The Cyclist (9 page)

He wondered if his feelings for this girl were real or if they represented some ultimate peak of what he was going through. Perhaps it was not Bernadette’s death but the addition of it to all the other risks and dangers driving him to this sad state of self-flagellation.

He took deep breaths and calmed himself. He knew it was lack of sleep, frustration and stress. Time. Let time pass and let him deal with each object in his path, one at a time. He had always reacted in this way to huge mounds of work, pressure, anger. One small piece at a time and endless patience.

He noticed he was breathing deeply and to his surprise, he noticed his eyes were moist. He was not tearful but his eyes were moist enough to make him wipe them.

The knock on his door made him panic.

Édith stood in the doorway. Her spectacles still on the end of her nose and her head up, as if they might fall if she leaned forward.

‘Édith. Bernadette Leclerc has been murdered.’

 ‘Murdered?’ she said.

‘Yes, strangled. The killer or killers dumped her body outside of the Prefecture.’

‘Ah,’ she said, ‘it begins.’

‘What?’

‘It begins. It is symptomatic of the time in which we live, that’s all. Who would do such a thing? I know her mother. She will die through this. Has anyone told her yet?’

‘I’m going just now.’

She sat down opposite him.

He paused and looked her in the eye.

He said, ‘I think Brunner did this.’

‘Brunner?’

‘Yes, she was singing in La Bonne Auberge the other night. He seemed interested in her.’

‘Today, Bernadette Leclerc and tomorrow? You? Your family? Perhaps they will be kind enough to take me so I can be free?’

‘Édith, what are you saying?’

‘I don’t know.’

He saw tears in her eyes and he understood as if for the first time, she was like him—tortured.

 ‘Auguste, this place is becoming an entrance to hell, like Rosetti’s gates. Jewish people interned for nothing more than their religious beliefs. Our children murdered in the street and those fat Nazi bastards sitting pretty, laughing at us. When will you do something? When do we fight?’

Auguste said nothing. The silence between them became a bond. No words were needed, their grief unspoken but vivid all the same. It was grief they shared. They grieved over the world in which they had grown up. It had gone; it had died.

Time passed and he knew he had to go.

‘I will first go to her mother’s house. Then I have to go to the Judge’s chambers to report. Would you ask Claude to come up, I’ll take him with me.’

‘You can’t trust Claude.’

‘What?’

‘He wants your job.’

‘Of course he does. I know it. But how far would he go to get it?’

‘He is capable of betraying you in any way in which he has the opportunity. I knew his father and he was the same.’

‘Oh Édith. You see it all as black or white. There is a lot of grey too.’

‘Not for the poor Leclerc girl.’

‘No.’

He grabbed his coat, the smuts obvious where he had placed it on the ground earlier. As Édith left, he rubbed at them as if he needed to expunge the evidence of the contact with death. His tired mind steeled itself for what was to come. He hated bringing bad news and today, he knew he had to do so with gentleness. It had never been his forte and it filled him with fear.

Chapter 6

1

A faint glimmer of sunshine peeped through the banks of grey cloud above as the Citroën drew to a halt in the little side street. The cobbles gave a weak reflection of it, making the browns grey and Auguste noted it had ceased raining. It caused him no optimism however. He pictured in his mind how Bernadette had mocked confession as she left his car. He remembered her girlish skip as she crossed the road. In his youth, he thought, he could have loved such a girl. No love had protected her last night and love was not here in this narrow cobbled alley.

It was like when he was a small child, going to see the headmaster at school, he reflected. He recalled the day when he had brought a mouth organ and played it during a lesson. Madame Velosovitch, his mathematics teacher, enraged, had sent him to receive discipline. He recalled the dampness of his palms and his heart thrumming against his ribs as he entered the dark panelled room; the look on the headmaster’s face; the old man’s eyebrows twitching as he administered the punishment. But this punishment was different. It would not be better in a few days. It would continue to smart in his mind. He wished he could refuse it, he wished, like his Saviour, he had a Father he could pray to—to escape the inevitable pain. He knew though, Jesus had capitulated to the fate assigned him and he must do it too.

