Liberty Bar Read online

  ‘The inspector knows the score, OK? … It was one evening when William was here … It was just the two of us in the bar … Sylvie came in with some gentlemen she had met who knows where, travelling salesmen or some such. They were already merry. They ordered some drinks … As for her, you could see straight away she was new to all this. She wanted to get them away before they got completely drunk … She didn’t know what she was doing … and so the inevitable happened: in the end they got so drunk that they didn’t bother with her any more and went off and left her here … She was crying … She admitted that she had just arrived from Paris for the season and that she didn’t even have enough money to pay for a hotel room … She slept with me … She got into the habit of coming here …’

  ‘Basically,’ Maigret grumbled, ‘everyone who comes in here gets into the same habit …’

  And the old woman, beaming, replied:

  ‘What can I say? It’s the Lord’s own house! We’re easy-going here. We take each day as it comes …’

  And she meant it. Her gaze descended slowly to the young woman’s bust and she sighed:

  ‘A shame about her health … You can still see her ribs … William wanted to pay for her to have a month in a sanatorium, but she refused to go …’

  ‘Excuse me, did William … and her …’

  It was Sylvie herself who replied, angrily:

  ‘Never! It’s not true …’

  And Big Jaja explained as she sipped her coffee:

  ‘He wasn’t that sort of man … Especially not with her … That’s not to say that he didn’t occasionally …’

  ‘With whom?’

  ‘Women … Just women he picked up here and there … But it didn’t happen often … He wasn’t that interested …’

  ‘What time did he leave you on Friday?’

  ‘Straight after lunch … It must have been two o’clock, like today …’

  ‘And he didn’t say where he was going?’

  ‘He never spoke about that.’

  ‘Was Sylvie here?’

  ‘She left five minutes before him.’

  ‘To go where?’ Maigret asked the girl herself.

  And she, still suspicious, replied:

  ‘What’s it to you?’

  ‘To the harbour? … Is that where …?’

  ‘There and other places!’

  ‘Was there anyone else in the bar?’

  ‘No one … It was a hot day … I had a nap on the chair for an hour.’

  Yet William didn’t arrive back at Antibes in his car until after five o’clock!

  ‘Did he go to other bars like this one?’

  ‘No, never. Besides, there are no other bars like this one.’

  Quite so! Maigret himself, who had only been there for an hour, felt as if he had known it for ever. Maybe because there was nothing personal. Or maybe because of its relaxed, lazy ambience. You couldn’t summon up the determination to get up and leave. Time flowed by slowly. The hands of the alarm clock ticked around the pale clock face. And the rectangle of sun at the window slowly faded.

  ‘I read the papers … I didn’t even know William’s surname … But I recognized the photo … We cried, Sylvie and me … What on earth was he doing with those two women? … In our situation, you shouldn’t get involved in things like that, should you? … I expected the police to turn up at any time … When you came out of the bar across the road, I thought this might be it …’

  She spoke slowly. She topped up the drinks. She drank her alcohol in small mouthfuls.

  ‘Whoever did it was a nasty piece of work, because men like William are few and far between … And I should know!’

  ‘Did he ever talk to you about his past?’

  She gave a sigh. Hadn’t Maigret got it yet? This was the bar where nobody talked about the past!

  ‘All I can tell you is that he was a gentleman. A man who was once very rich, and perhaps still was … I don’t know … He had a yacht, a load of servants.’

  ‘Was he unhappy?’

  She sighed again.

  ‘Can’t you understand? … You’ve seen Yan … Is he unhappy? … But it’s still not the same thing … Am I unhappy? … It doesn’t mean that we don’t have a drink and talk aimlessly and feel a need to cry …’

  Sylvie gave her a censorious look. Of course, she had only been drinking coffee while Big Jaja was already on her third glass.

  ‘I’m glad you came, because now I can be shot of it … Nothing to hide, nothing t0 reproach myself about … Although with the police, you know it’s not that simple … If it had been the Cannes police, I’m sure they’d have had me locked …’

  ‘Was William a big spender?’

