The Flemish House (11 page)

‘He's gone upstairs to
change … It's insane to go out on a motorbike in weather like this! Especially
him, when his health is already delicate and his exams are taking such a toll on him
…'

It wasn't love! It was adoration!
It was as if she was capable of spending hours not moving, looking at this young
man!

What was it about him that inspired such
feelings? Did his sister not speak of him in almost identical terms?

‘Is Anna with him?'

‘She's getting his clothes
ready for him.'

‘What about you? Have you been
here for long?'

‘An hour.'

‘Did you know that Joseph Peeters
was going to come?'

Slight unease. It only lasted a second
and she continued straight away:

‘He comes every Saturday at the
same time.'

‘Is there a phone in the
house?'

‘Not here! At home, of course! My
father needs it all the time.'

He was starting to dislike her, he
didn't know why. Or more precisely she was starting to get on his nerves! He
didn't like her babyish ways, her deliberately childish way of talking, her
expression, which was supposed to be candid.

‘Wait a second! Here he comes
…'

And sure enough, there was the sound of
footsteps on the stairs. Joseph Peeters came into the dining room, quite
clean, quite neat, his hair still bearing the traces of a wet
comb.

‘Been here long,
inspector?'

He didn't dare to hold out his
hand. He turned towards Marguerite.

‘And you haven't offered him
anything to drink?'

In the shop, several people were talking
Flemish. Anna arrived in turn, peaceful, and bowed as she must have learned at the
convent.

‘Is it true, inspector, that there
was a scene last night in a café in the town? I know that people always exaggerate …
But … sit down! Joseph! Go and get something to drink …'

There was a coal-nut fire in the hearth.
The piano was open.

Maigret tried to identify an impression
that he had had since he arrived, but every time he thought he was on the point of
reaching his destination, his thought became elusive.

Something had changed. But he
didn't know what.

And he was in a bad mood. He had the
blank face, the stubborn brow of his bad days. In fact, he wanted to do something
incongruous just to disrupt all the harmony that surrounded him.

It was Anna more than anyone who
inspired this confused feeling in him. She was still wearing the same grey dress
that gave her figure the motionless appearance of a statue.

Had events really taken their toll on
her? Her movements didn't cause a ripple in the folds of her clothes.

She was like a character in a Greek
tragedy, lost in the mean everyday life of the little border town.

‘Do you often help out with the …
business?'

He hadn't dared to say: in the
shop.

‘Often! I stand in for my
mother.'

‘And do you serve drinks as
well?'

She didn't smile. She just looked
amazed.

‘Why not?'

‘Sometimes sailors are drunk,
aren't they? They must get very familiar, perhaps bothersome?'

‘Not here!'

And again she was a statue! She was sure
of herself!

‘Would you prefer some port or
…?'

‘I'd rather have a glass of
that Schiedam you offered me the other day.'

‘Go and ask Mother for the bottle
of “vieux système”, Joseph.'

And Joseph obeyed.

Did Maigret need to change the
hierarchical order he had imagined, which was this: first Joseph, the real god of
the family. Then Anna. Then Maria. Then Madame Peeters, devoted to the grocery. And
last of all the father, asleep in his armchair?

Anna, smoothly, seemed to be assuming
first place.

‘Have you found out anything new,
inspector? Did you see that the boats were starting to leave? River traffic has been
re-established to Liège, perhaps as far as Maastricht … In two days there will only
be three or four barges at a time here …'

Why was she saying this?

‘No, Marguerite! The stemmed
glasses.'

For Marguerite was fetching glasses from
the dresser.

Maigret was still tormented by his need
to break the equilibrium, and he took advantage of the fact that Joseph was in the
shop, his cousin busy choosing glasses, to show Anna the portrait of Gérard
Piedboeuf.

‘I need to talk to you about
it!' he said under his breath.

He looked at her fervently. But if he
hoped to disturb her calm expression, he was to be disappointed. She merely made a
sign as if from one accomplice to another. A sign that said: ‘Yes … Later
…'

And to her brother as he came in:

‘Are there still a lot of
people?'

‘Five people.'

Straight away, Anna displayed a grasp of
nuance. The bottle that Joseph brought had a slender tin pipe in it, meaning that
the liquid could be poured without wasting a drop.

Before serving him, the girl took out
this accessory, indicating that it was unseemly in a drawing room, with guests.

Maigret warmed his glass in the hollow
of his hand for a moment.

‘To your good health!' he
said.

‘To your good health!'
repeated Joseph Peeters, who was the only one drinking.

‘We now have proof that Germaine
Piedboeuf was murdered.'

Only Marguerite uttered a little
startled cry, the sort of girlish cry that one hears in the theatre.

‘That's terrible!'

‘I heard, but I didn't want
to believe it!' said Anna. ‘It's going to make our situation even
more difficult, isn't it?'

‘Or easier! Particularly if I
manage to prove that your brother wasn't in Givet on the third of
January.'

‘Why?'

‘Because Germaine Piedboeuf was
killed with blows from a hammer.'

‘My God! Don't say any
more!'

It was Marguerite who got up, very pale,
on the brink of fainting.

‘I have the hammer in my
pocket.'

‘No! Please … Don't show us
…'

But Anna stayed calm. She addressed her
brother.

‘Has your friend come back?'
she asked.

‘Yesterday.'

Then she explained to the inspector:

‘It's the friend he spent
the evening of the third with in a café in Nancy … He had set off for Marseille,
about ten days ago, after his mother died … He's just come back …'

‘Your good health!' replied
Maigret, emptying his glass.

