The Cyclist (19 page)

‘I like my work; that is all. You had better go before I decide to keep you longer. You would not enjoy our hospitality here.’

Auguste rose, he looked at Brunner. It was now as if both of them were fencing. Brunner waved him away. Auguste rubbed his back as he left. He wondered how bad his back injury could be. It was stiffening by the moment.

When the car came, he wondered if anyone would see them delivering him home. He thought it would not be good for his image to return looking beaten and limping in an SD vehicle. He longed for his bed; it had been a bad day.

2

Auguste lay in bed. He was relieved to see the dawn casting its light through the gaps in the blackout curtains. He struggled to move but the pain in his back, which kept him awake most of the night, held him rigid, immobile. The two little pyjama-clad girls, who sat on the bed and bounced up and down now and again, did not help his discomfort.

‘No. Please don’t,’ Auguste said.

Odette lay next to him. She reached out her hand, placing it upon his shoulder and said, ‘Auguste, they are only children. Now girls, try to be still. Papa has a sore back and if you jump about it hurts him.’

‘Sorry, Papa.’

‘Sorry Uncle Auguste.’

He tried to smile but the discomfort stabbed him and he decided to stay where he was. At one point in the night, he had imagined he would lose the use of his legs. Escaping in a wheelchair held no prospect of success.

‘I will get you some aspirin, Auguste,’ Odette said.

He smiled a tired smile.

‘Is Papa ill?’

‘No I’m not ill Zara, I hurt my back in a car accident.’

Monique said, ‘Was it the black car that came yesterday?’

‘Yes, how did you know?’

‘I looked out through the window and saw it.’

‘Monique my little one, I’ve told you never to do that. If someone saw you, it could be dangerous.’

‘She does it all the time, Papa. I keep telling her not to...’

‘No you don’t.’

‘I do.’

Odette said, ‘Children. Stop this arguing and go downstairs. We will have breakfast in a few minutes and Zara must go off to school.’

‘It’s hard to get up,’ Auguste said.

‘Shall I call the doctor?’

‘No, help me up and I will get ready for work.’

Odette took him by the arm and he somehow managed to swing his legs out of bed and don his slippers. She pulled him upright amid groans and curses.

‘Are you going to work?’

‘Of course. I have much to do. I told you about the reprisals.’

‘What will you do? You cannot possibly comply, surely?’

‘I have a plan which may soften the blow. It will still happen but not as Brunner wishes.’

‘Papa?’ Zara said from the door.

‘Downstairs, now,’ he said.

Alone again, Odette said, ‘Plan?’

‘Well you’ll see. If it works it will be a halfway house, nothing more.’

‘I think the knock on the head has addled your wits. Speaking in riddles now. I have no time for this Auguste, I have one to take to school and one to teach at home. I don’t need a riddle-monger in the middle of it all.’

‘It’s just the less you know, the safer you will be.’

‘See. Endless riddles.’

She left him sitting on the bed again, scrabbling in the half-light for his underwear. He dressed with difficulty and managed the stairs. As he moved around, the stiffness seemed to reduce and with an ashen face, he appeared at the kitchen doorway.

‘Papa, is your back very sore?’ Zara said and ran to him.

He bent his knees and her hug gave him encouragement.

‘Zara, ma fleur. I have a sore back but it will pass. I’ll take two aspirins and hey presto, it will be better, you’ll see.’

‘Papa had a sore back once,’ Monique said.

‘Your Papa would never give in to such a thing,’ Auguste said.

‘He said it was because he carried a burden. What is a burden Uncle Auguste?’

‘It is something heavy but there are many things can cause it.’

‘Burden. Burden,’ the little girl repeated as if learning a new phrase or saying.

Auguste wondered whether his burdens might be lifted today. He felt wounded. He loved Monique, not like Zara, but close. He thought he could never forgive himself if the Germans discovered her. He regretted the back pain. He had much to do and it would hamper him. He wondered if he should see Dr. Girard, his family doctor, but there was no time today.

Driving to the Prefecture, he was in agony. He thanked his stars the car had a pull-out gear-stick instead of a normal one for changing gear. He was unsure if he could have driven at all unless it was so.

