The Grand Banks Café (3 page)

‘That's enough! You want to
argue?'

The scuffle was over quickly. The
Breton, whose hands were free, pulled a knife from his pocket. The inspector saw it
just in time and with a swift back heel sent it spinning two metres away.

The shoe caught the Breton on the chin,
which started to bleed. Louis, still in a daze and still drunk, rushed to his friend
and started crying and saying he was sorry.

Léon came up to Maigret. He had his
watch in his hand.

‘Time I closed up! If I
don't we'll have the police on the doorstep. Every evening it's
the same story! I just can't kick them out!'

‘Do they sleep on board the
Océan
?'

‘Yes. Unless, that is, and it
happened to two of them yesterday, they sleep where they fall, in the gutter. I
found them this morning when I opened the shutters.'

The serving girl went round gathering
glasses off the tables. The men drifted off in groups of two or three. Only Louis
and the Breton didn't budge.

‘Need a room?' Léon asked
Maigret.

‘No thanks. I'm booked into
the Hôtel de la Plage.'

‘Can I say something?'

‘What?'

‘It isn't that I want to
give you advice. It's none of my business. But if anyone was feeling sorry for
the wireless operator, maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to
chercher la
femme
, as they say in books. I've heard a few whispers along those
lines …'

‘Did Pierre Le Clinche have a
girlfriend?'

‘What, him? No fear! He'd
got himself engaged wherever it was he came from. Every day he'd write home,
letters six pages long.'

‘Who do you mean, then?'

‘I dunno. Maybe it's more
complicated than people think. Besides …'

‘Besides what?'

‘Nothing. Behave yourself, Louis!
Go home to bed!'

But Louis was far too drunk for that. He
was tearful, he had his arms around his friend, whose chin was still bleeding, and
he kept saying sorry.

Maigret left the bar, hands thrust deep
in his pockets and with his collar turned up, for the air was cool.

In the vestibule of the Hôtel de la
Plage, he saw a young woman sitting in a wicker chair. A man got up from another
chair and smiled. There was a slight awkwardness in his smile.

It was Jorissen, the primary-school
teacher from Quimper. Maigret had not seen him for fifteen years, and Jorissen was
not sure whether he should treat him with their old easy familiarity.

‘Look, I'm sorry … I … that
is we, Mademoiselle
Léonnec and I, have
only just got here … I did the rounds of the hotels … They said you … they said
you'd be back … She's Pierre Le Clinche's fiancée … She insisted
…'

She was tall, rather pale, rather shy.
But when Maigret shook her hand, he sensed that behind the façade of small-town,
unsophisticated coyness there was a strong will.

She didn't speak. She felt out of
her depth. As did Jorissen, who was still just a primary-school teacher who was now
meeting up again with his old friend, who now held one of the highest ranks in the
Police Judiciare.

‘They pointed out Madame Maigret
in the lounge just now, but I didn't like to …'

Maigret took a closer look at the girl,
who was neither pretty nor plain, but there was something touching about her natural
simplicity.

‘You do know that he's
innocent, don't you?' she said finally, looking at no one in
particular.

The porter was waiting to get back to
his bed. He had already unbuttoned his jacket.

‘We'll see about that
tomorrow … Have you got a room somewhere?'

‘I've got the room next to
you … to yours,' stammered the teacher from Quimper, still unsure of himself.
‘And Mademoiselle Léonnec is on the floor above … I've got to get back
tomorrow, there are exams on … Do you think …?'

‘Tomorrow! We'll see
then,' Maigret said again.

And as he was getting ready for bed, his
wife, already half asleep, murmured:

‘Don't forget to turn the
light out.'

Side by side, not looking at each other,
they walked together first along the beach, which was deserted at that time of day,
and then along the quays by the harbour.

Gradually, the silences grew fewer until
Marie Léonnec was speaking in a more or less natural tone of voice.

‘You'll see! You'll
like him straight away! He couldn't be anything but likeable! And then
you'll understand that …'

Maigret kept shooting curious, admiring
glances at her. Jorissen had gone back to Quimper, very early that morning, leaving
the girl by herself in Fécamp.

‘I can't make her come with
me,' he had said. ‘She's far too independent for that.'

The previous evening, she was as
unforthcoming as a young woman raised in the peace and quiet of a small town can be.
Now, it wasn't an hour since she and Maigret had walked out of the Hôtel de la
Plage together.

The inspector was behaving in his most
crusty manner.

But to no effect. She refused to let
herself be intimidated. She was not taken in by him, and she smiled confidently.

‘His only fault,' she went
on, ‘is that he is so very sensitive. But it's hardly surprising. His
father was just a poor fisherman, and for years his mother mended nets to raise him.
Now he keeps her. He's educated. He's got a bright future before
him.'

‘Are your parents well off?' Maigret asked
bluntly.

‘They are the biggest makers of
ropes and metal cables in Quimper. That's why Pierre wouldn't even speak
to my father about us. For a whole year, we saw each other in secret.'

‘You were both over
eighteen?'

‘Just. I was the one who told my
parents. Pierre swore that he wouldn't marry me until he was earning at least
two thousand francs a month. So you see …'

‘Has he written to you since he
was arrested?'

‘Just one letter. It was very
short. And that from someone who used to send me a letter pages and pages long every
day! He said it would be best for me and my parents if I told everyone back home
that it was all over between us.'

