd go and play on the step, it was empty. I remember because we
often used to climb into the cellar through a ventilator that didn't shut properly
… Monsieur Groult-Cotelle was living with relatives then, who I think have got a
chateau in Brittany … When he came back here, he was married … You should
ask someone older than me … I must have been six or seven … I remember that
his wife had a nice little yellow car which she drove herself. She'd often go off
for drives on her own …'

‘Did the couple see the
Nauds?'

‘No. I'm sure they didn't.
I say that because I remember Monsieur Groult was always at the old doctor's
house, who was a widower … I can see them by the window, playing chess … I
may be wrong but I think his wife was the reason he didn't see the Nauds. They
were friends before, because he and Naud went to school together.
They
used to say hello in the street. I'd see them chatting on the pavement, but that
was it …'

‘So it was after Madame Groult-Cotelle
left …'

‘Yes. About three years ago.
Mademoiselle Naud was sixteen or seventeen. She'd left school. She was at a
boarding school in Niort for ages, and you only saw her one Sunday in four. The other
reason I remember is because if you saw her any time other than the holidays, you always
knew it was the third Sunday of the month … They became friends. Monsieur Groult
spends half his time at the Nauds.'

‘Don't they go on holiday
together?'

‘Yes, to Sables d'Olonne. The
Nauds have had a villa built in Sables … Are you going back now? Don't you
want to know if the private detective …?'

The teenager looked in the direction of
Groult's house, where a glimmer of light was still seeping through the shutters.
Louis' idea of a police investigation probably bore little resemblance to
Maigret's methods in this one. He was a little disillusioned, although he
didn't dare show it.

‘What did he say when you went
in?'

‘Cadaver? Nothing … No, he
didn't say anything … Besides, it's not important …'

The inspector was far away, somewhere out of
time as it were, and he answered his young companion half-heartedly, without really
knowing what he was asking him.

At the Police Judiciaire they often used to
joke about the Maigret that emerged at moments like this. He knew they talked about it
behind his back too.

This Maigret seemed to
swell out of all recognition, to become dense and heavy as if he were dead to the world
or blind and dumb. A stranger or novice might easily mistake him for a sleepy, lumbering
idiot.

‘So, you're concentrating all
your thoughts on the case, are you?' someone who fancied himself an expert in
psychology had once asked him.

And he had replied with comic sincerity,
‘I never think.'

It was almost true. He wasn't thinking
now, for example, as he stood in the cold, wet street. He wasn't pursuing any
particular idea. If anything, he was like a sponge.

The expression was Sergeant Lucas',
who had worked on so many cases with him and knew him better than anyone.

‘There's a moment in every
investigation,' Lucas would relate, ‘when the boss suddenly swells up like a
sponge. It looks like he's filling up.'

Filling up with what, though? In his case,
for instance, he was absorbing the fog and the darkness. He was no longer standing in
the middle of just any old village. He wasn't just any old person who had ended up
in those surroundings by chance.

Now he was almost like God the Father. He
knew this village as if he had always lived there, or better still, as if he had created
it. All the life going on in these small low houses hidden in the dark was familiar to
him. He could see the men and women turning over in their warm, fusty beds and follow
the thread of their dreams. A little light showed him a baby who was being given a warm
bottle by its half-asleep mother. He felt the shooting pains of
the
invalid in the house on the corner. He foresaw the moment when the sleepwalking grocer
would wake with a start.

He was in the café, sitting at its
brown polished tables as the men shuffled their greasy cards and counted their red and
yellow chips.

He was in Geneviève's room,
suffering the torments of a lover's wounded pride with her. For that was what
troubled her, the blows her pride had suffered. She had just endured what must have been
the most painful day of her life, and who knew if she wasn't waiting for Maigret
to come back so she could slip into his room again?

Madame Naud wasn't asleep. She was in
bed but she wasn't asleep. In the darkness of her room, she listened to the sounds
in the house, wondering why Maigret wasn't back yet and picturing her husband in
the drawing room. Downstairs Étienne Naud sat waiting aimlessly, torn between the
hope his telephone call had given him and the anxiety that increased the longer the
inspector stayed away.

