Authors: Charles Courtley
Then one day, a letter from Andrea arrived.
First of all, I just have to tell you, Charlie, and there's no easy way of doing it. Bozzy died a few weeks ago in Ireland. He was run over by a car.
That's where Tarquin and I were when it happened. We were strolling back one night to the caravan where we were living, on the west coast, and Bozzy was behind us on what we thought was a deserted country road. Just a lone driver going too fast to see Bozzy trotting along, but not breaking any speed limit, so he wouldn't accept any blame, the bastard!
Fortunately, Tarquin's own dog, Pilot, was in front of us and I was thankful for that, at least. But it was T's attitude to Bozzy's death that really got me!
âJust a dog!' he said, âYou'll get over it. We can always buy a puppy from a farmer to replace him.' I asked him â how would you have felt if it'd been Pilot? He laughed, saying it's not like losing a person! Well it is, as far I'm concerned, I told him.
I ask you â what kind of man is that? I saw through him there and then. He's vain and shallow and a sponger and I came to my senses mighty quick, I can tell you.
So I'm back home, miserable as hell, missing little Boz dreadfully. I know it's probably too much to ask but is it too late to salvage our marriage?
The reason it broke down was a combination of a number of things â my feelings of isolation in Germany and then meeting Tarquin â although I reckon I fell in love more with his dog than him! How stupid can one be?
It's probably too late, but could we start again? Not getting back immediately â after all, you have to complete your tour in Germany and I couldn't face coming back there anyway. But if we, at least, could speak on the phone and perhaps meet up in England for a chat? We're not actually divorced, are we? Just give it some thought and perhaps give me a call?
I sat back and took a deep breath, overcome with emotion. Suddenly, I realized that the life I'd been leading recently was a mirage. Deep down, my feelings for Andrea hadn't really changed and it was time to face reality. But that meant finishing with Anke and although I knew it had to happen eventually I dithered about choosing an appropriate time â something which would cause a dark shadow to fall over the rest of my life.
One day, when the weather was sweltering, we visited Wolfram Park again. Hoping for a cooling breeze from the lake, we decided to picnic a short distance from the dam and took sunbeds and camping chairs with us. Exhausted by the heat, I was content enough to swig cold beer from cans in an icebox but Anke wanted to smoke a joint.
“Please, Anke, it's too much of a risk,” I cautioned her. “There are people about and somebody might smell it. We don't want anyone to alert the police.”
We had seen a police patrol car at the entrance of the park and a coach offloading elderly people.
She laughed and lay back on her sunbed.
“Well, there's something we
can
take which doesn't smell at all.”
She took a small box from her bag which contained two sugar cubes.
“What on earth..?”
“Charlie, it's the perfect day for a trip. I bought these some time ago in Berlin. There's a tiny portion of LSD on each of them but enough for us to blow our minds.”
She popped one of the cubes in her mouth and began to suck it before turning onto her back.
“Anke, you know I can't do this. Quite apart from anything else, who's going to drive us home if I'm as high as a kite?”
Anke rolled over and gave me a dreamy look.
“Then just look after me, Charlie. I've done it before and there's no risk.”
Stupidly, and to my eternal regret, I believed her.
She seemed just relaxed at first but I'd read somewhere that it takes at least 30 minutes for the drug to kick in, so I lay back on my own bed and closed my eyes. The sultry weather, combined with the beer, eventually sent me into a deeper slumber than I had anticipated and I woke up with a start. Anke no longer lay next to me. I struggled to my feet and looked in every direction. Then I saw her standing on the wall of the dam, her arms upraised in a diving motion and her body swaying.
God in Heaven! What did she think she was doing?
Then, in a moment of horror, I remembered people who had taken LSD sometimes thought they could fly! I ran towards her shouting but it was too late. She disappeared from sight. I reached the wall and leaned over. Horrified, I saw her limbs flail and her body collide against the cascading water as she descended to the bottom of the dam. There was a group of elderly people not far away, some in wheelchairs, but there was no indication that they had spotted anything amiss.
