It was almost intimate. From her armchair, Léonie Birard took part in the daily lives of a dozen households and, if she had good eyes, she could find out what everyone was eating.
‘I don’t need to tell you that the chalk outline shows the spot where she was found. The stain you see …’
‘I understand.’
‘She hadn’t bled much.’
‘Where is she now?’
‘They took her to the morgue at La Rochelle, for the post-mortem. The funeral will be tomorrow morning.’
‘We still don’t know who inherits?’
‘I’ve looked everywhere for a will. I telephoned a lawyer in La Rochelle. She had often spoken to him about drawing up a will but had never made one in his presence. He has in his keeping some stocks of hers, some bonds, the title-deeds to this house and to another one she owns two kilometres from here.’
‘So that, if nothing is found, her niece will inherit?’
‘That is my impression.’
‘What does she say about it?’
‘She does not seem to be counting on it. The Selliers are not badly off. Without being rich, they have a nice little business. You’ll see them. I’m not used to reading people the way you are. I find this family frank, honest and hard-working.’
Maigret had begun opening and closing drawers, discovering half-rusted kitchen utensils, a jumble of objects: old buttons, nails, bills, pell-mell with empty bobbins, stockings, hairpins.
He returned to the first room, where there was an old chest of drawers that was not without value, and began going through those drawers as well.
‘Have you examined these papers?’
The lieutenant reddened slightly, as if he had been caught out or forced to face unpleasant realities.
He’d had the same look in Louis’ bistro, when he had had to take the glass of white wine Maigret was handing to him.
‘They are letters.’
‘So I see.’
‘They date back more than ten years, to the time when she was still the postmistress.’
‘As far as I can tell, these letters are not addressed to her.’
‘That’s correct. I will add this correspondence to the file, of course. I’ve spoken about it to the judge. I cannot do everything at once.’
Every letter was still in its envelope, on which different names were written: Evariste Cornu, Augustin Cornu, Jules Marchandon, Célestin Marchandon, Théodore Coumart, even more, and women’s names, too, including those of the two Thévenard sisters, the ladies of the haberdasher’s shop.
‘If I understand correctly, when she was postmistress, Léonie Birard did not send all the mail on to its addressees.’
He glanced at a few letters.
Dear Mama,
This is to tell you that I am well, and that I hope you are the same. I am happy in my new employers’ home, except that the grandfather, who lives with them, coughs all day long and spits on the floor …
Another said:
I met Cousin Jules in the street and he was ashamed when he saw me. He was completely drunk, and I thought for a moment that he had not recognized me.
Léonie Birard did not, evidently, open all the letters. She seemed to pay particular attention to certain families, especially the Cornus and Rateaus, of whom there were many in that region.
Several envelopes bore the postmark of the Senate and were signed by a noted politician who had died two years earlier.
My dear friend,
I acknowledge receipt of your letter concerning the tempest that ravaged your mussel-farm and carried off more than two hundred posts. I will see to it that the funds earmarked for victims of national disasters …
‘I looked into this,’ explained the lieutenant. ‘The farms consist of pine posts driven into the sea bottom and bound together by bundles of sticks. That’s where they install the clusters of young mussels to fatten them. When a tide is a little strong, it carries away a certain number of posts, which are expensive, as they must be brought from a great distance.’
‘So the cunning fellows get them paid for by the government under the guise of a national calamity!’
‘The senator was very popular,’ observed Daniélou with a wry smile. ‘He never had any difficulty getting re-elected.’
‘You’ve read all these letters!’
‘I skimmed through them.’
‘They provide no clues?’
‘They explain why the Birard woman was hated by the entire village. She knew too much about all of them. She must have told them a few home truths. Still, I haven’t found anything really serious, nothing bad enough in any case for someone, especially after ten years, to decide to eliminate her with a bullet in the head. Most of the people to whom these letters are addressed are dead, and their children don’t care what happened in the past.’
‘You’re taking these letters away?’
‘I don’t have to remove them this evening. I can leave you the key to the house. Don’t you want to go upstairs?’
Maigret went up, for form’s sake. The two rooms, full of strange objects and furniture in poor condition, taught him nothing.
Outside, the lieutenant handed him the key, asking:
‘What are you going to do now?’
‘What time does school let out?’
‘The morning session ends at eleven thirty. Certain pupils, who don’t live too far away, go home for lunch. Those from the farms and the seashore bring bread-and-butter with them to eat at the school. Classes resume at one thirty and are over at four.’
Maigret pulled his watch from his pocket. It was ten past eleven.
‘Are you staying in the village?’
‘I must go and see the examining magistrate, who questioned the teacher this morning, but I’ll be back sometime this afternoon.’
‘See you later.’
Maigret shook his hand. He wanted another glass of white wine before the classes let out. He stayed there a moment, standing in the sun, watching the lieutenant walk away with a light step, as if relieved of a great burden.
