To whom it may concern,
Initially, I was not exactly sure how to go about writing this. What I mean is how I should refer to you? In the third person? As some faceless audience? Or if I should address you directly? Considering the intended purpose for writing this document, I eventually came to the conclusion that it wouldn't really matter. I just needed to be clear. With this in mind, I think I will address you directly (Obviously. I’m doing this now). The reason I've decided to do this is that it will make what I need to say (and the actual way I write it) more direct and therefore a little easier for me to get down on paper.
As you requested, I will shed light on the relatively recent events involving Lilly McGovern, my husband Oliver Hunt and myself (Elizabeth Hunt). Events that occurred between 2013 and 2014. Please note that I am following your instructions to the letter.
The first thing I’d like to establish is that I take full responsibility for much, if not all, of what follows. That is to say, I alone devised this plan and then persuaded Lilly to participate. I gave her very specific instructions. Instructions which included where and when to meet you (The Tavern, Bankstown, October 25th, 2013). And please note, I sent her to meet you in good faith and I had no idea her intentions were other than what we had previously discussed. I assumed she would follow the plan. To this end, Lilly and I had discussed her role in exhaustive detail and I was shocked to hear that she had acted otherwise.
Look, to give you an idea of whom Lilly was, and therefore perhaps what might have motivated her (or perhaps more accurately, how she could have been operating without a clear understanding of the consequences of her poor judgement) Lilly was not the sharpest knife in the draw and therefore she was unpredictable. A fairly dangerous quality as we have subsequently discovered.
In any case, she met you with the first payment as arranged, in the beer garden of the aforementioned Tavern. And after the service (even now it is difficult to use words like 'murder' or 'killing'. It just sounds so melodramatic....almost ridiculous) was carried out, she was instructed to return to the same pub and present you with the balance of payment. I now understand that she attempted to hand over only half that amount we agreed on. I also understand that at some point during your second conversation with Lilly she attempted to renegotiate the terms of the contract. I cannot stress to you enough how sorry I am about this and that at no point did I intend to change the conditions of our original agreement. My intention is and has always been the originally agreed upon sum of money ($35,000) for services rendered. End of story.
To address the other points you mentioned, I used Lilly as a go-between because doing so created distance between myself and my husband’s death (Murder. I am trying to be specific but incriminating yourself is...not an easy thing to do).
In any case, I completely underestimated her capacity for being unpredictable in these matters. And although we talked on several occasions prior, she kept her true intentions from me throughout. I only realised something had gone wrong when you texted me using her cell phone. Despite all this, ultimately I feel responsible for what happened to her because, as I said, I initiated these events.
Another part of me, a more realistic part of me, feels that she took matters into her own hands and therefore paid the price. What do they say in these situations? She got what was coming to her. Lilly was Oliver’s latest girlfriend. I had twenty years on her and undeniably she was a beautiful little thing. Twenty years ago I was exactly like her: blonde, pretty and fairly directionless in Sydney after moving here from Adelaide. (Not that Lily came from Adelaide. She came from some inbred backwater in Queensland). When I first arrived in Sydney, I was open to new experiences that the city might provide me. Maybe the word is impressionable? So to a certain extent, I understand how she got caught up in my husband’s bullshit.
