The Cyclist

THE CYCLIST – A World War II Thriller

by FREDRIK NATH

FINGERPRESS
LONDON

Copyright © Fredrik P. Nath, 2010

Also by Fredrik Nath, available on Kindle from Fingerpress:

Farewell Bergerac

An unforgettable wartime tale of fragile love, loss and redemption

http://novels.fingerpress.co.uk/farewell-bergerac.html

Galdir - A Slave’s Tale

The first volume in an epic series chronicling a Roman slave’s escape and rise to become a Germanic warlord.

“Highly Commended”   in the Yeovil Literary Prize 2011

http://novels.fingerpress.co.uk/galdir-a-slaves-tale.html

FIND MORE GREAT BOOKS AT:

www.fingerpress.co.uk

For

Joanne Gillespie and my daughter Lara.

They both published before me.

Acknowledgement

Thanks to Ashley Stokes without whose help I would never have begun.

*Le Chant des Partisans

Ami, entends-tu le vol noir des corbeaux sur nos plaines?

Ami, entends-tu ces cris sourds du pays qu'on enchaîne?

Ohé partisans, ouvriers et paysans, c'est l’alarme!

Ce soir l'ennemi connaîtra le prix du sang et des larmes.

The Song of the Partisans

Friend, do you hear the crows’ dark flight over our plains?

Friend, do you hear the muffled cries of the country being shackled?

Ahoy! Resistants, labourers and farmers, the alarm has sounded!

Tonight the enemy shall know the price of blood and tears.

Prologue

London, 2010

Curtains opened and closed seeking furtive revelation from across the road. A driver slowed as he passed, staring at the BBC logo on the Ford Transit van standing parked at a slight angle to the kerb. An elusive sun slipped behind a white summer cloud as the crew brought up their equipment. They waited at the green front door of a semi-detached house in Blackheath while the presenter rang the doorbell.

An elderly woman, curly grey hair and sagging breasts, opened the door in response to the summons and without smiling, she stepped back to allow them entry. She proffered a liver-spotted hand and the leader of the crew shook it with both of his for a moment too long, as if to dominate, to accentuate his mastery.

‘Mrs Ran-Davis? It is very kind of you to allow us to interview you —and in your own home too.’

‘I told your producer it would be all right,’ she said, her voice sounding cracked and tired already. ‘Come this way.’

She led the way into a comfortable front room, lit by a bay window and separated from the dining room by glazed doors.

‘Yes, I wonder if I could trouble you to sign the disclaimer. Only a formality, you understand.’

Her hand shook as she took the ballpoint from his hand. The signature was quivery and crenulated too when he examined it. She looked up at his face and he smiled the counterfeit smile of the media-man.

He glanced at the mantel, the photographs in their wooden frames, the china duck on the corner. The gas fire, black and cold, stared back at him like a guard dog, ready for action but quiescent now in the summer sunshine. Another story, another film. To him she was now a device, to be placed, positioned and nudged. Nudged into conversation, pushed into revelations and recorded, saved and archived. He possessed no particular feelings about her or her story but he knew where his money came from and it was enough. He had no time either. It was ten-thirty and there was a luncheon appointment with another war victim to consider. He felt as if he was drowning in victim-speak today. Time was short.

‘Would you sit over there please?’

He guided her into a chair with both hands on her arms as if she might escape. There was a background now of plain pale-green wallpaper and he pictured how it would look on the screen. The telephone stood on a three-legged table next to the chair. It looked dusty, as if no one had used it for a long time, perhaps not since his producer telephoned and requested an interview. Next to the phone was a gilt metal cap-badge, worn and old, like the woman who sat beside the table.

Her voice tremulous, she said, ‘This is for a documentary?’

‘Yes. The BBC is interviewing a number of you French war survivors.’

‘Before it’s too late?’

‘Of course not. We’re not ghouls you know.’ He chuckled then said, ‘it’s because we’re making a documentary on the war and certain aspects of the German occupation and the Vichy French are of interest at the moment.’

‘My husband always said I should have written it down, you know.’

‘He did?’

‘Yes, he said it was an heroic story.’

‘Heroic?’

‘Yes. My father...’

