The Stalking of Louise Copperfield

by Robert W Fisk

  Mollison was silent.

  “I have a bank statement showing that in February this year Mr Stuart Larcombe paid you five thousand dollars. What was that for, Mr Mollison?” Hans used a modulated voice. He knew the replay in Court would show him in a good light. Moss Mollison was silent. “Was it for beating up Mr Joseph Hamilton?”

  More silence.

  “Mr Mollison, the camera is recording us. Please nod or shake your head, or say yes or no.”

  More silence.

  “I have here records that show you travelling by plane from Auckland to Wahanui just before Mr Joseph Hamilton was killed. I also have records showing that you travelled from Auckland to Christchurch just before Goran Moravec died. Would you mind telling me the purpose of your journeys?”

  More silence. Hans went for kill.

  “Thank you Mr Mollison. That will be all we need. Your brother George has accepted our offer of telling the Court that he co-operated fully. He has answered the questions I have just asked you. You refused to co-operate. I am afraid you are likely to get a much longer sentence as the ring leader at least one murder, possibly three.”

  Hans stood and walked out.

  “Come back,” yelled Moss Mollison. Hans did not come back. A warden took Moss back to the remand cell.

  The next day both men appeared in Court. They were taken separately even though they were charged with the same crime, the murder of Joseph Hamilton. George pleaded guilty on the advice of his lawyer, who said that George should take the chance of receiving a shorter sentence if he saved the country time and money. Moss pleaded not guilty. Both were remanded in custody, George pending sentencing and Moss pending trial in Wahanui.

  Hans and Tracey had not finished. Hans interviewed George, while Tracey interviewed Moss.

  “Well done, man,” said Hans to George. “You'll go away for fifteen years, but you will be eligible for parole after ten. Now tell me about Mr Larcombe and the stolen papers.”

  “Will I go to prison if I tell?” asked George.

  “Yes, George. You will. But because you have helped us the Court might put all the killing together. If you get lucky and behave you might get out in twelve years instead of forty. I can't guarantee that, though,” said Hans.

  “When I'm in prison, can I go to school?” asked George.

  “Yes. Many prisoners finish high school and some get a university degree,” Hans replied.

  It was obvious that a new world was opening up for George.

  “I always wanted to go to High School,” said George.

  “Any children, George?” asked Hans.

  “No sir. I'm gay.”

  “Silly boy,” said Tracey in a different room. “You'll go away for at least twenty years, probably with no parole. That means George will serve a minimum of ten and a maximum of fifteen years, while you will serve your time. So, which one of you is stupid?”

  Moss said, “I'm not stupid. Hear me bitch? I'm not stupid.”

  “Yes you are, Moss,” said Tracey quietly. “All crims say 'Don't talk to the cops. Don't co-operate.' But the smart ones do, just like George. You've done the crime, now you serve the time. That's how it works. But the smart guys get out a lot earlier and go to more comfortable prisons.”

  Moss said, “But that tall guy wouldn't listen to me.”

  “You only get one chance in life. You know that, Moss,” said Tracey. “You blew it. No going back.” She stood as if to leave.

  “Moss, do you have anyone you want to send a message to? A wife, a kid?” she asked.

  “Yes. Susie; and my kids Rosie and Tane, six and eight,” said Moss. Tracey heard the name as tar-nay.

  “It will be twenty years before you can really talk to them,” said Tracey. “By then your wife will have someone else, and your two kids will be sending your grandchildren to school. They will grow up without you.”

  Moss stopped to think. He did the sums.

  “We did another job,” said Moss. “Can I co-operate on that?”

  “Moss, if you co-operate we can start at the beginning with Mr Joseph Hamilton then go on to Mr Nigel Jones and Mrs Copperfield,” said Tracey. “If you change your plea to guilty for Mr Hamilton's murder, and co-operate over the murder of Mr Goran Moravec, who you thought was Mr Nigel Jones, and if you say that Mr Larcombe also paid you to kill Mrs Copperfield but you didn’t have to, then we can tell the Court you helped us. Then you'll be the same as George. But you must talk to your lawyer before saying anything. Tomorrow I'll return and we can talk some more.”