Glancing in the other direction, I saw a police patrol car parked up by the side of a café, with a policeman lounging up against it, smoking a cigarette.
She might still be alive! I had to report it!
But instead, to my eternal shame, I walked back to my car. Why? Shock, certainly to an extent, although that was no excuse. Cowardice more like: The shameful thought which kept racing through my mind was that I could ignore what had happened, pretend I wasn't even there and resume my career.
I spent the next few days at home, telling the office staff I had flu. Unable to sleep except in snatches and eating virtually nothing, I took regular nips from a bottle of brandy, although not even that eased my torment. I was in an agony of indecision and felt desperately guilty. Thoughts whirled round my head:
I had
deserted her â even before I knew she was dead!
Her life might have been saved if I'd told the policeman at the time.
I remained glued to a German news channel which I kept on all day and night. Finally, a report of Anke's death appeared and my knowledge of the language proved just good enough for me to follow the details. A body of a girl, in her early twenties, had been washed up on the side of the river that led from the bottom of the dam. She had drowned after probably being knocked unconscious by bouncing off the wall of the dam. The police, having established who she was from the identity card found on her body, had provisionally concluded it might be suicide and asked anyone who knew her, or had seen her on the day in question, to come forward. They were also appealing to witnesses who might have been present at the scene.
A terrible thought tore through me, as if a knife had actually pierced my flesh:
She hadn't died immediately and if I had alerted the police at the time she might have been saved!
Collapsing into a chair, I began to shake and broke into a cold sweat. One way or another, I was responsible for her death. Hadn't I sat back and allowed her to take the LSD? Worse still, done nothing to try to save her after she fell into the dam!
After several minutes, I began to grow calmer. It was time to face up to what I had done and pay the price.
Now, I was seated in a police interview room at Brockendorf Military Police Headquarters opposite a nervous-looking police corporal. I handed in a typed statement prepared earlier. When I had told him I wanted to confess to a serious crime he had cautioned me by saying,
“You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.”
“Here's my written statement. You'll obviously be referring the matter to a higher authority for their consideration. For the record, I'll read out what I've prepared.”
A few days ago, I killed a woman called Anna Stillsmann from Hanover. Her body was recently found washed up near the Wolfram Talsperre dam. We had a row and she fell over the wall and into the dam. I didn't report what had happened to anyone. She told me that her parents had died in a car crash and she was all alone in the world.
My name is Charles Courtley and I am a judge advocate, attached to the British Army of the Rhine, currently serving in Germany. I have been separated from my wife for some months now and was engaged in an affair with the above person.
Open mouthed, the corporal stared at me.
“Sir, as a
judge
, you do realize the importance of what you've just told us? In view of that, I'm obliged to arrest you on suspicion of murder.”
Once again, he cautioned me.
“Do you wish to add anything further to your statement at this stage?” he asked.
I shook my head calmly.
“No. I've made my position quite clear. All I will say is that I take full responsibility for her death.”
“The Special Investigations Branch will want to interview you again, sir, that's for sure. Meanwhile, you'll be kept here in the police guardroom whilst the authorities decide whether you need to remain in custody.”
In the event, it was decided that I should be allowed home after I gave assurances that I wouldn't leave Germany, surrendered my passport, and reported daily to the police guardroom. There was no real risk of my absconding â where could I possibly go?
Later, back at home and sipping a glass of brandy, I wrote a short letter of resignation to the JAG. My emotions were concentrated into one overwhelming feeling which blotted out everything else: I may not have murdered Anke in the legal or physical sense, but morally I had killed her. She had lost her life because I, someone who was appointed to uphold the law, had allowed her to take LSD.
I was a judge used to punishing others for their crimes and only recently one such punishment had caused a loss of life â Sgt Cockaigne's. Now, by the same token, I had to punish myself and the only way I could do it was to pretend that I had actually killed her. Illogical as it was, I refused to consider the consequences of what I felt I had to do. My guilt would never be assuaged otherwise.
* * *
The officer from the Special Investigations Branch, Royal Military Police, sat diagonally across the table from me in the police interview room at the Fortress. He was dressed in a khaki jumper with epaulettes denoting his rank and a corporal in uniform accompanied him. The tape machine recording the interview stood against the wall making a faint buzzing noise.