  Was she exasperated at her inability to make him understand how it was?

  ‘He spent money but he didn’t … He gave us cash to buy things to eat and drink … Sometimes he paid the gas or electricity bill, or else he gave Sylvie a hundred francs to buy some stockings.’

  Maigret was hungry. And there was that delicious leg of mutton just a few centimetres from his nostrils. There were two slices lying on the dish. He picked one up with his fingers and ate it as he spoke, as if he too were now one of the regulars.

  ‘Did Sylvie bring her clients back here?’

  ‘No, never! That would have got us closed down … There are plenty of hotels in Cannes for that sort of thing!’

  Looking Maigret in the eye, she added:

  ‘Do you believe it was his women who …’

  At the same moment she turned her head away. Sylvie stood up so as to see through the net curtain over the door. The outside door had been opened. Someone walked across the bar, pushed open the other door and stopped, surprised, when he saw a new face.

  Sylvie had got up. Jaja, looking a little pink in the cheeks, said to the new arrival:

  ‘Come in! This is the police inspector who is in charge of William’s case …’

  And to Maigret:

  ‘A friend … Joseph … He’s a waiter at the casino.’

  That was evident from the white shirt front and the knot of black tie that Joseph wore under a grey suit and his polished shoes.

  ‘I’ll come back …’ he said.

  ‘No, come in!’

  He didn’t look too sure.

  ‘I just dropped by to say hello … I’ve got a tip for the race …’

  ‘You bet on the horses?’ Maigret asked, half turning towards the waiter.

  ‘Now and again … Sometimes clients give me tips … I’d best be off …’

  And he beat a retreat, though not before Maigret got the impression that he gave Sylvie a sign. She sat down again. Jaja sighed:

  ‘He’ll lose again … He’s not a bad boy …’

  ‘I have to get dressed!’ said Sylvie as she stood up and noticed that most of her body was exposed by her gaping dressing gown, quite innocently, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

  She went upstairs to the mezzanine, where she could be heard coming and going. Maigret got the impression that Jaja was listening to her.

  ‘She sometimes bets on the horses too … She’s the one who has lost the most with William’s death …’

  Maigret stood up suddenly, went into the bar and opened the outside door. But he was too late. Joseph was walking away briskly, without turning round. Just then a window opened.

  ‘What’s got into you?’

  ‘Nothing … Just a thought …’

  ‘Another drink? … You know, if you like the mutton …’

  Sylvie was coming back down already; she was transformed, now unrecognizable in a navy-blue tailored suit which made her look younger. Under her white silk blouse her small trembling breasts were quite alluring, even though Maigret had already seen a fair bit of them. The skirt was tight over her narrow waist and taut buttocks. A pair of silk stockings had been pulled neatly up her legs.

  ‘See you this evening?’

  She too kissed Jaja on the forehead, then turned to M
aigret and hesitated. Did she want to leave without saying goodbye to him or did she want to hurl an insult? Either way, her look remained hostile. There was no danger of misreading her attitude.

  ‘Good day … I presume you have no further need of me?’

  She held herself quite tense. She waited a moment then set off with a determined step.

  Jaja laughed as she refilled the glasses.

  ‘Pay no attention … These girls don’t have much sense. Would you like a plate so you can try some of my salad?’

  The empty bar with its solitary front window looking out on to the street; upstairs, above the spiral staircase, the mezzanine, no doubt in a mess; the basement window and the courtyard, where the sun was slowly passing over.

  A strange world, at the centre of which Maigret found himself settled in front of the remains of a fragrant salad in the company of a large woman who seemed to be propped up on her ample bosom and who sighed:

  ‘When I was her age, we did things differently.’

  She didn’t need to explain further. He could imagine it quite well, somewhere in the vicinity of Porte Saint-Denis or Montmartre, in a gaudy silk dress, supervised through the windows of some bar by a constant companion.

