Free The Hanged Man of Saint-Pholien by Georges Simenon

the streets in tears …
    â€˜I hardly ever saw my brother. I
     was off running with the local kids. They must have hauled us in to the police
     station ten times. Then I was sent to work in a hardware store. My mother was always
     crying, so I stayed away from home as much as I could. She liked all the old
     neighbour women to come over so she could wail her heart out with them.
    â€˜I joined
     the army when I was sixteen and asked to be sent to the Congo, but I only lasted a
     month. For about a week I hid in Matadi, then I stowed away on a passenger steamer
     bound for Europe. I got caught, served some time, escaped and made it to France,
     where I worked at all sorts of jobs. I’ve gone starving hungry, slept in the
     market here at Les Halles.
    â€˜I haven’t always been on
     the up and up, but I swear to you, I’ve buckled down and been clean for four
     years. I’m even married now! To a factory worker. She’s had to keep her
     job because I don’t earn much and sometimes there’s nothing for
     me …
    â€˜I’ve never tried to go back
     to Belgium. Someone told me that my mother died in a lunatic asylum but that my
     father’s still alive. He never wanted to bother with us, though. He has a
     second family.’
    And the man gave a crooked smile, as if
     to apologize.
    â€˜What about your
     brother?’
    â€˜It was different with him: Jean
     was serious. He won a scholarship as a boy and went on to secondary school. When I
     left Belgium for the Congo he was only thirteen, and I haven’t seen him since.
     I heard news now and again, whenever I ran into anyone from Liège. Some people took
     an interest in him, and he went on to study at the university there. That was ten
     years ago … After that, any Belgians I saw told me they didn’t know
     anything about him, that he must have gone abroad, because he’d dropped out of
     sight.
    â€˜It was a real shock to see the
     photograph, and especially to think that he’d died in Bremen, under a false
     name. You can’t have any idea … Me, I got off to a bad start, I
     messed up, did stupid things, but when I remember Jean,
at thirteen … He was like me, but steadier,
     more serious, already reading poetry. He used to study all by himself at night,
     reading by the light of candle ends he got from a sacristan. I was sure he’d
     make it. Listen, even when he was little, he would never have been a street kid, not
     at any price – and the neighbourhood bad boys even made fun of him!
    â€˜But me, I was always short of
     money, and I wasn’t ashamed to hound my mother for it. She used to go without
     to give me some … She adored us. At sixteen, you don’t understand!
     But now I can remember a time when I was mean to her simply because I’d
     promised some girl I’d take her to the movies … Well, my mother had
     no money. I cried, I threatened her! A charity had just got some medicines for her –
     and she went and sold them.
    â€˜Can you understand? And now
     it’s Jean who’s dead, like that, up there, with someone else’s
     name! I don’t know what he did. I cannot believe he went down the same wrong
     road I did. You wouldn’t believe it either if you’d known him as a
     child …
    â€˜Please, can you tell me
     anything?’
    But Maigret handed the man’s
     passport back to him and asked, ‘In Liège, do you know any Belloirs, Van
     Dammes, Janins, Lombards?’
    â€˜A Belloir, yes: the father was a
     doctor, in our neighbourhood. The son was a student. But they were well-to-do,
     respectable people, out of my league.’
    â€˜And the others?’
    â€˜I’ve heard the name Van
     Damme before. I think there was a big grocery store in Rue de la Cathédrale by that
     name. Oh, it’s so long ago now …’ He seemed to hesitate.
    And then