CHAPTER 45.
If the fight with Bannister depressed Louise considerably, the Board’s response to her letter made her feel far worse. The Board wrote to her saying that they were surprised that a respectable person like Louise made salacious remarks about a highly respected man. There had been no other complaints made in all the time the man accused of improprieties had been employed at the school. The Board unanimously rejected Mrs Copperfield’s claims that she had been molested as a teenager and hoped that she would seek medical assistance.
Louise was upset but when she thought about matters, she realised that she really did need a support group for women, but not necessarily composed only of women. She thought of her friend Nigel Jones, and of Father Raymond Larkin. Would they be interested in helping women gain credibility for their claims, especially regarding claims of historical sexual abuse such as she had with Mr Bannister?
Other events were shortly to make Louise feel worse. Larcombe arrived. He was clearly annoyed.
“Louise, I have a bone to pick with you,” he said.
Louise needed no more stress in her life. “What is it Stuart?” she asked.
“Frank tells me you have taken my money from the Swiss Bank,” he said. “I want it back.”
Louise’s mind was in turmoil but she managed to speak quietly. “Stuart, you will have to talk to my lawyer. I know nothing about money, Frank does all that. Did all that, I should say. Now he’s gone my affairs are handled by Brett Shaw.”
Brett Shaw was her new lawyer, a different man from the family lawyer Frank and Louise had shared.
“You’re a thief. I’ll see you in Court!” said Larcombe.
“If you think I’m a thief, sue me,” said Louise.
Mrs Hohepa was calling on Louise. She stopped by the window when she heard raised voices. She was about to leave but stayed because she thought that Louise might need help with the gentleman in the Mercedes.
“I put the money into Frank’s account for safe-keeping until it was time to pay for a delivery of material,” said Larcombe.
Louise thought that was quite credible. She was about to agree to hand back the money when Larcombe said, “Top grade steel.”
Louise knew that the shopping mall was almost finished. Frank had said sixteen weeks but a little later he had said they would be finished two weeks ahead of schedule. It must be almost ready to hand over. In any case, it was long past the time when Frank needed money for steel. It must already have been used to hold everything up.
“I don’t believe you, Mr Larcombe,” she said. “I overheard you and Frank saying that you were going to swap the steel for uncertified steel to save money, but you had to pay upfront. I also heard you say that the Huatere Project needed to have special foundations but you would not make them. You are lying to me to cheat me of what is rightly mine. One more word and I go to the police.”
“Don’t you threaten me!” shouted Larcombe. “I’ll see you in Hell if you say a single word.”
“Single word? Frank has left me, so I’ll tell whoever I like, starting with the police and then Facebook. I’ll get a reporter from the Wahanui Times to write the story, front page.”
“You do that and you’re fish food with concrete boots on,” said Larcombe.
Mrs Hohepa thought the conversation had gone on long enough. She knocked on the door.
“I have a visitor,” said Louise. “Get out of my house and don’t come back.”
“You will pay for that. Don’t say I didn’t tell you,” said Larcombe.
Although she was normally a moderate person Louise could be rigid when she needed to be. She knew that the money was not Larcombe’s. He was lying to make her hand back the money she had moved out of the joint account into a separate one that Frank could not touch.
“Go back to the slimy hole you crawled from and on the way pay my husband the two thousand dollars you owe him for the wager you lost,” said Louise. “And always will.”
Larcombe was speechless. He had not realised that Louise had figured out about the bet he had with Frank to seduce Louise. No wonder Frank had sent him to get the Swiss money back. He walked back to his car, slammed the door of the Mercedes shut and drove off.
“You poor thing,” said Mrs Hohepa. “What an awful man. Who is he?”
“He’s Frank’s business partner,” said Louise. “He says I’ve stolen his money but he’s lying. Frank is just trying to hide money before the separation becomes final.”
“You’re so upset, my dear,” said Mrs Hohepa. “I’ll make a cup of tea and sit with you until you’ve settled down.”
Mrs Hohepa made the tea and sat with Louise until she had calmed down.
“My poor girl,” said Mrs Hohepa. “You should tell the police that he threatened you.”
“No, Mrs Hohepa. It will only cause more trouble for everyone,” said Louise. “Maybe after the Custody Hearing.”
Larcombe was not a man to make empty threats. When Larcombe reached home he made a decision. Louise had to go.. Louise was dangerous. She was also formidable, standing up to him when strong men had crumbled. He had dealt with trouble makers before, and he had the contacts who would do the dirty work for him for a fee. Larcombe was not sure how he would sell the idea to Frank, who was surprisingly old fashioned when it came to principle. He would not like the idea of his wife being beaten up or murdered.
CHAPTER 46.
The stalking had really upset Louise and after the confrontation with Larcombe and the loss of Kezia and Youssef, Frank’s desertion and Kezia’s news about Bannister Louise felt that she desperate. The stalking had her lying awake at night in fear that harm would come to Kezia and Alexander, even though both were away from her. She woke at every sound in case someone was in the house, or setting fire to it. The house was wooden and would burn like a torch. She was in despair.
