One of my hobbies is playing chess and I think I’m quite a good player, above average anyway. I play chess most days on my computer, against my computer. I used to play against human opponents but that necessitated engaging with a living person, which I found too stressful. I didn’t like losing to another person but I didn’t like beating another person either. The computer is the ideal opponent. It doesn’t gloat when it wins. It doesn’t sulk when it loses. It doesn’t even mind if I take a move back. Playing chess is very calming and centring, especially when things become chaotic. The chess board is an abstract microcosm, a perfect realm of cause and effect. There is absolutely no luck or chance involved in a game of chess, unlike in many other games.
Another of my hobbies is photography, a hobby shared by many other people. Nothing unusual in that but I guess my choice of subjects is a little unusual. I would never take a photo of another person, not a live person anyway. No, I never have. Landscapes then. Well kind of. I take photos of structures, buildings, especially farm buildings. I have 438 photos of barns from all over the country. Not just any barns. Old, weathered, dilapidated barns. The more dilapidated the better. Preferably on the point of collapse. A sagging, rotting, wooden barn, shed, or disused cottage, with warped and twisted timbers, in a contorted pose, with a swayback roof, manifesting age, the elements and gravity, is a thing of unique beauty, which cannot be replicated. In my frequent drives into the countryside with my digital SLR camera I cannot go past such an old farm building. I must stop and take photos. My subjects are usually in the middle of nowhere, so there’s no one else around. But I have occasionally had to explain myself to farmers whose land I walk over. Just taking photos. Of what? Of that old barn? I get some funny looks but I’m used to that. Usually they don’t mind but I’ve been told to piss off a few times for behaving suspiciously.
I recently did take several photos of a person in an old disused barn. A person. An ex person. A dead body, lying in the hay. The barn was full of the musty odour of spoiled hay strewn on the floor and scattered with possum scat. Slivers of light cut through the gaps in the walls and lay in stripes across the naked body of a woman. The body of a naked woman. Pale body. Bruises. Bruising around her throat. Tanned arms and legs. Blonde hair. Light brown pubic hair. Pink nipples. At home, I uploaded the photos onto my computer and then settled down to a game of chess.
It was a few days later that the police turned up at my door and asked me lots of questions. My car had been seen parked near a barn on Huarahi Road on December 12 and Detective Sergeant Cranwell wanted to know what I was doing there. I explained about the photography and showed some photos of old farm buildings to corroborate my story. DS Cranwell and his offsider, Constable Beavis, looked at the photos and looked at each other and rolled their eyes. I could hear them thinking they’ve got a nut job here who would be quite capable of strangling a young woman. They’re thinking he looks nervous, he’s avoiding eye contact, he looks guilty. DS Cranwell had extraordinarily shiny shoes. The constable’s were also black leather but were more scuffed than buffed. They searched my house and seized my laptop. They had a warrant. Now I couldn’t play chess and I really needed to. I’ve got a chess set with an actual board but I don’t like playing against myself. I don’t like being two people. It’s hard enough being one person. At least I had my books and my music.
There were apparently no other suspects so I expected more attention from the police and I contacted my lawyer friend, Justin Usher. With Justin’s help I got my confiscated computer returned after the forensic technicians had examined it. When I was taken in for questioning, I said nothing till Justin arrived, as was my right. According to the police, Julia Campion-Waller, the deceased backpacker, was last seen at a KFC restaurant, where she appeared on CCTV video. Moreover, I was also at the same KFC on the same day, as evidenced by the CCTV footage. In response to DS Cranwell’s questions I affirmed that I had been to the KFC in question on more than one occasion and possibly on the day in question. But no, I did not recollect seeing Miss Campion-Waller there and no I had never met her before and no I did not give her a lift in my car. And I did not murder her and leave her body in a derelict barn in the countryside. And yes, it did seem rather a coincidence that our paths had crossed by chance in this way.
When shown a photo of Julia Campion-Waller, the KFC worker who had taken her order remembered the attractive young blonde with the posh British accent and recalled also that she met a man there and left the premises with him; a dishevelled looking middle-aged man who was a regular customer, always on his own and always talking to himself. The KFC worker identified me in a police line-up as the man who picked up Miss Julia Campion-Waller. How the hell could he identify me? I couldn’t identify him. On his testimony, the CCTV video and the circumstantial evidence, I was convicted of murdering the British backpacker. The Crown prosecutor included, in his evidence, other images of naked women on my computer. Not a crime in and of itself, he said, but he claimed it was evidence of propensity.
At my trial I swore to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Tell the truth or tell a lie. As though there is one truth but many lies. What is truth anyway, in a post truth world with alternative facts? One of my peculiar foibles is my inability to tell a lie and this is one of the reasons for my avoiding social interaction. Then again, I suppose if I were a compulsive liar, I would surely claim to tell the truth. Honesty is a virtue but telling the truth is often more problematic than telling a lie. In my head, I’ve heard it said, a lie that’s told with good intentions is better than the truth told with bad intentions. I must stop this habit of constantly talking to myself. Oh man, did I just say that out loud?
Julia Campion-Waller’s distraught parents had come to New Zealand after reporting her missing and attended the trial. It was all in the news and they were interviewed on TV. Julia had gone to New Zealand with another companion during their gap year break, after studying Law at the London School of Economics. She and her friend had separated in the Bay of Islands and she had been continuing her travels on her own. She had communicated regularly with her parents the whole time but the messages suddenly ceased and her mobile phone had gone dead. That’s when Mr Campion-Waller, a wealthy UK financier, first contacted the New Zealand police. It was a parent’s worst nightmare. His worst fears had been confirmed. Now, justice was served, Mr Campion-Waller said, and he thanked the New Zealand police for apprehending their daughter’s killer. It would not bring back their beautiful daughter, who was so cruelly taken from them, Mrs Campion-Waller said, but at least it gave them some closure.
Justice was served – my arse! It was a grave miscarriage of justice, as Justin Usher declared, and he immediately began proceedings for an appeal, before heading off to the UK. Meanwhile I’m serving a life sentence at Spring Hill Corrections Facility, at least until the appeal comes to court, or maybe for the duration of the sentence, not actually life, but fifteen years before any parole. Corrections Facility! For goodness sake! You’d think I’d failed an exam and now have to find the correct answers. I don’t have my own computer now but I still have my books and my chess set, and I have a room all to myselves at the Spring Hillton, where we both play chess.