They passed near the
Océan
,
which was still being unloaded. It was high tide, and its black hull dominated the
wharves. In the foredeck three men stripped to the waist were getting washed. Among
them Maigret recognized Louis.

He also noticed a gesture: one of the
men nudged the third man with his shoulder and nodded towards Maigret and the girl.
Maigret scowled.

‘Just shows how considerate he
is!' continued the voice at his side. ‘He knows how quickly scandal
spreads in a small town like Quimper. He wanted to give me back my
freedom.'

The morning was clear. The girl, in her
grey two-piece suit, looked like a student or a primary-school teacher.

‘For my parents to have let me
come here, they must
obviously trust him
too. But my father would prefer me to marry someone in business.'

At the police station Maigret left her
in the waiting room, sitting some considerable time in the waiting room. He jotted
down a few notes.

Half an hour later, they both walked
into the jail.

It was Maigret in his surly mood, hands
behind his back, pipe clenched between his teeth, shoulders bent, who now stood in
one corner of the cell. He had informed the authorities that he was not taking an
official interest in the investigation, that he was following its progress out of
curiosity.

Several people had described the
wireless operator to him, and the picture he had formed corresponded exactly to the
young man he was now seeing in the flesh.

He was tall and slim, in a conventional
suit, though a little on the shabby side, with the half-solemn, half-timid look
about him of a schoolboy who is always top of his class. There were freckles on his
cheeks. His hair was cropped short.

He had started when the door was opened.
For a moment, he stayed well away from the girl who walked straight up to him. She
had had to throw herself into his arms, literally, and cling on hard while he looked
around in bewilderment.

‘Marie! … Who on earth …? How
…?'

He was quite disoriented. But he
wasn't the sort to get excited. The lenses of his glasses clouded over, that
was all. His lips trembled.

‘You shouldn't have come.'

He caught sight of Maigret, whom he
didn't know, and then stared at the door, which had been left half-open.

He wasn't wearing a collar, and
there were no laces in his shoes. He also had a beard, gingerish and several days
old. He was still feeling awkward about these things, despite the sudden shock
he'd had. He felt his bare neck and his prominent Adam's apple with an
embarrassed movement of his hand.

‘Is my mother …?'

‘She didn't come. But she
doesn't think you're guilty any more than I do.'

The girl was no more able than he was to
give vent to her feelings. The moment fell flat. Maybe it was the intimidating
effect of the surroundings.

They looked at each other and, not
knowing what to say, groped for words. Then Mademoiselle Léonnec turned and pointed
to Maigret.

‘He's a friend of
Jorissen's. He's a detective chief inspector in the Police Judiciaire
and he's agreed to help us.'

Le Clinche hesitated about offering his
hand, then did not dare to.

‘Thanks … I …'

Another moment that failed entirely. The
girl knew it and felt like crying. She had been counting on a touching interview
which would win Maigret over to their side.

She gave her fiancé a look of
resentment, even of muted impatience.

‘You must tell him everything that
might help your defence.'

Pierre Le Clinche sighed, ill at ease and unsettled.

‘I've just a few questions
for you,' the inspector broke in. ‘All the crew say that throughout the
voyage your dealings with the captain were more than cool. And yet, when you sailed,
you were on good terms with him. What happened to bring about the change?'

The wireless operator opened his mouth,
said nothing, then stared at the floor, looking very sorry for himself.

‘Something to do with your duties?
For the first two days, you ate with the first mate and the chief mechanic. After
that you preferred to eat with the men.'

‘Yes … I know …'

‘Why?'

Losing patience, Marie Léonnec said:

‘Out with it, Pierre! We're
trying to save you! You must tell the truth.'

‘I don't know.'

He looked limp, cowed, almost without
hope.

‘Did you have any differences of
opinion with Captain Fallut?'

‘No.'

‘And yet you lived with him for
nearly three months cooped up on the same ship without ever saying a single word to
him. Everybody noticed. Some of them talked behind his back, saying that there were
times when Fallut gave the impression of being mad.'

‘I don't know.'

It was all Marie Léonnec could do to
choke back her frustration.

‘When the
Océan
returned
to port, you went ashore
with the others.
When you got to your room, you burned a number of papers …'

‘Yes. Nothing of any
importance.'

‘You keep a regular journal in
which you write down everything you see. Wasn't what you burned your journal
of the voyage?'

Le Clinche remained standing, head down,
like a schoolboy who hasn't done his homework and keeps his eyes stubbornly on
his feet.

‘Yes.'

‘Why?'

‘I don't
remember!'

‘And you can't remember why
you went back on board either? Though not straight away. You were seen crouching
behind a truck fifty metres from the boat.'

The girl looked at the inspector, then
at her fiancé, then back to the inspector and began to feel out of her depth.

‘Yes.'

‘The captain walked down the
gangplank on to the quay. It was at that moment that he was attacked.'

Pierre Le Clinche still said
nothing.

‘Talk to me, dammit!'

‘Yes, answer him, Pierre!
We're trying to save you. I don't understand … I …'

Her eyes filled with tears.

‘Yes.'

‘Yes what?'

‘I was there!'

‘And you saw?'

‘Not clearly … There were a lot of
barrels, trucks …
Two men fighting, then
one running off and a body falling into the water.'

‘What was the man who ran away
like?'

‘I don't know …'

‘Was he dressed like a
sailor?'