Anyway, I was the one who contacted her and eventually talked her into following this course of action. I made her understand how cold Oliver could become and how he would keep her around until he got bored of her at which point, he would find someone else. This was his proven pattern. Time and time again. He wanted a girlfriend who was perpetually twenty-four years old (what heterosexual man doesn’t?). It had been this way for years. And the only reason I have stuck around was because we had two kids together. And as I explain to her, I would continue to be part of his life for some time to come. I acknowledged that Oliver and I had separate lives and that this had been the case for the better part of a decade. He did his thing and I did mine. I honestly didn't care at all if he had girlfriends.That was his business. And things might have gone on like this for the rest of our lives had I not come across Lilly who seemed like the perfect candidate. Oliver had plenty of stupid young things in his bed before but none with Lilly’s willingness to take things to the next level. All of this was predicated on the fact that increasingly when we argued, he would threaten to change his will and cut me out. And to my mind, as he'd gotten older (and more vindictive) these threats seemed to take on the weight of serious intent. I was seriously beginning to wonder if I was going to be compensated at the end of his life. To go through all this…humiliation and alienation, and not get what was coming to me....that wouldn't have been acceptable. I wanted my pound of flesh. Not getting it became my greatest fear. My looks fading, my kids gone...living in a dingy flat somewhere...that was not going to happen to me. You have to understand that Oliver was a particular kind of man. The more money he amassed, the tighter he became with it, to the point that our life became completely stifled by his frugalness. Ultimately here was only one person that really mattered to Oliver. And that was Oliver. In terms of being in a sham relationship with someone like him, and putting up with year after year of being frozen out, I just don't know how other people can do it. I reached my limit. I realised that when I first met Lilly.
Look, for a while I did what he did. I slept around. But women get older and men get more distinguished, more seasoned. This is nature’s revenge on women. Anyway, if you live in Sydney, you know me. You know my type. You've seen me around the Eastern Suburbs. I have a little dog and the biggest pair of Prada sunglasses you can buy. I have my Botox and I worry about my breast implants. Should I have waited until the technology had gotten better? Probably. As I say my kids are nearly grown. My son will enrol in college next year. My daughter is somewhere in Europe. When my son cuts that last tedious connection to the family household I knew Oliver would have begun divorce proceedings. I came across an email to his lawyer which made his intensions clear. So the clock was ticking.
I made Lilly understand how Oliver's interest in her would eventually wane as soon as she started becoming a three-dimensional person and not just a fluffy sex object. I only told her the truth. Eventually, he would move on. As a result of this Lilly and I slowly became friends (well, in her mind at least). And eventually, after many conversations, moving slowing from the theoretical towards the concrete, I got her to contact your associates. The plan was she would be compensated once the will came through. I made her understand (once again this is the truth) that Oliver was by nature an incredibly cheap individual. Financially, spiritually and emotionally. Maybe not at first. No. At first, he did a very good job of creating the illusion of generosity. However, the longer you knew him, the more his true nature became apparent. I explained to Lilly that he kept me on weekly allowance which, over the years, he had whittled down to a pittance. Coffee money. At the end of the week he demanded receipts. I told her the house in Bellview Hill was basically a facade. Everything in my life was a facade. I knew how much Oliver was worth. He had properties scattered all around the countryside and serious shares in the resources sector. He had a real estate company in Sydney. What with the housing market the way it was-the way it had been for the past five years with the Chinese buying up everything in sight-he had plenty of money. Yet despite this, he was deeply unhappy as an individual. The only time he was content was when he was in the garage cleaning his bloody cars. He told me there was a meditative quality to this simple routine which helped him deal with his anxiety. I personally think he was too cheap to pay to have his cars washed and waxed on a regular basis. To give you some idea of how bad things had become over the last couple of years, he would follow me around at night getting irritated when I left a light on in a room for what he deemed to be an unnecessarily long period of time. Do you know what it's like to have your existence paired down to the bare minimum? To live in an empty, pitch-black mansion overlooking Sydney harbour in order to save money? Restaurants were the worst. On the few occasions that we did go out, he would scrutinise the bill down to the last penny, demanding that whoever you were with should cover the exact cost of what they had ordered.
Anyway, I'm getting a little off topic, I know that. The point is I worked on Lilly for the better part of a year, talking to her, reassuring her and yes, manipulating her, until she came around and started to see her best long-term financial option would be to follow my advice.
