‘Before that, I was lonely. No one cared about me, no one waited for me at home in the evenings. I went on working without knowing why.
‘Well, suddenly she took a lover, and I could hardly feel angry with her. She’s young … She’s beautiful.
‘And him, Roger Prou, he’s got a lot more life in him than me. He’s like an animal, bursting with health and strength.’
Madame Maigret, by now resigned, had gone back into the kitchen.
Maigret was slowly filling a fresh pipe.
‘I told myself all sorts of things. I said it wouldn’t last, that she’d come back to me, she’d realize we were bound to each other, whatever she might do … Am I boring you?’
‘No, no, carry on.’
‘I don’t quite know what I’m saying any more. I think it was clearer in my letters. And much less long-winded.
‘If I still went to church, like I did when my mother was alive, I’d probably have gone to confession. I can’t remember now why I thought of you. At first, I didn’t think I’d have the courage to come and find you.
‘Now that I’m here, I’m trying to tell you everything at once. I swear to you that if I’m talking so much, it’s not because I’ve been drinking. I prepared every sentence.
‘Where was I?’
He blinked several times, and his hand toyed with a little ashtray he had picked up absent-mindedly from a coffee table.
‘The evening of Prou’s birthday, they threw you out?’
‘Not exactly, because they knew I’d come back. They sent me out so that they could spend the evening together.’
‘And you still hoped it would just be a brief affair?’
‘You probably think I’m naive?’
‘So what happened after that?’
He sighed, shaking his head like a man who has lost the thread of his thoughts.
‘So many things! A few days after the birthday, when I got in at about two or three in the morning, I found a camp bed in the dining room. I didn’t understand at first that it was meant for me. I pushed open the bedroom door and they were both in our bed, asleep or pretending to sleep.
‘What could I have done? Roger Prou is stronger than me. And I wasn’t very steady on my legs. I think he’d have been quite capable of beating me up.
‘And I didn’t want to wake Isabelle. She still doesn’t understand. In her eyes, I’m still her father.
‘So I slept on the camp bed and by the time they were up next morning I was already in the workshop.
‘My workmen didn’t bother to hide their smiles. Only Jules, the one I told you we call Granddad, his hair’s quite white now, he took a different line. He’d worked for my old boss before I arrived, I think I said, and we’re on familiar terms. He came to find me and muttered:
‘ “Listen, Léonard, it’s time you chucked that woman out. If you don’t do it now, it’ll end in tears.”
‘He realized I didn’t have the courage to do it. He looked me in the eye, put a hand on my shoulder and said:
‘ “I didn’t know you were as sick as this.”
‘I wasn’t sick. I just went on loving her, needing her, her presence, even if she was sleeping with another man.
‘Please, Monsieur Maigret, answer me frankly.’
He didn’t say ‘inspector’, as he would have done at Quai des Orfèvres, but ‘Monsieur Maigret’, seeming to stress that it was the man and not the police chief he had come to see.
‘Have you ever met a case like mine before?’
‘Are you asking me if there are other men who have stayed with their wife even if they knew she had a lover?’
‘Yes, more or less …’
‘There are plenty of them.’
‘Only I suppose they’re allowed to keep their place at home, and everyone at least pretends that they count for something? Not me. For nearly two years now, they’ve been gradually pushing me out of my house. They hardly even bother to lay a place for me at table. It’s not Prou who’s the outsider, it’s me. During meals, they just talk to each other or to my daughter, as if I was just a ghost.
‘On Sundays, they take the van and go out to the country. At first, I’d stay with Isabelle and I found things to amuse her. If it wasn’t for Isabelle, would I have left? I don’t know.
‘Anyway, these days Isabelle goes with them, because it’s more fun to ride in a car.
‘I asked myself every question I could think of, not just at night when I’d had a few drinks, but in the morning and all day while I was at work. Because I still put in my hours at work.
‘Questions about my feelings, and also practical questions. I even went to see a lawyer, three months ago. I didn’t tell him as much as I’ve told you, because I got the feeling he was hardly bothering to listen to me, and I didn’t interest him.
‘ “What is it you actually want?” he asked me.
‘ “I don’t know.”
‘ “A divorce?”
‘ “I don’t know. I want to be able to keep my daughter, that’s the main thing.”
‘ “Have you proof of your wife’s misconduct?”
‘ “I told you, every night I have to sleep on a camp bed, while they’re both in our bedroom.”
‘ “You’d need to get that verified by a senior police officer. What kind of marriage contract do you have?”
‘He explained to me that because we didn’t have a specific marriage contract stating otherwise, Renée and I were married under the convention of common assets, which means that my business, the house, the furniture, everything I own, even the clothes I’m wearing, belong to her just as much as to me.
‘ “But what about my daughter?” I asked. “Will they let me have my daughter?”
‘ “That depends. If the misconduct is proved and the judge thinks …” ’
Here Planchon gritted his teeth.
