Killer Women (19 page)

Christian had decreed that no matter how tired either of them felt, the place had to be spotless for the next day. Marianne knew he was right but on this night she was feeling particularly tired.

Anna had not been sleeping well and it was a
strenuous existence. Marianne constantly had to get up early with Anna to prepare her for school at seven am. It was often only a few hours after she had gone to sleep.

The past few days had been even worse than usual. Marianne was so tired she had failed on two out of the five previous school days to wake up in time to pack Anna off to classes.

The seven-year-old was delighted. Missing school was a treat. Marianne was worried. She didn’t want to end up losing Anna. She was so special to her. She had kept Marianne’s life together. Without Anna, her life would fall apart again. She was painfully aware of that fact.

Marianne had given birth to two children before Anna. Both of them were now in care. A pregnancy at sixteen and an unhappy relationship had cost her those children. Anna represented her last chance to prove she was a capable mother. She loved her dearly and that constant threat made her even more special in Marianne’s eyes.

Anna was a bubbly bright little girl, street-wise well beyond her years. Everyone liked her. She had a charming, elf-like face with well cut blonde hair. The relatives were convinced she could easily become a model in later years.

She also shared a unique bond of friendship with her mother. They were more like sisters than mother
and daughter. Marianne would turn to Anna and vice versa. It was a remarkably close relationship. Some said too close.

But not only did Anna share her entire life with Marianne, she also shared her mother’s personality in one, very significant way. Anna had magnetic qualities that attracted people – all sorts of people. Her mother had always longed for love and attention. It came out in a semi-flirtatious sort of way. But it had also led to that incident with the salesman that scarred her for life. She had been just nine-years-old at the time. Marianne just prayed and hoped that nothing similar would happen to her daughter. But she constantly feared the worse. There were always bastards around to prey on the innocent and vulnerable.

By the time Marianne finally fell into bed in the apartment above the bar that night, she was feeling shattered. It had been a hell of a long day.

In the bedroom just a few feet away, Anna slept soundly for once. Completely unaware of what was to come.

Next morning, there was an air of panic in Marianne’s household. It was 9am and Anna had not risen in time for school. Christian was only concerned with one thing – the bar. He had to be downstairs to manage the beer deliveries due at any moment. He was furious because Anna was going
to miss another day of school. With Marianne’s previous problems, they could ill-afford to get a visit from the social welfare people. They would soon misinterpret Anna’s recent non-appearances in class.

To make matters worse still, Marianne had an appointment in the centre of town. It was a private thing. She didn’t want to discuss it with anyone. Whatever the appointment was, she could not take Anna with her. Marianne was a secretive person at times. It was, no doubt, something to do with her childhood. She would often bottle up her innermost thoughts. Sometimes that could put her under enormous pressure, not to mention the people around her.

It was a private appointment and she had to get there by ten at the latest. She would say no more.

The only person not panicking was Anna. She was looking forward to a day off school.

Marianne was angry with Christian. She had told him she had this appointment. Why didn’t he stay behind? They continued arguing. It all seemed perfectly normal to the little seven-year-old.

If they had leaned out of the window of the living room that morning, they all would have seen Klaus Grabowski making his way up the street to go shopping. He was cycling along the street in quite a rush to make it to the shops before opening time.

Grabowski was well known to his neighbours he might have been fired from his job after a recent prison term but he was still known as the butcher to many locals. But, without exception, they had only seen one side of his character. Certainly they regularly spoke with him. But only to comment on the weather or the price of meat. Never on a personal level. Never prying into his strange mind.

With those cold steely grey eyes perhaps many of them would rather not know. It was this very fact that enabled Klaus to continue living in his sick fantasy world where reality only occasionally interrupted proceedings. It gave him the smoke screen to indulge his evil thoughts. Even his fiancé asked few questions. She just accepted he was a shy, frightened man who needed gentle coaxing not difficult questions that might make him face up to his own inadequacies. That was probably why they only saw each other once a week.

By the time Klaus got to the bread shop a queue had already formed. All the housewives there that morning knew Grabowski. They were grateful for a new face to talk to as they waited. But their children weren’t so keen. There was something about him that used to scare a lot of them. In the butcher’s shop, they were always catching a glance from him and turning away shyly even when he offered them a sweet from behind the counter.

He had this strange glint in his eye. It used to sparkle flatly when he spotted a mother and her children queueing in the shop. For a moment his eyes would stray to those of one of the children … just as he chopped those pieces of tender sirloin into managable pieces. Then they would dart around the faces of everyone inside the shop. Sizing them up as he lunged at his carcases with that huge knife. Some mothers used to wonder how he could cut everything so perfectly when he was looking away from it.

At the flat above the bar, Marianne was rushing out of the front door. As she kissed Anna on the forehead, she told her to behave herself and not to go out of the apartment; an invitation to an inquisitive child, if ever there was one.

Marianne rushed down the stairs to catch a bus she had spotted from the living room window. She did not really have time to think about why she was leaving a seven-year-old girl alone in the home to fend for herself. She had too many other problems on her mind.

Her relationship with Christian was crumbling one moment and passionate the next. She knew it was only a matter of time before they would break up.

Anna, on the other hand, was looking forward to doing exactly what she wanted for a whole day. She
was a free spirit with an enquiring mind. She wanted to explore.

After all, this wasn’t the first time that she had been left to fend for herself. On the last occasion, she and her best friend Maria had been alone on the streets near their home for hours. And they’d had a great adventure. They met two really nice cats and were invited into an apartment by their owner to help feed them. It had been really fun.

Anna had no pets of her own and, like any young child, she longed to give love and affection to a dog or a cat or some sort of animal. As she and Maria gently stroked the two tabbies they felt tempted to pick them up and take them home. Then their nice owner had appeared and offered them a chance to feed them.

