the Immaculate Deception serialised on The Noise

Bellshill bhoy said:
Billy rose from the dead, zombie like, hated every living thing
Billy tied to bite everything that moved
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Chapter 2
every full moon, wee billy bobs captor, known as the very grand master billy fritzl aka dad, would let wee billy bob out from under the stairs for a day to take part in a hallow ed/een sexual ritual with billymeena aka mum and billyetta aka sis and a goat....
 
“Charming!”

“If anyone in New Zealand could know how to hypnotically programme someone to kill and not be able to remember having done so, that would be Charlie Lambert.’

“Not remember. That was the bit at the end,”

“Yeah, he’s told me he can easily rapidly implant a powerful and often permanent amnesia suggestion using hypnosis.”

“That’s right, he called it amnesia. It’s apparently a well-known hypnotic phenomenon particularly for a virtuoso like Anna.”

Belinda was quite excited with her knowledge of Charlie’s work. “I know he researched some stuff years ago about the CIA trying to get several hypnotised Cuban people to want to assassinate Fidel Castro and yet still think they were patriots helping Cuba so they would not feel guilty at all. They all failed miserably. The CIA in the 60's were apparently totally obsessed with finding different ways of killing off Castro and had lots of attempts or so he tells me, even an exploding cigar would you believe. He told me it was called Project Ultra. Top secret but now known to top American hypnotists who all were tricked into studying different aspects of the possibility of cleverly deceiving people without knowing the actual end point of their research. He also studied a lot about that guy, I forget what his name was, the one who shot and killed Bobby Kennedy and who still claims even today he was hypnotised by someone and has no memory of ever carrying out the shooting at all, even though he most definitely did it.”

“Fascinating stuff, will you be able to testify in court Belinda? How you accidentally found Mrs. Murdoch’s phone and heard the message on it and came across it by sheer accident?”

“Absolutely Penny. I want to. He was a cheating shit to me as a wife, but what an absolute bastard to use his sister-in-law as the deadly weapon to kill Billy without her even realising she was doing it. She'll be totally devastated to learn she was appallingly tricked by him when she finds out about this. I don’t know how she will react. She will be stunned at first of course and I’d assume she’ll be incredibly angry with him. I don’t think even our St Anna will ever be able to forgive him for that. Not even the Pope himself would be able to forgive him surely.”

“I also can’t imagine her being able to ever forgive him.”

“I do note Belinda, at no point does he tell her to kill him. I know it certainly sounds like he did, but carefully look at the transcript I’ve written down. It’s quite clear. He tells her to stop him. He tells her to use the knife. He never tells her what to do with it on the message. But wait


’s classical and typical Charlie. He even explained that to me earlier. It’s called inference. If he tells her Billy is mad, and she thinks he will kill her mother she has no option but to do whatever it takes to save her mother. That’s classical textbook lack of mens rea. That’s him using powerful inference during hypnosis with a code word over the phone. He made her think it was her own idea to kill Billy. Wow that’s quite a clever trick. He made her in fact believe she had no option but to kill him. He implants a powerful amnesia that of course works so well with a virtuoso, so she has absolutely no memory of killing him.”

“What an absolute bastard!”

“But why is this message on the cell phone left for us and the police to hear. Her phone could have turned up anytime Belinda. It should have turned up ages ago. Right away in fact. The first morning. Anna should never have been sent to prison on remand. I’ll need to give the police an official complaint. That’s a total dereliction of duty. So careless of them.”

“Leaving a voicemail, clearly a huge mistake for a clever man like him to make. It's virtually a confession. No wait! Belinda, it's much more. It is a confession. It explains absolutely everything that we know. Her fingerprints being on the knife, the blood spray pattern on her nightdress, her complete memory loss and everything. She did the killing but had no idea she was doing wrong. It never breached her conscience. In her mind it was self-defence of her and her mother. That’s a slam dunk way of finding her not guilty and certainly innocent but getting a guilty verdict for Charlie. That mistake is like an own goal of massive proportions.”

“I know. What an absolute dick!”

“This message on the phone will be more than enough to send him to jail. He’s bound to get at least 20 years for this.”

“With any luck!”

“I still don't understand though. How could he make such a glaringly obvious mistake by leaving the voicemail message on her phone? It’s right there for anyone with the access code to hear. The police ought to have heard it straight away. If they had, Mrs. Murdoch could and should never even have been taken to jail in the first place.”

“I've been thinking about the answer to how he could have made such a humungous mistake ever since I first heard it.”

“And?”
 
“Well......what if he expected Anna to wake up and answer her phone when it quietly rang probably under her pillow? If she did immediately answer it, it wouldn’t go to her voicemail. He presumably never meant his words to be recorded and for anyone else to hear him. When you listen to it, it gives you three options, press 1 to replay the message, press 2 to save and press three to delete. If you don’t press any button at all it still registers as being a new voicemail message.”

“True! That would explain it being that way.”

“The phone rings. Anna, being a deep sleeper now, due to Charlie’s super successful treatment of her insomnia, sleeps all through the sound of her phone going off until after it goes to voicemail which makes a different noise and that’s when she now slowly wakens up from a deep sleep and when she gets to the phone, she listens not to the call but to the voicemail and that’s when she first hears the message. She does what the message tells her to do straight away and she puts the phone down and of course has no memory of doing it. His skilful insomnia therapy he carried out on her has undone him. He would have expected her to answer it and hear these words. No trace of the content.”

“But surely Charlie would know he was talking to her voicemail and not directly to her.”

“No. Not at all. He wouldn’t know at all.”

“Huh!”

” Her answerphone message you hear when you call her, believe it or not, says 'Anna here'. That’s all he would hear. It's hard to tell at times you're talking to her answering service and not to Anna herself. I've made that mistake myself when I call Anna sometimes. I've told her for ages she ought to change it. It’s so easy to change it and fix it. Thank God she didn't.”

