Chief Inspector Maigret Visits London Page 7

  ‘No, we’ve heard nothing.’ ‘And what about the car that ran us down?’

  ‘We’re still looking for that, too. The owner had reported it stolen the night before.’

  ‘There’s just one more thing, or rather two, Mrs Vachon,’ Andy Gillespie said as they were leaving.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘That day Mrs Lisle and I came collecting books for the church fair. Why did you have wet paint on your cheek and a paint brush behind your ear… ?’

  ‘I’m an artist,’ she interrupted, ‘that’s how I look most days.’

  ‘But the painting we saw downstairs was dry.’

  ‘Yes, I finished it the night before. What of it?’

  ‘How could the paint have come from that painting?’

  ‘You really are an observant man, aren’t you,’ she said, ‘but did it never occur to you that I might have been working on another painting upstairs?’

  ‘Were you?’ Chief Inspector Scott asked quickly.

  ‘Yes, of course I was! I’d set up an easel on the balcony of our bedroom, at the back of the house overlooking the garden,’ she said. ‘I was painting the garden and the trees and houses beyond. ‘Still life with apple tree’ is what I’ve decided to call it. Would you like to see it?’

  ‘No, that won’t be necessary. But why were you so abrupt with us that day?’ Andy Gillespie asked, ‘and why did it take you so long to answer the door?’

  ‘Questions, questions,’ Nicole said wearily. ‘Serge and I had just had a terrible row, if you must know.’

  ‘About what, Mrs Vachon?’

  ‘Money. And now I suppose you’ll want to know more.’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘I’d taken some money from his briefcase. Only £60 but he went crazy when he discovered it. I tried to explain that I needed it to buy some meat and other things for dinner, but he kept shouting that I had no right to take it without asking him. But how could I? He was out at the time. And anyway, I couldn’t understand why he made all the fuss; it wasn’t like he didn’t have plenty left! And he’s never been a mean man – never! He’s always given me what I needed before, then a huge drama this time.’

  ‘This £60, Mrs Vachon, can you remember what notes were involved? How it was made up?’ Clive Scott tried to make his voice sound casual, but he was holding his breath while he waited for her to answer.

  ‘That’s easy! All the notes in his briefcase were £20. He must have just been to the bank because they were all clean and new-looking, in neat bundles with paper bands around them. That’s why I was surprised that he missed the three I took. And I did intend to tell him later. I’d never just take money without mentioning it later. I’m not that kind of woman.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re not. Do you remember where you spent the money?’

  ‘What’s this all about?’ she said, suddenly suspicious again.

  ‘Just routine enquiries, Mrs Vachon, I can assure you.’ Yes, it was a white lie, but for the greater good, he thought, so nothing to make a blasted song and dance about.

  ‘I spent it down at Little Venice. I remember buying some meat in the organic butcher’s shop, and then I went into Tesco’s and bought a few things there.’

  ‘And did you spend all of the £60?’ asked Andy Gillespie.

  ‘No, not all of it: I had one £20, and some change left, but Serge took the £20 off me.’

  As they drove out of the mews Clive Scott said, ‘No prizes for where we’re going now, eh Andy?’

  ‘No, boss: as we always say “follow the money”. But where do you want to go first, the butcher’s or Tesco’s?’

  ‘Let’s go to the posh butcher first; it’ll be easier than blasted Tesco’s. I hate to think how much money passes through their tills on any given day!’

  The organic butcher did remember a counterfeit £20 note being spent in his shop recently. He hadn’t noticed it at the time, but NatWest certainly had when he’d paid in his takings later that day. The watermark was wrong and there was something dodgy about the numerical sequence. It was the same story, eventually, in the Tesco shop, but it took much longer before they heard it, because no one seemed to know who was in charge.

  ‘So, matey, now there’s a definite connection established between Serge Vachon and the counterfeit £20 notes that Megan Lisle’s grandson found south of the River.’

  ‘So it would seem, guv.’

  ‘Which means the next question becomes… ’

  ‘Who was the intended victim of the hit and run: Nicole Vachon, or Georges Martin?’

  ‘My money’s on Nicole Vachon, Andy.’

