‘It seems she was the one who called the police.’
‘Let’s go.’
At the door, Maigret turned back to grab a fresh pipe from his desk.
As Janvier drove the small black car up the Champs-Élysées in a halo of light, Maigret still had the faint smile on his lips and the twinkle in his eyes that he had woken up with and which he saw too on the lips and in the eyes of his wife.
Nevertheless, deep down he felt not exactly sad, but somewhat nostalgic. Manuel Palmari’s death would not be universally mourned. Apart from – though this was far from certain – Aline, who had lived with him for several years and whom he had picked up from the street, and a few crooks who owed him everything, most were likely to mark his passing with: ‘He had it coming.’
One day Manuel had told Maigret that he had been a choirboy too in his home village, a village so poor, he went on, that young people left it at the age of fifteen to escape from the misery. He had wandered round the docks in Toulon, where he later worked as a barman and quickly learned that women constituted a capital that could bring in a good income.
Did he have one or more crimes on his conscience? Some hinted at it, but nothing was ever proved, and then one day Palmari became the proprietor of the Clou Doré.
He thought he was cunning, and it was the case that up until the age of sixty he had ducked and dived so successfully that he had never been convicted.
True, he hadn’t managed to dodge the machine-gun bullets, but in his wheelchair, among his books and his records, his radio and his television, he still had a zest for life, and Maigret suspected he loved even more passionately and tenderly his little Aline, who called him ‘Daddy’.
‘You shouldn’t have seen the inspector, Daddy. I know the cops and they’ve always given me a hard time. This one is no better than the rest. Just you wait, one day he’ll take the information he’s got out of you and use it against you.’
She would sometimes spit on the ground between Maigret’s feet, and then strut off with her head held high, wiggling her firm little behind.
It had only been ten days since Maigret had left Rue des Acacias, and now here he was again, on his way back to the same house, in the same apartment where, standing next to the window, he had had a sudden flash of inspiration that had enabled him to piece together the crimes of the dentist opposite.
There were two cars parked outside the building. A uniformed officer was posted in front of the door and when he saw Maigret he raised his hand to his cap.
‘Fourth floor on the left,’ he murmured.
‘I know.’
The local chief inspector, a certain Clerdent, was on his feet in the living room talking to a small chubby man with very fair dishevelled hair, skin as white as a baby’s and innocent blue eyes.
‘Hello, Maigret.’
Seeing Maigret was looking at his companion and was unsure whether to hold out a hand, he added:
‘You two don’t know each other? … Detective Chief Inspector Maigret, this is Examining Magistrate Ancelin.’
‘A pleasure to meet you, inspector.’
‘The pleasure is all mine, sir. I’ve heard a lot about you, but I haven’t yet had the honour of working alongside you.’
‘I was only appointed to Paris about five months ago. I was in Lille for a long time.’
He had a falsetto voice and, despite his plumpness, seemed much younger than his age. He was more like one of those perpetual students who are in no hurry to give up their easy Left Bank lifestyles. Easy, that is, for those who have a rich daddy.
He was dressed sloppily, his jacket was too tight, his trousers too wide and baggy round the knees and his shoes could have done with a good polish. The word at the law courts was that he had six children, that he wasn’t the master of his own house, that his old car was in danger of falling to bits at any moment and that to make ends meet he lived in a low-rent apartment.
‘As soon as I had telephoned the Police Judiciaire I alerted the prosecutor’s office,’ the local chief inspector explained.
‘Has the deputy arrived?’
‘He’ll be here in a minute.’
‘Where is Aline?’
‘The girl who lived with the victim? She’s face down on the bed, crying her eyes out. There’s a cleaning woman in there taking care of her.’
‘What did she say?’
‘I didn’t manage to get much out of her and, given the state she’s in, I didn’t push it. She claims she got up at seven thirty. The cleaner only came at ten o’clock in the morning. At eight o’clock, Aline took Palmari his breakfast in bed then gave him a wash.’
Maigret knew the domestic routine here. Since the shooting that had left him an invalid, Manuel had not dared get into a bath. He stood under the shower on his one leg and Aline soaped him and then helped him put on his underwear and clothes.
‘What time did she leave?’
‘How do you know she left?’
Maigret would be sure once he had asked the two officers on guard on the street. They hadn’t telephoned him. No doubt they had been surprised to see the local chief inspector arrive, then the examining magistrate, then Maigret himself, since they were unaware of what was going on inside the building. There was something ironic in that.
‘Excuse me, gentlemen.’
A tall young man with a long face came bursting in, shook everyone’s hands and asked:
‘Where’s the body?’
‘In the room next door.’
‘Any leads?’
‘I was just telling Inspector Maigret what I know. Aline, the young woman who lived with Palmari, claims she left the building around nine o’clock, without a hat, carrying a string shopping bag.’
One of the officers downstairs would surely have followed her.
‘She went to various shops in the neighbourhood. I haven’t yet taken down a written statement, as she had trouble stringing her words together.’
