The Misty Harbour (12 page)

Big Louis couldn't help grinning
angelically at the memory of his punching sessions.

‘There you have it, my friends!
Now, try to get it through your skulls that the whole truth will come out in the
end. The sooner the better, don't you think?'

And Maigret knocked out his pipe against
his shoe, refilled it and started all over.

Célestin had fallen deeply asleep. He
was snoring, open-mouthed. Big Louis, his head tipped to one side, was looking at
the dirty floor, while Lannec tried in vain to catch his eye and solicit some
advice.

At last the captain muttered, ‘We
have nothing to say.'

There was a noise up on deck. As if a
rather heavy object
had fallen. Maigret
started; Big Louis stuck his head out of the hatchway, leaving nothing to see except
his legs on the ladder.

If he had disappeared up on to the deck,
the inspector would no doubt have followed him. There was nothing to hear besides
the hammering of the rain and some creaking blocks.

This pause lasted for half a minute, no
more. Big Louis came back down, his hair plastered to his forehead by the rain
streaming down his cheeks, but at first offered no explanation.

‘What was it?'

‘A pulley block.'

‘How …?'

‘Banged into the
bulwarks.'

The captain replenished the stove. Did
he believe what Louis had just said? In any case, instead of responding to his
pleading looks, Louis was shaking Célestin.

‘Go and rig the mizzen
sheet …'

The old man rubbed his eyes, still
drowsy. The order was repeated twice more. Then he donned his oilskins and
sou'wester and climbed the ladder, stiff with the comfort of recent sleep and
angry at being sent out into the cold and rain. He wore clogs that clattered up and
down the deck, over their heads.

Big Louis poured himself what was at
least his sixth glass, yet he showed no signs of intoxication.

His face was always the same: uneven, a
trifle bloated, with big eyes that almost bulged from his head. He seemed to be a
man plodding glumly through life.

‘What do
you think, Louis?'

‘About what?'

‘Idiot! Have you thought about the
fix you're in? Don't you understand that you're the one
who'll get it in the neck? Your record, first of all. An ex-convict! Then this
schooner you now own even though you haven't a sou to your name. Joris barred
you from his house because you'd sponged off him too often! The
Saint-Michel
, here in Ouistreham the evening he vanished. You were here
the day he was poisoned … And your sister then inherits three hundred
thousand francs!'

Did Big Louis have a single thought in
his head? His eyes were as vacant as could be. China-doll eyes, staring absently at
the wall.

‘What's he doing up
there?' asked Lannec anxiously, looking over at the half-open hatch. Rainwater
was pooling on the floor.

Maigret had not had a lot to drink,
albeit enough to bring the blood to his head, especially in that stuffy cabin. And
enough to inspire a moment of reverie.

Now that he knew the three men, he could
imagine their lives in the world of the
Saint-Michel
.

The one man in his bunk, fully dressed
most of the time. Always a bottle and some dirty glasses on the table. At least one
man on deck; the comings and goings of his clogs or boots … Then that
dull, steady sound of the sea … The compass in the binnacle with its tiny
light … The other lamp, swaying up on the mizzen-mast …

Eyes peering into the darkness, hunting
for the firefly gleam of the lighthouse … And the loading
docks … 
Two or three days
with nothing to do, spending hours in bistros that are everywhere the
same …

Strange noises were heard overhead. Was
Big Louis also sinking into a deep slumber? A small alarm-clock showed it was
already three o'clock. The bottle was almost gone …

Lannec yawned, felt around in his
pockets for some cigarettes.

Hadn't the ship's company
spent the night this way, in this same hothouse atmosphere smelling of close
quarters and coal tar, on the day Captain Joris had disappeared? And had the captain
been among them then, drinking, struggling against drowsiness?

This time, voices were heard on deck,
although the tempest reduced them to a whisper down in the cabin.

Maigret stood up with a frown, saw
Lannec pouring himself another drink, saw Big Louis' chin touching his chest
and his eyes half closed.

He felt for the revolver in his pocket
and climbed the almost vertical ladder.

The hatchway was exactly big enough for
a man, and the inspector was much taller and bulkier than the average sailor.

So he couldn't even fight back!
Hardly had his head emerged from the hatchway when a gag was placed over his mouth
and tied behind his neck.

That was the work of the men on deck,
Célestin and someone else.

Meanwhile, down below, the revolver was
torn from his right hand and his wrists were bound behind him.

