Inspector Cadaver

Version_1

Title Page

Copyright

About the Author

Praise for Georges Simenon

1. Evening on the Local Train

2. The Girl in the Nightdress

3. A Man You Would Keep at Arm's Length

4. The Cap Theft

5. Three Women in a Drawing Room

6. Groult-Cotelle's Alibi

7. The Old Postmistress

8. Maigret Does a Maigret

9. A Noise Behind the Door

EXTRA: Chapter 1 from
Félicie

Georges Simenon was born on 12 February
1903 in Liège, Belgium, and died in 1989 in Lausanne, Switzerland, where he had
lived for the latter part of his life. Between 1931 and 1972 he published seventy-five
novels and twenty-eight short stories featuring Inspector Maigret.

Simenon always resisted identifying himself
with his famous literary character, but acknowledged that they shared an important
characteristic:

Penguin is publishing the entire series of
Maigret novels.

‘I love reading Simenon. He makes me
think of Chekhov'

– William Faulkner

‘A truly wonderful writer …
marvellously readable – lucid, simple, absolutely in tune with the world he
creates'

– Muriel Spark

‘Few writers have ever conveyed with
such a sure touch, the bleakness of human life'

– A. N. Wilson

‘One of the greatest writers of the
twentieth century … Simenon was unequalled at making us look inside, though the
ability was masked by his brilliance at absorbing us obsessively in his
stories'

–
Guardian

‘A novelist who entered his fictional
world as if he were part of it'

– Peter Ackroyd

‘The greatest of all, the most
genuine novelist we have had in literature'

– André Gide

‘Superb … The most addictive of
writers … A unique teller of tales'

–
Observer

‘The mysteries of the human
personality are revealed in all their disconcerting complexity'

– Anita Brookner

‘A writer who, more than any other
crime novelist, combined a high literary reputation with popular appeal'

– P. D. James

‘A supreme writer …
Unforgettable vividness'

–
Independent

‘Compelling, remorseless,
brilliant'

– John Gray

‘Extraordinary masterpieces of the
twentieth century'

– John Banville

Maigret watched the world go by with large,
sullen eyes, unintentionally giving himself that air of self-importance, that contrived
dignity people tend to affect after hours spent sitting blankly in a train carriage.
Well before the train slowed to enter the station, he saw men in voluminous overcoats
spill out of every compartment, leather briefcase or suitcase in hand. Apparently
oblivious to one another, they spent the rest of the journey standing in the corridor,
carelessly hanging on to the brass rail across the window with one hand.

The window nearest the inspector was
streaked horizontally with thick tears of rain. Gazing at that film of water, he saw the
lights of a signal-box shatter into a thousand pointed rays; darkness had fallen. The
next moment down below there were streets in straight lines, glistening like canals,
houses, all absolutely identical, windows, doorsteps, pavements and, in that entire
universe, a lone human figure, a man in a reefer jacket, hood up, on his way somewhere
or other.

Maigret filled his pipe, slowly, carefully.
To light it, he turned in the direction the train was travelling. Four or five
passengers who were also waiting for the train to stop before hurrying off into the
empty streets or making a dash for the station buffet, stood between him and the end
of the corridor. Among them, he glimpsed a pale face that immediately
looked away.

It was Cadaver!

The inspector's first reaction was to
grumble: ‘He's pretended not to see me, the idiot.'

His second was to frown. Why on earth would
Inspector Cavre be going to Saint-Aubin-les-Marais?

The train slowed, came to a halt in Niort
station. On the wet, cold platform, Maigret hailed a member of staff.

‘Excuse me, to get to
Saint-Aubin?'

‘Twenty seventeen, platform three
…'

He had half an hour to spare. After a quick
trip to the public urinal at the far end of the platform, he pushed open the buffet
door. He headed for one of the many unoccupied tables and sank into a chair to wait idly
in the dusty light.

At the other end of the room Cadaver was
sitting at an identical table without a tablecloth, still pretending not to see him.