The officer was a sallow man, aged about 40, with expressionless black eyes and a cynical sneer to his mouth. He went through the preliminaries, including reading the caution again and going through the normal suspects' rights which included my having a lawyer present if I so wished.
“I'm quite happy to be interviewed without legal representation,” I said.
“So be it. I'm sure with your great experience of the law, it wouldn't be necessary anyway,” he said, his sneer twisting momentarily into a semblance of a grin. “First of all, let me introduce myself. I'm Lieutenant Colonel Meleager of the Special Investigations Branch â the detective branch of the Royal Military Police, as I'm sure you know. I'm also legally qualified and liaise closely with the Army Prosecuting Authority. I shall be asking you about the day of the incident at Wolfram Dam. Corporal Tonks from the RMP is sitting in as an observer.”
I nodded. I had expected to be formally interviewed by someone senior and wasn't surprised that they had actually brought in somebody who was also legally qualified as well.
Meleager glanced down at my statement and said, “I shall read this again, for the record, as this is now a formal interview.”
After reading it, he laid the document aside and gave me an intense stare.
“Do you still stick with this initial account?”
“Of course,” I replied, “I signed and dated it.”
“Indeed, but I would like you to elaborate on what actually happened so I shall continue asking you further questions. Tell me about this row first â how bad was it?”
“I'm not obliged to answer. You know that, as you've already cautioned me.”
“True. I can't force you to answer, but I don't need to remind you that if you don't reveal something now which backs up any defence later, that could be held against you.”
I nodded. But there was no point in me giving further details because I would have to fabricate them as I went along. My mind wouldn't go beyond the fact that I
wanted
,
indeed
needed
, to face trial for Anke's death. Only by paying the price would my conscience be stilled. I refused even to consider what the charges might be.
“The row was bad enough for her to fall over the wall,” I said.
“At the beginning of your statement, you say you killed her. So you admit that you pushed her during the row?”
“You can draw your own conclusions about that.”
A flash of irritation registered in Meleager's eyes.
“It's not the purpose of this interview for me to draw conclusions. It's for me to ask you questions and for you to answer them.”
“I repeat what I told the RMP Corporal initially. I take full responsibility for Anke's death and have nothing more to say to you.”
Meleager sighed.
“Very well. But I have to warn you again that your unwillingness to answer further questions about this matter may harm your defence. Meanwhile, the case will be reported up the chain of command and, as a civilian subject to military law here in Germany, you will probably face trial by court martial. The German authorities had primary jurisdiction but as no witnesses have been traced to the scene they have asked us to deal with this matter instead.”
I decided to irritate my interviewer even more.
“As a judge advocate stationed here in Germany, I believe that you will find there is an issue as to whether I
am
actually subject to military law. In any event, I would resist attempts to have me dealt with by way of court martial. I'm not in the army and if the Germans don't want to deal with it under their criminal code why can't I be tried by judge and jury in England, just like any other citizen of the UK?”
“But
if
you've committed a crime here, as you appear to admit, I think you'll find you
must
be subject to military law. Earlier this week I researched the position and as you enjoy all the military privileges just like any other member of our support staff it would seem its jurisdiction covers you.”
“That's your opinion. But tell me, have you discussed all this with the Army Prosecuting Authority who makes the final decision as to whether to proceed?”
“They will no doubt keep me informed...”
“They may well tell you that, at some stage, the Attorney General is bound to be consulted. I imagine that he would want to avoid a lot of legal wrangling over this and the easiest course would be to apply for a voluntary bill of indictment from a High Court judge.”
Although not often invoked, this process allows for any citizen of the UK charged with a serious crime abroad to be brought before an English court and stand trial.
Meleager's jaw dropped only slightly, but enough to tell me that this hadn't crossed his mind.
“This interview is now terminated,” he announced abruptly. “You are free to go. Regard yourself fortunate that we're not keeping you in custody.”
“Don't worry. If I was going to run away I'd have done it by now.”