He was quite a funny guy; he had an appealing kind of smile, and his comic timing was excellent. The court was played a farcical telephone recording of his call to the police in 2013 when he’d seen his old mate Mark on TV — the Privy Council had overturned Lundy’s conviction, and ordered his release from jail.
X: ‘I hadn’t really thought about what he’d said to me for a long time, but when I saw him on TV I had a flashback.’ He decided to inform the authorities of that conversation of old. Morgan said, ‘Why?’
X said, piously, ‘It was the right thing to do.’
He went about it in a haphazard way, though. X chose to call the motorway traffic number *555 (‘It just popped into my head’) and asked to be put through to police because he had vital information about Mark Lundy. The operator said she couldn’t do that. A recording of the call was played in court.
X: ‘If you can’t put me through, sweet as, I won’t bother about it.’
Operator: ‘Okay.’
X, under his breath: ‘Fucken hell.’
Later, X sat down and wrote a letter to a judge. It began: ‘Sir. I have the smoking gun to end all smoking guns. I have information about a cold-blooded murderer . . .’ The rest of the letter was a whining demand to be released on bail.
His lawyer advised him not to send the letter if he wanted to be a credible witness.
For the defence, Burns asked, ‘Have you ever taken any advice on being a credible witness?’
‘Nah,’ said X.
‘Perhaps you should have,’ said Burns.
X, Burns pointed out, constantly elected to be in segregation in prison. It offered a better chance of protection from harm. Burns: ‘You probably saw Mark Lundy as a really good opportunity to get segregation for life, I suggest. Narking on him would get you favours. This is one of the biggest trials this country has ever seen, do you agree with that?’
‘You probably know better than me,’ said X.
‘One way of ensuring segregation is to say, “I’m the one who narked on Mark Lundy.” That’s right, isn’t it?’
‘Nah.’
‘To put it bluntly, in order for you to have a comfortable time in prison, you’re prepared to put another man in prison for the rest of his life, aren’t you?’
‘Nah.’
Burns talked about X’s long criminal history (‘I’ve made some bad decisions’), which included about 30 dishonesty offences, and read from reports which described his character as ‘manipulative . . . with multiple personality disorders’. X couldn’t even lie straight in his little cot. A good liar sometimes tells the truth; X was compulsive. Those peanut butter sandwiches he remembered having for lunch in prison — was it Eta or Sanitarium, smooth or crunchy? Burns should have asked, because X had an answer for everything.
The subject returned to that amazing conversation between X and Lundy back in 2002. Burns said he had some interesting documents that he wanted to share with the court. He searched manila folders, bound volumes, his briefcase. ‘Perhaps we should adjourn for afternoon tea,’ France sighed.
‘Thank you, Your Honour.’
When court resumed, Burns had found his documents. He was right. They were very interesting. They placed X and Lundy in the yard together on four occasions. The dates were all during the weekend.
And then Burns said, ‘Do you know why you weren’t together between Monday and Friday? It’s because Mr Lundy was in court. He was on trial in 2002. He hadn’t even been convicted. He couldn’t possibly have been waiting for his appeal, as you have told us. Everything you’ve said is a lie, isn’t it?’
X said, ‘Nah! Cos he said he was waiting for an appeal!’
Snitch, squirming; snitch, stitched.
13
There was one last witness for the prosecution: Lundy. Lundy, as he was in 2000 and 2001, when he was interviewed by Detective Inspector Steve Kelly in a small interview room in the Palmerston North police station. The films were played in court. They were long, rambling, inconsequential, pedantic, humourless, boring — then suddenly chilling and apparently deeply incriminating.
The first interview was filmed on 14 September 2000, a fortnight after the murders, and the day before Lundy would be taken back to the house for the first time since he had left to travel to Petone. He was nervous about it. ‘I don’t know how I’m going to handle that,’ he told Kelly towards the end of the interview. ‘I did a sort of practice run the other night. I drove round the roundabout [near the house] and had an anxiety attack. It was too close.’
Lundy subsequently described the visit at his first trial: ‘They opened the ranchslider. It took courage but I went in . . . There was a half-bottle of Crossroads merlot on the kitchen bench. I was asked if it was cooking wine. Crossroads would have been disgusted at the thought, and I made that comment . . . I then had to go up the hallway. I saw blood on the floor outside my bedroom door and I lost control. I’d put a scenario in my head where Christine and Amber had not suffered, and not seen each other die.’
A police officer gave this eyewitness account: ‘We made our way to [the] start of the hallway and that’s where he stopped. He became very upset. He was breathing very heavily, and I recall him holding the arm of the Victim Support guy and I recall him placing his hands over his face, and taking every possible last gasp of breath. He didn’t walk up the hallway, he sidled up against the wall, like you would if you were creeping.’
Genuine, awful horror and despair, or the over-actor at it again, making an exhibition of anguish? Keen observers of body language no doubt