“How completely ironic. Charlie has been hoisted by his own petard.”

“What does that mean?”

“Oh, defeated by his own weapon, he was the one after all who helped her become a great sleeper.”

“Anna listens after he leaves the message and doesn’t press any button to delete or save it as she immediately carries out his orders as he instructed on the message that would leave the phone as still showing one new voice message eh. That’s the way I found it but when I heard it, as I told you, I automatically pressed save after I heard it, without thinking, out of sheer habit because it was so important.”

“Yes, it would have been a new voice message. You're quite right.”

“She places the phone on the bedside table in the dark, but probably more likely when she tried to switch off her alarm in the morning in the dark it must have fallen down the back of the cabinet and got wedged behind it on a sort of a ledge. If you glanced down the back of the cabinet, you’d probably never see it. It’s a black phone. In all the drama of the next morning she totally forgets all about where her phone is.”

“We can check his phone records for outgoing calls from his phone at that time, but I presume he’ll have been smart enough to have placed the call from a public telephone which would probably make it anonymous and untraceable. The police might be able to use this phone to track down what phone was used to send the voice message and even from where the call was made from. Thank God it went onto voicemail and you found it. If she had answered the phone when it rang there would be no vocal record of the contents of a call. We would never have known this evidence. You know the more I think about it, it was almost, almost the perfect crime. A remotely controlled killer with total amnesia for carrying out the crime. Wow! You've solved the big mystery Belinda.”
 
“Penny! Be honest with me. What do you think would have happened to Anna if I hadn’t accidentally found her phone?”

“Belinda, I’ll be totally frank with you. Mrs. Murdoch’s trial would have been quick and ended with a unanimous guilty verdict from the jury and a bloody long prison sentence from the judge for cold blooded killing. I could think of nothing I could say to them could possibly counter the evidence of her two-handed fingerprint position on the knife handle and the blood splatter on the front of her nightdress and the locked house. I cannot tell you how important this find of yours is. If you hadn’t found the phone Belinda, it might not have shown up for ages if ever and even if it did, the person who found it might not have realised the significance of it. No one even lives in the house. It might even have been tossed in the rubbish. This phone message you’ve brought me will be more than enough to keep her out of prison and put Charlie in it for an awfully long time. Once I play this message to the policeman in charge of the prosecution, I ‘m sure it’ll change absolutely everything. Mrs. Murdoch could even be released today. She should be. This is brilliant. This calls for a celebration in a style Charlie himself would certainly approve of.”

Penny pressed her intercom button, “Jess can you bring in the Friday special and some whisky glasses. Make it three glasses and do come in and join us. Belinda here has brought some wonderful news. Our client Mrs. Anna Murdoch is completely innocent. We’ve got the proof we need, and you can certainly bring in the 70 proof and three tumblers.”

Jess entered carrying a tray with a bottle of Laphroig whisky and three elegant whisky tumblers. “The Friday special even though it's only a Thursday?” queried Jess.

“Well it's a special Thursday today, Jess, you won’t believe this incredible news. Belinda has found Mrs. Murdoch's cell phone behind a bedside cabinet in Mrs. Murdoch’s bedroom and it turns out there's a voice message on it. The message is in Charlie Lambert’s voice and it proves she was turned into a hypnotically programmed assassin, tricked into killing Billy and developing permanent amnesia of her killing him.”

Jess’s eyes bulged with surprise, “Incredible, hypnotised by a phone message! I never knew that was even possible. Thank goodness you found it Belinda. We've been looking for her phone for ages. Where was it? Where did you find it?”

“It was down the back of her bedside cabinet wedged on a ledge. completely out of sight.”

“What a fluke.”

Penny poured out some generous measures of whisky for everyone. Belinda raised her glass and sniffed at the whisky and the unexpected smoky peatiness of it made her sharply recoil in surprise and she enquired, “What is it?”

“It’s Laphroaig! The finest smoky peaty malt whisky the distilleries on the island of Islay can make. The perfect drink for any celebration.”

Penny knocked back her whisky. Belinda and Jess both sipped with a degree of caution.

“Laphroig is so smoky and peaty and so different from a far milder Glenmorangie for instance. It’s an acquired taste for most people even to people who are used to drinking whisky. Well, Charlie my darling. My Young Chevalier”, announced Penny referring to a famous Scots song, “This voice message you've accidentally left on the phone is like a Get out of Jail Free Card for Anna Murdoch, and as for you Charlie, there’ll be no more malt whisky to savour for many a year for you. And remember one piece of great advice from me, don’t ever, ever drop the soap in the shower and bend over to get it. Where you’re going Charlie sweet talking and flirting as you like to do will most certainly get you the admiration and loving affection you and in particular your arsehole most definitely doesn’t ever want to receive.”

With this last unexpected comment Belinda and Jess both choked on their whisky with laughter.
 
Penny raised her right hand, “But wait a minute. Wait a minute. I forgot. We’ve now got proof of method. That voice message confirms and clears Mrs. Murdoch of any volition or free will or choice. She was not aware of what she was doing. She was deceived. She was unwittingly hypnotised, and she wasn't aware of what had happened. A bit like sleepwalking but even more so. There was also permanent amnesia. She did stab Billy but, and this is the crucial legal thing, there was no conscious intent by her to choose to kill him or have no memory. That's the key thing. There's plenty of previous legal precedents of sleepwalking where people were held to be incapable of conscious intent and released. Apparently, hypnosis is all subconscious not conscious. I can probably get some top-notch Australian hypnosis expert to give me the same sort of technical information Charlie gave me to explain how he was able to dominate her without her breaching her values at all by using deception and developing such profound amnesia in her. That’s all I need for an immediate discharge without conviction. In fact, what am I saying Belinda? I don’t have any need to do anything of the sort at all. I’m a defence lawyer, I’m not the prosecution. That’s a job for the police and the prosecution team, not one for me. Once I explain to Tim Davidson the huge significance of Anna being a hypnotic virtuoso and all the other things Charlie explained they will have no option but to release Anna and arrest Charlie. The police will be the ones wanting to contact the Aussie hypnosis experts.”

