Hislop’s manner in closing was gentle, self-effacing. He wore a pale tie and a pale shirt. He was rumpled in his silks, and presented himself as a pleasant coot and figure of quiet reason. He fluttered over the science, and alighted on the fact that there was no blood or tissue found on Lundy’s shoes, his glasses, his rings, or in his car. That didn’t make sense, he said. Nor did the Crown’s assertion that the mysterious weapon was one of Lundy’s tools. ‘What tool do they say he used? A hammer? A chisel? A screwdriver? We waited, and waited, and waited. No answer was ever forthcoming. The silence was deafening.’ At least two of his impossibilities introduced significant reasonable doubt. He made a very good case. He got the last word. ‘The only safe verdict,’ he said, ‘is not guilty.’ It lacked the impact of Morgan’s final sentence: ‘The killer is the accused.’
The processing of a man’s fate had come to an end. The trial had reached its point of no return. No more fine talk from lawyers, no more evidence from witnesses, nothing left to give except for Justice France to sum up on the Monday morning, and direct the jury to leave Courtroom 1 and decide. Every minute of their deliberations would be a familiar agony — been there, suffered that — for the man accused for a second time of killing his wife and child. I saw Lundy outside court later that afternoon. The autumn light lay tenderly on the row of pohutukawa trees across the road. He was talking with his sister, Caryl, and looked in good spirits.
16
We know more about their deaths — the violence of it, the executioner swinging some sort of axe in the dark bedroom — than their lives. But we know and remember their names. Christine and Amber Lundy have been given the same kind of wretchedly sad immortality as Ben and Olivia, Sophie Elliott, the Crewes, the Bains.
Once upon a time they walked to school together. It took three blocks from their home to the end of the street, then around the corner and over the railway line to Roslyn Primary School — the same familiar journey, the same deep happiness of mother and child together. They last walked it on a Tuesday morning in late winter.
The flatlands of cold, rivery Manawatu, the edge of town in Palmerston North. ‘They lived in a modest little home,’ as Morgan described it, ‘in a blue-collar suburb.’ The letterbox and windowsills had matching green trim. There was a set of swings and a trampoline in the front yard, a trailer parked out the back.
Amber was seven. She was born on 9 July 1993, at 1.25am, by emergency Caesarian after Christine had been in labour for 20 hours. Everyone said that her parents adored her; no one needed to point out that she adored them. Mark Lundy told police, ‘She used to put on little concerts for us. We would be watching TV and she would appear in a pair of plastic shoes, and dressed up with a little feather boa around her neck, and do a little dance.’
She was enrolled at Rocket dance studios when she was three and a half. Christine took her there on that Tuesday, after school. She wore her favourite outfit — a pink and orange leotard with blue tights — and Christine waited in the same seat where she always sat. There was a show coming up, and the girls tried on their costumes.
The class lasted an hour. After it finished, Amber was due at Pippins. Amber was the third generation in her family to go guiding; her grandmother, Christine’s mother, Helen Weggery, was active in the movement in Tokomaru, and Christine, too, had gone through Guides, and met her husband at the 1978 Gang Show. ‘Fantastic dancer,’ he said of her. They were engaged in Easter 1982, and married in May the next year.
There was $11.19 in change in the kitchen, and a collection of 83 bottles of wine. Mark and Christine belonged to the Manawatu and Bacchus wine clubs, but she didn’t drink much. She liked the company. They were a popular couple. They’d had the Durhams, Stewart and Caroline, over for a barbecue the previous Saturday night; they’d played cards, and stayed until midnight.
Mark Lundy’s favourite author was Wilbur Smith, Christine was an avid reader of Mills & Boon. Her habit was to read in the conservatory with her lunch. She also read New Idea and Woman’s Day, sometimes the Australian Women’s Weekly. The TV shows she enjoyed most were light ent — Changing Rooms, Taste New Zealand, Shortland Street.
After she had walked back to the house, having taken Amber to school on Tuesday morning, Christine and Mark had driven in separate cars to Lighting Direct. She wanted a lightshade for the spare bedroom. Mark had to drive to Petone, on a business trip; they kissed goodbye in the store.
Last kiss, last walk to school, last supper at 5.48pm when Christine and Amber ordered McDonald’s. Pippins had been cancelled. They ordered nine chicken nuggets,