Maigret felt the heat of the cows in the
barn, heard the mare kicking, pictured the old cook in a camisole …

Meanwhile at Groult's house …
Look, a door was opening. Alban was showing his visitor out. He clearly loathed him.
What else had he and Cavre said to each other in that dusty, stale-smelling drawing room
after their telephone call to Naud?

The door closed again. Cadaver briskly
walked off, his briefcase under his arm. He was pleased, although not unreservedly so.
The game was almost won. He had defeated Maigret hands down. Tomorrow his old boss
would be recalled to Paris. But he was a little humiliated not to
have achieved this victory on his own. And then there was the inspector's threat
about the cap, which preyed on his mind …

He headed off to the Lion d'Or, where
his employee was waiting for him, putting away the brandy.

‘Are you going back to where
you're staying now?'

‘Yes, son … What else am I going
to do?'

‘You're not giving
up?'

‘Giving up what?'

Maigret knew them all so well! How many
other Pockmarks had he come across in his life, just as fervent, just as naive and
knowing, flinging themselves at every obstacle in their paths, determined to achieve
justice at all costs?

‘It will pass, you know, little
man,' he thought. ‘In a few years you'll give a Naud or a Groult a
nice low bow because you'll understand it's the wisest course of action when
you're Fillou's son …'

What about Madame Retailleau, all alone in
that house, where she had carefully hidden the notes in the soup tureen?

She had understood long ago. Doubtless she
had been as good a wife as anyone else, as good a mother. She may not have been
unfeeling, but she had learned that feelings are useless and had resigned herself.
Resigned herself to fighting her corner with other weapons, to transforming all of
life's accidents into hard currency.

Her husband's death had brought her
her house and a pension that had allowed her to raise her son and give him an
education.

Now Albert's death
…

‘I bet she wants a little house, in
Niort rather than Saint-Aubin,' he muttered under his breath. ‘A brand new,
spotlessly clean little house … And a nice, secure little old age with the
portraits of her husband and son looking down on her …'

As for Groult and his
Perverse
Pleasures
…

‘You're walking so fast,
inspector …'

‘Are you seeing me to the
door?'

‘Is that a bore for you?'

‘Won't your mother
worry?'

‘Oh, she doesn't take any notice
of me …'

There was regret as well as pride in his
voice as he said that.

Come on, then! They had already passed the
station and were heading down the boggy lane that ran alongside the canal. Old
Désiré would be sleeping off his drink on his filthy mattress, while Josaphat,
the postman, totted up his gains, preening himself on his brilliance and cunning …

Up ahead, at the end of the lane, where they
could see what looked like the moon's halo behind a cloud, there was a large,
cosy, peaceful house, one of those houses passers-by look at enviously and think how
good it must be to live there.

‘You can leave me now, son.
We're here …'

‘When will I see you again? Promise me
you won't go without …'

‘I promise …'

‘You're really not going to give
up?'

‘I'm really not
…'

If only! For Maigret was
not thrilled by what he still had to do, and his shoulders sagged as he made for the
steps. The door was open slightly. It had been left like that for him. There was a light
on in the drawing room.

He sighed as he took off his heavy overcoat,
which the fog had made heavier still, and remained standing on the mat for a moment to
light his pipe.

‘Come on, then!'

Torn between hope and mortal dread, poor
Étienne was waiting for him in the chair Madame Naud had sat in that afternoon,
suffering the same agonies.

On a side table stood a bottle of Armagnac,
which appeared to have been put to good use.

There was nothing affected about
Maigret's manner. He was cold, so he stood with his shoulders hunched and head
cocked at an angle, like a thin-blooded person who always huddles by the stove. He had
stayed out in the fog for a long time without thinking about the temperature and it was
only when he took off his overcoat that he started shivering. Suddenly he became aware
of all the freezing damp that had seeped into him.

He was sullen, as though he were coming down
with flu, and uneasy, because the job ahead of him held little appeal. If that
wasn't enough, he was also unsure. The time had come to bring matters to a head,
and he suddenly found himself faced with two diametrically opposed courses of action,
just when he had to make a definitive decision.

So when he entered the drawing room with a
gruff air, blank eyes and a lurching, bear-like gait it was because he was thinking
about all this, rather than cultivating the Maigret of legend.