The Flemish House Read online

  ‘What did she want?’

  Madame Peeters looked as if she was wiping a tear from her eyelid.

  ‘The same as ever. To complain that Joseph never went to see her, never got in touch … A boy who works so hard! It’s to his credit, I assure you, that he’s continuing his studies in spite of everything …’

  ‘Did she stay here for long?’

  ‘Perhaps five minutes. I had to tell her not to shout. The sailors could have heard her. Anna came and told her it would be a good idea for her to leave …’

  ‘And did she leave?’

  ‘Anna led her outside. I went back into the kitchen and cleared the table.’

  ‘And you haven’t seen her again since then?’

  ‘Never!’

  ‘No one around here has met her?’

  ‘They all say they haven’t!’

  ‘Did she threaten to commit suicide?’

  ‘No! Women of that kind never kill themselves. More coffee? A piece of cake? Anna made it.’

  A new feature to be added to the image of Anna. She was sitting calmly on her chair. She watched the inspector as if their roles had been swapped, as if she belonged to the Quai des Orfèvres, and he to the Flemish house.

  ‘Do you remember what you did that evening?’

  It was Anna who replied, with a sad smile.

  ‘We have been asked about this so many times that we’ve had to remember the tiniest details. After coming home, I went up to my room to get some wool to knit with. When I came down, my sister was at the piano, in this room, and Marguerite had just arrived.’

  ‘Marguerite?’

  ‘Our cousin. The daughter of Dr Van de Weert. They live in Givet. I should tell you straight away, since you’ll find out anyway, that she’s Joseph’s fiancée.’

  Madame Peeters got up with a sigh, because the bell had rung in the shop.

  She could be heard speaking Flemish, in an almost playful voice, and weighing out beans or peas.

  ‘It was a source of great pain to my mother. It had been decided long since that Joseph and Marguerite would get married. They had got engaged at sixteen. But Joseph had to finish his studies. That was when that child came along.’

  ‘And in spite of that they expected to get married?’

  ‘No! Except that Marguerite didn’t want to marry anyone else. They still loved each other.’

  ‘Did Germaine Piedboeuf know that?’

  ‘Yes! But she was counting on getting married! So much so that my brother, to have a bit of peace, had promised he would. The wedding was to be held after his exams.’

  And the bell in the shop rang. Madame Peeters tottered through the kitchen.

  ‘I was asking you what happened on the evening of the third.’

  ‘Yes. I was saying that when I came downstairs my sister and Marguerite were in this room. We played the piano until half past ten. My father had gone to bed at nine, as usual. My sister and I walked Marguerite to the bridge.’

  ‘And you didn’t meet anyone?’

  ‘No one. It was cold. We came back. The next day we didn’t suspect a thing. That afternoon people were saying that Germaine Piedboeuf had disappeared. It was only two days later that people thought of accusing us, because someone had seen her coming in here. The police chief called us in, then your colleague from Nancy. Apparently Monsieur Piedboeuf made a complaint. They searched the house, the cellar, the sheds, everything. They even dug up the garden.’

  ‘Wasn’t your brother in Givet on the third?’

  ‘No! He only comes on Saturdays, on his motorbike. Rarely on any other weekday. The whole town is against us, because we are Flemish and have some money.’

  A note of pride in her voice. Or rather a superior degree of confidence.

  ‘You can’t imagine all the things they made up.’

  Again the bell in the shop rang, then the sound of a young voice:

  ‘It’s me! Don’t disturb yourselves on my account …’

  Hurried footsteps. A very feminine figure swept into the dining room, stopping abruptly in front of Maigret.

  ‘Oh! Excuse me. I didn’t know …’

  ‘Inspector Maigret, who’s come to help us. My cousin Marguerite.’

  A little gloved hand in Maigret’s paw. And a nervous smile.

  ‘Anna told me you’d accepted …’

  She was very elegant, more elegant than pretty. Her face was framed by blonde, slightly wavy hair.

  ‘I gather you were playing the piano.’

