Maigret and the Wine Merchant Read online

  ‘How did Chabut discover your cheating?’

  ‘He wasn’t the one who found out, it was Monsieur Louceck. He’d come in from time to time and check my figures. Something must have made him suspicious. Instead of talking to me about it, he acted as though nothing was amiss and informed Monsieur Chabut.’

  ‘Was that in June?’

  ‘The end of June, yes. The twenty-eighth of June. I’ll never forget it. He sent for me to go up to his office. The secretary was there and he didn’t ask her to leave. I wasn’t worried because it didn’t occur to me that I’d been found out.’

  ‘He asked you to sit down.’

  ‘Yes. How do you know?’

  ‘The Grasshopper – I mean Anne-Marie – told me what happened. After a few minutes, she was as mortified as you were.’

  ‘And I was mortified at being trampled on in front of a woman. He chose the most contemptuous, most hurtful words. I would far rather he’d called in the police.

  ‘You could have sworn he was enjoying himself. Each time I thought it was over, he was off again, even more violently. Do you know what annoyed him the most? That I only filched tiny amounts.

  ‘He said that he’d have respected a genuine thief, but not a small-time pilferer.’

  He was quiet for a moment while he got his breath back, because he had just spoken with some vehemence and his face had turned crimson. He took another sip. Maigret did likewise.

  ‘When he ordered me to come closer, I didn’t have the least idea what he was going to do but, even so, I was afraid. The slap arrived with full force and the marks from his fingers must have remained imprinted on my cheek for a long time.

  ‘I had never been slapped. Even when I was a kid, my parents didn’t hit me. I stood there, indecisive, without reacting, and he shouted something like:

  ‘“And now, get out of here …”

  ‘I can’t remember whether it was at that point or just before that he told me that he wouldn’t give me a reference and that he’d ensure I wouldn’t be able to find a decent job.’

  ‘He too was humiliated,’ murmured Maigret very softly.

  Pigou turned abruptly towards him, open-mouthed in surprise.

  ‘He actually said to you that no one mocked him with impunity.’

  ‘That’s true. I hadn’t understood that that was the underlying reason for his attitude. Do you think he was offended?’

  ‘More than offended. He was a strong man, a man who thought of himself as strong, in any case, who had succeeded in everything he did. Don’t forget that he’d started out as a door-to-door encyclopaedia salesman.

  ‘For him, you barely existed. You soldiered on in a ground-floor room where he almost never set foot, and it was a little like a favour he was doing by keeping you on.’

  ‘Yes, that’s definitely him.’

  ‘He too needed to boost his ego and that’s why he seduced every woman he met.’

  Gilbert Pigou raised his eyebrows, suddenly anxious.

  ‘Do you mean he was to be pitied?’

  ‘We are all to be pitied in some way. I try to understand. My aim is not to decide each person’s share of blame. You left Quai de Charenton. Where did you go first of all?’

  ‘It was eleven o’clock in the morning. I was never out and about at that hour. It was very hot. I walked in the shade of the plane trees along by the Bercy warehouses, I went into a bar, near the Pont d’Austerlitz, and I drank two or three brandies, I can’t remember.’

  ‘Did you have lunch with your wife?’

  ‘She’d long since stopped coming to meet me at midday. I walked a lot, I drank a lot, and at some point I went into a cinema where it was a little cooler than outside, because my shirt was plastered to my skin. June was torrid, do you remember?’

  He gave the impression he didn’t want to omit the tiniest detail. He needed to give an account of himself and, since he was being allowed to, because Maigret was listening to him with obvious interest, he tried not to leave anything unexplained.

  ‘That evening, did your wife not notice you’d been drinking?’

  ‘I told her that my colleagues had bought me a drink because I’d just been promoted and had been to the office in Avenue de l’Opéra.’

  Maigret did not smile at this naivety and, on the contrary, his face was solemn.

  ‘How did you manage, two days later, to give your wife your month’s pay?’

