What he was saying didn’t necessarily mean anything. Sometimes it sounded like a joke.
‘Everyone has heard of the lawyer who was killed by his client, but I’ve never heard of the client who was killed by his lawyer.’
That didn’t mean he was accusing Jean-Charles Gaillard of strangling the puny owner of the Lotus and other clubs. He would have been caught off guard if his wife had suddenly asked him as he was eating, ‘What are you thinking?’
He probably would have answered in all honesty that he wasn’t thinking anything. There were also the images he was running through his mind as if through a magic lantern.
Émile Boulay, in the evening, standing on the pavement outside the Lotus … That was a very common occurrence. The little man liked to go and look at the sky, at the crowd flowing by, changing its rhythm and, as it were, its nature as the evening wore on, and calculate the takings of his four clubs.
The second image was extremely unusual. It was of Boulay going into the telephone booth, as the coat-check girl looked on, and dialling a number that didn’t answer.
Three times … Four times … Between attempts, he went for a little walk around the club or out on the street. It was only on the fifth or sixth attempt that he finally got through.
But he didn’t leave immediately. He waited next to Mickey on the pavement, repeatedly taking his watch out of his pocket.
‘He didn’t go home to get his automatic,’ Maigret almost said out loud.
Émile had a licence. He was entitled to carry a gun. When Mazotti and his gang were making trouble for him, he had one on him constantly.
The fact he wasn’t armed that night meant that he didn’t suspect anything.
And then after a certain time, without saying anything to the doorman, who looked like a wizened little boy, he unhurriedly started walking down Rue Pigalle.
That was the last image. At least the last one of Émile alive.
‘Do you have plans for tomorrow?’
He looked up from his plate and stared at his wife as if he was surprised to see her standing there, by the open window.
‘Tomorrow?’ he repeated in such a blank voice that she burst out laughing.
‘You were in a different world! Sorry to …’
‘What’s tomorrow?’
‘It’s Sunday. Do you think you’ll have work?’
He hesitated before answering. He didn’t know; he hadn’t thought about Sunday. He hated interrupting an investigation, always maintaining that speed was one of the main guarantees of success. The more time elapsed, the harder it was to elicit information from witnesses. He needed to keep up the momentum, to continue exploring the little world into which he had been plunged.
And now along came a Sunday, a break, in other words. And that afternoon was going to be pretty much wasted too because Saturday was almost like Sunday for most people these days.
‘I don’t know yet. I’ll call you this afternoon.’
Spreading his arms out theatrically like Maître Ramuel, he added:
‘I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can do.’
Naturally the Police Judiciaire was already much sleepier. Offices were empty, detective chief inspectors and inspectors had left for the countryside.
‘Isn’t Lapointe back?’
‘Not yet, chief.’
He had just looked in at the inspectors’ office, where the hefty figure of Torrence was showing his colleagues a spinning reel. He couldn’t expect everyone to be as mesmerized by Émile Boulay as he was.
He didn’t know what else to do on the case while he waited for Lapointe, nor did he have the heart to throw himself back into administrative planning on a Saturday afternoon.
In the end he went in to see Lecoin, his colleague from Vice, who was reading the newspaper. He looked more like a gangster than a policeman.
‘Am I disturbing you?’
‘No.’
Maigret went to sit on the window-sill, not really knowing why he was there.
‘Did you know the owner of the Lotus?’
‘I know them all, really.’
Idle and rambling, their conversation went on for nearly an hour without anything coming out of it. As far as Lecoin was concerned, the former cruise-ship waiter was an honest guy who wasn’t part of the underworld, so much so that some people in Montmartre had given him a contemptuous nickname, the Grocer.
By four o’clock it was as if Sunday had come around. Maigret opened the door of the inspectors’ office again.
‘Lapointe?’
‘Not back yet, chief.’
He knew it was pointless, but he still went through the door to the Palais de Justice. That morning he had resolved to go to the clerk’s office and get the list of clients Jean-Charles Gaillard had represented in court.
The Palais de Justice was almost empty, its vast corridors echoing and draughty. When he pushed open the door of the clerk’s office, he found no one there. It was bizarre. Anyone could have gone in and rummaged through the green filing cabinets that covered the walls from floor to ceiling. Anyone could have gone and taken a robe from the barristers’ cloakroom, for that matter, or even sat in the judge’s chair.
‘The botanical gardens have better security,’ he grumbled.
He headed back to his office, and there, finally, was Lapointe.
‘I’ve come back empty-handed, chief. Even though I talked to almost everyone who lives on the street … Or at least everyone who hasn’t gone away for the weekend.
‘They’re all familiar with the blue American car. Some know whom it belongs to, others notice it every morning as they’re leaving for their work and don’t give it another thought. When I asked about Tuesday night, most people rolled their eyes.
‘That already seems ages ago to them. Some were in bed by ten, others came back from the cinema at about half past eleven without paying any attention to the cars that are parked all along the road by then.
‘The most common answer was: “It’s almost always there.”
‘They’re so used to seeing it in its place, you understand, that even if it isn’t there, they think it is.’
