The Cyclist (12 page)

It was awkward work; there was no flooring so he had to balance on the crossbeams to prevent himself from putting his foot through the lathe and plaster ceiling beneath. He thought he had done enough damage already by loosening the joist and a foot-hole would add nothing to the appearance of his daughter’s bedroom.

He lifted the beam end and pushed it, so it swung in gentle pendular movements from the supporting ropes. He looked at the beam. He noticed he was hot and sweating. He removed his shirt and mopped his brow with it, then prepared to shift the joist towards the other end of the roof-void.

A candle’s light flickered in the loft opening.

‘Auguste, how is it going?’

‘Odette, I thought you went to bed long ago. What time is it?’

‘Three o’clock. I thought you might want some water. I crushed some blackcurrants into it.’

He crossed the attic towards her.

‘Are you not cold?’

‘No. The work warms me up.’

‘I like you warmed up.’

‘The drink may cool me.’

‘Then perhaps you shouldn’t drink it.’

‘It won’t cool me down overmuch.’

She reached out as he drank and touched his sweating chest. She teased the hair around his nipples and he coughed, almost choking.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Wondered if you might want to have a little rest?’

‘I’m all sweat and filth.’

‘I know.’

He smiled. He felt the beginnings of a gentle tumescence adjacent to his groin.

‘I’ll have to come back and finish this.’

‘I know.’

‘The girls?’

‘They sleep.’

He reached for her. Their lips met, her soft moist kiss arousing him further. She smelled of a familiar perfume whose name he did not know. In his mind, he associated it with happy times of love and youthful passion. He was tempted to take her there and then, but she turned away from him and holding his belt buckle, she laughed and tugged him away, her feet nimble on the cross-beams.

Descending, he followed her into the bedroom. She stopped and they collided in the darkness. She giggled and her childish laugh aroused him even more. She guided him to the bed, laughing, playing. Moments later, naked, they lay, pleasuring each other with their mouths.

He sensed her orgasm in her breathing, the way she tensed her body, arched her back. Her fingers caressed his hair, pulling him deeper towards her. In waves it came, he felt it, as if she struggled up some steep and arduous slope, stopping now and again for long seconds and then on, on until the summit came.

‘God,’ she called from that pinnacle.

‘My God,’ she cried, as if desperate and alone.

She shuddered, breathing fast. With gentle pressure, she eased his head away.

In the dark, he sensed her smile and turned, facing her, he entered her, thrusting soft and gentle, slow at first but rising in his own rhythm, as his pleasure escalated.

He fought to keep his day from entering his mind. He struggled to keep the visions of Bernadette’s body from insinuating themselves in his mind. Glimpses of the Jew on the steps flashed in front of his eyes and all the time he stroked and caressed Odette wanting her to take it away, cure him; rescue him. He touched her breast as he made love to her and she held onto him with a desperation he could feel in the strength of her grip, as if she understood. She called out again and began to breathe with him. Faster, ever faster. Ever deeper.

Then he finished. The deepest thrust of all and for one brief moment in time, all his troubles went. At this glorious moment, nothing interfered or stood between them and he shuddered as she had done, as her hands slipped on the sweat on his back.

They kissed, long and deep, feeling they were alone in the world, as if all war-torn Aquitaine had gone forever to trouble them no more. The moment lasted minutes then was gone like a breath on the wind, dissipated, dispersed.

Auguste rolled away breathing hard and she lay on her side facing him, her head on his shoulder. Her hand played with the hair on his chest and his right arm encircled her. He moved his head to escape the tickling of her hair on his face.

‘I must get back to work.’

‘Not yet, Auguste. Please. We have so little time together.’

‘The joist won’t position itself. And besides the concrete will set before I use it.’

‘Can I help?’

‘No. This is for me to do and some of it is heavy. Besides we need to have one of us available in case anyone comes.’

He dressed fumbling in the dark for his clothes. He swore when he fell over trying to put on his trousers. Odette giggled, hand over mouth. In poor temper, Auguste stomped up the stairs to the attic. He knew it would be a long night.