  ‘Mine, too, boss, but who was driving the car, Serge Vachon or one of his associates?’

  ‘That’s the $64,000 question, my friend.’ They wouldn’t have to wait very long for the answer.

  At 7 o’clock that evening the water police pulled a body out of the Thames, just beyond Barnes bridge, very near the finish of the annual Oxford Cambridge boat race. The body had been in the water for over twenty-four hours, and fish had eaten some of the flesh, but the pathologist who did the post-mortem could still determine that the cause of death was drowning. That had been easy enough. But the interesting thing for this particular pathologist was the stomach contents of the victim: red wine, garlic bread, and half-chewed fresh garlic kernels.

  It was Serge Vachon.

  Almost exactly twelve hours later, the grey sedan that had been used to run down Georges Martin, was found abandoned in Peckham, south London. The front of the car was damaged, clearly showing the impact with Inspector Martin’s body, and his blood was visible on the front panels. Apart from that, the car held nothing remarkable by way of evidence.

  Nothing that is, apart from a small fragment of a business card that was wedged underneath the front seat. That fragment had a fingerprint on it, and the person to whom the fingerprint belonged was known to the police. In fact he was very well known: his nom de crim was Slippery Sam.

  However he was not the Big Fish in this criminal conspiracy. Oh no, he was just a tiny minnow. But the man he had recently been working for belonged to a very different kettle of fish: he was a piranha!

  And an extremely large, vicious piranha at that.

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘I guess this guarantees Serge Vachon a place in the Guinness Book of Best Alibis,’ Andy Gillespie said, when he heard the news the next morning.

  ‘You’re right there, Sonny Jim. It’s hard to see how he could have done the dreaded deed on Inspector Martin when he’s been brown bread in the Thames for a couple of days,’ his boss agreed.

  ‘So what do you think happened? He had a skin-full of red wine, then went for a walk in the dark along the Thames and fell in?’

  ‘It’s been known to happen, Andy, but it doesn’t explain all the garlic in his stomach, nor the heavy blow to the back of his head… ’

  ‘Perhaps he had a morbid fear of the un-dead, and he hit his head on some floating timber, or some other flotsam, when he fell in the drink.’

  ‘What? And then he obligingly rolled over in the water so the very same piece of flotsam could wallop him again on his forehead?’

  ‘Or a different piece of wood – it could happen, guv,’ Andy suggested defensively.

  ‘No, no, no: the pathologist was very clear on that point: whatever whacked him on the back of the head also inflicted the wound on his forehead. And what about all the other bruises on his body: how do you explain them? And what, apart from this far-fetched fear of zombies that you’ve dreamt up, accounts for the raw garlic in his stomach?’

  Andy shrugged. ‘It’s supposed to be good for us; maybe he was some kind of health nut.’

  ‘And maybe you’ve strayed into clutching at straws territory now – or blasted La-La land. I don’t buy it, Andy. And if you tell me you do, I’ll be very worried about your future in this unit.’

  ‘Who’s going to break the news to Nicole Vachon, guv?’ Andy asked, deciding it was time to change the subjec
t before his career suffered any further damage.

  ‘I’d like it to be Maigret, he’d be the logical person to do it, but I doubt he’ll go for it. He seems keen to avoid his ex-wife as much as possible, and I know for a fact that he hasn’t left St Mary’s since he heard his mate was there: he’s even been sleeping in the same room as Georges Martin.’

  Chief Inspector Scott was right. Philippe Maigret would, most definitely, not inform Nicole that Serge was dead.

  ‘Non non et non,’ he said when he was asked, and we know that means never in a million years!

  Not even Megan Lisle could persuade him to change his mind, although she tried very hard.

  ‘Megan, I will not leave this hospital again until Georges comes out of his coma. Please understand that I feel very strongly about this matter, and do not ask me again. I would do the same if it were Jacques who had been injured instead of Georges. These men are my team, my colleagues, my friends, and I do not desert them in their hour of need.’

  ‘You’re right, darling,’ she said, ‘I’m sorry I asked.’ Then she put her arms around him, kissed him, and shed a few more tears for Georges Martin.

