Maigret and the Good People of Montparnasse Page 14
‘And she was younger than you?’
‘I’m thirty-six now and she’s twenty-seven. Nearly ten years between us. She was just eighteen at the time.’
‘Did you get married very soon?’
‘Not until about ten months later. Then we had a child, our little girl, Isabelle. All the time my wife was expecting, I was frightened.’
‘What of?’
He pointed again at his lip.
‘I’d been told it was hereditary. But, thank God, my daughter is normal. She looks like her mother, except she has my colouring, fair hair and blue eyes.’
‘Your wife’s dark?’
‘Like a lot of folk in the Vendée, because of the Portuguese sailors who used to call in there, they say.’
‘And now you want to kill her?’
‘I can’t see any other way out. We were happy, the three of us. Perhaps Renée wasn’t a perfect housewife. I wouldn’t want to speak ill of her. She’d grown up on a farm where they didn’t bother overmuch keeping things clean and tidy. In the marshes down there, they call those farms “the cabins”, and in winter, they often get flooded.’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘You’ve been there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Sometimes I’d end up cleaning the house when I got in from work. In those days, she was crazy about the cinema, and she’d leave Isabelle with the concierge in the afternoons to go and see a film.’
He said this without bitterness.
‘I didn’t complain. I mustn’t forget she was the first woman to look at me as if I was a normal man. You can understand that, can’t you?’
He didn’t dare turn to look at the dining room again.
‘I’m stopping you eating. What will your wife think?’
‘Go on. For how many years were you happy?’
‘Wait a moment. I never kept track … I don’t even know just when it started. My business was paying well. I spent all the money I made doing up the house, painting, modernizing, I put in a nice kitchen. If you saw it … But you won’t come. Or if you did, it would mean …’
He clasped his hands together again, the fingers covered with ginger hairs.
‘You probably don’t know how the decorating trade works. Some times of year we have plenty of jobs on, other times hardly any. It’s difficult to hold on to the same team of workmen. Apart from old Jules, the one we call Granddad, who was already there under my old boss, I used to hire different workmen almost every year …’
‘Until …?’
‘Until the day Roger Prou turned up. He’s good-looking, he’s strong, smart, knows his way around. At first, I was delighted to have found someone like him, because on site I could trust him absolutely.’
‘And he started to make advances to your wife?’
‘No, honestly, I don’t think so. Women, well, he had as many as he wanted, even customers sometimes. I can’t say, because at the beginning I didn’t notice anything, but I’m pretty sure it was Renée that took the first step. I can understand her a bit. It’s not just that I have this disfigured face, I’m not the kind of man a woman thinks is fun.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Nothing. Just … I’m not very sociable, don’t care much for going out. What I like to do in the evening is stay home, and on Sundays go for a walk with my wife and daughter. For months, I didn’t suspect anything. When we were on a job, Prou would sometimes return to Rue Tholozé to fetch materials. Then one day I went home myself without warning – about two years ago – and found my daughter on her own in the kitchen. I can see her now: she was sitting on the floor. I asked her:
‘ “Where’s Mama?”
‘And she pointed to the bedroom, saying:
‘ “In there!”
‘She was only five. They can’t have heard me coming. I walked in and found them half-naked. Prou was embarrassed. But my wife just looked me straight in the eye and said:
‘ “Well, now you know!” ’
‘What did you do?’
‘I walked out. I didn’t know where I was going or what I was going to do. I found myself standing at a bar, and I got drunk for the first time in my life. I was thinking about my daughter most of all. I promised myself I’d go and fetch her out of there. I kept telling myself:
‘ “She’s yours. They’ve no right to keep her.”
‘Then, after wandering about half the night, I went home. I was feeling very sick. My wife just watched me with a beady eye, and when I vomited on the rug, she spat:
‘ “You disgust me!”
‘Well, that’s how it all began. The day before that, I’d been a happy man. And all at once …’
‘Where’s Roger Prou now?’
‘In Rue Tholozé,’ Planchon stammered, dropping his eyes.
‘He’s been there for the last two years?’
‘More or less, yes.’
‘He’s living with your wife?’
‘We’re all living there, the three of us.’
He wiped his glasses again, and his eyelids fluttered.
‘Does that seem unbelievable to you?’
‘No.’
‘Do you understand, I just couldn’t bring myself to leave her.’
‘Your wife?’
‘At first, it was for her I was staying. Now I’m not sure, I think it’s simply for my daughter, but perhaps I’m fooling myself. You see, it seemed impossible to me to live without Renée … To be all alone again. And I couldn’t throw her out. It was me that courted her, begged her to marry me. So I was responsible, wasn’t I?’
He sniffed and glanced at the bottle. Maigret poured him a second glass, which he drank in a single gulp.
‘You’ll think I’m a drunkard. And it’s true, I’ve practically become one. In the evenings, they don’t like me being around the house. If they haven’t kicked me out yet, it’s come close. You wouldn’t believe how vicious they are to me.’
‘And Prou came to live in your house from the day you surprised them?’
‘No, not at once. Next day, it was a shock to see him turn up at work as if nothing had happened. I didn’t dare ask him what he meant to do. I was afraid of losing her, like I said. I didn’t know what I ought to do. I played it gently. I’m sure they went on seeing each other and, pretty soon, they stopped pretending. It was me that would hesitate at the door, taking care to make a noise, to signal I was coming in.
‘Then, one evening, he stayed to supper. It was his birthday, and Renée had made a special effort with the meal. There was a bottle of bubbly on the table. When we got to the dessert, my wife said:
‘ “Why don’t you go for a walk? Can’t you see you’re in the way?”
‘So I went out. I ended up in a bar. I was asking myself questions, trying to find answers, telling myself stories. I wasn’t thinking about killing them at that stage, I swear! Tell me you believe me, inspector. Tell me you don’t think I’m crazy. Tell me you don’t think I’m a disgusting individual, like my wife says.’
Madame Maigret’s silhouette was coming and going behind the glass door into the dining room, and Planchon groaned again.
‘I’m stopping you eating. Your wife’s going to be so angry. Why don’t you go and eat?’
It was too late for the television news in any case.
THE BEGINNING
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First published in French as Maigret et les braves gens by Presses de la Cité 1962
This translation first published 2018
Copyright © Georges Simenon Limited, 1962
Translation copyright © Ros Schwartz, 2018
GEORGES SIMENON ® Simenon.tm
MAIGRET ® Georges Simenon Limited
All rights reserved
The moral rights of the author and translator have been asserted
Cover photograph © Harry Gruyaert/Magnum Photos
ISBN: 978-0-241-30394-8