Chapter 12 Audrey

BERLIN, GERMANY | DECEMBER 1938

Audrey glanced at the large mantel clock from her seat on the piano stool—it was half past four, and dusk was descending fast as snow swirled outside. It was two days before the New Year, that strange, weak echo of Christmas littered with empty liquor glasses and emptier promises. Audrey had hoped Müller and Vogt might beg off to visit their families—for she assumed they must have them, parents or siblings, at least—so that Ilse might be afforded more freedom for a day or two. But she’d been disappointed. They’d both remained in the house over Christmas, which was passed with little more than a large dinner and Müller’s lukewarm greeting of “Frohe Weihnachten” tossed in her direction.

Müller had told her he would be home late today, and not to worry about his supper, so after she was done with her housework, she squeezed in a piano practice. She still had some time to take a bath and eat with Ilse in the attic before Vogt returned wanting a meal. Audrey’s stress always increased as soon as the men arrived back and she had to set the stage for her nightly performance. After checking in with Ilse, she crossed the hall to the bathroom, sinking her tired muscles into the warm water. Her sigh of relief was followed by the usual pang of guilt that Ilse couldn’t do the same.

She was just rinsing when the sound of the front door closing echoed up the stairs. One of the men was home early. She strained her ears, and by the rhythm of the footfalls could tell it was Vogt, not Müller. There was a rattling downstairs, a clinking of glass on glass. Audrey growled with frustration and quickly rose from the tub, water splashing onto the floor in her haste to reach the ivory towel on the small chair next to the sink.

“Audrey!” she heard Vogt call from down the hall. She glanced around for her dressing gown and nightdress, and cursed. She’d left them in the bedroom. Wrapping the towel around herself, she pulled the plug on the tub as a creak sounded outside the door. The knob rattled. The door was locked, but she gripped the towel tightly around her chest.

“Yes?” she called, trying to keep her voice steady. She hated the idea of him knowing he made her uncomfortable, but she didn’t want him to see her like this.

“Are you indisposed?”

For the first time ever, she wished Müller was home, for his presence and authority seemed to keep Vogt at bay. “Is there something you need, Herr Vogt?”

“I am ready for dinner,” he said. “But the stove is cold.”

“I will be out in a moment.”

His footsteps retreated. Ensuring everything of importance was covered, she went to the bathroom door and listened. Silence.

She turned the handle and stepped out into the hallway, nearly jumping at the sight of Vogt a few feet away in the shadows.

“Good evening,” he said, staring at her as if he could see straight through the towel.

Audrey fought a shiver, her damp shoulders chilled in the cool air.

“Herr Vogt, I am sorry. I didn’t think you’d be home so soon. I’ll be right down to prepare your dinner.”

She walked away from him, feeling his gaze bore into her half-naked back. She slipped into Ilse’s dark bedroom, but as she went to shut the door, his foot shot out, blocking her.

Audrey yelped and lurched back as Vogt shoved his way in.

“What are you doing?” she gasped.

But she knew. And so did he.

A sickening dread gripped her insides. Her thoughts went to Ilse above her. She couldn’t cry for help.

“Please, don’t do this,” she said quietly. It took everything in her not to scream. “Please, leave.”

“Be a good girl, now,” he snarled, reeking of alcohol. He stepped toward her.

Audrey clutched at the towel with one hand and lashed out at Vogt with the other. He batted her arm away, then seized her shoulders, pushing her toward the bed. Despair surged up her throat like black bile. Her towel fell as she fought Vogt with both hands now, panting with the effort and her own horror. The cold air hit her body. As Vogt took in her nakedness, she landed a punch to his throat. Anger shone in his eyes. She tried to race around him, but he stopped her with his other hand and threw her onto the bedspread with a grunt, pinning her down with his muscly body. A scream escaped her lips.

He covered her mouth with one hand. “Shut up,” he hissed, fumbling with his belt as he pressed her head down into the mattress.

In a flash, she remembered the silver letter opener in the drawer of her bedside table. Audrey bit down on Vogt’s fingers and he swore, recoiling. She flung an arm out, clawing at the drawer pull, but Vogt wrenched it back down. She thrust her elbow up into his face, tried to twist her body out from under him. She had to reach the blade.

But Vogt’s body was heavy on hers, his breath hot on her face. She cried out again as she fought to free her arm. Then, over his shoulder, she saw a shadow.

Ilse.

Audrey recognized the outline of the brass lamp clutched in her hand. Vogt’s fist was pressing painfully into her thigh, searching. Ilse approached the bed, holding the lamp like a cricket bat. And then she swung.

Blood splattered Audrey’s face as Vogt was thrown off her. He rolled off the narrow bed and landed with a tremulous crash on the floor, out of sight. Audrey scrambled off the other side of the bed, her breath coming in shallow gasps. She seized the blood-splattered bedspread, covering herself. Ilse stood in her slippers and dressing gown, towering over Vogt, the lamp still poised for attack. But he didn’t stir.

“Ilse, oh my God!” Audrey breathed. “Thank you. Thank you.”

She flung her arms around her friend.

When Ilse didn’t respond, Audrey pulled away. In the blue light of the moon, there was a shimmer of something she had never seen in Ilse’s eyes before. Rage. Audrey’s gaze followed Ilse’s to the floor. “Is he…”

“I don’t know. We’ll have to check him.”

