• In it for Chick's
And what journo could resist an offer like that?
Room 5 at Chick's Hotel is about 3sq m and fairly nondescript.
White ceiling and grey walls, met on the floor by a lush, red, patterned carpet.
A large porcelain hand basin sits in the corner.
Beside it is a circa 1950s electric shaver socket.
It was originally room 6.
"They changed around the numbers on all the rooms after the killings," Mr Hazard says.
"You can still make out the outline of the number six on the door."
A window over the fire escape looks up the hill to Iona Church.
On Saturday, August 14, 1976, Sawyers Bay carrier Gordon Robert Beatson (49) climbed the fire escape with a rifle and shot his wife, Joan Beatson (33), and Invercargill fisherman Peter Chapman (30), who were in the room.
Police Inspector R. N. McDonald told the Otago Daily Times the pair were found at 4.30am with gunshot wounds to the head.
Beatson then retreated to his Sawyers Bay home and, surrounded by police, turned the gun on himself in his shed.
It is difficult to believe such a benign room could be the scene of such horror.
I sleep soundly.
But, only after making sure the fire escape window was locked first.
