Maigret Gets Angry (10 page)

‘Are you looking for the fellow who came
down to telephone earlier? He said to tell you to go up to the third floor. You can go through
here.'

A narrow corridor, with graffiti on the walls.
The staircase was dark, lit only by a small window on the second floor. Once past it, Maigret
caught sight of two feet and a pair of legs.

It was Mimile, sitting on the top stair, an unlit
cigarette in his mouth.

‘Give me a light first, boss. I
didn't even stop to ask for matches when I went downstairs to telephone. I haven't
been able to have a smoke since last night.'

There was a mixture of joy and mockery in his
light-coloured eyes.

‘Do you want me to shove over so you can
sit down too?'

‘Where is he?'

On the landing Maigret was able to make out four
doors painted the same dreary brown as the façade. They bore the clumsily painted numbers
11, 12, 13 and 14.

‘He's in number 12! I've got
13. It's funny, anyone would think they'd done it on purpose … Thirteen,
unlucky for some!'

He inhaled the smoke avidly, stood up and
stretched.

‘If you'd like to come into my pad
… but I warn you it stinks and the ceiling's low. While I was here on my own,
I thought it best to be out here and bar the way,
you understand?'

‘How did you manage to
telephone?'

‘Exactly … I'd been waiting for
an opportunity all morning. 'Cause we've been here a while. Since six o'clock
this morning.'

He opened the door of number 13, and Maigret
glimpsed an iron bedstead painted black and an ugly reddish blanket, a straw-bottomed chair and
a basin with no jug on a pedestal table. The third-floor rooms were under the eaves and, from
the centre of the room, you had to stoop.

‘Let's not stay here because
he's as slippery as an eel. He's already tried to run off twice this morning. At one
point I thought he might try and escape over the rooftops, but I realized that it's
impossible.'

The gas works opposite, with its coal-blackened
yards. Mimile had the tousled look of someone who hadn't slept and hadn't
washed.

‘We're actually better off on the
stairs and it doesn't smell so bad. Here it stinks of sick flesh, don't you find?
Like the smell of an old dressing.'

Georges-Henry was asleep, or was pretending to
be, because when they pressed their ears to the door, they could not hear a sound from his room.
The two men stayed on the staircase and Mimile explained, chain-smoking to catch up:

‘First of all, how I managed to telephone
you. I didn't want to leave my stakeout, as you police call it. But on the other hand, I
had to contact you, as we'd agreed. At one
point, at around nine o'clock, a woman came down, the one
from number 14. I thought of asking her to give you a call, or to get a message to Quai des
Orfèvres. Except that here, it might not be a very good idea to mention the police and I
might have got myself thrown out.

‘“Better wait for another
opportunity, Mimile,” I said to myself. “This is no time to get into a
fight.”

‘When I saw the fellow from number 11
coming out of his room, I knew at once that he was a Pole. When it comes to Polish, I'm
your man, I speak a bit of their language.

‘I started to chat to him and he was very
happy to hear his lingo. I told him some story about a chick. That she was in the room. That she
wanted to ditch me. In short, he agreed to stand guard for the few minutes I needed to go
downstairs and telephone.'

‘Are you sure the kid is still in
there?'

Mimile gave him a cheeky wink and took from his
pocket a pair of pliers with which he gripped the tip of the key that was on the inside of the
door but was protruding slightly from the keyhole.

He beckoned to Maigret to come over quietly and,
with an extraordinarily gentle movement, he turned the key and opened the door a crack.

Maigret peered in and, in a room just like the
one next door, whose window was open, he saw the young man stretched out fully clothed across
the bed.

He was asleep, there was no doubt about it. He
slept as boys of that age sleep, his features relaxed, his mouth half-open in a childlike pout.
He had not taken his shoes off and one of his feet hung over the end of the bed.

Mimile shut the door again just as gently.

‘Now let me tell you what happened. That
was a brilliant idea of yours to have me take my bicycle. And an even more brilliant idea of
mine to hide it near the level crossing.

