The Grand Banks Café (10 page)

The young man clutched his head in both
hands.

‘I can't take any
more!' he groaned.

‘Answer me!'

‘No! You can do what you like
…'

‘Bring in the next
witness.'

The moment the door was open, Adèle
walked through it with an exaggerated swagger. She swept the room with one glance to
get a sense of what had been going on. Her eye lingered in particular on the
wireless operator, whom she seemed shocked to see looking so defeated.

‘I assume, Le Clinche, that you
recognize this woman, whom Captain Fallut hid in his cabin throughout the entire
voyage and with whom you were intimate.'

He looked at her coldly. Yet already
Adèle's lips were parting and preparing to frame a captivating smile.

‘That's her.'

‘To cut a long story short, there
were three of you on board, who, in plain language, were sniffing around her: the
captain, the chief mechanic and you. You went to bed
with her at least once. The chief mechanic got nowhere.
Was the captain aware that you had deceived him?'

‘He never spoke to me about
it.'

‘He was very jealous, wasn't
he? And it was because he was so jealous that he didn't speak to you for three
months?'

‘No.'

‘No? Was there some other
reason?'

Now he was red-faced, not knowing which
way to look, talking too fast:

‘Well it could have been that. I
don't know …'

‘What else was there between you
that might have created hatred or suspicion?'

‘I … There wasn't anything …
You're right, he was jealous.'

‘What feelings did you have that
led you to become Adèle's lover?'

A silence.

‘Were you in love with
her?'

‘No,' he sighed in a small
dry voice.

But the woman screeched:

‘Thanks a million! Always the
gentleman, eh? But that didn't stop you hanging round me until the very last
day! Isn't that the truth? And it's also true that you probably had
another girl waiting for you on shore!'

Gaston Buzier pretended to be whistling
under his breath, with his fingers hooked in the arm-holes of his waistcoat.

‘Tell me again, Le Clinche, if,
when you went on board after witnessing the death of the captain, Adèle was still
locked inside her cabin.'

‘Locked in, yes!'

‘So she couldn't have killed
anyone.'

‘No! It wasn't her, I
swear!'

Le Clinche was getting ruffled. But
Chief Inspector Girard went on remorselessly:

‘Buzier states that he
didn't kill anybody. But, after accusing him, you withdraw the accusation …
Another way of looking at it is that the pair of you were in it together.'

‘Oh very nice, I must say!'
cried Buzier in a burst of brutal contempt. ‘When I take up crime, it
won't be with a … a …'

‘All right! Both of you could have
killed because you were jealous. Both of you had been sleeping with
Adèle.'

Buzier said with a sneer:

‘Me jealous! Jealous of
what?'

‘Have any of you anything further
to add? You first, Le Clinche.'

‘No.'

‘Buzier?'

‘I wish to state that I am
innocent and demand to be released immediately.'

‘And you?'

Adèle was putting on fresh lipstick.

‘Me …' – a thick stroke of
lipstick – ‘… I …' – a look in her mirror – ‘… I've nothing
to say, not a thing … All men are skunks! You heard that boy there, the one
I'm supposed to have been prepared to do silly things for … It's no good
looking at me like that, Gaston. Now if you want my opinion, there's things we
know nothing about in this
business with
the boat. The minute you found out a woman had been on board, you thought it
explained everything … But what if there was something else?'

‘Such as?'

‘How should I know? I'm not
a detective …'

She crammed her hair under her red straw
toque. Maigret saw Pierre Le Clinche look away.

‘The two chief inspectors
exchanged glances. Girard said:

‘Le Clinche will be returned to
his cell. You two will stay in the waiting room … I'll let you know whether
you are free to go or not in a quarter of an hour.'

The two detectives were left alone. Both
looked worried.

‘Are you going to ask the
magistrate to let them go?' asked Maigret.

‘Yes. I think it's the best
thing. They may be mixed up in the killing, but there are other things we may be
missing …'

‘Right.'

