Félicie Page 6

  ‘I think that I’d like to get away from here,’ says Félicie as she turns off the gas.

  ‘Where would you go?’

  ‘Anywhere. I’ve no idea. Yes. I’ll go away, and no one will ever find me. I was wrong to come back.’

  ‘You won’t leave.’

  Through gritted teeth she murmurs too quietly for him to know if he had heard her correctly:

  ‘We’ll see!’

  On the off-chance he says:

  ‘If you’re thinking of catching up with young Pétillon, I can tell you now that at this moment he’s in a brasserie full of women in Rouen.’

  ‘That’s not …’ She corrects herself quickly: ‘What’s that got to do with me?’

  ‘Is it him?’

  ‘What? What are you getting at?’

  ‘Is he your lover?’

  She laughs derisively.

  ‘A boy who’s not twenty?’

  ‘Be that as it may, Félicie, but if he’s really the one you’re trying to shield …’

  ‘I’m not trying to shield anyone … That’s enough! I’m not answering any more questions. You’ve no right to be hanging round here all day, pestering me. I’ll complain.’

  ‘Be my guest!’

  ‘You think you’re so clever, don’t you. And you’ve got the upper hand! So you pick on a poor girl because you know she can’t defend herself.’

  He puts his hat on his head and, despite the rain, reaches the front door, intending to go back to the Anneau d’Or. He doesn’t even say goodbye. He’s had enough. He’s got it wrong. He’s going to have to go back to square one and restart the inquiry on another tack.

  Too bad if he gets soaked to the skin! As he takes a step forwards, Félicie comes running.

  ‘Don’t go!’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You know why. Don’t go. I’m afraid of the storm …’

  It’s quite true. For once, she is not lying. She is shaking all over, she begs him to stay, she is really grateful when he goes back into the kitchen, sits down – in a bad mood, certainly – but down he sits nevertheless, and by way of thanks she wastes no time in asking:

  ‘Would you like a cup of coffee? Do you want me to pour you a little glass of something?’

  She tries to smile and, as she puts the glass down in front of him, she repeats:

  ‘Why are you being so hard on me? What have I ever done to you?’

  4. The Shot from the Taxi

  Maigret is walking along Rue Pigalle at a leisurely pace, with his hands in the pockets of his overcoat, because it’s after midnight, and the storm has brought down the temperature. There are still patches of damp on the pavements. Beneath the illuminated signs, nightclub doormen soon spot him as he passes. Customers standing around the horseshoe counter in the bar-cum-tobacconist’s on the corner of Rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette eye each other questioningly. An outsider would notice nothing. But from one end to the other of Montmartre, which depends for its existence on nocturnal revellers, there is an imperceptible ripple, like the cat’s-paw on the surface of a pond which gives notice of the approaching squall.

  Maigret is all too aware of it and is content. Here, at least, he does not have to deal with a young woman who sobs and fights him all the way. As he passes, he recognizes various characters and guesses that the word is being passed from mouth to mouth, even in the dance-hall cloakrooms, where the old crones who preside over them, alerted to the danger, quickly hide small packets of cocaine.

  The Pelican is just here, on the left, with its blue neon sign and its black bouncer. Someone steps out of the shadow, falls into step with the inspector and says in a quiet voice:

  ‘Am I glad to see you!’

  It’s Janvier, who explains with a casual air of indifference which some might mistake for cynicism but is not as deep-seated as it sounds:

  ‘No problems, sir. There was just one thing I was afraid of, that he’d sit at a table by himself to eat. He’s shattered.’

  The two men linger on the kerb as if enjoying the coolness after the rain and Maigret refills his pipe.

  ‘Since Rouen, he’s been at the end of his tether. While we were waiting for the train in the buffet I kept thinking he was about to rush me for the big showdown. He’s just a kid wet behind the ears.’

  Maigret misses nothing of what is happening around him. Because he is standing there, on the kerb, how many people who do not have clear consciences have been discreetly giving him a wide berth or concealing items of a compromising nature?

  ‘On the train, he more or less passed out. When we got to Saint-Lazare station, he didn’t know what to do, though maybe he was also a little drunk, because he’s had a lot to drink since yesterday. In the end he went home to Rue Lepic. He probably freshened up and put on his dinner jacket. He toyed with his food in a cheap eating house in Place Blanche and then came to work … Are you going in? Do you need me any more?’

  ‘You get yourself off home to bed, Janvier.’

  If Maigret should need anyone, he had left a couple of duty officers back at Quai des Orfèvres.

  ‘Let’s get on with it!’ he sighed.

  He walks into the Pelican, gives a shrug when he sees the black doorman who busies around and thinks he must smile from ear to ear. He decides not to leave his overcoat with the crone in the cloakroom. Jazz music reaches him through the velvet curtains which mask the entrance to the hall. A small bar on the left. Two women who yawn, a spoilt rich kid, already drunk, and the owner of the establishment who comes running.

  ‘Evening,’ the inspector growls.

