Inspector Cadaver (9 page)

‘You choose,' said Maigret.

And the other, blushing:

‘I don't mind … Biscuits
… This is what happened. Maybe ten or twelve days after Albert's funeral,
the postman had a pick-up at Madame Retailleau's. She was doing the housework. She
looked in her purse but she was fifty francs short. So she went over to the soup tureen
on the dresser. You must have noticed it. A tureen with blue
flowers.
She stood in front of it to block Josaphat's view, but that evening he swore
he'd seen a wad of thousand-franc notes, at least ten, maybe more … Well,
everyone knows Madame Retailleau has never been able to get her hands on that much money
… Albert spent everything he earned …'

‘On what?'

‘He cared about his looks. It's
not a crime, is it? He loved being well dressed and he had his suits made in Niort. He
was always ready to stand a round. He used to tell his mother that she had her pension,
after all …'

‘They used to argue?'

‘Sometimes. Albert was independent,
you know? His mother would have liked to treat him like a kid. If he'd listened to
her, he wouldn't have gone out at night and he'd have never set foot in the
café. My mother is the opposite. All she asks is that I'm out of the house as
much as possible.'

‘Where can we find
Josaphat?'

‘He should be at home now, or else on
his way back from his first round. In half an hour, he will be at the station to pick up
the bags for the second post.'

‘Please will you bring us two
digestifs, madame?'

Through the curtains, Maigret looked at the
windows opposite and imagined Cadaver having his lunch and watching him back. Reality
soon intervened, however, as a car noisily announced its presence and stopped outside
the Lion d'Or. Cavre got out, his briefcase under his arm, and bent down to the
driver to haggle over the price.

‘Whose car is
that?'

‘The mechanic at the garage's.
We passed it just now. He runs a taxi service occasionally when someone's going to
hospital or needs something urgently from the shops …'

The car turned around and, judging by the
sound, only drove a short distance before stopping again.

‘You see. He's gone back to his
place.'

‘Do you get on well with
him?'

‘He's a friend of my
boss.'

‘Go and ask him where he went this
morning with his fare.'

Less than five minutes later, Pockmarks came
running back.

‘He went to Fontenay-le-Comte.
That's dead on twenty-two kilometres from here.'

‘You didn't ask him where in
particular?'

‘He was told to stop at the Café
du Commerce, Rue de la République. The Parisian went in, then came out with someone
and told the driver to wait.'

‘You didn't find out who his
companion was?'

‘The mechanic doesn't know him
… They were gone for half an hour. Then your Cavre asked to be driven back. He
only gave him a five franc tip …'

Hadn't Étienne Naud gone to
Fontenay-le-Comte too?

‘Let's go and see
Josaphat.'

He had already left home. They caught up
with him at the station, where he was waiting for the train. When he saw Pockmarks and
Maigret appear at the far end of the platform, he seemed annoyed and rushed into the
stationmaster's office as if he were busy.

They waited for him all the
same.

‘Josaphat!' called Louis.

‘What do you want? I don't have
time for you.'

‘There's someone who'd
like to have a quick word with you.'

‘Who's that? I'm working,
and when I'm working …'

Maigret had a struggle ushering him to an
empty spot between the lamp store and the urinals.

‘A simple question …'

He was obviously on his guard. He pretended
to hear the train, to be poised to make a dash for the mail van. At the same time he
couldn't help darting filthy looks at Louis, who had put him in this
situation.

Maigret already knew he wouldn't find
out anything. His colleague Cavre had clearly beaten him to it.

‘Hurry up, I can hear the train
…'

‘You picked something up a fortnight
or so ago from Madame Retailleau.'

‘I'm not allowed to talk about
work matters.'

‘But you did that evening.'

‘In front of me!' the kid broke
in. ‘Avrard was there, Lhériteau, little Croman …'

The postman shifted from foot to foot, a
stupid and insolent look on his face.

‘What gives you the right to
interrogate me?'

‘We can ask you a question,
can't we? You're not the Pope, are you?'

‘What if I asked this man who's
been skulking around town since morning for his papers? Eh?'

Maigret had already turned around, realizing
it was
pointless to insist. Louis, however, shocked by such dishonesty,
lost his temper.

‘You'd have the nerve to say
that you didn't talk about some thousand-franc notes that were in the
tureen?'

‘Why not? What are you going to do
about it?'

‘You talked about them. I'll get
the others to tell it to your face too. You said the notes were pinned together
…'

The postman walked away, shrugging. This
time the train really was pulling in and he took up position where the mail van always
stopped.

‘The shyster!' Louis growled
between his teeth. ‘You heard him, didn't you? Honestly, though, you can
believe me … Why would I lie? I knew this would happen.'

‘Why?'

‘Because it's always the same
when they're involved …'

‘Who?'

‘All of them. I don't know how
to explain it. They stick up for each other. They're rich. They're all
relatives or friends of chiefs of police, generals, judges. I don't know if that
makes any sense. Anyway, people are scared. Sometimes, of course, they'll talk
late at night when they've had a bit to drink, but the next day they regret it.
What are you going to do? You're not going back to Paris?'

‘Of course not, son. Why?'

‘I don't know. That other man
looks …'

The kid bit his tongue just in time. He was
obviously going to say something along the lines of, ‘He looks tougher than
you!'

And it was true. In the fog that was
starting to come down like an artificial dusk, Maigret thought he saw
Cavre's sallow face, his fleshless lips stretched in a sardonic smile.

