Maigret Gets Angry (4 page)

The dining room was vast and sumptuous. The table
was of pink-veined marble and the cutlery was placed on little individual table mats.

‘In short, from what the papers have said
about you, you had quite a successful career in the police? Strange profession. I've often
wondered what makes a person become a policeman, at what point and how they feel that is their
vocation. Because, well—'

His wife was more absent than ever. Maigret
watched Jean-Claude, who the minute he thought no one was looking at him, scrutinized the
inspector closely.

The
young man was as cold as the marble of the table. Aged around nineteen or twenty, he already had
his father's self-assurance. It would take a lot to shake him, and yet there was a sense
of unease about him.

They didn't speak of Monita, who had died
the previous week. Perhaps they preferred not to discuss her in front of the butler.

‘You see, Maigret,' Malik was saying,
‘at school, you were all blind, the lot of you, and you had no idea what you were saying
when you called me the Tax Collector. There were a few of us, you remember, who weren't
well off, and were more or less excluded by the sons of the local squires and the wealthy. Some
boys were upset by this, but others, like you, were indifferent.

‘They nicknamed me the Tax Collector out of
contempt, and yet that's where my strength lies.

‘If you knew everything that passes through
a tax collector's hands! I've seen the dirty linen of the outwardly most reputable
families … I've witnessed the dodgy dealings of those who grew rich. I've seen
those who rose up and those who fell, even those who tumbled to the very bottom, and I began to
study the way it all worked …

‘The social mechanism if you like. Why
people rise and why they fall.'

He spoke with a scornful pride, in the sumptuous
dining room whose decor was reflected in the windows, echoing his success.

‘I'm one of the people who rose
…'

The food was undoubtedly of the highest quality,
but Maigret had no liking for those complicated little dishes
with sauces invariably studded with truffle shavings or crayfish
tails. The butler kept leaning over to fill one of the glasses lined up in front of him.

The sky was turning green on one side, a cold,
almost grass green, and red on the other, with purple streaks and scattered clouds of an
innocent white. A few canoes lingered on the Seine, where the occasional fish would leap up,
making a series of slow loops.

Malik must have had keen hearing, as keen as
Maigret, who also heard. And yet it was barely audible, the silence of the evening alone
magnified the slightest sound.

A scratching at first, as if at a first-floor
window, from the side where, earlier, before dinner, there had been outbursts of shouting. Then
a faint thud coming from the garden.

Malik and his son looked at each other. Madame
Malik hadn't batted an eyelid but merely carried on raising her fork to her mouth.

Malik whipped off his napkin, put it on the table
and raced outside, lithe and silent in his crepe-soled shoes.

The butler seemed no more surprised by this
incident than the mistress of the house. But Jean-Claude, on the other hand, had turned slightly
red. And now he was casting around for something to say. He opened his mouth and stammered a few
words:

‘My father is still spry for his age,
isn't he?'

With exactly the same smile as his father. In
other words:

‘Something's going on, obviously, but
it's none of your business. Just carry on eating and don't take any notice of the
rest.'

‘He regularly beats me at tennis, even though I'm not
too bad a player. He's an extraordinary man.'

Why did Maigret repeat, staring at his plate:

‘Extraordinary …'

Someone had been locked in up there, in one of
the bedrooms, that was clear. And that someone could not have been happy to be shut up like
that, since, before dinner, Malik had had to go upstairs to reprimand him.

That same someone had tried to take advantage of
the mealtime, when the entire family was in the dining room, to run away. He had jumped on to
the soft flower bed planted with hortensias that surrounded the house.

It was that dull sound of someone landing on the
earth that Malik had heard at the same time as Maigret.

And he had raced outside. It must be serious,
serious enough to make him behave in a way that was strange, to say the least.

‘Does your brother play tennis too?'
asked Maigret, looking up and gazing at the young man opposite.

‘Why do you ask that? No, my brother
isn't sporty.'

