Inspector Cadaver (17 page)

‘You are the latest in a long line,
Monsieur Naud!'

‘Did the long line, as you put it, all
behave as idiotically as me? One fine day did they take it upon themselves to go and see
the victim's mother? Because that's what I did, melodramatically, under the
cover of darkness, after Groult had made sure there was no one on the roads … I
didn't come right out and confess the truth to her … I said that it was a
terrible tragedy; that, as a widow, she had no one to support her now …

‘I don't know
whether she's an angel or a demon, inspector. I can still see her with her pale
face, standing perfectly still by her fireplace, a shawl over her shoulders. I had two
bundles of twenty-thousand-franc notes in my pocket. I didn't know how to take
them out, put them on the table. I was ashamed of myself. I was … yes, I was
ashamed of her too …'

‘But still the money went from my
pocket on to the table.

‘“Every year, madame, I will
consider it my duty …”

‘She frowned, so I added hastily,
“Unless you'd rather I made a single deposit in your name
…”'

He fell silent, so oppressed he had to go
and pour himself another glass of Armagnac.

‘There it is … I was wrong not
to come right out immediately and confess … Afterwards it was too late …
Outwardly everything in the house was the same … I don't know how
Geneviève had the strength to carry on as if nothing had happened, and there have
been times when I've wondered if it wasn't all an illusion …

‘I realized some people in the village
suspected me, then I started to get anonymous letters. I knew that others had been sent
to the public prosecutor's office. I wrote to my brother-in-law, like an idiot,
because what could he do, especially when he didn't know the truth? I vaguely
thought that examining magistrates could cover up scandals, that's the sort of
thing you hear people say …

‘Instead, he sent you here just when
I'd written to a private detective agency in Paris … Oh yes, I did that too!
I picked one blind from a newspaper advertisement!
I'd rather
have died than confide in my brother-in-law but I told a complete stranger because I was
desperate for reassurance …

‘He knew you were on your way …
I cabled the Cavre agency immediately after my brother-in-law had said when you'd
be arriving … We arranged to meet the following day in Fontenay …

‘What else do you want to know,
inspector? How you must despise me! … Of course you do! And I despise myself too,
I can assure you. Of all the criminals you've come across, I bet you've
never known one as stupid …'

Maigret smiled for the first time.
Étienne Naud was sincere. His despair wasn't remotely put on. And yet, as
with all criminals, to use his word for it, his attitude suddenly revealed a certain
pride.

He was annoyed and humiliated
to have
made such a wretched job of his wrongdoing
!

For a few seconds, a few minutes even,
Maigret sat perfectly still, staring at the flames gnawing the blackened logs. Thrown by
this reaction, Étienne Naud didn't know where to put himself and stood
hesitantly in the middle of the room, his mind racing.

After all, given that he had confessed
everything, given that he had voluntarily humiliated himself, wasn't it natural to
think the inspector would be more considerate, give him some moral support?

Hadn't he dragged himself through the
dirt? Hadn't he painted a pathetic picture of his and his family's
sufferings?

Moments earlier, before he confessed, he had
had the impression Maigret was moved by his predicament
and inclined
to be more so. He had counted on that sympathy.

But now every trace of it seemed to have
vanished. The scene had played itself out, and the inspector was calmly smoking his
pipe, his gaze revealing nothing but cold, intense concentration.

‘What would you do in my place?'
Naud ventured again.

A look made him think he might be going too
far, like a child who has been forgiven for doing something wrong and takes advantage of
this leniency to be even more demanding and unbearable than ever.

What was Maigret thinking? Naud was
beginning to suspect his attitude might just have been a trap. He almost expected to see
him stand up, take a pair of handcuffs out of his pocket and utter the ritual words,
‘In the name of the law …'

‘I wonder …'

It was Maigret who was hesitating now, still
puffing at his pipe, crossing and uncrossing his legs.

‘I wonder … yes … whether
we mightn't ring your friend Alban? What time is it? Ten minutes past midnight.
The postmistress shouldn't be in bed yet, she'll put us through …
Well, yes, let's do that then … If you're not too tired, Monsieur
Naud, I think we'd better get this all over and done with tonight so I can catch
my train tomorrow …'

‘But …'

He couldn't find the words, or rather
he didn't dare pronounce the ones that were on the tip of his tongue: ‘But
isn't it all over and done with?'

‘Do you mind
…?'

Maigret crossed the drawing room, went into
the hall and turned the handle of the telephone.

‘Hello … I'm sorry to
disturb you, my dear mademoiselle … It's me, yes … You recognized my
voice? No, no … No trouble at all … Would you be kind enough to put me
through to Monsieur Groult-Cotelle, please? Let it ring for a long time, in case
he's fast asleep …'

Through the half-open door, he saw
Étienne Naud looking completely at a loss. He seemed to have lost all his nerve and
fibre. Resigned to his fate, he was philosophically downing a mouthful of Armagnac.

‘Monsieur Groult-Cotelle? How are you?
You were in bed … What's that? You were reading in bed? Yes, it's
Detective Chief Inspector Maigret here … I'm at your friend's house,
yes … We are having a chat … What? You've caught a cold? That's
inconvenient … It's as if you'd guessed what I was going to say
… We'd like you to drop round … Yes … The fog, I know …
You'd got undressed? … In that case, we will come and see you … It
won't take us a minute in the car … What? You'd rather come here? No
… Nothing in particular … I'm leaving tomorrow … Surprising as
it may seem, I have been called back to Paris on important business …'

Poor Naud was still more confused. He was
staring at the ceiling, doubtless thinking that his wife could hear everything. She
would be distraught. Perhaps he should go and reassure her – but how could he?
Maigret no longer inspired him with confidence. He was beginning to regret his
confession.

