Hidden Depths

by Ally Rose

  Klaus cast his mind back. ‘Has this got something to do with the time he came home with rope burns around his neck?’

  Ingrid nodded. ‘In 1992… You know the Muggelsee killings?’

  ‘Nein!’ Klaus said, shaking his head. ‘Don’t tell me… No! Not our Felix.’

  ‘Those three men abused him and Susanne in Torgau,’ Ingrid told him. ‘He felt he didn’t have a choice when one of them turned up at the golf club working for us as a freelance security guard at our September tournament.’

  Klaus put his hand over his mouth. ‘Oh God! The police rang the club the other day. They were asking if we remembered someone called Gwisdek. Apparently we sent him a cheque for his services, only he never cashed the cheque.’

  Ingrid screamed. ‘No! What did you tell them?’

  ‘I said I’d look through our old files and get back to them.’

  ‘You’ve got to protect Felix. Klaus, promise me you’ll protect him.’

  ‘Of course. I love Felix just as much as Axel. Oh, the stupid boy! Ingrid, I want all of it, all the details. How many has he killed?’

  ‘Three men – he drove their cars into the lake and then he left a woman for dead, you know, the one that’s been in the news, the woman who woke up from a coma. Felix told me she was at Torgau, she was their accomplice, a cruel go-between.’

  Klaus was adamant. ‘Then she deserved all she got, just like those sick bastards. An eye for an eye, that’s my belief.’

  ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.’

  ‘Now you have, maybe you’ll sleep better. I’ve been so worried about you.’

  Ingrid began to cry. ‘I’m sorry. Sofie will be turning in her grave if I don’t protect Felix. Klaus, I can’t lose him, he’s all I have left of my sister.’

  Klaus held Ingrid in his arms. ‘She’d be proud of you because you’re a good mother. We couldn’t have stopped him, you know. Felix had to do it or he wouldn’t have found any peace knowing those people went on abusing and living. Don’t worry my love, no one will take our Felix from us.’

  Chapter Thirty-five: The Magic Flute

  A FEW DAYS AFTER Hanne’s birthday, Stefan Glockner picked her up at 6 a.m. and drove to Berlin’s Tegel Airport. Their journey across the city was spent in happy mutual silence. Both were bleary eyed and in need of large doses of caffeine at breakfast in the departure lounge while they waited for Kruger, who, as usual, was running late.

  ‘Sorry, Drais, I forgot to ask. How did your birthday meal go with your mother?’

  Hanne smiled. ‘Audrey was the referee! There were a few fouls but no red cards.’

  ‘Was your new girlfriend there?’ Glockner asked.

  ‘No, Traudl and Brigitte will meet for the first time at Audrey’s birthday party.’

  ‘Am I invited?’

  Hanne looked at Glockner. ‘If you want to give Audrey a present, feel free, but don’t use it as an excuse to meet Brigitte and take the piss out of me.’

  ‘Drais, would I?’

  Kruger arrived, a little out of breath. ‘Don’t anyone say if I stopped smoking cigars I’d be as fit as you two and get here on time. It’s my wife’s fault, she insisted on driving!’

  It was a short flight to Hannover and all three of them had a quick doze. Kruger, Glockner and Hanne were collected by two officers from the Minden police who briefed them as they drove for an hour out of Hannover and into the countryside towards Minden, a small town on the river Weser.

  Wolfgang Feuer was waiting in the police interview room. In his early 30s, tall and slender with wavy, brown hair that covered his ears, he was smartly dressed but his fingernails were bitten to the core, the only visible signs that under his relaxed, outward appearance he was an anxious man.

  The team introduced themselves to Wolfgang.

  ‘Thank you for coming all the way from Berlin to see me,’ he said.

  ‘It’s our case, the Minden Police were obliged to contact us,’ Kruger told him.

  Wolfgang was adamant. ‘I want to make it clear from the start, I’m not doing this to get compensation. Besides, who could pay for all the crimes committed at Torgau?’

  ‘Let me assure you the police have investigated a lot of accusations of paedophilia linked to Torgau and many suspects were caught and tried,’ Kruger said proudly. ‘They’ve paid all right and if your evidence helps us catch others, we’ll ensure the legal system won’t let you down and any compensation due to you will be forthcoming.’

