Maigret and the Headless Corpse

Some Corpses Deserve Everything They Get

Maigret and the Headless Corpse by Georges Simenon is (depending on who is counting) the 47th of 75 Maigret novels.

Shrewd detection by Maigret and characterisation by Simenon.

Synopsis

A barge travelling up Canal Saint-Martin into central Paris bottomed out as it entered the basin by the Quai de Jemmapes. The barge was overloaded, and the water level was unseasonably low. A small crowd of onlookers materialised as the barge churned up silt from the bottom of the canal, trying to enter the lock. Then the propeller stopped with a clashing of gears. It had jammed on something. Cursing to themselves, the boatmen fished about with barge poles, trying to free the obstruction.

Slowly, he pulled out the pole, and as the hook broke the surface, a strange package appeared, wrapped in newspaper that had burst open.

It was a human arm, intact from the shoulder to the hand. In the water, it had taken on a pallid colour and the texture of a dead fish.

A police diver fished the remaining parts of a corpse out of the canal. He found everything except the head.

Review

Georges Simenon’s detective sets about the case in his characteristically unhurried manner. Whilst he can make time for a glass of dry white wine, the case is sufficiently taxing for him to miss the lamb and bean stew his wife had made him for lunch.

Maigret’s strength isn’t intuitive leaps of investigative genius, nor does he become embroiled in car chases and shootouts. He simply stands back and watches, trying to make sense of people’s lives and motivations. His talent is an ability to put himself into others’ shoes and understand what induces them to act the way they do.

Simenon’s writing is flat and sparse yet evocative. The solution to the crime is almost secondary to the description of the characters, their emotions and behaviours.

By the time I’d finished the book, I felt sorry for the murderer. Some corpses, headless or not, deserve everything they get.

As Maigret would say ‘comprendre et ne pas juger’ .

Excerpt

‘Can I call you back where you are? I’ll try to get hold of him right away and come back to you.’

The number was on the telephone. He gave it to the deputy and walked back to the counter, where two glasses had been poured.

‘Cheers!’ he said, turning to the woman.

She didn’t appear to have heard him. She was looking at them without any friendliness, waiting for them to go so that she could return to whatever it was she had been doing, most likely getting dressed.

She must have been pretty once. At least, like everyone, she had been young. Now her eyes, her mouth, her whole body exuded weariness. Could it be that she was ill and waiting for her next attack? Some people who know that at a particular hour they are going to start suffering again have that expression, subdued and yet tense, like drug addicts waiting for the hour of their dose.

‘I’m expecting a phone call,’ Maigret said as if to apologise.

Maigret and the Headless Corpse by Georges Simenon