I was the one who suggested the garage as a solution. It seemed like a logical way to go about it. The police and later the coroner, found him asphyxiated inside his prized little sports car. The one he barely took out anymore because he was too worried about parking tickets and getting keyed. They found a section of hose leading from the exhaust pipe in through the passenger window. No suicide note. As you well know, he was just sitting there, his hands in his lap, his head slumped forward against the steering wheel. Very peaceful. A note would have been too suspicious. My husband was never an expressive person: verbally or otherwise. In any case, I’d done the groundwork beforehand. I was the one who’d gently introduced the idea that Oliver had been unusually morose over the past year. That he’d been saying things to me which indicated an increased sense of despondency with the way his life was going. This depression was mainly transmitted as gossip through the wives of our friends in the Eastern Suburbs, who I would pull aside, my brow knitted with concern, and say things like, I'm getting a little bit worried about Ollie. Have you noticed how, recently he seems a little bit….oh, I don't know…down? A bit out of sorts? And building on that, I started expressing false concern for his mental state. And of course, I made sure that I was nowhere near Sydney the day it happened. Two days prior, I’d flown back to Adelaide where I uncharacteristically decided to visit my family. When Ollie died (was killed) I was sitting in my sister's back garden, surrounded by teenage nieces and nephews, anchoring firmly in everyone's mind the image of a good and kind auntie. Credit where credit is due, whoever actually performed the service did a marvellous job because, as it was officially recorded, his death was perceived as a suicide. Whether or not police incompetence had something to do with this or it was solely down to your professionalism I don't know. I'm not sure how exactly you did it but there was no sign a struggle and no indication that anyone had intervened. In any case, the gamble paid off. After spending a few more days in Adelaide, just to make sure, I returned to Sydney and found Oliver dead in the garage. Of course, the discovery was something I needed to work through in a naturalistic way. I couldn't just get out of the taxi and walk straight into the garage. I came back to the house, left my baggage in the hallway and dropped my keys on the kitchen counter. I sent a few texts to Oliver asking where he was. What were we doing for dinner tonight? etc etc. I texted our son, the office where Oliver works and then I got on the phone and had a conversation with a friend of mine about meeting later that afternoon for a coffee. Only then did I go out to the garage and make my discovery. By that point, the car had run out of petrol. The air was difficult to breathe and hazy with carbon monoxide fumes. As you know we live on a fairly spacious property so the neighbours would not be any wiser as to the sound of the running engine. Of course, then I had to get myself worked up and into character for the arrival of the police which involved a lot of crying, gnashing of my hands and screaming. The conversation I had with the emergency response dispatch operator was suitably scattered and dramatic. 10 minutes later I heard the sirens (they respond quickly to distress calls in our neighbourhood). I had to maintain shock and grief for the rest of the afternoon which was tiring. At least long enough so that I could get to the medicine cabinet in my bathroom and pop a sedative to take the edge off (a grieving widow zonked out on Amobarbital during her time of need would not seem out of place). The police took a statement from me, the forensic team did their work and finally, the coroner took the body away. Five hours after finding the body, I was finally alone. Do you know what I did after everyone had finally left? I went from room to room and turned all the bloody lights on, lighting the place up like a fucking Christmas tree, just because I finally could. If anyone was going to challenge the plausibility of this kind of behaviour… well, I couldn't see a problem. It was the irrational behaviour of someone who was grieving.
After a few weeks, I engaged in the very deliberate process of tapering off this grief. It was a delicate balancing act of the grief diminishing slowly over time while appearing like I was struggling to get on with my life. There were, of course, key moments which tested my acting abilities. Dealing with all his family. The funeral. Meeting with lawyers and accountants. The reading of the will. Talking to the children. Our friends. I always had a damp Kleenex or two in my purse. Long tiring days spent on the verge of tears. Mainly I tried to keep to myself. I told Lilly to be patient. I was prepared to work through this period of grief, figuring that perhaps after a year had passed I could truly resume my life. Twelve months was a small price to pay.