Chapter 9

1

Brunner. Auguste was sure of his implication in the murder, even if he was not the perpetrator. He had little to go on, but the expression in the man’s eyes when he looked at Bernadette that night in the restaurant was enough to convince.

And her body? Cut apart by the pathologist, lying in pieces—it was unthinkable. He walked up the steps of the Mairie, now the SD headquarters, and he sighed. He wished he were not alone but he knew there was no one he could trust. Claude had already betrayed him with his ‘preliminary’ report. He could almost hear Édith warning him not to trust the man. Yet, we judge others by our own standards and Auguste was not a man who would ever betray another; at least, not knowing he did so.

Brunner. Auguste resolved to interview him but he had no plan. He supposed he would enquire about his movements, but what was the point?

The Major needed only to say it was none of his business and question what right Auguste had to ask and it would all be over. No. He had to be more subtle. He had to try to trap the swine in some way. He hoped it would come to him in a flash of divine inspiration though he was losing his faith in the concept of God’s intervention in the pursuit of justice.

It was his second night of sleep deprivation. His usual night’s sleep was seven hours and he wondered how he would be able to keep going at this rate. He pictured the little room he had constructed.

He had placed a cot and a table with a chair into the room before bricking it up. The space was big enough for Monique to crawl through and he had shown her how to draw the false door into the tiny opening. When she had done it to his satisfaction, they had laughed.

 He recalled how in the attic, Zara stood behind watching him with Monique and he wondered if she was jealous or if the danger of it all was making her withdraw into herself. He knew also, he should pay more attention to the girls. He made up his mind to make more effort.

Auguste waited in the anteroom by the secretary’s desk for Brunner to allow him into his office. He felt like a fisherman baiting a hook not knowing what creature he might pull out of the deep.

The secretary came out. He was a tall man who towered above Auguste, his black hair tousled but clean. He had bushy eyebrows perched above his eyes like crows’ nests and his black SS uniform reinforced the idea in Auguste’s mind. He looked like a crow.

‘Please go in,’ he said.

No smile disturbed the long face. Auguste wondered what kind of people they awarded smiles to in this hellhole of interrogation and torture. He entered the office.

Brunner had changed the furniture and the wall hangings. The desk was an antique, eighteenth century, Auguste reflected. On the floor was a rug he imagined was Turkish, stolen from somewhere, the previous owners interned or killed. On the far wall was an oil painting Auguste recognised with shock. It was a watercolour by Renoir. Renoir was his namesake and he knew all of his paintings. It was detailed, showing a countryside boating scene, similar in style to a Monet but more elaborate. Auguste wondered if the artist had used a smaller brush than Monet, though it might have been the converse. A smiling Brunner, who held out his hand in an informal greeting, ripped him away from his thoughts.

Auguste took Brunner’s damp hand and realised the German was sweating. He wondered why. He had no power over this man. Brunner had the SD rank of Major but this was equivalent to a full Colonel in the SS. He was immune, inviolable and he knew it. It showed in the smile drawing his pink, sickly lips across his face and in his eyes, from the steel of his gaze.

‘Auguste,’ Brunner said, ‘how nice to see you.’

‘My pleasure too, Helmut,’ Auguste said.

‘And what brings you here to see me?’

‘We need to discuss the mechanism of the internments.’

‘The internments?’

‘Yes, I have a promise of one or two members of the gendarmerie to go with the trucks but if they are unarmed, then they will be of no more use than my men. Can we modify the orders?’

‘None of this concerns me. I am content to leave it up to you. I trust you, Auguste. Your men carry guns so there is no objection from the SD whether the gendarmes do as well. I don’t really care if they appear naked for that matter.’

The smile again. What was he hiding?

‘Have you been in a fight?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘The scratch on your cheek,’ Auguste said indicating a diagonal cut on the Major’s left cheek below the cheekbone extending to the corner of his mouth.

Brunner touched his face. He said, ‘this? Oh, it is nothing.’

‘Looks painful.’

‘Yes, yes. I fell into a hedge, please don’t tell anyone. A little too much of your French Armagnac, a little too much wine. You understand.’

‘Of course,’ Auguste said.

‘You French have such wonderful wine and brandy it is hard to be moderate.’

