Maigret's Dead Man Read online

  It was only after some time had gone by that he slowly headed towards the prone form of the beige smudge of the raincoat and leaned over it, still unhurriedly, as he would have done, as Inspector Lequeux would later say, if the body had been a relative or a friend.

  And when he straightened up again, his eyebrows came together in a fierce scowl that made his anger abundantly clear. He asked questions with such venom that he seemed to be holding everyone present responsible.

  ‘Who did this?’

  Had it been done with fists or boots? There was no telling which. However it was obvious that before or after killing the man with a knife, someone had struck him repeatedly with such violence that his features were swollen, one lip had been split and the whole of one side of his face had been knocked out of shape.

  ‘I’m waiting for the mortuary van,’ said Lequeux.

  Without the injuries, the man’s face would have been unremarkable, fairly young and probably quite cheerful. Even in death, there were traces of something open and honest in his expression.

  Why did the woman in mink seem so shaken by the sight of a foot wearing only a mauve sock? That shoeless foot looked incongruous lying on the pavement next to another foot encased in a shoe made of black kid leather. It was naked, private. It did not really seem dead. It was Maigret who retrieved the other shoe, which lay by the kerb six or seven metres away.

  After that, he did not speak again. While he waited, he smoked. Curious bystanders mingled with the whispering group. Then the mortuary van pulled up at the kerb, and two attendants lifted the body. Underneath it the paving stones were bare, with no trace of blood.

  ‘Just write up your report, Lequeux, and let me have it.’

  Or was it now, as Maigret climbed into the front seat of the van and left the others to themselves, that he really took possession of the dead man?

  That was how it was all night. That was how it still was the next morning. It was as if the body belonged to him, that this dead man was his dead man.

  He had given instructions for Moers, one of the experts from Criminal Records, to wait for him in the Forensic Institute. Moers was young, thin and tall, with a face that never smiled and thick lenses which made his shy eyes look small.

  ‘To work, Moers …’

  He had also summoned Dr Paul, who was due to arrive at any moment. In addition to the two of them, there was only one attendant and, in their refrigerated cabinets, the anonymous dead of Paris collected during the past few days.

  The light was raw, little was said and the movements of hands precise. They looked for all the world like conscientious workmen crouching over some delicate night-time task.

  They found virtually nothing in the pockets. A packet of black tobacco and a tray of cigarette papers, a box of matches, a nondescript penknife, a key of a not-very-recent design, a pencil and a handkerchief with an initial on it. Some loose change in a trouser pocket but no wallet or any means of identification.

  Moers removed the man’s suit carefully piece by piece and put each one in a bag made of waxed paper, which he then closed securely. He then proceeded to do the same with the shirt, shoes and socks. All items were of average quality. The jacket bore the label of an outfitter’s on Boulevard Sébastopol which sold ready-made clothes. The colour of the trousers, which were newer, was not a good match.

  The dead man was naked when Dr Paul arrived, beard neatly trimmed and clear eyed, despite being called out in the middle of the night.

  ‘Now, then, Maigret, what does this poor man have to say for himself?’

  Because it was now all about making the dead man talk. It was routine. Normally, Maigret would have gone home to bed and would have found the various reports on his desk the next morning.

  But this time he insisted on being there for everything, pipe in mouth, hands in pockets, bleary-eyed and half-asleep.

  Before he could proceed, the doctor had to wait for the photographers, who were late. Moers made the most of the delay to clean the corpse’s nails, hands and feet thoroughly, collect the smallest fragments and put them into small bags, on which he wrote cabbalistic signs.

  ‘It won’t be easy to make him look chirpy,’ observed the photographer after inspecting the dead man’s face.

  It was all still routine work. First, photos of the body and the wound. Then, for publication in the newspapers for identification purposes, a photo of the face, which had to be made to look as lifelike as possible. That is why the mortician was busily applying make-up to the dead man, who, in the ice-cold light, looked even more deathly pale than ever, but with rosy cheeks and a mouth painted like a street-walker’s.

  ‘All yours, doc …’

  ‘Are you staying, Maigret?’

  He stayed to the end. It was 6.30 in the morning when Dr Paul and he went for a coffee in a little bar which had just opened its shutters.

  ‘I take it you do not want to wait for my report … Tell me, is this an important case?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  All round them, workmen, their eyes still full of sleep, ate their croissants, and the early-morning fog pinned pearls of moisture on all their overcoats. It was chilly. In the street, pedestrians were preceded by thin clouds of steam. Lights went on in windows one after the other on the various floors of the houses.

