Inspector Cadaver by Georges Simenon Page B

you mean?’
    She was playing for time. Through a window
not far from them they could see the old cook moving about.
    ‘He got here around midnight. I assume
he wouldn’t usually have been in such a hurry to leave … Did you have an
argument?’
    ‘Why would we have
had an argument?’
    ‘I don’t know. I’m asking
you.’
    ‘No.’
    ‘When was he supposed to talk to your
parents?’
    ‘Soon. We were waiting for the right
moment …’
    ‘Think carefully … Are you sure
you didn’t see any lights on in the house that night? Didn’t you hear any
noise? Was anyone hiding in the yard?’
    ‘I didn’t see anything. I swear,
inspector, I don’t know anything. You may not believe me, but it’s the truth
… I’ll never, you hear, never tell my father what I told you last night
… I’ll go away … I don’t know what I’ll do
…’
    ‘Why did you tell me?’
    ‘I don’t know … I was
afraid … I imagined you would find out, that you’d tell my parents
everything …’
    ‘Let’s go in, shall we?
You’re shivering.’
    ‘You won’t tell?’
    He didn’t know what to say. He
didn’t want to commit himself with a promise, so he muttered:
    ‘Trust me.’
    Had he become
one of them
, as
Pockmarks would have said? Oh, he understood that lad’s expression all too well
now. Albert Retailleau had died and been buried. And now there were plenty of people in
Saint-Aubin, the majority in fact, who thought that, since the young man couldn’t
be brought back to life, the wisest course of action would be never to mention him
again.
    Being one of them was being part of that
clan. Retailleau’s mother, who hadn’t seemed to understand why an
investigation was being launched, was one herself.
    And those who weren’t
initially had been won over one by one. Désiré had changed his mind about
finding the cap. What cap? He had enough money to drink his fill and send his bad lot of
a son a postal order for five hundred francs.
    Josaphat, the postman, had no recollection
of any thousand-franc notes in the soup tureen.
    And Étienne Naud was at a loss as to
why his brother-in-law would send a man like Maigret. The inspector seemed to have got
it into his head that he had to discover the truth.
    But what truth exactly? And if it ever was
discovered, what, and who, would it be for?
    That only left the little gang in the Trois
Mules. A joiner, a ploughman and a kid called Louis Fillou, whose father was a hothead
anyway, obsessively telling their stories.
    ‘You’re not hungry,
inspector?’ asked Madame Naud as Maigret came into the drawing room.
‘Where’s my daughter?’
    ‘I’ve just left her in the hall.
I imagine she’s gone up to her room for a second.’
    There followed a genuinely desperate quarter
of an hour. The two of them were alone in the old-fashioned, overheated drawing room.
From time to time a log collapsed in the fireplace with a shower of sparks. A pink
lampshade on the only light that was switched on softened all the colours. Not a sound
was to be heard, apart from the occasional, familiar sound of something in the kitchen,
the stove being stoked, a pot being moved, an earthenware plate being set on the
table.
    Louise Naud would have liked to talk. It was
obviousfrom her manner. She was possessed by a demon that urged her to
say …
    To say what? She was in pain. Sometimes she
would open her mouth, full of resolve, and Maigret was afraid of what was coming …
    But then she didn’t say anything. A
nervous spasm would clutch her chest, her shoulders would quiver for a second, and then
she would carry on sewing with small stitches, crushed by that weight of stillness and
silence that trapped them both.
    Did she know that her daughter and
Retailleau …
    ‘Do you mind if I smoke,
madame?’
    She started, perhaps afraid he had been
going to say something else, and stammered:
    ‘Please … You must think of this
as your home …’
    Then she sat up straight, listening
intently.
    ‘Oh goodness