‘I asked around the local garages. There’s only one where they remember the car and a big ruddy-faced guy who sometimes comes in to fill it up. But he isn’t a regular customer.
‘There’s still a couple where I haven’t been able to question anyone, just because they’re closed until Monday morning.’
Maigret opened his arms wide again like Maître Ramuel. What was he supposed to do about that?
‘Go back on Monday,’ he sighed.
The phone rang. He recognized Antonio’s voice and hoped for a moment that he had some news for him.
‘Is that you, Monsieur Maigret? I am with the man from the funeral director’s. He’s suggesting the funeral takes place on Monday at ten. I didn’t want to give him an answer without your say-so.’
What concern of Maigret’s was that?
‘Fine.’
‘You’ll receive an announcement. The service will be at the church of Notre-Dame-de-Lorette.’
Maigret hung up and stared blankly at Lapointe, who was waiting for instructions.
‘You can go. Have a good Sunday. If Lucas is next door, send him in.’
Lucas was there.
‘Any news, chief?’
‘Not a word. I want you to go to the clerk of the court first thing on Monday morning and get a list of Jean-Charles Gaillard’s cases. No need to go back to the year dot. The ones he’s handled in the past two or three years will do.’
‘Are you going back to Montmartre tonight?’
He shrugged. What was the point? He wished Lucas an enjoyable Sunday, as he had Lapointe, then picked up the telephone.
‘Put me through to my apartment … Hello! … Is that you?’
As if he didn’t know she was the only person it could be, as if he didn’t recognize her voice!
‘Do you remember the times of the Morsang trains? Today, y
es … Before dinner if possible. Five fifty-two? Would you like to spend tonight and tomorrow there? Good! Pack the small suitcase. No … I’ll ring myself.’
It was on the banks of the Seine, a few kilometres upstream from Corbeil. There was an inn there, the Vieux-Garçon, where the Maigrets had been spending the occasional Sunday for over twenty years.
Maigret had discovered it during an investigation, a little place tucked away by the river, which was popular with anglers.
Now the couple were regulars. They were almost always given the same room and the same table, at lunch and dinner, under the trees on the terrace.
‘Hello! Get me the Vieux-Garçon in Morsang. Near Corbeil … The Vieux-Garçon, yes … It’s a hotel.’
Reading up on it, he had discovered that Balzac and Alexandre Dumas had once been regular visitors, and that later the Goncourt Brothers, Flaubert, Zola, Alphonse Daudet and others had attended literary lunches there.
‘Hello! Maigret here … What’s that? It’s beautiful weather, yes.’
This was not news to him.
‘Our room is occupied? You have another, but it doesn’t look on to the Seine? No matter. We’ll be there for dinner.’
So, despite Émile Boulay, they ended up spending a peaceful Sunday by the river. The Vieux-Garçon’s clientele had changed over the years. The fishermen Maigret had met in the past had almost all disappeared. They had either died or become too old to get about.
New ones had taken their place, as keen as they had once been. Some prepared their fishing spots days in advance.
You could hear people getting up at four in the morning to go and moor their boats in the current between a couple of stakes.
There was a new, younger clientele as well, mainly couples with little sailing boats who danced on the terrace to gramophone records until one in the morning.
Maigret slept soundly regardless, waking to the crowing of roosters and footsteps of people going off to fish, and finally got up at nine.
Around ten o’clock, as they were finishing their breakfast under the trees, watching the sails manoeuvring on the water, Madame Maigret murmured:
‘Aren’t you going fishing?’
He didn’t have his fishing-rods or tackle, which he had left in their little house in Meung-sur-Loire, but he could always borrow some from the landlady.
Why would a lawyer kill his client? You heard of people killing their doctors because they were convinced they’d been given the wrong treatment, but the opposite was extremely rare. The Bougrat case was the only one he could remember.
Émile Boulay wasn’t an aggressive person. He couldn’t say his lawyer had failed him because he had never been convicted and didn’t have a criminal record.
‘Choose any rod you like. The lines are in the cupboard and you’ll find some maggots in the usual place …’
They walked along the bank in single file and chose a shady spot near a dead tree. As chance would have it, Maigret caught about fifteen roach within half an hour. If he’d had a net, he would probably have also landed the chub weighing over half a kilo which broke his leader.
It is true that he didn’t get another bite after that. His wife looked up from her magazine every now and then and watched him with an amused smile.
They had lunch at their usual table while the other guests, as always, turned to stare and whisper. Wasn’t the head of the Crime Squad allowed to spend a Sunday in the country like everyone else and fish if he felt like it?
Afterwards he went back down to the riverbank, failed to catch anything else, and at six o’clock he and his wife were in a packed train heading back to Paris.
They ate some cold cuts and watched it grow dark, looking out at the streets that were still all but empty and the apartment buildings across the way where a few lights were starting to come on.
Boulay didn’t spend his Sundays in the country. His nightclubs were open seven days a week, and he wasn’t the sort of man to leave them unsupervised. The three women in his life can’t have had any desire to leave their Little Italy on Rue Victor-Massé either.
