Free The Cyclist by Fredrik Nath

away.’
    ‘Very good. Call the pathologist and we will have her taken to the mortuary. I’ll have a look.’
    Auguste knelt at the side of the body. He felt her neck first to ensure she was dead. The flesh felt warmer than he expected. He looked at the ground around the body looking for bloodstains and there were none. She had clearly not been killed here. He stared at the face.
    Recognition began to come. Fear came too. He recognised her. He felt his heart beating, his breath came in rasps and he experienced a mounting and unreasonable anger. He knew her. He had spoken to her only hours before. It was Bernadette.
    He sank to both knees and turned her over. The eyes were open and he tried to shut them. They would not stay closed and within moments he realised the gesture was pointless.
    Auguste stood up in the drizzle and removed his overcoat. He draped the body with it and looked at the faces of the crowd. The faces had meant nothing to him moments before but now he felt an urge to explain. He had a desire to ask their forgiveness, he wanted to avoid their angry stares. Guilt took him.
    She had gone home to her mother and he knew she had been safe on the night he took her back. How could she be here, naked, lifeless and forlorn?
    Her feet peeped out from under his coat. Auguste noticed they were small, delicate and perfect in shape. Red-painted toenails stared at him, he thought, in anger. Red is the colour of hate, he thought. Had he failed her? Had this happened because he had discouraged her from her singing? Had she become a woman of the night, prostituting herself to earn a living and this had become the result?
    No, he knew her. She was a decent girl and nothing would persuade him to the contrary. Why was the body here? No clothing lay nearby, he could see that. She had died elsewhere and her body left in the square hidden by the bushes. But why?
    The noisy green van from the mortuary arrived. Two men in white uniforms emerged and after rummaging in the back, extracted a stretcher and a black body bag. Auguste wondered for a moment whether their white uniforms symbolised some kind of purity like the innocence of this girl’s youth. He felt only anger and he swore to himself he would find out who had done this.
    Bernadette, the beautiful singer, the child-like student of fine-art, the girl he had taken home, away from the leering, lecherous German that night in the Bonne Auberge.
    Brunner. Had he done this? Would he do such a thing? He was a man of no conscience but this would be stupid even for him.
    In his mind, he could hear Édith say Brunner had bad habits. Was this then, what Édith had meant?
    The questions flew in his mind and he had no answers. He knew he should speak to Brunner but Bernadette’s mother came first. If the German had done this, he would bring him to justice, to the guillotine.
    Bernadette, so young, so beautiful. In death, her beauty had grown in his mind. Her vulnerability had been so clear and made him feel so protective of her. His thoughts wishing Zara would become like her, frightened him now rather than reassured him. Was this how it could end?
    The two mortuary attendants stood nearby. They made no attempt to remove the body since the pathologist had not arrived yet. It was some minutes before he did.
    Claude returned and took a list of names from the crowd. Had they seen anything? Who was the man who had found the body? Auguste needed to talk to him.
    Dr. Dubois arrived. He drew up his bicycle and leaned it against a tree. He waited to see if it would fall and satisfied, he turned to where Auguste stood, musing.
    The doctor was a man who liked a drink but he did the post-mortems and prepared his reports with remarkable efficiency considering his wine consumption. Eight o’clock in the morning was of course a time of sobriety even for him so Auguste knew Dubois would be reliable.
    ‘Good morning, Inspector,’ Dubois said.
    He was a small round man who reminded Auguste of an orange