  ‘First, I can tell you that he was a man from an ordinary background …

  ‘He probably had a poor childhood and was not particularly well looked after, if the evidence of bone and teeth formation is anything to go by. His hands do not indicate what kind of work he did. They are strong but relatively well cared for. He was probably not a manual labourer. Nor a clerk either, because his hands show no traces, however slight, of the deformities which reveal that a person has spent much time writing, either with a pen or a typewriter. On the other hand, his feet are sensitive, with low arches, which points to someone who spent most of his life standing up.’

  Maigret did not take notes; the details were etched in his memory.

  ‘We now turn to a crucial question: when the crime was committed. I can say without fear of contradiction that it took place between eight and ten last night.’

  Maigret had already been informed by phone of the statements made by the late-night revellers and of the sighting of the yellow Citroën in Place de la Concorde shortly after one in the morning.

  ‘Tell me, doctor, did you notice anything unusual?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  The doctor with the almost legendary beard had been a pathologist for thirty-five years and he was more familiar with criminal investigations than most police officers.

  ‘The crime was not committed in Place de la Concorde.’

  ‘That’s obvious.’

  ‘It was probably committed in some out-of-the-way place.’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Usually, when people take the risk of moving a body, especially in a city like Paris, they are trying to hide it, to make it disappear or at least to delay the time when it is found.’

  ‘You’re right, Maigret. I hadn’t thought of that.’

  ‘But in this case, on the contrary, we have people prepared to risk being caught or at the very least giving us a lead, by dumping a corpse in the middle of Paris, in the most highly visible spot where, even in the middle of the night, it could not remain ten minutes without being found.’

  ‘In other words, the murderers wanted it to be found. That’s what you’re thinking, am I right?’

  ‘Not exactly. But it doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Even so, they took some
steps to ensure the body could not easily be identified. The damage to the face was not done by bare fists but with a heavy instrument the nature of which I am not unfortunately able to determine.’

  ‘Was it done before death?’

  ‘After … A few minutes after.’

  ‘Are you sure it was only minutes after?’

  ‘Less than half an hour, I’d swear to it. But now, Maigret, there is another detail which I will probably not include in my report because I am not sure of my ground and have no wish to be challenged by lawyers when this business comes to court. I spent some time examining the wound, as you saw. Now, I’ve examined several hundred knife wounds in my time. I’d swear this one was not delivered unexpectedly.

  ‘Imagine that there are two men standing, arguing about something. They are facing each other, and one of them stabs the other man. It would be impossible for him to make a wound like the one I’ve just examined. The blow was not to the victim’s back, either.

  ‘But suppose that a man is seated, or even standing, but with his mind fully occupied with something else. Someone could creep up quietly on him from behind, put one arm around him and with the other strike hard with the knife, choosing his spot exactly.

  ‘Or to be even more specific, it’s as if the victim had been tied up or held down so that he could not move, as if someone had then, literally, “carved” him … Are you with me?’

  ‘I’m with you.’

  But Maigret knew very well that Nine’s husband had not been taken by surprise, for he had been eluding his murderers for twenty-four hours.

  What for the doctor was a problem of a more or less theoretical nature was in Maigret’s eyes a matter of much more immediate human import.

  It so happened that he had heard the man’s voice. He had almost seen him. He had certainly followed him step by step, bar by bar, on his mad progress through certain parts of Paris, always the same ones, in the area between Châtelet and Bastille.

  The two men were now walking along the bank of the river, Maigret smoking his pipe and Dr Paul cigarette after cigarette – he smoked constantly while performing autopsies and would tell anyone who asked that tobacco is the best antiseptic. Dawn was just appearing in the sky. Strings of barges were beginning to pass down the Seine. Down-and-outs were seen, numbed by the night cold, climbing stiff-limbed up the steps from the embankment, where they had slept under a bridge.

  ‘The man was killed shortly after his last meal, maybe immediately.’

  ‘Do you know what he ate?’

  ‘Pea soup, Provençal creamed salt cod-and-potato pie and an apple. He had drunk white wine. I also found traces of spirits in his stomach.’

  Oddly enough, they were now passing in front of the Caves du Beaujolais. The landlord had only just taken the wooden shutters inside. They could see the dark interior and caught the smell of stale wine.

  ‘Are you going home now?’ asked the doctor, who was about to hail a taxi.

  ‘I’m going up to Criminal Records.’

  The tall building on Quai des Orfèvres was almost empty. Teams of sweepers were at work in the corridors and on staircases, where the winter dampness still lingered.

  In his office, Maigret found Lucas, who had just fallen asleep in his armchair.

  ‘Any developments?’

  ‘The papers have got the photo. Only a few will publish it in the morning edition because they didn’t receive it early enough.’

  ‘Anything on the car?’

  ‘I’m looking into my third yellow Citroën, but none fit the bill.’

  ‘Have you phoned Janvier?’

  ‘He’ll be here at eight to take over from me.’