Théo was still at Louis’ place. There was also, in the opposite corner, an old man almost in rags, with the look of a tramp, with a bushy white beard. Pouring his drink with a shaking hand, he glanced at Maigret only briefly, without interest.
‘A carafe?’ asked Louis.
‘Of the same as before.’
‘That’s the only kind I have. I suppose you’ll be eating here? Thérèse is cooking a rabbit I know you will enjoy.’
The maid appeared.
‘Do you like rabbit in white wine, Monsieur Maigret?’
It was just to see him, to glance at him in complicity and gratitude. He had not betrayed her. She was relieved at that, becoming almost pretty.
‘Off to your kitchen.’
A van pulled up; a man entered in the working clothes of a butcher. Unlike most butchers, he was thin and unwell, with a crooked nose and bad teeth.
‘A Pernod, Louis.’
He turned towards Théo, who was smiling in delight.
‘Hello, you old pirate.’
The deputy mayor simply gestured vaguely with his hand.
‘Not too tired? When I think that layabouts like you exist!’
He zeroed in on Maigret.
‘So, it’s you, it seems, who’s going to ferret out the truth.’
‘I’m trying!’
‘Try hard. If you find out anything, you’ll deserve a medal.’
His drooping moustache was getting wet in his glass.
‘How’s your son?’ asked Théo from his corner, his legs still stretched out lazily.
‘The doctor claims it’s time he was walking. That’s easy to say. As soon as we get him upright, he falls down. The doctors don’t know anything. No more than deputy mayors!’
Although he seemed to be joking, there was a bitter edge to his voice.
‘Done with your day, are you?’
‘I still have to do Bourrages.’
> He ordered a second glass, drank it down in one go, wiped his moustache and called to Louis:
‘Put that on the tab with the rest.’
Then, to the inspector:
‘Have fun!’
Finally, he bumped into Théo’s legs on purpose as he went out.
‘So long, scum!’
They saw him start his van and swing into a U-turn.
‘His father and mother died of tuberculosis,’ explained Louis. ‘His sister is in a sanatorium for TB patients. He has a brother locked up as a madman.’
‘And him?’
‘He holds his own as best he can, sells his meat in the surrounding countryside. He tried to establish a butcher shop in La Rochelle and lost all the money.’
‘Has he children?’
‘A son and daughter. The two others died at birth. The son was knocked over by a motorbike a month ago and is still in a cast. The girl, who is seven, must be at school. By the time he’s finished his round, he’ll have downed a good half-bottle of Pernod.’
‘You find that funny?’ asked Théo sarcastically.
‘Find what funny?’
‘To talk about all that.’
‘I don’t badmouth anyone.’
‘You want me to talk about your little doings?’
Looking scared, Louis grabbed a full carafe from under his counter and went to place it on the table.
‘You know perfectly well there’s nothing to tell. People have to make conversation, don’t they?’
Deep down, Théo seemed to be having a ball. His mouth wasn’t smiling, but his eyes were glittering strangely. Maigret couldn’t help thinking of some sort of old retired faun. There he was, planted in the middle of the village like a malicious god who knew everything that happened inside people’s heads and homes, enjoying this show put on for him in solitary pleasure.
He saw Maigret more as an equal than as an enemy.
‘You’re a very shrewd man,’ he seemed to say. ‘You pass for a champion at your game. In Paris, you find out everything anyone tries to hide from you.
‘Only, I’m a shrewd man, too. And here, I’m the one who knows.
‘Try! Play your game. Question people. Worm their secrets out of them.
‘We’ll see if you ever figure anything out!’
He slept with Maria, who was dirty and unattractive. He had tried to sleep with Madame Gastin, who was no longer any kind of woman. He drank from morning till night without ever getting completely drunk, floating in a world of his own that must have been amusing, because it made him smile.
The old Birard woman knew the village’s little secrets as well, but they gnawed at her, working on her like a poison she had to draw out one way or another.
He watched the villagers, scoffed at them, and when someone needed a convenient certificate to obtain one of those allowances that so enraged the postman, he approved it, certifying the document with one of those municipal stamps he always had in the pocket of his droopy trousers.
He didn’t take them seriously.
‘Another, inspector?’
‘Not now.’
Maigret heard children’s voices over by the school. The pupils going home for lunch were coming out. He saw a few of them crossing the square.
‘I’ll be back in half an hour.’
‘The rabbit will be ready.’
‘Still no oysters?’
‘No oysters.’
Hands in his pockets, he headed for the Selliers’ shop. A boy had just gone in there before him, winding his way among the buckets, watering cans, sulphate sprayers that cluttered the floor and hung from the ceiling. There were tools everywhere, in a dusty light.
‘May I help you?’ inquired a woman’s voice.
He had to peer into the shadows to find a rather young face, and the bright patch of a blue-checked apron.
‘Is your husband here?’
‘Out back, in the workshop.’
The boy had gone into the kitchen and was washing his hands at the pump.
