The Grand Banks Café Page 2

  ‘It was around nine o’clock. They were all in here getting drunk. The wireless operator went up to his room. Then he went out. He was seen heading in the direction of the boat.

  ‘It was then that it happened. A fisherman down in the harbour who was getting ready to leave heard a noise like something falling in the water.

  ‘He ran to see, with a customs man he’d met on the way. They lit lanterns … There was a body in the water. It had caught in the Océan’s anchor chain.

  ‘It was the skipper! He was dead when they fished him out. They tried artificial respiration. They couldn’t understand it. He hadn’t been in the water ten minutes.

  ‘The doctor explained the reason. Seems as how somebody had strangled him before … Do you follow me? And they found the wireless operator on board in his cabin, which is just astern of the funnel. You can see it from here.

  ‘The police came here and searched his room. They found some burned papers …

  ‘What do you make of it? … Ho! Julie, two calvados! … Your very good health!’

  Louis, getting more and more carried away, had gripped a chair with his teeth and, in the middle of a circle of sailors, was holding it horizontally while staring defiantly at Maigret.

  ‘Was the captain from around here?’ asked the inspector.

  ‘That he was. A curious sort. Not much taller or wider than Louis. But always polite, always friendly. And always nattily turned out. I don’t think he went much to cafés. He wasn’t married. He had digs in Rue d’Étretat, with a widow whose husband had worked for customs. There was talk that they’d get wed in the end. He’d been fishing off Newfoundland these fifteen years. Always for the same owners: the French Cod Company. Captain Fallut, to give him his full name. They’re in a fix now if they want to send the Océan out to the Grand Banks. No captain! And half the crew not wanting to sign on for another tour!’

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘Don’t try to understand! The evil eye, like I told you. There’s talk of laying the boat up until next year. On top of which the police have told the crew they have to stay available.’

  ‘And the wireless operator is behind bars?’

  ‘Yes. They took him away the same evening, in handcuffs he was … I was standing in the doorway. I tell you God’s truth, the wife cried … and so did I. But he wasn’t a special customer. I used to knock a bit off when I sold him supplies. He wasn’t much of a drinker himself.’

  They were interrupted by a sudden uproar. Louis had thrown himself at the Breton, presumably because the Breton had insisted on trying to stop him drinking. Both were rolling around on the floor. The others got out of their way.

  It was Maigret who separated them, picking them up one in each hand.

  ‘That’s enough! You want to argue?’

  The scuffle was over quickly. The Breton, whose hands were free, pulled a knife from his pocket. The inspector saw it just in time and with a swift back heel sent it spinning two metres away.

  The shoe caught the Breton on the chin, which started to bleed. Louis, still in a daze and still drunk, rushed to his friend and started crying and saying he was sorry.

  Léon came up to Maigret. He had his watch in his hand.

  ‘Time I closed up! If I don’t we’ll have the police on the doorstep. Every evening it’s the same story! I just can’t kick them out!’

  ‘Do they sleep on board the Océan?’

  ‘Yes. Unless, that is, and it happened to two of them yesterday, they sleep where they fall, in the gutter. I found them this morning when I opened the shutters.’

  The serving girl went round gathering glasses off the tables. The men drifted off in groups of two or three. Only Louis and the Breton didn’t budge.

  ‘Need a room?’ Léon asked Maigret.

  ‘No thanks. I’m booked into the Hôtel de la Plage.’

  ‘Can I say something?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It isn’t that I want to give you advice. It’s none of my business. But if anyone was feeling sorry for the wireless operator, maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to chercher la femme, as they say in books. I’ve heard a few whispers along those lines …’

  ‘Did Pierre Le Clinche have a girlfriend?’

  ‘What, him? No fear! He’d got himself engaged wherever it was he came from. Every day he’d write home, letters six pages long.’

  ‘Who do you mean, then?’

  ‘I dunno. Maybe it’s more complicated than people think. Besides …’

  ‘Besides what?’

  ‘Nothing. Behave yourself, Louis! Go home to bed!’

  But Louis was far too drunk for that. He was tearful, he had his arms around his friend, whose chin was still bleeding, and he kept saying sorry.

  Maigret left the bar, hands thrust deep in his pockets and with his collar turned up, for the air was cool.

  In the vestibule of the Hôtel de la Plage, he saw a young woman sitting in a wicker chair. A man got up from another chair and smiled. There was a slight awkwardness in his smile.

  It was Jorissen, the primary-school teacher from Quimper. Maigret had not seen him for fifteen years, and Jorissen was not sure whether he should treat him with their old easy familiarity.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry … I … that is we, Mademoiselle Léonnec and I, have only just got here … I did the rounds of the hotels … They said you … they said you’d be back … She’s Pierre Le Clinche’s fiancée … She insisted …’

  She was tall, rather pale, rather shy. But when Maigret shook her hand, he sensed that behind the façade of small-town, unsophisticated coyness there was a strong will.

  She didn’t speak. She felt out of her depth. As did Jorissen, who was still just a primary-school teacher who was now meeting up again with his old friend, who now held one of the highest ranks in the Police Judiciare.