Jess piped in “But what about motive? That’s important. Why would Charlie possibly want her to kill Billy Murdoch? How would that help him?”

“Well done Jess you’re quick on the uptake, a good question. Precisely. That’s what I was about to ask. What’s the possible murderous connection between Charlie and Billy? There also has to be a powerful motive for it to make complete sense. Why did Charlie hate Billy? Or to put it another way, why would Anna killing Billy be of significant benefit to Charlie?”

“I think I might know the probable answer,” replied Belinda smugly.

“Give me a strong motive to add to the means of murder and I guarantee you Belinda we or rather the police and prosecutor will be able to put Charlie away for a long time. And I’m bloody sure I’ll be able to rummage in this desk and find a box of fine Cuban cigars somewhere to celebrate in a style I’m sure even Charlie Lambert would probably approve of.”

“Well Penny you need to know Charlie is a longstanding and at times quite heavy gambler, but he’s not a particularly good one. He usually only wants to place a bet when he’s had a half bottle or more of whisky in his belly. He gets 'gambling clarity’ after quite a few drams of single malt he always claims. Billy Murdoch, I can tell you if you don’t already know, as well as being a casual painter and decorator in the last few years was an illegal bookmaker. That’s where most of his money came from. All cash. Anna never had a clue about that lucrative side-line of his. Everyone else knows about Billy the bookie. Anna believed absolutely everything he said to her. He told her he got his money from sports betting which is technically true. He missed out the part he was the one who took the sports bets. She’s so naïve! Such a Goody Two-Shoes is Anna. Telling her about Billy’s real job, well it would be a bit like telling a small child Santa Clause did not exist.”

“Billy was a bookmaker? An illegal bookmaker?”

“Yeah. I’ve spoken to Billy heaps of times. He has been a bookmaker since he was 13. Even at school that’s where his bug for bookmaking apparently started.”

“A schoolboy bookmaker? You’re not serious Belinda. Are you?”
 
“I’m absolutely serious Penny. He told me about it several times over the years. Lots about betting in minute detail. I can still remember heaps of what he told me. He was my brother-in law after all. He knew I’d never tell Anna of course. His uncle, his father’s elder brother I think it was, worked for the TAB as what’s called an odds setter. There are only a few people in New Zealand who know how to do that job well. He explained every aspect of his job to young Billy who was fascinated. Billy listened carefully to his uncle explaining the way odds were expertly calculated on a sports game down to a decimal point as they are in New Zealand without any emotion or bias. Well his obsession with bookmaking all began soon after the tutoring by his uncle all those many years ago when there used to be a children’s cartoon show each week on TV called The Whacky Races about a weekly car race. Everyone I knew at my school loved the programme and we all used to race home to watch it after school. There were no videos in those days, so you had to watch it live.”

“I remember cartoon show. I loved watching it too.”

“Billy sussed out that there were 10 car drivers who could win in any episode and the winner each week seemed to be completely random and unpredictable. There was no skill at all involved in picking the race winner. No way of knowing next week’s result. This was before the Internet or YouTube. It was a 1 in 10 chance. I can’t remember many of the names of the drivers other than Penelope Pitstop and Peter Perfect and there was also an evil character called Dick Dastardly with a laughing dog called Muttley. Dick would use every dirty devious trick to try to win by cheating in lots of different ways and even when it seemed he would win, he would never ever win.

“Muttley’s hysterical laugh and evil grin whenever Dick got his predictable comeuppance each episode I can still well remember. I used to imitate it a lot when I was young. I’m also stumped for the other names too


. wait I’ve got one
The Ant Hill Mob that’s another one! You say there were 10? I used to know them all off by heart. How do you know all this detail Belinda?”

“Billy was a bit of a bad lad and I’ve always been a bit of bad girl, so we talked quite a lot when he was my brother-in-law. He told me he came up with the astonishingly entrepreneurial idea of offering his mates a $4 return if they could pick the winner in the upcoming race and give him $1. Quadruple your money guys. Nearly all the boys at his school, it was all boys of course, cos he was at St Pat’s Town, good Catholic school, wanted to take a punt each week on the next race. It wasn’t gambling as such to them; it was a flutter, a laugh. There were lots and lots of boys at that school. I’ve known lots of them, I’ve been shagged by quite a few of them in my time. Randy as, are those Catholic boys. If 80 boys for instance bet a $1 and the bets were evenly spread, 8 boys on average would pick the winner. Those eight boys would be happy to get back $4 and would cost Billy $32 in pay-outs. 70 boys though would each lose a dollar each week and think so what if you lost a $1. Better luck next week perhaps. Billy collected an easy $48 each week. $80 total stake money versus $32 pay-out. He was pissed off when the cartoon series stopped showing on TV. He never found anything again that was so incredibly simple and lucrative.”

“Astonishing. What an entrepreneur. What odds did he offer you Belinda if you picked Dick Dastardly do you happen to know?”

“Oh, that was the brilliant bit. Billy even at that young and tender age totally understood the greed, stupidity and naivety of many of his young mates. He told me he offered them a massive $100 return if you put your dollar on Dick Dastardly getting a victory. He couldn’t believe the number of mugs who reckoned this week Dick might eventually triumph and so placed and of course lost yet another dollar. Boys of that age never realised the American cartoon makers could never possibly allow Dick Dastardly to ever win. It was a cartoon show for children. The baddie and cheat can never possibly win in an American show for kids. Dick could get close, but he could never ever win. No way. That gave him another few dollars. He told me he made well over $60 each week and he was still only 13 years old.”