‘You remember how he raced off. A real
rabbit. He zigzagged through the gardens and dived into the undergrowth hoping to shake me
off.

‘At one point, we went through a hedge, one
after the other, and I still didn't manage to catch sight of him. It was the sound that
told me that he was making for a house. Not exactly towards the house, but towards a sort of
shed from which I saw him take out a bicycle.'

‘His grandmother's house,'
added Maigret. ‘The bike must have been a woman's bike, the one belonging to his
cousin Monita.'

‘A woman's bike, yes. He jumped on to
it, but he couldn't go fast along the garden paths, and I was still on his tail. I
didn't dare talk to him yet, because I didn't know what was happening your
end.'

‘Malik wanted to shoot you.'

‘I thought as much. It's funny, but I
had a feeling. At one point I even stood still, for less than a second perhaps, as if I was
waiting for the shot. Anyway, we were groping around in the dark again, and now he'd got
off his bike and was pushing it. He passed it over another hedge. We found ourselves on a little
path that ran down to the Seine and, there too, he couldn't go fast. On the towpath, it
was different, and I lost a lot of ground, but I caught up with him on the way up to the
station, because of the hill.

‘He must have been quite confident, because he
couldn't have guessed that I had my bike a bit further on.

‘Poor kid! He was pedalling for all he was
worth. He was certain he was going to throw me off, wasn't he?

‘Well, he was wrong! I grab my bike in
passing, I give it some oomph and, just when he's least expecting it, here I am riding
alongside him as if nothing's happened.

‘“Don't be afraid, kid,”
I say to him.

‘I wanted to reassure him. He went crazy.
He pedalled faster and faster, it made his breath all hot.

‘“Don't be afraid, I'm
telling you … You know Inspector Maigret, don't you? He doesn't want to hurt
you, he wants to help you.”

‘From time to time, he turned towards me
and yelled furiously:

‘“Leave me alone!”

‘Then, with a sob in his voice:

‘“I still won't say
anything.”

‘I felt sorry for him, I tell you. Some job
you gave me. To say nothing of the fact that going down a hill, I can't remember where, on
a main road, he swerves and ends up face down on the tarmac, and I literally heard the crack as
his head hit the road.

‘I get off my bike. I want to help him up.
He was already back in the saddle, crazier, angrier than ever.

‘“Stop, kid. You must have hurt
yourself. There's no harm in us talking for a minute, is there? I'm on your side, I
am.”

‘I'd been wondering for a while what
he was up to, hunched over his handlebars, with one hand hidden from
view. I should add that the moon had come up and it was fairly
light.

‘I ride up closer. I wasn't a metre
away from him when he makes a movement. I duck. Luckily! That little rascal had just thrown a
monkey wrench that he'd taken out of his saddle bag at my head. It missed my forehead by a
whisker.

‘Now he was even more frightened. He
reckoned I was angry with him, that I'd get him back. And I carried on talking. It would
be a laugh if I could repeat everything I said to him that night.

‘“You realize that you won't
get rid of me, don't you? Besides I'm under orders. Go where you like, you'll
always find me behind you … I report to the inspector. Once he's there, this
won't be my business any more.”

‘He must have taken the wrong road at a
crossroads, because now we were heading away from Paris. After going through umpteen villages,
all ghostly in the moonlight, we came out on Route d'Orléans. That's some
distance from the Route de Fontainebleau!

‘Eventually he was forced to slow down, but
he refused to speak to me or even to look in my direction.

‘Then it grew light and we were on the
outskirts of Paris. I had another close shave, because he had the bright idea of diving into the
little back streets to try and shake me off.

‘He must have been worn out … I could
see how pale he was, his eyelids were red. He only managed to stay on his bike through
habit.

‘“We'd do better to call it a
night and get some kip, kid. You'll end up making yourself ill.”

