She frowned, anxious to explain herself.
‘Without what happened in Courbevoie, we would not have come here. There, people thought highly of Joseph. They have more modern ideas, you understand? He was doing well. He had a future.’
‘And you?’
‘It was the same for me. He helped me, advised me. Then, one day, it was as if I’d gone crazy. I still wonder what possessed me. I didn’t want to. I struggled against it. I swore to myself that I would never do such a thing. Then, when Charles was there …’
She blushed again, stammering, as if she were offending Maigret himself by speaking of the man.
‘Please excuse me … When he was there, I could not resist. I don’t think it was love, since I love Joseph and always have. I was seized by a kind of fever and no longer thought of anything else, not even our son, who was quite young. I would have left him, inspector. I really thought about leaving them both, going away, anywhere … Do you understand that?’
He did not dare tell her that she had probably never felt sexual pleasure with her husband and that hers was a common story. She needed to believe that her affair was extraordinary, needed to fret, to repent, to call herself the lowest of women.
‘Are you a Catholic, Madame Gastin?’
That was another sensitive point.
‘I was, like my parents, before I met Joseph. He believes only in science and progress. He hates priests.’
‘You stopped practising your faith?’
‘Yes.’
‘Since that happened, you haven’t returned to the Church?’
‘I couldn’t. I feel it would be betraying him again. Anyway, what would be the point! The first years here, I hoped we would begin a new life. People watched us warily, as always in the countryside. Still, I was convinced that one day they would notice my husband’s fine qualities. Then, I don’t know how, they found out what happened in Courbevoie, and even the pupils stopped showing him any respect. When I tell you that it’s all my fault …’
‘Did your husband have any arguments with Léonie Birard?’
‘On occasion. Because he was the village hall secretary. She was a woman who always stirred up trouble. There were questions about some benefits that had to be resolved. Joseph is strict. He feels duty bound and won’t certify something that isn’t true.’
‘Did she know what had happened to you?’
‘Like everyone else.’
‘She stuck her tongue out at you, too?’
‘And shouted rude things at me when I walked by her house. I avoided going that way. Not only did she stick out her tongue at me, but sometimes, when she saw me at the window, she turned around and pulled up her skirts. Please excuse me. That an old woman would do that seems almost unbelievable. She was like that. But Joseph would never have thought of killing her for it. He wouldn’t have killed anyone. You’ve seen him. He’s a gentle man, who would like the whole world to be happy.’
‘Tell me about your son.’
‘What do you want me to say? He’s like his father. He’s a quiet boy, studious, very advanced for his age. If he isn’t top of his class, it’s because people would accuse my husband of favouring his son. Joseph gives him grades lower than he deserves, on purpose.’
‘The boy doesn’t rebel?’
‘He understands. We’ve explained to him why we must do it.’
‘Does he know about the business in Courbevoie?’
‘We’ve never spoken to him about it. But his classmates wouldn’t pass up a chance like that. He pretends not to know anything.’
‘Does he ever play with the others?’
‘In the beginning, yes. For two years now, since the village has come out openly against us, he prefers to stay at home. He reads a lot. I’m giving him piano lessons. He already plays quite well for his age.’
The window was closed, and Maigret was beginning to feel stifled, wondering if he hadn’t suddenly been trapped in some old photo album.
‘Your husband came over here on Tuesday morning shortly after ten?’
‘Yes. I think so. They’ve ask me that question so many times, in every possible way, as if they wanted at all costs to get me to contradict myself, that I’m no longer sure of anything. Usually, during playtime, he comes to the kitchen for a moment and pours himself a cup of coffee. I’m almost always upstairs at that time.’
‘He doesn’t drink wine?’
‘Never. He doesn’t smoke, either.’
‘On Tuesday, did he come in during playtime?’
‘He says no. I said no, too, because he never lies. Then they claimed that he did come in later.’
‘You denied this?’
‘I was speaking in good faith, Monsieur Maigret. A while later, I remembered having found his empty coffee bowl on the kitchen table. I don’t know whether he came in during playtime or afterwards.’
‘Could he have gone to the tool shed without you seeing him?’
‘The room where I was, upstairs, has no window on the garden side.’
‘Could you see Léonie Birard’s house?’
‘If I had looked, yes.’
‘Didn’t you hear the shot?’
‘I didn’t hear anything. The window was closed. I’ve become very sensitive to the cold. I’ve always had that tendency. And during playtimes I close the windows, even in the summer, because of the noise.’
‘You told me that the people here don’t like your husband. I’d like to clarify this point. Is there anyone, in the village, who particularly dislikes your husband?’
‘Certainly. The deputy mayor.’
‘Théo?’
‘Théo Coumart, yes, who lives right behind us. Our gardens are next to each other. Every morning he starts drinking white wine in his storeroom, where he always has a barrel on tap. After ten or eleven, he’s at Louis’ place and he keeps drinking into the evening.’
‘Doesn’t he do anything?’