But then…Lilly decided to take matters into her own hands. And things became…complicated. Including Lilly in all this, I now understand, was probably the riskiest part of this whole venture. Whether by design or unwittingly, stupid people have a tendency to complicate things: they just cannot help themselves. I honestly thought she was going to be okay and do exactly what I asked of her. I was wrong obviously. I empathise with her to a certain point. I know how little is expected of pretty people. When I first met Oliver, he wanted me to be like that. I won a beauty competition in Adelaide. I was a good looking girl. Very early on, in high school, I understood that men were interested in me and could make my life easier if I let them. After high school, I did some modelling. The next step seemed clear-move to Sydney and get better, higher paid and more prestigious modelling jobs. Because people were willing to pay me to swan around on winter beaches in a swimsuit. And so that's what I did. And the first year provided an interesting perspective on what human beings are willing to do to and for each other in the name of money, sex, drugs, art and glamour. I have always considered myself to be an intelligent woman. Despite this, I was treated like some kind of idiot when I arrived in the city. It's what the men I dealt with needed me to be. Those were the rules of the industry I was in. So I have some empathy for Lilly.
She didn't contact me after the second meeting because that was my plan. No contact; either in person or by phone. But then you contacted me because she must have explained my involvement. And things changed. You sent me the key to her building and, as instructed I went to her apartment and searched the place, looking for any kind of connection she may have had to Oliver. A card. A photograph. I went through every drawer, every shoebox, everything. By then you had her smartphone and therefore, I'm assuming, access to her social media and Internet accounts. I guess you wanted to make it clear she wasn’t coming home when you sent me her phone in the mail. I could only watch a portion of the video you made. I held onto the phone for a week or two as you suggested. She started getting calls from the place she worked. Then her parents and some of her friends. A week later she was declared a missing person. I do not know and do not want to know what happened to her. Two weeks after receiving the phone I threw it into the harbour. The only complication was that six weeks after her disappearance two police officers showed up at my front door and informed me that my husband and Lilly had a romantic connection. And did I know anything about this? Standing in the doorway, I acted surprised and then broke down again, making sure I was both grieved and angry. Making sure I got angry at the two police officers in the kind of irrational way a spoilt, grieving trophy wife would. To this day, I still don't know how they made the connection between Lily and Oliver. All I can think of is that she confided in a friend. These two policemen came in and interviewed me again. They asked lots of questions. I could tell by their demeanour they were a little bit more suspicion of me this time around. At least open to the possibility. I suppose I did a good job of conveying innocence because, after finishing their coffees, they decided it must have been a superfluous connection. They actually apologised for revealing my husband's affair in this way. For a few moments there, I got the feeling the younger, brighter one might of thought there was something in all this. Just the way he was looking at me, weighing my responses and reactions. A suicide and a disappearance within weeks of each other? There had to be something in it. I suppose what really drew suspicion away from me was acting like kind of woman who didn't possess the nounce to pull something like this off. The kind of numbskull who had everything handed to her for her entire life.
Well, this brings us up-to-date and I have run out of things to say on this matter. I find it ironic that I have, in effect, exchanged one form of imprisonment for another. As you know I am complying in transferring the money you requested on a regular basis. This will happen in small increments as we discussed so as to avoid any unwanted attention from the lawyers or government. I have also written up this letter as you requested, linking and incriminating myself to my husband and his mistresse's death. In terms of ongoing trust and the aforementioned ‘insurance policy’ we agreed on, I’m sure you agree that this document will more than adequately ensure my complete silence in these matters. I understand that if I fail to comply with your instructions in the future or if any legal actions resulting from my husband’s murder or Lilly McGregor’s disappearance, this letter will make its way into the hands of the authorities. As we have discussed on the phone, I'm too old to run. I have no misplaced fantasies about disappearing to some sunny, secluded spot in the South Pacific. I believe you when you say you will find me. This being established, I’m willing to work within the parameters of what we have discussed in the hope that one day you and your associates will allow me to get on with my life.
I suppose the final thing I need to say is something like: I certify that what i have disclosed is true to the best of my knowledge.
Elizabeth Bailey Hunt.
