Hidden Depths

by Ally Rose

  ‘Not another step,’ Felix barked.

  Lotte screamed again. ‘Help! Somebody help me!’

  ‘Shut the fuck up! Or I’ll hurt Julia.’

  Lotte heard her sister’s name and stopped screaming. How on earth did this man know her sister was called Julia? ‘No! Don’t hurt my Julia, please.’

  ‘Fraulein Holler, now that I’ve got your attention…’

  ‘What do you want with me?’ Lotte asked, her voice trembling. She was alarmed to hear her name, and even more worrying was the fact that this crazed man knew Julia’s name as well. ‘You know me?’

  Felix nodded. ‘And you know me. Let me tell you the rules. If you scream, try to run away or disobey, I’ll not only go after Julia, I’ll bash your skull in before I put a bullet between your eyes. And I want you to listen to me and answer truthfully. Is that clear?’

  Lotte nodded and bit back the tears. ‘Where are we?’

  ‘On the banks of Muggelsee.’

  ‘Why have you brought me here?’

  ‘I’m going to strip you!’

  Lotte began to cry. ‘Are you going to rape me?’

  ‘Don’t flatter yourself. That’s not what this is all about.’

  ‘It’s so cold. I’ll freeze to death.’

  ‘Then you’ll know how it felt when you hosed me with icy cold water at Torgau,’ Felix reminded her, cutting away at her clothing to leave her in just a bra and knickers.

  ‘You’re a Torgau boy?’

  ‘Yes. It’s payback time,’ he told her.

  Lotte stood in front of him in the freezing night air and began to shiver. She never thought a day like this would come and now it had. Someone wanted revenge. Her survival instinct kicked in and she said to herself, ‘I’ll outsmart this Torgau kid,’ knowing her life depended on it.

  ‘What now?’ she asked him.

  Felix kept the gun pointed at her. ‘A few questions,’ he began. ‘You knew what was going on and I want answers! Why did you take me to the Musketeers?’

  ‘I was only obeying orders,’ she replied.

  ‘That’s what the Nazis said.’

  ‘I’m not a Nazi,’ Lotte cried.

  ‘You behaved like one. You were a go-between for the sodomites.’

  ‘You were in Torgau as a punishment and you had to be disciplined,’ she insisted.

  Felix was outraged. ‘I was an orphan, not a delinquent! Is rape your idea of punishment? Rape is a crime and you assisted in systemised rape and buggery.’

  Lotte was lost for words. She knew she had to be careful how she responded. He was a hurt and angry man but she felt no guilt for what she had done. All she could think about was how cold and afraid she was, and the mind-blowing news she’d received earlier in the week. Lotte had discovered she was seven weeks pregnant with her married lover’s child and she was going to keep the baby. She had told Julia but no one else.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she muttered feebly.

  ‘You’re not sorry. You enjoyed being in charge, dishing out punishments. You obeyed the Musketeers without question. But there was one kind man at Torgau who didn’t abuse us kids. He helped us and he saw you for what you are, a sadistic, heartless bully.’

  But Lotte was in denial. ‘I’m not a bully. I’m a kind person, ask anyone.’

  Felix wanted her to understand why she was in this predicament. ‘You got control of us by taking away our dignity. You belittled us constantly and we didn’t have a voice, we were beaten and sexually abused and no one listened to us. You turned us over to the Musketeers and persistently showed no empathy. It’s what makes us human, our empathy and capacity for mercy.’

  Lotte didn’t understand, she simply thought her assailant was mad. She was in denial about what he’d said. ‘Who are you? Let’s talk about this. Show me your face,’ she demanded.

  ‘No, I won’t, and not because I’m afraid to. I don’t want you looking at me the way you used to, when you thought you’d get away with it. Well, I’m the judge and jury now. Go into the water up to your knees and dance for me,’ Felix said, turning on the music on his cassette and making a mock bull charge towards her.

  ‘Allons, En garde! Allons! Allons! Ah! Toreador, en garde! Toreador, Toreador… ’

  Lotte obeyed. The temperature of water was zero degrees. She was feeling light-headed but jigged about to the music, hoping it would warm up her body.

