The Misty Harbour Page 10

  ‘Nothing … I …’

  She tried to smile as she caught her breath but, retreating backwards, she bumped into Martineau.

  ‘Sorry, monsieur,’ she stammered, without seeming to recognize him.

  The wind roared in through the forgotten front door, left wide open.

  9. The Conspiracy of Silence

  Julie was explaining why she had come, in short, hesitant sentences.

  ‘I was alone in the house … I was frightened … I’d gone to bed with all my clothes on … Someone started pounding on the door … It was Lannec, my brother’s skipper.’

  ‘The Saint-Michel is in?’

  ‘She was in the lock when I passed by. Lannec wanted to see my brother right away … Seems they’re in a hurry to set out. I told him Louis hadn’t even come to visit! And the skipper’s the one who got me worried, muttering things I didn’t understand …’

  ‘Why did you come here?’ asked Maigret.

  ‘I asked Lannec, was Louis in any danger – and he told me yes, that maybe it was already too late … So I asked around in the harbour, and they told me you were here.’

  Big Louis was staring at the floor, looking irritated. He shrugged, as if to indicate that women get all worked up about nothing.

  ‘You’re in danger?’ asked Maigret, trying to meet his eyes.

  Big Louis laughed. A great booming noise, much more simple-minded than his usual laughter.

  ‘Why was Lannec worried?’

  ‘Now how would I know?’

  ‘In short,’ said Maigret pensively, looking around at everyone, ‘you don’t know anything. None of you do!’ he added, with an edge of bitterness. ‘You, Monsieur Grandmaison, you’ve never met Monsieur Martineau and don’t know why Big Louis – who makes himself at home in your house, playing draughts with you and eating at your table – would suddenly begin punching your face into pudding.’

  Not a word.

  ‘What am I saying? You seem to find this perfectly natural! You don’t defend yourself! You won’t file a complaint! You won’t even throw Big Louis out of your house.’

  He turned to Big Louis.

  ‘You, you haven’t a clue either! You sleep aboard the dredger but have no idea who else is with you there. You repay the hospitality of this house by using the master of it as a punchbag. You have never seen Monsieur Martineau in your life …’

  Not a flicker of response. Everyone was stubbornly studying the carpet.

  ‘And you, Monsieur Martineau, you’re just the same. Do you even know how you got from Norway to France? No! You’d rather sleep in a bunk in the abandoned dredger than in a hotel bed. You take off on a bike, buy a car to drive to Paris. But you know nothing. You’ve never met Monsieur Grandmaison, Big Louis, or Captain Joris. And of course you, Julie, know even less than the others.’

  Discouraged, he looked over at Lucas. His sergeant understood. They couldn’t arrest them all … Every single one of them was guilty of inexplicable behaviour, lying or conflicting statements.

  But not one thing that would stand up in court!

  It was eleven o’clock. Maigret knocked out his pipe in the fireplace.

  ‘I must ask you all,’ he intoned grumpily, ‘to remain at the disposal of the judicial authorities … I will certainly have occasion to question you further, in spite of your ignorance. I take it, Mayor Grandmaison, that you have no intention of leaving Ouistreham?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Thank you. Monsieur Martineau, you could take a room at the Hôtel de l’Univers, where I am staying.’

  The Norwegian bowed slightly.

  ‘Accompany Monsieur Martineau to the hotel, Lucas.’

  He turned to Julie and Big Louis.

  ‘You two, come with me.’

  Once outside, Maigret dismissed the two policemen waiting for him there, then watched Lucas and Martineau set off immediately for the hotel, where the proprietor was waiting up for his guests.

  Julie had rushed from the cottage without her coat, and her brother, seeing her shivering, made her put on his jacket.

  The storm made talking too difficult. They had to walk bent over with the wind constantly whistling in their ears and chilling their faces so badly that their eyelids hurt.

  The bar in the harbour was lit up, full of lock workers who were dashing in, between vessels, to get warm and down hot grogs. Their faces turned towards the trio, who plodded on through the gale, over the bridge.

  ‘Is that the Saint-Michel?’ asked Maigret.

