| |
The Pet Pals Veterinary Clinic notified the police of a poisoning of a pet. The notification sat for some time before time allowed a visit to the dog owner. DC Jayne Hyslop was chosen to investigate by Inspector Chadwick because the dog owner was the same as the complainant in the date rape case. Others only knew the victim as Ms X.
First Jayne checked for any other similar incidents. There were none. Then she looked for suppliers of Pindone. It was available only through farm supply businesses, vets, and garden shops. All required a name, address and telephone number before a sale could be made. Jayne knew she would have to visit all the businesses, but thought she would start with Louise Copperfield first.
As a Detective Constable Jayne Hyslop did not need to be in uniform, whereas her husband, PC Bernard Smith did except when undercover. In fact, she found that people, especially women, were more inclined to share confidences with her when she was in mufti.
Jayne liked Louise from the time that she had taken her to the hospital with Father Larkin. She thought Louise was level headed, not given to complaining. She had not filed a complaint about her dog being poisoned. Were the two incidents related?
Jayne looked at her woman before her. She saw an attractive woman in her early forties, around five foot two compared with Jayne’s five six, someone who was highly stressed, and not just about a dog being poisoned. She could understand that but there seemed to be more behind the dog’s death that Louise realised.
First Jayne got the details of Tess’s death, of Alexander finding the dog in distress, of the vet’s opinion and Tess’s treatment. Because Pindone works by thinning the blood, once an animal collapses it is too late for treatment. Poor Tess had to be put down.
They sat at a table by the window, looking out over the garden. Louise remained silent, staring out of the window as she tried to gather her thoughts.
“Louise, when you were doped, I asked you if anyone was paying you a lot of attention. You said no. What else has happened, Louise? You seem so stressed out. I mean outside things, like Tess being poisoned,” said Jayne. “Graffiti on the front door. Plants poisoned with what looks like RoundUp.”
RoundUp was a brand of a gramoxone based weed killer, too common to be traced to its origins.
“Basically, it’s the party where... you know what happened. Now I can’t let Frank touch me.” Louise said nothing about the wager
“You’re going to suffer quite a lot from the date rape,” said Jayne. She thought that if she was matter-of-fact about it, Louise might also be.
.“He locked away the garden tools. He said I spent too much time in the garden and then I was always too tired for him,” said Louise. “I nearly told him why I couldn’t but I didn’t.”
Jayne had heard a similar story many times: a situation where a wife who was too stressed and tired to get in the mood and a husband who was impatient for sex too often led to domestic violence. She changed her tactic, remembering her thought that Frank might have been behind the drug rape that Louise had suffered. Had he been teaching his wife a lesson? Was he looking for grounds for divorce?
“Does Frank hit you?”
“We argue. A lot. Frank and me. He’s got a lot on his mind, with the shopping mall and the housing development,” replied Louise.
Jayne knew that most women defended their violent husbands. She felt that a woman’s excuses showed there was still something there, perhaps going back to when a relationship began. “Does he get violent?”
“Well, he shouts at me and when he gets upset he kind of throws his arms around, like this,” said Louise.
She put her hands in front of her stomach, backs upward and then suddenly moved them up in a semi-circular motion while keeping her elbows in by her torso, from around her belly button to the points of her shoulders so that her fingers were vertical and close to her ears. It looked like she was about to cup her hands to shout at someone. Then she brought them forward and down in a chopping motion to rest in front of her stomach again. Jayne leapt back at the violent movement.
“Wow! Scary!” she said. “Does he actually hit you?” asked Jayne.
“No. Never. I am scared he will, though. It’s because he gets so tired. He hit Kezia today. It was me who got violent,” said Louise. “He hadn’t meant to hurt her. Kezia said she would make Alexander a sandwich when he got home, and Frank said it was my job, that I was a lazy sheila and Kezia objected to that and slanged him. He got upset and threw his arms around and connected with Kezia who got knocked to the ground. I went for Frank and tried to scratch his eyes out.”
Louise said nothing about Kezia hitting Frank with a wooden softball bat. It was quite a solid bat even though it was made for a child. Kezia could have knocked him out with it.
“Louise, that is serious violence. Not you. You defended your child. Frank. Is Frank a big man?”
When Louise nodded, Jayne said, “He has learned that to control his violence, he needs to keep his hands moving close to his body. It’s not an effective strategy. He needs a course of anger management. Will you lodge a complaint about him hitting Kezia?”