‘Hello, operator? Get me the law
courts at Le Havre … Hello? … Yes, public prosecutor's office please
…'

A few moments later, while Chief
Inspector Girard was talking to the magistrate, there was the sound of a disturbance
outside. Maigret ran to see what was happening and saw Le Clinche on the ground,
struggling with three uniformed officers.

He was terrifyingly out of control. His
eyes were bloodshot and looked wild and staring. Spittle drooled from his mouth. But
he was being held down now and couldn't move.

‘What happened?'

‘We hadn't 'cuffed
him, seeing as how he was always so quiet … Anyway, as we were moving him down the
corridor, he made a grab for the gun in my belt … He got it … was going to use it to
kill himself … I stopped him firing it.'

Le Clinche lay on the floor, staring at
the ceiling. His teeth were digging into the flesh of his lips, reddening his saliva
with blood.

But most disturbing were the tears which
streamed down his leaden cheeks.

‘Maybe get the doctor
…?'

‘No! Let him go!' barked
Maigret.

When the prisoner was alone on his back
on the stone floor:

‘On your feet! … Look sharp now! …
Get a move on! … And no antics … otherwise you'll feel the back of my hand
across your face, you miserable little brat!'

The wireless operator did what he was
told, unresistingly, fearfully. His whole body trembled with the aftershock. In
falling he had dirtied his clothes.

‘How does your girlfriend fit into
that little display?'

Chief Inspector Girard appeared:

‘He agreed,' he said.
‘All three are free to go, but they mustn't leave Fécamp … What happened
here?'

‘This moron tried to kill himself!
If it's all right with you, I'll look after him.'

The two of them were walking along the
quays together. Le Clinche had splashed water over his face. It had not
washed the crimson blotches away. His
eyes were bright, feverish and his lips too red.

He was wearing an off-the-peg suit with
three buttons which he'd done up anyhow, not caring about what he looked like.
His tie was badly knotted.

Maigret, hands in pockets, walked grimly
and kept muttering as if for his own benefit:

‘You've got to understand
that I haven't got time to tell you what you should and should not do, except
for this: your fiancée is here. She's a good kid, got a lot of grit. She
dropped everything and came here all the way from Quimper. She's moving heaven
and earth … Maybe it wouldn't be such a good idea to dash her hopes
…'

‘Does she know?'

‘There's no point in talking
to her about that woman.'

Maigret never stopped watching him. They
reached the quays. The brightly coloured fishing boats were picked out by the
sunshine. The streets nearby were busy.

There were a few moments when Le Clinche
seemed to be rediscovering his zest for life, and he looked hopefully at his
surroundings with optimism. At others, his eyes hardened, and he glared angrily at
people and things.

They had to pass close by the
Océan
, now in the final day of unloading. There were still three trucks
parked opposite the trawler.

The inspector spoke casually as he
gestured to various points in space.

‘You were there … Gaston Buzier
was here … And it was on that spot that the third man strangled the
captain.'

Le Clinche breathed deeply, then looked away.

‘Only it was dark, and none of you
knew who the others were. Anyway, the third man wasn't the chief mechanic or
the first mate. They were both with the crew in the Grand Banks Café.'

The Breton, who was outside on deck,
spotted the wireless operator, went over to the hatch and leaned his head in. Three
sailors came out and looked at Le Clinche.

‘Come on,' said Maigret.
‘Marie Léonnec is waiting for us.'

‘I can't …'

‘What can't you?'

‘Go there! … Please, leave me
alone! … What's it to you if I do kill myself? … Anyway, it would be best for
all concerned!'

‘Is the secret so heavy to bear,
Le Clinche?'

No answer.

‘And you really can't say
anything, is that it? Of course you can. One thing: do you still want
Adèle?'

‘I hate her!'

‘That's not what I asked. I
said want, the way you wanted her all the time you were at sea. Just between us men:
had you had lots of girls before you met Marie Léonnec?'