6 June, 2015.
Initially, I was not exactly sure how to go about writing this. What I mean is how I should refer to you? In the third person? As some faceless audience? Or if I should address you directly? Considering the intended purpose for writing this document, I eventually came to the conclusion that it wouldn't really matter. I just needed to be clear. With this in mind, I think I will address you directly (Obviously. I’m doing this now). The reason I've decided to do this is that it will make what I need to say (and the actual way I write it) more direct and therefore a little easier for me to get down on paper.
As you requested, I will shed light on the relatively recent events involving Lilly McGovern, my husband Oliver Hunt and myself (Elizabeth Hunt). Events that occurred between 2013 and 2014. Please note that I am following your instructions to the letter.
The first thing I’d like to establish is that I take full responsibility for much, if not all, of what follows. That is to say, I alone devised this plan and then persuaded Lilly to participate. I gave her very specific instructions. Instructions which included where and when to meet you (The Tavern, Bankstown, October 25th, 2013). And please note, I sent her to meet you in good faith and I had no idea her intentions were other than what we had previously discussed. I assumed she would follow the plan. To this end, Lilly and I had discussed her role in exhaustive detail and I was shocked to hear that she had acted otherwise.
Look, to give you an idea of whom Lilly was, and therefore perhaps what might have motivated her (or perhaps more accurately, how she could have been operating without a clear understanding of the consequences of her poor judgement) Lilly was not the sharpest knife in the draw and therefore she was unpredictable. A fairly dangerous quality as we have subsequently discovered.
In any case, she met you with the first payment as arranged, in the beer garden of the aforementioned Tavern. And after the service (even now it is difficult to use words like 'murder' or 'killing'. It just sounds so melodramatic....almost ridiculous) was carried out, she was instructed to return to the same pub and present you with the balance of payment. I now understand that she attempted to hand over only half that amount we agreed on. I also understand that at some point during your second conversation with Lilly she attempted to renegotiate the terms of the contract. I cannot stress to you enough how sorry I am about this and that at no point did I intend to change the conditions of our original agreement. My intention is and has always been the originally agreed upon sum of money ($35,000) for services rendered. End of story.
To address the other points you mentioned, I used Lilly as a go-between because doing so created distance between myself and my husband’s death (Murder. I am trying to be specific but incriminating yourself is...not an easy thing to do).
In any case, I completely underestimated her capacity for being unpredictable in these matters. And although we talked on several occasions prior, she kept her true intentions from me throughout. I only realised something had gone wrong when you texted me using her cell phone. Despite all this, ultimately I feel responsible for what happened to her because, as I said, I initiated these events.
Another part of me, a more realistic part of me, feels that she took matters into her own hands and therefore paid the price. What do they say in these situations? She got what was coming to her. Lilly was Oliver’s latest girlfriend. I had twenty years on her and undeniably she was a beautiful little thing. Twenty years ago I was exactly like her: blonde, pretty and fairly directionless in Sydney after moving here from Adelaide. (Not that Lily came from Adelaide. She came from some inbred backwater in Queensland). When I first arrived in Sydney, I was open to new experiences that the city might provide me. Maybe the word is impressionable? So to a certain extent, I understand how she got caught up in my husband’s bullshit.