“Well, it was a kind of an accident, I think. I didn’t see it ’cos I was in the other room. I heard it all though,” Louise replied. “He was really angry that I had let Alexander come in contact with the dog poison and then Kezia stood up to him. You know the rest. Now he’s gone.”
“What? Left you?” asked Jayne.
“Yes,” said Louise. “Look.”
Louise reached across the table to the book case and pulled out Frank’s note.
Jayne read it. ‘I am off. I have a new lady. I am moving in with her. I have Alec and will get him to school and home each day. Leave him alone or you will not live to see the consequences.’
Jayne looked at Louise and said quietly, “Please don’t take this the wrong way. I think you are better off without him. What you need now is some support. I can help but I am always on call. What about Father Larkin?”
Louise looked at Jayne, fully understanding the friendship Jayne was offering outside of her official job and said “It’s Alexander. He’s got Alexander.”
“We can get Alexander back for you,” said Jayne. “But you have to lay a formal complaint. The death threat will be seen by the Family Court as proving Frank is too violent to have custody.”
“I hope so,” said Louise. “At least there was no custody problem over Kezia.”
“Louise, listen carefully,” said Jayne. “First, Frank. I can’t see him being involved in poisoning a favourite dog. I believe you are being stalked by a person who wants to upset you so much that you start to do bad things, which is quite understandable. Assuming we identify the stalker, at the moment the only charge that could be brought is being a public nuisance, although you could claim damages. Who can you think of that might want to upset you?”
Louise thought about what Jayne was saying. The thought of someone deliberately poisoning a dog, of shaming Kezia with Facebook or upsetting her so much that she became too anxious to make good decisions was frightening. She had a lot to contend with. Frank, Kezia and Youssef, being raped – how stupid was that? – and now the break with Frank and the loss of Alexander. No wonder she was a nervous wreck.
“I can’t think of anyone,” she said.
“Understandable. Could it be someone from your past? Your first husband? A school friend?”
“Ricky and I meet up now and then. He wouldn’t use Facebook, he might paint on the door but he wouldn’t use Facebook.”
“From High School?”
“There’s Nigel Jones, married to Charlotte the Harlot. That’s what we called her. Her name was Hoar. Imagine your family name being Hoar and you call your kid Charlotte?”
“I knew a Teresa Green,” said Jayne. “People used to say, ‘Everyone knows Trees are Green’. I’ll ask you again. What about Nigel.”
“No. He’s a nice quiet guy, lots of fun in a quiet way but very prim and proper. He’s the Chief Planner for the Wahanui City Council. Very professional.”
“Would he be more likely to send you presents?” asked Jayne.
“Yes. I think he might,” Louise replied. “But I can’t see him drugging me. If he asked nicely, I might feel like going to bed with him.”
Jayme earmarked Nigel Jones as a suspect for grooming, with a possibility of date rape.
“So. Possibly being groomed. Would Nigel want to harm you because you won’t have an affair?”
Louise thought for a moment. “Nigel is rather special. If things had been different we might have married but we didn’t even date when we were young. He is a friend who is there when I need him. He does give me presents but he wouldn’t need to groom me. I think he knows that but he’s faithful to my friend Charlotte.”
“So,” said Jayne. “You feel you are not being groomed for sex. Nigel and you are good friends who could be more but not yet.”
“That’s about right,” said Louise. She thought, ‘Is this the time to tell about Frank’s bet, and Stuart Larcombe pursuing her? No. With Frank gone all that will soon blow over. Better to say nothing.’
Well, I believe you are being stalked, that someone is following you and making you very upset by doing nasty things to you,” said Jayne. Are you sure you have no enemies?”
“No. I don’t have anyone who hates me,” Louise replied. “And I don’t have many friends, although my friendship with a young refugee called Youssef may be upsetting some people. He’s having a really rough time from the idiots who think all refugees are terrorists. Maybe someone is after me because I have sponsored him.”
Jayne could see that Louise was on to something regarding race discrimination, punishing her for befriending an immigrant. That was a line worth following. Jayne thought that she would talk to neighbours and people in the street. Someone must have seen someone lurking around.
“I want you to note down anything unusual. Write it in a small notebook. A car seen regularly, phone call hang-ups, special gifts. Let’s find the pattern.” Jayne was certain that there were incidents that Louise was not seeing because she was not looking for them. “I’ll ask around, talk to your neighbours. Is that okay?”
Louise nodded her agreement. It could not do any harm to alert the neighbours that some awful things were happening in their quiet street.