‘No. Leastways nothing
serious.'

‘And never deep urges? Wanting a
woman so much you could weep?'

‘Never!' he sighed and
looked away.

‘So it started when you were on
board ship. There was only one woman, the setting was uncouth, monotonous
… Fragrant flesh in a trawler that stank
of fish … You were about to say something?'

‘It's nothing.'

‘You forgot all about the girl you
were engaged to?'

‘That's not the same thing
…'

Maigret looked him in the eye and was
astounded by the change that had just come over it. Suddenly the young man had
acquired a determined tilt to his head, his gaze was steady, and his mouth bitter.
And yet, for all that, there were traces of nostalgia and fond hopes in his
expression.

‘Marie Léonnec is a pretty
girl,' Maigret went on in pursuit of his line of thought.

‘Yes.'

‘And much more refined than Adèle.
Moreover, she loves you. She is ready to make any sacrifice for …'

‘Why don't you leave it
alone!' said the wireless operator angrily. ‘You know very well … that
…'

‘… that it's something else!
That Marie Léonnec is a good, well-brought-up girl, that she will make a model wife
and a caring mother but … but there'll always be something missing?
Isn't that so? Something more elemental, something you discovered on board
shut away inside the captain's cabin, when fear caught you by the throat, in
the arms of Adèle. Something vulgar, brutal … The spirit of adventure! … And the
desire to bite, to burn your bridges, to kill or die …'

Le Clinche stared at him in
amazement.

‘How did you …'

‘How do I know? Because everyone
has had a sight of the same adventure come his way at least once in his
life! … We cry hot tears, we shout, we
rage! Then, a couple of weeks later, you look at Marie Léonnec and you wonder how on
earth you could have fallen for someone like Adèle.'

As he walked, the young man had been
keeping his eyes firmly on the glinting water of the harbour. In it were reflected
the reds, whites and greens that decorated the taffrails of boats.

‘The voyage is over. Adèle has
gone. Marie Léonnec is here.'

There was a moment of calm. Maigret went
on:

‘The ending was dramatic. A man is
dead because there was passion on that boat and …'

But Le Clinche was again in the grip of
wild ideas.

‘Stop it! Stop it!' he
repeated in a brittle voice. ‘No! Surely you can see it's not possible
…'

He was haggard-eyed. He turned to see
the trawler, which, almost empty now, sat high in the water, looming over them.

Then his fears took hold of him once
more.

‘I swear … You've got to let
me alone …'

‘And on board, throughout the
entire voyage, the captain was also stretched to breaking point, wasn't
he?'

‘What do you mean?'

‘And the chief mechanic
too?'

‘No.'

‘It wasn't just the two of
you. It was fear, Le Clinche, wasn't it?'

‘I don't know … Please leave
me alone!'

‘Adèle was in the cabin. Three men
were on the prowl.
Yet the captain would
not give in to his urges and refused to speak to his woman for days on end. And you,
you looked in through the portholes but after just one encounter you never touched
her again …'

‘Stop it!'

‘The men down in the bunkers, the
crew in the foredeck, they were all talking about the evil eye. The voyage went from
bad to worse, lurching from navigational errors to accidents. A ship's boy
lost overboard, two men injured, the cod going bad and the mess they made of
entering the harbour …'

They turned at the end of the quay, and
the beach stretched out before them, with its neat breakwater, the hotels,
beach-huts and multicoloured chairs dotted over the shingle.

Madame Maigret in a deckchair was picked
out by a patch of sunshine. Marie Léonnec, wearing a white hat, was sitting next to
her.

Le Clinche followed the direction of
Maigret's eyes and stopped suddenly. His temples looked damp.

The inspector went on:

‘But it took more than a woman …
Come on! Your fiancée has seen you.'

And so she had. She stood up, remained
motionless for a moment, as if her feelings were too much for her. And then she was
running along the breakwater while Madame Maigret put down her needlework and
waited.