  The owner of the joint looks worried.

  ‘Say, this isn’t about anything serious, is it?’

  ‘No. Nothing like that.’

  He brushes the man aside and sits down in a corner not far from the musicians’ dais.

  ‘Whisky?’

  ‘A beer.’

  ‘But you know we don’t keep beer.’

  ‘Brandy and water, then.’

  Around him, it’s obvious the place has seen better days. Maigret is hard put to pick out any paying customers. Are there any at all in this narrow room, where dim lights cast a reddish glow which changes to purple when the band plays a tango? Hostesses. Now that they know who the new customer is, they don’t bother dancing with each other and one of them catches up with her embroidery.

  On the dais, Pétillon looks even thinner and younger in his dinner jacket than he really is. He is pasty-faced under the long, fair hair, his eyelids are red with exhaustion and tension, and, try as he might, he cannot take his eyes off the inspector, who just sits there and waits.

  Janvier was right: he’s a pushover. There are unmistakeable signs that show that a man is out on his feet, that his wheels have come off, that his head’s in a spin, that there’s only one thing he wants: to have done with it, to get it all off his chest. The sense of it is so palpable that for a moment it seems likely that Jacques Pétillon will lay down his sax and rush across the room to Maigret.

  A man at such a pitch of fear is not a pretty sight. Maigret has seen it before, there have even been times when he himself has carefully gingered up certain interviews with suspects – some lasting twenty-four hours or more – to bring his man, or rather his patient, to this same point of physical and mental collapse.

  This time, it’s been none of his doing. He never thought there was anything in the Pétillon angle. He has no sense that it would lead anywhere. He paid it little attention, being mesmerized by the strange phenomenon that is Félicie, whom he cannot get out of his
mind.

  He tastes his drink. Pétillon must be astonished to see him behaving so casually. His hands with their long, slim fingers, are shaking. The other members of the band throw him furtive glances.

  What had he spent those forty-eight hours of sheer madness looking for so desperately? What hopes had he been clinging to? Whom had he been hoping to find in those cafés and bars where he had gone one after the other, his eyes fervently fixed on the door, finding only disappointment, walking out, searching elsewhere, eventually heading out to Rouen, where he made straight for a bar known for its girls in the garrison part of town?

  He is totally drained. Even if Maigret were not there, he would turn himself in of his own accord; he would be seen stumbling up the dusty staircase of police headquarters and asking to talk to someone.

  Ah! Here we go! The band takes a short break. The accordionist drifts towards the bar for a drink. The others talk among themselves in whispers. Pétillon hooks his instrument on to its stand then goes down the two steps.

  ‘I must talk to you …’ he stammers.

  The inspector replies in a very gentle voice:

  ‘I know, boy.’

  Is this the right place? Maigret runs his eyes over their surroundings, which make him feel nauseous. There’s nothing to be gained by making a spectacle of the boy – he’ll probably start blubbing at any moment

  ‘Not thirsty?’

  Pétillon shakes his head.

  ‘In that case, let’s go …’

  Maigret pays for his drink, although the club’s owner rushes forwards to say it’s on the house.

  ‘Look … I think you’re going to have to do without your saxophone-player tonight. We’re both going out for a breather … Pétillon, get your hat and coat.’

  ‘I haven’t got a coat.’

  They’re hardly outside on the pavement before he takes a deep breath and dives in:

  ‘Listen, inspector … It’s best if I tell you everything … I can’t go on like this …’

  He is all of a tremble. He must be seeing the lights in the street dancing all round him. The owner of the Pelican and the black doorman watch them go.

  ‘In your own time, boy …’

  He’ll take him back to headquarters; it’s the simplest way. How many investigations have ended in Maigret’s office at this time of night, when the entire Police Judiciaire building is deserted, a single officer stands guard at the main entrance and the lamp with the green shade casts a strange light on the man who has cracked.

  This one is just a kid. Maigret feels peevish. Really! In this case he has such sub-standard opponents to deal with!

  ‘In here.’

  He steers him into a brasserie in Place Pigalle. He needs a beer before he hails a taxi.

  ‘What are you having?’

  ‘I don’t care … I swear, inspector, I never …’

  ‘Of course you didn’t. You can tell me all about it soon enough … Two beers, waiter!’

  He gives a shrug. Two more customers who recognize him and prefer to abandon their onion soup and clear out. Another goes into the call-box, where, through the diamond-shaped window, he can be seen hunched over the public phone.

  ‘Are you sleeping with her?’

  ‘Who?’

  Aha! The kid is genuinely amazed: there are inflections in his voice which are unmistakeable.

  ‘Félicie.’

  And Pétillon repeats, like someone who has never ever thought of such a thing and does not understand:

  ‘Me? Sleep with Félicie?’

  He’s all at sea. He was about to launch into a dramatic confession, and now this man who holds his fate in his hands, this Maigret who unleashed a whole pack of plainclothes officers on his trail, is talking about his uncle’s housekeeper!