The two little girls did not hesitate to go back to the man’s apartment – all those warnings from their mothers had fallen on deaf ears. Their thoughts were dominated by their affection for these two cats – not the evil intentions of the outside world.

Their naive faith in mankind was still intact. They had not been through the trials and torment suffered by their parents.

Anna and Maria had no need to fear as long as they stuck together. For even the sickest people rarely want their atrocities to be witnessed by anyone else. Their intentions are so degrading that
they find it uncomfortable if anyone else is present, whatever their age.

They knew their parents would be angry if they said what they had done, so they promised each other not to tell anyone about their adventure.

But, on this day, Anna was on her own. Maria was at school and Anna needed to find something to do. As she looked out of the window the answer to the problem seemed to be cycling slowly up the street.

As Anna skipped down the stairs to catch up with the friend she had just seen, she just kept thinking about those two sweet little cats. How she wished she had some of her own. Then, on those days when she was left alone, she would not seem so lonely.

On the sidewalk, she soon caught up with her friend. Anna never actually knew his name but that didn’t matter. She was more interested in the cats than him.

Klaus Grabowski’s eyes glinted the moment he felt the little hand tugging at his sleeve from behind. He instantly recognised Anna from her visit with Maria to his flat some weeks earlier.

He quickly glanced around him to see if anyone had noticed their encounter. No one seemed to be taking the slightest bit of notice. He was hardly able to contain himself. Here was the little girl he was so especially fond of. The little girl who seemed
so incredibly attractive. The one he had dreamed about …

A few minutes later, at his apartment, he was positively shaking with lurid excitement. Here she was. The one he had earmarked. The little girl he wanted.

Anna was stroking the cat, showing the sort of affection Grabowski had longed for as a child but never received.

He was running out of patience. He had got her to his apartment. Now he wanted only one thing.

Only a few hours earlier he had fantasised about the sexual perversity that gave him his only thoughts of pleasure. Now he had a disgusting opportunity to achieve it. Nothing was going to stop him.

Anna was crying now. She did not like the ‘game’ that Grabowski had insisted on playing. She wanted to go home but he wouldn’t let her.

He hated the crying. He wanted to stop it. Now. He couldn’t stand the noise. It was making him feel vulnerable. But he had to go on punishing her, hurting her. It was wrong but he did not care. He just had to have his way. No grown woman would tolerate such behaviour. This was why he had to have them so young. He hated the way women had always dominated his life. He wanted to punish them for existing. This was his way of getting his own back.

Anna was screaming hysterically now. She knew that this should not be happening. She knew this man was evil. She knew she had to get out of that apartment. But there was no way she could break free. He had a vice like grip on her. Then she fainted.

Grabowski felt the pulse. She hadn’t died yet. He went into the bedroom and pulled out a pair of his fiancé’s red tights from a drawer.

He used them to strangle the last drop of life out of this poor little innocent child.

Marianne had returned to her apartment. It was lunchtime. There was no sign of Anna. At first she didn’t panic. Convinced that she had probably gone around to a friend’s home.

One hour later, Marianne telephoned the police in a distressed state. All the memories of her own awful childhood were flooding back. She just kept thinking about that salesman who assaulted her. The horrible stepfather. The neighbour who raped her. It was a terrible world out there. She knew, because all her life she had been a victim.

She could feel that something was terribly wrong. She did not want to think what might have happened.

But, inside herself she knew …

Grabowski was still in a sexual trance. He had the lifeless body of little Anna in his arms and he was
placing the corpse into a cardboard box that he had in the kitchen of his cramped apartment.

He didn’t flinch as he crumpled the tiny body into the three-foot-square box. For a man who had thrown the carcases of animals around for a living this was hardly difficult.

It was now late in the afternoon and he needed to dispose of Anna’s body quickly and secretly. But Grabowski had one problem – transport. He did not own a car – just a tatty bicycle. He was going to have to use it to carry her body.

Clinically, as if he was carrying a hefty Christmas present, he strapped the box onto the front of the bike and began to ride. At first, the sheer weight made him slightly unsteady. But, as he gained speed, his balance returned. For half an hour he cycled towards the outskirts of the town, constantly looking for the perfect site for a grave.

Grabowski began digging a shallow hole with the shovel he had tied to the back of his bicycle.

He was shaking with fear by now. The reality of the situation was slowly catching up with him and he was beginning to realise what he had done.

As he gently dropped the cardboard box into the ground, he could feel the weight of the body slipping over to one side making it difficult to balance. It must have finally driven home to him the enormity of what he had just done.

He thought for a moment about the lives he had wrecked beyond repair. How one sick moment of sexual satisfaction would ruin so many people’s futures. Not to mention the future of Anna Bachmeier.

Grabowski was now suffering the pangs of guilt that should have been there from the beginning. As he cycled back to his flat, he found it impossible to stop his mind wandering back to the look on the face of little Anna as she tried in vain to fight back.

He kept asking himself the same question over and over again. Why? Why? Why? Something deep inside him made his conscience actually prick. The tragedy was that he did not feel it before. Then perhaps Anna would have lived a full life.

Grabowski drove directly to the town’s main police station and confessed to his crime.

It was an unusually warm day in Lubeck on Friday, 6 March 1981.

In the tiny courtroom where Klaus Grabowski was on trial for the murder of little Anna Bachmeier, the atmosphere was relaxed.

Outside, the sun was shining. Inside, the defendant had already admitted his guilt. The public gallery was empty except for a group of school children studying German law.

There were few press members covering the
event. After all, this was just another in a long catalogue of sex crimes against young children – it was too commonplace to make headline news.