The Stalking of Louise Copperfield

by Robert W Fisk

  “Does Frank hit you?”

  “We argue. A lot. Frank and me. He’s got a lot on his mind, with the shopping mall and the housing development,” replied Louise.

  Jayne knew that most women defended their violent husbands. She felt that a woman’s excuses showed there was still something there, perhaps going back to when a relationship began. “Does he get violent?”

  “Well, he shouts at me and when he gets upset he kind of throws his arms around, like this,” said Louise.

  She put her hands in front of her stomach, backs upward and then suddenly moved them up in a semi-circular motion while keeping her elbows in by her torso, from around her belly button to the points of her shoulders so that her fingers were vertical and close to her ears. It looked like she was about to cup her hands to shout at someone. Then she brought them forward and down in a chopping motion to rest in front of her stomach again. Jayne leapt back at the violent movement.

  “Wow! Scary!” she said. “Does he actually hit you?” asked Jayne.

  “No. Never. I am scared he will, though. It’s because he gets so tired. He hit Kezia today. It was me who got violent,” said Louise. “He hadn’t meant to hurt her. Kezia said she would make Alexander a sandwich when he got home, and Frank said it was my job, that I was a lazy sheila and Kezia objected to that and slanged him. He got upset and threw his arms around and connected with Kezia who got knocked to the ground. I went for Frank and tried to scratch his eyes out.”

  Louise said nothing about Kezia hitting Frank with a wooden softball bat. It was quite a solid bat even though it was made for a child. Kezia could have knocked him out with it.

  “Louise, that is serious violence. Not you. You defended your child. Frank. Is Frank a big man?”

  When Louise nodded, Jayne said, “He has learned that to control his violence, he needs to keep his hands moving close to his body. It’s not an effective strategy. He needs a course of anger management. Will you lodge a complaint about him hitting Kezia?”

  “Well, it was a kind of an accident, I think. I didn’t see it ’cos I was in the other room. I heard it all though,” Louise replied. “He was really angry that I had let Alexander come in contact with the dog poison and then Kezia stood up to him. You know the rest. Now he’s gone.”

  “What? Left you?” asked Jayne.

  “Yes,” said Louise. “Look.”

  Louise reached across the table to the book case and pulled out Frank’s note.

  Jayne read it. ‘I am off. I have a new lady. I am moving in with her. I have Alec and will get him to school and home each day. Leave him alone or you will not live to see the consequences.’

  Jayne looked at Louise and said quietly, “Please don’t take this the wrong way. I think you are better off without him. What you need now is some support. I can help but I am always on call. What about Father Larkin?”

  Louise looked at Jayne, fully understanding the friendship Jayne was offering outside of her official job and said “It’s Alexander. He’s got Alexander.”

  “We can get Alexander back for you,” said Jayne. “But you have to lay a formal complaint. The death threat will be seen by the Family Court as proving Frank is too violent to have custody.”

  “I hope so,” said Louise. “At least there was no custody problem over Kezia.”

  “Louise, listen carefully,” said Jayne. “First, Frank. I can’t see him being involved in poisoning a favourite dog. I believe you are being stalked by a person who wants to upset you so much that you start to do bad things, which is quite understandable. Assuming we identify the stalker, at the moment the only charge that could be brought is being a public nuisance, although you could claim damages. Who can you think of that might want to upset you?”

  Louise thought about what Jayne was saying. The thought of someone deliberately poisoning a dog, of shaming Kezia with Facebook or upsetting her so much that she became too anxious to make good decisions was frightening. She had a lot to contend with. Frank, Kezia and Youssef, being raped – how stupid was that? – and now the break with Frank and the loss of Alexander. No wonder she was a nervous wreck.

  “I can’t think of anyone,” she said.

  “Understandable. Could it be someone from your past? Your first husband? A school friend?”

  “Ricky and I meet up now and then. He wouldn’t use Facebook, he might paint on the door but he wouldn’t use Facebook.”