At nine o’clock on Monday morning Maigret stopped off at Quai des Orfèvres to check if there had been any developments, and at 9.45 a taxi dropped him in Rue Pigalle. A funeral notice with a black border was attached to the Lotus’ metal gate. There was another on the Train Bleu’s door in Rue Victor Massé.
The pavement across the street from Boulay’s home was thronged with people. From time to time one of them, or a small group, would break away to go into the building, the door of which was draped in black.
Maigret followed suit, waiting his turn in front of the elevator, where there was a strong smell of flowers and candles. The living room had been transformed into a chapel of rest. Around the coffin stood the dark figures of Monsieur Raison and an old maître d’ who was considered part of the family, while a woman could be heard sobbing in a neighbouring room.
Maigret shook hands, then went back downstairs and waited with the others. He recognized faces from the dead man’s nightclubs and had the impression that everyone Boulay had employed was in attendance. The women in outlandishly high heels had tired faces, eyes which looked surprised to be seeing the morning sun.
‘Quite a turn-out, eh?’
Maigret felt a tug at his sleeve. It was the midget Louis Boubée, alias Mickey. He was dressed in black and seemed proud of the funeral’s success.
‘They’re all here.’
He meant the owners of every nightclub in Paris, including the ones on the Champs-Elysées and in Montparnasse, the musicians, the barmen, the waiters …
‘Have you seen Jo?’
He pointed to Jo the Wrestler, who waved to Maigret. He was also dressed in black for the occasion.
‘There’s all sorts here, isn’t there?’
Garish suits, showy, light-coloured hats, big signet rings, shoes in suede or crocodile skin … Everyone had come out. Boulay might not have been in the underworld, and his nickname, the Grocer, might have been entirely deserved, but that didn’t make him any less a part of Montmartre’s nightlife.
‘Still no idea who did it?’
Just then the lawyer came out of the apartment building, which Maigret hadn’t seen him go into, but he was almost immediately hidden from sight by the hearse, which had drawn up alongside the kerb.
There were so many flowers and wreaths that they had to load up two separate cars. The three women got into one car, while Antonio walked behind on his own, followed by several rows of staff and performers. Then came all the other mourners, who formed a cortège over a hundred metres long.
The shopkeepers came out of their shops as they passed, the housewives stopped by the kerb, people leaned out of windows. Meanwhile photographers ran alongside the sombre procession, taking pictures.
The organ resounded as six pallbearers entered the church with the coffin. The women followed, heavily veiled. For a moment, Jean-Charles Gaillard’s and Maigret’s eyes met, then the two men were separated by the crowd.
Maigret stayed at the back of the church, where a ray of sunshine fell across the floor every time the door opened. He went on shuffling through the same images in his mind, like a pack of cards.
Boulay taking his watch out of his pocket … Boulay waiting for a few minutes before going down Rue Pigalle …
Antonio had done a good job. The prayers of absolution were accompanied by a sung mass.
It took a long time for everyone to leave the church. Four or five cars were waiting outside to take the family and their closest associates to Ivry, where Boulay was going to be buried, as Montmartre’s cemetery was full.
Antonio found time to turn in the crowd and go up to Maigret.
‘Shall we save you a seat?’
Maigret shook his head. His eyes were fixed on the lawyer, who was walking away. He elbowed his way over to him.
‘A fine funeral,’ he said, a bit like Mickey in Rue Victor-Massé. ‘Aren’t you going to the cemetery?’
>
‘I’ve got some work to do. Besides, I wasn’t invited.’
‘All of Montmartre was there.’
The crowd was still dispersing as the hearse and cars drove off.
‘You must have spotted quite a few of your clients.’
‘That’s what it’s like being a lawyer.’
Changing the subject, as if he found this one unpleasant, Gaillard asked:
‘Do you have a lead?’
‘Let’s call it the beginnings of a lead.’
‘Meaning?’
‘I’m still missing the most important thing, the motive.’
‘Have you got everything else?’
‘No proof yet, unfortunately! Did you go to the country yesterday?’
The lawyer looked at him in surprise.
‘Why do you ask?’
Like many other mourners, they were walking back up Rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, which can rarely have been so busy at that hour of the morning. They passed the Saint-Trop’, where the photographs of naked women had been taken down and replaced with the funeral notice.
‘No reason,’ replied Maigret. ‘Because I went there with my wife. Because most Parisians go to the country or the seaside on a Sunday.’
‘My wife hasn’t been mobile for a long time.’
‘So you spend your Sundays alone in Rue La Bruyère?’
‘It’s a chance to go over my cases.’
Was Jean-Charles Gaillard wondering why Maigret was dogging his footsteps? Normally Maigret would have headed down towards the centre of town, but he kept walking along in step with the lawyer, and they soon found themselves in Rue La Bruyère, where the blue car was in its usual spot in front of the town-house.
There was an awkward moment. Maigret made no move to leave, as the lawyer stood holding his front-door keys.
‘I’m not inviting you in because I know how busy you are.’
‘Actually I was just going to ask if I could make a telephone call.’
The door swung open.
‘Come into my office.’
Maigret's Anger Page 9