  ‘These days …’

  She had had a glass or two too many. Her eyes welled up as she looked at Maigret. Her childlike mouth formed a pout that seemed to indicate impending tears.

  ‘You remind me of William … That’s where he sat … He too put his pipe down next to his plate when he ate … He had your shoulders … Do you know you look like him?’

  She managed to wipe her eyes without crying.

  4. The Gentian

  It was that ambiguous rose-tinted hour when the sultriness of the setting sun dissipates in the coolness of the approaching night. Maigret left the Liberty Bar like someone leaving a house of ill-repute: hands deep in pockets, hat pulled down over the eyes.

  Nevertheless, after a dozen or so steps, he felt the need to turn round, as if to make sure that the atmosphere he had left behind was real.

  The bar was real enough, squeezed in between two houses, with its narrow street-front, painted a hideous brown, and the letters of its sign in yellow.

  Inside the window there was a vase of flowers and, next to it, a sleeping cat.

  Jaja must be sleeping somewhere too, in the back room, alone with the alarm clock, which was counting the minutes …

  At the end of the narrow street normal life resumed: shops, people dressed in everyday clothes, cars, a tram, a policeman …

  Then, to the right, the Croisette, which at this time of day looked like one of those watercolour adverts that the Cannes tourist office puts out in luxury magazines.

  It was a mild, pleasant evening … People walking, in no hurry … Cars gliding by without a sound, as if they didn’t have an engine … And all those light yachts in the harbour …

  Maigret felt tired and sluggish, and yet he had no desire to return to Antibes. He walked around aimlessly, stopping for no particular reason, heading off again in no particular direction, as if he had left the conscious part of himself behind in Jaja’s lair, next to the cluttered table where, at lunchtime, a prim Swedish steward had sat facing Sylvie and her bare breasts.

  For ten years William Brown had spent several days a month there, in a state of warm lassitude, next to Jaja, who would start whining after a few drinks and would then go to sleep on her chair.

  ‘The gentian, of course!’

  Maigret was delighted to have found what he had been looking for for the last half-hour without even realizing it! Since he had left the Liberty Bar he had been struggling to pin it down, to strip away the surface image to get to its essence. And he had found it! He remembered what a friend had said when he had offered him an aperitif:

  ‘What will you have?’

  ‘A gentian.’

  ‘Is that a fashionable new drink?’

  ‘It’s not a fashion! It’s the drunk’s last resort, my friend! You know the gentian. It’s bitter. It’s not even that alcoholic. When you’ve drunk every strong drink under the sun for the past thirty years, it’s the only vice left: only that bitter kick has what it takes to stimulate the taste buds …’

  That was it! A place without vice, without wickedness! A bar where you went straight into the kitchen to be greeted like an old friend by Jaja!

  And you drank while she prepared the food. You went to the neighbouring butcher yourself to find a nice joint. Sylvie would come down, eyes full of sleep, half naked, and you’d kiss her on the forehead, without even looking at her meagre breasts.

  It wasn’t very clean or very light. Nobody talked much. Conversation meandered somewhat, without conviction, like the people …

  No more outside world, no bustle. Just a small rectangle of sunlight …

  Eating, drinking … Snoozing, then drinking some more while Sylvie got dressed, pulling her stockings over her legs before setting off to work …

  ‘See you later, Godfather!’

  Wasn’t it exactly the same as his friend’s gentian? Wasn’t the Liberty Bar the last port of call, when you had seen everything, tried everything by way of vices?

  Women without beauty, without charms, without desire, whom you don’t desire and kiss on the forehead while giving them a hundred francs to go and buy some stockings and then ask on their return:

  ‘How was work?’

  Maigret felt a bit oppressed by it all. He wanted to think about something else. He had stopped before the harbour, where a light mist was starting to spread out a few centimetres above the surface of the water.