‘He said something else,’ he went on, after a pause. ‘Before I went to see him, like this evening when I’ve come to see you, I’d had a drink or two to give me courage. And he noticed that right away, I could tell by the way he spoke to me.
‘ “… Well, the judge would have to decide which of you is better able to provide your daughter with a normal upbringing.”
‘And my wife has said the same thing to me, using different words. She’s several times said:
‘ “What are you waiting for, why don’t you leave? Have you no dignity? Don’t you realize you’re not wanted here?”
‘But I kept saying to her:
‘ “I won’t abandon my daughter.”
‘And she said:
‘ “She’s my daughter too, isn’t she? Do you think I’d let her go off with a drunkard like you?”
‘I’m not really a drunkard, Monsieur Maigret, I beg you to believe me, in spite of appearances. Before all this, I didn’t drink at all, not even a little pick-me-up from time to time. But what else was I going to do, out on the street on my own at night?
‘I got in the habit of going into bars and standing at the counter, so as to have people round me, to listen to them talking, to hear human voices.
‘I’d have a drink, then one more. And I’d start thinking and that would drive me to drink another, and another.
‘I’ve tried to stop, and I’ve felt so bad I wanted to throw myself in the Seine. I’ve often thought of doing that. It’s the easiest way out. All that’s holding me back is Isabelle. I just don’t want to leave her with them. The very idea that one day she might call him Papa …’
Now he was weeping and unashamedly took out a handkerchief, while Maigret stared at him.
There was something wrong, certainly. Alcohol or no alcohol, the man was launched, plunging deliberately into his despair.
From the point of view of the police, there was nothing to be done. He had committed no crime. He intended to kill his wife and her lover, at least that was what he claimed. But he had never indicated this intention to them, so he could not be accused of making death threats.
From a legal p
oint of view, the only thing to say was ‘Come back here afterwards …’
In other words when he had actually committed the crime! And Maigret could even have added, without fear of being mistaken:
‘If you tell the jury your story as you have just told it to me, and if you have a good lawyer, you’d probably get off …’
Was this the solution Planchon had come to wring out of him in some way? For a few seconds, Maigret really suspected that. He disliked men who shed tears. He distrusted men who confessed too readily. And sentimentality boosted by alcohol irritated him.
His dinner was already spoiled, and he had missed his television programme. Planchon showed no sign of being about to leave. He too seemed to appreciate the warm atmosphere in the Maigret apartment. Was he going to be like one of those stray dogs that you pat and comfort when you meet them, and then can never get rid of?
‘I’m sorry,’ Planchon stammered, wiping his eyes. ‘I must seem ridiculous to you. It’s the first time in my life I’ve confided in anyone …’
Maigret wanted to say to him:
‘Why me?’
Because the papers had all too often published profiles of him, and reporters had given him the reputation of being a policeman who was humane and understanding.
‘How long is it,’ he asked, ‘since you wrote to me the first time?’
‘It was about two months ago, from a little café on the Place du Tertre.’
Maigret’s name had been in the papers a great deal round about that time, in connection with a crime committed by an eighteen-year-old youth.
‘And you wrote a dozen or so letters, and tore them all up? In the space of about a week?’
‘Yes, something like that. I’d write two or even three the same evening, and only tear them up next day.’
‘So for six or seven weeks, you came every Saturday to Quai des Orfèvres.’
With his way of presenting himself, then waiting in the glass cage and disappearing before he could talk to anyone, he had become almost as legendary a character as the old lady with her knitting. Was it Janvier or Lucas who had dubbed him ‘the Saturday caller’?
And yet during the whole of that time, Planchon had not put his plan into effect. He had returned every night to Rue Tholozé, lain down on his camp bed, then risen before anyone next morning to go to work, as if nothing was wrong.
But this man was more subtle than one might have thought.
‘I can guess what you’re thinking,’ he said mournfully.
‘What am I thinking?’
‘That I’ve accepted the situation for almost two years. And for the last two months, I’ve been thinking of killing my wife, or both of them …’
‘And so?’
‘Because I haven’t done it yet … Admit it! You’re telling yourself I never will have the courage to do it.’
Maigret shook his head.
‘You don’t need courage to do that. Murder can be committed by any fool.’
‘But when there’s no other way out? Put yourself in my place. I had a solid little business, a wife, a child. And I’ve lost everything. Not just my wife and child, but my living. Because they never talk of leaving. The way they see it, I’m the one who’s unwanted, so I should be the one to leave. That’s what I’m trying to explain to you.
‘What can I say? It’s even been the same with the customers! It happened very gradually. Prou was just one of my workmen, an intelligent and hard-working one, I have to say. He has much more of the gift of the gab than me. So he gets on better with the customers, especially if they’re women.
‘And without my realizing it, he was gradually stepping into my shoes as the boss, and when people telephone these days because they want some work done, it’s almost always him they ask for. If I was to disappear tomorrow, hardly anyone would notice. Would even my daughter miss me? I’m not so sure. He’s a more cheery character than me, he tells her stories, sings songs to her, carries her on his shoulders.’