‘His parents owned a large farm. Him, he’s never worked in his life. One afternoon when Joseph was in La Rochelle with Jean-Paul, last winter, Théo came into the house at around half past four. I was upstairs changing. I heard heavy footsteps on the stairs. It was Théo. He was drunk. He pushed open the bedroom door and started to laugh. Then, right away, as if he were in a brothel, he tried to push me back on to the bed. I clawed him in the face, leaving a long scratch on his nose. It bled. He began cursing, shouting that a woman like me had no right to play hard to get. I opened the window, threatening to call for help. I was in my slip. In the end he went away, mostly, I think, because of the blood running down his face. Since then he has never spoken to me.
‘He’s the one who controls the village. The mayor, Monsieur Rateau, is a mussel-farmer who has no time to spare from his business and only shows up at the village hall on council days.
‘Théo runs the elections as he likes, does favours, always ready to sign any old paper …’
‘Do you happen to know if he was in his garden on Tuesday morning, as he claims?’
‘If he says so, it’s probably true, because others must have seen him. Although, if he asked them to lie in his favour, it’s true that they wouldn’t hesitate to do so.’
‘Would it bother you if I had a little chat with your son?’
She rose, resigned, and opened the door.
‘Jean-Paul! Will you come down?’
‘Why?’ said the voice upstairs.
‘Inspector Maigret would like a word with you.’
Hesitant footsteps were heard. The boy appeared, a book in hand, staying mistrustfully in the doorway at first.
‘Come in, my boy. I assume that you’re not afraid of me?’
‘I’m not afraid of anyone.’
He spoke in almost the same muffled voice as his mother.
‘Were you in school on Tuesday morning?’
Jean-Paul looked at the inspector, then at his mother, as if wondering if he ought to answer even such an innocent question.
‘You may sp
eak, Jean-Paul. The inspector is on our side.’
Her look seemed to apologize to Maigret for that affirmation. Even then, the child simply answered with a nod.
‘What happened after playtime?’
Still the same silence. Maigret was becoming a monument of patience.
‘I assume you want your father to get out of prison and the real culprit to be arrested?’
The thick lenses of the boy’s glasses made it hard to judge the look in his eyes. He did not turn away, on the contrary: he stared his questioner full in the face, without a flicker of movement in his thin features.
‘For the moment,’ continued the inspector, ‘I know only what these people say. A small fact, seemingly unimportant, can put me on the track of something. How many pupils are there at school?’
‘Answer, Jean-Paul.’
‘Thirty-two in all,’ he replied grudgingly.
‘What do you mean by “in all”?’
‘The older and the younger ones. Everyone on the register.’
‘There are always absentees,’ explained his mother. ‘Sometimes, especially in the spring, there are only fifteen or so, and we can’t always send gendarmes to see the parents.’
‘Do you have any chums?’
‘No,’ he said curtly.
‘There isn’t a single one, among the village children, who is your friend?’
At that, seeming to defy the inspector, he announced:
‘I’m the teacher’s son.’
‘Is that why they don’t like you?’
He did not reply.
‘What do you do during playtime?’
‘Nothing.’
‘You don’t come to see your mother?’
‘No.’
‘Why?’
‘Because my father doesn’t want that.’
Madame Gastin explained again.
‘He doesn’t want to make any distinction between his son and the others. If Jean-Paul came here during the playtimes, there would be no reason why the village officer’s son or the butcher’s, for example, could not cross the road to go home.’
‘I understand. Do you remember what your father did, on Tuesday, during playtime?’
‘No.’
‘Doesn’t he monitor the children?’
‘Yes.’
‘He stands in the middle of the courtyard?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘He didn’t come to this house?’
‘I don’t know.’
Maigret had rarely questioned anyone so recalcitrant. If he had had an adult in front of him, he would probably have lost his temper, and, sensing that, Madame Gastin stayed near her son to protect him, placing her hand on his shoulder in a conciliatory gesture.
‘Answer the inspector politely, Jean-Paul.’
‘I’m not being rude.’
‘At ten o’clock, you all returned to the classroom. Did your father go to the blackboard?’
Through the curtains at the window, he saw a section of that blackboard, with words written in chalk, in the building across the way.
‘Perhaps.’
‘It was a class in what subject?’
‘Grammar.’
‘Did anyone knock at the door?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘You’re not sure? Didn’t you see your father leave?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Listen to me. When the teacher leaves the class, the pupils usually start getting up, talking, clowning around.’
Jean-Paul kept quiet.
‘What happened on Tuesday?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘You didn’t leave the classroom?’
‘Why?’
‘You might, for example, have gone to the toilet. I see that it is in the courtyard.’
‘I didn’t go there.’
‘Who went over to the windows?’
‘I don’t know.’
Now Maigret was on his feet, and, in his pockets, his fists were clenched.
‘Listen to me …’
‘I don’t know anything. I didn’t see anything. I have nothing to tell you.’
Suddenly the boy left the room and went upstairs, where they heard him close a door.