  “From High School?”

  “There’s Nigel Jones, married to Charlotte the Harlot. That’s what we called her. Her name was Hoar. Imagine your family name being Hoar and you call your kid Charlotte?”

  “I knew a Teresa Green,” said Jayne. “People used to say, ‘Everyone knows Trees are Green’. I’ll ask you again. What about Nigel.”

  “No. He’s a nice quiet guy, lots of fun in a quiet way but very prim and proper. He’s the Chief Planner for the Wahanui City Council. Very professional.”

  “Would he be more likely to send you presents?” asked Jayne.

  “Yes. I think he might,” Louise replied. “But I can’t see him drugging me. If he asked nicely, I might feel like going to bed with him.”

  Jayme earmarked Nigel Jones as a suspect for grooming, with a possibility of date rape.

  “So. Possibly being groomed. Would Nigel want to harm you because you won’t have an affair?”

  Louise thought for a moment. “Nigel is rather special. If things had been different we might have married but we didn’t even date when we were young. He is a friend who is there when I need him. He does give me presents but he wouldn’t need to groom me. I think he knows that but he’s faithful to my friend Charlotte.”

  “So,” said Jayne. “You feel you are not being groomed for sex. Nigel and you are good friends who could be more but not yet.”

  “That’s about right,” said Louise. She thought, ‘Is this the time to tell about Frank’s bet, and Stuart Larcombe pursuing her? No. With Frank gone all that will soon blow over. Better to say nothing.’

  Well, I believe you are being stalked, that someone is following you and making you very upset by doing nasty things to you,” said Jayne. Are you sure you have no enemies?”

  “No. I don’t have anyone who hates me,” Louise replied. “And I don’t have many friends, although my friendship with a young refugee called Youssef may be upsetting some people. He’s having a really rough time from the idiots who think all refugees are terrorists. Maybe someone is after me because I have sponsored him.”

  Jayne could see that Louise was on to something regarding race discrimination, punishing her for befriending an immigrant. That was a line worth following. Jayne thought that she would talk to neighbours and people in the street. Someone must have seen someone lurking around.

  “I want you to note down anything unusual. Write it in a small notebook. A car seen regularly, phone call hang-ups, special gifts. Let’s find the pattern.” Jayne was certain that there were incidents that Louise was not seeing because she was not looking for them. “I’ll ask around, talk to your neighbours. Is that okay?”

  Louise nodded her agreement. It could not do any harm to alert the neighbours that some awful things were happening in their quiet street.

  CHAPTER 35.

  Jayne’s visit had helped Louise. Jayne was as solid as a rock. Her matter-of-fact acceptance of the date rape helped Louise feel as if she was not the only stupid woman in the world. Jayne was the only person she could talk freely to at this point in time.

  She could not speak so openly to the other person who knew her story, Father Larkin. Louise was guarded whenever she spoke to Father Larkin, because although she had confided in him and told him what had happened at the party, he was a priest and a man who could be comforting but could not really understand the devastating loss of identity, the sense of helplessness, the feeling that she could be raped by any man she met.

  Any man except for Nigel. He was a special case, like a brother would be.

  The events of
the party had also been a time of emotional upheaval for Nigel. He was sickened by his part in what he assumed was Larcombe’s taking advantage of Louise. He had known Louise Moore at primary school, but when he was in ninth grade, Nigel’s parents sent him to Christchurch to a boarding school. He then studied architecture in Auckland, during which time he heard that Louise had married.

  On his return, Nigel met her as Louise Ricciardello at tennis tournaments, at the swimming pool and at social gatherings. After the split, Nigel felt disappointed in Ricky Ricciardello, who seemed to have had everything but had made a mess of it all by not appreciating the value of what he had.

  ‘If I were married to Louise, there is no way I would play around,' he thought. “Ricciardello had been stupid. Like Charlotte is being now.'