And he picked up the bottle and poured
himself another drink. Every now and again the bell rang. Or there was the sound of
a little shovel pouring sugar into a paper bag and the bump of the scales.

‘Isn't your sister any
better?'

‘They think she'll be able
to get up on Monday or Tuesday. But she probably won't be back here for a long
time.'

‘Is she getting married?'

‘No! She wants to become a nun.
It's an idea that she's been toying with for a long time.'

How could Maigret tell that something
was happening in the shop? The noises were the same, perhaps less loud. But a moment
later, Madame Peeters was talking French.

‘You'll find them in the
drawing room …'

‘What is it, Machère?'

‘The … There are a couple of
things in particular that I'd like to say to you …'

‘About what?'

‘About …'

He hesitated to speak, and made gestures
of complicity that everyone understood.

‘Don't be shy.'

‘It's the bargeman
…'

‘Did he come back?'

‘No … he …'

‘He's made a
confession?'

Machère was in torment. He had come to
deliver a piece of information that he saw as being of the greatest importance and
which he wanted to keep secret and he was having to talk in front of four
people!

‘He … They found his cap and his
jacket …'

‘The old one or the new
one?'

‘I don't
understand.'

‘Was it his Sunday jacket, the
blue woollen cloth one, that they found?'

‘Blue woollen cloth, yes … on the
shore …'

Everyone fell silent. Anna, who was
standing up, looked
at the inspector without so much as a twitch.
Joseph Peeters stroked his hands with annoyance.

‘Go on!'

‘He must have thrown himself into
the Meuse … His cap was fished out near the barge just behind his … The barge
stopped it … You understand?'

‘And then?'

‘His jacket was on the shore … And
there was this piece of paper pinned to it …'

He took it carefully out of his wallet.
It was a shapeless piece of paper, drenched by the rain. It was still just about
possible to read:

I'm a wretch. I'd
prefer the river …

Maigret had read under his voice. Joseph
Peeters asked in a troubled voice:

‘I don't understand … What
does he mean?'

Machère stayed standing, unsettled,
uneasy. Marguerite looked at each of them in turn with big, inexpressive eyes.

‘I think you're the one who
…' Machère began.

And Maigret got up cordially, with a
hearty smile on his lips. He reserved his special attention for Anna.

‘You see! I was talking to you
about a hammer a moment ago …'

‘Don't!' begged
Marguerite.

‘What are you doing tomorrow
afternoon?'

‘The same as every Sunday … We
spend it with the family … Only Maria will be missing …'

‘Will you let me come and pay my
compliments?
Perhaps there might be some of that excellent rice
tart …?'

And Maigret made for the corridor, where
he put on his overcoat, made twice as heavy by the rain.

‘Please excuse me …'
stammered Machère. ‘It was the inspector who wanted …'

‘Come!'

In the shop, Madame Peeters had hoisted
herself on to a ladder to take down a packet of starch from the top shelf. A
bargeman's wife was waiting with a gloomy expression, with a string shopping
bag on her arm.

There was a little group of people near
the place where the sailor's cap had been fished out, but Maigret, dragging
Machère with him, walked towards the bridge.

‘You hadn't told me about
this hammer … If you had, I'd have known …'

‘What have you been doing all
day?'

And Machère looked like a schoolboy who
had been caught out.

‘I went to Namur … I wanted to
check that Maria Peeters' sprain …'

‘Well?'

‘They wouldn't let me in … I
ended up in a convent full of nuns looking at me like a beetle that had fallen into
their soup …'

‘Did you insist?'

‘I even used threats.'

Maigret suppressed a smile of amusement.
Near the bridge, he went into a garage that hired cars and asked for a car and
driver to take him to Namur.

Fifty kilometres there and fifty
kilometres back, along the Meuse.

‘Will you come with me?'

‘Do you want me to …? Because I
tell you, they won't
let you in … Not to mention that now
they've found the hammer …'

‘Fine! Do something else. You take
a car as well. Go to all the little stations in a twenty-kilometre radius. Check
that the bargeman hasn't taken the train …'

And Maigret's car set off. Snug in
the cushions, the inspector smoked his pipe beatifically; all that he saw of the
landscape was the starburst of lights on each side of the car.

He knew that Maria Peeters was a form
mistress in a school run by the Ursulines. He also knew that the Ursulines are, in
the religious hierarchy, the equivalent of the Jesuits, which is to say that in a
sense they form its teaching aristocracy. The cream of the province must have sent
their children to the school in Namur.

Given that, it was amusing to imagine
Inspector Machère in discussion with the nuns, insisting on getting inside and even
using threats!

‘I forgot to ask him what he
called them …' Maigret reflected. ‘He must have said
ladies
…
Or even
sister
…'

Maigret was big, heavy, wide-shouldered,
coarse-featured. And yet, when he rang at the door of the convent, in a little
provincial street where grass grew between the cobbles, the lay sister who opened
the door to him wasn't startled in the slightest.

‘I would like to talk to the
Mother Superior!' he said.

‘She's in chapel. But once
benediction is finished …'

And he was brought into a parlour
compared to which
the Peeters' dining room was all dirt and
chaos. You really could see your face in this parquet floor. You got the sense that
not even the slightest thing had changed, that the chairs had stood in the same
place for years, that the clock on the mantelpiece had never stopped, had never been
fast or slow.