Letter from Levick: ‘I had in mind a full-out, all-guns-blazing attack on Miller . . . I have seen nothing to indicate that such a tactic would not have worked.’
Letter from Hislop: ‘You continue to impugn the manner in which we have sought to conduct the case on this issue . . . I think the time has come when Mark must make a decision. Either he trusts the legal team or he does not — if he does not, then we go, simple as that. I do not intend conducting this trial with you condemning our every decision.’
Reply from Levick: ‘I will not take any further part in this case except to debate matters with ML [Lundy], if he asks . . . This is a no-reply email. I will not take bullshit like that.’
It was a sad and even tragic ending to Levick’s involvement, but also kind of inevitable. I could easily imagine him losing his rag, voicing his opinion in a stroppy, scornful manner, driving Hislop up the wall. He didn’t think like lawyers; he went his own way, he was a maverick. But the defence had lost the man who knew more than anyone about the many and various intricacies of Lundy’s case. Hislop was taking a very big risk in getting rid of him.
I went out to Kumeu one last time in February. It was a week before the trial. Lundy was at his sister’s house in Taupo. I phoned him the next day and wished him luck; I wouldn’t see him again until he appeared in the Wellington High Court. I sat in the small room and read through some documents, but it felt desultory. All of Levick’s homework wasn’t going to help Lundy or play a part in the trial. I took a few notes and left to talk with Levick on the porch. The silvereyes had scoffed the last of the plums. The ground was as hard as a rock. His passionfruit vine had been diagnosed with black leg, a killer fungus, and was due for the chop. There were the hawks, and a kingfisher perched above the dark pond.
I said, ‘Well — what d’you think’s going to happen next week?’
Levick said, ‘Whatever is going to be said and done next week is set in concrete. The strategies are done. That’s it. Now the battle starts, and I can’t do anything about it. I basically got fired at the end of October, which I find very strange. I could do a hundred times more than what I’m doing. But my commitment to Mark Lundy and his family was to get it to the Privy Council, and I did. I’ve done all I can do. I have no responsibility now. If anything, I’m relieved. I’m not worried about it. Other people can worry about it. He’s stressed to the eyeballs, but there’s nothing, nothing I can do.’
But he wasn’t relieved, and he was extremely worried. He said, ‘I think it will swing on the same thing as it did in the first trial: the shirt. If I was on the first jury, I’d have argued the drive, and said it was impossible, but I’d have caved in on the shirt, and found him guilty. Well, the drive’s gone, but we’ve still got the shirt. And we’re not going to attack that, which I think we should. But how much of the science will the jury understand, anyway? And will they even think about it that much? It’s unbelievable how fast people make up their mind. They’ll be told he killed his wife and daughter. I have no doubt some members of the jury will make up their mind within three minutes of the trial that they won’t like him. And I don’t know what the hell I can do about that. Nothing. There’s nothing I can do . . .’
He had a file of police suspects on the table beside him. It was compiled before Lundy was arrested. I asked him about it, and it lifted his spirits. He was back on familiar ground — the puzzle, the mystery of the killings, the interesting possibilities. We went through the list of persons of interest. There was a P addict who rented near the Lundy house: ‘He’s from a family regarded as the worst in Palmerston North.’ There was a man who knew Christine, described as ‘unstable’, and who had stabbed his mother. There was a schizophrenic who saw his father kill his mother with an axe. There was a Maori guy whose stepfather was in jail for rape, and whom police visited and found asleep on a mattress in the lounge at 11am. An officer recorded their brief dialogue.
Police: ‘How about you sit up and talk to us?’
Man: ‘Nah. Get fucked.’
He stormed out of the room, holding his blanket around his waist.
Were any of these characters the killer? Or just blameless low-lifes? Levick talked about suspicious sightings of a white van seen on the night of the murders. Then he talked about the kind of weapon used to kill Christine and Amber. He said, ‘As an aside, a couple of years ago I saw an interesting jemmy bar for sale at The Warehouse, and bought one. It was quite short, able to be hidden in a pair of trousers. I used it to attack a watermelon, a pumpkin and some old dog bones. Sorry for the imagery. A full-on blow cleaved the pumpkin in half. The watermelon was disintegrated. Quite a deadly weapon.
