Girl in the Cellar by Allan Hall Page B

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.
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    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 thickred 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.
    â€˜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 thevoice 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.
    â€˜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