  ‘They pointed out Madame Maigret in the lounge just now, but I didn’t like to …’

  Maigret took a closer look at the girl, who was neither pretty nor plain, but there was something touching about her natural simplicity.

  ‘You do know that he’s innocent, don’t you?’ she said finally, looking at no one in particular.

  The porter was waiting to get back to his bed. He had already unbuttoned his jacket.

  ‘We’ll see about that tomorrow … Have you got a room somewhere?’

  ‘I’ve got the room next to you … to yours,’ stammered the teacher from Quimper, still unsure of himself. ‘And Mademoiselle Léonnec is on the floor above … I’ve got to get back tomorrow, there are exams on … Do you think …?’

  ‘Tomorrow! We’ll see then,’ Maigret said again.

  And as he was getting ready for bed, his wife, already half asleep, murmured:

  ‘Don’t forget to turn the light out.’

  2. The Tan-Coloured Shoes

  Side by side, not looking at each other, they walked together first along the beach, which was deserted at that time of day, and then along the quays by the harbour.

  Gradually, the silences grew fewer until Marie Léonnec was speaking in a more or less natural tone of voice.

  ‘You’ll see! You’ll like him straight away! He couldn’t be anything but likeable! And then you’ll understand that …’

  Maigret kept shooting curious, admiring glances at her. Jorissen had gone back to Quimper, very early that morning, leaving the girl by herself in Fécamp.

  ‘I can’t make her come with me,’ he had said. ‘She’s far too independent for that.’

  The previous evening, she was as unforthcoming as a young woman raised in the peace and quiet of a small town can be. Now, it wasn’t an hour since she and Maigret had walked out of the Hôtel de la Plage together.

  The inspector was behaving in his most crusty manner.

  But to no effect. She refused to let herself be intimidated. She was not taken in by him, and she smiled confidently.

  ‘His only fault,’ she went on, ‘is that he is so very sensitive. But it’s hardly
surprising. His father was just a poor fisherman, and for years his mother mended nets to raise him. Now he keeps her. He’s educated. He’s got a bright future before him.’

  ‘Are your parents well off?’ Maigret asked bluntly.

  ‘They are the biggest makers of ropes and metal cables in Quimper. That’s why Pierre wouldn’t even speak to my father about us. For a whole year, we saw each other in secret.’

  ‘You were both over eighteen?’

  ‘Just. I was the one who told my parents. Pierre swore that he wouldn’t marry me until he was earning at least two thousand francs a month. So you see …’

  ‘Has he written to you since he was arrested?’

  ‘Just one letter. It was very short. And that from someone who used to send me a letter pages and pages long every day! He said it would be best for me and my parents if I told everyone back home that it was all over between us.’

  They passed near the Océan, which was still being unloaded. It was high tide, and its black hull dominated the wharves. In the foredeck three men stripped to the waist were getting washed. Among them Maigret recognized Louis.

  He also noticed a gesture: one of the men nudged the third man with his shoulder and nodded towards Maigret and the girl. Maigret scowled.

  ‘Just shows how considerate he is!’ continued the voice at his side. ‘He knows how quickly scandal spreads in a small town like Quimper. He wanted to give me back my freedom.’

  The morning was clear. The girl, in her grey two-piece suit, looked like a student or a primary-school teacher.

  ‘For my parents to have let me come here, they must obviously trust him too. But my father would prefer me to marry someone in business.’

  At the police station Maigret left her in the waiting room, sitting some considerable time in the waiting room. He jotted down a few notes.

  Half an hour later, they both walked into the jail.

  It was Maigret in his surly mood, hands behind his back, pipe clenched between his teeth, shoulders bent, who now stood in one corner of the cell. He had informed the authorities that he was not taking an official interest in the investigation, that he was following its progress out of curiosity.

  Several people had described the wireless operator to him, and the picture he had formed corresponded exactly to the young man he was now seeing in the flesh.

  He was tall and slim, in a conventional suit, though a little on the shabby side, with the half-solemn, half-timid look about him of a schoolboy who is always top of his class. There were freckles on his cheeks. His hair was cropped short.

  He had started when the door was opened. For a moment, he stayed well away from the girl who walked straight up to him. She had had to throw herself into his arms, literally, and cling on hard while he looked around in bewilderment.

  ‘Marie! … Who on earth …? How …?’

  He was quite disoriented. But he wasn’t the sort to get excited. The lenses of his glasses clouded over, that was all. His lips trembled.

  ‘You shouldn’t have come.’

  He caught sight of Maigret, whom he didn’t know, and then stared at the door, which had been left half-open.

  He wasn’t wearing a collar, and there were no laces in his shoes. He also had a beard, gingerish and several days old. He was still feeling awkward about these things, despite the sudden shock he’d had. He felt his bare neck and his prominent Adam’s apple with an embarrassed movement of his hand.

  ‘Is my mother …?’

  ‘She didn’t come. But she doesn’t think you’re guilty any more than I do.’

  The girl was no more able than he was to give vent to her feelings. The moment fell flat. Maybe it was the intimidating effect of the surroundings.