  A schooner was leaving the lock, making for the outer harbour, but he thought it seemed much taller than the one he remembered.

  ‘She’s in ballast,’ grunted Louis.

  Meaning that the Saint-Michel had unloaded in Caen and was travelling empty to pick up a fresh cargo.

  Just as they were coming to Joris’ cottage, a shadowy figure approached them. They had to peer into his face to recognize him. The man spoke shakily to Big Louis.

  ‘There y’are at last. Hurry, let’s get under way!’

  Maigret looked hard at the little Breton skipper, then at the waves attacking the jetties in an endless roar. The sky was a startling panorama of furious, roiling clouds.

  The Saint-Michel, moored to a piling in the darkness, showed only one tiny light from a lamp on the deckhouse.

  ‘You mean to go out in this?’

  ‘Of course!’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘La Rochelle, for a cargo of wine.’

  ‘You absolutely must have Big Louis?’

  ‘You really think just two could manage her in this blow?’

  Standing there listening, stamping her feet, Julie was cold. Her brother kept looking back and forth between Maigret and the Saint-Michel, her rigging creaking in the storm.

  ‘Go and wait for me aboard!’ Maigret told the skipper.

  ‘But we …’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘Tide’s on the ebb, we’ve got only two hours left.’

  There was something in his eyes … He was clearly uneasy, apprehensive, kept shifting from one foot to the other and couldn’t look at anything for more than a second or two.

  ‘Me, I’ve got my living to earn!’

  Maigret caught an exchange of glances between the skipper and his mate. There are moments when intuition goes into high gear, and Maigret was sure he had read the little captain right: ‘Boat’s not far, only one line to cast off; a single swing at this police fellow and we’re away …’

  ‘Go and wait for me aboard!’ repeated Maigret.

  ‘But …’

  The inspector signalled to the two others to follow him inside.

  Maigret was seeing the brother and sister alone together for the first time. They were all three in Captain Joris’ kitchen, where a good fire was drawing so well in the iron stove that the purring flames would sometimes snap and crackle.

  ‘How about something to drink?’ said the inspector to Julie, who fetched a carafe of spirits and some matching glasses with painted flowers on them.

  He was in the way, he could tell. Julie would dearly have liked to be alone with Big Louis, who watched her attentively with what was clearly great affection and a kind of brutish tenderness.

  Like the consummate housekeeper she was, Julie did not sit down after serving the two men but restoked her fire.

  ‘To the memory of Captain Joris,’ said Maigret, raising his glass.

  There was a long silence. This suited the inspector. He wanted everyone to have time to absorb the warm, quiet atmosphere of the kitchen.

  The steady humming of the fire gradually joined with the tick-tock of the pendulum clock into a kind of music. Safe from the chilly winds outside, their cheeks grew pink, and their eyes shone brightly. And the pungent aroma of calvados perfumed the air.

  ‘Captain Joris,’ said Maigret softly. ‘Here I am, sitting at his place, in his armchair … A wicker chair that creaks with every move I make. If he were alive, he’d be coming in from the harbour an
d probably asking for another glass, to warm himself up. Right, Julie?’

  She looked at him, wide-eyed, then turned away.

  ‘He wouldn’t go right up to bed. I bet he’d take off his shoes … You’d fetch him his slippers … He’d say, “Dirty weather – but the Saint-Michel still insisted on heading out to sea, may God keep her!”’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That he used to say, “May God keep her”? That’s it, exactly …’

  She was deeply moved, and there was a touch of gratitude in the look she gave Maigret.

  Big Louis hunched over a little more.

  ‘Well, he won’t ever say it again. Too bad! He was a happy man. He had a pretty little house, a garden full of flowers he loved, his savings … Everyone really liked him, it seems. And yet there was someone who put an end to all that, suddenly, with a sprinkling of white powder in a glass of water.’

  Julie’s face seemed to collapse. She fought hard to hold back her tears.

  ‘A pinch of white powder and it’s all over! And whoever did it will probably be happy, he will, because no one knows who he is! He was doubtless just with us a little while ago …’

  ‘Be quiet!’ begged Julie with clasped hands, and the tears finally streamed down her face.