  ‘Yes. Music is my only love. Especially when I’m sad …’

  And she smiled like one of the pretty girls on an advertising calendar. Lips in a pout, a veiled expression, her face leaning slightly forwards …

  ‘Maria isn’t back?’

  ‘No! Her train must be late.’

  The fragile chair creaked when Maigret tried to cross his legs.

  ‘What time did you get here on the third?’

  ‘Half past eight. Perhaps a little earlier. We eat early. My father had friends for bridge.’

  ‘Was the weather the same as today?’

  ‘It was raining. It rained for a whole week.’

  ‘Was the Meuse already in spate?’

  ‘It was starting to be. But the barriers weren’t knocked over until the fifth or the sixth. There were still trains of barges on the water.’

  ‘A piece of cake, inspector? No? A cigar, then?’

  Anna held out a box of Belgian cigars and murmured as if in apology:

  ‘It isn’t contraband. Part of the house is in Belgium and part in France.’

  ‘So your brother, at least, is completely ruled out because he was in Nancy.’

  Anna said stubbornly:

  ‘Not even that! Because of a drunk who claims to have seen him riding his bike along the quay. He said that a fortnight later. As if he could remember! It was Gérard, Germaine Piedboeuf’s brother, who found him. There’s not much to do around here. So he spends his time looking for witnesses. Just think, they want to bring a civil case and claim 300,000 francs.’

  ‘Where’s the child?’

  Madame Peeters could be heard hurrying into the shop, where the bell had rung. Anna put the cake on the side table and set the coffee pot down on the stove.

  ‘Their house!’

  And the voice of a sailor ordering some genever burst from behind the partition wall.

  2. The Étoile Polaire

  Marguerite Van de Weert rummaged feverishly in her handbag, in a hurry to show them something.

  ‘Haven’t you had the Écho de Givet yet?’

  And she handed Anna a newspaper cutting. She had a modest smile on her lips. Anna passed the paper to Maigret.

  ‘Who gave you the idea?’

  ‘It was me, yesterday, by chance.’

  It was only a small advertisement.

  Would the motorcyclist who passed along the Route de Meuse on the evening of 3 January please make himself known. Large reward. Please come to Peeters grocery.

  ‘I didn’t dare to give my address, but …’

  It seemed to Maigret that Anna was looking at her cousin with a hint of impatience as she murmured:

  ‘It’s an idea. But no one will come.’

  And there was Marguerite, waiting so excitedly to be congratulated!

  ‘Why wouldn’t he come? If a motorbike passed along the quay, there’s no reason why he wouldn’t, since it wasn’t Joseph …’

  The doors were open. Water was starting to sing in the kettle in the kitchen. Madame Peeters was laying the table for dinner. The sound of voices came from the shop doorway, and suddenly the two girls pricked up their ears.

  ‘Please come in. I have nothing to say to you, but …’

  ‘Joseph!’ Marguerite stammered, rising to her feet.

  There was ardour rather than love in her voice. She was transfigured by it. She didn’t dare to sit down again. She waited breathlessly, so much so that one would have imagined that a kind of superman was ab
out to appear.

  Now the voice rose in the kitchen.

  ‘Hello, Mother.’

  And another voice, one that Maigret didn’t know:

  ‘Forgive me, madame, I have some things to check, and I took advantage of the fact that your son was coming here …’

  At last the two men appeared in the dining room. Joseph Peeters frowned slightly, murmuring with embarrassing sweetness:

  ‘Hello, Marguerite …’

  She took his hand between both of hers.

  ‘Not too tired, Joseph? Good spirits?’

  But Anna, who was calmer, addressed the second person, and pointed to Maigret.

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector Maigret, whom you must know …’

  ‘Inspector Machère,’ said the other man, extending a hand. ‘Is it true that you …?’

  But they couldn’t talk like that, all standing between the door and the table, which was still laid.

  ‘I’m here in a purely unofficial capacity,’ muttered Maigret. ‘Just pretend I’m not here …’

  Someone touched his arm.

  ‘My brother Joseph. Detective Chief Inspector Maigret.’