  ‘I didn’t have any savings. She gave me just forty francs a month for my cigarettes and my Métro tickets. I had to find something. I thought about it nearly all night. On leaving, I told her I wouldn’t be home for dinner because I’d be spending part of the evening moving into my new office.

  ‘The previous day, I hadn’t thought to give back the key to the safe. I knew it must contain more cash than usual because the next day was pay day.

  ‘Over the years, I’d sometimes go back to the office in the evening when there was urgent work to be done. I’d take home the key to the main door.

  ‘Once, I forgot it. I walked round the building, remembering that the back door was warped and didn’t close properly and you could jiggle the bolt with a penknife.’

  ‘Wasn’t there a security guard?’

  ‘No. I waited until dark and slipped into the yard. The little door opened as I’d hoped and I went into my former office. I took a wad of bills, without counting.’

  ‘Was it a large amount?’

  ‘More than three months’ salary. That night, I hid the money above the big wardrobe, except my month’s pay. I left at the same time as usual. I couldn’t tell Liliane that I’d been fired.’

  ‘Why were you so worried about what she might think of you?’

  ‘Because she was a sort of witness. For years, she watched me with a critical eye. I wanted there to be one person at least who believed in me.

  ‘I started spending my days on the streets, looking for a new job. I’d imagined that it would be easy. I read the classified ads and I raced over to the addresses given. Sometimes men were queueing and occasionally I felt sorry for some of them. They were nearly all old and they waited without hope.

  ‘I was asked questions. The first one was always about my age. When I replied “forty-five”, that was usually the end of the interview.

  ‘“We’re looking for a young man, no older than thirty.”

  ‘I thought I was young. I felt young. I grew gloomier by the day. After two weeks, I no longer sought a position as a book-keeper necessarily and I’d have been happy with a job as office boy or sales assistant in a department store.

  ‘At best, they made a note of my name and address:

  ‘“We’ll write to you.”

  ‘Those who were considering the possibility of hiring me asked where I’d worked previously. After Chabut’s threats, I didn’t dare tell them.

  ‘“Here and there. I lived abroad for a long time.”

  ‘I had to add that it was in Belgium, or Switzerland, because I spoke only French.

  ‘“Do you have references?”

  ‘“I’ll forward them to you.”

  ‘Of course, I didn’t go back to those companies.

  ‘At the end of July, it was worse. A lot of offices were closed, or the bosses were on holiday. Again I took my pay home, or rather I took the corresponding sum from my stash on top of the wardrobe.

  ‘“You’ve been strange, recently,” my wife said. “You seem more tired than when you were at Quai de Charenton.”

  ‘“Because I’m not used to my new job yet. I have to learn to work with computers. At Avenue de l’Opéra, we are in charge of the sales outlets and there are more than fifteen thousand of them. That means I have heavy responsibilities.”

  ‘“When will you have your holiday?”

  ‘“I won’t have time to take any this year. Maybe at Christmas? It would be nice to go on a winter break for the first time. But you can go away. Why not go and spend three or four weeks with your family?”’

  Was h
e aware how tragic, how wretched, his words sounded?

  ‘She went away for a month. She spent two weeks at her parents’ place, in Aix-en-Provence, where her father is an architect, then two weeks in a villa in Bandol, rented by one of her sisters, the one who has three children.

  ‘I felt very lost in Paris. I carried on reading the job ads in Rue Réaumur and I hurried over to the addresses given. Still with as little success.

  ‘I began to realize that Chabut was right, that I would never find any kind of job.

  ‘I went and hung around his home, in Place des Vosges, for no reason, just to get a glimpse of him, but he was on holiday too, in Cannes, most likely, where they have an apartment.’

  ‘Did you hate him?’

  ‘Yes. With every fibre of my being. It felt unjust that he should be lying in the sun while I was trying to find a job in an increasingly empty Paris.

  ‘All I had left on top of the wardrobe was enough to give my wife one more month’s pay.