3

Auguste and Édith now conferred in the women’s toilets. They were uncertain even there whether the SD could hear them but it was the one place they had not checked when they had come to place their listening devices according to Édith.

‘I will have to telephone from the café next door. I can’t believe they would listen to the phone calls made from there.’

‘Huh. They listen everywhere Auguste.’

‘We are agreed then?’

‘Yes, I will have the requisition paid as prisoner transport from our end. Are you sure they won’t remove the masks?’

‘Why should they?’

‘Brunner is unpredictable. He may want to see the suffering on their faces.’

‘Let him. It makes no difference. I will have to drive to Lyon to sign the documents. The SD surveillance is a nuisance.’

‘What about your back?’

‘I’ll survive.’

Auguste emerged holding his back but in better spirits. He descended the stairs and walked to the cafe next door, where he made his telephone call. Starting up the old Citroën, he smiled to himself. He would fool them all and then concentrate on Brunner. He had begun to hate the man and he knew it was contrary to his beliefs. The knowledge made little difference to him. He wanted justice and he would have it. He drove to Lyon without stopping. Despite difficulty getting out of the car, he managed what he had come for and he noticed his back was more comfortable on the way home. He wondered if it was his elevation in mood or perhaps a delayed effect of the aspirin. He mumbled a prayer under his breath as he drove and clutched the St Christopher he wore around his neck. He felt he could win this time.

Chapter 16

1

It was still cold. A thick, white frost had gathered overnight and Auguste’s car skidded as he pulled it to a stop outside the Prefecture. His nose told him the bakery had reopened and it was a welcome greeting as he struggled out of the old Citroën. The bright sky above brought its own sense of hope and he smiled despite his discomfort. Brunner had not been in contact since the night of the interrogation and Auguste wondered if he might have changed his mind. He still felt like a man on a treadmill. He could see where he wanted to go but each step left him stationary. Plans were all he had then, plans and hopes. The insecurities he faced still prodded but now he had a way of fighting back in his own way and it gave him strength.

In his office, he stood at the desk and looking down, he noticed a report on his desk. It was from Claude. Without sitting, he opened the buff folder and read the contents. Claude concluded that none of the neighbours noticed Bernadette leaving her house. This was despite the lateness of the hour and her mother’s story of a car picking her up. It seemed to Auguste it was at odds with his own experience of such cases. Someone always saw or heard something in a small close-knit community. It was only a matter of asking the right questions of the right person. He wondered how far Claude would take his ambitions and whether his uncle, the Judge influenced him. Auguste did not doubt someone other than Dr. Dubois had telephoned the Judge, but who? He puzzled for a moment then left the office. If you want a job doing properly, you may sometimes have to do it yourself.

‘Édith, I’m going out,’ he called over his shoulder as he passed his secretary’s office.

She came to the door.

‘Where? What shall I say if anyone calls?’

‘No one will call. Well, if Brunner calls tell him I’m sick but his delivery of bound and gagged hanging-fodder will be on time at three in the afternoon tomorrow.’

‘You have arrested them?’

‘Yes Édith, exactly as Brunner asked,’ he said louder than he needed. Then he winked. ‘They are all local men, four farmers and a baker. People around here will learn to respect the law.’

Édith pointed an index to her forehead signalling her understanding and Auguste made his way down the stairs, holding onto his sore back.

It took him effort and pain to drive to the little cobbled street where Bernadette parted from him, but he put up with the discomfort, determined to find out whether Claude had done his work with the diligence Auguste required of his second-in-command.

He stood at the side of the road. He looked up and down the street. Bernadette’s mother’s house was at the corner of a bend in the street and Auguste estimated any activity would best be seen from the neighbours’ houses across the road rather than the ones on either side.

Three houses sported a view of the street in the area of interest. He began at the first. He knocked.

The door yawned; it creaked as it made its slow journey from ajar to open. It sounded to Auguste like a blackboard screech and he felt his spine tingle.