  ‘I swear, inspector …’

  ‘Good … Come on, let’s go …’

  They are being overheard. Two small women, pretending to powder their noses. There’s nothing to be gained by providing the floor show.

  They are now outside again. A few metres away, in the darkness of Place Pigalle, a line of cabs is waiting, and Maigret is about to hail one; he already has his arm up. Not far away, on a corner of the street, a uniformed policeman is looking vaguely around him.

  At that exact moment, a shot rings out. The inspector has the impression that there is a second shot almost at the same instant as the first, and a taxi revs and drives off towards Boulevard Rochechouart.

  It all happens so quickly that it takes him a second or two to notice that the man at his side is clutching his chest, though he stays on his feet, swaying, reaching out with his other hand for something to hang on to. Mechanically he asks:

  ‘Are you hit?’

  The policeman is running towards the line of cabs. He gets into the driving seat of one of them, and it roars into life. A public-spirited driver jumps on to the running board.

  Pétillon falls to the ground, his hand pressed to the front of his dress shirt. He tries to call out, but the only sound he makes is a peculiar and ridiculously feeble croak.

  The next morning, the papers publish only a brief paragraph:

  Late last night, in Place Pigalle, a jazz musician named as Jacques P … was hit in the chest by a bullet fired by an unknown assailant, who got away in a taxi. A manhunt was set up immediately but all efforts to apprehend the armed aggressor proved fruitless.

  It is thought that the affair involved a settling of accounts or a crime of passion.

  The victim, who is in a critical condition, was taken to Beaujon Hospital. The police are pursuing their inquiries.

  This is incorrect. The police do not always issue factually accurate statements to the press. But it is true that Jacques Pétillon is in Beaujon Hospital. It is also true that his condition is serious, so serious that it is not sure that he will live. His left lung was punctured by a large-calibre bullet.

  The manhunt is another invention. When he arrives in the office of the commissioner of the Police Judiciaire to give his morning report, Maigret speaks bitterly:

  ‘It was all my fault, sir. I felt like a beer. I also wanted the kid to pull himself together a bit before coming here with me. He was ready to snap. He’d been led a merry dance all day. But I was wrong, obviously …

  ‘But I’ll say one thing: whoever it was who took advantage of this situation wasn’t born yesterday …

  ‘When I heard the shot, my first thought was to look after the boy. I let the uniformed officer lead the pursuit. You’ve read his report? The taxi led him at high speed to the other end of Paris, to Place d’Italie, where it pulled up suddenly. There was no passenger inside.

  ‘We’ve arrested the taxi-driver, despite his protests. All the same, I’ve been well and truly had …’

  He runs a furious eye over the statement made by the taxi-driver after he was interviewed:

  I was parked up in Place Pigalle when a man I never saw before offered me 200 francs to play a trick on one of his friends, his very words … He was going to let off a cracker – that’s the actual word he used – and, when I heard it go bang, all I was to do was take off as fast as I could and drive all the way to Place d’Italie …

  Which sounds rather too unvarnished coming from a cabbie who works nights! But it will be difficult to prove that he’s lying.

  I didn’t get much of a look at the man, who was standing in shadow by the bushes round the fountain, holding his head down. He was broad in the shoulder and wore a dark suit and a grey hat.

  A description wh
ich could apply to any number of men!

  ‘This is one shambles that I won’t forget in a hurry, I can assure you,’ growls Maigret. ‘Whoever thought up a stunt like that is … He crouches between two taxis or in a patch of shadow. He fires. At the same moment the taxi drives off, and naturally everybody assumes the assassin is in it, and someone sets off in pursuit, while our man has had all the time in the world to make his escape or even to blend in with the crowd … The other taxi-drivers who were parked there have been questioned. None of them saw anything. One, an old hand I’ve known for years, thinks he saw a figure walking round the fountain.’

  Imagine! The saxophone player was ready to talk, in a mood to tell everything even when he was still in the Pelican, and Maigret was responsible for not letting him speak! Now, God only knows when he’ll be fit for questioning, if, that is, he ever will be.

  ‘What are you planning to do now?’

  There is the classic approach. The attempted murder took place in Montmartre, within a defined perimeter. Fifty or so people to interview, all already known to the police, who just happened to be in the area, in fact all those who reacted liked crabs in a basket when news of the presence of Detective Chief Inspector Maigret went the rounds of Rue Pigalle.

  Of that number a few are not snow-white lambs. By pushing them, by threatening them and looking more closely into their petty dealings, it is possible to extract information from them.

  ‘I’ll get a couple of men on it, sir. Meanwhile, I …’

  There is nothing for it: he is irresistibly drawn elsewhere. As he has been from the start, from the very first day he set foot in that cardboard cut-out world of Jeanneville.

  Shouldn’t his reluctance to put a distance between himself and Cape Horn and the erratic Félicie have been a kind of warning?

  Events had proved him wrong. All the indications now are that it is around Place Pigalle that the search for the truth about the death of old Lapie should be centred.