Brunner spoke in a slow rhythm, blinking his eyes and avoiding eye contact. Auguste thought he would have to be stupid not to realise Brunner was lying.

‘Who has a need to be moderate in such things? Why when we were in La Bonne Auberge, we drank so much wine and brandy...’

‘Yes, yes, I remember tumbling into bed and wondering what we had been up to.’

‘And the entertainment. Such a beautiful girl Bernadette. What a shame?’

‘A shame?’

Again traces of moisture on Brunner’s brow. It made no sense. Brunner was impenetrable.

‘Yes.’ Auguste said, ‘It seems you were right about her moral fibre and her clothing fibre.’

‘Fibre?’

Auguste feigned a laugh.

‘Yes, sorry it was a forensic joke. No, she was murdered the night before last. She must have been plying her trade in the streets and someone killed her. Pity, don’t you think?’

‘Terrible, such a young flower of French womanhood.’

The look in Brunner’s eyes changed to one of confidence now.

‘I am surprised. Did no one tell you? I thought the SD knew every little thing happening in Bergerac, every tiny event.’

‘I am sure there will be a report about it somewhere. I just haven’t seen it. You said fibres?’

‘Yes, forgive me, it was a joke. The murderer left fibres of his clothing and some hair on the body. It will take no time to find out his clothing and a great deal of where he may have come from.’

‘How astute.’

‘Yes, I thought you were police, like me.’

‘No. I am a security policeman, we do not pursue criminals.’

‘Of course not. You will understand, I do. I am also very, very good at it.’

‘No doubt. Was there anything else? I have to read some reports you understand, my friend.’

‘Of course, Helmut. I have learned all I needed to learn. You are very kind to give me the time.’

Auguste rose. He made for the door.

Brunner said, ‘Will you find her killer?’

‘I never fail. Don’t worry my friend, you will be safe enough to fall into your hedges without molestation once I have caught him, and I will.’

They smiled their insincere smiles to each other and Auguste left.

He made for his car and realised it was the only comfortable place where he could now rely on privacy. So Brunner had a scratch. Bernadette had fought back. Good for her. Like a Frenchwoman, she fought and did not go quietly. A hedge? Who did Brunner think he was fooling? Bernadette had fought for her life. It gave him an idea. He touched the ignition and smiled again with satisfaction. It was the first time in months the little tin-pot car had started first time and Auguste, like any superstitious man, thought it meant something.

2

By the time he knocked on the door of the pathologist’s office, it was late morning. The tap of his knuckles on the scratched and worn surface gave a hollow tone. Auguste reflected it was worn so by countless undertakers and relatives of the dead. The smell was more of formaldehyde than bowels this time, he noted with relief. The mortuary was one of the least pleasant places in the realm of his police work.

‘Come,’ commanded the voice through the door.

‘Dr. Dubois,’ Auguste said.

‘Very formal today Auguste? Come in.’

‘I’m here on formal business, I suppose.’

‘Oh?’

‘I wondered if you examined her fingernails. Took scrapings and the like.’

‘Well, I looked at her hands, but took no samples. I have to be economical with my materials these days. I can’t get hold of anything, so the little I have is precious.’

‘The body is still here?’

‘Naturally.’

‘Can we have a look?’

‘Yes, of course. Don’t be ill this time.’

‘No,’ Auguste said.

He followed Dubois into the mortuary and to Auguste’s relief the Pathologist had reassembled poor Bernadette’s body. He knew from experience, they would have replaced her internal organs and closed the incision. They had wrapped the body in a white sheet. Dubois unwrapped her body enough to pull her hands out and looked with care at the fingers using a magnifying glass.

‘Hm, here maybe,’ he said, indicating the right middle finger. ‘Under the nail. Maybe just dirt, but we will see.’

He took a small blade from the sink top and obtained a scraping from beneath the darkened nail. Auguste watched as the doctor smeared it onto a glass slide and he followed as Dubois shuffled back to his office.

Placing a thin glass cover slip on top of the sample the doctor popped the slide under his microscope and began to hum to himself. Time passed and Auguste grew impatient.