  He had gone past the small boats and the racing yachts. Ten metres away, a sailor was lowering a red flag with a crescent insignia on a huge white steamship that must have belonged to some pasha or other.

  Somewhat nearer, he read the name of a forty-metre yacht picked out in gold lettering: Ardena.

  No sooner did he bring to mind the face of the Swede he had met at Jaja’s than he looked up and spotted him on the bridge, in white gloves, placing a tea tray on a rattan table.

  The owner was leaning on a handrail and chatting to two young women. When he laughed he displayed an impressive set of teeth. A three-metre-long gangplank separated the group from Maigret; the inspector shrugged his shoulders and began to climb it, and almost burst out laughing when he saw the steward’s face fall.

  There are moments like this when you take a particular step, not because it is useful as such, but just in order to do something or to avoid thinking.

  ‘Excuse me, sir …’

  The owner had stopped laughing. He stood waiting, his face turned towards Maigret, as did the two women.

  ‘A simple question, if you’d be so kind. Did you know a Monsieur Brown?’

  ‘Does he own a boat?’

  ‘He did once … William Brown …’

  Maigret was barely waiting for a reply.

  He looked at the man he had addressed, who must have been around forty-five and appeared very distinguished, standing between two women, half naked in their dresses.

  He said to himself:

  ‘Brown was like him! He too surrounded himself with beautiful, elegantly dressed women who had groomed themselves to perfection for the purpose of sexual allure! For his own amusement he took them to bars and bought champagne for everyone …’

  The man replied, in a thick accent:

  ‘If it’s the Brown I’m thinking of, he used to own that large boat at the end … The Pacific … But it’s been bought and sold at least a couple of times since then.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  The man and his two companions didn’t really understand the purpose of Maigret’s visit. They watched him walk away, and the inspector heard one of the women giggling.

  The Pacific … There were only two boats of that size in the harbour, one of which was the one with the Turkish flag.

  Only, the Pacific had an air of neglect about it. In several places the metal of the
hull was visible where the paintwork had flaked off. The copper fittings were rusted with verdigris.

  A scrawled notice on the bulwarks: ‘For Sale’.

  It was that time of day when the yacht sailors, all scrubbed up and in smart uniforms, were heading off into town in groups, like soldiers.

  When Maigret walked back past the Ardena, he could feel the three pairs of eyes on him and he suspected that the steward was scrutinizing him from some nook or cranny in the bridge.

  The streets were lit up. Maigret had a bit of difficulty finding the garage again, where he had one last matter to clear up.

  ‘What time did Brown come by on Friday to collect his car?’

  They had to ask the mechanic.

  A few minutes before five! In other words, he had just enough time to drive straight back to Cap d’Antibes.

  ‘Was he alone? Was there anyone waiting for him outside? And are you sure he wasn’t wounded?’

  William Brown had left the Liberty Bar around two o’clock. What did he do in those three hours?

  There was no need for Maigret to stay in Cannes any longer. He waited for the bus, settled himself in a corner and let his gaze drift over the procession of car headlights streaming along the main road.

  The first person he saw as he got off the bus at Place Macé was Inspector Boutigues, who was sitting on the terrace of the Café Glacier and who jumped to his feet.

  ‘We’ve been looking for you since morning! … Take a seat … What will you have? … Waiter! Two Pernods!’

  ‘Not for me! … A gentian!’ said Maigret, who wanted to find out for himself what that beverage tasted like.

  ‘I asked the taxi-drivers first of all. Since none of them had picked you up, I checked out the bus drivers. That’s how I know you went to Cannes …’

  He was talking quickly, heatedly.

  In spite of himself, Maigret looked at him with round eyes. But that didn’t stop the little inspector from ploughing on:

  ‘There are only five or six restaurants where you can get a decent meal … I phoned each of them … Where on earth did you have lunch?’

  Boutigues would have been very surprised if Maigret had told him the truth, if he had told him about the mutton and the garlic salad in Jaja’s kitchen, and the small glasses, and Sylvie …