He kicked
violently back with his foot and hit something that felt to him like a face, but an
instant later a rope coiled around his legs.

‘Heave ho!' said the flat,
indifferent voice of Big Louis.

That was the hard part. He was heavy. He
was pushed from below; pulled from above.

The rain was coming down like a
waterfall. The wind was blasting up the channel with unbelievable force.

He thought he saw four silhouettes, but
the ship's lantern had been put out, and the passage from warmth and light to
freezing night had bewildered his senses.

‘One … Two … And away!'

They swung him over like a sack. He
sailed fairly high and landed on the wet stones of the quay.

Louis went over after him and bent down
to make sure all his bonds were tight. For a moment the inspector had the
ex-convict's face quite close to his and had the impression the man was
reluctantly carrying out a sad duty.

‘You got to tell my
sister …' he began.

Tell her what? Louis himself
didn't know. Aboard the
Saint-Michel
there were hasty footsteps,
creaking, grinding sounds, muttered orders. The jibs were unfurled. The mainsail
rose slowly up the mast.

‘Remember, you must tell her,
I'll see her again one day … And maybe you, too.'

He jumped heavily back on deck. Maigret
was lying facing out to sea. A lantern on a halyard ran up to the masthead. There
was a black figure by the tiller.

‘Cast off!'

The mooring rope snaked off the
bollards, hauled in
from the boat. The
jibs snapped in the wind for an instant or two … The bow paid off, and the
schooner almost swung completely around, so ferociously was she attacked by the
storm.

But no – a heave on the tiller brought
her into the wind's eye. She hesitated, seeking her way and, heeling over,
shot suddenly between the jetties.

A black mass in the blackness. A tiny
dot of light on the deck. Another, on high, at the masthead, already seemed like a
star wandering lost in a whirlwind sky.

Maigret could not move. He lay inert, in
a puddle, at the edge of infinite space.

Out there, wouldn't they buck
themselves up by polishing off that bottle? A few more briquettes would go into the
fire.

One man at the tiller; the others in the
damp bunks.

Perhaps there was one salty drop among
the pearly ones streaming down the inspector's face.

A big, powerful man, in the prime of
life, perhaps the most dignified and manly officer of the Police Judiciare,
abandoned there until dawn, at the end of a harbour quay, next to a bollard.

Had he been able to turn around, he
would have seen the small wooden awning of the Buvette de la Marine, now closed for
the night.

The sea was draining away fast. Maigret
heard the surf at the end of the breakwaters at first, then further out as the sand
of the beach was laid bare.

With the ebb tide, the wind eased, as
almost always happens. The piercing rain lost some of its sting. By the time the
lowest-lying clouds were paling at the approach of day, the deluges of the night had
become a light but even more chilling rain.

Objects were gradually emerging from
their inky shrouds. The slanting masts of fishing boats now stranded at low tide
stuck up above the mudflats of the outer harbour.

Off inland, the distant lowing of a cow.
The church bell ringing gently, discreetly, to announce the low mass at seven
o'clock.

But he would have to wait a while
longer. Any churchgoers would not be passing through the harbour. The lock workers
would have no business there before high tide. Only a fisherman, perhaps, might show
up … But did fishermen bother getting out of bed in such weather?

Maigret, now a sodden heap, thought
about all the beds in Ouistreham, the sturdy wooden beds with their enormous down
quilts, beds where everyone was snuggling lazily in the warmth of their covers,
peeking out
resentfully at the blanching
window panes and granting themselves a tiny respite before sticking their bare feet
down on the floor.

Was Sergeant Lucas in bed, too? No!
Because in that case, what had just happened was inexplicable.

The inspector had reconstructed those
events this way: Jean Martineau had somehow managed to get rid of Lucas. Why not by
tying him up, as he had with Maigret himself? The Norwegian then went straight to
the
Saint-Michel
, where, hearing Maigret's voice, he waited patiently
for someone to appear. Then Big Louis stuck his head out the hatch. Martineau
whispered instructions to him or showed him a note he had written.

The rest was simple. There had been that
noise up on deck. Louis sent Célestin up from the cabin. Martineau and the old
sailor talked, luring Maigret up to investigate.

And when he was halfway there, the team
on deck silenced him while those below immobilized his arms and legs.

By now the schooner must have been well
outside the three-mile limit for territorial waters. Unless she were to put in at a
French port, which wasn't likely, Maigret had no way to intercept her.

