Maigret's Patience Read online

  ‘May I?’ he asked Madame Barillard.

  ‘Tell me, inspector …’

  ‘In a moment, if you don’t mind. I’m dying of thirst.’

  While he was taking the top off a bottle of beer, she handed him a glass, at once docile and afraid.

  ‘Do you think my husband …’

  ‘I don’t think anything. Come with me.’

  She followed him, bewildered, into the study, where he sat in Barillard’s chair again without thinking.

  ‘Sit down. Make yourself comfortable. Your maiden name is Claes, is it not?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She hesitated and started blushing.

  ‘Look, inspector. I assume this is important?’

  ‘From now onwards, madame, everything is important. You should know that everything you say matters.’

  ‘I am indeed called Claes. It is the maiden name written on my identity card.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘I don’t know if it is my real name.’

  ‘Are you related to the man who lives in the garret?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so. It was all so long ago. I was just a little girl.’

  ‘What period are you talking about?’

  ‘The bombing, in Douai, when we were fleeing the Germans. Train after train, where we had to get out and sleep on the ballast. Women carrying wounded babies. Men with armbands running all over the place and the train leaving again. Then the explosion, which sounded like the end of the world.’

  ‘How old were you?’

  ‘Four? Maybe a bit more or a bit less.’

  ‘Where did the name of Claes come from?’

  ‘I suppose it was the name of my family. At least, that’s what I’m supposed to have said.’

  ‘And the forename?’

  ‘Mina.’

  ‘Did you speak French?’

  ‘No. Just Flemish. I’d never seen a town.’

  ‘Can you remember the name of your village?’

  ‘No. But why aren’t you talking to me about my husband?’

  ‘I’m getting there. Where did you meet the old man?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Everything that happened immediately before and immediately after the explosion is confused in my memory. I seem to remember walking with someone holding my hand.’

  Maigret picked up the phone and asked for the town hall in Douai. He was connected without having to wait.

  ‘The mayor isn’t here,’ said the town clerk.

  He was very surprised when Maigret asked him:

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Thirty-two.’

  ‘And the mayor?’

  ‘Forty-three.’

  ‘Who was mayor when the Germans arrived in 1940?’

  ‘Doctor Nobel. He remained mayor until ten years after the war.’

  ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘No. In spite of his age, he is still practising in his old house on the Grand Place.’

  Three minutes later, Maigret had Doctor Nobel on the line, and Madame Barillard listened in amazement.

  ‘Excuse me, doctor. Detective Chief Inspector Maigret from the Police Judiciaire. It’s not about one of your patients, but about an old story that might throw light on more recent events. It was Douai station, wasn’t it, that was bombed in broad daylight in 1940, when there were several refugee trains there and hundreds more refugees were waiting?’

  Nobel hadn’t forgotten – it had been the major event of his life.

  ‘I was there, inspector. It is the most terrible memory a man can have. It was totally calm. The welcome committee was busy feeding the Belgian and French refugees whose trains were about to leave for the South.

  ‘The women with babies were gathered together in the first-class waiting room, where they were provided with feeding bottles and fresh nappies. There were ten or so nurses helping out.

  ‘In theory, no one was allowed to leave the train, but the attraction of refreshments was too strong. So there were people all over the place.

  ‘Then suddenly, just as the sirens went off, the station shuddered, the glass shattered, and people started screaming, but it was impossible to work out what was going on.

  ‘To this day we have no idea how many raids and how many waves of bombers there were.

  ‘The scene outside was just as hallucinatory as that inside, in front of the station or on the platforms: bodies blown to bits, arms, legs, wounded people running round holding their chest or stomach, wild-eyed.

  ‘I was lucky that I wasn’t hit and I tried to turn the waiting room into a first-aid station. We didn’t have enough ambulances, or enough hospital beds, to deal with all the wounded.

  ‘I had to do emergency operations on the spot, in the most precarious conditions.’

