Inspector Cadaver (5 page)

Maigret stood idly at the corner of the
square, where a road sign announced ‘School' to passing motorists. He
followed the woman with his eyes. At the end of the street he saw her disappear into a
sort of cul-de-sac and at that moment realized it was Madame Retailleau. Thinking Cavre
hadn't seen her yet, he quickened his pace.

He was right. Reaching the corner of the
alley, he saw the woman climb the three steps of a little house and take a key out of
her bag. Moments later, he was knocking on the glass door with a lace curtain on the
inside.

‘Come in.'

She had just had time to take off her coat
and her mourning veil. The missal was still on the oilcloth table. A white enamel stove
was already alight; meticulously
clean, the top looked as if it had
been scrubbed with sandpaper.

‘Forgive me for bothering you, madame.
Madame Retailleau, isn't it?'

He didn't feel particularly proud of
himself. She didn't make a move or say a word to encourage him. She just stood
there, her hands clasped on her stomach, her face almost the colour of wax, and
waited.

‘I have been charged with
investigating the rumours concerning your son's death …'

‘By whom?'

‘Detective Chief Inspector Maigret,
Police Judiciaire. I should add that at the moment my investigation is entirely
unofficial.'

‘What does that mean?'

‘That the judicial authorities have
not been formally apprised of the case.'

‘What case?'

‘I apologize for bringing up such
painful matters but it won't have escaped you, madame, that certain rumours have
been circulating about the death of your son.'

‘You can't stop people
talking.'

Playing for time, Maigret had turned to a
photograph in an oval gilt frame that was hanging on the left of the walnut kitchen
dresser.

The enlarged photograph showed a man in his
thirties with cropped hair, his top lip overshadowed by a bushy moustache.

‘This is your husband?'

‘Yes.'

‘I believe you had
the misfortune to lose him in an accident when your son was still very young. From what
I have been told, you were forced to take the dairy to court to get a
pension.'

‘Somebody's been telling you
stories. There was no trial. Oscar Drouhet, the manager of the dairy, did what he had to
do.'

‘And then later, when your son was old
enough to work, he took him on in his office. Your son was his book-keeper, I
believe?'

‘He did the work of an assistant
manager. He would have had the title of one too if he hadn't been so
young.'

‘You don't have a picture of
him?'

Maigret regretted asking because, as he did
so, he saw a little photograph on a side table covered in red plush. He snatched it up
before Madame Retailleau could object.

‘How old was he when this photograph
was taken?'

‘Nineteen. It was last
year.'

A handsome lad, healthy, vigorous, with a
slightly wide face, eager lips, eyes sparkling with merriment.

Madame Retailleau stood and waited, sighing
from time to time.

‘He wasn't engaged?'

‘No.'

‘You don't know of any liaisons
he may have had?'

‘My son was too young to have anything
to do with women. He was conscientious. All he thought about was his career.'

That wasn't the message conveyed by
the young man's ardent gaze, thick, glossy hair and sturdy frame.

‘What was your
reaction when … I'm sorry … I'm sure you understand what
I'm thinking … Did you believe it was an accident?'

‘You can't help but believe
that.'

‘I mean, didn't you have any
suspicions?'

‘About what?'

‘He had never talked to you about
Mademoiselle Naud? He didn't sometimes come home late at night?'

‘No.'

‘Monsieur Naud hasn't paid you a
visit since then?'

‘We have no reason to see one
another.'

‘Naturally. But he might have …
Nor Monsieur Groult-Cotelle, of course?'

Was he imagining things? It seemed to
Maigret for a moment that the woman's eyes flashed with a harder light.

‘No,' she said flatly.

‘So you disapprove of the rumours
concerning the circumstances of this tragedy …'

‘Yes. I don't listen to them. I
don't want to know about them. If you have been sent by Monsieur Naud, you can
tell him what I have just told you.'

For a few seconds, Maigret remained
motionless, his eyes half-shut, repeating the statement as if engraving it on his
memory:

If you have been sent by Monsieur Naud, you can tell him what I have just told
you.

Did she know Étienne Naud had met him
at the station yesterday? Did she know Naud was indirectly responsible for bringing him
here from Paris? Or did she merely suspect as much?

‘Forgive me for
taking the liberty of calling on you, madame, especially at such a time of
day.'

‘Time means nothing to me.'

‘Goodbye, madame.'

She let him head for the door and shut it
after himself without a word or a gesture. The inspector hadn't gone ten paces
before he saw Inspector Cavre standing on the kerb as if on guard duty.

Was Cavre waiting for Maigret to come out
before calling on Albert's mother himself? Maigret wanted to know for sure. The
conversation he'd just had had put him in a bad mood, and he could think of worse
things than playing a trick on his former colleague.

Relighting his pipe, which he had put out
with his thumb before going into Madame Retailleau's, he crossed the street, took
up position on the kerb directly opposite Cavre and stood there as if resolved not to
budge.

The town was coming alive. Children could be
seen flocking to the school gates on the little church square. Most came from far
afield, wrapped up tight in scarves and wearing thick red or blue woollen socks and
clogs.

‘Well, my old Cadaver, your turn! Off
you go!' Maigret seemed to say, his eyes sparkling mischievously.

But Cavre didn't move, except to look
off in the other direction as if he were above jokes of any sort.