Maigret kept still. He had noticed that
every time he moved, a little water crept in under his overcoat.

He had one ear on the ground and began
identifying the successive sounds he heard. He recognized the noise of the pump in
Joris' garden: Julie was up! She must have been out in her clogs, pumping
water for her morning ablutions. But she would not come into town. Day hadn't
properly dawned yet, so her kitchen
light would be on.

Footsteps … A man was crossing
the bridge … Stepping on to the stone wall … Walking
slowly … He threw something that sounded like a bundle of ropes from the
top of the quay into a dinghy.

A fisherman? Maigret struggled to change
his position and saw the man, twenty metres away, about to go down the iron jetty
ladder to the water. In spite of his gag, he managed to make muffled cries.

Looking around, the fisherman spied the
black heap and stared at it suspiciously for a long time. At last he made up his
mind to draw closer.

‘What're you doing
there?'

And having vaguely remembered what
precautions to take at a crime scene, he added cautiously, ‘Mebbe I'd
best go fetch the police first.'

He did remove the gag, however. The
inspector negotiated with him, and the man, still somewhat dubious, began to untie
the bonds, muttering curses at whoever had tied such knots.

The waitress over at the bar was just
opening the shutters. Even though the wind had fallen, the sea was still running
high, but the waves were no longer thundering in as they had during the night. There
were massive swells that rose up over the sandbanks to crest at least three metres
and more in waves that crashed in a dull boom, as if the whole continent were being
shaken.

The fisherman was a little old man with
a bushy beard who remained leery of the situation but unsure of what to do.

‘The local
police still need to know …'

‘But I keep telling you: I am a
kind of plain-clothes police officer!'

‘A plain-clothes police
officer,' repeated the old fellow hesitantly.

The old salt's eyes turned
naturally to the sea, swept along the horizon, stopped at a point to the right of
the jetties, off towards Le Havre, then fixed their appalled gaze on Maigret.

‘What's the matter with
you?'

The man was too upset to reply, and
Maigret only understood why after looking out to sea himself.

The bay at Ouistreham was almost
completely high and dry. The sand, the colour of ripe wheat, stretched out for more
than a mile, to the purling, pure white surf.

And to the right of the jetty, not more
than a kilometre away, was a vessel stranded half on the sand, half in the water,
which was attacking the hull like a battering ram.

Two masts, one of them bearing a square
lantern. A Paimpol schooner. It was the
Saint-Michel
.

In that direction, sky and sea were
indistinguishable, an expanse of greyish-white.

Nothing else there but the black hulk of
the beached ship.

‘Must've tried leaving too
late after the tide turned,' murmured the stunned fisherman.

‘Does that happen
often?'

‘At times … Not water
enough in the gat! And that Orne current drove her on to Black Cow shoal.'

There was a silent sense of desolation,
made even more
forlorn by the drizzle in
the air. Seeing the schooner almost completely beached, however, it was hard to
imagine that her company had been in any real danger.

When she had set out, though, the sea
had still been breaking at the foot of the dunes, adding at least ten battle lines
of massive swells.

‘Got to tell the
harbourmaster …'

A small detail. The old man turned
automatically towards Joris' cottage, then mumbled, ‘Except
that …'

And he walked off in the opposite
direction. The wreck had been spotted by others, now, perhaps from the church porch,
for Captain Delcourt arrived looking as if he had dressed in a hurry, followed by
three other men.

Delcourt shook hands distractedly with
Maigret without noticing that the inspector was rather wet.

‘I told them!'

‘They'd let you know they
were leaving?'

‘Well, it's just that when I
saw them tie up down here, I had the feeling they wouldn't wait for the next
tide. I warned the skipper to watch out for that current.'

Everyone was walking out on to the
beach. The wet sand made it heavy going, and there were pools of water thirty
centimetres deep. It was a long slog.

‘Are the crew in danger?'
asked Maigret.

‘I doubt they're still
aboard. Otherwise, they'd have hoisted the distress flag, tried to signal for
help … But, wait a minute,' he exclaimed, suddenly uneasy.
‘They didn't have their dinghy along! You remember? When the steamer
brought it in, we kept it in the dock.'

‘So?'

‘So they
must have had to swim to shore … Or …'

Delcourt was worried. Certain things
bothered him.