  ‘You probably don’t remember a tall, thin man, a Fleming, who would have had his face cut open and who was left deaf and dumb.’

  ‘Why do you want to know about him?’

  ‘Because he’s the one who interests me.’

  ‘It just so happens, in fact, that I remember him very well and have often thought about him.

  ‘I was there as mayor, as president of the local Red Cross and of the welcome committee and finally as a doctor.

  ‘In my capacity as mayor, I tried to reunite families and identify those who had been badly wounded or killed, which wasn’t always an easy task.

  ‘Between you and me, we had to bury several bodies that we were unable to put a name to, in particular half a dozen old men who seemed to have come from a retirement home. Later, we tried to track down the home, but with no luck.

  ‘In the midst of all this confusion and panic I remember one group very clearly: an entire family, an elderly man, two women, three or four children, who had literally been blown to bits.

  ‘It was next to this group that I found the man, whose head was just a bloody mess, and I had him carried to a table, surprised that he was neither blind nor wounded in any vital organ.

  ‘I can’t tell you how many stitches I needed to sew him up. There was a little girl, unharmed, standing a short distance away, watching my every movement with no sign of emotion.

  ‘I asked her if the man was a member of her family, her father or grandfather, but I don’t know what she answered in Flemish.

  ‘Half an hour later, as I was operating on a wounded person, I saw the man back on his feet, heading for the exit, with the little girl following behind him.

  ‘It was quite an amazing sight, in the middle of all this chaos. I had wrapped an enormous bandage round the man’s head, but he seemed oblivious of it as he moved through the crowd; nor did he seem to pay much attention to the girl who trotted along at his heels.

  ‘ “Go and fetch them back,” I called to one of my assistants. “He’s in no fit state to wander off without further medical attention.”

  ‘That’s basically all I can tell you, inspector. When I was able to think about him again, I tried to find out what had happened to him, but with no luck. He had been seen roaming among the debris and the ambulances. There was a continuous stream of vehicles of all sorts coming from the north, carrying furniture, families, mattresses, sometimes even pigs and cows.

  ‘One of my scouts thought he saw a tall, elderly man, a little bent over, getting on board a military truck accompanied by a little girl, whom the soldiers helped to climb up.

  ‘During and after the war, when we tried to restore some order to this chaos, many questions remained. Lots of the town halls in villages in Holland, Flanders and the Pas-de-Calais had been destroyed or looted, and the registers had been burned.

  ‘Do you think you have found this man?’

  ‘I’m almost certain that I have.’

  ‘What became of him?’

  ‘He has been found hanged, and at this moment I am sitting in front of that former little girl.’

  ‘Will you tell me what happens?’

  ‘As soon as everything becomes clear. Thank you, doctor.’

>   Maigret mopped his brow, emptied his pipe, filled another and said softly to the young woman:

  ‘Now tell me your story.’

  She had been watching him with wide, worried eyes, biting her nails, curled up in her chair like a little girl.

  Rather than reply, she asked bitterly:

  ‘Why do you treat Fernand like a criminal and why did you put handcuffs on him?’

  ‘Can we talk about that later? For now, the best way you can help your husband is by answering my questions truthfully.’

  She had another question on the tip of her tongue, a question she seemed to have had on her mind for a while, if not for ever.

  ‘Was Jef mad? Jef Claes?’

  ‘Did he act as if he were mad?’

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t compare my childhood to anyone else’s, or him to any other man.’

  ‘Start with Douai.’

  ‘Trucks, refugee camps, trains, policemen questioning the old man, because he seemed old to me, and then, when they couldn’t get anything out of him, questioning me. Who were we? Which village did we come from? I didn’t know.

  ‘We went further, much further. I’m sure I saw the Mediterranean one time. I remembered it later and guessed we’d gone as far as Perpignan.’

  ‘Was Claes trying to get to Spain? So he could get to America from there?’