  ‘And then what? What would I do after that? I would have to tell her the truth, and I was certain she’d leave me. She wasn’t the sort of woman to stay with me if I wasn’t able to fulfil her needs.’

  ‘Were you still fond of her?’

  ‘I think so. I don’t know.’

  ‘What about now?’

  ‘I feel as if she’s gradually become a stranger. I’m surprised it mattered so much to me what she might think.’

  ‘When was the last time you saw her?’

  ‘She came back from the South at the end of August. I gave her what was supposedly my pay. I stayed with her for nearly three weeks, but I already knew I wouldn’t have enough money at the end of the month.

  ‘One morning, I left with the idea of not coming back, so I didn’t take anything with me, other than the few hundred francs I had left.’

  ‘Did you go straight to Rue de la Grande-Truanderie?’

  ‘You know about that? No. I took a room in a cheap but still decent hotel and I chose the Bastille neighbourhood, where there was no danger of running into my wife.’

  ‘Is that when you started following Oscar Chabut?’

  ‘I knew where he was at such-and-such a time and I hung around Avenue de l’Opéra, Place des Vosges or Quai de Charenton. I was also aware that, nearly every Wednesday, he went to Rue Fortuny with his secretary.’

  ‘What was your intention?’

  ‘I didn’t have one. He was the man who’d played the most important role in my life, because he’d stripped me of all my dignity and of any chance of getting back on my feet.’

  ‘Were you armed?’

  Pigou pulled a small, blue-coloured automatic from his trouser pocket, stood up and went over to place it on the pedestal table in front of Maigret.

  ‘I’d taken it with me in case I felt the urge to commit suicide.’

  ‘You didn’t try to?’

  ‘I did, several times, especially at night, but I was too afraid. I’ve always been scared of blows, of physical pain. Perhaps Chabut was right: I’m a coward.’

  ‘I must interrupt you for a moment to make a telephone call. You will understand why.’

  He called Quai des Orfèvres.

  ‘Put me through to Inspector Lapointe, please, mademoiselle …’

  Pigou opened his mouth to speak but said nothing.

  In the kitchen, Madame Maigret was making some more grog.

  8.

  ‘Is that you?’ asked Maigret.

  ‘Aren’t you in bed, chief? You don’t even sound like someone who’s just woken up. I haven’t received any reports.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘How can you know? Where are you phoning me from?’

  ‘From my place.’

  ‘It’s three o’clock in the morning.’

  ‘You can call all the men off. Their surveillance is over.’

  ‘Have you found him?’

  ‘He’s here, sitting opposite me, and the two of us are having a quiet chat.’

  ‘Did he come of his own accord?’

  ‘I can’t see me chasing him down Boulevard Richard-Lenoir.’

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Do you need me?’

  ‘Not yet but stay at the office. Call off the various patrols. Inform Janvier, Lucas, Torrence and Lourtie. I’ll phone you later.’

  He hung up and remained silent while Madame Maigret replaced the empty glasses with full ones.

  ‘I forgot to tell you, Pigou, that although we’re in my home and not at Quai des Orfèvres, I am still a police officer and I reserve the right to use anything you might tell me.’

  ‘That’s natural.’

  ‘Do you know a good lawyer?’

  ‘No. Not any good or bad lawyers.’

  ‘You’ll need one tomorrow, when you are interviewed by the examining magistrate. I’ll give you some names.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  The telephone call had rather dampened the mood, which now became more awkward.

  ‘To your health.’

  ‘To yours.’

  And Pigou joked:

  ‘I don’t think I’ll be drinking a grog again for a long time. They’re going to crucify me, aren’t they?’

  ‘Why would they crucify you?’

  ‘One, because he was a rich and influential man. Two, because I can’t even give a reason.’

  ‘When did it occur to you to kill him?’

  ‘I don’t know. First of all, I had to leave my hotel near Bastille and that was when I went to Rue de la Grande-Truanderie. It was very hard. After unloading vegetables at Les Halles, I’d come back at daybreak and cry myself to sleep. The smell made me feel sick and even the hotel noises. I felt an outcast, as if I was in a different world.

