Maigret's Dead Man (13 page)

‘Apart from the nightclubs, I can only
think of the Coupole or the small bars around Les Halles.'

He knew all that. So why had he asked the
question?

‘Make it the Coupole.'

The main dining room was shut, but the bar was
still open and contained a few, somnolent customers. He ordered two magnificent ham sandwiches
and drank three beers one after the other. He had kept the taxi waiting. It was four in the
morning.

‘Quai des Orfèvres.'

On the way, he changed his mind.

‘Take me instead to the police cells on
Quai de l'Horloge.'

Everyone was there and the smell reminded him of
Rue du Roi-de-Sicile. The men had been lined up on one side, the women on the other, along with
all the down-and-outs, drunks and registered prostitutes rounded up in Paris that night.

Some were lying on the floor, asleep. The
regulars had taken their shoes off and were massaging their painful feet. Through the bars,
women joked with the custody officers, and sometimes one of them would lift her skirts up to her
waist as a gesture of defiance.

The duty officers played
cards around a stove on which a coffee-pot had been put to boil. Inspectors were waiting for
orders from Maigret.

In theory it wasn't until eight
o'clock that the identity papers of everyone who had been rounded would be checked prior
to the detainees being sent upstairs, where they would be stripped for the medical examination
and biometrics.

‘You might as well make a start now. Leave
checking their papers to the day superintendent. I want you to question all those picked up in
Rue du Roi-de-Sicile one by one, especially the women … And most particularly any males
and females who live in the Hôtel du Lion d'Or, if there are any …'

‘One woman and two men.'

‘Right. Get them to tell all they know
about the Czechs and Maria …'

He gave them brief descriptions of the members of
the gang, and then the officers sat down at separate tables.

The questioning, which would last for the rest of
the night, got under way just as Maigret walked back to his office through the dark corridors of
the Palais de Justice, groping for light switches as he went.

Joseph, the night clerk, stood up when he
appeared, and it was good to see that cheerful face again. The light was on in the
inspectors' office, where, as it happened, a phone began to ring.

Maigret walked in. Bodin was talking into the
phone and was saying:

‘I'll put him on … He's
just come in …'

It was Lucas who informed
Maigret that Maria had had a boy. Nine pounds. She had almost leaped out of bed when she saw the
nurse leaving the room with the baby to clean it up.

When he got out of the taxi which dropped him at
Laennec Hospital in Rue de Sèvres, Maigret noticed a large car with a diplomatic number
plate. At the main door, a tall, thin man was waiting. His clothes were so impeccable, his every
movement so carefully studied and his facial expressions so exquisite that, rather than listen
to his carefully articulated words, you simply felt like standing back to watch the
spectacle.

Yet he was not even the lowliest under-secretary
in the Czechoslovakian embassy, simply a minor official.

‘His Excellency has asked me
…'

Maigret, who reckoned that the last few hours
were some of the busiest he had ever known, decided to pre-empt the formalities and growled:

‘Yes, of course …'

Still, as they went up the stairs in the
hospital, he did turn and ask a question. It made the man start:

‘I imagine you speak Czech?'

Lucas was in the corridor, leaning on his elbows,
gloomily staring out at the gardens through a window. The sky that morning was grey, and it was
raining. A nurse had approached him and asked him not to smoke, and he now gave a sigh and
pointed at Maigret's pipe:

‘You'll be told to put it out,
sir.'

They had to wait until the
duty nurse came to collect them. She was middle-aged and totally impervious to Maigret's
reputation and made it plain that there was no love lost between her and the police.

‘You mustn't tire her. When I let you
know that it's time to leave, I would ask you not to try to stay any longer.'

Maigret shrugged and was first through the door
and into the small white room, where Maria seemed to be dozing while her baby lay fast asleep in
a cot by the side of the bed. But the look which escaped through the woman's half-closed
eyelids did not miss a single move the two men made.

She was as beautiful as she had been last night
in Rue du Roi-de-Sicile. Her face was paler. Her hair had been done up in two thick plaits which
coiled round her head.

After putting his hat down on a chair, Maigret
said to the Czech:

‘Please ask her what her name
is.'

He waited with no great hopes. He was right: the
young woman merely glared with eyes full of hate at the man who was speaking to her in her own
language.