  And Joseph held out a long, cold, bony hand. He was half a head taller than Maigret, and Maigret was over six feet tall. But he was so thin that it looked as if he hadn’t stopped growing, even though he was twenty-five.

  A nose with pinched nostrils. Tired eyes with heavy dark circles. Short fair hair. He must have had poor eyesight, because his eyelids fluttered constantly as if to escape the light from the lamp.

  ‘Delighted to meet you, inspector. I’m confused.’

  He wasn’t elegant, however. He took off a greasy raincoat, beneath which he was wearing a suit of neutral grey, of unremarkable cut.

  ‘I met him near the bridge,’ said Inspector Machère, ‘and I asked him to bring me here behind his motorbike.’

  He then turned towards Anna. He addressed her now, as if she were the real mistress of the house. There was no sign of Madame Peeters, or her husband, slumped in the wicker armchair in the kitchen.

  ‘I imagine it’s easy to get to the roof?’

  Everyone looked at each other.

  ‘Through the skylight in the attic!’ Anna replied. ‘Do you want to …’

  ‘Yes! I want to take a look from up there.’

  For Maigret it was an opportunity to take a look around the house.

  The staircase was painted and covered so neatly with waxed linoleum that you had to take care not to slip.

  On the first floor, a landing with doors leading to three rooms. Joseph and Marguerite had stayed downstairs. Anna walked ahead, and Maigret noticed that she was rolling her hips slightly.

  ‘I’ll need to talk to you!’ he murmured.

  ‘In a minute!’

  They reached the second floor. On one side a garret room, turned into a bedroom, but unoccupied. On the other a huge attic with exposed beams, piled up with cases and bags of merchandise. To reach the skylight, Machère had to climb on two cases.

  ‘Is there no light?’

  ‘I have my torch …’

  He was a young man with a round, jovial, tirelessly mobile face. Maigret didn’t climb on to the roof but looked through the skylight. The wind was blowing in gusts. The roar of the river reached them, and its stormy surface appeared dotted with the light from the occasional gas lamp.

  On the left, on the roof cornice, there was a zinc water-tank, at least two cubic metres, towards which the policeman made his way immediately. It must have been designed to capture rain water.

  Machère leaned forwards, looked disappointed, walked around on the roof for a few moments and bent to pick something up.

  Anna waited in silence, in the darkness, behind Maigret. The inspector’s legs appeared again, then his torso, and at last his face.

  ‘A hiding place I only thought of this afternoon, noticing that the people in my hotel only drink rain water … But the corpse isn’t there.’

  ‘What was the thing you picked up?’

  ‘A handkerchief … A woman’s handkerchief …’

  He unfolded it, lit it with his lamp and looked in vain for an initial. The dirty handkerchief had been exposed to the weather for a long time.

  ‘We’ll look at that later!’ the inspector sighed, walking towards the door.

  When they stepped back into the warm atmosphere of the dining room, Joseph Peeters was sitting on the piano stool, reading the advertisement that Marguerite had just shown him. She was standing in front of him, and her wide-brimmed hat and her coat decorated with little flounces emphasized everything diaphanous about her.

  ‘Would you come and see me at the hotel this evening?’ Maigret said to the young man.

  ‘Which hotel?’

  ‘The Hôtel de la Meuse!’ Anna broke in. ‘Are you leaving us already, inspector? I would have invited you to dinner, but …’

  Maigret walked through the kitchen. Madame Peeters looked at him with astonishment.

  ‘Are you leaving?’

  The old man’s eyes were empty. He was smoking a meerschaum pipe, without thinking of anything else. He didn’t even say goodbye.

  Outside there was the wind, the sound of the swollen flood of the Meuse, and the bumps of the boats moored side by side. Inspector Machère hurried to switch places, because he had been standing on Maigret’s right.

  ‘Do you think they’re innocent?’

  ‘I don’t know. Do you have any tobacco?’