A small ancient appeared in the doorway. The elderly woman stood hunched forward, her spine ravaged by time and old age. Auguste thought her unnatural posture would make her see people’s feet before their faces. She looked up at him with clear blue questioning eyes.

‘Yes?’ she said.

Auguste introduced himself and she invited him in. He followed her to an upstairs room. A tottering pile of newspapers littered one corner and a lamp stood in the other corner, the shade hanging crooked and sad as if it had lost its meaning and its will to live in the daylight filtering in through the threadbare curtains. The curtains themselves seemed unhappy and Auguste felt they needed or even longed for a man with aptitude for such work to rehang them, since they were as lopsided and impoverished as their owner.

He sat on a grubby couch and the woman sat opposite. Her face seemed a wrinkled picture of all he wanted to avoid in his own old age. She offered him coffee but he knew it would be chicory and he refused, wishing the offer had been real coffee not a mirage drawn by the Nazi occupation. Real coffee and croissants, coffee and bacon, coffee and eggs. It was a source of pain to him in a subtle way and he knew it was a shared discomfort between him and this old woman whom he had never met before. There was however, a kinship. They were both French and both of Aquitaine. Auguste could feel it, whether her eyes expressed it or not. Perhaps it was in her demeanour, he could not guess.

‘Madame, I wonder if you recall a night three days ago when Bernadette Leclerc disappeared?’

‘Bernadette. Yes, I remember. I talked to another policeman about it.’

‘Yes it was my lieutenant; he questioned you?’

‘Yes, Major.’

‘I am no Major, only the assistant Chief of Police.’

‘Well all the same, I remember.’

‘Bernadette disappeared in the late evening and she was, as you know, murdered.’

‘Murdered? Yes, your thin young man asked me and I told him all I know.’

‘Murdered by very evil men.’

‘The black car,’ she said, her gaze directed at his knees.

‘Black car?’

‘It came and took her.’

‘You told that to my officer?’

‘Naturally.’

‘Did you notice what kind of car?’

‘It was black.’

She still stared at Auguste’s knees and he realised her back prevented her from looking elsewhere.

‘But there are many black cars. There are even black French cars,’ he said, shifting in his seat.

‘It was black as the heart of Hitler himself.’

‘But you cannot identify it?

‘Of course I can.’

‘Well?’

‘It was a German Nazi car. You think I could mistake the devils’ work?’

She crossed herself and Auguste had to shake off the impulse to imitate it himself. When he noticed his hand reaching upward, he scratched his nose to hide the gesture, but knew he looked foolish.

The old woman, eyes alight, said, ‘It had flags. They were mounted one on each side at the front. Nazi emblems. Filth.’

Auguste drew out his notepad. He scribbled as fast as he was able. The old woman stood.

‘Can I offer you a brioche?’

‘That would be very welcome, thank you.’

He felt guilt then. This old woman could have few means to bake. He felt embarrassed to take her bread. She disappeared into the kitchen waddling like an unsteady duck, then reappeared with a plate and two bread rolls. They had seen better days, like their owner. She offered the bread and Auguste took one.

He munched in silence for a moment then said, ‘So you saw the vehicle clearly?’

‘Naturally. I am old, not stupid. I told your young man.’

‘But just to help me too—you are certain it was a German car?’

‘Yes, I told you.’

‘You won’t have recalled the licence number, I suppose.’

‘It began with BE.’

‘Ah, a German plate.’

‘The numbers were 237.’

‘You remember that?’

‘Yes, I have a head for numbers. Besides, it was the same number as my mother’s telephone.’

‘Your mother? How old is she?’

‘You are police?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you think my mother still lives? I am seventy-eight years old. You really think my mother lives?’

‘No. How foolish of me. I thought perhaps you might have been much younger. Perhaps fifty.’

The cackles coming from the furrowed face caused Auguste to redden.

‘You are such a nice boy. Whatever made you join the traitors? You should be out with the Maquis, blowing up trains and shooting at Germans. Proper Frenchmen.’

Auguste looked down and noticed the old woman had leaned forward and her hand rested on his knee. It was as if a huge snail crawled up towards his groin and he stood up.