Girl in the Cellar (7 page)

People around the Strasshof house began to refer to Priklopil as a ‘Bachener'—a colloquial, derogatory term for homosexual—although Holzapfel claims he never saw this side of his friend and business partner.

 

The ‘realm' referred to by police psychologist Manfred Kram—the realm in which he was going to rule everything—would be the erstwhile shelter beneath his garage. He meticulously set about making this into an undetectable, soundproofed, windowless void—the only way for fresh air to reach it would be through a ventilation system controlled from above by him. He bought the materials necessary for the conversion from everyday DIY stores, always paying cash.

He bought a desk for the intended victim to use. He installed a small sink and toilet, plumbed into the mains, and used insulating material of the kind favoured by music recording engineers to make the chamber soundproof. After Natascha finally escaped, police lifted floor-boards inside his house to reveal stairs leading down to a maze of doors and passages. Underground, detectives found a metal cupboard, behind which was a tunnel barely big enough for a person to squeeze through. At the end of the tunnel was a makeshift concrete door leading to yet another passage and finally the room where Natascha was held. Her world measured barely more than 5 square metres, with a bed on a raised platform and its ladder used to hang clothes.

This was the end station of Wolfgang Prikopil's life: a hole in the ground, 3.5m by 1.8m by 1.5m, to which childhood isolation, an all-forgiving motherly love, a few fragile friendships and an increasingly powerful compulsion had somehow led him. His work training and innate skill with his hands allowed him to build it without too much effort. This much we know—what remains as
murky as his own hideous motives are the circumstances which led him one day to choose Natascha Kampusch as the resident of this subterranean pit.

 

Apart from his council flat, the Strasshof house with its prepared dungeon and the home of Natascha, there is a fourth location that is central to the complicated existence of Wolfgang Priklopil. This is Christine's Schnellimbiss, a lowly truck-stop cum fast-food joint in a dreary outlying district of Vienna—far removed from the period grace of the old imperial capital's still imposing buildings—where Priklopil downed the occasional non-alcoholic drink. It is central, and not a little chilling, because it is a place that Natascha's parents used to go to and, according to her father in interviews with the authors, Natascha herself. Ludwig Koch would never walk from his home to the pub near his house: for 20 years he would drive across town to Christine's.

Christine's is at the corner of Obachgasse and Rautenweg, which is about five minutes' walk from the Rennbahnweg estate and on the route between Priklopil's council flat in the Rugierstrasse and his house in Strasshof. It lies in the most down-at-heel part of Vienna's northern industrial zone, close to the city limits, among construction companies and discount DIY markets and just across the road from an enormous garbage processing facility, a pyramid-like metal building that towers over the grim area.

The bar's clientele consists mostly of workers from the nearby companies and drinkers from the neighbour
hood, many of them from the Rennbahnweg estate. The bar itself is a run-down wooden shed with six bench-tables. With a mental measuring tape the casual observer can calculate it to be about eight times the size of Priklopil's underground cell.

The owner, Christine Palfrader, is a bulky woman in her early fifties who is fed up with the glare of publicity, the TV cameras that come barging through the door, the Klieg lights and the swarms of irrepressible reporters. But she remembered Wolfgang Priklopil.

Also a regular at the bar is Natascha's father Ludwig, known here by his nickname ‘Luki'. He stops here after knocking off the night shift at the bakery where he is now employed, to eat breakfast and drink a beer or wine spritzer at seven in the morning in his back-to-front, nocturnal life. The question has still not been answered: did he meet ‘Wolfi' without knowing who he was? Did he engage him in conversation one day, ask him about the weather?

Did he even buy him a glass of apple juice without knowing that, some seven to ten minutes' drive away, depending on the traffic, his little girl was captive in this man's specially constructed gaol? Christine cannot recall ever seeing the two men together. But there is yet a further twist in this bizarre Bermuda triangle of intertwining acquaintances and happenstance meetings.

A former ‘good friend' of Ludwig's, who was also a boyfriend of Natascha's mother, Brigitta Sirny, has also been named as knowing Priklopil. Ronnie Husek owns a haulage business in the industrial estate around the corner from the snack bar. ‘I know Husek
a bit. Frau Sirny knows him very well,' says Herr Koch. ‘He used to be a friend of mine, but no longer.' That is because Herr Husek began an affair with Frau Sirny when she and Ludwig were still together, claim neighbours.