He glanced at Claude, who stood beside him. The junior inspector was still wet behind the ears to Auguste’s thinking. He had not chosen him after all. Claude was a Dubois. His father’s cousin was the Judge, who pulled the strings for Claude’s appointment. Auguste would rather have appointed his second in command himself, but politics was politics, he reflected.

Claude was tall and thin, lanky but strong. He had boxed at university and had done well obtaining a degree in history. His smart, brown side-parted hair reflected his neat and tidy ways so irritating to Auguste. Claude was a good police officer he had no doubt, but he disliked him all the same. Perhaps Édith was right.

Auguste reached forward to knock on the door. It swung open before them, even with his gentle tap. It was on the latch and Auguste called out.

‘Madame Leclerc?’

No answer came, so they entered. A small entrance hall, dark and unforgiving, presented itself. Next to the stairs, stood a sad, brown wheelchair made of wood with a wicker seat. Auguste wondered who would push it now, now that Bernadette would never come home. A chandelier hung from the ceiling but no light reflected from its cheap glass facets. The stair-carpet was green and worn and the painted hospital-green walls sported family pictures, hung staggered as they ascended above the stairwell.

Claude and Auguste pushed past the hat-stand and Auguste put his head round the doorjamb looking for signs of life. The sitting room was empty and they looked in the kitchen too but Bernadette’s mother seemed to be absent.

Auguste called again, but louder.

A weak feminine voice called down the stairs.

‘One moment. One moment. I am coming.’

Auguste looked up the stairs and saw an indistinct figure there, at the top. She approached the stairs and he saw she wore a cardigan over a knee-length dress, flower-patterned and threadbare. She supported herself on two crutches, each jammed under her armpits and one hand held the stair-rail.

‘Who is it?’

‘It is Inspector Ran, Madame.’

‘Police? What has happened?’

‘If you could come downstairs, we can talk,’ Claude said.

Auguste said, ‘or we could come up if you wish.’

‘What is wrong? Is it Bernadette? Has she done something wrong?’

The rounded shape began to descend the steep staircase and Auguste wondered if he should offer to help, but he knew better. Besides, he did not want to touch her, as if her pending grief might be contagious. The slow descent took minutes but Bernadette’s mother knew how to do it and the two policemen felt forced to stand and watch, for conversation was not possible over her grunts of effort and discomfort. Her stiff legs swinging together between the crutches, she led them into the sitting room. The polished wood floor, the round brown rug shouted penury and the two men felt squashed together as they sat on the small couch, across a glass-topped table from the object of their mission.

Madame Leclerc lowered herself into a chair and sat silent, as if she knew what Auguste was about to say.

Her mouth drawn tight, her lips hard, she said, ‘Something has happened, has it?’

She was older than Auguste remembered, perhaps five or ten years older than he was, though he felt very old today.

‘Yes.’

‘To Bernadette?’

‘I’m afraid it is very bad news.’

The tight lips trembled. The hand holding the two vertical crutches shook. Auguste knew it was coming. He waited for an outburst.

‘Bad?’ her voice sounded angry, aggressive.

‘Yes. I am very sorry...’

‘Sorry?’

‘I’m afraid she is... she is...’

His voice trailed away. He glanced up at her face but read nothing there apart from a trembling in the lips and a moistening of the eyes.

‘How did it happen?’ Madame Leclerc said.

‘Her body was found in the market square this morning.’

‘I see.’

Her voice was quiet now, relaxed. Her face had crumpled it seemed to Auguste, as if it was a paper, screwed up in someone’s hand and then unwrapped. He also knew the wrinkling and furrows would never disappear now.

‘We have some questions. Do you feel able to answer them?’

Silence.

‘Madame?’

‘The last time we spoke,’ she said, ‘you told me my husband was dead and you could not find out who the other driver was. I lay on that hospital bed and felt as if you were killing me. I have never walked without pain since that day. Bernadette was the only reason for my life to continue. Now you tell me she is dead. You are killing me again. Once more it is you.’

Auguste said nothing.

Claude said, ‘Madame, we will need your help to find who did this.’

‘Yes... yes,’ she said, her voice trailing away.

Auguste said, ‘Would you prefer we come back later?’

