Maigret and the Good People of Montparnasse Page 4

  ‘Did he still come here from time to time?’

  ‘He visited us discreetly, as if he were afraid of getting in our way. He made sure that everything was going well, that we were happy, and when we asked him for advice, he gave it as if he didn’t feel it was his place to do so.’

  ‘Do you know if he had any enemies?’

  ‘He had none! He wasn’t the sort of man to make enemies. Everyone loved him. Go into the offices, on to the shop floor, ask anyone what they thought of him—’

  ‘Are you married, Monsieur Jouane?’

  ‘Yes. I have three children and we live near Versailles, in a house I had built …’

  He too was a good man! Was Maigret only going to come across good people in this investigation? He was almost irritated by it because, after all, on the one hand there was a dead man, and on the other, a man who had shot René Josselin twice.

  ‘Did you often go to Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs?’

  ‘I went there four or five times altogether … No! I’m forgetting that five years ago, when Monsieur Josselin had a bad dose of flu, I would go there every morning to take him his post and receive his instructions.’

  ‘Did you ever have dinner or lunch there?’

  ‘Goulet and I had dinner there with our wives the evening we signed the contract, when Monsieur Josselin handed over the business.’

  ‘What kind of man is Goulet?’

  ‘A technician, a hard worker.’

  ‘How old?’

  ‘About the same age as me. We started work here one year apart.’

  ‘Where is he at the moment?’

  ‘On the Île de Ré, with his wife and children.’

  ‘How many does he have?’

  ‘Three, like me.’

  ‘What do you think of Madame Josselin?’

  ‘I barely know her. She seems like an excellent woman. A different kind of person from her husband.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘That she’s a bit more aloof …’

  ‘What about their daughter?’

  ‘She’d sometimes drop in to see her father at the office, but we had little contact with her.’

  ‘I presume that René Josselin’s death makes no difference to your financial arrangements?’

  ‘I haven’t considered that yet … Wait … No … There’s no reason … Instead of paying the sums due to him directly, we’ll pay them to his heirs … To Madame Josselin, I suppose.’

  ‘Are they large sums?’

  ‘It varies from one year to the next, because the arrangement includes profit sharing … In any case, there’s enough to live very well …’

  ‘Do you consider that the Josselins lived very well?’

  ‘They had a good life. They had a beautiful apartment, a car, a house in La Baule …’

  ‘But they could have lived more lavishly?’

  Jouane thought it over.

  ‘Yes … Of course …’

  ‘Was Josselin tight-fisted?’

  ‘He wouldn’t have come up with the arrangement he offered Goulet and myself if he’d been mean … No … I think he lived as he wanted to live, you know … He didn’t have extravagant tastes … He preferred peace and quiet above all.’

  ‘What about Madame Josselin?’

  ‘She likes looking after her home, her daughter, and now her grandchildren.’

  ‘How did the Josselins react to their daughter’s marriage?’

  ‘It’s difficult for me to say … All that didn’t happen here but at Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs … It’s obvious that Monsieur Josselin adored Mademoiselle Véronique and that it was hard for him to let her go … I have a daughter too … She’s twelve … I confess I dread the day when a stranger will take her from me and she’ll no longer bear my name … I suppose it’s the same for all fathers, isn’t it?’

  ‘The fact that his son-in-law was penniless …’

  ‘That’s more likely something that would have pleased him.’

  ‘What about Madame Josselin?’

  ‘I’m not so sure … The idea that her daughter was marrying the son of a postman—’

  ‘Fabre’s father is a postman …’

  ‘In Melun or in a village around there … I’m telling you what I know … Apparently he did all his degrees with the help of scholarships … They also say that, if he wanted to, he could soon be one of the youngest professors at the faculty of medicine.’

  ‘One more question, Monsieur Jouane. I fear it may shock you after what you have just told me. Did Monsieur Josselin have one or several mistresses? Was he a skirt chaser?’

  Just as Jouane opened his mouth, Maigret interrupted him.

  ‘I imagine that since getting married, you have occasionally slept with a woman other than your wife?’

  ‘I’ve had occasion to, yes. While avoiding any kind of relationship. You understand what I mean? I wouldn’t want to jeopardize our family life.’

  ‘There are a lot of young women working all around you—’

  ‘Not them. Never. It’s a matter of principle. Besides, it would be risky.’

  ‘Thank you for your honesty. You consider yourself to be a normal man. René Josselin was a normal man too. He married late, at around thirty-five …’

  ‘I understand what you mean … I’m trying to visualize Monsieur Josselin in that situation … but I can’t … I don’t know why … I know he was a man like any other … but even so …’

  ‘You weren’t aware of him having any affairs?’

  ‘No … I never saw him ogling any of our women workers either, even though some of them are very pretty … Some must even have tried it on, as they did with me … No, inspector, I don’t think you’ll find anything of that nature.’

  Abruptly he asked:

  ‘How come there’s nothing about it in the newspapers?’

  ‘The press will be reporting it this afternoon.’

  Maigret rose with a sigh.

  ‘Thank you, Monsieur Jouane. If you remember any little detail that might be helpful, telephone me.’