  ‘Please, stop this,’ she begged.

  Felix was adamant. ‘Dance!’

  ‘Et songe bien, oui songe en combattant …’

  ‘Please stop… I’m so cold.’

  ‘Sit down!’ Felix barked.

  ‘What? In the water?’ Lotte asked in disbelief.

  ‘Yes... Sit!’

  ‘Qu’un oeil noir te regarde… ’

  Lotte obeyed and sat down in the water.

  ‘Stand up!’

  ‘Et que l’amour t’attend… ’

  Lotte stood up.

  ‘Sit down!’

  Lotte sank back into the water.

  ‘Toreador, Toreador, l’amour t’attend! ’

  ‘Stand up!’

  Lotte obeyed, stood up and cried. ‘I’m sorry. I really am sorry.’

  Felix turned off the music.

  ‘I don’t believe you! Sorry you got caught. Anyway, the damage is done. Tell me, when did you last see Horst, Gunther and Harald?’ Felix asked her. ‘You do remember your friends – the Musketeers of Torgau?’

  Lotte nodded. ‘I saw them ages ago. We met up for a drink but I’ve nothing in common with them.’

  ‘Oh, you think you’re better than them?’

  ‘I was only doing my job. I made mistakes at Torgau and I wasn’t the only one… I’m a good person. Doesn’t everyone deserve a second chance?’ Lotte pleaded.

  ‘Second chance? Why? To abuse more kids?’ Felix told her.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Lotte wailed. ‘Please, let me go.’

  ‘Lotte Holler, I know who you are and so did the Musketeers. They knew you’d help them. Now you’ll be joining them, your Torgau friends.’

  ‘Where are they?’ Lotte said, looking around.

  ‘At the bottom of this lake.’

  ‘No!’ Lotte screamed, wetting herself with fear and warming the water around her.

  ‘Did you think you were going to get away with it, like all the others who abused their positions of authority?’ Felix asked, menacingly.

  ‘You can’t murder all of us! Who do you think you are?’ Lotte bellowed, with her last ounce of defiance.

  ‘You’ve only got yourself to blame.’

  Lotte fell to her knees. She couldn’t swim and the icy waters beckoned. ‘I don’t want to die! Forgive me. Please, forgive me.’

  ‘No one can hear you. Feeling sorry for yourself are you? Self-pity has a sell-by date and besides, you never felt sorry for me. Julia will miss you,’ Felix spat out, spitefully.

  ‘I’m pregnant! Please, think of my baby,’ Lotte screamed in desperation.

  This was unexpected. Maybe she’s lying to save herself, Felix thought. He was not going to weaken now. Something he’d read jumped into his complex mind.

  ‘In loco parentis ,’ he told her.

  ‘What? I don’t understand?’

  ‘In Latin it means, “In place of a parent”. You’re not fit to be a mother!’ Felix yelled and cracked the gun on the side of her head.

  Lotte fell like a rag doll. He dragged her cold body to the car and put her on the back seat. He took off his clothes to reveal the wet suit underneath and hurriedly stuffed all his belongings, including the gun, into his rucksack. In his haste, his knife jolted out and was left, unseen in the darkness, hidden behind a wheel of the car.

  Felix switched on his torch, leaning it upright, illuminating a path to guide him when he would be swimming back towards the safety of the jetty. The thought of the icy water didn’t deter him because with this final act, his quest was complete.

  He turned the key in the ignition.
It wouldn’t start. ‘Scheisse !’ he cursed.

  Felix looked at Lotte, lying comatose in the back and tried the ignition again. Flat battery. ‘Stupid bloody car!’ he shouted and pummelled the steering wheel.

  He stopped to think about a solution. Luck had been with him previously, on the banks of Muggelsee with all three Musketeers. Had his luck deserted him? He could give Lotte a few more whacks on the head or hold her face down in the water to finish her off? But she was a female and it went against all he knew.

  Felix had never hit any female before. The crack on the head he’d administered was simply to stun her and make it easier to get her into the car. He looked at Lotte. Blood from her head wound seeped onto the back seat and her body now had a strange blue hue. She looked pitiful and although Felix tried to suppress and dismiss it, he began to feel sorry for her.