In this poor part of Vienna, witnesses have reported seeing Herr Husek with Priklopil at a grocer's shop that Frau Sirny used to run: Husek bringing him around so that the technically gifted loner could fix a faulty fuse box.

Among the witnesses is the strictly anti-Sirny Anneliese Glaser, who had a clear memory of the visit: ‘And I am sure she knew Priklopil, the kidnapper. I remember him very well, he came to the shop with this Husek, Ronnie Husek, and was fixing the fuse box outside. It was in September 1997, just before she lost the shop. Frau Sirny then came too and she talked to them both. I know that Frau Sirny knew Husek, and it would make sense that he called a friend of his to fix the fuse box, and this friend was obviously Priklopil.'

Frau Glaser says she told detectives on the case of her suspicions, but claims they were apathetic, to say the least, about her allegations. ‘I believe this story needs to be investigated. There are many things that need to be clarified. Natascha did not tell the story about the night before, and this bit is missing in reports. I would like to meet her again, Natascha, to talk to her.'

Husek is also said to know Wolfgang's business buddy Holzapfel. So far he has refused to speak about any
friendship. In fact, he has not spoken since he gave a press conference after Natascha reappeared, in which he said he met her while she was in captivity but didn't know who she was.

Can it really all be a coincidence—the perpetrator drinking in the same pub as the victim's father, with the man who became the lover of the victim's mother and who knew Priklopil's business partner? But there is more.

Natascha Kampusch was there with her father. In an interview with the authors, Herr Koch, his emotions spent along with his money, could not be certain of having seen the kidnapper at the bar, but revealed that he had been there with Natascha:

Kidnapper, captor, friends, parents, all in the same bar, all simply thrown together? Did Priklopil, seeing her there, somehow tell himself he would be saving her from what he judged a wretched life if he took her? Did Natascha exchange a glance with him there, a friendly smile across the smoky saloon? Did she meet any of those regulars or hear them come to the house when she was a captive?

However it came about, the plan that had been growing in Wolfgang Priklopil's mind for many years was about to come to fruition on 2 March 1998. For the next 3,096 days, Natascha Kampusch would vanish from the face of the earth.

‘Hello Ernst, Wolfgang. I won't be in tomorrow. Got something up.' With these few words Wolfgang Priklopil launched the abduction of Natascha Kampusch. He called his partner the evening before and then set about preparing. He checked that everything was ready in the special room. He laid out underpants and towels, arranged the childrens' books that he had bought in shops far, far from his neighbourhood. And he programmed the security and ventilation systems one more time, ensuring that the compressed air pump that would keep his trophy alive was working, along with the plethora of intruder alarms and video cameras vital to keep his secret safe.

Shortly after 6 a.m. on Monday 2 March, as radio newscasters were informing him that it was the birthday of
perestroika
architect Mikhail Gorbachev, that the last will of the late Princess Diana had been published, and, closer to home, that a walker had discovered a 5-kilo anti-tank shell from the Second World War in a Viennese
suburb, Priklopil drank his coffee, set the numerous alarms on his house and went out into the wet, dark morning. He started his white Mercedes van and drove off for the rendezvous with the little girl who, on this day, would cross over the line from his special dream to his special possession. Nothing could stop him now: nothing could save Natascha now.

Both were drawn inexorably to the time and the place where worlds would meld, change and shatter.

At flat 18 in block 38 on the Rennbahnweg estate Frau Sirny was up extraordinarily early, reading through complex paperwork regarding the bankruptcy of two grocery shops she once owned. She recalled making several cups of coffee as she ploughed through the weighty documents, going to the bathroom and calling Natascha to get up at around 6.40 a.m. to be on her way to school. Natascha was due to have a special lesson in German and was supposed to be there early. Frau Sirny had quickly prepared her daughter's clothes and a row developed that ended when she slapped her on the ear. In fact, the argument was a continuation of a squabble between them the evening before. On the previous Friday her father had collected her for one of their trips to Hungary. He was supposed to drop her off back at home no later than 6.00 p.m. on the Sunday but, as usual, to the constant irritation of his former partner, he failed to be on time. It was 7.45 p.m on Sunday 1 March when he deposited her outside the tower block. One of the last things she did before kissing her ‘papi' goodbye was to reach into the glove compartment of his car for her
passport in the left-hand pocket of her jacket. She then trudged into the gloom of block 38 and hoped the lifts were working.