  “We didn't do the woman in the bed,” Moss blurted. “We would've roughed her up to make her say where Mr Larcombe's papers were but she was already toast. Her boyfriend stole papers from Mr Larcombe that would send Mr Larcombe to gaol.”

  “Tomorrow, Moss. See your lawyer first,” said Tracey.

  As she passed the room where Hans was interviewing George Mollison Tracey wondered how far the Mollisons would have gone with someone smart directing them.

  When watching the replay of the next set of interviews, this time with lawyers present, Inspector Chadwick, Gareth Evans, Jayne Hyslop, and Bernard Smith could not believe the naivety of the brothers.

  Aroha Fitchett was the lawyer for Moss. Tracey was doing the interview. She was dressed in civilian clothes, a navy blue skirt and jacket, with a frilly blouse which had a low button that Moss could not take his eyes off. Every time Tracey leaned forward, Moss strained to see down the front of her blouse. The team chortled.

  “A hypnotic interview!” said Gareth.

  “Tracey doesn’t use Interview, she uses Hint A View,” laughed Bernard.

  Jayne kicked his ankle hard.

  “OMG!” said Tracey. “I had no idea. I chose the pale blue blouse to match my eyes.”

  “Eye! Eye!” laughed Hans.

  “Shut up. Bunch of bloody teenagers,” said Inspector Chadwick, who was secretly pleased the team had such a good spirit.

  The tapes resumed. Although they had seen the tapes several times, they were still fascinated by the outcome. Inspector Chadwick was seeing the interviews for the first time.

  “We worked for Mr Larcombe, mainly,” said Moss, the brighter of a dull pair. “The gym wasn't doing well, so we began putting the frighteners on people who owed money.”

  “What did Mr Larcombe ask you to do on your first trip to Wahanui?” asked Tracey, on the screen.

  Moss looked at his lawyer, who nodded. “He sent a photo on Messenger. He said he wanted this man shut up. He didn't care what we did as long as he stopped making trouble,” Moss replied.

  “What does that mean?” asked Tracey, leaning forward so far that her bra showed her cleavage. Moss took a moment.

  “I said, what if he snuffs it? He's an old geezer.”

  “What did Mr Larcombe say to that?” asked Tracey.

  Again Moss looked for approval to speak. He was being very careful. “He said there's a big rugby game on soon. There will be thousands of people around. Follow him to the pub. When he's had a few drinks, being an old guy he'll have to pee, so get him on his own in the toilet and convince him to stop making trouble. If he dies, it could be anyone who did it. Put a note on the wall, death to homosexuals, or something.”

  Moss was beginning to sweat. Even to his own ears the story did not sound good.

  “Ms Fox, may I have a private word with my client, please?” asked Moss's lawyer, Aroha Fitchett.

  Aroha Fitchett took a long time. When she returned she had a statement in her hand.

  “I would like to read this statement to you,” she said. “I wrote it at his dictation. If you find it acceptable then I will ask my client to swear to it.”

  “I, Moss Mollison, was paid $5,000 by Mr Stuart Larcombe to assault Mr Joseph Hamilton in order to persuade him to stop attacking Mr Larcombe's submissions to the Wahanui Council and criticising Council procedures. Mr Joseph Hamilton unfortunately died during the assault, which was carried out partly by me and partly by my brother, Ge
orge Mollison. Mr Larcombe paid me a further $5,000 when Mr Hamilton died.”

  “I would like to run that past the Prosecution Service,” said Tracey, smiling at the camera.

  “Wait, Detective. There is more. Before you get it, I would like you to agree to report to the Court that my client has fully co-operated and been completely open regarding your twin investigation.”

  Aroha Fitchett waited. The team saw on the replay the satisfaction on Tracey’s face.

  “If Mollison has been honest with us and accepts a guilty plea, we would be happy to report that he has been open and has co-operated fully in all three investigations,” said Tracey’s image.

