should tell you that, when my husband was
still alive, the Liberty Bar was famous … There were always artists here, and they
attracted the rich clientele who came to see them …
‘Especially the yacht owners: almost
all of them are party animals, eccentrics … I remember seeing William quite a lot
at that time, in his white cap, always with friends or pretty women …
‘These groups liked to drink
champagne until the small hours and they’d stand anyone a round …
‘Then my husband died … I
closed for a month … It was out of season … The following winter I had to
spend three weeks in hospital with peritonitis.
‘Someone took advantage of the
situation and opened a bar right on the harbour itself.
‘Since then, it’s been quiet
… I don’t even try to attract new customers.
‘One day, I saw William again, and it
was only then that I properly made his acquaintance … We got drunk together
… We swapped stories … He slept on the divan, because he couldn’t even
stand up …’
‘Was he still wearing a
yachtsman’s cap?’
‘No! He looked very different. He was
a maudlin drinker … He got into the habit of coming to see me from time to time
…’
‘Did you know where
he lived?’
‘No. I wasn’t going to
interrogate him. And he never talked about his personal business …’
‘Did he stay here long?’
‘Three or four days … He
brought food with him … Or else he gave me money to go to the market … He
said he didn’t eat anywhere as well as he did here.’
And Maigret looked at the pink flesh of the
mutton, the remains of the scented salad. It looked really tasty.
‘Was Sylvie already with
you?’
‘I should hope not! She is only
twenty-one …’
‘How did you meet her?’
And as Sylvie had an obstinate look on her
face, Jaja said to her:
‘The inspector knows the score, OK?
… It was one evening when William was here … It was just the two of us in
the bar … Sylvie came in with some gentlemen she had met who knows where,
travelling salesmen or some such. They were already merry. They ordered some drinks
… As for her, you could see straight away she was new to all this. She wanted to
get them away before they got completely drunk … She didn’t know what she
was doing … and so the inevitable happened: in the end they got so drunk that they
didn’t bother with her any more and went off and left her here … She was
crying … She admitted that she had just arrived from Paris for the season and that
she didn’t even have enough money to pay for a hotel room … She slept with
me … She got into the habit of coming here …’
‘Basically,’
Maigret grumbled, ‘everyone who comes in here gets into the same habit
…’
And the old woman, beaming, replied:
‘What can I say? It’s the
Lord’s own house! We’re easy-going here. We take each day as it comes
…’
And she meant it. Her gaze descended slowly
to the young woman’s bust and she sighed:
‘A shame about her health … You
can still see her ribs … William wanted to pay for her to have a month in a
sanatorium, but she refused to go …’
‘Excuse me, did William … and
her …’
It was Sylvie herself who replied,
angrily:
‘Never! It’s not true
…’
And Big Jaja explained as she sipped her
coffee:
‘He wasn’t that sort of man
… Especially not with her … That’s not to say that he didn’t
occasionally …’
‘With whom?’
‘Women … Just women he picked
up here and there … But it didn’t happen often … He wasn’t that
interested …’
‘What time did he leave you on
Friday?’
‘Straight after lunch … It must
have been two o’clock, like today …’
‘And he didn’t say where he was
going?’
‘He never spoke about
that.’
‘Was Sylvie here?’
‘She left five minutes before
him.’
‘To go where?’ Maigret asked
the girl
Janwillem van de Wetering