  Wolfgang appreciated this. ‘Thank you. I remember the trials in the early 90s when you put away some of the Torgau paedophiles but back then I didn’t have the strength or the courage to give evidence. When I recognized the wardens’ faces in the papers recently, I was ecstatic. They’d got what they deserved and I thought it was time I spoke up, time their families knew the truth about them.’

  ‘The men found at Muggelsee were suspects in the paedophile ring of 1992-3. Rest assured, their families know the truth about them now,’ Glockner stated. ‘They didn’t get away with it and they paid for their crimes with their lives.’

  ‘Good! I can’t libel the dead but I’ll happily stick another nail in their coffins,’ Wolfgang said, clapping his hands.

  Hanne spoke softly. ‘How old were you when you were at Torgau?’

  Wolfgang had been waiting a long time to tell his story. ‘I was 13. I was imprisoned for three years. Gunther, Horst and Harald were known by their nicknames at Torgau – they called themselves the Musketeers. I was one of their “boys”.’

  Hanne was concerned. ‘Is this the first time you’ve spoken about this?’

  Wolfgang confessed. ‘I’ve had therapy. My partner, David, encouraged me to come forward and tell my story to the police.’

  Kruger and Stefan looked at one another, which didn’t go unnoticed by Wolfgang.

  ‘And just in case you’re thinking, “Oh, he’s gay and must have enjoyed being passed around by the Musketeers three at a time”, that is NOT the case!’ Wolfgang banged his fist on the table.

  Kruger whispered in Glockner’s ear and then Hanne’s. To Wolfgang’s surprise, Kruger and Glockner then left the room.

  ‘They’re not homophobic. I’m gay and I wouldn’t allow it,’ Hanne told him gently.

  Wolfgang composed himself. He felt Hanne was sincere – after all, she didn’t have to divulge her sexuality to him, a stranger, but she had. He decided to trust her. ‘I’m a bit touchy, sorry.’

  ‘That’s understandable,’ Hanne said. ‘Please, go on.’

  ‘The Musketeers did the night shift at weekends and for them it was party time. We were taken from our beds and once they’d had enough of us, we were discarded and left alone for our wounds to heal for a week or two, ‘til the next time.’

  ‘Was there anyone you could tell?’ Hanne asked.

  Wolfgang’s bitter voice was full of irony. ‘Only the Stasi.’

  Hanne understood. ‘Well, this is a murder inquiry and maybe you can help us, give us some clues as to who might have killed the Musketeers?’

  Wolfgang laughed. ‘All the kids at Torgau will be suspects!’

  ‘I can imagine. All you kids must have hated the Musketeers,’ Hanne ventured.

  ‘Do you know what their motto was? “One for all and all for one”. Yeah, I hated them all right, most of the Torgau kids hated the Musketeers with a vengeance.’

  Hanne needed to know. ‘Did you hate them enough to want to kill them?’

  Wolfgang shook his head. ‘Given half the chance, but I’m not brave enough. Am I a suspect? I’m happy to take a lie detector test and voluntarily give my DNA.’

  ‘No, you’re not a suspect. Wolfgang, how did you end up in Torgau?’

  ‘You won’t believe me, but I told a joke in school. Someone told the authorities I was making anti Russian jokes, that I wasn’t a good Communist. I was 13! They took me from my family and put me in that terrible place. My parents had no right of appeal or allowed to visit me. As if I was forgotten – weg
gesperrt .’

  Hanne was shocked. ‘I’m sorry. Dare I ask what the joke was about?’

  ‘I was disrespectful to Stalin’s memory. Stalin had been dead for years when I told a joke I had made up and it went like this: Stalin was visiting the people in Berlin and went up the TV tower in Alexander Platz with the East German cabinet. Stalin asked them, “What can I do for the people of this Russian enclave of mine?” The cabinet replied “You could jump”. I don’t tell jokes any more.’

  Hanne put her hands up to her face as tears welled in her eyes. What could she possibly say?

  Wolfgang appreciated her empathy. ‘It’s OK, I went back to my family and made something of myself, I wasn’t going to let those bastards define my life. Maybe the person who killed the Musketeers felt the same?’ he ventured.

  ‘I think so too,’ Hanne admitted, taking a tissue and blowing her nose.

  ‘Do you need a break?’ Wolfgang asked.

  Hanne shook her head. ‘I’m fine. This case is getting to me, I have a daughter, she’s 16 next week and I couldn’t bear the thought of her… Sorry.’

  ‘There isn’t a day goes by when I don’t think about Torgau,’ Wolfgang confessed.