  They looked at each other and, not knowing what to say, groped for words. Then Mademoiselle Léonnec turned and pointed to Maigret.

  ‘He’s a friend of Jorissen’s. He’s a detective chief inspector in the Police Judiciaire and he’s agreed to help us.’

  Le Clinche hesitated about offering his hand, then did not dare to.

  ‘Thanks … I …’

  Another moment that failed entirely. The girl knew it and felt like crying. She had been counting on a touching interview which would win Maigret over to their side.

  She gave her fiancé a look of resentment, even of muted impatience.

  ‘You must tell him everything that might help your defence.’

  Pierre Le Clinche sighed, ill at ease and unsettled.

  ‘I’ve just a few questions for you,’ the inspector broke in. ‘All the crew say that throughout the voyage your dealings with the captain were more than cool. And yet, when you sailed, you were on good terms with him. What happened to bring about the change?’

  The wireless operator opened his mouth, said nothing, then stared at the floor, looking very sorry for himself.

  ‘Something to do with your duties? For the first two days, you ate with the first mate and the chief mechanic. After that you preferred to eat with the men.’

  ‘Yes … I know …’

  ‘Why?’

  Losing patience, Marie Léonnec said:

  ‘Out with it, Pierre! We’re trying to save you! You must tell the truth.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  He looked limp, cowed, almost without hope.

  ‘Did you have any differences of opinion with Captain Fallut?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And yet you lived with him for nearly three months cooped up on the same ship without ever saying a single word to him. Everybody noticed. Some of them talked behind his back, saying that there were times when Fallut gave the impression of being mad.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  It was all Marie Léonnec could do to choke back her frustration.

  ‘When the Océan returned to port, you went ashore with the others. When you got to your room, you burned a number of papers …’

  ‘Yes. Nothing of any importance.’

  ‘You keep a regular journal in which you write down everything you see. Wasn’t what you burned your journal of the voyage?’

  Le Clinche remained standing, head down, like a schoolboy who hasn’t done his homework and keeps his eyes stubbornly on his feet.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t remember!’

  ‘And you can’t remember why you went back on board either? Though not straight away. You were seen crouching behind a truck fifty metres from the boat.’

  The girl looked at the inspector, then at her fiancé, then back to the inspector and began to feel out of her depth.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The captain walked down the gangplank on to the quay. It was at that moment that he was attacked.’

  Pierre Le Clinche still said nothing.

  ‘Talk to me, dammit!’

  ‘Yes, answer him, Pierre! We’re trying to save you. I don’t understand … I …’

  Her eyes filled with tears.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes what?’

  ‘I was there!’

  ‘And you saw?’

  ‘Not clearly … There were a lot of barrels, trucks … Two men fighting, then one running off and a body falling into the water.’

  ‘What was the man who ran away like?’

  ‘I don’t know …’

  ‘Was he dressed like a sailor?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘So you know how he was dressed?’

  ‘All I noticed was a pair of tan-coloured shoes under a gas lamp as he ran away.’

  ‘What did you do next?’

  ‘I went on board.’

  ‘Why? And why didn’t you try to save the captain? Did you know he was already dead?’

  A heavy silence. Marie Léonnec clasped both hands together in anguish.

  ‘Speak, Pierre! Speak … please!’

  ‘Yes … No … I swear I don’t know!’

  Footsteps in the corridor. It was the custody officer coming to say that they were
ready for Le Clinche in the examining magistrate’s office.

  His fiancée stepped forward, intending to kiss him. He hesitated. In the end, he put his arms round her, slowly, deliberately.

  So it was not her lips that he kissed but the fine, fair curls at her temples.

  ‘Pierre!’

  ‘You shouldn’t have come!’ he told her, his brow furrowed, as he wearily followed the custody officer out.

  Maigret and Marie Léonnec returned to the exit without speaking. Outside she sighed unhappily:

  ‘I don’t understand … I …’

  Then, holding her head high:

  ‘But he’s innocent, I know he is! We don’t understand because we’ve never been in a predicament like his. For three days he’s been behind bars, and everybody thinks he’s guilty! … He’s a very shy person …’

  Maigret was moved, for she was doing her level best to make her words sound positive and convincing, though inside she was utterly devastated.

  ‘You will do something to help despite everything, won’t you?’

  ‘On condition that you go back home, to Quimper.’

  ‘No! … I won’t! … Look … Let me …’

  ‘In that case, take yourself off to the beach. Go and sit by my wife and try to find something to do. She’s bound to have something you can sew.’

  ‘What are you going to do? Do you think the tan-coloured shoes are a clue? …’

  People turned and stared at them, for Marie Léonnec was waving her arms about, and it looked as if they were having an argument.

  ‘Let me say it again: I’ll do everything in my power … Look, this street leads straight to the Hôtel de la Plage. Tell my wife that I might be back late for lunch.’

  He turned on his heel and walked as far as the quays. His surly manner had disappeared. He was almost smiling. He’d been afraid there might have been a stormy scene in the cell, heated protests, tears, kisses. But it had passed off very differently, in a way that was more straightforward, more harrowing and more significant.