‘What's that?
A quarter of an hour? Too long … Get here as quickly as possible … See you
right away … Thank you …'

The inspector may have been play-acting. Was
it so urgent or was he reluctant to spend the next ten minutes or quarter of an hour in
a tête-à-tête with Étienne Naud in the drawing room?

‘He's coming,' Maigret
announced. ‘He's very worried. You can't imagine the state my
telephone call put him in …'

‘But he has no reason to
…'

‘You think?' Maigret asked
simply.

Naud was increasingly bewildered.

‘Do you mind if I get a bite to eat
from the kitchen? Don't trouble … I can find the switch … I know where
the refrigerator is …'

He turned on the light. The range was out.
He found a chicken leg glazed with sauce. He cut a thick slice of bread and buttered
it.

‘Tell me …'

He came back into the drawing room,
eating.

‘There isn't any beer in the
house, is there?'

‘You wouldn't rather a glass of
Burgundy?'

‘I feel like beer, but if you
don't have any …'

‘There should be some still in the
cellar … I always order a few cases, but as we hardly ever drink it, I don't
know if …'

Just as after the most poignant bereavements
a family will interrupt their weeping for a moment in the middle of the night to have
something to eat, so, after the drama of
the past hour, the two men
matter-of-factly went down to the cellar.

‘No … This is lemonade …
Wait … The beer must be under the stairs …'

And so it was. They went back upstairs with
bottles under their arms. Next, large glasses had to be found. Maigret carried on
eating, holding the chicken leg in his fingers, his chin greasy with sauce.

‘I wonder if your friend Alban will
come on his own,' he said casually.

‘What do you mean?'

‘Nothing. Let's have a bet
…'

There was no time, however. Someone tapped
on the front door. Étienne Naud hurried out, while Maigret, with his beer, bread
and chicken, took up position in the middle of the drawing room.

He heard a hum of voices:

‘I took the liberty of bringing this
gentleman whom I met on the way and who …'

Maigret's eyes hardened for a second,
then instantly lit up with a fierce glee as he called out:

‘Come in, Cavre! I was expecting you
…'

Dreams that apparently only last a few
seconds can leave their mark on us for a long time, sometimes our whole lives.
Similarly, for a split second, the characters who came into the drawing room struck
Maigret as entirely different from how they were, or at any rate from how they believed
themselves to be. That was how they would live on in the inspector's memory.

They were all roughly the same age,
including Maigret, and as he looked at them in turn, he felt a little as if he were with
a group of boys in their last year at school.

Étienne Naud must have been just as
burly and chubby when he took his baccalaureate as he was now, with the same sturdy but
mild air, the same good manners and hint of shyness.

Cavre the inspector had met when he was only
just out of school, and he was an irascible loner even then. He was vain in those days
but, no matter how hard he tried, clothes never looked the same on him as they did on
other people. Permanently shabby and dishevelled, he cut a sad figure. His mother must
have spent her whole time when he was a boy saying, ‘Go on, Justin, go and play
with the others …'

And no doubt she used to confide in her
neighbours, ‘My son never plays. I worry about his health. He's too clever.
He's always thinking …'

As for Alban, he bore a
striking resemblance to his younger self: those long, thin legs, that elongated, vaguely
aristocratic face, those long pale hands with their scattering of reddish hair, that
upper-class elegance … He must have copied his chums' essays, scrounged
their cigarettes, told them smutty jokes in the corner.

And yet here they were in deadly earnest,
implicated in an affair that could see one of them locked up for the rest of his life.
They were grown men. Somewhere in the world two children were walking around with
Groult-Cotelle's name and, who knew, some of his flaws too. Upstairs, there was a
woman and a girl who wouldn't sleep a wink that night. As for Cavre, he must be
brooding over what his wife would be getting up to while he was away.

It was strange. Étienne Naud had come
right out and confessed his crime to Maigret, admitting his most secret fears to him,
man to man. But now he was blushing to the roots of his hair as he showed the newcomers
into the drawing room and vainly trying to appear nonchalant.

There was something childish about his
embarrassment. For a few seconds, it was as if Maigret had become a schoolmaster or
professor. Naud had been left alone with him to be questioned about a misdemeanour and
reprimanded. Now his chums were coming back into the room and looking inquiringly at him
as if to say, ‘How did you bear up?'

Well, he had borne up badly. He hadn't
held his own. He had started crying. He wondered if there were traces of tears on his
cheeks and eyelids.

He would have liked to put on a swagger,
convince them everything had gone fine. He bustled about, fetching
glasses from the sideboard in the dining room and pouring out generous measures of
Armagnac.

Did the inspector take his cue from these
echoes of a time in our lives when our actions are yet to have any consequences? He
waited until everyone had sat down, then came and planted himself in the middle of the
drawing room. He looked at Cavre and Alban in turn, then said bluntly, ‘Well,
gentlemen, it's over!'

Only then, for the first time since he had
become involved in this affair, did he do a Maigret, as they said in the Police
Judiciaire when an inspector tried to imitate the big boss. With his pipe clenched
between his teeth, his hands in his pockets and his back to the fire, he held forth, his
voice sometimes dropping to a growl. He jabbed at the logs with the tongs, then went
from one to the other with his heavy, bear-like gait, asking a question or suddenly
falling unnervingly silent.