The man's name was Cavre, Justin
Cavre, not Cadaver, of course. But Inspector Cadaver was the nickname he had been given
twenty years earlier and that was still what they called him at the Police Judiciaire
whenever he came up in conversation.

He was a ridiculous sight off in his corner,
ill at ease, twisting uncomfortably in his seat to avoid looking in Maigret's
direction. It was obvious he had seen him. Lank and pasty-faced, with red eyelids, he
was like one of those kids who mope around by themselves in the playground, hiding their
longing to play with the other children under a sulky expression.

That was Cavre to a tee. He
was intelligent. He may even, in fact, have been the most intelligent man Maigret had
ever come across on the force. They were pretty much the same age, and, to tell the
truth, Cavre was slightly the better educated of the two of them. Who knew, if he had
persevered, he might have been promoted to detective chief inspector before Maigret.

So why had he already seemed to be carrying
some sort of curse on his skinny shoulders even as a very young man? Why did he scowl at
everyone as if he suspected them of wishing him ill?

‘Inspector Cadaver's begun his
novena …'

That was a phrase that used to be heard a
lot in the old days at Quai des Orfèvres. On some flimsy pretext, or for no reason
at all, Cavre would suddenly start giving everyone the silent, suspicious treatment. The
loathing treatment, it seemed. For a week he wouldn't say a word to a soul, and
his colleagues would catch him sniggering to himself, like a man who has just uncovered
the darkest desires of those around him.

Not many people knew why he had suddenly
quit the force. Maigret himself had only found out later and he had felt sorry for him.

Cavre was madly in love with his wife,
consumed by the sort of jealous, devastating passion that you would associate with a
lover rather than a husband. What could he possibly find so extraordinary about that
vulgar creature with the looks of a tart or a failed starlet? The fact remained,
however, that for her sake he had crossed the line in his work. Some nasty business to
do with money had come
to light. One evening Cavre had emerged, head
bowed, shoulders hunched, from the chief's office, and a few months later they
learned that he had opened a private detective agency above a stamp dealer on Rue
Drouot.

People were eating dinner, each in their own
little world of boredom and silence. Maigret drank a glass of beer, wiped his mouth and
grabbed his suitcase. On his way out, he passed within a couple of metres of his former
colleague while the latter stared fixedly at a gob of spit on the floor.

Black and wet, the local train was already
on platform three. Maigret settled down in the damp chill of an old-fashioned
compartment and tried unsuccessfully to close the window all the way.

There were comings and goings on the
platform, those familiar noises that one absorbs unconsciously. Two or three times the
door opened, a head appeared – train travellers always instinctively hunt for an
empty compartment – but, at the sight of Maigret, the door quickly closed
again.

As the train pulled out, Maigret went into
the corridor to shut a window that was letting in a draught. In the next-door
compartment, he saw Inspector Cadaver, pretending to be asleep.

For goodness' sake, it was just a
meaningless coincidence. It was absurd to give it any thought. The whole business he had
got himself involved in was ridiculous anyway, and Maigret wished he could just shrug it
all off.

Why on earth should he care if Cavre was
going to Saint-Aubin like him?

Darkness slid by outside the windows, with
the occasional
gleam of light by a road: the passing headlights of a car
or, more mysteriously, more appealingly, the yellowish rectangle of a window.

Bréjon, the examining magistrate
– a charming, shy man with old-fashioned, punctilious manners – had told him
more than once, ‘My brother-in-law Naud will be waiting for you at the station. I
have made sure he knows when you will be getting in.'

As he drew on his pipe, Maigret
couldn't help thinking: ‘What's that wretched Cadaver up to,
though?'

Maigret wasn't even on an official
case. Bréjon, whom he had worked with on numerous occasions, had sent him a short
note asking if he would be so kind as to drop by his office for a moment.

It was January. It was raining in Paris,
same as it was in Niort. There hadn't been a break in the rain or glimpse of sun
for over a week. In the examining magistrate's office the lamp on the desk had a
green shade. And while Monsieur Bréjon talked, incessantly wiping the lenses of his
glasses as he did so, Maigret thought that there was a green lampshade in his office
too, but that the magistrate's was ridged like a melon.