‘She won't answer,' said the
interpreter. ‘As far as I can judge, she isn't Czech but Slovak. I have spoken to
her in both languages and it was when I used the second that there was a reaction.'

‘Perhaps you would be good enough to
explain that I urge her very strongly to answer my questions. If she doesn't, then despite
her condition, she could – now, today – be transferred to the infirmary in the
Santé prison.'

The Czech swallowed hard, as any offended
gentleman
might, and the nurse who was lingering in the room muttered as if
to herself:

‘That I would like to see!'

Then she spoke directly to Maigret:

‘Didn't you see the sign at the foot
of the stairs saying that smoking is not allowed?'

With unexpected meekness, Maigret took the pipe
from his mouth and held it between his fingers while it went out.

Meantime, Maria had said a few words.

‘Would you translate, please?'

‘She says that she doesn't care what
you do and that she hates us all. I was right. She's Slovakian, probably from southern
Slovakia. A country woman.'

He seemed somehow relieved. His honour as a pure
Czech from Prague had not been at stake since they were dealing with a mere Slovakian
peasant.

Maigret had taken his memo-pad from his
pocket.

‘Ask her where she was on the night of 12
and 13 October last.'

This time, the question struck home, her
expression darkened, and her eyes turned more insistently on the inspector. But no sound came
from her lips.

‘And now the same question for the night of
8 and 9 December.'

She became agitated. Her chest heaved visibly,
and she made an involuntary movement towards the cot, as if she wanted to take hold of her baby
and protect him.

She was a magnificent woman. Only the nurse could
not see that she belonged to a different order from the rest
of them and
thus was able to treat her just like any other woman, as a patient who had just had a baby.

‘Will you soon be done asking her all these
asinine questions?'

‘If that's what you think, I'll
ask her another question which might make you change your mind, mademoiselle … or is it
madame?'

‘It's mademoiselle, if you
don't mind.'

‘I thought as much.'

He turned to the interpreter.

‘Would you translate, please. During the
night of 8 and 9 December, at a farm in Picardy, at Saint-Gilles-les-Vaudreuves, an entire
family was brutally slaughtered with an axe. On the night of 12 and 13 October, two old men,
both farmers, were killed in the same way at their farm at Saint-Aubin, also in Picardy. During
the night of 21 and 22 November, two elderly men and their simple-minded farm hand had already
been attacked, also with an axe …'

‘I assume you are going to claim that she
did it?'

‘One moment, mademoiselle. Would you kindly
allow the interpreter …'

The Czech translated with evident distaste, as
though merely speaking of these massacres dirtied his hands. On hearing the first words, the
woman half sat up in the bed, exposing one breast, which she did not attempt to hide.

‘Until 8 December, nothing was known about
the murderers because they left no survivors behind. Are you following, mademoiselle?'

‘I believe the doctor
authorized a visit of just a few minutes only …'

‘Don't worry. She's tough. Just
look at her.'

She was still beautiful poised next to her son
like a she-wolf, like a lioness, as beautiful as she must have been leading her men.

‘Translate word for word, please. On 8
December, there was an oversight. A little girl, nine years old, in bare feet, wearing her
nightdress, managed to slip out of bed before they got round to her and hid in a corner where no
one thought of searching. She saw everything and heard everything. She saw a young woman with
dark hair, a magnificent, wild woman holding the flame of a candle to her mother's feet
while one of the men split her grandfather's skull and another poured a drink for his
companions. The farmer's wife screamed, begged, writhed in agony while this
…'

He nodded towards the woman who had just had a
baby.

‘… this woman smiled, ratcheted up
the torture by stubbing out a lighted cigarette on her breasts.'

‘Really!' protested the nurse.

‘Translate!'

While this was going on, he observed Maria, who
never took her eyes off him, withdrew into herself, eyes blazing.

‘Ask her if she has anything to say for
herself.'

All they got was a disdainful smile.

‘The little girl who escaped the carnage is
now an orphan. She is being looked after by a family in Amiens. This morning, she was shown a
photograph of this woman which was telegraphed by belinogram. She formally identified
her. She had not been told anything in advance. The photo was simply placed
in front of her, and her reaction was so violent that she suffered a nervous collapse. Since
you're Czech, monsieur, please translate.'

‘She's Slovak,' he
repeated.

At this point, the baby started to cry, and the
nurse, after looking at her watch, lifted him out of his cot. While she changed him, the mother
did not take her eyes off her.

