Genevieve Simenon, the great-niece of Inspector Maigret’s creator, appeared in a Brussels court yesterday accused of unpremeditated murder in a case worthy of the fictional French detective. On her return, Ms Simenon injected him with a massive amount of the drug instead of his normal dose.When he awoke a few hours later he insulted her again and she beat him at least 15 times around the head with a mallet.After meticulously cleaning all traces of blood from his body and the scene of the crime, she collected her four children from a trip to Disneyland Paris and acted as if nothing had happened.The next day, she called her former husband, a doctor, and tried to persuade him to give her a death certificate. When that failed, she called another former lover and told him Temperman had a heart attack. He then provided a document testifying that Temperman had suffered a natural death.It was so very nearly the perfect crime.

But, in a twist that could have come from one of her great-uncle Georges’ books, Ms Simenon was caught out at the very last minute by the funeral director, a former detective, Freddy Hulsmans.Just as the body was about to be cremated, Mr Hulsmans – who had been with the police force for 16 years – realised that Temperman’s left ear had nearly been ripped off and he had massive injuries to his head.The undertaker was not convinced by Ms Simenon’s explanation that her partner had fallen on a dresser and gashed his head. Her haste to cremate the body also aroused his suspicion.He tipped off the police, who found microscopic traces of blood on the ceiling above the couple’s bed and arrested Ms Simenon.She initially denied the murder, saying first that her victim had suffered a giddy spell and fallen awkwardly and then – hinting that someone else was to blame – that the garage door and garden gate were open when she got home that night.But, within hours, she confessed to both the crime and the cover-up and said her six-year relationship with Temperman had been stormy. She accused him of having affairs and treating her children badly.The doctor who signed the false death certificate was also arrested but freed after saying that the accused had taken advantage of him and that the body’s head had been covered by a sheet when he conducted his examination.During the trial, which is expected to last about two weeks, the 12 men and women of the jury will decide whether there are mitigating circumstances to the crime.. The 1,770-mile Danube is a player in, and a witness to, the conflicts that have divided the peoples along its banks. During the Balkans wars the murky waters are alleged to have provided Slobodan Milosevic’s henchmen with a natural dump for scores of murdered civilians. The conflict, international sanctions and Nato’s 1999 bombing of Yugoslav bridges dealt a devastating blow to the shipping industry downstream.

Austria’s Foreign Minister, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, launched the Danube Co-operation Process yesterday. The EU-backed initiative aims to promote trade, traffic and tourism along Europe’s second-longest river.Chris Patten, the EU’s external affairs commissioner, pointed to the historic geo-strategic role of the river in the development of its peoples, saying: “I think we need to make the most of that as Europe consolidates the advances of the last few years.”Edgar Martin of the British-based consultancy Danube Research said: “If you sit in a caf?n Frankfurt and watch the ships go up and down [the Main], there’s always something going on. In Romania you could sit for hours on some days before you see a vessel moving.”The river was declared open again last November, but at Novi Sad in Serbia work on a new bridge has not begun and a temporary pontoon bridge opens only three times a week and charges ships to pass.Erhard Busek, the co-ordinator of the EU’s Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe, said: “Sometimes I have the feeling they’re very pleased to earn a lot of money by opening the bridge.”Travel west and the war wounds give way to pollution. Fishermen on the Tisza tributary say their catch is a third of what it was before a cyanide spill at Romania’s Baia Mare goldmine two years ago.Further upstream again lies evidence of a dispute between Hungary and Slovakia. In 1989 Hungary suspended work on a joint dam complex with Czechoslovakia.