“Incredible.”

“The Football World Cup was on and Billy found there was a whole stream of boys believing their knowledge of football was excellent. Especially the English lads at the school, the Poms. Billy however realized every time a football game was drawn, all the boys who had bet on either team winning each lost their stake money, that’s what got him hooked so young on bookmaking. He loved offering odds on football more than rugby. There are lots more drawn games in football. Virtually none of the boys ever picked a draw. They usually picked one side or the other. Apparently draws are about 20% or more in football. That’s a lot of lost bets. Draws are a lot rarer in rugby. When they happen all the gamblers lose. No one ever tends to pick a draw in rugby. Recently he’s told me he’s taken a lot of money on American basketball. He himself never gambled as far as I know. He left that to what he called the mugs.”

“Why didn’t the teachers at school stop him? Surely they would find out fairly soon?”

“Well, the teachers did find out about the Wacky Races scheme of course they did. Fairly soon. You can’t possibly keep a thing like that a secret in an all-boys’ school or in any school. Everyone was talking about it. The teachers all knew what he was doing but it seemed like they didn’t care. It was a measly dollar after all. So what? I don’t think they ever realised for a moment how much in total was being wagered on it each week. Some of them apparently jokingly said it was a good arithmetic lesson for the boys to learn. Some of the teachers even quietly placed a bet for themselves with Billy on their favourite so he told me.”

“No way!”

“Absolutely. Even the Headmaster once apparently called Billy up to see him to his office one day and Billy was shit scared of the Headmaster giving him a serious telling him off or even expelling him or telling his parents. The Headmaster stood up and looked incredibly stern and he asked Billy if he were indeed running a weekly book on the Wacky Races and was offering odds of 4 to 1 on who would win later in the week. Billy nearly peed his pants on the spot he told me and nodded, waiting for the worst. The Headmaster pointed at him and with a deep gravelly voice asked Billy




 if he could put $10 on Penelope Pitstop winning the race in the next episode.
 
Penny could not stop herself grinning from ear to ear. The thought of a 13-year-old bookmaker taking weekly bets from lots of the boys at his school and even from the staff and headmaster was quite amusing.

“Billy stayed away from offering odds on the horses of course. Too unpredictable and sometimes fixed he would say apparently. He never ever trusted jockeys. Never trust a little runty bastard bloke who doesn’t ever want to eat fish and chips he used to always say. He preferred offering odds on team sports. Usually multiples or in recent years points spread for rugby or basketball. The boys were far more interested in that than horses. That’s for grown-ups. I’ve talked a lot about his bookmaking history with him. He explained it to me and I remember it all. He would offer you odds that were a bit better than the ones you could get at the TAB. The boys were of course not allowed to go into the TAB. For instance, say if England were playing football in a big tournament like the World Cup and the TAB was offering you a $10 return for a $1 bet for an England tournament victory Billy might offer you $11. So, when you won with him you got a slightly better return from him, $11 if England won. A $10 bet on England winning would however return you a massive $110 if they did win. Better than the TAB. Most gamblers who bet often tend to lose far more often than they win. They usually forget and tend to only remember their big wins. Favourites remember are just that, favourites, but they still quite often lose because they are not certainties. Also with the grown-ups in recent years if someone wanted to place a large bet, say as much as $1000, Billy always had the nous to immediately make the same bet with the TAB on the app on his phone so if the punter was in the know and won big, Billy instead of having to pay out $11,000 had cover and so he would only have only have a small loss of $1000 due to hedging his stake with the TAB by putting on the same bet with them as they would pay him out $10,000. Mostly the mugs who want to bet on England over here at those odds would end up losing their $1000. The last time England won the Football World Cup was well over 50 years ago for goodness sake. He reckons the England football fans who live here are totally deluded optimists who always reckon this year is their time and they are destined to overcome the odds. Billy loves taking money off the Poms if ever he can. Everyone who bets on England to win the football World Cup always ends up a loser. The TAB also never negotiates odds with you. Billy might possibly consider doing it. The more I think about it I reckon Billy more likely might offer you odds of a more realistic say 10.2 rather than 11 so you would only make an extra $200 with him over the return from the TAB and would be all he would potentially lose. He might in fact offer 10.1. That makes more sense, as I explain it to you. It’s still better than the TAB and who would sniff at getting $100 extra. He used to always say gambling was a tax on the mathematically illiterate and there was essentially little difference between what he did and the government allowing twice weekly Lotto. Gambling on Lotto is for dreamers with no understanding of the actual extreme odds of winning he used to often say. He also would let you place a bet with him even when you were in debt with him if he knew he could eventually collect from you. Find his debtor records, his little red book or laptop or phone or whatever it was, and I’m sure you’ll find one Charlie Lambert with a large number in red after his name. Charlie often mentioned his many visits to Billy as a bookmaker to me. I never told Anna about any of this stuff of course. I don’t think she ever found out where his wads of cash came from. She told me he had told her he got the cash from sports betting, which is what he used to tell her and which in a way is completely truthful. He was always good at keeping secrets from her. She is such a goody two shoes. She is so naïve. She trusts everyone and because she is scrupulously honest, she assumes most people are always being honest with her. She’s the most gullible person I know. “
 
“That's certainly a possible motive for murder Belinda. Charlie might indeed have a big gambling debt with Billy. Belinda, as soon as I take this phone with this incredible voicemail to the police, I’m sure they’ll have to release Mrs. Murdoch and promptly arrest Charlie. Those events could all take place in less than 24 hours. This voice message left accidentally on the phone certainly proves she had no mens rea, that's a legal Latin term we use for having a 'guilty mind'. Mens rea is an essential component of finding someone guilty, we learned this in law school. The standard common law test of criminal liability is expressed in the Latin phrase ‘actus reus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea’, which means ‘the act is not culpable unless the mind is guilty’. In other words, if you don't know what you were doing you can't be found guilty of committing a crime. It’s what we lawyers have always used as a defence claim for people who happen to have insanity. It's a slam dunk legal defence if it can be proved in court. It always works. This voicemail means it would be totally unreasonable to keep her in the remand cell or to even think about continuing the prosecution of her after they hear this recording. This is awesome news Belinda. I’m so excited! I’ve never ever had anything like this dramatic happen in my legal career so far. It’s so exciting. Thank you so much, Belinda. You have no idea how much of a difference your discovery has made. You have stopped your sister going to prison for decades.”

