Maigret and Monsieur Charles Page 11

  ‘Do you think she’s mad?’

  ‘Not in the true sense of the word. Let’s say neurotic. As a result of drinking like that …’

  The doctor abruptly changed the subject.

  ‘Have you found out who killed poor old Gérard? … My parents lived in the neighbourhood and we used to play together in the Luxembourg Gardens … We were at the same lycée, and then at university together … He was the finest man there was …’

  They went down the stairs still chatting and stood outside on the pavement together for a while.

  6.

  Maigret walked along the embankment gazing absently at the Seine, his pipe in his mouth and his hands in his pockets, looking very much out of sorts.

  He couldn’t help feeling guilty. He’d been harsh, almost pitiless with Nathalie, even though he felt no animosity towards her.

  Especially today. She was lost, incapable of playing her part to the end, and suddenly she’d caved in. He could tell that it wasn’t an act, that she had no strength left. All the same, he’d done his job, convinced it was the right thing to do, and, if he’d been somewhat cruel, it was because he believed it was necessary.

  Besides, the doctor, who’d known her for a long time, had barely been any less hard on her.

  Now she was in a deep sleep, induced by the injection. But what about when she woke up?

  There was only one person in that vast apartment who was devoted to her, Claire Marelle, her maid. And that was the way things had been for fifteen years.

  The cook, Marie Jalon, who had almost brought up Gérard Sabin-Levesque, had always considered her an intruder. Honoré, the manservant, viewed the procession of bottles with distaste. There was a cleaner who came every morning and whom Maigret had only glimpsed, a certain Madame Ringuet, and he suspected that she too was on Gérard’s side.

  The lawyer was one of those people who retain a childlike quality all their lives and, because of that, are forgiven everything. In Gérard Sabin-Levesque this quality was a profound selfishness, combined with a degree of innocence.

  Before his marriage he was already leading the life he would resume a little later. In his law firm, he was the golden boy who was successful in everything. And, in the evenings, when the fancy took him, he became Monsieur Charles.

  He was known in most of the nightclubs around the Champs-Élysées. But curiously, there was no trace of him in Saint-Germain-des-Prés or Montmartre. He only hunted, so to speak, in a specific area, the classiest and most elegant.

  The moment they spotted him, the liveried doormen would say respectfully, with a hint of familiarity:

  ‘Good evening, Monsieur Charles …’

  And, for a large part of the night, he’d be Monsieur Charles, an eternally youthful man, who smiled at everyone and handed out generous tips.

  The hostesses would watch him, wondering if that night would be their turn. Sometimes he was content just to drink a bottle of champagne with one of them. Other times, he would leave with the girl, but the owner didn’t dare raise any objection.

  He was a happy man. A man with no problems. He didn’t socialize among his own circle. He was never seen in the salons. He liked the easy-going hostesses and, when he spent a few days with one of them at her place, he enjoyed helping her with the day-to-day household chores.

  He was certainly not looking to get married. He felt no need for a live-in wife in his apartment.

  And yet, he’d married Nathalie. Had she acted all sweet and docile, the helpless little woman, with him? It was likely. In her passport photo, she had the touching expression of a vulnerable little girl.

  She’d placed herself under his protection. She’d made him feel big and strong …

  She had worn a white wedding dress, like a proper young lady, and on entering the apartment on Boulevard Saint-Germain she had been overawed. In Cannes too, the vast 1900s-style villa had felt like a paradise and she’d begun to put up with a dog that wasn’t hers and that snarled at her.

  What had caused the rift?

  She was alone in the huge apartment for days on end. Her father-in-law and Gérard were downstairs, each in his office, and mealtimes were rather awkward. She didn’t yet have Claire, but a maid for whom she was merely the boss’s wife.

  Gradually, she’d grown tougher. To start with, she’d demanded that her husband get rid of the dog, and he had done so reluctantly. In the evenings, they had nothing to say to each other. She didn’t read. She simply watched television.

  They still slept together, without any real intimacy developing between them.

  And, one fine day, Gérard had gone out, without saying anything, to visit the Étoile district and play his part as Monsieur Charles.

  That was his true nature, his childlike side. He was full of life. Everyone welcomed him, celebrated him.

  Whereas she’d believed she would become the heart of the home, she was in fact nothing but a useless accessory. He tolerated her. He didn’t speak of divorce, but they were already sleeping in separate bedrooms and she moped in her bed, brooding endlessly over her resentment.

  The air was mild. The sun was setting slowly in the west and Maigret walked without hurrying. Twice, he bumped into someone coming towards him.

  As a hostess, she already drank, but in moderation. In the loneliness of the apartment, she began to drink more, to dull her senses.

  Was Maigret mistaken? That was how he pieced together the past. The more she drank, the more her husband distanced himself from her.

  Her father-in-law died. Gérard had additional responsibilities and had an even greater need to relax.

  They had held out for fifteen years, both of them. And that was what astonished Maigret. For fifteen years, they had crossed paths in those rooms where no one really lived. In the end, she was no longer able to sit across the table from him.

  She had become a stranger and had been lucky enough to find Claire, who had become her sole ally.