  But the inspector knew where he was going. He kept speaking in a low voice, slowly, giving each word its due. And there wasn’t much play-acting in it, for he was caught up in the mood himself. He too felt the nostalgia of that atmosphere in which he conjured up the sturdy form of the late harbourmaster.

  ‘Dead, he has only one friend left … Me! A lone man who is fighting to find out the truth, to prevent Joris’ murderer from living happily ever after …’

  Overwhelmed by her sorrow, Julie was sobbing as Maigret went on.

  ‘The thing is, everyone around the dead man keeps silent, everyone lies, as if everyone had some reason to feel guilty, as if they were all accomplices in what happened!’

  ‘That’s not true!’ wailed Julie.

  Big Louis, growing more and more uncomfortable, poured himself more calvados and refilled the inspector’s glass.

  ‘Big Louis, first of all, remains silent.’

  Julie looked at her brother through her tears, as if struck by the true meaning of those words.

  ‘He knows something,’ continued Maigret. ‘He knows many things. Is he afraid of the murderer? … Is he in danger in some way?’

  ‘Louis!’ cried his sister.

  And Louis looked away, with a face made of stone.

  ‘Say it isn’t true, Louis! … Won’t you listen to me?’

  ‘Don’t know what the inspector …’

  He just couldn’t remain still any longer. He got to his feet.

  ‘Louis is the biggest liar of the bunch! He claims not to know the Norwegian but he does! He claims not to have any dealing with the mayor, and I find him in the man’s house, beating him to a pulp …’

  That vague smile appeared on the ex-convict’s lips. But Julie wasn’t mollified.

  ‘Oh, Louis! Is that true?’

  When he didn’t answer, she clutched at his arm.

  ‘Then why don’t you tell the truth? You haven’t done anything, I know you haven’t!’

  He pulled away, but looked torn … Perhaps he was weakening. Maigret didn’t give him time to pull himself together.

  ‘Just one tiny truth, a single scrap of information in this whole mess of lies would probably be enough to untangle everything!’

  But, no. In spite of his sister’s pleading looks, Louis shook himself like a giant harassed by furious little enemies.

  ‘I don’t know anything.’

  ‘Why won’t you talk?’ said Julie sternly, already growing suspicious.

  ‘I don’t know anything!’

  ‘The inspector says—’

  ‘I don’t know anything!’

  ‘Listen, Louis … I’ve always believed in you, you know that. And I defended you, even to Captain Joris …’

  Flushed with regret over that last remark, she quickly went on.

  ‘You must tell the truth. I can’t take this any more. And I won’t stay any longer in this house, by myself.’

  ‘Stop talking, Julie,’ sighed her brother.

  ‘What do you want him to tell you, inspector?’

  ‘Two things. First, who Martineau is. Then, why the mayor let himself be beaten up.’

  ‘You hear that, Louis? … It’s not so bad!’

  ‘I don’t know anything.’

  Now she was getting angry.

  ‘Louis, listen to me! I’m going to end up thinking that …’

  And the fire kept on purring. And the ticking of the clock was slow, stretching the reflected lamplight along on its copper pendulum.

  Louis was too tall, too strong, too rough, with his lopsided head and shoulder, for that tidy little cottage kitchen. He didn’t know what to do with his big callused hands. His shifty eyes could find no place to rest.

  ‘You must speak!’

  ‘I got nothing to say.’

  He tried to pour himself another drink, but she pounced on the carafe.

  ‘That’s enough! There’s no point in you getting any drunker.’

  She was painfully anxious. She had the confused feeling that real tragedy was at stake, at that very moment. She clung to her hope that one word might make everything clear.

  ‘Louis, that man, that Norwegian … He’s the one who was supposed to buy the Saint-Michel and become your boss, isn’t he?’

  ‘No!’ barked Louis.

  ‘Then who is he? We’ve never seen him around here. And foreigners don’t come here off-season …’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Julie kept at him, with a subtle feminine instinct.