‘If you’d like to come this way, I’ll call him.’
She knew who he was and did not seem frightened. In the kitchen, the vital centre of the house, she brought forwards a straw-bottomed chair for him and opened a door to the courtyard.
‘Julien! … Someone to see you …’
The boy wiped his hands while observing Maigret curiously. And he, too, brought childhood memories back to the inspector. In his class, in all the classes he had been in, there had always been a boy fatter than the rest, with the same frank and studious appearance, and the same clear skin, the same demeanour of a well-brought-up child.
His mother was not big, but his father, who appeared a moment later, weighed more than a hundred kilos: he was very tall, quite broad, with an almost babyish face and candid eyes.
The man wiped his feet on the doormat before entering. Three places were set at the round table.
‘Excuse me,’ he murmured, going to take his turn at the pump.
One sensed that there were rituals here, that each person performed certain gestures at certain moments in the day.
‘Were you about to sit down to eat?’
It was the woman who answered.
‘Not right away. Dinner isn’t ready.’
‘Actually, what I would most like is a brief chat with your son.’
The father and mother looked at the boy without showing any surprise or uneasiness.
‘Did you hear, Marcel?’ said the father.
‘Yes, Papa.’
‘Answer the inspector’s questions.’
‘Yes, Papa.’
Turned towards Maigret, directly in front of him, he assumed the attitude of a pupil preparing to reply to his teacher.
5. Marcel’s Lies
Just as Maigret was lighting his pipe, a kind of silent ceremony took place that, more than everything he had seen since the previous evening in Saint-André, conjured up for the inspector the village of his childhood. For an instant, it was even one of his aunts, also in a blue-checked apron, her hair up in a chignon, who took Madame Sellier’s place.
This last had simply looked at her husband, opening her eyes just a little wider, and big Julien had got the message. He went out the door to the courtyard, where he disappeared for a moment. As for his wife, without awaiting his return she had opened the sideboard, taken two glasses from a set, the ones used only for company, and was polishing them with a clean dishtowel.
When the tinsmith returned, he was holding a corked bottle of wine. He did not say anything. Nothing needed to be said. Someone from far away, or from another planet, might have thought that those gestures were part of a religious service. They listened to the sound of the cork coming out of the bottle-neck, the gurgling of the golden wine in the two glasses.
A touch intimidated, Julien picked up one of them and checked its colour, then finally said:
‘Cheers.’
‘Cheers,’ replied Maigret.
After which the man withdrew to a shadowy corner of the room while his wife went over to the stove.
‘Tell me, Marcel,’ began the inspector, returning to the boy, who had not budged: ‘I presume that you have never told a lie?’
If there was any hesitation, it was brief, accompanied by a swift glance in his mother’s direction.
‘Yes, I have, monsieur … But I always confessed it,’ he hastened to add.
‘You mean you went afterwards to confession?’
‘Yes, monsieur.’
‘Immediately afterwards?’
‘As quickly as possible, because I wouldn’t like to die in a state of sin.’
‘They mustn’t have been important lies though, were they?’
‘Important enough.’
‘Would you mind much telling me one, as an example?’
‘There was the time I tore my trousers climbing a tree. When I came home, I claimed I’d caught them on a nail in Joseph’s yard.’
‘You went to confession that ver
y day?’
‘The day afterwards.’
‘And when did you admit the truth to your parents?’
‘Only after a week. Another time, I fell into the pond while fishing for frogs. My parents forbid me to play around the pond, because I catch cold easily. My clothes were all wet. I told them I’d been pushed while I was crossing the little bridge over the stream.’
‘Did you wait a week again before telling them the truth?’
‘Only two days.’
‘Do you often lie like that?’
‘No, monsieur.’
‘Once every how long, about?’
He took the time to reflect, still as if taking an oral exam.
‘Not even once a month.’
‘Do your friends lie more?’
‘Not all of them. Some.’
‘Do they go to confession then, like you?’
‘I don’t know. Probably they do.’
‘Are you friends with the teacher’s son?’
‘No, monsieur.’
‘You don’t play with him?’
‘He doesn’t play with anyone.’
‘Why?’
‘Maybe he doesn’t like to play. Or else, because his father is the teacher. I tried to be his friend.’
‘Don’t you like Monsieur Gastin?’
‘He isn’t fair.’
‘How is he not fair?’
‘He always gives me the best grades, even when it’s his son who deserves them. I would like to be the best in the class when I’ve earned it, but not otherwise.’
‘Why do you think he does that?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe because he’s afraid.’
‘Afraid of what?’
The child tried to find an answer. He certainly sensed what he would have liked to say but realized that it was too complicated, that he wouldn’t find the words. He simply repeated:
‘I don’t know.’
‘Do you remember Tuesday morning clearly?’
‘Yes, monsieur.’
‘What did you do during playtime?’
‘I played with the others.’
‘What happened shortly after you returned to the classroom?’
Maigret Goes to School Page 7