The Misty Harbour Read online

  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.

  11. The Black Cow Shoal

  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.

  ‘Monsieur Grandmaison hasn’t made any calls, mademoiselle?’

  ‘One hour ago. To Paris.’

  She gave him the number. He looked in the phone book: a boys’ school, the Collège Stanislas.

  ‘Does the mayor often call that number?’

  ‘Rather often. I think it’s his son’s boarding school.’

  ‘It’s true, he does have a son … Of about fifteen, yes?’

  ‘I believe, but I’ve never seen him.’

  ‘Has Monsieur Grandmaison called Caen?’

  ‘It was Caen that called him. Someone in his family or one of his employees, because the call came from his house there.’

  The telegraph was clicking. A message for the harbourmaster: ‘Tug Athos arriving noon. Signed: Trouville Harbourmaster’s Office.’

  And the Caen police phoned in at last.

  ‘Madame Grandmaison arrived in Caen at four in the morning. She slept at her home in the Rue du Four. She has just left by car for Ouistreham.’

  When Maigret looked out at the beach from the harbour, the sea had retreated so far that the stranded boat was about halfway between the water and the dunes. Captain Delcourt was morose. Everyone was watching the horizon with dread.

  Because there could be no mistake. The wind had fallen with the tide, but the storm would return with a vengeance around noon, when the tide turned. That much was clear from the unhealthy grey colour of the sky and the treacherous green of the waves.

  ‘Has anyone seen the mayor?’

  ‘He had his maid inform me that he is ill,’ replied Delcourt, ‘and that he’s leaving me in charge of the rescue operation.’

  Maigret headed wearily towards the villa with his hands in his pockets. He rang. It was almost ten minutes before the door opened.

  The maid tried to speak but he did not listen, walking into the front hall with such a determined expression that she decided simply to hurry ahead to the study door.

  ‘It’s the inspector!’ she cried.

  Maigret entered the room he was beginning to know so well, tossed his hat on to a chair, nodded to the man stretched out in his armchair.

  The bruises of the previous day were much more visible, having turned from red to blue. An enormous coal fire was burning in the fireplace.

  One look told Maigret that the mayor intended to say nothing and even to ignore his visitor.

  Maigret did the same. He removed his overcoat and went to stand with his back to the fire, like a man intent only on warming himself. The flames felt good on his calves. He smoked his pipe in short, hurried puffs.

  ‘B
efore the day is over, this whole affair will be resolved!’ he finally said, as if musing to himself.

  The other man made an effort not to react. He even picked up a newspaper lying within reach and pretended to read it.

  ‘We might, for example, be obliged to go to Caen together.’

  ‘To Caen?’

  Monsieur Grandmaison had looked up with a frown.

  ‘To Caen, yes! I should have told you earlier, which would have spared Madame Grandmaison the trouble of coming here for nothing.’

  ‘I don’t see what my wife—’

  ‘Has to do with all this!’ broke in Maigret. ‘Neither do I!’

  And he went over to the desk for some matches to relight his pipe.

  ‘It isn’t important anyway,’ he continued in a lighter tone, ‘since it’ll all be cleared up soon. By the way, do you know who the current owner of the Saint-Michel is, which Delcourt will be attempting to refloat? … Big Louis! Except that he’s obviously a straw man, acting on behalf of a certain Martineau.’

  The mayor was trying to see where Maigret was going with this, but had no intention of talking or – above all – asking him any questions.

  ‘You’ll see the chain of events here. Big Louis buys the Saint-Michel as a cat’s paw for this Martineau five days before Captain Joris disappeared. The schooner is the only boat that left Ouistreham soon after that disappeance, and she went on to England and Holland before returning to France. From Holland, there must be coasters of the same type making regular runs to Norway … Martineau happens to be Norwegian. And before turning up in Paris, with a cracked and repaired skull, Captain Joris went to Norway.’

  The mayor was listening closely.

  ‘That isn’t all. Martineau returns to Fécamp to rejoin the Saint-Michel. Big Louis, who is his factotum, is here a few hours before Joris’ death. The Saint-Michel arrives a little later, with Martineau. And last night, he tries to make a run for it, taking with him most of the men I asked to remain at the disposal of the judicial authorities … Except you!’

  Maigret paused, and sighed.

  ‘What’s still unclear is why Martineau returned and tried to reach Paris, and why you telephoned your wife to have her rush back here.’