“Glad to be of help to you Penny. See you soon, guys. I need to go. I’ll be late for work if I don’t get moving.” Belinda stood up and left.

Penny turned to Jess. “Jess, I want you to get me Detective Tim Davidson at Wellington Central Police Station on the line as soon as possible.”

“Certainly. This is exciting. Right away Penny,”

Penny punched the air with gleeful delight. Her seemingly totally impossible task of creating a defence case of Mrs. Anna Murdoch was now for the first time eminently possible.

The phone on her desk soon rang. Penny picked up the phone, “Is that you, Tim? Penny Hargreaves here from Foster, Gillespie and Wong. I’ve come into possession of some crucial new evidence in the Anna Murdoch case you need to see, or rather need to hear. I guarantee you it completely changes everything. It proves beyond a shadow of a doubt Anna Murdoch my client despite all the evidence you have accumulated is a completely innocent person. 
I’m being totally serious Tim

. I am
this is not some weird sort of a joke. It’s true
her sister Belinda found Mrs. Murdoch’s cell phone in the bedroom your forensic guys unbelievably managed to miss. And it turns out there’s an incriminating voicemail on it completely exonerating Mrs Murdoch. She’s brought it to me and I’ve listened to it. D’you want me to bring it down to you at the station or do you want to come here and get it? 

Certainly Tim, no problem.... I can bring it down to you right now with pleasure.”

Penny pressed the intercom. “Jess, I need to leave the office for an hour. I’m off to Wellington Central Police HQ.”
 
Later that same afternoon at Police Headquarters Chief Inspector Mary Potts was again speaking with Detective Tim Davidson. “So where are you up to Tim with the Murdoch case now? I’ve heard a weird rumour going around there’s been a major and unexpected development come up this morning. Spit it out Tim. Gimme all the gory details.”

“Well Chief you know from before how we have the clear-cut evidence Mrs. Murdoch’s fingerprints are all over the handle of the carving knife in a characteristic two-fisted plunging power way and we’ve also got the typical blood spatter pattern on the front of her nightdress and even the strand of her hair in the wound. Well we can now conclusively prove beyond any doubt at all she was indeed the killer. The one who plunged the knife into her husband’s chest. That’s now as I say beyond any doubt. But Chief, and this is a huge no humongous but 


. we now also have proof she was completely unaware she was doing the stabbing. She had no control or even desire to do so. Turns out she was in fact hypnotized by a phone message to do it. She absolutely didn’t know she was doing it.”

“Seriously? Is this some sort of a wind up from you Tim?”

“I know it sounds weird Chief, but we’ve come into possession of a voicemail on her phone. The message from the ex-husband of her younger sister who’s the shit hot hypnotist in town with the entire hypnosis message on the voicemail. In the voicemail message he tells her to kill her husband because the husband is planning to kill her and her mother and she of course believes him totally and carries out his command and the bastard wait for it, tells her to forget everything and she does so. It’s a damming voicemail message. It completely explains why she has absolutely no memory of doing the deed despite the clear fact she did it. Why she is so consistently insistent she is innocent despite all the physical evidence she did indeed kill him.”

“Why now? How come you only have her phone now? The crime was ages ago. You should have had that phone from the get-go. Where was it found?”

“What can I say Chief? The phone was in the crime site bedroom all the time. I know. I know, don’t start. There’s no excuse. It was wedged down the back of a bedside cabinet. It was her lawyer who gave it to us, and it was her sister who found it accidentally in the crime scene bedroom. It has been a total forensic balls-up. No excuses are possible. I’ve given the entire forensic team on the case an absolute bollocking myself.”

“Any idea of a murder motive for the hypnotist yet?”

“Turns out the deceased as we’ve known for a while was a small-time illegal bookmaker and the top shot hypnotist owed him over $40,000.”

“That’s a lot of money!”

“That’s means and motive.”

“Why is the incriminating message on a voicemail? That’s unbelievably stupid.”

“Her lawyer also has a pretty good theory about that as well Chief, turns out it was a fluky bit of luck, especially for Mrs. Murdoch.”

“Well I need to hear this incriminating voicemail for myself. If it’s what you say it is, I insist you find that hypnotist ASAP and arrest and charge him with murder today. Lock up the bastard. Shit. Shit, wait till the press guys get a hold of this cracker twist. That bizarre twist will make the front post of The Dom for sure. The reporters will love this sort of mind control shit. They were wetting themselves over the chef sticks a carving knife in the chest of her husband angle, but this will have them creaming themselves. Make sure this slimy bastard gets found guilty. I’m holding you responsible to get this to Crown Law ASAP. Oh, and hot foot it up to Arohata and let that poor Murdoch woman out of there tonight. We can’t possibly charge her with anything after this development. This hypnosis stuff means she’s obviously got no mens rea. No ability to think for herself. No guilty mind. We’d never get a prosecution to stick. The poor thing, she’s the victim not the guilty one. What an absolute bastard he is. I’ll leave it to you to break the news to her about what happened. She’ll be devastated, when she finds out she was used, no abused by him. Poor thing. I can’t imagine how upset she will be. Be as gentle with her as you can Tim.”