‘I must point out, Detective Chief
Inspector, that your time is up.'

‘Was time up too for the poor people
I've been talking about?'

‘The baby must be put to the
breast.'

‘Please see to it.'

It was the very first time that Maigret had
conducted such an interview while a new-born baby fastened its lips to the white breast of a
murderess.

‘Still not answering, is she? I imagine she
won't say anything either when you ask her about Madame Rival, who was murdered like the
others on her farm on 19 January. She's the latest to date. Her daughter, aged forty, also
died. I'm assuming Maria was there. As usual, recent burn marks were found on her body.
Translate.'

All around him he was aware of a feeling of deep
unease, of muted hostility, but he did not care. He was exhausted. If he had been able to sit in
a chair for just five minutes, he would have gone to sleep.

‘Now ask her about her confederates, her
men, about Victor Poliensky, a kind of village idiot as strong as a
gorilla, Serge Madok, who has a thick neck and greasy skin, about Carl and the kid they
call Pietr.'

She picked up on the names as Maigret pronounced
them and with each mention she flinched.

‘Did she also go to bed with the
kid?'

‘Do you want me to translate?'

‘Please. I don't think you could say
anything that would bring a blush to her cheek.'

Backed into a corner, she still managed to raise
a smile when she heard the name of the adolescent.

‘Ask if he really is her
brother.'

Curiously enough there were moments when an
expression of genuine tenderness flickered in the woman's eyes and not only when she held
the face of her baby close to her breast.

‘And now, Monsieur …'

‘My name is Franz Lehel.'

‘I couldn't care less. I would be
grateful if you would translate what I am about to say very accurately, word by word. It is
possible that the life of your compatriot could depend on it. Tell her first that her life
depends on the attitude she chooses to adopt.'

‘Must I really?'

And the nurse murmured:

‘It's a disgrace!'

But Maria did not turn a hair. She just turned a
little paler but still managed a smile.

‘There is another man. We don't know
who he is but he's their leader.'

‘Shall I translate?'

‘Please
do.'

This time what they got from the woman was a
sarcastic grin.

‘She won't talk, I know. I was
expecting it when I got here. She isn't the kind of woman who is easily intimidated.
Still, there is one detail I would like to clear up, because people's lives are at
stake.'

‘Shall I translate?'

‘Why did I ask you to come here?'

‘To translate. I'm sorry.'

He spoke very stiffly, like a schoolboy reciting
a lesson learned by rote.

‘From 12 October to 21 November is about
six weeks. From 21 November to 8 December is a little more than a fortnight. It's another
six weeks to 19 January. Don't you get it? Those are the periods, more or less, that it
took for the gang to spend the money they stole. It is now the end of February … I
can't promise anything. When the case comes to trial, others will decide what her fate
will be. Translate.'

‘Would you repeat the dates?'

Maigret repeated them and waited.

‘Add now that if, by answering my final
questions, she prevents further massacres taking place, due account will be taken of the
fact.'

She did not react, but the scowl on her face
turned to an expression of contempt.

‘I'm not asking her to tell me where
her friends are now. I'm not even asking her to tell me the name of their leader. I want
to know if their funds are running low
and if they're planning a job
for the next few days.'

The only effect was to light up Maria's
eyes.

‘Very well. She won't answer. I think
I've got the message. All that remains now is to find out if Victor Poliensky was the
killer.'

She listened closely to the interpreter, then
waited. Maigret was getting tired of having to keep going through the man from the embassy.

‘It's likely that not more than one
of them is handy with an axe. If that wasn't Victor's role, I don't see why
the gang would have bothered to drag a halfwit around with them. It was he ultimately who led us
to Maria's arrest, and he will lead us to the rest of them.'

The interpreter was speaking again. For the
moment, Maria seemed to be winning the battle. They knew nothing. She was the only one who knew
everything. She was in bed, physically weakened, with an infant hanging on her breast, but she
had stayed silent and would maintain her silence.

An involuntary glance out of the window provided
the clue to what she was really thinking. When they had left her behind in Rue du Roi-de-Sicile
– and it was probably she who had insisted they abandon her – they must have made
certain promises.

She knew the men around her. She trusted them. As
long as they remained at large, she ran no risks. They would come for her. Sooner or later, they
would get her out of this place, or at a later stage even out of the infirmary inside the
Santé prison.