‘You mustn’t be angry at him, inspector. Put yourself in his place. Yesterday the lieutenant questioned him for an hour, and when my son came home, he didn’t say a single word to me but went to lie down on his bed, where he stayed until it was dark, with his eyes wide open.’
‘Does he love his father?’
She did not understand the precise point of the question.
‘What I mean is: does he have a special affection or admiration for his father? Or else, for example, does he prefer you? Does he confide in you, or in him?’
‘He confides in no one. He certainly prefers me to his father.’
‘How did he react when they accused your husband?’
‘He was just as you’ve seen him here.’
‘He did not cry?’
‘I have not seen him cry since he was a baby.’
‘How long has he had a rifle?’
‘We gave it to him for Christmas.’
‘Does he often use it?’
‘Now and then he goes for a walk, alone, like a hunter, with the rifle on his arm, but I don’t think he fires it often. He tacked a target to the linden in the courtyard a few times, but my husband explained to him that he was wounding the tree.’
‘I suppose, if he had left the classroom on Tuesday, while your husband was gone, that his classmates would have noticed?’
‘Of course.’
‘And they would have mentioned it.’
‘You would actually think that Jean-Paul …?’
‘I am obliged to think of everything. Which student claims to have seen your husband leaving the tool shed?’
‘Marcel Sellier.’
‘Whose son is he?’
‘His father is the village officer, who is a tinsmith, an electrician and a plumber as well. He also occasionally repairs roofs.’
‘How old is Marcel Sellier?’
‘The same age as Jean-Paul, give or take a few months.’
‘He’s a good student?’
‘The best, with my son. To avoid seeming to favour Jean-Paul, my husband always gives Marcel the top grade. His father is smart, too, and industrious. I believe that they’re good people. Are you very angry with him?’
‘With whom?’
‘Jean-Paul. He was practically rude to you. And I, I never even offered you anything to drink. Won’t you have something?’
‘No, thank you. The lieutenant must have arrived, and I promised to see him.’
‘Will you keep helping us?’
‘Why do you ask me that?’
‘Because, if I were you, I think I would be discouraged. You came so far and what you find here is so uninviting …’
‘I will do my best.’
Sensing that she was about to take his hands in hers, perhaps to kiss them, he went to the door. He was in a hurry to get outside, to feel the fresh air on his skin, to hear other sounds besides the tired voice of the teacher’s wife.
‘I’ll be back to see you again, no doubt.’
‘You don’t think he needs anything?’
‘If he does, I’ll tell you.’
‘Shouldn’t he be choosing a lawyer?’
‘That isn’t necessary right now.’
While he was crossing the courtyard without a backwards look, the double glass doors of the school swung open, and a swarm of children rushed outside, yelling. A few of them stopped short when they spotted him, having probably learned from their parents who he was, and watched him pass.
They were of all ages, six-year-old kids and big boys of fourteen or fifteen who already looked almost like adults. There were girls, too, clustered in a corner of the yard as if to get away from the boys.
At the end of the corridor, where the two doors stood open, Maigret caught sight of the local pol
ice car. He knocked at the door of the secretary’s office.
‘Come in!’ called Daniélou.
The lieutenant, who had taken off his belt and unbuttoned his tunic, was working at Gastin’s desk, with papers spread out before him and municipal stamps all around. He rose to shake hands with Maigret, who did not immediately notice a plump girl sitting off in a dark corner with a baby in her arms.
‘Take a seat, detective chief inspector. I’ll be with you in a moment. I’ve taken the precaution of calling in all the witnesses a second time and going through the interrogations again.’
Because of Maigret’s arrival in Saint-André, undoubtedly.
‘A cigar?’
‘No, thank you. I smoke only a pipe.’
‘I’d forgotten.’
The lieutenant smoked very black cigars, which he chewed on as he talked.
‘If you don’t mind,’ he said, and turned to the girl.
‘You say she promised to leave you everything she had, including the house?’
‘Yes. She promised it.’
‘Before witnesses?’
The girl did not seem to know what that meant. In fact, she did not seem to know much at all and rather seemed like the village idiot. She was a big, stout girl, solid as a man, wearing a cast-off black dress, and there were wisps of hay in her uncombed hair. She smelled bad. The baby did, too, of urine and poo.
‘When was this promise made?’
‘A long time ago.’
Her large eyes were of an almost transparent blue, and she frowned in an effort to understand what was wanted of her.
‘What do you mean by “a long time”? A year?’
‘Maybe a year.’
‘Two years?’
‘Maybe.’
‘How long have you been working for Léonie Birard?’
‘Wait … After I had my second child … No, the third …’
‘How old is he?’
Her lips were moving, as if she were in church, while she did her mental arithmetic.
‘Five.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘At home.’
‘How many are there at home?’
‘Three. I’ve the one here and the oldest is at school.’
‘Who’s taking care of them?’
‘No one.’
The two men exchanged glances.
‘So you have been working for Léonie Birard for about five years. Did she promise you right away to leave you her money?’
Maigret Goes to School Page 5