‘Isn't your boss going to say
anything about you not being at work yet?'

‘Oh no! He's not like that at
all. If he could help us prove poor Albert was murdered, he would, I tell you
…'

Maigret jumped as a voice behind him asked,
‘The Lion d'Or hotel, please?'

The railwayman on duty by the ticket barrier
pointed to the street that started a hundred or so metres away.

‘Straight ahead. You'll see, on
your left.'

A plump, immaculately dressed little fellow
went out, dragging a suitcase that seemed as big as him and looking around for a
non-existent porter. The inspector scrutinized him from head to toe, but without
success. He didn't know him.

‘If you need me, I'll be at the
Trois Mules
all evening,' Pockmarks said, before he rushed off into the
fog and was swallowed up.

It was five o'clock. With the fog,
darkness had fallen. Maigret had to walk the length of Saint-Aubin's high street
before reaching the station and the lane leading to Étienne Naud's house.
Louis had offered to show him the way, but you had to draw the line somewhere, and
Maigret had had enough of virtually being dragged along by the hand by the hectic,
feverish young man.

As he was leaving him, Louis had said
reproachfully, almost sentimentally, ‘Those people,' he meant the Nauds, of
course, ‘will fawn all over you and you'll end up believing everything they
tell you.'

Hands in pockets, overcoat collar turned up,
Maigret made his way cautiously towards the first light he could see, which resembled a
lighthouse in the fog. Although it seemed a long way off, the shimmering halo was so
bright it was easy to think he was heading for a major landmark. Moments later he almost
walked straight into the chilly window of the Vendée Cooperative, which he must
have already passed twenty times that day. A narrow green shop, repainted fairly
recently, its window display consisted of the sort of glass and earthenware
objects that businesses give away as complimentary gifts.

Further on, in the pitch dark, his coat
snagged on a hard object, and he groped around mystified for a long while, before
finally realizing that he had wound up among the carts that stood, their shafts in the
air, outside the cartwright's.

The bells rang out suddenly just above his
head. He was passing the church. The post office was to the right, with its dolls'
house wicket gate; facing it was the doctor's house.

The Lion d'Or café on one side,
the Trois Mules on the other. It was incredible to think that wherever a light showed
there were people living in a tiny circle of warmth. They were like incrustations on the
frozen wastes of the universe.

Saint-Aubin wasn't a big place. He
could already see the lights of the dairy like a factory ablaze in the night. A
train's engine in the station spat fire.

This was the miniature world in which Albert
Retailleau had lived. His mother had spent her whole life here. Apart from holidays at
Les Sables-d'Olonne, someone like Geneviève Naud had virtually never left
this little town.

When the train had slowed down a little just
before Niort station, Maigret had seen empty, rainswept streets, rows of gaslights,
houses like blind people, and he had thought, ‘There are people who spend their
whole lives in one of those streets.'

Testing the ground with his foot, he was now
making his way along the canal towards the next lighthouse in sight, the light shining
at the Nauds'. Looking out from trains, on
cold nights, or in
driving rain, he had seen other equally remote houses. A yellow rectangle of light is
the only sign that they exist. Your imagination races. You speculate.

And now here he was, entering the realm of
one of those lights. He climbed the steps and, as he looked for the bell, he saw the
door wasn't shut. He went into the hall, purposely dragging his feet to announce
his presence, but that wasn't enough to interrupt the monotonous monologue that he
could hear in the drawing room to his left. He took off his wet coat and hat, wiped his
feet on the doormat and knocked.

‘Come in. Geneviève, open the
door …'

He had already opened it. In the drawing
room, where only one of the lamps had been turned on, he found Madame Naud sewing by the
fireplace, a very old woman sitting opposite her, and a young girl who was coming
towards him.

‘I'm sorry to disturb you
…'

The girl looked at him anxiously, not
knowing whether he was going to betray her. He merely bowed to her.

‘My daughter, inspector. She has been
so keen to meet you since she's started feeling better. Let me introduce you to my
mother …'

So this was Clementine Bréjon, née
La Noue, whom everyone familiarly called Tine. Small and brisk, with a grimacing face
reminiscent of a bust of Voltaire, she stood up and asked in an odd falsetto:

‘Well, inspector, have you had your
fill of turning our poor Saint-Aubin on its head? Ten times – no, more! – I
saw you march up and down, and this afternoon I noticed
that you had
gained a recruit … Do you know who's been acting as the inspector's
mahout, Louise?'

Was ‘mahout' chosen expressly to
emphasize the disparity between the thin Louis and the elephantine Maigret?

Louise Naud, who had inherited very little
of her mother's briskness, and whose face was much longer and paler, remained bent
over her sewing, nodding and giving the occasional wan smile to show she was paying
attention.

‘Fillou's son. It was bound to
happen. The boy must have lain in wait for him. I daresay he's been regaling you
with some fine stories, inspector?'

‘Not at all, madame. He simply took me
to one person or other whom I was keen to see and who would otherwise have been
difficult to find. The townspeople on the whole are not particularly talkative
…'

The girl had sat down and was staring at
Maigret as if hypnotized by him. Madame Naud occasionally looked up from her handiwork
and cast a furtive glance at her daughter.

The drawing room was just as it had been the
day before, all the objects were in their appointed place, a heavy peace prevailed, and
yet the grandmother's presence was the only normal thing about it.