  ‘How would I have known? He couldn’t hear or speak any more. To understand me, he would stare at my lips, and I had to repeat the same question over and over.’

  ‘Why did he take you with him?’

  ‘It was me. I’ve thought about it since then. I suppose that when I saw my family all dead around me I attached myself to the nearest man. Maybe he resembled my grandfather.’

  ‘How come he took your name, assuming your name really is Claes?’

  ‘I found that out later. He always had a few pieces of paper in his pocket and he sometimes wrote down some words in Flemish, because he still didn’t speak French. Neither did I. In the end, after a few weeks or months, we washed up in Paris, and he rented a room and a kitchen in a district I’ve never managed to rediscover.

  ‘He wasn’t poor. Whenever he needed money he would reach under his shirt and take one or two gold coins that were sewn into a broad canvas girdle. These were his savings. We used to go well out of our way to find a jeweller’s shop or a pawnbroker’s, and he would enter furtively, afraid of being caught.

  ‘I knew why the day the Jews were obliged to wear a yellow star sewn into their clothing. He wrote his real name on a piece of paper then burned it immediately: Victor Krulak. He was Jewish, from Latvia, born in Antwerp, where he worked in the diamond trade, like his father and grandfather before him.’

  ‘Did you go to school?’

  ‘Yes. The other children laughed at me.’

  ‘Did Jef make your meals?’

  ‘Yes. He was very good at grilled meats. He didn’t wear a star. He was constantly afraid. They always gave him a hard time at the police station because he couldn’t provide the necessary papers to acquire an identity card. One time they put him in an asylum somewhere because they thought he was mad, but he managed to escape the next day.’

  ‘Was he fond of you?’

  ‘I think he behaved that way because he didn’t want to lose me. He had never been married. He didn’t have any children. I’m sure he thought that God had meant for our paths to cross.

  ‘We were twice sent back to the border, but we always returned to Paris and found a rented room with a small kitchen, sometimes around Sacré-Cœur, sometimes in the Saint-Antoine neighbourhood.’

  ‘Did he work?’

  ‘Not at this time.’

  ‘How did he spend his days?’

  ‘He wandered around, watched people, learned how to read their lips, how to understand their language. One day, towards the end of the war, he came home with a false identity card, which he had been trying to get hold of for four years.

  ‘He was now officially Jef Claes, and I was his granddaughter.

  ‘We lived in slightly more spacious lodgings, not far from the Hôtel de Ville, and people came to see him to give him work. I wouldn’t be able to recognize them now.

  ‘I went to school. I grew up and became a sales assistant in a jeweller’s on Boulevard Beaumarchais.’

  ‘Did old Jef find you the position?’

  ‘Yes. He did odd jobs for different jewellers – repairs and restoration of old jewels.’

  ‘Is that how you met Barillard?’

  ‘A year later. As a sales representative he only needed to visit us every three months, but he came more often and in the end would wait for me at the door of the shop. He was handsome, very jolly and lively. He loved life. It was with him that I drank my first aperitif, at the Quatre Sergents de la Rochelle.’

  ‘Did he know you were Jef’s granddaughter?’

  ‘I told him. I described our whole adventure to him. Since he intended to marry me, he naturally asked to be introduced. We got married and went to live in a house in Fontenay-sous-Bois, taking Jef with us.’

  ‘Did you ever meet Palmari?’

  ‘Our former neighbour? I couldn’t say, because all the time we have lived here I’ve never seen him. Fernand would sometimes bring friends home, charming men who liked a good laugh and a good drink.’

  ‘And the old man?’

  ‘He spent most of his time in a tool shed at the bottom of the garden, where Fernand had set up a workshop for him.’

  ‘Did you ever suspect anything?’

  ‘Why would I suspect anything?’

  ‘Tell me, Madame Barillard, is your husband in the habit of getting up during the night?’

  ‘Virtually never.’