‘So it was when she was out that …’
‘So she claims … She says she came back at nine fifty-five.’
Maigret looked at his watch, which said 10.50.
‘She found Palmari in the room next door. He had slipped out of his wheelchair to the floor. He was dead and had lost a lot of blood, as you will soon see.’
‘What time was it when she telephoned you? I was told that it was she who telephoned the police station.’
‘Yes, it was. It was ten fifteen.’
The deputy, Alain Druet, asked the questions while the chubby magistrate was happy just to listen, a vague smile on his lips. He too, despite struggling to feed his kids, seemed to enjoy life. Every now and again he cast a furtive glance at Maigret as if to share a certain complicity. The other two, the deputy and the local chief inspector, talked and behaved in a manner befitting conscientious public servants.
‘Has the doctor examined the body?’
‘He just popped in and out again. He says it’s impossible until we have a post-mortem to determine how many bullets Palmari received. Impossible too, without undressing him, to distinguish the entry and exit wounds. However, the bullet that went through his neck seems to have come from behind.’
So, Maigret thought, Palmari didn’t see it coming.
‘Gentlemen, shall we have a quick look before Criminal Records get here?’
Manuel’s little room looked no different, and it was flooded with sunlight. On the floor lay a body twisted into an almost absurd shape, with fine white hair stained with blood at the nape of the neck.
Maigret was surprised to see Aline Bauche standing against the curtain of one of the windows. She was wearing a light-blue linen dress that he recognized; her black hair framed her pale face, which was marked with red blotches, as though someone had struck her.
She was looking at the three men with such an expression of hatred or defiance that it seemed as if she was about to pounce on them with her claws out.
‘Well, Monsieur Maigret, I trust you’re satisfied now
?’
Then, addressing all of them:
‘So I’m not allowed to be alone with him, like any other woman who has just lost the man in her life. I expect you’re going to arrest me now, aren’t you?’
‘Do you know her?’ the examining magistrate whispered to Maigret.
‘Fairly well.’
‘Do you think she did it?’
‘They must have told you that I never think anything, sir. I’m waiting for the men from Criminal Records to come with their equipment. Would you allow me to question Aline on my own?’
‘Do you want to take her away?’
‘No, I prefer to do it here. I can tell you anything I learn straight away.’
‘When the body is removed perhaps we should seal the doors of this room.’
‘The local chief inspector will see to that, if you don’t mind.’
The magistrate still looked at Maigret with mischievous eyes. Is this how he had imagined the famous inspector? Was he disappointed?
‘I’ll give you a free hand, but keep me up to date.’
‘Come with me, Aline.’
‘Where are you taking me? Quai des Orfèvres?’
‘Not that far. To your room. Janvier, go and fetch our men who are stationed outside and all three of you wait for me in the living room.’
Aline watched the specialists invade the room with a hard stare.
‘What are they going to do with him?’
‘The usual. Photographs, fingerprints, etc. By the way, has the weapon been found?’
She pointed to a table next to the sofa where she would lie for days at a time, keeping her lover company.
‘Was it you who picked it up?’
‘I didn’t touch it.’
‘Do you recognize this automatic?’
‘As far as I know, it belongs to Manuel.’
‘Where did he keep it?’
‘In the daytime, he hid it behind the radio; at night he kept it on his bedside table.’
A Smith & Wesson .38, a professional’s gun, a merciless weapon.
‘Come, Aline.’
‘What for? I don’t know anything.’
Reluctantly, she followed him into the living room and opened the door to a very feminine bedroom, with a huge low bed like something from the movies rather than a Parisian interior. The curtains and hangings were of buttercup silk; a huge white goatskin rug covered most of the floor, and the net curtains transformed the light into golden dust.
‘I’m listening,’ she said peevishly.
‘So am I.’
‘This could take a while.’
She sank into an armchair of ivory silk. Maigret didn’t dare sit on any of the delicate chairs and wasn’t sure whether he should light his pipe.
‘I am sure that you didn’t kill him, Aline.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Don’t be sarcastic. You helped me last week.’
‘Not the cleverest thing I’ve ever done in my life. The proof of that is your two men permanently stationed on the pavement across the street. The tall one even followed me this morning.’
‘I’m just doing my job.’
‘Don’t you ever feel disgusted by it?’
‘How about a truce? Let’s just agree that I do my job and you do yours and it doesn’t matter if we end up on opposite sides of the fence.’
‘I’ve never hurt a soul.’
‘Maybe so. On the other hand, someone has just hurt Manuel irreparably.’
He could see her eyelids puff up with tears, and they seemed genuine. She blew her nose clumsily, like a little girl trying to suppress her sobs.
‘Why should …’
‘Why should what?’
‘Nothing. I don’t know. Why must he be dead? Why did they pick on him? As if he wasn’t unhappy enough with only one leg and being stuck indoors all the time.’
‘He had your company.’
‘That caused him pain too, because he was jealous, though God knows he had no reason to be.’