She seemed to stop then. A vacancy came over her grey eyes and she stared out through the window until a warm breeze took the net curtain and its gentle movement seemed to animate her. She was old, but felt no hint of bitterness, for there were memories stirring now, ones making her smile a wistful little smile. Her face was a mass of wrinkles, her teeth brown and stained and she wore an inappropriate flowery dress, like some young woman. It was her best and she wore it today in memory of someone she once loved as only a child can love but she would not tell these strangers that. They would not understand.

‘Memories. Memories, you see,’ she said.

‘Stop there a moment would you? We need to get the camera set up. Would you look straight at the camera during the interview please?’ he turned to the bearded cameraman, ‘George darling, would you be ever so good and position it here. Jimmy, keep the mike up this time will you, we don’t want a fluffy appearing at the top of the frame.’

He pointed to a place on the round, threadbare rug between the window and the object. The old woman sat with no trace of impatience, her hands folded in her lap.

 ‘OK there is it?’ he said. ‘Right. We can start in a moment. I’ll ask a few questions about the war and you look at the camera when you speak. Don’t look at me.’

He turned and smiled at the cameraman. ‘George, are you ready? We’ll do the noddies later. No need to take up too much of this dear lady’s time eh?’

Turning to his subject he said, ‘You escaped from France during the war. What was your home country like in those days?’

‘I didn’t know much about the politics. I was only nine. I can tell you about my father though. In a way, it is his story. My mother told me many times. It was to keep his memory alive you understand.’

‘Your father?’

‘Yes, he was a policeman.’

‘Vichy French?’

‘Yes, but he was different.’

‘Different?’

‘Yes, he was a good man.’

‘There are many who might disagree with that. The Vichy police collaborated with the Germans, didn’t they?’

‘Some did, no, most did. My father was not like them. He was naive at first, we all were. But we learned in time.’

‘Carry on.’

‘Do you think it is always like that? Clever, evil people lie and inveigle themselves and in the end, you don’t know who is good and who is bad?’

‘Well, it’s your story, not mine. Start at the beginning. What was your first memory of the war?’

‘No, I’ll tell you about my father and you can judge. He was a good policeman. That was why they kept him on, the Germans I mean...’

Chapter 1

Bergerac, February 1943

1

Dusk. Grey slats of cloud lay suspended above Bergerac’s town square. Auguste Ran, Assistant Chief of Police, stood at the window of his office in the Prefecture; he was reminiscing. His thoughts made him frown as he looked out. He watched as the cold sunset shed its bloodshot light on the scene below. The waning rays of light filtered through the naked, brown elm branches around the square’s periphery, weaving restless, lengthening patterns, seeming to deny the hope of a forthcoming spring.

A lone cyclist crossing below caught his attention. Auguste recognised the man with irritation because he should not have been there. The man bore the yellow Star of David sewn on the right arm of his coat, in testimony of his faith. Jews were subject to curfew after five o’clock and cycling past the Sub-Prefecture could only be a gesture of defiance. It must have been hard for the Jews now but he also knew they had it good before the First War and he at times half-believed the concept they were responsible for this second disastrous conflict, bringing down his country, perhaps even questioning his faith. Of course, he was not anti-Semitic, how could he be? His best friend as he grew up was a Jew. He understood how some of his countrymen reasoned, that was all.

For Auguste, the cyclist with his simple act of disobedience was symptomatic of the hopelessness and anger experienced now by everyone around him. He knew this man very well, but he would not have talked openly to him in the street. They had known each other since they were boys, yet somehow Auguste’s life had changed so much, he could no longer greet some of his oldest friends out-of-doors even if he wished to. If an informer or soldier should see him, they might report it. If the occupying forces apprehended Pierre on his bicycle, Auguste knew it would mean internment for his friend and his friend’s daughter Monique. Auguste had no appetite for more of the persecution his job seemed to be perpetrating on even his old friends. He had seen enough of it already, he reflected, as the cyclist disappeared from view.

The grey cobbles, dull and worn, seemed almost to stare back at Auguste, their emptiness taunting him with memories of happier days. Days of bustling markets in bright sunshine. Days of laughter and coffee in the open-air café next door. Duck breasts, pink, plump and succulent; foie gras, accordion music and clinking wineglasses—all gone now. In those days, before the Germans came, the farmers could afford grain to feed their ducks and geese. In those days, they had plenty to sell and there was always a sense of prosperity in the town. The elm-bordered market square, silent now, seemed to Auguste a dull mirror to these disconsolate feelings arising within him.