  The parallel had not struck him before. The situation was the same for Louise and Ricky as it now was for him and Charlotte, whose blatant actions at the party left Nigel feeling gutted, especially as it was he who had employed the guy for that very purpose, to give single women a good time. Like Ricciardello, Charlotte was throwing away everything for a few moments of pleasure.

  Louise’s answer had been to leave if Ricky continued to be unfaithful. That must have taken guts, especially for a Catholic. ‘The difference between me and Louise is that she had the guts to do something about it.’ Nigel said to himself. ‘Well, every journey begins with the first step. Charlotte first, then Frank.’

  Nigel would move into a separate bedroom. Charlotte could come to him when she needed him; if she ever needed him. That was step one. Step two would be disentangling from Charlotte at the lowest possible cost. She did not know about the Cayman Islands account but if she dug her toes in, a smart lawyer would check Nigel’s tax records where he would find he had paid tax on money that he forwarded to the Cayman Islands. By law, Charlotte was entitled to half of everything; the off-shore account, the house, his money, his superannuation fund, anything of value that had been purchased while they were together. It was going to be expensive, no doubt about that.

  Nigel thought that another disappointing person was Frank Copperfield. He had left Louise to fend for herself, where a man was meant to protect women, especially his wife. How gross was that? Nigel had trouble believing the present day man was the same Frank, the sportsman and good guy of earlier days, the man whom Nigel had admired more than any other. He had been pleased and flattered that Frank had befriended him and included him in the company of the big tough guys, the guys who were full of the confidence that Nigel lacked. Now Nigel could see that Frank was a user, plain and simple.

  Frank had always been ambitious. When he came to Nigel with a planning problem, Nigel had helped him, pleased to be of service. Service. The word opened up for Nigel a whole new view of his relationship with Frank. That was it. Frank saw him as a service not as a friend. Frank had been using him, purely and simply. Nigel vowed that he would no longer bend the rules for Frank. He made the decision to treat Frank absolutely professionally, as he should have done from the start.

  The first thing he would do would be to check on the steel used in the mall to ensure that it had in fact met the New Zealand Standards Authority requirements for the task that it would be required to do. Instead of inspecting the work himself, as Nigel had done with all of Larcombe and Copperfield’s previous developments, Nigel would delegate to one of his staff, thus removing himself from the problem completely.

  Larcombe was behind it all of course. Tall, dark, handsome Larcombe, the hail fellow well met type. The man from Australia who never spoke about his past. He paid Nigel very well to turn a blind eye as the five million, all tax paid of course, in Nigel’s Cayman Island accounts showed. That five million would give Nigel the freedom to live as he pleased but at the cost of his integrity.

  ‘How on Earth have I let this happen?’ Nigel asked.

  When Nigel searched on the Internet, he discovered that Larcombe was not allowed to register a company in Australia nor was he able to be on the board of any Australian company.

  Nigel found out through a friend in a bank that Larcombe’s father owned a chain of real estate offices and was financially secure. That meant rich to ordinary people. Presumably Daddy had financed Larcombe’s business interests. In order to re-establish himself Larcombe had come to New Zealand from Australia after his finance house collapsed. New Zealand with its free market monetarist policies attracted Larcombe, who moved his finance house to New Zealand under a different name, Kiaora Ethical Investments. Living in a country where the commercial law favoured business to a risible extent, making New Zealand a tax haven and a hiding place for laundered money, Larcombe prospered and now had fingers in many pies.

  Despite the Closer Economic Relations policy between the two countries, Australia gave New Zealand little information on people like Larcombe. Rod Petricevic had been such a case, a man whose dishonest practices in Australia were not communicated to New Zealand authorities and so he was allowed to continue his dishonest practices unabated in New Zealand, forcing hardship on thousands of investors when his finance company Bridgecorp collapsed. Did Larcombe’s money come from a similar scam?