Anyway, I was the one who contacted her and eventually talked her into following this course of action. I made her understand how cold Oliver could become and how he would keep her around until he got bored of her at which point, he would find someone else. This was his proven pattern. Time and time again. He wanted a girlfriend who was perpetually twenty-four years old (what heterosexual man doesn’t?). It had been this way for years. And the only reason I have stuck around was because we had two kids together. And as I explain to her, I would continue to be part of his life for some time to come. I acknowledged that Oliver and I had separate lives and that this had been the case for the better part of a decade. He did his thing and I did mine. I honestly didn't care at all if he had girlfriends.That was his business. And things might have gone on like this for the rest of our lives had I not come across Lilly who seemed like the perfect candidate. Oliver had plenty of stupid young things in his bed before but none with Lilly’s willingness to take things to the next level. All of this was predicated on the fact that increasingly when we argued, he would threaten to change his will and cut me out. And to my mind, as he'd gotten older (and more vindictive) these threats seemed to take on the weight of serious intent. I was seriously beginning to wonder if I was going to be compensated at the end of his life. To go through all this…humiliation and alienation, and not get what was coming to me....that wouldn't have been acceptable. I wanted my pound of flesh. Not getting it became my greatest fear. My looks fading, my kids gone...living in a dingy flat somewhere...that was not going to happen to me. You have to understand that Oliver was a particular kind of man. The more money he amassed, the tighter he became with it, to the point that our life became completely stifled by his frugalness. Ultimately here was only one person that really mattered to Oliver. And that was Oliver. In terms of being in a sham relationship with someone like him, and putting up with year after year of being frozen out, I just don't know how other people can do it. I reached my limit. I realised that when I first met Lilly.
Look, for a while I did what he did. I slept around. But women get older and men get more distinguished, more seasoned. This is nature’s revenge on women. Anyway, if you live in Sydney, you know me. You know my type. You've seen me around the Eastern Suburbs. I have a little dog and the biggest pair of Prada sunglasses you can buy. I have my Botox and I worry about my breast implants. Should I have waited until the technology had gotten better? Probably. As I say my kids are nearly grown. My son will enrol in college next year. My daughter is somewhere in Europe. When my son cuts that last tedious connection to the family household I knew Oliver would have begun divorce proceedings. I came across an email to his lawyer which made his intensions clear. So the clock was ticking.
I made Lilly understand how Oliver's interest in her would eventually wane as soon as she started becoming a three-dimensional person and not just a fluffy sex object. I only told her the truth. Eventually, he would move on. As a result of this Lilly and I slowly became friends (well, in her mind at least). And eventually, after many conversations, moving slowing from the theoretical towards the concrete, I got her to contact your associates. The plan was she would be compensated once the will came through. I made her understand (once again this is the truth) that Oliver was by nature an incredibly cheap individual. Financially, spiritually and emotionally. Maybe not at first. No. At first, he did a very good job of creating the illusion of generosity. However, the longer you knew him, the more his true nature became apparent. I explained to Lilly that he kept me on weekly allowance which, over the years, he had whittled down to a pittance. Coffee money. At the end of the week he demanded receipts. I told her the house in Bellview Hill was basically a facade. Everything in my life was a facade. I knew how much Oliver was worth. He had properties scattered all around the countryside and serious shares in the resources sector. He had a real estate company in Sydney. What with the housing market the way it was-the way it had been for the past five years with the Chinese buying up everything in sight-he had plenty of money. Yet despite this, he was deeply unhappy as an individual. The only time he was content was when he was in the garage cleaning his bloody cars. He told me there was a meditative quality to this simple routine which helped him deal with his anxiety. I personally think he was too cheap to pay to have his cars washed and waxed on a regular basis. To give you some idea of how bad things had become over the last couple of years, he would follow me around at night getting irritated when I left a light on in a room for what he deemed to be an unnecessarily long period of time. Do you know what it's like to have your existence paired down to the bare minimum? To live in an empty, pitch-black mansion overlooking Sydney harbour in order to save money? Restaurants were the worst. On the few occasions that we did go out, he would scrutinise the bill down to the last penny, demanding that whoever you were with should cover the exact cost of what they had ordered.
Anyway, I'm getting a little off topic, I know that. The point is I worked on Lilly for the better part of a year, talking to her, reassuring her and yes, manipulating her, until she came around and started to see her best long-term financial option would be to follow my advice.