  ‘During the day, I’d still sometimes hang around Place des Vosges, Quai de Charenton or Avenue de l’Opéra and, a couple of times, I even went and hid in the Montparnasse cemetery and spied on Liliane.

  ‘Whenever I spotted Chabut, more and more frequently I’d mumble to myself:

  ‘“I’m going to kill him.”

  ‘They were just words that came out of my mouth automatically. I didn’t really intend to kill him. From a distance, I watched him living, so to speak. I saw his big red car, his face oozing self-assurance, his beautifully tailored clothes without a single crease.

  ‘Whereas I was going downhill fast. The only suit I’d taken with me from Rue Froidevaux was more and more crumpled and covered in stains. My raincoat didn’t protect me from the cold, but I couldn’t afford to buy a coat, not even from a second-hand clothes shop.

  ‘I was on the embankment, some distance away, when I saw Liliane go into the offices at Quai de Charenton. She had probably been to Avenue de l’Opéra first, because that was where I was supposed to be working.

  ‘She stayed there for some time. At one point, I saw Anne-Marie come out for a breath of air in the yard, and I could guess what was going on.

  ‘I wasn’t jealous. It was just like one more slap in the face. That man behaved as if the whole world belonged to him. Again, I muttered:

  ‘“I’m going to kill him!”

  ‘I limped away. I didn’t want to be seen by my wife.’

  ‘When did you go to Rue Fortuny for the first time?’

  ‘Around the end of November. I even had to save for Métro tickets.’

  He gave a bitter little laugh.

  ‘It’s a strange feeling, you know, not to have any money in your pocket and to know you will never again live like other people. At Les Halles, you meet mainly old men, but there are a few young ones too, who already have the same look in their eyes. Do I have that look?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I ought to, because I became like them. But I still brooded over that slap. He was wrong to hit me. I might have forgotten the words, even the most contemptuous, the most demeaning. But he slapped me as if I were a naughty brat.’

  ‘Last Wednesday, when you went to Rue Fortuny, did
you know that it would be for the last time?’

  ‘There would be no point my coming here, would there, if it wasn’t to tell the truth. I didn’t know I was going to kill him, I swear, and you can believe me. I wouldn’t lie to you.’

  ‘What was your state of mind?’

  ‘I felt this couldn’t go on. I had reached rock bottom. Sooner or later I’d be picked up in a police raid, or I’d fall ill and be taken to hospital. Something had to happen.’

  ‘What, for example?’

  ‘I could have returned his slap. If he came out of the building with Anne-Marie, I would walk towards him …’

  He shook his head.

  ‘That wasn’t possible, because he was much stronger than me. I waited until nine o’clock. I saw the light go on in the entrance and he came out alone. My automatic was still in my pocket, but I whipped it out in an instant.

  ‘I fired without really aiming, three or four times, I don’t remember.’

  ‘Four.’

  ‘My initial thought was to stay put and wait for the police. But I was afraid of being beaten and I began to run towards the Métro on Avenue de Villiers. No one chased me. I found myself back in Les Halles and I mechanically signed up to lug vegetables. I couldn’t have stayed in my room on my own.

  ‘There, inspector. I think I’ve told you everything.’

  ‘Why did you telephone me?’

  ‘I don’t know. I felt alone and I didn’t think anyone would ever understand me. I’ve often read about you in the newspapers. I wanted to meet you. I’d more or less decided to blow my brains out.

  ‘So I tried to make contact one last time, but I was still scared, not of you, but of your officers.’

  ‘My inspectors don’t beat anyone up.’

  ‘But people say they do.’

  ‘People say a lot of things, Pigou. You may light your cigarette. Are you still afraid?’

  ‘No. I telephoned you a second time, then, almost immediately afterwards, I wrote to you from a café on Boulevard du Palais. I felt close to you. I wanted to follow you in the street, but I couldn’t because you were always in a car. I had the same problem with Chabut.