Audrey’s heart felt as though it were trying to jump out of her chest. She padded around the bed to the other side.

Vogt had landed face down, his limbs at odd angles. “Be ready,” Audrey said, then nudged his leg with her bare foot. He didn’t move. She gave it a kick, but he didn’t flinch. And then she saw the pool of blood on the floorboards beneath his head, shining sinisterly maroon in the dim light.

“Oh, God.”

“What?” Ilse asked. She looked a little more like herself now. The trance had worn off.

“I think he’s dead.”

Audrey rolled Vogt over with an effort, hating that she had to touch him at all. His eyes were half-open, mouth agape, and a large break in the skin on his temple was oozing blood.

“Let me see,” Ilse said. She placed her fingers at the base of his stubbly neck, and waited. Then she stepped away, panic in her eyes. “He’s dead. He’s dead.” She tossed the lamp on the bed. “I only meant to get him off you. I didn’t think!”

“I know. I know,” Audrey said, turning away from Vogt’s staring eyes. “Of course you didn’t. But he wouldn’t have—” Her breath shuddered. She felt separated from her body. She wobbled, and Ilse reached out at the same moment. They gripped each other’s cold fingers tightly.

“I’ve killed a man,” Ilse said, aghast.

“I’m so sorry you had to do this. I’m so sorry.” Audrey pulled Ilse into a hug. “But you saved me. Thank you. Thank you.”

“I just couldn’t let him do that to you,” Ilse whispered as they clung to one another in the darkness. “If anything had happened to you…” She trailed off, and Audrey held her tighter.

“I know. I would have done the same for you.”

Audrey wished desperately that they could go back to the way things were when they were children playing clapping games on Ilse’s front stoop, when the biggest mess they had to clean up was the pile of jacks strewn across the attic floor. The keenest fear was whether the monsters under the bed were going to get them whilst they slept. But Audrey didn’t know then that the monsters were real. That they weren’t hiding under the bed.

“What do we do?” Ilse murmured when they broke apart.

“We have to get rid of the body.”

“But where? How?”

Audrey pushed her damp hair off her face, then grimaced. Her hand was sticky with blood. Suddenly she had to be clean, free of Vogt’s mark. She wiped the blood off her hand as best she could on the bedcover, then went to her dresser for a nightgown, her mind spinning as she considered their options.

They were few.

They couldn’t very well keep him in the house. The thought alone made her stomach turn. And they couldn’t bury him; it would be obvious the ground had been disturbed, and it was frozen now, anyway. No one would believe this was an accident or a suicide. And Vogt was important enough that the authorities would go looking for him.

Audrey pulled the nightgown over her head with relief, letting the soiled covers fall to the floor, and tucked her feet into her slippers.

Ilse was sitting down on the edge of the bed, head in her hands. They simmered in tormenting silence for a few minutes until Audrey finally spoke.

“I think we need to get him outside,” she said. “It’s dark out now. He was pretty much a drunk…” She tried to construct a plausible story with a mind that felt foggy and stuttered. “Maybe if we leave his body somewhere outside, it would look like he got in a brawl, and was killed on his way home.”

But there was Müller to consider. Would he believe that Vogt got into a drunken brawl? Audrey glanced down at the body again, wishing his eyes would close. She was immensely grateful to Ilse. She had risked everything to rescue Audrey. But where did they go from here? Müller was an inconveniently sharp, inquisitive man. Could Audrey fool him? She would have to. It was imperative.

There was nothing like trying to get away with murder to test the depth of one’s own resourcefulness.

“Come on, Ilse,” she said, summoning her fortitude. “Let’s take him downstairs.”

“I can’t go outside. I can’t.” Ilse was wild-eyed now, wringing her hands. Anxiety had usurped her previous rage. “I’m too afraid.”

“I know. And you won’t have to go outside.” Audrey nodded, encouraging. “Just help me take him as far as the front door, then come back upstairs. I’ll do the rest.”

“Okay,” she agreed.

Audrey picked her way over Vogt’s sprawled limbs to his head. She tucked her arms under his shoulders, gagging on the stench of alcohol, hair oil, and the tangy, iron scent of blood. “Take his feet,” she told Ilse, who grimaced but complied, and the two women shuffled to the bedroom door, Audrey walking backward as they stepped into the hall. They panted under the weight of the lifeless body. Audrey kept expecting Vogt to suddenly wake. She couldn’t believe what they were doing.

They turned the corner toward the stairs and Ilse gasped. Audrey’s head whipped around, and her heart stopped.

There, standing at the end of the corridor, was Müller.

“Fräulein James?” he said. He scanned the scene: her damp hair and nightgown, Ilse, and finally the body they were carrying between them. “What the hell is this? Good God, is that Vogt?” he shouted. “And who is that?” He pointed at Ilse, who dropped Vogt’s legs in panic.

Audrey nearly collapsed to the floor under the weight of the body. She lowered Vogt’s shoulders. They must have been so distracted with the gruesomeness and effort of the task that neither of them had heard the front door open.

Müller found the light switch. It flicked on, and both women recoiled, the evidence of their crime illuminated in gory detail for him.

“Herr Müller, I can explain,” Audrey began, casting around for what that explanation could possibly be.

But Müller drew his gun from its holster and aimed it directly at them. “Don’t move.”