  So the unenviable job of breaking the news to Nicole fell to the Chief Inspector and Sergeant Andy Gillespie, as they had feared that it would. But they had not anticipated Nicole’s reaction. First she had an attack of hysteria, then having ‘completely worn herself out’ (as Clive Scott unsympathetically remarked), she fainted. When she recovered consciousness there were more tears, and so inconsolable was she that they dared not tell her that she would be required to identify Serge’s body.

  ‘I want Philippe,’ she cried again and again. ‘Get Philippe here. I need him. Why isn’t he here already? Tell him to come. He must come!’

  ‘Father Wainwright’s on his way, Nicole,’ Clive Scott said gently. ‘He and his wife will be here in a few minutes.’

  ‘I don’t want them! I want Philippe. Get him here now!’ she sobbed. But Philippe Maigret would not come.

  ‘You must,’ Megan had urged at the beginning. ‘At a time like this it’s the least you could do.’

  ‘No, absolutely not: my place is here with Georges.’

  ‘Sweetie, he doesn’t even know you’re here.’

  ‘But I know I’m here and that’s what matters. And here I’ll stay until Georges comes out of the coma. And that’s final, Megan, so please don’t mention the subject again.’ But of course she did.

  Meanwhile, Jacques, having visited Georges Martin twice at the hospital with the children, had decided that the best way he could help was to find out more about the counterfeit money, which might lead to the people behind the conspiracy.

  He had already established a pattern: every day, after tempting the children out of bed with the smell of his delicious breakfast crepes wafting up the stairs, he walked them to school with Inky by his side. Every day he trawled the neighbourhood looking for more upside-down pentacles. He found two, but no money. Then he gradually widened his search into the surrounding areas, looking for more. Or for whatever clues he could find. When he and Inky were exhausted from the walking, they sat in friendly bakeries or coffee shops, usually in Dulwich, Jacques drinking more coffee than was good for him, and pretending to read the newspaper, while Inky slept at his feet. And all the time he was watching, listening, observing, until one day the sleuthing paid a dividend.

  ‘Can you imagine it? And in a respectable area like this,’ he heard the shopkeeper say to a regular customer, ‘and someone passes me not one, but two dud £20 notes that look so real that I don’t even realise they’re fake. Not at the same time, of course, nor even on the next day. Not that that makes any difference. But of course the damn bank spots the difference, doesn’t it? And now I’m £40 out of pocket.’

  After the customer had tut-tutted in sympathy, and left with her coffee and cakes, the shop was quiet. Jacques, who by now was known to the owner, sauntered over to the counter and said casually, ‘Pardon, Madame, but I could not help over-hearing your conversation about the – how do you say? – fake £20 notes.’

  ‘You’re French aren’t you?’ she asked, thinking, and not for the first time, what a charming accent he had. ‘Mais oui, Madame,’ he replied, deciding to play the role of Frenchman to the hilt, ‘but please do not hold that against me. It was, you might say, just an accident of birth!’ As he spoke, he gave an exaggerated Gallic shrug, and Madame was well and truly hooked.

  ‘But I think you have a lovely accent. What’s your name? Mine’s Debbie,’ she said, ‘and what are you doing in London?’

  ‘I’m Jacques, and I’m a freelance photographer. I’m in London for a week or two taking photographs for a book I’m working on.’

  ‘Where’s your camera?’

  ‘Here – in my pocket.’

  ‘It’s very small. I thought you professional guys had big cameras and tripods and gear like that.’

  ‘Not these days, Madame: all I need is my trusty little digital, and that does the job perfectly well. Now about these £20 notes that turned out to be counterfeit… ’

  ‘Yes, what of them?’

  ‘Would you like me to try to get your money back for you?’ Madame was even more interested.

  ‘Yes, of course! But what can you do, Jacques?’

  Jacques decided that it was time to go into James Bond mode. He looked carefully around the shop in an exaggerated manner, and put his fingers to his lips.

  ‘Ssh,’ he said, ‘I have something to tell you but it is for your ears only. Do you understand?’