  ‘Does he ever leave the apartment.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Before you go to bed, do you have some sort of herbal tea?’

  ‘A verbena, sometimes a camomile.’

  ‘Did you wake up last night?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Would you show me your bathroom?’

  This wasn’t very big, but it was quite bright and charming, with yellow tiles. There was a medicine cabinet recessed into the wall above the sink. Maigret opened it, examined a few small bottles and kept one in his hand.

  ‘Are these your pills?’

  ‘I don’t even know what they are. They’ve been there for ages. Oh, I remember! Fernand suffers from insomnia, and a friend of his recommended these pills.’

  But the label was new.

  ‘What’s going on, inspector?’

  ‘What’s going on is that last night, and on a number of previous nights, you have without knowing it been taking a certain quantity of this drug in your tea, which has made you sleep deeply. Your husband went up to find Jef in his garret and took him down to the cellar.’

  ‘The cellar?’

  ‘Where he has set up a workshop. He hit him with a piece of lead piping or some other similar object and then hanged him from the ceiling.’

  She let out a cry but didn’t faint. Instead, she ran into the living room and screamed at her husband:

  ‘Is this true, Fernand? Is it true that you did that to old Jef?’

  Oddly enough, she had fully regained her Flemish accent.

  Before the scene became overcharged, Maigret led Barillard into the study and signalled to Janvier to keep an eye on the young woman. The previous evening the two men had found themselves in the same study, but they had now swapped places. Today it was the inspector who sat in Barillard’s revolving chair and the latter who sat facing him, less abrasive than at their previous interview.

  ‘It’s cowardly.’

  ‘What is cowardly, Barillard?’

  ‘Picking on a woman. If you had questions to ask, why not ask me directly?’

  ‘I have no questions to ask you, because I already know the answers. You guessed that after our conversation yesterday, since you decided it was necessary to eliminate once and for all the weak link in your or
ganization.

  ‘After Palmari, Victor Krulak, known as Jef Claes. A poor man who was mentally confused and who would have done anything not be separated from the little girl who had placed her hand in his on Judgement Day. You bastard.’

  ‘Thanks very much.’

  ‘There are crooks and then there are crooks. Some I would shake by the hand, like Palmari, for example. But you, you are of the lowest sort, the ones you can’t look in the face without wanting to hit them or spit.’

  And indeed, Maigret really had to restrain himself.

  ‘Carry on! I’m sure my lawyer will be delighted to hear all this.’

  ‘In a few minutes, you will be taken to the police cells and, this afternoon probably, we will continue our conversation.’

  ‘With my lawyer present.’

  ‘But first, there is someone to whom I owe a visit which may take some time. I think you know who I’m talking about. And the result of this visit will to a large extent determine your fate.

  ‘With Palmari out of the way, there are now only two people at the summit of this pyramid: Aline and you.

  ‘I now know that you were going to abscond together at the first opportunity, once you had got your hands on Manuel’s hoard on the sly.

  ‘Aline … Fernand … Aline … Fernand … When I have you in front of me again, I will know which of you two is – I won’t say the guilty party, since you both are – but let’s say the true instigator of these murders. Got that?’

  Maigret called out:

  ‘Janvier! Could you escort the gentleman to the cells? He is allowed to get properly dressed, but don’t let him out of your sight for an instant. Are you armed?’

  ‘Yes, chief.’

  ‘It must be crawling with police officers downstairs. Find one to accompany you. See you later.’

  On the way out, he stopped in front of Madame Barillard.

  ‘Please don’t blame me, madame, for your current pain and the pain you are still to suffer.’

  ‘Did Fernand kill him?’

  ‘I’m afraid that is the case.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘You will have to get your head round it sooner or later: because your husband is a crook, you poor woman. And because he found a female counterpart in the apartment across the way.’

  He left her in tears and a few moments later was down in the cellar, where the yellow lightbulb had been replaced by spotlights. It was like walking on to a film set.