Maigret picked up a gold cigarette case from the dressing table, opened it and offered it to Aline. She mechanically took a cigarette.
‘You came back from your shopping trip at nine fifty-five?’
‘The inspector will confirm that.’
‘Unless you gave him the slip, as you manage to do from time to time.’
‘Not today.’
‘So there was no one you needed to contact on Manuel’s behalf, no instructions to give, no telephone call to make?’
She shrugged her shoulders and automatically wafted the smoke away.
‘Did you come up the main staircase?’
‘Why would I have used the back stairs? I’m not a servant.’
‘You went to the kitchen first of all?’
‘Yes, as I always do when I get back from the market.’
‘May I see?’
‘Open that door. It’s directly opposite in the corridor.’
He gave it just a quick glance. The cleaner was making coffee. There were vegetables strewn over the table.
‘Did you empty your string bag?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘You aren’t sure?’
‘It’s one of those things you do without thinking. Considering what happened afterwards, I have trouble remembering.’
‘Knowing you, you then went into Manuel’s room to give him a kiss.’
‘You know as well as I do what I found.’
‘What I don’t know is your exact movements.’
‘First, I think I cried out. Instinctively I rushed over to him. Then I have to admit, when I saw all this blood I recoiled in horror. I couldn’t even bring myself to give him a last kiss. Poor Daddy!’
The tears began to flow, and she didn’t think of wiping them away.
‘Did you pick up the gun?’
‘I’ve already told you I didn’t. You see! You make out you believe me, and no sooner are we alone together than you start setting nasty traps.’
‘You didn’t touch it, not even to wipe it?’
‘I didn’t touch a thing.’
‘When did the cleaner arrive?’
‘I don’t know. She uses the back stairs and never disturbs us when we are in this room.’
‘You didn’t hear her come in?’
‘You can’t hear anything from the little room.’
‘Does she sometimes arrive late?’
‘Frequently. She has a sick son whom she has to tend to before she comes here.’
‘It was ten fifteen before you rang the police station. Why was that? And why wasn’t your first thought to call a doctor?’
‘You saw the state of him, didn’t you? How many people who are alive look like that?’
‘What did you do in the twenty minutes between finding the body and making the telephone call? A word of advice, Aline. Don’t answer straight away. I know you. You have often lied to me, and I haven’t challenged you about it. I’m not sure the examining magistrate will be as well disposed as me. And he is the one who decides whether you walk free or not!’
She put on her best street-girl sneer and said:
‘That would take the biscuit! Arrest me! And people still believe in justice. Do you still believe in it, after what happened to you? Tell me, do you believe in it?’
Maigret preferred not to answer.
‘You see, Aline, those twenty minutes may be crucially important. Manuel was a cautious man. I don’t think he would have kept compromising papers or objects in this apartment, still less jewels or large sums of money.’
‘What are you getting at?’
‘Can’t you guess? Normally when you discover a body the first thing you do is call a doctor or the police.’
‘I guess I just don’t have the same reactions as normal people.’
‘You didn’t just stand there in front of the body for twenty minutes.’
‘For a while, at least.’
‘Doing nothing?’
‘I
f you must know, first of all I prayed. I know it’s stupid, since I don’t even believe in their precious God. But there are times when it all comes back to you, in spite of yourself. Whether there was any point or not, I prayed for his soul to rest in peace.’
‘And then?’
‘I walked.’
‘Where?’
‘From the little room to this room and from this room to the door of the little room. I was talking to myself. I felt like a caged animal, like a lioness who had just had her mate and her cubs taken away from her. Because he was everything to me, my husband and child rolled into one.’
She spoke passionately, striding round the room as if reconstructing her actions of the morning.
‘That all took twenty minutes?’
‘Maybe.’
‘It didn’t occur to you to inform the cleaner?’
‘I didn’t even think about her. At no point was I even aware of her presence in the kitchen.’
‘Did you leave the apartment?’
‘To go where? Ask your men.’
‘All right. Let us assume you are telling the truth.’
‘That’s exactly what I’m doing.’
She could act like a good girl on occasion. Perhaps she was good deep down and her attachment to Manuel was a sincere one. Only, as with many others, her experiences had made her bad-tempered and aggressive.
How could she believe in goodness and justice and trust people after the life she had had before she met Palmari?
‘We’re going to try a little experiment,’ Maigret muttered as he opened the door.
He called out:
‘Moers! Can you come and bring the paraffin?’
It now looked as if the apartment had been taken over by removal men, and Janvier, who had brought along Inspectors Baron and Vacher, didn’t know where to put himself.
‘Wait a moment, Janvier. Come in, Moers.’
The specialist had understood and was preparing his instruments.
‘Your hand, please, madame.’
‘Why?’
Maigret explained:
‘To establish whether or not you fired a gun this morning.’
Without batting an eyelid, she held out her right hand. Then, just in case, they repeated the experiment on the left.
‘When can you let me know the result, Moers?’
‘About ten minutes. I’ve got everything I need downstairs in the van.’
Maigret's Patience Page 2