Her body was stuffed into a cupboard. The doctor, in whose clinic she was found, was out of town, or so it was thought. Either he was the killer or it was the junior doctor who was subbing for him. A knotty problem for the chief inspector … but the chief inspector was on holiday.
Some readers may be familiar with The Rest Is Politics, a weekly podcast from the UK featuring Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart.
Campbell famously (or infamously, depending on your politics) was a close adviser to former prime minister Tony Blair. He is generally credited with managing in Machiavellian fashion Blair’s remarkably effective communications strategy. He comes across as something of a hard man and bully but also brilliant and charming. Very much the alpha male. Stewart is less easy to pigeon-hole. A dyed-in-the-wool conservative who, at various times: tutored King Charles’ children; hiked solo across Afghanistan; served as an administrator in conquered corners of that country; held relatively senior positions in David Cameron’s government; and was expelled from the party by Boris Johnson. He now teaches at Yale and oversees an international charity. Someone said of the pair that Campbell’s style is to bludgeon an opponent while Stewart uses a rapier. This strikes me as about right.
All of which is an elaborate way to get to something Stewart said more than a year ago. He was reading a novel by George Simenon, Maigret Enjoys Himself (Maigret s’amuse in the original French), and wondered if the relationship between press and police as described in the book was accurate. Do they interact nowadays as closely and collegially Simenon suggests? Did they ever?
It’s an entertaining read, something of a period piece (I suppose all Maigret novels now are dated), and among the more light-hearted in the series. The principal character, Chief Inspector Jules Maigret, is a detective attached to the Police Judiciare in Paris. He is a heavyset man, given to lapsing into silent reverie while puffing on his pipe, and often meditating his way to the solution of more-or-less elaborately contrived mysteries. The appeal of the series lies in the consistency with which the characters are drawn and Simenon’s ability to vividly portray aspects of Parisian life. Some of the stories are quite dark. Not this one.
We are given to understand at the outset that Maigret has been overdoing things. This is not a surprise. He enjoys a good meal (Madame Maigret is an excellent cook) and stops often in bars, for reflection as well as refreshment. He keeps long hours: his interrogation of suspects can last far into the night. When he complains of chest pains, his doctor, Pardon, finds nothing seriously wrong but instructs him to take time off. Maigret has a history of failing at holidays but this time promises both Pardon and his wife that he really, really will stay away from his office on the Quai des Orfevres. She smiles knowingly. Pardon also has his doubts.
To no reader’s surprise, no sooner does he leave Paris on vacation than an unusual case is reported in the papers: a young woman has been murdered, her body found in a cupboard in a fashionable doctor’s office on Boulevard Haussmann. These are important people with influential clients. The matter must be handled with delicacy. Maigret wonders if his junior colleague, Janvier, is up to the task. But he promised.
Maigret decides – this is the novel’s central conceit – that he will try to solve the case by following developments as reported in the newspapers and, towards the end of the book, by listening to radio broadcasts. He will be an amateur detective with no more information than anyone else. Fortunately, because of the stature of the people involved, the press is all over the case. Wonderfully well-sourced reporters, some of whom Maigret knows, reveal new details daily. They clearly have friends in the Police Judiciare. What’s more, they apparently can interview witnesses and suspects with almost as much freedom as the police themselves. In effect, they do Maigret’s legwork for him.
His determination to keep away from the office weakens. He and Madame Maigret depart from the country within a day of having arrived. They return to Paris. But he doesn’t weaken entirely. He knows full well the doubts entertained by those close to him. It becomes something of a game for him to play at being an ordinary citizen, reading the papers, watching from outside. And, of course, he sees things the reporters don’t pick up. He suspects that Janvier may have missed them too. So, on two or three occasions, he interferes just a bit. He suggests lines of inquiry to the reporters, anonymously, which they obligingly take up. Their dispatches in response to his calls are printed the next day. In the end, he sends Janvier a note, unsigned and untraceable, that helps to break the case. He keeps his promise to his doctor and his wife. He stays away from the office although, in the final pages, he comes pretty close.
Campbell didn’t answer Stewart’s question about the police and the press, perhaps because it’s not easily answered. There was a time when beat reporters on local newspapers would hang out at the station, gossiping with the desk sergeant, picking up tips. No doubt, sometimes the information flowed both ways. But there has to have been, even in those halcyon days, some tension between officials and the fourth estate. No one likes to be watched too closely as they go about their work. And there may be legal reasons to be discreet.
If there was a degree of trust between the parties in the past, it seems unlikely that it exists to the same extent now. In the first place, newspapers are in so much trouble that few are in a position to assign reporters exclusively to the crime beat. They depend instead on press releases issued by the police themselves. Secondly, the rise of social media, the emergence of citizen journalists, and the disappearance of geographical boundaries, mean the personal relationships that might once have placed a limit on what the reporter revealed are mostly gone. No cop is likely to make a habit of sharing inside information with reporters. Information once released, is apt to spread. Anyone with a computer can delve into crimes in other jurisdictions. Anyone can play detective in a way that Maigret, in amateur guise, could not. Cold crime investigation has become a staple podcast product. The news environment has changed.
I think Stewart wanted to know if police and reporters worked more or less collaboratively, that they understood they had a shared interest in assuring the public that the police were keeping them safe. Both police and reporters were in the business of letting the public know that the institutions they relied on were functioning as they should. Hardly anyone believes that now.
Still photographs are from the film Maigret Tend un Piege (Maigret Sets a Trap) starring Jean Gabin, 1957.