  ‘The mayor always hated you. Did you really eat supper at his house tonight?’

  ‘That’s true.’

  She was almost dancing with impatience.

  ‘But then, tell me something! You must! Or I swear I’ll start believing that …’

  She couldn’t go on. She was wretched. She looked around at the wicker armchair, the familiar stove, the clock, the carafe with its painted flowers.

  ‘You were fond of the captain, I know it! You said so a hundred times, and if you two fell out it’s because …’

  But now she had to explain all that.

  ‘Don’t go thinking the wrong thing here, inspector! My brother was fond of Captain Joris, and the captain liked him as well, it’s just that there was … But nothing serious! Louis goes a little wild when he’s got money in his pocket and then he spends it all, any old which way … The captain knew that he used to come here to wheedle my savings out of me. So he lectured him … That’s all! If he ended by forbidding him to come here, it was for that, so that he wouldn’t go off with any more of my money! But he’d tell me that Louis was really a good fellow at heart, whose only fault was that he was weak.’

  ‘And Louis,’ said Maigret slowly, ‘might have known that, with Joris dead, you would inherit three hundred thousand francs!’

  It happened so quickly that the inspector almost got the worst of it. As Julie uttered a piercing scream, Big Louis leaped with all his strength at Maigret, trying to get his hands around his throat.

  The inspector managed to grab one of his wrists on the fly, and with slow but steady pressure, he twisted the sailor’s arm behind his back, growling, ‘Hands off!’

  Julie wept even more piteously, her elbows up against the wall, her head buried in her crossed arms.

  ‘My God,’ she moaned faintly, ‘my God …’

  ‘Don’t you want to talk, Louis?’ said Maigret sternly, releasing his grip on him.

  ‘I have nothing to say.’

  ‘And if I arrest you?’

  ‘So what!’

  ‘Follow me.’

  Julie cried out:

  ‘Inspector! I’m begging you! For the love of God, Louis, talk to him!�
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  They were already at the kitchen door. Big Louis turned around, his face red, his eyes glittering. His expression was beyond words. He reached with one hand for his sister’s shoulder.

  ‘My Lilie, I swear to you …’

  ‘Don’t touch me!’

  He hesitated, took a step towards the front hall, then turned again.

  ‘Listen …’

  ‘No! No, get out!’

  So he followed Maigret, dragging his feet. Stopping at the threshold, he was tempted to look back … but did not. The front door closed behind them. They had not taken five steps into the storm when the door flew open on the young woman’s pale form.

  ‘Louis!’

  Too late. The two men walked straight ahead, into the night.

  A gust of rain soaked them in a matter of seconds. They couldn’t see a thing, not even the edges of the lock. A voice hailed them, though, rising up through the darkness.

  ‘That you, Louis?’

  It was Lannec, aboard the Saint-Michel. He had heard their footsteps and stuck his head up through the hatchway. He must have known that his first mate was not alone, for he then spoke rapidly in Low Breton, saying, ‘Jump on to the fo’c’sle and we’ll head out.’

  Maigret, who had understood, now waited, unable to find the true outline of the Saint-Michel in the pitch dark. All he could see of his companion was a wavering mass of a man, his shoulders gleaming in the rain.

  10. The Three Men of the Saint-Michel

  A glance at the black hole of the ocean; a more furtive one at Maigret. With a shrug, Big Louis grunted to the inspector, ‘You coming aboard?’

  Maigret now saw that Lannec held something in his hand: the end of a mooring line. Tracing it with his eyes, he saw that it passed once around a bollard and went back aboard. In other words, the Saint-Michel had been made fast in a way that allowed the skipper to cast off without putting a man ashore.

  The inspector said nothing. He knew the harbour was deserted. Julie was doubtless sobbing in her kitchen 300 metres away, and there was no one else nearby but the people sheltering in the warmth of the Buvette de la Marine.

  He stepped on to the bulwarks handrail and jumped down to the deck, followed by Louis. Even protected by the jetties, there was rough water in the outer harbour, and the Saint-Michel rose on each wave as if on a man’s heaving chest.