 


Chapter Ten

Rimutaka Prison Prisoner Interview Room two weeks later

Dr Charlie Lambert had been on remand for two weeks now in Rimutaka prison and he waited nervously in the interview room wondering if his visitor would arrive as agreed. One of the guards called out to Charlie, “You’ve got a visitor Dr Lambert. Oi Doc, She’s a real stunner eh.”

Penny strode though the door as the smirking guard left, not before making a crude gesture behind her back of a clearly sexual nature using one fisted arm under the other. The guard’s smirk of superiority annoyed Charlie even more than the blatant sexual gesture.

Elegant and gorgeous as ever in her trademark designer black and white clothing Penny drew herself up to her full height, which including her raised heels was fairly tall. She was clearly indignant as she angrily approached Charlie and her nostrils flared, “Well I must say this is highly unusual and verging on frankly outrageous. I don’t know why you’ve asked to meet with me, Charlie Lambert. I’m not your lawyer and I can tell you I have no intention of ever being your lawyer and if we are going to be totally frank with each other I can tell you I'm not at all favourably inclined towards you in the slightest way. On the contrary I feel extremely negative and angry about you. You conned me. You used, no it’s more accurate to say you abused Mrs. Murdoch, to unwittingly kill her husband. Now that she knows what you have done to her by abusing her massive hypnotic suggestibility and by her believing she was saving her mother from a madman when he was not at all mad. I can tell you she is now inconsolable with grief. I’ve come from seeing her. She is distraught. She cannot believe how you horribly abused her trust and took advantage of her extreme susceptibility to hypnotic suggestion which you well knew. I still can't believe you've had the nerve to ask to see me. This visit here is much against my better judgement. This meeting I stupidly agreed to have with you Charlie Lambert had bloody better be good and brief. So, spit it out.”

Charlie was clearly subdued and his previous bluster and confidence was gone, “I know all that Penny and can easily understand of course how you can feel that way, you’ve made that clear, crystal clear for sure, but thanks for coming here despite all that. I'm grateful to you Penny. Anna, after all, has been released from custody two weeks ago as soon as they lifted me and as far as I know all charges have been dropped against her I assume. Is that the case?”

“True.”

“It’s not some sort of legal conflict of interest for you to come here and talk to me, is it?”

“Well no. it’s not.”

“Cos if it was you wouldn’t even be here unless you came merely to gloat.”

“Well, as I say technically, no. It’s not a conflict of interest per se, but it is of course highly unusual if not unheard of. You have your own lawyer of course. Why did you particularly want to see me? I’m quite intrigued you asked to see me of all people. Tell me. Why me?”

“My lawyer wants me to stand up in the box and plead guilty. No contest. He’s not at all interested in trying to clear me. He reckons it’s a hopeless case. He says I haven’t even got a wooden leg to stand on. My lawyer hates me. He does. He reckons I’m some sort of despicable scum. Penny I know despite what you think of me I’m a totally innocent man but my lawyer won’t even listen to me. I hope you will. “

“Why on earth me of all people?”

“Because I realised yesterday when I called your office and asked them to pass on my message you probably know more about this whole case than anyone else in the legal fraternity in Wellington. Can you listen to me, please? From one Scotch malt whisky lover to another, you’ve come all the way out here. It’s a fair journey to make to turn around and go back. You must surely be interested in what I have to say to possibly make it worth your while. Please Penny give me a few minutes of your precious time to explain my case.”

“Fire away. I'm here as you say. See if you can possibly explain yourself. You’ve got 5 minutes if you possibly can, to prove to me I haven’t totally and wasted my time by coming out here to see you.”

“First of all, Penny, I have to tell you I never made that call and I never left that message. You must believe me. I know it’s my voice on the phone, but I swear I absolutely never made that call.”

“Oh Piss off Charlie. You cannot be serious. Don’t try that on with me. I’ve told you not to waste my time. It’s clearly your voice on the message. I even heard it myself over and over for God’s sake. You can't possibly try to deny it was you on the phone. Do you think I’m stupid, Charlie?”
 
“I’m serious Penny. I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life. It is my voice on the phone I agree, but I can absolutely guarantee you I never made that call Penny. Never. When the call was made at about 2am I was asleep and far too drunk to dial any number and my speech would have been completely slurred by the drink. My lawyer tells me the voice on the message he has heard, and I by the way have not heard at all, is completely unslurred. Apparently, it’s my normal speaking voice on the phone.”

“How come? What makes you so sure? How do you remember that particular night so well?”

“Well Penny I've checked my diary obviously and I know I spent the night of Billy’s death at a medical conference at the InterContinental Hotel near the waterfront and I had a hell of a lot to drink after I gave my usual stunning presentation that afternoon. I was in the hotel bar drinking for ages afterwards. I’m recognizable because I always wear a large floral bow tie when I’m presenting and people keep coming up to me to tell me how impressed they were with my talk, particularly the younger women I must say. I’m apparently a bit of a chick magnet. Always have been. Some horny women are drawn to want to get to know some conference keynote speakers on an intimate and personal and often horizontal basis if they can. They think some of my brilliance might rub off if they can get close, and I mean extremely close to me. Skin to skin. I call them conference groupies. They also assume I’m a rich bastard. Some women I reckon subconsciously want a clever guy to help them make a baby I suspect. Intelligent sperm to make a bright baby. I think I’ve told you that before. Anyway, I do remember trying to pick someone up before midnight, a cute looking blonde with big tits almost hanging out in a short and low cut bright red cocktail dress, as I still well remember, but she laughed at my clever attempted pick-up lines. She sneered at me in fact as I now remember. I must have had far too much to drink to be my usual charming self I suppose. I mean a cute blonde deliberately flashing her big tits at me in a short bright red low-cut dress is surely asking for it. Don’t you agree?”