‘What does your daughter call him?’
‘She calls him Roger, like my wife does. She’s not surprised they sleep in the same room … During the day, the camp bed’s folded up and put in a cupboard. It’s as if every trace of my presence has been wiped out. But look, I’ve kept you too long, I must apologize to your wife, she must be getting really annoyed with me …’
But this time, it was Maigret who would not let him go, since he was determined to understand.
‘Listen, Monsieur Planchon …’
‘I’m listening.’
‘For two months you’ve been setting out to see me, to say, in short:
‘ “I intend to kill my wife and her lover.”
‘Is that correct?’
‘Yes.’
‘And for two months, you’ve lived every day with that thought.’
‘Yes. There was nothing else …’
‘Wait. I presume you’re not expecting me to say:
‘ “Well, get on with it!” ’
‘You’d have no right to say that.’
‘But you think I must share your point of view.’
A brief gleam in the other man’s eye indicated that he was not far off the mark.
‘So it’s one thing or the other. Forgive me if I sound brutal. Either you don’t really mean to kill anyone at all, it’s just a vague intention, especially after a couple of drinks …’
Planchon nodded sadly.
‘Let me finish. Or else, what I’m saying is that you haven’t really decided, and you want someone to tell you to stop.’
The man came back at him with his eternal refrain:
‘There’s no other way out.’
‘You were hoping I’d come up with a solution.’
‘There isn’t one.’
‘All right, let’s imagine that theory is mistaken. I can see only one other possibility. You genuinely have made plans to kill your wife and her lover. You have even gone so far as to identify the place where you will get rid of their bodies …’
‘I’ve thought of everything.’
‘And you come to see me, a man whose job it is to try and catch criminals.’
‘I know.’
‘What do you know?’
‘That it doesn’t seem logical.’
From his obstinate expression, it was no less clear that he was clinging to his idea. He had started life without money, without means, or any education to speak of. As far as Maigret could judge, he was only of moderate intelligence.
Having been left alone in Paris after his mother’s death, he had nevertheless managed in a few years, by sheer graft and willpower, to become the boss of a quite prosperous small painting and decorating business.
Could it be said that the man wasn’t clear-headed? Even if he had started drinking?
‘You mentioned the confessional just now. You said that if you were still religious, you’d have gone to a priest.’
‘I think so.’
‘And what do you think the priest would have said?’
‘I don’t know. I suppose he would have tried to stop me carrying out my plan.’
‘What about me?’
‘You would too.’
‘So you want someone to stop you, to prevent you from doing something foolish …’
Planchon suddenly appeared lost. A moment earlier, he had been looking at Maigret with confidence, or hope. All at once, it was as if they were no longer speaking the same language and all the words exchanged up till now were of no consequence.
He shook his head and there was reproach in his eyes, disappointment at any rate. He muttered under his breath:
‘It’s not that.’
Perhaps he was on the verge of picking up his hat and leaving, regretting this pointless visit.
‘Wait a moment, Planchon. Try to listen to me, instead of following your own thoughts.’
‘I’m trying, Monsieur Maigret.’
‘What good or comfort would it have brought you to confess to a priest?’
All in one breath, he replied:
‘Oh I don’t know.’
He was still there, but he was no longer present. He had begun to retreat into himself, not hearing the inspector’s voice, any more than he heard the anonymous voices in the bars where he went drinking.
‘You would have gone ahead and killed them after that?’
‘I suppose so. I’d better be going.’
And Maigret, feeling almost pained to be disappointing this man, persisted in probing for the grain of truth he felt he had glimpsed somewhere.
‘You don’t want anyone to prevent you doing what you’ve decided?’
‘No.’
Planchon added, with a strange smile:
‘The only way would be to put me in jail. But you can’t put me in jail if I haven’t done anything.’
‘So what you’re after, what you’ve come here for, is some kind of absolution. You need to know that you will be understood, that you’re not a monster, and that your plan is the only outcome left to you.’
He repeated:
‘I don’t know.’
And he seemed so distracted that Maigret was tempted to shake him by the shoulder, look him in the eye, and speak loudly to him.
‘Listen, Planchon …’
He too was repeating himself. It was perhaps the tenth time he had said those words.
‘As you say, I have no right to lock you up. But I could have you watched, even if it doesn’t stop you. You’d be arrested immediately. It’s not me that would pass sentence on you but the courts, and they won’t necessarily understand, and will, in all likelihood, concentrate on the idea that the crime was premeditated.
‘You’ve told me you have no family in Paris.’
‘Or anywhere else.’
‘So what would become of your daughter, even for the months it would take for the case to be investigated and come to court? And after that?’
Yet again, he said:
‘I don’t know …’
‘So?’
‘Nothing.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I don’t know. I just don’t know any more, but I’m going to try.’
‘Try what?’
‘To get used to it.’
Maigret wanted to shout at him that that was not what he had meant.
‘What’s stopping you just leaving?’
Maigret and the Saturday Caller Page 3