She let herself in but found she was home alone. On her bedroom door there was a note from her mother: ‘Gone to the cinema. Back later. Mutti. X.' This was a common occurrence: Natascha was something of a latch-key kid whose mother did not run her life around her. She was used to arriving home to an empty flat.

Natsacha changed into a tracksuit and went to a neighbour who knew her well. Frau Glaser, who would later make claims that began to warp the public perception of Natascha as an accidental victim, once worked for Frau Sirny. She has assumed, in the media whirlpool that continues to swirl in Vienna, the mantle of older sister, the woman who was ready to step in and help ‘poor Natascha' when her mother wasn't there. Frau Glaser, who lived one floor below Natascha and her mother, claimed that on this night, after welcoming the child inside, she sent her back upstairs to leave a note for her mother in case she came home early and panicked if Natascha wasn't home.

Natascha was, indeed, just hours away from getting such a table—but it was in a hermetically sealed room in Wolfgang Priklopil's strange home, not her own.

She went to bed sullen, feeling unloved and put-upon. And the combination of a bad night's sleep and the dreary prospect of an early start at school for a test in the extra German class she'd been attending, meant she was late in getting up. Some 20 days later, in virtually the only interview she has ever given about the family life surrounding Natascha, Frau Sirny admitted to the Viennese paper
Kronen Zeitung
that there were words the next day about her tardiness. It got more heated, in the way these things do, and her mother lashed out, giving her a firm slap around the face. But as soon as it was delivered, it was regretted. Frau Sirny told the paper: ‘On the morning she disappeared, she stayed
in bed for 45 minutes before getting up. She is generally bad at getting up. Then she could not find her glasses. And then she was cheeky. So I gave her a smack in the mouth. But I don't persecute myself because of it. One must set limits with children. But yes, she was obviously emotionally hurt.'

Natascha dressed in silence, stopping only at the door of the flat as her mother turned to give her a hug, saying, ‘You must never set off for school upset or angry with me, because we may never see each other again.'

One lost childhood later Natascha would reveal in her TV interview: ‘Yup, the second of March 1998. A bad day. On the evening before, I had a fight with my mother because my father brought me home too late and didn't accompany me to the apartment door. “God knows what could have happened to you,” she said to me, “someone could have grabbed you”—and then the next day, while in her care, that really happened. “Never leave the house after an argument without saying goodbye,” my mother always used to say.

‘Exactly. And I thought, “I don't agree with my mother right now,” and to spite her I slammed the door. Because nothing was going to happen to me anyway. That's pretty heavy when you are kidnapped just half an hour later and you are cowering in the back of a van.'

 

Less than a mile away, Priklopil the predator waited. He parked his van in the Melangasse near to her school
gates. White van man, inconspicuous as ever throughout an unremarkable life, waiting for the moment that he had prepared for over the years. The collector, come to collect that which he knew would fulfil him the way no jigsaw puzzle or electronic circuit breaker ever had. He sat, silent and alone in his van, tuned into the local Vienna news radio which, 24 hours later, would be featuring as its lead item the news of a missing girl. The windows of the van were misted from his breath on the inside; the windscreen was running with rivulets of melting ice and snow on the outside. People walking to work paid no heed to a solitary driver waiting for a passenger. Priklopil had counted on his anonymity helping him on this, the most important day in his life, and he was not let down. Herr Nobody. Perfect.

 

The slap from her mother was still stinging her cheeks as she came close to the end of her cold, weary 15-minute trudge with her heavy satchel of schoolbooks, while luckier school pals drove past in their parents' warm cars. Splashing through the dirty brown sludge that the previous day had been crisp, white snow, it was not only Natascha's school bag that was heavy but also her heart—the youngster was deeply unhappy both at home and at school.