Despite kind Mrs Hohepa coming over from her house to be with her when she got home from work, Louise felt on her own, defenceless and with everything going wrong. She tried to share her feelings with Jayne Hyslop, who had become a good friend. Jayne made reassuring noises but they did not ease Louise’s anxiety about where the next attack would come from. The stress made her tired and weepy, and her work suffered to the extent that Professor Jackson took her aside.
“Nurse Copperfield,” he said. “You are run down and exhausted. For the first time ever you have given surgeons the wrong patient files, and when I looked into it, you had put the wrong information in other files. Mr Hanson, for example, did not have a C section. I am sorry to say I must return you to General Nursing Duties until you regain your equilibrium.”
That was the last straw. Louise felt ashamed, that she had let the side down. She simply could not face her workmates. Louise did not have to work for a living now she had her share of Frank’s money so she resigned from the hospital. Being on her own did not help her problem as she cried and sat solving Code Cracker problems and reading meaningless Facebook posts.
Her next hurdle was going to be the custody hearing, which Brett Shaw said would be a piece of cake. Louise said to herself that people could choke to death on a piece of cake. She knew that she had to regain her composure before then or she would lose Alexander.
That night, unable to sleep, she picked up the card from the counselling service that she had been given by the police officer who had dealt with Frank’s attack on Kezia. She would go and see them in the morning.
CHAPTER 47.
While Louise was suffering badly from depression, things were not going so well for Frank. Because Frank was going to Court to gain permanent custody of Alexander, he had told Charlotte to leave.
After she left, Frank missed Charlotte. He found her exciting and unpredictable, at times erratic. She often went out early in the morning or in the night, never explaining where she was going. Frank was sure that she was jogging the streets, not walking the streets, as she always wore either a tracksuit or a black hoodie and black track suit pants.
&
nbsp; Charlotte was tall and fair. She often wore a black wig to go with her otherwise Nordic looks, like an avenging Visigoth. Frank liked tall women. Charlotte still had a great figure. Never having had a baby, her stomach was smooth and soft, and her muscles well-toned. Frank liked running his hand over her stomach, softly and rhythmically, feeling her arousal under his touch.
Charlotte found Frank had hidden depths. By carefully organising his food Charlotte managed to take some of the flab off him; he really was a big strong man. More importantly, her previous lovers had been with her just for sex; she fell into the habit of quick arousal and fast finish with them. With Frank it was different. He was a genuine lover, one to keep.
Although her reason for making a relationship with Frank had been to avenge long standing scores with Louise, Charlotte found herself falling in love with Frank in a way she had never felt before.
Then came their breakup. Frank gave her an ultimatum. He was going for custody of Alec; Charlotte having an affair with Bruno was going to place him at a disadvantage because he had to show the authorities Alec would be in a stable family home.
“I’m a free spirit,” said Charlotte. “I’ll do what I want.”
“Then get out of my house,” said Frank. “I love you, Charlotte, but my son comes first.”
Charlotte left the house that Frank was renting. She did not want to go back to Nigel, although she felt she could win him over as she had in the past. Instead she sought out Bruno.
“Frank Copperfield did this,” said Bruno, pointing at his swollen lip that was just beginning to heal. His nose was crooked and swollen too. “He saw me at the Rugby Clubrooms on Friday night and said if I went near you again I’d get a real pasting. Go away Charlotte. You’re trouble.”
Charlotte looked at Bruno and saw him in a different light. He looked like a sleaze who was only out for what he could get, a one night stand man. His bulging biceps and his six pack abs came from a gym, not from a lifestyle. His skin was sallow and his eyes were glassy. It was Bruno who was trouble, not her.
Charlotte had her money from the shop she ran so she took a room in a cheap hotel. For the first time in her adult life she found sex did not ease her depression. She had difficulty getting worked up for it, and although the men she picked up were keen and eager, she wasn’t. Charlotte found that she had changed.
She thought about it as she lay awake in the narrow double bed in the hotel. In what ways was Frank different from other men?
He was strict with her. He set rules and boundaries but explained why. He was patient with her, and was surprisingly kind and loving. He was just like Tom Hoar, her father.
Where she had played Nigel, controlling him with subtle bullying, Charlotte found that she had been sharing equally with Frank.
Would he have her back?
‘Only one way to find out,’ she thought. She dressed and drove back to Frank’s house. She let herself in using her key.
Frank was awake but not yet up.
“Hi, Sharl,” he said, throwing back the cover. “In you get.”
CHAPTER 48.
The counselling service helped Louise considerably. The service was called Anxiety and Depression Counselling. Sessions were quite expensive but Louise could easily afford them. The one on one counselling sessions covered the sorts of issues that Louise was trying to deal with alone. She enjoyed the therapy except for two aspects, the heavy emphasis on suicide prevention and the request that she share her troubles in group sessions with other patients.