“Seriously? You thought she must be gasping for sex from you because of her particular choice of outfit and her more than ample exposed mammary glands and therefore would be totally unable to resist your irresistible charms?”

“I eventually gave up trying with her and went to bed in my hotel room about midnight and I must have crashed out. When I woke on the 26th I had one hell of a hangover. That used to happen a lot to me back in my younger days. Lots of people from the conference must have seen me drinking at the bar that evening. I do tend to get a bit loud and boorish and my jokes get even more blue the more I drink and I also sometimes try to chat up and pick up younger and younger women assuming they will of course inevitably fall for my alluring and devastating charms and good looks.”

“Now that’s the first thing you’ve said today I honestly do believe.”

“And you can ask the blonde I tried to pick up, if you can find her, whoever she was, to confirm my libidinous but totally intoxicated amorous intentions for her that night.”

“You don’t happen to know the name of this blonde in the red cocktail dress with the big tits by any chance?”

“Nope. But she would clearly stand out in a line up, especially if you could arrange a side-on line up. Look, Sorry I keep cracking those stupid wisecrack jokes, I can’t help it Penny. You know they keep flashing into my mind, like her massive tits just have, particularly when I’m stressed like I am now. Look I know the evidence against me is overwhelming. The police have apparently got the means, a hypnotically remotely controlled assassin carrying out the murder via a post hypnotic suggestion from a message supposedly from me on her phone. They’ve also got an apparently strong motive for murder: my $46,000 gambling debt to Billy”.
 
“Sounds to me like pretty convincing evidence and motive.”

“Shit, if I were on the jury that tries me I would probably be the first to want to find me guilty. For most of the people on that jury, I'm sure $46,000 would certainly seem like a big enough reason to kill someone for. Seriously though Penny, it’s not such a huge debt to me. It hurts

sure it does, of course it hurts, but it's not enough to kill someone for. To be honest with you even if my debt to Billy was 10 or even 100 times that figure I still wouldn't be a killer. It's not in my nature. Money’s not a motive for me. It's only money Penny. I can always get more.”

“Go on.”

“Well I know this must sound weird, but since I know for certain I didn’t speak the words on the phone message, I know I must’ve been framed. Someone else used my voice.”

“Any ideas who?”

“Well, I’ve certainly racked my brain, but all I know for sure is there's only one person in the entire world who would ever want to frame me for murder.”

“This is getting weird Charlie. You claim you never said the words? But remember I heard the message. It's clearly your voice on the voicemail, your words.”

“My voice fair enough but how did it get there, Penny? Don’t make assumptions. Don’t assume because it’s my voice I must have made the phone call. So, who was it that gave you that cell phone? How did you get it? Where did it come from? I want to know. I know that it’s been missing and only appeared recently as evidence. Who produced it for you?”

“I'm not at liberty to say. I think the details of how I came by that particular piece of damming information is legally confidential.”

“Never mind Penny. You don’t need to tell me who it was found the phone. I’ll tell you who found it. I’ll bet you it was my ex, Belinda.”

Penny blinked a few times. Charlie roared at Penny with fiery anger, “It bloody was. Shit I bloody fucking knew it. 

I can see it in your eyes Penny

soon as I said her name
 I'm right.”

“Go on. I am still neither confirming nor denying anything.”

“Belinda as you know is my ex. She keeps the Lambert surname. It’s a hell of a lot better surname than going back to O’Halloran for goodness sake. We were married for 4 years. Belinda is the one woman who most wants to see me behind bars for a long time. There are quite a few women who’d like to punch my nose and there's some I know who'd want to kick me hard and painfully somewhere else if they were given half the chance, but it's only Belinda who hates me enough to set me up like this. She's a spoiled brat. Always has been. Belinda always takes whatever she wants and doesn't care what happens to anyone else. She’s been a real bitch to Anna all her life. Typical selfish self-centred baby of the family.”

“Go on. Tell me more.”

“Well, I bet you don’t know for instance that before Belinda and I got together, 6 years ago, Belinda was in a relationship for a short while with a guy called Phil Reid. Well Phil Reid, now you won’t believe it, was the boyfriend of and was recently engaged to marry Anna.”

“What?”

“Yep, and Belinda stole him from Anna about 4 months before the wedding. Seriously. She didn’t even like Phil. She treated him like shit. He however was like a love-sick puppy with her. She wanted to prove she was more attractive and alluring than Anna is. She is. Of course, she is. She doesn’t have to bloody prove it. It’s fucking obvious to everyone. And for fucks sake surely not feel the need to cheat with the love of your sister’s life and steal him off her. You don’t shit in your own nest. But she’s dreadfully insecure is our Belinda. She was jealous of Anna being happy. She had to take away the one thing Anna wanted for herself. She cruelly and deliberately chose to break Anna's heart because she could. She ditched Phil after a few months. Phil of course, begged Anna to forgive him and still marry him but Anna could never again trust Phil. ‘Once a shagger always a shagger’, she used to say. No second chances with her for sexual betrayal ever. Infidelity is apparently a real and unforgiveable biggie for Anna.”

“Why would any sister want to do that to her own sister? That's the twisted stuff of Hollywood movies.”

“Look past the bling and the lippy and the face full of makeup, that's a superficial facade. Beneath that facade Belinda, believe me, has exceptionally low self-esteem.”

“Surely not, she always presents as so self-assured. Fairly high self-esteem as far as I can see.”