As she dwelt on her problems, the young girl noticed a man staring at her from a vehicle in front of her just 500 metres from her school. But she was wrapped up in her thoughts and suppressed her feelings of uneasiness at the stranger and continued towards him, pulling her thick
red ski jacket around her and bowing her head against the icy wind.

It was a decision that was going to cost her over eight years of her life. And it wasn't until her time in hell was over that she could tell the world what she thought and felt in those last moments of being a schoolgirl before she was captured to satisfy Priklopil's demented urges.

‘I saw the man and thought there was something strange about him. I knew I should have gone over to the other side of the street, but for some reason I didn't,' said Natascha. She admitted she wasn't really concentrating because of an argument with her mum, who was angry because Natascha had slept through her alarm and didn't get to sleep until late the night before. Her mother had argued on the phone with her father after he had dropped Natascha off late after the Hungarian weekend break. ‘And I was tired,' she recalled.

Natascha said her mum was also angry because she refused to wear her glasses, which she thought made her look ugly, and that had provoked the slap across the face. She was walking towards calamity, splashing in the slush, her face down, her thoughts concentrated. Then she saw his Mercedes van and something gripped her…not exactly terror, just a feeling of unease. There were only a few paces to go now and she slowed down a little, but was still walking towards the van. She would mentally flagellate herself for her decision later. Why didn't I cross the road? Why didn't I walk with some other kids or an adult? Why didn't I listen to the
voice in my head telling me that something was wrong here? But time was running out. Drawn inexorably towards the innocent-looking white van, unaware of the evil that sat waiting for her in it.

Did the unhappiness in her life shroud her judgement? Was the sting of that slap—in itself nothing major but a totem of the stresses and antagonism that lived with her at the flat—blocking out reason? ‘What if?' is a question that can be asked about so many things in life. All Natascha knows is that if she had crossed the road she would not have been living in a pit.

But maybe she would have. As her captor would later tell her: if not that day, then another. She was, after all, the chosen one. The real threat the van-man posed, however, only dawned on Natascha when he grabbed her and pulled her into his vehicle. ‘The man climbed out of the van and was suddenly beside me. He grabbed my arm and threw me inside before shutting the doors and speeding off. He shouted at me and said I should be still and quiet or there would be trouble,' she said of the nightmare journey that was just the start of her ordeal.

‘Are you going to rape me?' Natascha's mother, speaking to a journalist in Vienna years later, after her daughter was freed, claimed these were the first words that Natascha spoke to Priklopil. Does this show an awareness of sex and sexual things outside the normal remit of a ten-year-old girl? Or is it merely another marker of her intelligence?

Discussing the actual kidnapping, she said he growled at her that nothing would happen to her if she remained still and did not move. ‘And do as I say and you won't get hurt,' he added for good measure. A few minutes later her told her it was a kidnapping and that if her parents paid a ransom she could go home ‘that day or the next'.

Natascha's thoughts went into overdrive. Fear and confusion jostled for pole position in her young mind. She said she had no fear initially—but then admits that she thought he might kill her. ‘I had heard of children who were raped and then quickly buried in the woods somewhere. And I thought I could put my last few hours or minutes or whatever to good use, and at least try to do something. To escape, or to talk him out of it or something. I told him that it wouldn't work and that going against the law never prospers. And that the police would soon get him and so on.' She told herself that if she could remember details, of his face, his van, his house when they got there, they would aid police when the time came to capture him. Later she would say: ‘At that point I was sure the police would get him and it would all have a good ending.'

It would not have a ‘good ending'—at least not for a very, very long time.

But before Natascha was driven to the Strasshof house, Priklopil took her somewhere else. In her interview with the
Kronen Zeitung
shortly after regaining her freedom many years later, she said enigmatically: ‘We didn't drive
directly home. I don't want to falsify history, but I will say no more.'

This statement is pregnant with implications. Where did she go? Was it to meet someone—an accomplice perhaps? To buy something? To sightsee? This was a kidnap, wasn't it? Isn't urgency and haste of the essence in such a situation? Is Natascha trying to protect someone here, other than the memory of the kidnapper who she ultimately felt sorry for? The riddle remains unanswered, both by her and the police.