'Maigret' Recap: Episode 3

Maigret airs Sundays at 8:00 pm on WTTW and is available to stream on the PBS app and wttw.com. Recap the previous and following episodes.
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A young influencer named Layla Lyonnet has been missing for three days, and her parents – who manage the business side of her career – are growing desperate. They have appealed to the public for information and told them to contact Maigret directly, thus unleashing a conspiratorial clutch of obsessed fans on the police and the case. 

Layla was recently losing followers on social media, so the detectives don’t rule out a publicity stunt. She didn’t have any close friends, and had recently advocated celibacy – so presumably no romantic partners either. Louise tries to help her husband by learning about Layla: she first went viral as a lip-syncing girl before getting brand sponsorships. There’s one anomaly referred to as the “dark post” by fans, which showed an intense Layla speaking directly to the camera in contrast to her typically sunny posts. It was deleted a minute after being posted.

Meanwhile, the billionaire Ferdinand Fumal has been receiving death threats and wants Maigret specifically to help him. Maigret ignores Fumal’s driver, Victor, when he summons him, so Fumal complains to the minister, who appeals to Maigret. He can’t refuse when Fumal himself shows up in his office.

Fumal and Maigret know each other from their childhood in Saint-Fiacre, where Maigret was the son of the estate manager and Fumal was the chubby, teased son of the lowly butcher. Fumal suggests that the threats may have come from Roger Gaillardin, whose business Fumal is currently buying. 

Maigret visits Fumal’s home, which also serves as his headquarters, and meets the residents. He immediately guesses that Fumal’s secretary Celine is secretly dating the chef, Felix. She has worked for Fumal, whom she calls an “appalling boss,” for five years. He once accused her of stealing cash and forced her to strip in front of him, but she doesn’t want to lose her job, salary, or boyfriend by quitting. 

Fumal has a mistress, and his wife has a separate bedroom and her own maid, Noemi. She starts drinking early in the day. Fumal courted her while buying her father’s chain of butcher shops. Fumal sold the shops and fired the staff in less than a year; when her father complained, Fumal called him weak and said he let his business and daughter go for cheap. 

His wife’s father had a heart attack two weeks later. She has not left Fumal because she needs him to pay for her father’s medical care and support her. Everyone in the house is trapped by money and fear, she says. The last resident is Joseph Goldman, Fumal’s business manager. 

Fumal receives another threat suggesting that the sender knows Fumal now has police protection. The billionaire suspects one of his staff is the sender: they hate him and steal from him, looking down on him because he came from nothing, he says. Celine takes cash, Felix over-orders food and then sells it, Joseph inside trades, his wife has a lover. 

Fumal also taunts Maigret, saying his dad was bad at his job but was saved from firing by his stroke. Fumal is now trying to buy the estate at Saint-Fiacre from the countess Sophie, who has recently appeared in Maigret’s dreams and was the detective’s first crush. Maigret assigns Cavre, his rival, to watch the odious Fumal.

Fumal does business through blackmail and crushing his opponents, a point reinforced when Maigret visits Gaillardin, whose business Fumal is buying. Fumal called Gaillardin a criminal, but Gaillardin says Fumal has sown rumors that have halved the price of his company. Gaillardin says that he wouldn’t send Fumal death threats; he’d just kill him.

Meanwhile, a suspect in Layla’s disappearance has been identified. Her spin instructor, Marcus Desailly, didn’t show up for spin class the day Layla disappeared. Other regulars say he often flirted with Layla. 

He’s not at his home, which the detectives pick the lock on to see. The bed wasn’t slept in and his toothbrush and shaving brush are missing, but a piece of mail from yesterday has been opened. Marcus’ computer screensaver is a photo of Layla, his password is her date of birth, and he has a bunch of stalker-ish photos of her on his computer. Louise later tells Maigret the photos look rather innocent for a stalker.

Two of Layla’s intrepid fans also figure out Marcus could be a suspect and break into his apartment before blaming him on social media. The police set out to find him before someone else does.

Maigret goes to the Lyonnets with Kernaval and asks them to tell Layla’s fans to stop trying to figure out what happened to her - they’re getting in the way. Or else the Lyonnets will be prosecuted for obstruction. The Lyonnets are trying to surreptitiously film the police, but Maigret notices and turns off the phone camera. 

Forensics tracks the burner phones that have been sending threats to Fumal, and find that they have also been sending messages to journalists and others attacking Gaillardin and praising Fumal. Their location also tracks exactly onto the location of Fumal’s own phone. Maigret determines Fumal has been sending the threats to himself.

He arrives at Fumal’s house while Fumal is pitching Cavre on a private security firm; Cavre has also disparaged Maigret to Fumal. Maigret pulls protection from Fumal, who tells him that he requested Maigret specifically because he pretended to be Fumal’s friend while everyone teased him when they were children, but then probably teased him behind his back. 

Fumal then tells the minister that Maigret was rude and incompetent – but not that Maigret determined Fumal was sending himself threats. Maigret warns that Fumal has demonstrated his power over the minister. He promises her Fumal is not in danger.

The countess Sophie calls Maigret to meet, reaching his pregnant wife Louise first. He hasn’t seen her in twenty years, the last time he was in Saint-Fiacre. She asks him to stop Fumal’s abusive behavior – the billionaire is forcing her to sell the estate for a low price by blackmailing her with a period of indiscretion with lovers, and she’s concerned about sullying the family name for her son. 

At Fumal’s home, someone shoots him.