Liberty Bar (15 page)

A strip of street with uneven paving
stones … A streetlamp … The sign of the bar opposite …

‘I know you are protecting her,
because she is young … Perhaps because she has already made offers to you too
…'

Sylvie returned, rings around her eyes,
looking weary, and handed Maigret a half-full bottle of rum.

And Jaja chuckled:

‘I'm allowed a drink, now
I'm on my last legs – is that it? I heard what the doctor said …'

But just the thought of it put her in
turmoil. She was afraid of dying. Her eyes were haggard.

Nevertheless, she took hold of the bottle.
She drank, thirstily, watching each of her two companions in turn.

‘The old woman's about to pop
her clogs! … Well, I don't want to! … I want her to die before me
… Because she's …'

She suddenly went silent, as if she had
lost her train of thought. Maigret didn't move a muscle, merely waited.

‘Did she talk? … She must have
done, otherwise they wouldn't have let her out … As for me, I tried to get
her released … Because it wasn't Joseph who sent me to see the son in
Antibes … It was me alone … Do you understand?'

Yes, of course! Maigret understood
everything! He had learned everything he needed to know a good hour earlier.

He made a vague gesture
in the direction of the divan.

‘It wasn't William who slept
there, was it?'

‘No, he didn't sleep there!
… He slept here, in my bed! … William was my lover! … William came
here for me and me alone, and it was she, who I took in out of the goodness of my heart,
who slept on the divan … Did you not suspect that?'

She yelled all this in a raucous voice.
Now it was just a matter of letting her speak. It was coming from deep inside her. It
was her true essence, the real Jaja, Jaja naked, that was being exposed to the
light.

‘The truth is that I loved him and
he loved me! … He appreciated that it wasn't my fault that I never got a
proper education … He was happy when he was with me … He told me so …
It pained him to leave … And when he came back here he was like a schoolboy at the
start of the holidays …'

She wept as she spoke, and that made her
face adopt a strange grimace that the pink light filtering through the lampshade
rendered even more hallucinatory.

Especially as she had one arm strapped up
in a piece of apparatus!

‘And I didn't suspect a thing!
I was stupid! You're always stupid in cases like this! I was the one who invited
this girl, who kept her here, because it's always fun to have young people around
…'

Sylvie didn't move a muscle.

‘Look at her! She's still
giving me a look! She's always been the same, and I, fat idiot that I am, thought
it was just because of shyness … I was touched by her … When
I think she seduced him wearing my dressing gowns, flaunting
everything she had!

‘Because it was what she wanted!
… Her and her pimp Joseph … William had money, dammit! … And they
…

‘Anyway! The will …'

And she grabbed the bottle and glugged
down mouthfuls of rum. Sylvie took the opportunity to give Maigret an imploring look.
She could hardly stand up. She was wobbling.

‘It was here that Joseph stole it
… I'm not sure when … No doubt one evening after a few drinks …
William had spoken about it … And Joseph must have said to himself that the son
would pay a good price for this piece of paper …'

Maigret was barely listening to this
story, predictable as it was. Instead, he looked at the room, the bed, the divan
…

William and Jaja …

And Sylvie on a divan …

And poor William must have no doubt
compared the two …

‘I suspected something when I saw
Sylvie give William a look one day as she was setting off after lunch … I still
couldn't believe it … But straight afterwards he said he was going to head
off himself … Normally he never left the house before the evening … I
didn't say anything … I got dressed …'

The key scene, one that Maigret had
reconstructed long before! Joseph paying a short visit with the will already in his
pocket! Sylvie who had got dressed earlier than usual
and who had had
lunch in her town clothes in order to set off straight afterwards …

The look that Jaja spotted … She
said nothing … She ate … She drank … But no sooner was William out of
the door than she pulled an overcoat on over her indoor clothes …

No one left in the bar! An empty house! A
locked door …

They all went off in pursuit of each other
…

‘Do you know where she waited for
him? … The Hôtel Beauséjour … Out in the street I was walking up and down
like a madwoman … I wanted to knock on the door, to beg Sylvie to give him back to
me … At the corner of the street there was a knife seller … And while they
were … while they were upstairs, I was looking in the shop window … I
didn't know what I was doing … I felt the pain all over … I went
inside … I bought a flick-knife … I think I was probably crying …

‘Then they came out together …
William looked completely different, as if rejuvenated … He even took Sylvie into
a sweet shop and bought her a box of chocolates …

‘They parted company in front of the
garage …

‘That's when I started running
… I knew he would be heading back to Antibes … I blocked his way, just
outside of town … It was beginning to get dark … He saw me … He
stopped the car …

‘And I shouted out:

‘“Take this! … Take
this! … This is for you! … And this is for her! …”'

She fell back on the bed and curled up
into a ball, her face bathed in tears and sweat.

‘I don't
even know how he got away … He must have pushed me away, closed the door
…

‘I was all alone in the middle of
the road and I was almost run over by a bus … I didn't have the knife any
more … Maybe I left it in the car …'

The only detail that Maigret had
overlooked: the knife, which William Brown, his eyes already misting over, no doubt had
the presence of mind to throw into some bushes!