I was the one who suggested the garage as a solution. It seemed like a logical way to go about it. The police and later the coroner, found him asphyxiated inside his prized little sports car. The one he barely took out anymore because he was too worried about parking tickets and getting keyed. They found a section of hose leading from the exhaust pipe in through the passenger window. No suicide note. As you well know, he was just sitting there, his hands in his lap, his head slumped forward against the steering wheel. Very peaceful. A note would have been too suspicious. My husband was never an expressive person: verbally or otherwise. In any case, I’d done the groundwork beforehand. I was the one who’d gently introduced the idea that Oliver had been unusually morose over the past year. That he’d been saying things to me which indicated an increased sense of despondency with the way his life was going. This depression was mainly transmitted as gossip through the wives of our friends in the Eastern Suburbs, who I would pull aside, my brow knitted with concern, and say things like, I'm getting a little bit worried about Ollie. Have you noticed how, recently he seems a little bit….oh, I don't know…down? A bit out of sorts? And building on that, I started expressing false concern for his mental state. And of course, I made sure that I was nowhere near Sydney the day it happened. Two days prior, I’d flown back to Adelaide where I uncharacteristically decided to visit my family. When Ollie died (was killed) I was sitting in my sister's back garden, surrounded by teenage nieces and nephews, anchoring firmly in everyone's mind the image of a good and kind auntie. Credit where credit is due, whoever actually performed the service did a marvellous job because, as it was officially recorded, his death was perceived as a suicide. Whether or not police incompetence had something to do with this or it was solely down to your professionalism I don't know. I'm not sure how exactly you did it but there was no sign a struggle and no indication that anyone had intervened. In any case, the gamble paid off. After spending a few more days in Adelaide, just to make sure, I returned to Sydney and found Oliver dead in the garage. Of course, the discovery was something I needed to work through in a naturalistic way. I couldn't just get out of the taxi and walk straight into the garage. I came back to the house, left my baggage in the hallway and dropped my keys on the kitchen counter. I sent a few texts to Oliver asking where he was. What were we doing for dinner tonight? etc etc. I texted our son, the office where Oliver works and then I got on the phone and had a conversation with a friend of mine about meeting later that afternoon for a coffee. Only then did I go out to the garage and make my discovery. By that point, the car had run out of petrol. The air was difficult to breathe and hazy with carbon monoxide fumes. As you know we live on a fairly spacious property so the neighbours would not be any wiser as to the sound of the running engine. Of course, then I had to get myself worked up and into character for the arrival of the police which involved a lot of crying, gnashing of my hands and screaming. The conversation I had with the emergency response dispatch operator was suitably scattered and dramatic. 10 minutes later I heard the sirens (they respond quickly to distress calls in our neighbourhood). I had to maintain shock and grief for the rest of the afternoon which was tiring. At least long enough so that I could get to the medicine cabinet in my bathroom and pop a sedative to take the edge off (a grieving widow zonked out on Amobarbital during her time of need would not seem out of place). The police took a statement from me, the forensic team did their work and finally, the coroner took the body away. Five hours after finding the body, I was finally alone. Do you know what I did after everyone had finally left? I went from room to room and turned all the bloody lights on, lighting the place up like a fucking Christmas tree, just because I finally could. If anyone was going to challenge the plausibility of this kind of behaviour… well, I couldn't see a problem. It was the irrational behaviour of someone who was grieving.
After a few weeks, I engaged in the very deliberate process of tapering off this grief. It was a delicate balancing act of the grief diminishing slowly over time while appearing like I was struggling to get on with my life. There were, of course, key moments which tested my acting abilities. Dealing with all his family. The funeral. Meeting with lawyers and accountants. The reading of the will. Talking to the children. Our friends. I always had a damp Kleenex or two in my purse. Long tiring days spent on the verge of tears. Mainly I tried to keep to myself. I told Lilly to be patient. I was prepared to work through this period of grief, figuring that perhaps after a year had passed I could truly resume my life. Twelve months was a small price to pay.