‘How old is he?'

‘Sixteen … He's just failed his
baccalaureate, and my father is furious.'

‘Is that why he locked him in his
room?'

‘Probably … Georges-Henry and my
father don't always get along too well.'

‘You on the other hand must get along very
well with your father, is that right?'

‘Fairly well.'

Maigret happened to glance at the hand of the
mistress
of the house and was astonished to see
that she was gripping her knife so hard that her knuckles had a bluish tinge.

The three of them sat there, waiting, while the
butler changed the plates once again. The air was stiller than ever, so still that you could
hear the slightest rustle of the leaves in the trees.

When he had regained his footing in the garden,
Georges-Henry had set off at a run. In which direction? Not towards the Seine, for he would have
been seen. Behind the house, at the bottom of the garden, was the railway line. To the left were
the grounds of the Amorelle residence.

The father must be running after his son. And
Maigret could not help smiling as he imagined Malik, doubtless driven by rage, forced into this
thankless chase.

They had had the cheese, and the dessert. It was
the moment when they should have left the table and moved into the drawing room or on to the
terrace, where it was still daylight. Glancing at his watch, Maigret saw that it was twelve
minutes since the master of the house had rushed outside.

Madame Malik did not rise. Her son was trying
discreetly to remind her of her duty when footsteps were heard in the adjacent hall.

It was Malik, with his smile, a slightly tense
smile all the same, and the first thing Maigret noticed was that he had changed his trousers.
This pair was white flannel too, but clearly fresh out of the wardrobe, the crease still
immaculate.

Had Malik got caught in some brambles during his
chase? Or had he waded across a stream?

He
hadn't had time to go far. His reappearance was still a record, for he was not out of
breath, his grey hair had been carefully slicked back, and nothing in his dress was out of
place.

‘I have a rascal of—'

The son took after his father, for he interrupted
him with all the naturalness in the world:

‘Georges-Henry again, I'll bet? I was
just telling the inspector that he failed his baccalaureate and that you had locked him in his
room to make him study.'

Malik didn't falter, showed no
satisfaction, no admiration for this adroit rescue. And yet it was a smart move. They had just
sent the ball back and forth as deftly as in a game of tennis.

‘No thank you, Jean,' said Malik to
the butler, who was trying to serve him. ‘If madame so wishes, we'll go out on to
the terrace.'

Then to his wife:

‘Unless you feel tired? … In which
case my friend Maigret won't be offended if you retire. With your permission, Jules?
… These past few days have been a great strain for her. She was very fond of her
niece.'

What was it that grated? The words were ordinary,
the tone banal. And yet Maigret had the sense that he was uncovering, or rather getting a whiff
of, something disturbing or menacing behind each sentence.

Erect now in her white dress, Madame Malik gazed
at them, and Maigret, without knowing exactly why, would not have been surprised if she had
collapsed on the black and white marble floor tiles.

‘If you don't mind,' she stammered.

She extended her hand once more, which he brushed
and found cold. The three men stepped through the French windows on to the terrace.

‘Cigars and brandy, Jean,' ordered
the master of the house.

And turning to Maigret, he asked point-blank:

‘Are you married?'

‘Yes.'

‘Children?'

‘I have not had that good
fortune.'

A curling of Malik's lip that did not
escape Jean-Claude, but which didn't shock him.

‘Sit down and have a cigar!'

Jean had brought out several boxes, Havana and
Manila cigars, several decanters of spirits too, of various shapes.

‘The youngest one, you see, is like his
grandmother. There's not a hint of Malik about him.'

One thing that hindered the conversation, that
irked Maigret, was that he couldn't reconcile himself to the overly familiar tone of his
former schoolmate.

‘So, Monsieur Malik, did you catch
him?' he asked hesitantly.

And Malik misinterpreted his formality. It was
fatal. There was a glimmer of satisfaction in his eyes. He clearly thought that the former chief
inspector was intimidated by his wealth and did not dare call him by his first name.