  Why didn’t she leave? Why did she put up with this suffocating existence?

  She went to the cinema in the afternoons. Or at least that was what she claimed. From time to time she had the chauffeur drive her to a bar near the Champs-Élysées where she drank, alone, perched on a high stool.

  Without being asked, the bartenders refilled her glass as soon as it was empty. She spoke to no one. No one spoke to her. As far as other people were concerned, she was ‘the woman who drinks’.

  Had she at last met a man who cared about her, who made her aware of her worth?

  So far, the investigation had not suggested that possibility. Vito stated that she always came out from the various bars she visited on her own, a little unsteady on her feet.

  Now, she was a widow. The apartment, the firm and fortune awaited her, but was it too late? She was drinking more than ever. She was afraid of something. She seemed to be running away from reality, from life.

  Where had she gone when she’d slipped out via the little garden gate? And who had telephoned her that morning?

  With her, it was hard to differentiate between the truth and the lies. She was a skilled actress who, in the space of a few minutes, had transformed herself into a socialite to meet with the journalists and photographers.

  Maigret walked halfway across Pont-Neuf and stopped at the Brasserie Dauphine.

  ‘A pastis, like the other day?’

  ‘No. A brandy …’

  It was a challenge. He was imitating her. He was drinking brandy. And the first mouthful burned his throat. Even so, he ordered another before heading to the Police Judiciaire.

  A file was waiting on his desk, the same one that he had gone through with his colleague from the Vice Squad.

  He picked it up and took it into the inspectors’ office. There were about twenty men in the room.

  ‘I need ten of you, those who look the least like pol
ice officers …’

  There were smiles, some of them tight-lipped.

  ‘Here’s a list of all the cabarets and nightclubs in Paris … You can ignore Saint-Germain-des-Prés and Montmartre. Concentrate on the eighth arrondissement and the surrounding area …’

  He gave the list to Lucas along with a dozen prints of the Cannes photograph.

  ‘You don’t need to disguise the fact that you’re police officers, but all the same, try not to be too conspicuous … Each one of you will be given a photograph and a number of addresses … Visit them at around midnight … Question the bartender, and possibly the owner, the maître d’ and the hostesses … Remember the date of the 18th of February … Remember the name Monsieur Charles as well … I was forgetting that there are also the flower-sellers, who go from club to club … I know it would be a miracle, but I’d like to find out if anyone saw Monsieur Charles on the 18th of February …’

  He handed the file to Lucas and went back into his office, still looking thoughtful.

  It was perhaps a complete waste of time, but sometimes people remember a date because of a birthday, or a chance incident.

  Lapointe had followed him.

  ‘May I, chief? … I wanted to let you know about a phone call that came in for you while you were out and that I took the liberty of answering …

  ‘It was from the Municipal Police. Puteaux informed them that one of their officers, intrigued to see a black Citroën parked by an area of wasteland for several days, had filed a report.

  ‘Apparently there are bloodstains on the passenger seat, or rather on the seat back …’

  ‘Who does the car belong to?’

  ‘A certain Dennery, a civil engineer who lives in Rue La Boétie.’

  ‘When was the car stolen?’

  ‘That’s the interesting point: on the 18th of February … He reported the theft to his nearest police station … No one thought of that deserted area of Puteaux …’

  ‘Have the number plates been changed?’

  ‘They haven’t been touched. Which is why the owner could be traced straight away …’

  ‘Where is the car?’

  ‘I asked the Puteaux chief inspector to leave it where it is guarded by an officer …’

  At last, a concrete clue! Small, granted, but which might possibly lead somewhere.

  ‘Put me through to Doctor Grenier …’

  So long as he wasn’t in the middle of an autopsy!

  ‘Grenier? Maigret here. I need you.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘As quickly as possible …’

  ‘A new body?’

  ‘No. But the car that transported a body, by the look of things.’

  ‘Where do I have to go?’

  ‘Come over here. I don’t know exactly where the car is; we’ll call into Puteaux police station, they have the information.’

  ‘All right. Give me fifteen minutes.’

  Then he called Moers, in Criminal Records.

  ‘I need your experts, the ones who dealt with the lawyer …’

  ‘They’re here. Where do you want them to go?’

  ‘To Puteaux police station where they’ll be told the location of the vehicle.’

  Maigret forgot the difficult afternoon he’d just had. He and Doctor Grenier got into a police car, and Lapointe took the wheel and drove them to Puteaux, which, at that hour, was no small thing.

  ‘It’s rare to see you here, inspector …’

  ‘I’d like one of your men to drive us to the vehicle that has just been found.’

  ‘That’s easy.’

  He gave instructions to an officer who squeezed into the little police car with some difficulty.

  ‘It’s a stone’s throw away … On a demolition site … They’re knocking down an old ruin to build social housing …’

  The car was covered in dust. The tyres and headlamps had been stolen. An officer was pacing up and down and a man in his fifties rushed over to Maigret.

  ‘Do you see the state they’ve left it in?’

  ‘Are you the owner?’