But then…Lilly decided to take matters into her own hands. And things became…complicated. Including Lilly in all this, I now understand, was probably the riskiest part of this whole venture. Whether by design or unwittingly, stupid people have a tendency to complicate things: they just cannot help themselves. I honestly thought she was going to be okay and do exactly what I asked of her. I was wrong obviously. I empathise with her to a certain point. I know how little is expected of pretty people. When I first met Oliver, he wanted me to be like that. I won a beauty competition in Adelaide. I was a good looking girl. Very early on, in high school, I understood that men were interested in me and could make my life easier if I let them. After high school, I did some modelling. The next step seemed clear-move to Sydney and get better, higher paid and more prestigious modelling jobs. Because people were willing to pay me to swan around on winter beaches in a swimsuit. And so that's what I did. And the first year provided an interesting perspective on what human beings are willing to do to and for each other in the name of money, sex, drugs, art and glamour. I have always considered myself to be an intelligent woman. Despite this, I was treated like some kind of idiot when I arrived in the city. It's what the men I dealt with needed me to be. Those were the rules of the industry I was in. So I have some empathy for Lilly.
She didn't contact me after the second meeting because that was my plan. No contact; either in person or by phone. But then you contacted me because she must have explained my involvement. And things changed. You sent me the key to her building and, as instructed I went to her apartment and searched the place, looking for any kind of connection she may have had to Oliver. A card. A photograph. I went through every drawer, every shoebox, everything. By then you had her smartphone and therefore, I'm assuming, access to her social media and Internet accounts. I guess you wanted to make it clear she wasn’t coming home when you sent me her phone in the mail. I could only watch a portion of the video you made. I held onto the phone for a week or two as you suggested. She started getting calls from the place she worked. Then her parents and some of her friends. A week later she was declared a missing person. I do not know and do not want to know what happened to her. Two weeks after receiving the phone I threw it into the harbour. The only complication was that six weeks after her disappearance two police officers showed up at my front door and informed me that my husband and Lilly had a romantic connection. And did I know anything about this? Standing in the doorway, I acted surprised and then broke down again, making sure I was both grieved and angry. Making sure I got angry at the two police officers in the kind of irrational way a spoilt, grieving trophy wife would. To this day, I still don't know how they made the connection between Lily and Oliver. All I can think of is that she confided in a friend. These two policemen came in and interviewed me again. They asked lots of questions. I could tell by their demeanour they were a little bit more suspicion of me this time around. At least open to the possibility. I suppose I did a good job of conveying innocence because, after finishing their coffees, they decided it must have been a superfluous connection. They actually apologised for revealing my husband's affair in this way. For a few moments there, I got the feeling the younger, brighter one might of thought there was something in all this. Just the way he was looking at me, weighing my responses and reactions. A suicide and a disappearance within weeks of each other? There had to be something in it. I suppose what really drew suspicion away from me was acting like kind of woman who didn't possess the nounce to pull something like this off. The kind of numbskull who had everything handed to her for her entire life.
Well, this brings us up-to-date and I have run out of things to say on this matter. I find it ironic that I have, in effect, exchanged one form of imprisonment for another. As you know I am complying in transferring the money you requested on a regular basis. This will happen in small increments as we discussed so as to avoid any unwanted attention from the lawyers or government. I have also written up this letter as you requested, linking and incriminating myself to my husband and his mistresse's death. In terms of ongoing trust and the aforementioned ‘insurance policy’ we agreed on, I’m sure you agree that this document will more than adequately ensure my complete silence in these matters. I understand that if I fail to comply with your instructions in the future or if any legal actions resulting from my husband’s murder or Lilly McGregor’s disappearance, this letter will make its way into the hands of the authorities. As we have discussed on the phone, I'm too old to run. I have no misplaced fantasies about disappearing to some sunny, secluded spot in the South Pacific. I believe you when you say you will find me. This being established, I’m willing to work within the parameters of what we have discussed in the hope that one day you and your associates will allow me to get on with my life.
I suppose the final thing I need to say is something like: I certify that what i have disclosed is true to the best of my knowledge.
Elizabeth Bailey Hunt.
6 June, 2015.
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