  ‘Only some shag … People in Nancy talk about you a lot, you know. And that’s what worries me. Because these Peeters people …’

  Maigret had stopped by the boats, and let his eye drift over them. Givet, thanks to the floods which had interrupted boat traffic, looked like a big port. There were several Rhine barges, thousand-tonners, all in black steel. The wooden barges from the north looked like painted toys in comparison.

  ‘I’ll have to buy myself a cap!’ muttered the inspector, who had to hold on to his bowler hat.

  ‘What did they tell you? That they’re innocent, of course!’

  They had to speak very loudly, because of the noise of the wind. Givet, 500 metres away, was only a cluster of lights. The Flemish house stood out beneath the stormy sky, its windows lit with a dim yellow glow.

  ‘Where do they come from?’

  ‘From northern Belgium. Old Peeters came from above Limbourg, on the Dutch border. He’s twenty years older than his wife, which puts him in his eighties now. He was a basket-maker. A few years ago he still practised his trade with four workmen in the studio behind the house. Now he’s totally gaga …’

  ‘Are they rich?’

  ‘They’re said to be! They own the house. They even lent money to some poor sailors who wanted to buy a boat. You see, sir, they don’t have the same mentality as us. Old Peeters has hundreds of thousands of francs, which means he can easily stand his customers a round, as they say. Except that his son’s going to be a lawyer. His eldest daughter learned the piano. The other teaches at a famous convent school in Namur. She’s quite a senior teacher.’

  And Machère pointed to the barges.

  ‘Half the people in there are Flemish. People who don’t like changing their habits. Others go to the French bistros near the bridge, drink wine and aperitifs … The Flemish want their genever, someone who understands their language, and everything … Each boat buys provisions for a week or more … And I’m not talking about contraband! They’re in the right place for that …’

  Their overcoats stuck to their bodies. The water was lapping so violently that it splashed over the decks of the laden barges.

  ‘They don’t think the same way as we do. For them, it’s not a bistro. It’s a grocery, even though they serve drinks at the counter. And even the women have a drop when they’re doing their shopping. Apparently that’s what brings in the most …’

  ‘The Piedboeufs?’ asked Maigret.

  ‘Little people. A factory security man. The daughter
was a secretary in the same company. The son still works there.’

  ‘A sensible boy?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that. He doesn’t do a lot of work. He prefers playing billiards at the Café de la Mairie. He’s a good-looking guy and he knows it …’

  ‘The daughter?’

  ‘Germaine? She’s had some lovers. You know, she’s one of those girls you find in dark corners at night, with a man. Which doesn’t mean Joseph Peeters isn’t the father … I’ve seen the child. It looks like him. What you can’t deny, at any rate, is that she went into the house on the third of January, shortly after eight in the evening, and since then no one has seen her again.’

  Inspector Machère was speaking frankly.

  ‘I’ve looked everywhere. I even did a detailed summary of the area with an architect. There was only one thing I’d forgotten: the roof. Normally you wouldn’t think of hiding a corpse on a roof. I went up there, just a moment ago. I found a handkerchief, but nothing else …’

  ‘And the Meuse?’

  ‘Quite! I was going to talk to you about that … You know, don’t you, that almost all drowned bodies are found on the barriers … There are eight between here and Namur … Except that two days after the crime, the river had swollen so much that the barriers were knocked over, as happens every winter … Which means that Germaine Piedboeuf could easily have got as far as Holland, if not the sea …’

  ‘I was told that Joseph Peeters wasn’t here the evening when …’

  ‘I know! That’s what he claims. A witness saw a motorbike that looked like his. He swears it wasn’t him.’

  ‘Doesn’t he have an alibi?’

  ‘He does and he doesn’t. I went back to Nancy specially. He lives in a furnished room where he can come back without being seen by his landlady. He also frequents the cafés and bars where the students meet every night. No one can remember exactly whether it was on the third, the fourth or the fifth that he spent the night in one of those bars …’

  ‘Might Germaine Piedboeuf have killed herself?’

  ‘She wasn’t that sort of woman. A little person with poor health and less than perfect morals, but who loved her son …’

  ‘Someone else might have attacked her …’