  Nigel thought of how he had bent the rules. He was the pot calling the kettle black. But there had been little opposition in the small city of Wahanui. Was it because most of the businessmen had attended the more traditional boys’ private school, Wahanui Boys College? Or was it due to coercion and intimidation? What about Councillor Scott, whose legs had been broken by unknown assailants and who had subsequently resigned from the Council? And Hamilton, who was murdered just a few weeks ago?

  ‘What have I got myself into?’ thought Nigel as the enormity of the other side of the coin sank in. He could see that there might be a trail of coercion and intimidation involving anyone who made a fuss and complained about the dishonest workings of the Council. Who was silencing criticism? He could not believe that Charles Cameron was involved, nor any of the other members he met at Council meetings, and yet critics invariably lacked support or suffered like Scott and Hamilton.

  Nigel decided that the time had come to cash in his chips and quit the game. Completely. No Wahanui Council with its dodgy practices, no more Larcombe, no more Copperfield, and no more Charlotte the Harlot.

  First he had to check that he had thoroughly covered his tracks in the Council records. He was sure that he had not breached any really serious laws, just minor transgressions. He had adjusted the records of anything incriminating at the time but he would go through all the records again because being meticulous was important to him.

  After that he had to remove himself from direct contact with Larcombe and Copperfield. He could get rid of Charlotte, they were not married but had lived together long enough for her to claim her part of the matrimonial property. Tough but you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.

  Louise. Would she come with him? She was unhappily married to Frank, who had left her so she was alone now. Should he approach her? What would Frank do if he did?

  ‘Leave it alone,’ he thought. ‘It’s too soon. She isn’t ready to start a new relationship yet. Anyway, if I tell her my part in her trouble at the party, she’ll never speak to me again.’

  Nigel was indecisive. Perhaps there had been no trouble; nothing had happened. Nigel was only guessing. If she ever mentioned her terrible ordeal, he might apologise for leaving her with Larcombe, but until that happened he would be better saying nothing. At least he had not taken advantage of her, nor did he know if anybody else had. He was just guessing because he could hardly ask Louise directly.

  'I might be making a mountain out of a molehill,’ thought Nigel. ‘I'll see more of Louise, see how things go and try to make up for my lack of guts.’

  CHAPTER 36.

  For a start, Charlotte did not notice that Nigel was not coming back to share her bed. She sensed that he thought that he was being manipulated by Charlotte, which was true.

  On the other hand, when Nigel cut Frank off hi
s list of friends, Frank did not notice, which confirmed to Nigel his feelings that Frank had been a friend only for what he could get out of Nigel’s position as Chief Planning Officer. When Frank wanted something done by the Council, Nigel pushed the task on to Huria Blenkinsop, the most senior of his staff. He did more grassroots work and no work for Larcombe or Copperfield.

  The occasions that Nigel had bent the rules for Frank in the past would possibly see him fired but they were not actionable under criminal law because nobody had lost money. New Zealand’s building laws needed to be brought up to date. They had too long favoured the businessman who financed the trade, and the builders who scalped every cent of profit by cutting corners and bending the rules.

  Nigel began an overhaul of the records of his approvals. With a touch here, an alteration there, the inclusion of records of conversations that had never happened, Nigel was satisfied. There was no doubt that he had shown favouritism but he had had enough integrity to avoid outright criminal action. He would be in disgrace but probably would not go to gaol.

  Next, he wanted to see Louise. He knew that she worked at the hospital, that she had been a nurse in the wards but now had some sort of secretarial role. He chatted with a surgeon friend who was full of praise for Louise, whose job it was to keep records in order and to hand.

  “Very important job. Life or death in fact. Never had an error of omission or commission with her,” he said. “A lovely lady, if a tad over-anxious.”

  Nigel made up his mind that it was time to make an approach to Louise so he called Louise one afternoon.

  “I hope I’m not imposing or seeming to be forward, but I’d like to have a coffee with you some time. I’ve got something I would like your opinion on.”