  ‘As far as I’m concerned, it’s an inexplicable crime …’

  Maigret almost grunted:

  ‘For me too.’

  Except that he knew that there weren’t any inexplicable crimes. People don’t kill without a strong reason.

  And, pushed a little further, he might have added:

  ‘People don’t just kill randomly.’

  Because his experience had taught him that some individuals are destined to be victims.

  ‘Do you know when the funeral will be?’

  ‘The body will be returned to the family only after the autopsy.’

  ‘Has that not taken place yet?’

  ‘It’s probably underway as we speak.’

  ‘I must telephone Goulet right away … He’s not due back until next week.’

  Maigret gave a little wave to the girl in her glass cage, wondering why she stifled a giggle as she watched him walk past.

  3.

  The street was quiet, provincial, with one side in the sun and the other in the shade. Two dogs were sniffing each other in the middle of the road, and through the open windows women could be seen going about their housework. Three Little Sisters of the Poor, with their wide skirts and the wings of their cornettes fluttering like birds, were walking in the direction of the Luxembourg Gardens and Maigret watched them from a distance, his mind a blank. Then he frowned on spotting a uniformed police officer trying to fend off half a dozen reporters and photographers outside the Josselins’ apartment building.

  He was used to it and shouldn’t have been surprised. He had just told Jouane that the afternoon papers were bound to report on the case. René Josselin had been murdered and people who have been murdered automatically become public property. In a few hours’ time, every detail of a family’s private life, true or false, would be laid bare, and everyone would be entitled to speculate. Why all of a sudden did this shock him? He was annoyed with himsel
f for being shocked. He felt as if he had been sucked into the bourgeois, almost edifying, atmosphere that surrounded those people, ‘good people’, so everyone kept telling him.

  The photographers snapped away as he stepped out of the taxi and the reporters crowded round him while he paid the driver.

  ‘What’s your opinion, inspector?’

  He brushed them aside, muttering:

  ‘When I have something to tell you, I’ll call you. There are women grieving up there and it would be more considerate to leave them in peace.’

  But he himself was not going to leave them in peace. He greeted the uniformed officer and went inside the building, which he was seeing in daylight for the first time. It was very cheerful, very bright.

  He was about to walk past the concierge’s lodge, with its white net curtain hanging on the inside of the glazed door, but he changed his mind, rapped on the glass and turned the knob.

  The lodge consisted of a small living room with polished furniture and was typical of the sort that are attached to apartment buildings in affluent neighbourhoods. A voice asked:

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector Maigret.’

  ‘Come in, inspector.’

  The voice hailed from a kitchen with white walls where the concierge, her arms bare to the elbows and a white pinafore over her black dress, was busy sterilizing feeding bottles.

  She was young and affable, and her figure still had the soft plumpness of her recent pregnancy. Pointing to a door, she said quietly:

  ‘Not too loud, my husband’s asleep.’

  Maigret recalled that the husband was a police officer and that he’d been on duty the night before.

  ‘I’ve been besieged by reporters all morning, and some of them went upstairs when I had my back turned. My husband ended up informing the police station and they sent one of his colleagues over.’

  The baby was asleep in a wicker cradle trimmed with yellow flounces.

  ‘Have you any news?’ she asked.

  He shook his head.

  ‘I suppose you’re certain, aren’t you?’ he asked quietly. ‘No one went out last night after Doctor Fabre had left?’

  ‘No one, inspector. As I said again earlier to one of your men, a fat officer with a ruddy face, Inspector Torrence, I think. He spent over an hour in the building, questioning the residents. Not many of them are here at the moment. Some are still on holiday. The Tuplers aren’t back from America. The place is half empty.’

  ‘How long have you been working here?’

  ‘Six years. I took over from one of my aunts, who’d been the concierge for forty years.’

  ‘Did the Josselins entertain a lot?’

  ‘Very rarely. They’re quiet people, pleasant to everyone, and they live a very routine life. Doctor Larue and his wife came to dinner from time to time. And the Josselins would go over to them for dinner too.’

  Like the Maigrets and the Pardons. Maigret wondered whether they too had a set day.

  ‘In the morning, at around nine, while Madame Manu did the cleaning, Monsieur Josselin would go out for his walk. He was so regular that I could have set the clock by him. He’d pop into the lodge, say something about the weather and pick up his post. After glancing at the envelopes, he’d slip them into his pocket and then he’d slowly make his way to the Luxembourg Gardens. He always walked at the same gentle pace.’

  ‘Did he receive a lot of post?’

  ‘Not a lot. Later, at around ten, while he was still out, his wife would come down, all dressed up, even to go shopping. I’ve never seen her go out without a hat.’

  ‘What time did her husband return home?’

  ‘It depended on the weather. If it was sunny, not before eleven thirty or twelve. When it rained, he didn’t stay out so long, but he still went for his walk.’

  ‘What about the afternoons?’

  She had finished replacing the tops on the bottles, which she put away in the refrigerator.

  ‘The two of them would go out together, but no more than once or twice a week. Madame Fabre also visited them. Before the birth of her second child, she sometimes brought the eldest one with her.’