  ‘Have you kept any photos of your time at Torgau?’ Hanne asked.

  ‘A few. The Minden police have them but I don’t think they’ll be of much use. I kept a diary – now that’s an interesting read. I kept it hidden under the floorboards and recorded all my abuse in it. Don’t read it on a full stomach,’ Wolfgang added.

  ‘The Musketeers, did they have favourites?’ asked Hanne.

  ‘They could have their pick but I believe they had about two dozen or so, including myself, that they regularly raped. Mostly boys and just a few girls. I remember the orphans – a brother and sister at Torgau. The Musketeers liked to get them to dance for them.’

  Hanne heard alarm bells ringing in her head. Hadn’t Marine Boy told Lotte Holler he was an orphan? And asked her to dance for him. ‘Dance for them?’

  ‘Yeah, they had a sick sense of humour. They called them the dancing twins, because their surname was Waltz,’ Wolfgang told her.

  ‘Twins?’

  Wolfgang nodded. ‘Susanne and Felix Waltz.’

  ‘How old were they?’

  ‘About my age, maybe a few years younger. The Musketeers had nicknames for all of us.’

  ‘What did they call you?’ Hanne asked.

  ‘The Magic Flute – after Wolfgang Mozart’s famous opera, only I couldn’t sing or play the flute. It’s as if calling people by something other than their real name dehumanises them and then abusing subordinates doesn’t feel like a crime.’

  Hanne thought about how her colleagues used nicknames and even though it wasn’t the same as the Musketeers at Torgau, she felt a little guilty and understood exactly what Wolfgang was trying to convey.

  ‘Can you describe the Waltz twins?’ Hanne asked, eager to hear more about them.

  ‘It’s a long time ago,’ Wolfgang began. ‘We all kept to ourselves as much as possible. Let’s see… They were both fair haired like me.’

  ‘Blue eyed?’ Hanne asked.

  ‘Couldn’t say.’

  Wolfgang was curious. ‘Do you think Susanne Waltz killed the Three Musketeers?’

  Hanne was confused. ‘A woman couldn’t physically commit these crimes.’

  ‘Neither could her brother.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ Hanne said.

  ‘In the spring of 1989, Felix Waltz tried to escape,’ explained Wolfgang. ‘It was a shame he couldn’t stick it out a bit longer, not that anyone knew Torgau would be closed by the end of the year. Felix jumped into the River Elbe and drowned.’ ‘No! What happened to his sister?’

  ‘She became pregnant. Dr Jens somehow got her out of there before the Wall came down.’

  ‘Dr Jens?’

  ‘The doctors were quite kind, especially when the Musketeers left us, you know… sore. Dr Jens used to let us stay overnight in the hospital wing.’

  ‘And you say he helped the Waltz girl leave Torgau?’

  ‘I think so. Rumour had it that Susanne gave birth to a little boy in late September or early October 1989 at some nursing home in Dresden.’

  Hanne was quite moved by this story. ‘Poor girl. I wonder what happened to Susanne Waltz and her baby?’

  Wolfgang shook his head. ‘Dunno. It’s not as if us Torgau kids keep in touch. It’d be a constant reminder of what we all went through.’

  The interview with Gunther’s ex-colleague filtered through Hanne’s mind. ‘Did you know or hear about someone called Witzig?’

  Wolfgang shook his head. ‘He might have been at Torgau but it was a massive place. I was in one wing of the building, the Musketeers’ wing.’

  Hanne had an idea. She pulled the photo of a young Lotte Holler that she had borrowed from Julia from her briefcase and placed it on the table in front of Wolfgang.

  ‘Do you recognise this woman?’ she asked.

  Wolfgang was not expecting to see Lotte Holler’s face stare back at him. Tears welled in his eyes, which gave Hanne her answer.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Hanne said, resting her hand briefly on his arm.

  Wolfgang wiped his eyes but the tears started to roll down his cheeks and drop onto the table. ‘Why have you shown me her photo?’

  ‘She’s alive,’ Hanne told him.

  ‘Where is she, Torgau’s infamous Fraulein Holler?’

  ‘Have you heard about the Lady of the Lake case?’

  Wolfgang gasped. ‘That’s her? I thought it could be her but I dismissed it, thinking there’s more than one Lotte Holler in the country, and the press never printed her photo. I read she was pregnant when she was attacked.’

  ‘They weren’t supposed to print that information. Lotte’s recovering well in a Berlin hospital,’ Hanne told him.