  Madame’s eyes widened and she nodded, hardly daring to breathe. At that moment the bell on the door of the shop tinkled as another customer came in. Rats! thought Jacques – and just when things were coming nicely to the boil. He tapped the side of his nose, and the shop owner nodded. He mouthed the word ‘later’ and she nodded again. Then he resumed his seat.

  What shall I tell her, he thought? Will it be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, or a sanitized half-truth version? He decided on the second option: safer for her and safer for him too.

  When the customer had left, Debbie immediately sashayed over to his table, her generous hips swaying from side to side, like palm trees moving in a tropical breeze.

  ‘May I?’ she asked, looking at the spare chair.

  ‘Mais oui, Madame,’ Jacques replied, staying in character, ‘it would be my pleasure.’

  Debbie sat down, and leant towards him, displaying her ample bosom, which was barely covered by her low-cut top. She was a pretty woman, but she reminded him of an over-ripe peach.

  ‘Now, Jacques,’ she purred, ‘what exactly can you do for me?’

  Help, thought Jacques, have I gone a little too far with the charm offensive! He took a large gulp of his coffee. That’s better, nerves under control now!

  ‘I could, perhaps, get your money back for you.’

  ‘And?’ What else? ‘I… don’t understand, Madame,’ Jacques said, feeling a tremor run down his spine.

  ‘What were you about to tell me before that last customer came in?’ ‘Oh, yes,’ replied Jacques, considerably relieved. His relief would not last long. ‘I was about to take you into my confidence, Madame about my… ’

  ‘Debbie, please, Jacques. Call me Debbie. Are you married?’

  ‘Comment?’

  ‘I asked if you were married, Jacques – are you?’

  ‘Yes, Madame… ’

  ‘Debbie, please.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Debbie,’ Jacques said, pulling himself together as quickly as he could. ‘Yes, I am very much married. I have a lovely wife, Yvette, and two wonderful children, Michelle and André.’

  ‘Oh,’ said a deflated Debbie, ‘I see. Now what can you do about the money, Jacques?’

  ‘Do you suspect anyone, Debbie?’

  ‘No… er… yes… er perhaps. But I’ve no proof, and that’s what we’d need, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not necessarily.’ Now for the clincher, he th
ought. ‘I have not always been a photographer, Debbie. I was, at one time, a policeman, and I worked for the Police Nationale in Paris.’

  ‘You were? You did?’

  ‘Oui, and oui, but I would be most grateful if you kept that information to yourself for obvious reasons.’

  ‘I see. Yes, of course. Mum’s the word.’

  ‘Comment?’

  ‘It’s an expression we use sometimes, Jacques. It means I’ll keep it under my hat. Or, in your case… chapeau,’ she said dredging up one of the few French words she remembered from her school days.

  As Jacques was grappling with the intricacy of the English language, Debbie glanced down at the newspaper he’d been almost reading.

  ‘Well I never,’ she said. ‘Now, that’s a funny thing. Talk about a coincidence.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘This man in the photo,’ she replied, placing her finger on the newspaper.

  ‘Yes? What of it?’

  ‘Well, that’s the very chap I suspected of passing me the dud £20 notes!’

  Chapter Fourteen

  ‘So let me get this straight,’ Chief Inspector Scott said when the news of Jacques’ discovery reached him via Philippe Maigret, ‘a respectable English gentleman, born in Richmond, Surrey, a former army officer, now turned successful business man… ’

  ‘How do you know all that?’ Chief Inspector Maigret interrupted.

  ‘I read it in ‘Who’s who’ and, naturally, we’ve done some further checks of our own. But to continue, this man, a pillar of society, a patron of the arts who has just made a donation of £100,000 to a new boutique portrait gallery in Dulwich, is, by way of a side-line, also passing dud £20 notes in local cafés. Is that about the size of it?’

  ‘Yes, Chief Inspector. That’s the information given to Jacques by the shop keeper.’

  ‘I’m sorry but I just don’t buy it. It’s not possible. It’s just too damn far-fetched by half, Chief Inspector.’

  Philippe Maigret’s hackles began to rise. ‘Chief Inspector, Jacques Laurent is an excellent, experienced police officer, who has been part of my team for a long time. If he believes the information is accurate then so do I.’