‘You can call me Ernest,' he said
condescendingly, rolling a cigar between his long, manicured fingers. ‘We were
schoolmates after all … No, I didn't
catch him and I had no intention of doing so.'

He was lying. It was enough to have seen the way
he had raced out of the room.

‘I simply wanted to know where he was going
… He's very highly strung, as sensitive as a girl.

‘When I left the room for a moment,
earlier, I went up to his room to scold him. I was quite harsh with him and I'm always
worried …'

Did he read in Maigret's eyes that he was
thinking of Monita, making a connection with the girl who had drowned and who was also highly
strung? Probably, because he hastened to add:

‘Oh! It's not what you think. He
loves himself too much to do that! But he does run away sometimes. Once, he went missing for a
week and was found by chance on a building site where he had just been hired.'

The eldest boy listened with indifference. He was
on his father's side, that was obvious. He had a deep contempt for this brother they were
talking about and who took after his grandmother.

‘As I knew he had no pocket money, I
followed him and I'm relieved … He simply went to see old Bernadette and is probably
crying on her shoulder as we speak.'

Darkness was falling, and Maigret had the
impression that Malik was less concerned about his own facial expressions. His features
hardened, his gaze became even sharper, without that irony that tempered its fierceness a
little.

‘Are you absolutely sure about sleeping at
Jeanne's? I could send a servant to go and collect your luggage.'

This
insistence displeased Maigret, who interpreted it as a threat. Perhaps he was wrong? Perhaps it
was his ill temper counselling him?

‘I'll go and sleep at
L'Ange,' he said.

‘Will you accept my invitation for
tomorrow? You'll meet some interesting people here. There aren't many of us. Six
houses in total, including the former chateau across the river. But there are some real
characters!'

And on that note, a shot was heard coming from
the direction of the river. Maigret didn't have a chance to react before his companion
explained:

‘Old Groux shooting woodpigeon. An
eccentric whom you'll meet tomorrow. He owns that entire hill that you can see – or
would be able to see if it weren't dark – on the opposite side of the river. He
knows I want to buy it, and for twenty years he's been refusing to sell, even though he
hasn't got a cent to his name.'

Why had his voice dropped, like someone who is
suddenly struck by a new idea mid-sentence?

‘Can you find your way back? Jean-Claude
will see you to the gate. Will you lock up, Jean-Claude? Follow the towpath and after two
hundred metres take the little woodland path that goes straight to L'Ange
…
If you like stories, you'll have your fill, because old Jeanne, who suffers from
insomnia, is probably already watching out for you and will give you your money's worth,
especially if you sympathize with her woes and take pity on her many ailments.'

He drained his glass and stood up, signalling
that the evening was over.

‘See you tomorrow, around midday. I'm counting on
you.'

He held out a strong, dry hand.

‘It's funny bumping into one another
after so many years … Good night, my friend.'

A slightly patronizing, distant ‘goodnight,
my friend'.

Already, as Maigret descended the steps
accompanied by the eldest son, Malik had vanished inside the house.

There was no moon and the night had grown quite
dark. As Maigret walked along the towpath, he heard the slow, repetitive plashing of a pair of
oars. A voice hissed:

‘Stop!'

The noise ceased, giving way to another, that of
a casting net being thrown over the side. Poachers, most likely.

He continued on his way, smoking his pipe, his
hands stuffed in his pockets, annoyed with himself and with the others and wondering, in short,
what he was doing there instead of being at home.

He passed the wall enclosing the Amorelles'
garden. As he walked past the gate, he noticed a light at one of the windows. Now on his left
were dark bushes among which, a little further on, he would find the path leading to old
Jeanne's place.

Suddenly, there was a sharp snap followed
immediately by a faint noise on the ground a few metres ahead of him. He froze, nervous, even
though it sounded like the shot earlier, when Malik had told him about an old eccentric who
spent his evenings hunting woodpigeon.