As a Catholic, suicide was anathema to Louise. She remained silent and would not talk about suicidal feelings, mainly because she did not have any. She also refused to participate in group therapy sessions. A very private person, she did not want to share her molestation by Bannister with people she did not know. She certainly did not want anyone to know she had been date raped. She wanted just the one on one chats with a counsellor. Both actions were later to be significant.
The counselling helped Louise, who wondered why she had not been to counselling before. She decided that people with money had more choices. On the course, she was learning to rationalize her fears and to prioritise them from worst outcome to best outcome and then assess the probability that each might happen. She learned that anxiety is important as a motivational force and as an alarm system. What was important was to recognise the reason for anxiety so she could deal effectively with it. In Louise’s case, she suffered death by a thousand cuts, imaging future terrible scenarios that were never going to happen. She had to learn to live in the present moment. To help with that, she was taught meditation techniques.
Louise found solace in the realization that she was not her anxiety. Her anxiety belonged to a state of health that she could partly control by breathing slowly, progressively relaxing her muscles and, most importantly, controlling her inner voice. She was allowed fifteen minutes to focus totally on her fears, then to choose the best interpretation of the factors involved. Her nursing training helped her to do this kind of behavioural analysis and she gradually came to feel that she was in control of her fears, not the fears in control of her.
The mentors then arranged for the clients to face their fears; stopping people in the street to persuade them to do something they had to make up, such as telling the time, or borrowing a small sum. Then each person had to take something in their lives that they needed to front up to, write what they expected to happen, deal with the issue, then write down whether what actually happened wa a better or worse result than they had predicted.
Although not keen on the group encounter sessions, Louise loved the group work of the anxiety management part of the course. She felt stronger and more in control.
She now knew that she could contribute meaningfully to the group she and Mary McMillan were now naming ‘Calling Out Monsters’. She felt she was ready to face Frank in the custody case.
CHAPTER 49.
It took weeks before Louise received a letter telling her that the custody hearing was to take place in ten days’ time. Louise was happy and confident. The counselling had boosted her self-esteem, while at the same time there seemed to be a lull in the attacks on her. Kezia was happy and studying hard for the examinations that would allow her to study at university. Kezia could attend the Court hearing but at age sixteen she did not have to unless her mother needed her testimony. Louise’s lawyer thought the meeting would be done and dusted in a morning. That was a mistake, as it turned out.
“You also need to attend a Parenting through Separation course,” said Brett. “It’s all common sense stuff, but it is compulsory if you and Frank can’t sort out an arrangement. Don’t worry, the Court does everything for you. You just need to go.”
Louise enjoyed the course. It was supportive and friendly, and she was allowed to take Kezia along for one part of it.
“Your ex partner has refused to attend,” said Jenny Roburg, who was running the course. “I think you will have to go on to the next stage, which is Mediation. You need to do this because the Court is strict about the welfare of children.”
Louise dutifully filled in all the forms. To her surprise, Frank attended the Mediation meetings. Although quite formal, the sessions were run in a friendly and understanding way. However, Frank would not agree to change the current arrangements and Alexander stayed with him. He simply went back to what he had done in the first place and blocked Louise’s every attempt to be with Alexander.
A lack of agreement sent them on to the final stage, an actual Court decision that would be binding on both. This would be in two parts. .
Brett Shaw told Louise to return to Court and ask for a judgement from a Custody hearing. He could not be at the first meeting, as lawyers were not allowed to attend. If no agreement was reached, lawyers could get involved, and this usually meant private enquiry firms also. This could be expensive.
Louise could see no point in spying on Frank. He loved Alexander and cared for him. Their marriage was over and their assets and Alexand
er had to be shared. What a horrible way to put it.
The first Custody Hearing went well but had no outcome. Frank would only agree to the current arrangement, which he was subverting. Frank said that he would be happy to allow Alexander to be with Louise on alternate weekends, and special days like school concerts, birthdays and Christmas. However, he deeply resented Louise taking Alexander to the Roman Catholic Church and trying to make him a Catholic.
Louise was not sure why Frank had that idea, but she agreed to the arrangement. It had not worked. During the week, Frank hardly saw Alexander. Frank needed to be with Alexander at weekends. He did not want Louise to have Alexander during the week.
“No problem,” said Brett Shaw. “I can attend the second meeting and support your application. I don’t see any problem. You are able to support Alexander, you have a good character and you are his mother. Just expect some dirt to be thrown at you by Frank’s private investigators.”
The next stage was the actual Custody Hearing. It was a disaster. Alexander was taken away from her. For Louise, that was quite unexpected. She had the expectation that children normally stayed with their mothers. She also had the expectation that the procedures would be fair, would even perhaps favour the mother, who would have to be a very bad person to lose her children. She was not expecting the onslaught prepared by Frank’s team of experts. The thought of a private investigator did not faze Louise She had nothing to hide.
The Stalking of Louise Copperfield Page 18