  ‘If anyone asks for me, I’ll be upstairs … Tell the switchboard that all calls are to be put through directly to me …’

  He did not feel sleepy but did feel sluggish, and his movements were slower than usual. He climbed a narrow staircase which was out of bounds to the public. It led him to the attics of the Palais de Justice. He half opened a door with frosted glass panels and, observing Moers hunched over his instruments, continued on his way as far as Records.

  Even before he could open his mouth to speak, the fingerprint expert had given a negative shake of his head.

  ‘Nothing, sir …’

  In other words, Nine’s husband had never been in trouble with the law.

  Maigret walked out of the card-index library and went back to see Moers. He took off his overcoat and, after a moment’s hesitation, removed his tie, which was too tight around his neck.

  The dead man was not here, yet his presence was just as strong as it was in the corpse stored in the racks of the Forensic Institute – drawer 17 – where the mortuary assistant had put him.

  No one spoke much … Everyone got on with their own work without even noticing that a sliver of sunshine was slanting in through the attic window. In one corner stood an articulated manikin which Maigret had often used before and now used again. Moers, who had had time to give the clothes a good shaking in their various waxed paper bags, was at work analysing the fragments which he had collected in this way.

  Maigret meanwhile busied himself with the clothes. With the careful gestures of a window-dresser, starting with the shirt and underpants, he began to dress the manikin, which was about the same size as the dead man.

  He had just put the jacket on it when Janvier walked in, looking fresh as a daisy because he had slept in his own bed and had not got up until day was breaking.

  ‘So they got him, sir.’

  He looked round for Moers and gave him a wink, which meant that Maigret was not in a chatty mood.

  ‘There’s been a report of another yellow car. Lucas, who looked into it, says it’s not ours. In any case the number plate ends in nine, not eight.’

  Maigret took a step back, to get a view of his handiwork.

  ‘See anything odd?’ he asked.

  ‘Wait a moment … No … I can’t see … The man was a bit smaller than the manikin. The jacket looks too short …’

  ‘That all?’

  ‘The slit made by the knife isn’t very wide.’

  ‘Nothing else?’

  ‘He wasn’t wearing a waistcoat.’

  ‘What strikes me is that the jacket isn’t made of the same cloth as the trousers and isn’t the same shade.’

  ‘That happens, you know.’

  ‘But hold on a minute. Take a close look at the trousers. They’re virtually new. They’re part of a suit. This jacket is part of another suit but is at least two years old.’

  ‘It certainly seems like it.’

  ‘Now the man was quite dapper if his socks, shirt and tie are anything to go by … Phone the Caves du Beaujolais and the other bars. Try to find out if yesterday he was wearing a jacket and a pair of trousers which didn’t match.’

  Janvier sat himself down in a corner. His voice formed a kind of background noise in the lab. He called the bars one by one and repeated time after time:

  ‘It’s the Police Judiciaire, the inspector you talked to yesterday … Could you tell me if …’

  Unfortunately, the man had not taken his raincoat off anywhere. He may have unbuttoned it, but no one had paid any attention to the colour of his jacket.

  ‘What do you do when you get home?’

  Janvier, who had been married for only a year, answered with a knowing smile:

  ‘I give my wife a kiss …’

  ‘After that?’

  ‘I sit down and she brings me my slippers.’

 
‘After that?’

  Janvier thought a moment and then hit his forehead with the heel of his hand.

  ‘Got it! I change my jacket!’

  ‘Do you keep a jacket to wear in the house?’

  ‘No. But I put an old one on that I feel more comfortable in.’

  And with these words they caught a glimpse of the private life of this unidentified man. They could picture him arriving home and perhaps, like Janvier, kissing his wife, or if not just taking his jacket off and putting on an old one. Then he would eat.

  ‘What’s today?’

  ‘Thursday.’

  ‘So yesterday was Wednesday. How often do you eat out? In inexpensive restaurants, the kind where our man would have gone?’

  As he spoke, Maigret slipped the beige raincoat over the shoulders of the manikin. Yesterday evening, at about this time, certainly not much later, this gaberdine was still on the back of a living, breathing man who walked into the Caves du Beaujolais, which was just across the way, virtually under their noses; they had only to look out through the skylight at the opposite bank of the Seine to see it.

  He was calling Maigret. He was not asking to speak to just any chief inspector or an inspector or, like those who consider their case to be very important, the commissioner of the Police Judiciaire.

  It was Maigret he wanted.

  But he had admitted: ‘You don’t know me …’

  All the same he had added: ‘You used to know my wife, Nine.’

  Janvier was wondering what his boss was driving at with all this talk of restaurants.

  ‘Do you like fish pie?’

  ‘I love it. It gives me indigestion, but I eat it whenever I get the chance.’

  ‘Right! Does your wife make it often?’

  ‘No. It’s too much bother. It’s a dish people don’t often make at home.’