  What if she wasn’t lying and she was pregnant? Then he’d knowingly be killing an unborn baby. He thought of Axel and how, despite the circumstances surrounding Susi’s pregnancy and birth, he was glad he’d been born. Felix realised then that he could do no further damage to Lotte Holler. He’d inflicted enough pain and punishment and felt he’d got a satisfying revenge. Whether she lived or died didn’t really matter any more.

  Felix put on his clothes again and collected what was left of Lotte’s garments from the jetty. He dressed her as best he could with the rags he’d shredded and put her thick coat over her body. The cold mist on the car windows predicted a long, hard night. He left her mobile phone beside her should she wake up, so she could phone for help.

  Felix tried to start the car again, thinking about driving to a place where it would be quickly discovered, but there wasn’t even a sputter from the engine. He found himself hoping she would survive the night and an early morning dog walker would discover her in the abandoned car. He then walked for about half an hour from the lake into the town of Kopenick, wondering if anyone would remember him and pass on his description to the police once Lotte was discovered.

  As a precaution, he decided not to travel south in the direction of Motzen but to go north. He caught the train back to Berlin and stayed the night at one of most expensive hotels in Berlin, Hotel Adlon by the Brandenburg gate. He signed in under a false name and paid for the luxurious accommodation in cash. It cost him 200 marks, money he felt was well spent. But as he unpacked his rucksack in the privacy of his room, he realised his boat knife was missing. The only time it could have fallen out was when he was changing at the lake, which meant it would be found near Lotte’s car.

  Felix berated himself for his carelessness. He’d left another clue at another crime scene – his aqua shoe – but that couldn’t be helped and was safely hidden in the depths of Harald’s watery grave. Although he’d used gloves to handle his victims and their belongings, his boat knife had his fingerprints on it. He would have to ensure the police never got hold of his fingerprints to put in their data base files and tried to put this fear to the back of his mind.

  The end of his successful quest was celebrated with a few beers in the alabaster marbled bathroom as he soaked away the chills and mental torments in a long, hot bath. He wished Martha were lying there with him and sharing the king size bed. It wasn’t long before he would be with his beloved Martha, he thought, smiling, and now he could get on with the rest of his life. As for Lotte Holler, luck would decide her fate.

  Part Two

  Chapter Eighteen: January 2005. Lotte Remembers

  LOTTE HOLLER LOOKED IN the mirror. The last time she looked at her face, a young reflection had smiled back. Now, a woman of 41 stared at her, a woman she only half recognised. She swore. Twelve years, she said to herself, twelve years of my life wasted lying in a bed, comatose.

  She steadied herself on the Zimmer frame and took a deep breath. Her muscles were still weak even though the hospital physiotherapists had massaged her regularly over the past few weeks. They had helped improve her walking skills in the specially-equipped therapy studio where she had exercised in the warm waters of the hydrotherapy pool. Tentatively, she shuffled out of the bathroom in her room towards her armchair by the window, hearing the sounds outside of children’s boisterous voices resonating in the school playground below. She looked out of the window and watched these children, apparently oblivious to the cold, running about in the snow, some of them making snowballs to throw at one another. They had their whole lives in front of them, she thought, as the painful memory of losing her own baby flooded back.

  ‘You’re not fit to be a mother!’ Her assailant’s words resonated in her head.

  Was he right? Most children irritated her but maybe she’d have been different with her own. She’d never know now, because this option had been taken from her. How dare he, a Torgau boy, decide this for her? Lotte was full of hatred for what he’d done to her. If only she could work out his identity. She needed time to think and the children outside disturbed her with their joviality. Play quietly, she grumbled inwardly, wishing these school children were as obedient as those at Torgau. They were quiet, sombre and hardly ever playful when they were outside in the prison’s exercise yards.

  Lotte’s thoughts drifted to Julia’s diluted yet diverse summary of 12 years of world events. Gerhard Schroeder was now the German leader, following Helmut Kohl who had stepped down in 1998. The Deutschmark had disappeared, replaced by a single European currency called the Euro. Germany was the figurehead in Europe now, having sufficient fiscal strength to dominate European politics. When Julia had told her Germany had bailed Greece out of debt a few years ago, Lotte found this amusing.