  ‘Georges Dennery, civil engineer …’

  ‘Where was the car stolen from?’

  ‘Opposite my home. My wife and I were having dinner, and we were going to drive to a cinema in the Latin Quarter … But the car had gone … I ran to the police station … Who’s going to pay for new tyres and headlamps and cleaning it up?’

  ‘You will have to apply to the appropriate department.’

  ‘And which is the appropriate department?’

  Rather irritated, Maigret admitted:

  ‘I have no idea.’

  The interior was upholstered in a grey fabric which had soaked up the blood. The forensic pathologist took some little phials out of his bag and embarked on a complicated task.

  The team from Criminal Records looked for fingerprints on the wheel, the brake handle and gear stick as well as on the doors.

  ‘Have you found any?’

  ‘There are some good prints on the wheel. The others aren’t so clear … Someone smoked Gitanes, because the ashtray is full of butts.’

  ‘What about the passenger side?’

  ‘Nothing. Blood on the back of the seat.’

  The doctor spoke up.

  ‘And fragments of brain,’ he added. ‘Those are precisely the traces that would have been left by the man I autopsied …’

  They worked for another hour, meticulously. A group of curious bystanders had formed and two local police officers were keeping them at bay.

  The car was parked halfway on to the demolition site, which seemed abandoned for the time being.

  Monsieur Dennery went anxiously from one man to the other, concerned only to know who would pay for the repairs.

  ‘Aren’t you insured against theft?’

  ‘Yes, but the insurance companies never pay out the full amount … and I don’t want to end up out of pocket … If the streets of Paris were better policed, this wouldn’t happen—’

  ‘Had you left the keys in the car?’

  ‘I couldn’t imagine that someone would use it … All the seats need to be re-covered … I even wonder whether my wife will want to get into a car that has transported a body …’

  The forensics team had found a few wool fibres which seemed to have come from a tweed jacket.

  ‘I’ll let you carry on, boys. Try to send me a preliminary report by tomorrow morning, even if it’s incomplete.’

  ‘We’ll do our best, chief.’

  ‘As far as I’m concerned,’ said the doctor, ‘it will be done quickly. A simple blood test. I’ll call you at home this evening.’

  Lapointe dropped Maigret outside his apartment building. Madame Maigret came to greet her husband at the door and looked at him with a frown.

  ‘Not too tired?’

  ‘Very tired.’

  ‘Is your investigation moving forwards?’

  ‘Possibly …’

  He was gloomier than ever and appeared not to notice what he was eating. After dinner, he sank into his armchair, filled a pipe and watched television.

  He was thinking about Nathalie.

  Maigret was dozing in his armchair when the telephone rang, cruelly shattering the silence in which he was immersed. There was only one lamp on. The television had been switched off. Madame Maigret was nearby, sewing.

  She never sat in an armchair, claiming that it made her feel trapped.

  He lumbered over to the phone.

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector Maigret?’

  ‘Speaking, yes.’

  His voice must have sounded gruff, because the caller asked:

  ‘Am I waking you up?’

  ‘No. Who is this?’

  ‘Doctor Bloy. I am at Boulevard Saint-Germa
in, where Madame Sabin-Levesque has just tried to commit suicide.’

  ‘Is she in a serious condition?’

  ‘No. I thought you’d like to see her before I give her a stronger injection.’

  ‘I’ll be there right away … Thank you for letting me know …’

  His wife was already holding out his jacket, and she went to fetch his overcoat.

  ‘I suppose you’re going to be quite a while?’

  ‘Call me a taxi …’

  While she was telephoning, he filled a pipe and poured himself a little glass of plum brandy. He was distressed, Madame Maigret could tell. He didn’t have all the facts about what had happened, but he felt he was partially to blame.

  ‘The taxi will be here in a minute …’

  He kissed his wife. She went to the door with him and opened it. Leaning over the bannister, she watched him go down the stairs. And he gave her a little wave.

  Two minutes later, a taxi drew up outside the building. He was about to give the address where he wanted to go when the driver said with a twinkle:

  ‘Quai des Orfèvres?’

  ‘No. Not this time. Boulevard Saint-Germain. Number 207a.’

  One of the illuminated clocks they passed showed that it was 10.20. Without realizing it, he had slept for almost two hours!

  He paid the taxi-driver and rang the main bell. The retired police officer came and opened the door.

  ‘I don’t know what’s happened, but the doctor’s up there.’

  ‘He’s just phoned me.’

  Maigret went up the stairs two at a time and Claire Marelle let him in.

  Doctor Bloy was waiting for him in Gérard Sabin-Levesque’s little study.

  ‘Is she in bed?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is her condition a cause for concern?’

  ‘No. Luckily the maid once worked for a doctor and she immediately made a tourniquet above the wrist, even before calling me …’

  ‘I thought the injection was supposed to knock her out until tomorrow morning, if not longer …’

  ‘So it should have done. I don’t understand how she could have woken up, got out of bed and moved around the apartment … The maid has set up a bed in the boudoir so as not to leave her alone. When she woke up with a jolt, she saw her employer walking past like a ghost – those are her words – or a sleepwalker …