  ‘Has she always got on well with her mother?’

  ‘Yes, I think so. They often go to the theatre together, as they did yesterday.’

  ‘Recently, have you noticed any letters in a different handwriting from the usual correspondence?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And no one called on Monsieur Josselin when he was at home alone, for example?’

  ‘No. I was thinking about all that during the night because I was expecting you to ask me those questions. You see, inspector, they are people about whom there is nothing to tell …’

  ‘Did they socialize with any of the other residents?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge. In Paris, it’s rare for the residents of an apartment building to know one another, except in the working-class districts. Everyone lives their life unaware of their next-door neighbours.’

  ‘Has Madame Fabre returned?’

  ‘A few minutes ago.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  The lift stopped at the third floor where there were two doors. In front of each one was a large doormat with a red border. He rang the left-hand bell, heard muffled footsteps and, after a brief hesitation, the door opened a crack, allowing only a sliver of light through, because the chain had not been taken off.

  ‘What is it?’ asked an unfriendly voice.

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector Maigret.’

  A face with strong features, belonging to a woman in her fifties, peered out to look the visitor up and down suspiciously.

  ‘All right! I believe you! There were so many reporters this morning …’

  She took off the chain and Maigret saw the apartment as it normally was, with every object in its place, and sunshine streaming in through the two windows.

  ‘If it’s Madame Josselin you wish to see …’

  He had been shown into the drawing room, where there was no trace of the previous night’s events or mess. A door opened immediately and Véronique, wearing a navy-blue suit, took two steps into the room.

  She was visibly tired, and Maigret noticed a slight hesitation, a searching, in her eyes. When her gaze rested on an object or on her visitor’s face, it seemed to be looking for a support, or the answer to a question.

  ‘You haven’t found anything?’ she murmured despondently.

  ‘How is your mother?’

  ‘I have only just come back. I went to see my children and to change my clothes. I think I told you over the telephone. I don’t remember. I’m losing track. Mother slept. When she woke up, she didn’t speak. She drank a cup of coffee but refused to eat. I wanted her to stay in bed, but I couldn’t persuade her and now she’s getting dressed.’

  She looked about her again, avoiding the armchair where her father had died. The chess game was no longer on the pedestal table. A half-smoked cigar, which Maigret had noticed the previous night, had disappeared.

  ‘Your mother said absolutely nothing?’

  ‘She only answers yes or no. She’s perfectly lucid. It seems she’s only got one thing on her mind. Is it her that you came to see?’

  ‘If possible …’

  ‘She’ll be ready in a few minutes. Don’t push her too much, I beg of you. Everyone takes her for a calm woman, because she’s always so self-possessed. But I know that she is obsessively anxious. Only she doesn’t show it.’

  ‘Have you often seen her in the grip of a powerful emotion?’

  ‘It depends what you call powerful. When I was a child, for example, I would sometimes exasperate her, as all children can exasperate their parents. Instead of slapping me, or getting angry, she’d turn pale and seem unable to speak. At those times, almost always, she’d lock herself in her room and that really frightened me.’

  ‘What about your father?’

  ‘My father never lost his temper. His response was to smile
as if making fun of me.’

  ‘Is your husband at the hospital?’

  ‘Since seven o’clock this morning. I left my children with the maid because I didn’t want to risk bringing them with me. I don’t know what we’re going to do. I don’t like leaving mother alone in the apartment. There’s no room at our place, and besides, she’d refuse to come.’

  ‘Couldn’t the cleaner, Madame Manu, spend the night here?’

  ‘No! She has a grown-up son of twenty-four who’s even more demanding than a husband and gets angry whenever she dares return home late … We’ll have to find someone, perhaps a nurse … Mother will make a fuss … Of course, I’ll spend as much time here as I can …’

  Although she had regular features and reddish-blonde hair, she wasn’t particularly attractive because she lacked any spark.

  ‘I think I can hear mother …’

  The door opened and Maigret was surprised to see before him a woman who still appeared very youthful. He knew that she was fifteen years younger than her husband, but he had still expected to see a grandmotherly figure.

  Yet her body, in a very simple black dress, was more girlish than her daughter’s. She had chestnut hair and bright, almost black eyes. Despite the tragedy, despite her state, she was impeccably made up and nothing in her appearance was out of place.

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector Maigret,’ he introduced himself.

  She fluttered her eyelashes, gazed about her and ended up looking at Véronique, who immediately mumbled:

  ‘Would you rather I left the room?’

  Maigret said neither yes nor no. The mother didn’t stop her. Véronique slipped noiselessly out of the room. All the comings and goings in the apartment were muffled by the thick carpeting on which antique rugs were scattered.

  ‘Do sit down,’ said René Josselin’s widow, who remained standing beside her husband’s armchair.

  Maigret hesitated and finally took a seat. Madame Josselin went over and sat in her armchair beside the sewing cabinet. She refrained from leaning against the chair back, holding herself bolt upright as convent-educated women do. Her lips were thin, probably because of her age, and her hands were slender but still beautiful.