  Wolfgang’s tears abated and he began to laugh. ‘Now, that’s poetic justice for the go-between.’

  ‘The go-between?’ Hanne asked. ‘Is that was you called Lotte at Torgau?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s what she was. Fraulein Holler would disturb us from our sleep, collect us from our beds and take us to the Musketeers. Afterwards, she’d escort us back to our beds and order us not to cry out loud in case we disturbed the other kids. She said we’d feel better in the morning, after a good sleep… Sleep? After a session with the Musketeers? We wanted to sleep and never wake up. Ha, that is fucking ironic! The go-between slept for a very long time.’

  He had confirmed all Hanne’s suspicions about Lotte Holler. The go-between had paid a price – a long-term coma – for her complicity, thought Hanne. She began to feel sickened by the idea that Lotte was going to be compensated financially for being a victim of crime and hoped once she’d been charged with being an accomplice to the Musketeers that some of the money could go to her victims, the abused children of Torgau. But of course this was an area that Hanne wouldn’t have jurisdiction over: unfolding events would decide the outcome.

  ‘The Torgau boy who killed the Musketeer more than likely attacked Lotte Holler but didn’t go through with it and caused her injuries that put her in a coma.’

  Wolfgang was incensed. ‘The idiot! He should have finished her off when he had the chance. Have you met her? Fraulein Holler?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve met her. She’s helping us with our enquiries.’

  Wolfgang started to shout. ‘She’s the bitch who committed the crimes! What’s she told you? Don’t believe her, it’ll be a pack of lies. She never cared!’

  Hanne tried to calm him down. ‘It doesn’t matter what she says because we’ll read between the lines. Wolfgang, trust me and my team, we’ll uncover the truth.’

  Wolfgang was adamant. ‘I want to talk to that bitch!’

  ‘Well, that’s your right, of course, but she’s not fully recovered and I don’t believe Lotte’s doctor would allow you anywhere near her just yet,’ Hanne told him.

  ‘How fucking convenient!’ Wolfgang
said. ‘It’s amazing, how did a Torgau boy outsmart them all?’

  Hanne nodded. ‘That’s what we’d all like to know.’

  ‘Must have been one hell of an adrenaline rush coming face to face with his abusers, and knowing for the first time that he had the upper hand.’

  ‘He’s a serial killer and however warranted he felt it was he has to face justice and pay for his crimes,’ Hanne stated, trying not to show her bias towards Marine Boy.

  ‘Justice! The system fails us all the time. Why don’t we get rid of expensive judges and all the victims of crimes can decide about justice? Real punishments can only be dished out by the victims of crime. How’s that for a vision of democracy?’ Wolfgang stated emphatically.

  Hanne couldn’t disagree. ‘A judge and jury is supposedly the fairest system. But I like your idea.’

  ‘I’ll talk to Fraulein Holler at some point,’ Wolfgang insisted. ‘Like you said, when she’s better. She has to look me in the eye and face the truth about herself, what she did and how her choices affected me. She owes me!’

  Hanne nodded. ‘I understand. Are you going to bring any charges against her?’

  ‘She’ll lie, say it’s her word against mine.’

  ‘Wolfgang, I would help you with the evidence,’ Hanne told him.

  This surprised him. ‘You would?’

  Hanne nodded. ‘I think you’ve been very brave to come forward.’

  ‘I don’t feel brave, I’m shivering in my bones,’ he said, tears welling again.

  ‘Don’t you start me off,’ Hanne said, and passed him a tissue.

  Wolfgang blew his nose. ‘I’ve run away from this too long. Not any more.’

  ‘That’s why you’re brave,’ Hanne began. ‘I think Marine Boy was just as brave, in his own way.’

  ‘Marine Boy?’

  Hanne was a little defensive in tone. ‘We give suspects a nickname before we find out their true identities but not to dehumanise them.’

  Wolfgang understood and wasn’t offended. ‘And you call him Marine Boy because he drowned all his victims?’

  Hanne was embarrassed. ‘Silly, isn’t it?’

  ‘Marine Boy, I like it, it suits him. After what happened at Torgau, facing his abusers, it doesn’t get any braver than that,’ Wolfgang stated. ‘He knew, just like I do, that paedophiles never change and if no one stops them they carry on abusing children most of their lives. Marine Boy’s actions, though unlawful, have saved other children the pain of all that.’