  “In that case, let me do your job for you, then perhaps George can make a similar statement,” Aroha Fitchett said. “I, Moss Mollison was paid $10,000 by Mr Stuart Larcombe to assault Mr Nigel Jones in Christchurch to make him hand over papers he had stolen from Mr Larcombe. If he did not hand them over or say where they were, I was to get rid of him where nobody would find him. When I told Mr Larcombe that Jones had not told me where the papers were but that he had been silenced Mr Larcombe told me to go to Wahanui to Jones's partner and get the papers from her. He would pay me another $5,000 for doing that. He said that her husband wanted to silence her and had given Mr Larcombe $10,000. We thought that we just had to get the papers and didn’t want trouble.

  “When George and I got to Wahanui there was a terrible storm and no lights. The lady was lying on the bed with a big guy on top of her. The woman he was having sex with was either unconscious or dead. I grabbed him by the shoulder and in the light of my torch all I could see was blood everywhere. His throat had been cut. He was dead in the middle of having it off.”

  “I left his verbatim comment in,” said Trudy Fitchett. “I think it gives authenticity to his statement.”

  She continued to read from Moss’s statement. “We had a quick look with our torches for the papers and left her there. Then we told Mr Larcombe that the lady was dead. We didn’t say about her boyfriend. He would not pay us for the papers but we got $10,000 even though she was already dead.”

  “I want to know what they saw, a gun, a knife? How did they know she was dead?” asked Tracey. Aroha Fitchett left the room again. When she returned, she had an amended report.

  “Moss has added a little,” said Aroha Fitchett. “I quote, 'The lady was lying in bed, not breathing just dead, and there were pills on the cabinet next to the bed. We thought she had taken drugs to kill herself. We did not want to be blamed by the police so we had a quick look with our torches for the papers and left her there. We told Mr Larcombe that we had done it so we would get paid.' ”

  “Again, I need to run that past the Prosecution Service,” said Tracey, her look almost regretful on the replay. “Otherwise, I think your clients have made a true but incriminating statement that should help the work of the Court. Whether the Court is grateful is beyond my control, sorry.”

  “I understand,” said Aroha Fitchett. “I will ask the Court whether the Mollisons are fit to plead, but I think the answer will be they are stupid not crazy.”

  Inspector Chadwick stayed with the team while Sergeant Gareth Evans finished up the paperwork. The Mollisons’ statements and guilty pleas would close the case quickly. Because of her heightened mothering instincts Jayne had a sneaking hope that the Court would appreciate their co-operation.

  It appeared obvious that Charlotte had taken enough pills to kill herself but there was a suspicion that Bannister had forced pills on her. The fingerprints on the bottle and on the glass indicated that he had in fact fed her the pills, whether by force or by request. The Coroner ruled death by unnatural causes at the hand of David Bannister. Mr and Mrs Hoar were grateful for the nature of verdict. The question still remained, who had killed David Bannister.

  CHAPTER 97.

  There were still loose ends to be tidied up. Where had the Pindone come from? And what about the Valium?

  The Valium was discovered to be an old prescription for equine toothache, a common complaint for horses. Years ago approved managers of studs and stables were permitted to administer medications to animals that were suffering pain. Thomas Hoar had held such a permit. It was time to visit Mr and Mrs Hoar.

  Bernard found them alive and well, and still living on the farm. They were not ancient and decrepit as Bernard had feared. Instead he faced two tall and very fit horse people in their fifties or early sixties. Both were dressed to ride.

  “Hello, I am PC Bernard Smith, from Wahanui,” he said by way of introduction.

  “I'm Tom. This is Alice,” said Tom Hoar.

  “I was involved in the investigation into Charlotte’s tragic death. You must have been devastated.”

  Husband and wife looked at each other to decide who would respond. It was Alice Hoar who took the initiative.

  “We were gutted, Detective. And drugs! We could not believe it,” said Alice Hoar.

  “The Coroner’s Report decided on a balance of probability that her death was murder by a person unknown, probably David Bannister,” said Bernard.

  “That bastard,” said Tom Hoar, without looking at his wife to see who should respond. “I knew him first in Jaycees and then in Rotary. I always thought he was genuine until I saw the television programme.”