‘And then, he spoke to me. He must have done it
automatically, without realizing. Yes, I'm convinced he was so exhausted that he no longer
knew what he was doing. Have you ever seen the finishing line of a cross-country race when the
guy has to have someone holding him up while he's completely oblivious to all the
excitement around him?

‘“I don't have any
money,” he says to me.

‘“That's not a problem, I do.
We'll go wherever you like, but you need to rest.”

‘We were in this neighbourhood. I
didn't think he'd take me at my word so quickly. He saw the word “hotel”
over the door, which was open. There were some workers coming out.

‘He got off the bike and he could barely
stand up straight, he was so stiff. If the café had been open, I'd have bought him a
drink, but I don't know if he'd have accepted it.

‘He's proud, you know. He's a
strange boy. I don't know what his plan is, but he's sticking to it, and it's
not over yet.

‘We shoved the two bikes under the stairs.
If they haven't been stolen, they should still be there.

‘He went up ahead of me. On the first
floor, he didn't know what to do, because there didn't appear to be anyone
around.

‘“
Patron!
” I
shouted.

‘The owner turned out to be a woman.
Stronger than a man, and difficult.

‘“What do you want?”

‘And she gave us a look that showed she was thinking dirty
thoughts.

‘“We want two rooms. Next to each
other if possible.”

‘In the end she gave us two keys, rooms 12
and 13. That's all, boss. Now, if you don't mind staying here for a moment,
I'd like to go and have a drink or two and maybe something to eat. I've been
smelling food cooking since this morning.'

‘Open the door for me,' said Maigret
when Mimile came back up, reeking of alcohol.

‘You want to wake him up?' protested
Mimile, who had begun to consider the young man as his protégé. ‘You'd do
better to let him kip to his heart's content.'

Maigret gave a reassuring wave and went into the
room without making a sound, tiptoeing over to the window and resting his elbows on the ledge.
Men were loading the gas-works furnaces and the flames shot up bright yellow in the sunlight. He
could imagine the sweat on the torsos of the workers stripped to the waist as they wiped their
foreheads with their grimy arms.

It was a long wait. Maigret had plenty of time to
think. From time to time, he turned towards his young companion, who was beginning to leave the
realm of deep and peaceful sleep to enter into the more restless phase that precedes awakening.
Sometimes his brow furrowed. His mouth opened wider, as if he were trying to say something. He
was probably dreaming that he was speaking. He became fierce. He was saying ‘no'
with all the strength of his being.

Then his expression became more distraught and he appeared to be
on the verge of tears. But he did not cry. He tossed and rolled over, making the sagging bed
creak. He swatted a fly that had landed on his nose. His eyelids flickered, startled by the
glare of the sunlight.

Finally his eyes were wide open, staring at the
slanting ceiling in naive surprise. Then he gazed at the bulky form of Maigret, who stood with
his back to the light.

Suddenly he was fully alert. He did not stir, but
remained absolutely still, and a cold determination reminiscent of his father stole over his
face and hardened his features.

‘I still won't say anything,'
he announced.

‘I am not asking you to say
anything,' replied Maigret with a hint of gruffness in his voice. ‘And besides, what
could you tell me?'

‘Why was I followed? And what are you doing
in my room? Where's my father?'

‘He stayed back at home.'

‘Are you sure?'

It was as if he did not dare budge, as if the
slightest movement might put him in some unknown peril. He lay there on his back, his nerves on
edge, his eyes wide.

‘You have no right to follow me like this.
I am free. I haven't done anything.'

‘Would you rather I took you home to your
father?'

Alarm in his grey eyes.

‘That's what the police would do
immediately if they caught you. You're a minor. You're just a child.'

Sitting up abruptly, the boy was overcome by
despair.

‘But I don't want to! … I
don't want to! …' he howled.

Maigret heard Mimile moving around on the landing, no doubt
thinking he was a bully.

‘I want to be left alone. I
want—'

Maigret caught the young man's
panic-stricken glance in the direction of the window and understood. If he hadn't been
blocking his path, Georges-Henry might have tried to throw himself out.