The Lundy trial: One customer call girl will never forget

By ALISON HORWOOD

She comes to the door of her neat state house in understated gold jewellery. With shoulder-length hair, wearing sensible pants and a blouse, she looks like any young mum heading to a kindergarten meeting.

There is not a hint of the notoriety that has gathered around her.

Known as Brenda, she is the woman Mark Lundy paid for sex within hours of killing his family.

Her 20 minutes in the dock at his Palmerston North trial were 20 minutes too long for her in the public eye. Her profession and her involvement with the convicted double murderer bring Brenda no pride. She wants to fade for ever from the country's gaze.

"I have to protect my family," the 20-something mother of one told the Herald from her Wellington home, a tidy house in a row of Housing New Zealand properties with children's play equipment in the yard.

Brenda's parents do not know of her work, or her evidence.

At the time of the murders, she worked for the Quarry Inn, an escort agency listed in the Yellow Pages as "Wellington's best kept secret".

Lundy phoned the agency on his cellphone from the Foreshore Motor Lodge, Petone, at 11.30pm on August 29, 2000, about 4 1/2 hours after his wife and daughter were butchered.

Brenda, whose real name and details are suppressed, was dropped at the motel about 11.45pm. Their conversation was relaxed. Lundy knew the routine - he had hired prostitutes about 10 times before, though this was his first time with Brenda.

Lundy would tell police he had wanted sex because he was celebrating a new kitchen product line his company had snared.

Brenda remembered Lundy talking about his kitchen business, and a vineyard project. She noticed there was a three-quarters-empty rum bottle in the unit. She also noticed that his suit cover was "quite bulky".

After chatting for a while, Lundy slipped off his green tracksuit pants and they completed the transaction he had paid for - $140 for oral sex and protected intercourse.

The job done, they talked some more while she waited for a driver. Lundy was pleasant, she would recall.

Since Brenda's appearance in court, police and staff at the escort agency have been protective of her.

Police rang the Herald with a reminder of the court suppression orders covering Brenda.

The Quarry Inn was much more direct.

"She doesn't work here any more," said a woman who answered the phone. "Leave her alone. She's been through enough crap."