'Maigret' Recap: Episode 4

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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Fumal – the man whom Maigret insisted was not in danger – is dead, shot in his home. His bodyguard and driver Victor last saw him late at night, when Victor let in Roger Gaillardin, a businessman whose reputation Fumal was ruining in order to buy his company. Victor then found Fumal dead in the morning. 

Fumal was shot three times, but no one in the house claims to have heard anything. 

The minister is upset with Maigret for allowing a man he had been asked to protect to be killed. But their meeting is interrupted when the police find that Gaillardin never went home, and that his gun is missing. 

They find him locked with his gun in his office, where Maigret tries to talk him down. Maigret found a newspaper article from 30 years ago on Fumal’s desk about a road accident in which Gaillardin killed a boy on a motorbike. Gaillardin’s wealthy family covered up the story, but Fumal had unearthed it and was using it as blackmail to force the board of Gaillardin’s company to make him resign. Indeed, the board had issued that ultimatum to Gaillardin the previous night. 

Gaillardin tells Maigret he intended to kill Fumal but lacked the nerve as Fumal gloated. Gaillardin wasn’t brave enough then, but he will be now, he tells Maigret before killing himself. 

Maigret goes to speak to Fumal’s mistress, who tells him that she met Fumal six months ago when he paid her – she’s an escort. He preferred talking to sex, being embarrassed about his weight – he told his mistress he wanted kids but his wife was too repulsed by him. He wanted to escape to his childhood home of Saint-Fiacre – where Maigret also grew up and knew him – and had recently been fearful for his life and wanted help.

Fumal’s wife tells Maigret again that she loved Fumal at first, but became “repulsed” by him, in his mistress’ words, after he humiliated her father and helped cause his health to decline. His wife’s brother also lost his job when Fumal bought out her father’s businesses, and now visits Fumal’s wife in Fumal’s home and sometimes sleeps there – she does not have a lover, as Fumal suspected. Her brother Emile used a passageway out of sight of cameras and the rest of the residents of the house to get to his sister’s room. He was there last night, but didn’t stay over – his sister gave him a hundred euros that he probably used to drink.

Indeed, he spent the night in a police cell. And the gun that killed Fumal was a different caliber than the one Gaillardin had – a loud one, again begging the question of why none of the staff admits to having heard the gunshots. The combination to Fumal’s safe has been changed, and the keypad wiped clean.

Maigret also has yet to locate the young influencer Layla Lyonnet, who has gone missing. His failures are beginning to weigh on him – especially when the pregnancy he and his wife Louise were so excited for ends. He tells Louise they should stop trying – it’s too much with the infertility treatments. But Louise insists on persisting.

As she mourns, she watches videos of Layla, having grown attached to this girl. Layla’s parents are posting videos of her as a child even now, still making money off her – they ran the business side. The detectives now suspect Layla ran off on her own with her spin instructor, Marcus – he wasn’t a stalker but a boyfriend. His phone is off and his apartment is being watched, but two of Layla’s fans saw a light go on overnight in his parents’ house, which they’ve been watching, before seeing someone leave. A mob of groupies has now shown up at his parents’ house.

The computer in his old room indicates that he searched in the middle of the night for a new law restricting how influencers can make money, even though his parents say they never saw him. Layla’s parents were investigated under this law; many of Layla’s posts now violate it. The detectives believe Layla ran away with Marcus to make her parents stop exploiting her. Maigret puts out a press release announcing that they are closing their investigation into her disappearance, believing her safe, and that she can call a phone number if she wants to speak to Maigret. The number isn’t real; it’s the number of the influencer law, a message to Layla.

Maigret suddenly worries that his old friend Sophie, the countess of Saint-Fiacre, could have killed Fumal – the billionaire was trying to blackmail her into selling her estate to him. Sophie admits she’s grateful to the murderer, especially since Maigret refused to help her, but she didn’t kill Fumal. She is returning to Saint-Fiacre, because Fumal made her realize its worth. 

Sophie tells Maigret that her husband dealt with Fumal’s butcher father decades ago, paying him to feed some Bosnian children refugees she and he had taken in. Fumal’s father gave them only scraps.

Maigret recalls that one of those Bosnian refugees was the only child who looked out for Fumal as others teased him – and Fumal hated the boy for it. That child stayed with Fumal the rest of his life, protecting him: he became his bodyguard and driver, Victor, whom Maigret didn’t recognize. An inventory of Victor’s room reveals very few possessions, but among them is a postcard of a village in Bosnia. Fumal had made Victor change his name to a French last name.

Maigret has one of his detectives summon Victor as the team drills into Fumal’s safe. Fumal’s business manager confirms that five million euros that were in it last night are now missing – they were payments for the board of Gaillardin’s company, to ensure they ousted Gaillardin. 

Maigret goes to speak to Fumal’s secretary Celine, realizing she can see Fumal’s office and the safe from her own room. Victor has gone missing, because Celine saw the police drilling into the safe and warned him. She, too, hated Fumal, and has helped cover up Victor’s killing of their boss.

Maigret guesses that Victor will try to flee to Sarajevo, and the police confirm that he has bought a train ticket. They descend on the train station and evacuate it, spotting Victor on CCTV going into a waiting room. While a SWAT team assembles, Maigret goes to speak to Victor, even though he’s armed. He apologizes for their childhood. 

He manages to get Victor to drop his gun and admit that he went to see Fumal after Gaillardin left. The safe was open, and Fumal taunted Victor that he didn’t have the guts to rob him – the latest in decades of abuse. Victor shot him. 

After Victor is arrested, Layla calls the police, asking to speak to Maigret. She tells him that she’s safe, and he requests a meeting so that he can confirm for himself that she’s acting of her own will.

Fumal’s will is a single page long. He left everything to his mistress, other than a monthly allowance for his wife and Victor and additional funds for his wife to support her father and brother. Perhaps he wasn’t quite as monstrous as he seemed. Nevertheless, Maigret destroys a flash drive of the blackmail materials he compiled on various powerful people, including the minister.

Maigret and Louise, who often works with divided families, go to meet Layla and her boyfriend Marcus at the camper van where they’re hiding. Layla confirms that she decided to disappear on her own; Marcus just helped her. Her parents used her even when she asked them to stop, but she allows Maigret to tell them that she is safe. Louise tells her she would be proud of her if she were her own daughter.