‘I got home late …'

‘Yes … The bars …

‘I woke up in my bed, feeling ill
…'

Then, sitting up, she said again:

‘But I won't go to Haguenau!
… I won't go! … You can do whatever you like to make me … The
doctor said it: I'm going to die … And it's this wh—'

There was the sound of a chair scraping
across the floor. Sylvie had pulled a seat towards her and collapsed on to it, sideways
on.

She passed out slowly, gradually, but it
wasn't feigned. Her nostrils were pinched, ringed with yellow. Her eye sockets
were hollow.

‘It serves her right!' Jaja
cried. ‘Leave her! … Or maybe not … I don't know … Maybe
Joseph organized everything … Sylvie! … My little Sylvie …'

Maigret leaned over the young woman. He
tapped her hands, her cheeks.

He saw Jaja grab the bottle and take
another drink, literally pumping alcohol down her throat, which caused her to cough
violently.

Then the fat doll sighed
and buried her head in the pillow.

Maigret took Sylvie in his arms, carried
her down to the ground floor and dampened her temples with cool water.

The first thing she said when she opened
her eyes was:

‘It's not true
…'

Deep, total despair.

‘I want you to know that it's
not true … I don't try to make out I'm better than I am … But
it's not true … I love Jaja! … He was the one who … Do you
understand? … He was making eyes at me for months … He begged me … How
could I refuse, given that I did it every evening with strangers …?'

‘Shush! Not so loud
…'

‘Let her hear me! If she thought
about it, she would understand … I didn't even want to say anything to
Joseph, in case he took advantage … I arranged to meet him …'

‘Just once?'

‘Just once … You see! …
It's true that he bought me chocolates … He was besotted … So much so
that he frightened me … He treated me like a young girl …'

‘Is that all?'

‘I didn't know that it was
Jaja who … No! I swear! I thought it was Joseph … I was afraid … He
told me that I should return to the Beauséjour, where someone would give me some money
…'

And, in a whisper:

‘What could I do?'

They heard a moan from upstairs – the same
moan as earlier.

‘Is she very
seriously injured?'

Maigret shrugged his shoulders, went
upstairs, saw that Jaja was sleeping and that she had been moaning in her unconscious
state.

He came back downstairs and found Sylvie,
who was a bag of nerves, jumping at every sound in the house.

‘She's asleep!' he
whispered. ‘Shush …'

Sylvie didn't understand and looked
at Maigret with an expression of dread; he merely filled a pipe.

‘Stay by her side … When she
wakes up, tell her that I have left … for good …'

‘But …'

‘Tell her that she was dreaming,
that she was having nightmares, that …'

‘But … I don't
understand … And Joseph?'

She looked into his eyes. He had his hands
in his pockets. He took out the twenty banknotes, which were still there.

‘Do you love him?'

She replied:

‘You know full well that I need a
man! Otherwise …'

‘And William?'

‘That was different … He was
from another world … He …'

Maigret walked to the door. He turned
round one last time, as he fiddled with the key in the lock.

‘See to it that we don't have
to talk about the Liberty Bar again … Do you understand?'

The door was open to the cold air outside.
The ground was exhaling a damp vapour that was like a fog.

‘I didn't think that you were
like that …' Sylvie
stammered, not knowing what to say.
‘I … Jaja … I swear she is the best woman in the world
…'

He turned round, shrugged his shoulders
and set off in the direction of the harbour, stopping a little further along under a
streetlamp to relight his pipe.

Maigret unfolded his legs, looked the
other man in the eyes and handed him a stamped sheet of paper.

‘May I?' asked Harry Brown
with an anxious glance to the door, behind which were his secretary and his typist.

‘It's yours.'

‘I want you to know that I am
prepared to give them compensation … A hundred thousand francs each, for example
… Do you understand? … It is not a question of money: it's all about
the scandal … If those four women were to come back home and …'

‘I understand.'

Outside the window could be seen the beach
of Juan-les-Pins, a hundred people in swimsuits lying on the sand, three young women
doing physical exercises with a long, thin instructor and an Algerian who went from
group to group with a basket of peanuts.

‘Do you think a hundred thousand
would …?'

‘I'm sure, yes!' said
Maigret, standing up.

‘You haven't had your
drink.'

‘No, thank you.'

And Harry Brown, so correct, so well
groomed, hesitated a moment before hazarding:

‘You see, inspector, I thought for a
while that you were the enemy … In France …'

‘Quite
…'

Maigret headed for the door. Brown
followed him, sounding less sure of himself:

‘… scandal isn't as big
a deal as it is in …'

‘Goodbye, monsieur!'

And Maigret bowed slightly, without
offering his hand, and left the suite and all its busy wool trading.

‘In France … In France
…' the inspector muttered as he descended the purple-carpeted staircase.

In France what? What would you call Harry
Brown's liaison with the widow or divorcee in Cap Ferrat?

A love story!

So what about the story of William, with
Jaja, with Sylvie?

Maigret had to weave his way between
semi-naked bodies as he walked along the beach. The brightly coloured swimsuits showed
off the bronzed flesh to its best advantage.

Boutigues was waiting for him next to the
physical education instructor's hut.

‘Well?'

‘Case closed! … William Brown
was killed by an unknown assailant who wanted to steal his wallet …'

‘But …'

‘But what? … No dramas!
… So …?'

‘Yes, but …'

‘No dramas!' Maigret repeated
as he looked at the blue sea, calm as a millpond, and the canoes paddling about. Was
there room here for dramas?