  He pronounced the word as the American ‘jen you wine’, not as the British ‘jen you win’. Bernard picked up on the pent up anger in Tom Hoar’s response but left following up for a short time. The outburst gave Hoar motivation to murder. If Hoar had seen Louise’s expose and then realised that instead of Mrs X as a teen it was his daughter Charlotte then Bernard could see Tom Hoar doing exactly what Louise had done: sought revenge for the monstrous offence against Charlotte when she was a vulnerable teen.

  Bernard held back. He needed a direct link with Bannister or the scene of the murder.

  He said, “I am tracking down everybody who bought Valium for equine toothache.”

  “Wow,” said Mrs Hoar. “That's going back a long time!”

  “We had them when we ran the stud,” said Tom Hoar. “Now we just have a stables, looking after other people's horses and teaching kids to ride. Nowadays, we use NSAIDS, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs like phenylbutazone and Banamine. It must be twenty years since we used diazepam.”

  “We have an equine dentist in the district now, been here about seven or eight years, and we leave everything to her,” said Alice Hoar.

  “May I see your drug cabinet, please?” asked Bernard. Tom Hoar took him to an office attached to the boxes where the horses were kept. A young man and a young woman were working with the horses. As far as Bernard could see there were about a dozen animals to be cared for.

  Tom Hoar opened the full length cupboard with a key he took from a rack on the wall. Inside the locked cabinet was a large locked strongbox on a shelf. On top of the box was a book, probably a register of drug use. Tom opened the strongbox. Inside were some shelves and on the shelves were bottles, jars and phials. He looked hard at the labels before picking up a particular bottle.

  “Here you are,” he said, holding the bottle in his hand.

  “May I take them please?” asked Bernard, putting on gloves and then searching for an evidence bag.

  “Keep them. We'll never use them again,” smiled Tom.

  Bernard now knew that both the Pindone and the Valium had come from the Hoars. He knew that Tom Hoar was angry with Bannister. He also had Tom Hoar’s handprint on the glass bottle of pills.

  Back in Wahanui, the bottle, which still contained some tablets, was sent for analysis and comparison with the tablets from beside Louise's bedside cabinet. They matched. Finger prints were lifted and compared with the print left on the bed head. Tom’s left hand matched the print found on the bedhead where Bannister had been murdered.

  Forensics descended on the farm as soon as Tom Hoar was arrested for the murder of David Bannister. They found a pack of scalpels one of which could have been used on Bannist
er.

  Tom Hoar readily confessed. During the Deluge, Alice and Tom had ridden their horses around flooded areas and across parks and reserves, joined farmers trying to rescue stock, and checked on friends and their daughter Charlotte.

  It was while checking whether Charlotte was visiting her friend Louise that Tom came across Bannister and Charlotte in Louise’s bed. He did not recognise Charlotte who had a flannel covering her eyes. The woman in the bed had black hair, while Charlotte’s hair was blonde.

  Ashamed at first of his embarrassing discovery of Louise having sex, Tom retreated to the passageway. He recognised Bannister. He thought that Bannister was taking revenge on Louise for her television programme. But she had not moved, even when the torch flicked over her. Suddenly Tom was alarmed. Shielding his flashlight he, went back into the room.

  Bannister’s head was between the woman’s thighs. He raised his head, looked at Tom then said, “Tom, come to see Charlotte getting it?”

  Tom knew immediately that his worst fears were realised. The programme on television had been about Charlotte, even though no names had been given. This monster had abused Charlotte while she was still at school, and now he was doing the same to Louise for exposing him.

  Tom’s sheath knife was on his belt, the knife he always carried on the farm and had with him while involved in search and rescue work. He drew his knife and lunged across the bed. Before Bannister could move, Tom leaned over him and twisted Bannister’s head so his throat was exposed. Just as he would if Bannister had been a sheep he sliced with the knife and cut the carotid artery on the left and then on the right, making an incision below the carotid sinus as he had done so many times before with animals so death was quick. Bannister died without moving. Tom held Bannister’s head, pressing it down slightly to stop any jet of blood spraying the walls, until he knew Bannister was dead beyond recovery. Apart from the blood on the bed and over Louise there was little to show except two small cuts on the neck.