‘I'm surprised they
didn't prop her up, keep her from heeling over … Unless she went
right over when she grounded on the shoal. But still …'

They approached the
Saint-Michel
, and she was a sorry sight. They could see her keel, thick
with green under-water paint, and the barnacles encrusting her hull. Sailors were
already examining the schooner for any damage, but finding none.

‘An ordinary grounding.'

‘Nothing serious?'

‘It means that at the next tide a
tug will probably get her out of there. But what I don't understand
is …'

‘What don't you
understand?'

‘Why they abandoned her!
It's not like them to cut and run. They know the schooner's rock-solid.
Look how stoutly she's made! … Hey! Jean-Baptiste! Fetch me a
ladder!'

The tilting hull still put the bulwark
rail more than six metres above the sand.

‘No need!'

A snapped shroud was hanging down.
Jean-Baptiste used it to clamber up the ship's side like a monkey, then swing
over the deck and drop down to it. A few minutes later, he lowered a ladder.

‘No one aboard?'

‘Not a soul.'

Several kilometres further along the
coast they could see the houses of Dives, factory chimneys, then Cabourg
and Houlgate, not quite as clearly, and
the rocky point concealing Deauville and Trouville.

Maigret climbed up the ladder out of a
sense of duty, but he felt unpleasantly dizzy on the sloping deck. An anxious
vertigo worse than if the ship had been tossing on a furious sea!

In the cabin, broken glass on the floor,
the cupboard doors hanging open …

And the harbourmaster didn't know
what he should do about all this. He was not the captain of the ship! Should he take
responsibility for refloating her and send to Trouville for a tug to heave her
off?

‘If she goes through another tide
she'll be kindling!' he muttered.

‘Well, then, do everything
possible to save her. You can say that I'm the one who
decided …'

There was a mournful sense of foreboding
in the quiet scene. All eyes kept turning towards the deserted dunes as if expecting
to see the
Saint-Michel
's crew.

Men and children were coming out from
the village now. When Maigret returned to the harbour, Julie ran up to him.

‘Is it true? Have they been
wrecked?'

‘No. They ran aground. A strong
young man like your brother will surely have pulled through.'

‘Where is he?'

The whole affair was ominous,
disturbing. The owner of the Hôtel de l'Univers came out to hail Maigret.

‘Your two friends haven't
come down yet. Should I wake them?'

‘Don't bother.'

The inspector went upstairs himself to
Lucas' room and found his sergeant almost as tightly bound as Maigret had
been.

‘There's an
explanation …'

‘Don't need one! Come
on.'

‘Something's happened?
You're all wet … And you look exhausted.'

Maigret took him along to the post
office, at the highest spot in the village, opposite the church. People were
standing out on their doorsteps. Those who could go were dashing down to the
beach.

‘No chance to defend
yourself?' asked Maigret.

‘We were going upstairs, and
that's where he jumped me. He was behind me, then suddenly pulled my legs out
from under me, and the rest was so fast I couldn't fight back. Have you seen
him?'

Maigret was causing quite a stir for he
appeared to have spent the night up to his neck in water. He couldn't even
write his messages in the post office. He was soaking the paper.

‘Take the pen, Lucas. Telegrams to
all the police stations and town halls in the district: Dives, Cabourg, Houlgate.
Those on this side as well: Luc-sur-Mer, Lion … Check the map: include
even the smallest villages up to ten kilometres inland.

‘Four descriptions: Big Louis;
Martineau; Captain Lannec; the old sailor answering to the name of Célestin.

‘After you've sent the
telegrams, call the closest local places, that'll save us some
time.'

He left Lucas
dealing with his phone and wire assignments.

In a bistro across from the post office,
he gulped down a steaming grog while some kids outside pressed their noses to the
windows, trying to get a look at him.

Ouistreham was awake now, a nervous,
worried village that gazed or hurried towards the sea. And news was
travelling … Distorted, exaggerated news.

Out on the road, Maigret ran into the
old fisherman who had freed him at daybreak.

‘You didn't say anything
about …'

‘I said that I found you,'
replied the man with indifference.

The inspector gave him twenty francs and
returned to the hotel to change. He was shivering all over, felt both hot and cold.
He had a bristly growth of beard and great circles under his eyes.

In spite of his fatigue, though, his
brain was at work. Even more than usual. He managed to notice everything around him,
to question and answer people without losing his train of thought.

When he returned to the post office, it
was almost nine o'clock. Lucas was just completing his list of phone calls.
The telegrams had already been sent. In reply to his questions, every police station
was reporting no sign yet of the four wanted men.