  ‘We didn’t have to invade Greece this time,’ Lotte had replied. ‘We just bought it!’

  Julia had continued with her news. Around the world there had been an aerial attack on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre in New York in September 2001 and the Towers collapsed with the world looking on. The new American President, George W. Bush, with the co-operation of British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the backing of the United Nations Security Council, then went to war in Iraq for the second time within a decade under the premise that weapons of mass destruction were being manufactured there. The access to oil may have played its part but Saddam Hussein was their main target and eventually he was toppled from power.

  ‘Is oil any cheaper?’ Lotte had asked her sister, tongue in cheek.

  ‘As expensive as ever,’ Julia replied, with a wry smile.

  ‘Tell me something funny or unusual,’ Lotte asked.

  Julia thought for a moment. ‘Well… scientists cloned a sheep in 1997.’

  Lotte shook her head in disbelief. ‘Whatever next? I don’t think I’ve missed too much.’

  Julia had concluded her brief update by telling Lotte that Boris Yeltsin had been replaced by Vladimir Putin but the Germans had long left the Russians in their wake since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Modern technology had led the way forward, especially the advancement of mobile phones and computers, and communication had never been easier with the invention of a world wide web of instant information.

  ‘Computers! I’ve got to learn how to use a computer?’ Lotte asked.

  ‘I’ll help you. Frank and Tomas helped me. They use them all the time in schools and colleges and we’ve got a laptop at home.’

  Frank and Tomas: Julia’s children. This was the most important news she’d been given. Julia had become pregnant not long after Lotte had fallen into a coma. Lotte would have liked to see her sister’s sons grow up but now they were eleven and nine and she’d missed so much. As yet, she’d only seen photos but Lotte didn’t feel she should meet them until she felt stronger.

  ‘Good looking boys,’ Lotte had stated, looking at a photograph of her nephews.

  ‘I think so too. But then, I’m their Mutti,’ Julia said with pride.

  ‘Thankfully they take after you and not Jurgen.’

  ‘I think Tomas takes after Jurgen, Frank’s more like our side of the family.’

  ‘I’ll be their Tan
te… Tante Lotte.’

  ‘They’ll love you like I do,’ Julia had assured her.

  Lotte smiled at the memory of her conversation with her sister. If it wasn’t for Julia, she thought, she wouldn’t want to be alive.

  The door opened. Half hidden behind a bunch of flowers was Julia. Lotte was now strong enough to put her arms around her sister. It touched her deeply, not only to have the strength to hold her but to be held in Julia’s warm and safe embrace.

  ‘Not more flowers,’ Lotte began. ‘Don’t waste your money on flowers.’

  ‘The room needs a bit of colour,’ said Julia.

  ‘You aside, I can’t remember being shown such kindness,’ Lotte began. ‘In here, I’m treated like royalty. I’m wondering if it’s a case of mistaken identity and they think I’m Princess Diana in disguise.’

  ‘Princess Diana died in a car crash about eight years ago,’ Julia said.

  ‘That’s tragic,’ exclaimed Lotte.

  ‘London was full of flowers for her. It was very sad. I took the boys to London a few years ago,’ Julia replied.

  ‘You did?’

  Julia nodded. ‘When Jurgen and I separated, we needed to get away. The boys and I had our first holiday in years and we went on the train, through the Tunnel.’

  ‘The Tunnel?’

  ‘The Channel Tunnel between England and France. It opened about ten years ago. You can take a train direct from Paris to London. We went from Berlin to Paris, had a few days there and went on to London. The boys loved it and so did I.’

  Lotte took her sister’s hand. ‘I’m glad you had a holiday. I hope you had lots of holidays in the last 12 years because if you’d never had a break from visiting me, I’d feel you were trapped in this room just as much as I was.’

  ‘I never left you for long, I couldn’t. I know this sounds strange but I knew, I had no doubt at all, that you’d wake up one day.’

  ‘Must be all those candles you lit for me.’

  ‘Who told you that?’ Julia enquired.