‘No. I don’t ever want you to come back here. I never want to see your face again.’

‘When did you see her last?’

‘Last night. I was upstairs and I heard her talking to someone. It was a man.’

‘At what time was that?’

‘I don’t know. It was late evening. I was getting ready for bed.’

‘And then?’

‘She called up the stairs.’

She paused; a tear meandered down her tanned cheek and she said, ‘She said she would be going out but would be back in a short time. I asked her who was there but she said nothing.’

Claude said, ‘you’re certain she said nothing more?’

‘No. I mean yes, certain.’

‘And she went out?’

‘Yes. I heard the door bang shut. Is that all?’

‘Was Bernadette seeing anyone? A young man perhaps?’

‘No. She worked hard. She studied in the day and she sang at night. She told me she was finding another job because there were too many Germans at the restaurant.’

The policemen stood and Auguste said, ‘Is there someone we can call? Is there anyone who can come and stay with you for... for a while?’

‘No. I am used to being alone.’

‘You will have to come to the mortuary to identify her. It is a formality but a necessary one. Claude here will ask you some more questions then, if you don’t mind. I am sorry.’

‘Yes.’

‘I will send a car, later this afternoon.’

‘Yes, you do that inspector. For your records. Your all-important records. But you don’t have the name on those records.’

‘The name?’

‘The killer. The beast who robbed me of my little girl. Evil people. First Jean, now Bernadette. Who did this? Who?’

She struggled to her feet. She leaned forward on her crutches. She took hold of Auguste’s coat lapels as if she could sense some contact with Bernadette, as if the last caress of the cloth on her naked body had left some trace of her and it attracted the crippled woman who stood there, desperate, wild-eyed and shocked.

‘Madame,’ Auguste said, ‘we don’t know, but we will find out and we will bring him to justice. I promise.’

‘No. You speak of justice? Kill him. Please kill him. He must die for what he did to my daughter, my little one. She was only a young girl, don’t you see?’

Her grip tightened and she pulled him to her despite the discrepancy in height and her instability.

‘Promise me. Promise me you will get him. Promise, do you hear?’

‘I promise. I will get him and he will face the guillotine.’

‘Kill him. It is all such a travesty of a man deserves. Death in payment. Does it not say an eye for an eye in the Bible?’

‘But it also says ‘vengeance is mine, saith the Lord’. I will see Bernadette’s killer gets what he deserves. Please, sit now. We know our way out.’

They found their way back to the street and Auguste felt relief for the first time since he parked the car. He turned to Claude and said, ‘She’s shocked. We won’t get much out of her for a while.’

‘No. I’ll try her again when she identifies the body.’

‘I want you to speak to the neighbours, maybe they saw something. Try to get a feel for the timing.’

‘And you?’

‘I will see the Judge Dubois. He will have to run the investigation.’

‘How do I get back? My bicycle is back at the Prefecture.’

‘Claude, my boy,’ Auguste said, ‘God gave you legs and he gave me a car. I want a written report on my desk by this afternoon.’

He sat in his car and watched as Claude began his questioning of the neighbours and he decided he would keep his promise. Whoever killed her would pay; he swore it. It began to rain again as he drove away.

‘Poor Claude,’ he muttered under his breath.

2

The stone stairs greeted each footfall with a resounding clack as Auguste climbed to the Judge’s office. He thought about his report. He would describe where the passerby found the body and how it had attracted police attention. He needed to give some information on Bernadette’s background and give some idea of cause of death. It was premature to speculate but if Doctor Dubois was right, she had been strangled around four in the morning.

Of course, a written report would be required but there had not been time so far. If he had returned to the Prefecture, he could have had Édith type his report before coming but he preferred to make these things factual and face-to-face. His life was based upon facts and it was his nature after all.

The oak door loomed ahead, closed and unassailable. His knuckles hurt when he rapped, for the door was solid, heavy, as if it was a more substantial bar to his further progression in the Police Force. He knew the obstacle was not Judge Dubois, but a more ethereal force and more subtle in its application. The German authorities would never allow a Frenchman like Auguste to hold an important position even though they owned the Vichy-French police like a farmer owns a duck.