“No Penny, she is an actress. Believe me. She plays the self-esteem part so well, but she is so superficial. She constantly needs to hear praise. She needs to believe she is attractive. She needs men to constantly tell her she is gorgeous. To leer at her. But she is so dreadfully insecure. That’s not a sign of real and genuine self-esteem. That’s merely bravado. A superficial veneer of confidence which usually comes off quite easily with a little bit of alcohol, as I well know. Her looks will inevitably fade one day, and she deep down knows that as well. They have faded a bit already to some extent. There is apparently only one way to ever achieve real high self-esteem like both you and I obviously possess. It’s called mastery over adversity. Facing the challenges life throws at you and overcoming them. I tell my patients this often. Praise from your parents or from anyone else doesn’t give you self-esteem at all, it causes boosterism. It can feel good at the time, but it does not raise your self-esteem. Self-esteem needs hard work and there is no quick fix to self-esteem possible. Hypnosis can’t give you self-esteem. Self-esteem cannot be given to you; it has to be earned.”
 
Charlie shook his head in despair, “I don’t know how Anna still puts up with Belinda. Must be a sister thing or it's a weird Catholic loyalty forgiveness sort of thing. Anna’s so bloody loyal to Belinda and to everyone. How could anyone possibly tolerate having a sister who stole and shagged your fiancĂ©? It’s sickening. Anna’s a walkover. I’ve never heard Anna say ‘no’ to anyone and never even heard a raised voice from her. The Anna I know could not knowingly kill anyone. For her to kill someone would be for her a mortal sin. You must appreciate that's something serious for Catholics like her. That's much worse than even going to prison. It means eternal Hell and damnation. No chance of ever getting to Heaven. She had to have been tricked into killing him. She was tricked by someone ruthlessly and cynically exploiting her high hypnotisability. But she was not tricked by me. I swear Penny.”

“Well by who?”

“Well it has to be Belinda surely. She, by the way, as you might have guessed, is something of a nympho. She’s always up for it anytime and anyplace because it proves someone loves her. Probably explains why we lasted so long. I can assure you the frequent sex with Belinda was not only great sex but was always fan-bloody-tastic sex. She was totally devastated when I shagged my secretary and she walked in unexpectedly one day and caught us going hard at it on the leather recliner chair in my room.”

“The one I sat in when I was at your office.”

“The very one.”

“Ew.!!”

Charlie ignored Penny’s obvious disgust “Anyway...... Belinda hates my guts. She can’t stand it if a guy rejects her. She goes absolutely totes mental if that ever happens. She always needs to be the one who does the rejecting. She can certainly dish it out but cannot be the one to take rejection. She must be the one who is in control. She thought me choosing to screw my secretary meant she obviously wasn’t attractive enough to me. It totally shook her sense of self confidence. She took my infidelity with Sharon as proof of her physical inadequacy in my eyes. Of course it wasn’t. It never was. I still think she's bloody gorgeous. I'd never have chosen to leave her.”

“So, you were having a bit on the side? A bit of a physical workout. A few push-ups and some repeated ins and outs.”

“Yeah, a bit of naked horizontal limbo dancing if you will. And here’s the thing Penny. It wasn’t even my fault at all that time. Seriously. That’s the most fucking ironic part of it all. I never initiated it. I shouldn’t have got the blame.”
 
Penny’s eyebrows raised.

“No. Honestly I swear. It’s true. We were both in the office at the weekend catching up on the tax returns. My young secretary Sharon came on to me by surprise, and well after all what on earth could I possibly do. She walked up to me as I was standing up engrossed in reading a letter from my accountant and she dropped a pen on the carpet and casually reached down for it but instead of picking the pen up she slowly reached forward and she unzipped me whilst looking up into my eyes and of course as I looked down, I was wondering ‘What the fuck Sharon?’ She went down on both knees on the carpet and reached into my trousers and took it out and 
..Well let’s not go into the finer details. You can probably well imagine what happened next. After all, I could hardly say No. Stop Sharon. I don’t want you to do that to me. I’m a married man. You know that. Put it back. Don’t wrap your luscious ruby red lips around it. Don’t suck on it. Don’t keep sucking it again and again. Don’t cradle my balls. Could I?”

Penny was incredulous.

“Well of course when placed in that sort of totally unexpected situation and not by any choice of mine what else could I do now it was becoming erect and getting even harder and filling with surging blood and we were on our own. It would be plain rude to say no to her, surely. I mean otherwise the poor girl would get all embarrassed and think she had made a dreadful mistake and would feel rejected. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings obviously and have her feeling a bit stupid like. Sharon was a sexually needy woman. She was a young woman craving for a good fucking and knew I could give her one. Look, believe me Penny I never meant to hurt Belinda either. Not at all. I didn’t want her to know about Sharon. I never imagined she would ever know about her coming on to me. Of course not. I certainly didn't want to leave Belinda. She chose to leave me.”

“Not surprising. “

Charlie opened his arms wide, “I never meant her to find out about Sharon. She shouldn’t ever have walked in us. She wasn’t ever supposed to be there. She’d never been to my office before. The poor girl was embarrassed by Belinda barging in on us whilst we were both going hard at it. We were both stark naked of course and Sharon’s big, fabulous tits were waving about in my face as she straddled my cock. Belinda, I can assure you, when she burst in us fucking like crazy, well she was absolutely shit faced furious and I can tell you she gave Sharon a right fucking mouthful.

Not in the same way as I gave Sharon a right fucking mouthful of course right enough mind you.

She called her out for everything. Belinda had no right to come there. That was my job. Look, it was my office. It was private. It meant nothing to me with Sharon at all. Nothing. It was a free shagging session. She was a young girl recently dumped by her apparent shit of a boyfriend and she was probably gagging for it and desperately needing a great shag, so she of course picked on me to give her one. Belinda never ever comes to my office. Why would she? After all what you don't know doesn't hurt you, surely? “

“Very debatable!”

“Anyway Penny, I’ve had a few friends, the few friends I still have left after the Dom Post chose to splash me all over the front-page last week after I was arrested, who’ve visited me here. Well I asked them to do some detective work and ask a few questions around town in all Billy's hangouts and I now know for sure who Belinda's latest sexual conquest was. I now know who her latest lover was.”

“Who was it? Tell me.”
 
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