Had Madame Retailleau hired him to come to
Saint-Aubin? It was possible. She was a curious woman, difficult to pin down. There was
something of the farmer's wife about her; she had their almost congenital
distrust. But she also reminded him of the provincial
haute bourgeoisie
.
He suspected her icy manner concealed an unshakeable pride and he had
been impressed by her restraint. The entire time he had been in her house, she
hadn't taken a step or made a gesture. She had been frozen, like one of those
animals that supposedly play dead in the face of danger, with only the barest movement
of her lips as she uttered the occasional syllable.

‘Well, Cadaver, you poor thing? Make
your mind up. Do something.'

Cadaver was stamping his feet to keep warm,
but didn't seem inclined to do anything as long as Maigret was spying on him.

The situation was ridiculous. It was
childish to persist, and yet Maigret persisted. All to no avail, what's more. At
eight thirty, a little red-faced man emerged from his house, headed to the town hall and
opened its front door with his key. Moments later, Cavre entered the premises.

That was exactly what Maigret had intended
to do first: go and question the local authorities. His former colleague had beaten him
to it. Now there was nothing for him to do but wait his turn.

Subsequently, that day became a taboo subject
for Maigret. He never spoke about it again, especially not about that morning, and he
doubtless did his utmost not to think about it either.

What he found most disconcerting was the way
he had simply ceased to be Maigret. After all, what did he represent in Saint-Aubin?
Nothing. For goodness' sake, Justin Cavre had simply marched into the town hall
ahead of him, and Maigret had been left standing sheepishly in the street, surrounded by
those houses, which, under a sky like a blister about to burst, looked like fat,
poisonous toadstools.

People were watching him, he knew. Eyes were
fixed on him behind every curtain. Of course, the opinion of some old women or the
butcher's wife didn't matter; people could think whatever they wanted of
him. They could even, as some kids had done on their way to school, burst out laughing
when he walked past.

But he was conscious of not being the usual
Maigret. It may be an exaggeration to say he did not recognize himself, but that was
partly it.

What would happen, for instance, if he went
into the whitewashed lobby of the town hall and knocked on the grey door with the words
‘Secretary's Office' written across it in black letters? He would be
asked to wait his
turn, as if he were applying for a birth certificate
or welfare. And, meanwhile, in that stuffy little office, Cadaver could carry on
questioning the secretary at his leisure.

Maigret wasn't there in an official
capacity. He couldn't invoke the Police Judiciaire. As for his name, who knew if
anyone had heard of it in this village surrounded by slimy bogs and pools of stagnant
water?

He would soon find out for himself. Kicking
his heels, he waited for Cavre to reappear and then had one of the most outlandish ideas
of his career. He was within a whisker of latching on to his former colleague, dogging
his every step, and saying point-blank:

‘Listen, Cavre, it's not worth
us trying to outsmart one another. You're not here just for the hell of it.
Somebody sent for you. Tell me who it is and what they've got you doing
…'

How simple a proper, official investigation
seemed to him at that moment! If he had been on a case somewhere under his jurisdiction,
he would merely have had to go into the post office, pick up the telephone and say:

‘Detective Chief Inspector Maigret.
Put me through to the Police Judiciaire immediately … Hello! … Is that you,
Janvier? Jump in a car … Get over here … When you see Cadaver come out
… Of course, Justin Cavre … Fine … Follow him, yes, don't take
your eyes off him …'

Who knows? He might also have put a tail on
Étienne Naud, whom he had just seen go by at the wheel of his car, heading to
Fontenay.

It was so easy being Maigret. You had a
whole apparatus of the most sophisticated kind at your disposal. And you
only had to casually drop your own name for people to be so dazzled they would bend
over backwards to be agreeable to you.

Whereas here he was such an unknown that,
despite all the articles about him, all the photographs of him in the papers,
Étienne Naud had marched up to Justin Cavre at the station.

Naud had made him welcome because of the
examining magistrate brother-in-law who had sent him from Paris, but hadn't they
all seemed to be wondering why he was there? The subtext to Naud's reception was
more or less:

‘My brother-in-law Bréjon is a
charming fellow who clearly wishes us well, but he's been gone from Saint-Aubin
too long and he's got some strange ideas into his head about this business. It was
good of him to think of sending you here, and it was good of you to have come. We are
going to look after you to the best of our abilities. So, eat, drink, come on the tour
of the property with me and, whatever you do, don't feel under any obligation to
stay a moment longer in this damp, charmless little town. Nor to get involved in this
wholly insignificant business that is just between us.'

Whom was he working for, when it came down
to it? Étienne Naud. Well, Étienne Naud would obviously rather he didn't
conduct a serious investigation.

As for the incident in the night, that beat
everything. Geneviève coming into his room to tell him, essentially, ‘I was
Albert Retailleau's mistress. I am pregnant with his child. But if you say a word
I'll kill myself.'

Well, if she really was Albert's
mistress, the accusations
against Naud acquired a terrible
plausibility. Had she thought of that? Had she knowingly accused her father?

And what about the victim's mother?
She hadn't said anything or asserted anything or denied anything; she had simply
intimated, with every fibre of her being:

‘What business is any of this of
yours?'

To everyone, even the old ladies hiding
behind their quivering curtains, even the kids just now who had turned to stare after
they had passed him, he was the intruder, the undesirable. No, worse, he was totally
untrustworthy, a stranger who had just turned up from who knew where to do who knew
what.

All of which meant that, particularly in
those streets, with his hands thrust in the pockets of his big overcoat, he felt like
one of those sordid characters tormented by a secret perversion who skulk around Porte
Saint-Martin and the like, their shoulders hunched, their faces twisted, hugging the
walls whenever they see someone from the vice squad.