A Royal Murder

by Sandra Winter-Dewhirst

  Washing her hands, Rebecca stood next to a young woman applying her lipstick.

  ‘Did you see that guy stabbed and fall off the balcony?’ asked Rebecca.

  ‘Sure did, but he didn’t fall; he was pushed,’ said the young woman as she took a comb from her handbag. ‘And now we all have to leave our seats, miss the rest of the match, and be interviewed.’

  ‘What do you mean he was pushed? What happened?’

  ‘I knew this guy was weird when I saw him sitting in the stand in a hoodie. It was too hot to be wearing a hoodie. He was sitting in the second row, and the man who was stabbed was sitting in the front row. As soon as the man with the bad toupee got up and shuffled his way to the aisle, the guy with the hoodie got up, took out this cleaver from inside his jacket, plunged it into the guy’s back, put something in his pocket, and pushed him off the balcony. He then made a rush for the exit.’

  ‘Didn’t anyone try to stop him escaping?’ asked Rebecca.

  ‘Not as far as I could see. Everyone who saw it just seemed stunned. Everyone else was still watching the cricket.’

  ‘Did you see his face?’

  ‘No. I tried to, but he had the hoodie on, and he had his hand up to his face as he ran up the stairs. I couldn’t see his face.’

  ‘And you said he put something in the guy’s pocket. Could you see what that was?’

  ‘No, I wasn’t close enough.’

  Rebecca spent the rest of Tuesday evening at the office, filing copy for the morning edition. She didn’t arrive home until after two am and fell into bed. The next day was going to be a stinker in more ways than one.

  It was eight o’clock before Rebecca woke up. Her bedroom was already warm. She opened the shutters and the doors and was met by hot air. Wow, she thought as she quickly closed the doors again. Just the sort of day I would like to take off and go to the beach.

  She opened her tablet and checked the Advertiser’s front page. The headlines screamed, ‘Murder at Adelaide Oval’ and ‘Stalker of Murdered Golfer Stabbed, Pushed off Grandstand.’

  One of Rebecca’s phone photos of Bruce was enlarged and prominently displayed in the middle of the page. Bruce’s face was pixelated. She was always amazed at what was pixelated and what wasn’t. It was obviously the body of a murdered man. How much more gruesome would it be to see his face? She shrugged. Rebecca swiped through a dozen other photos, some taken by her and some by an Advertiser photographer.

  She then saw the headline, ‘Our Reporter Doesn’t Drop the Ball’ above a photo of her catching the cricket ball in the grandstand.

  She picked up the phone and called Reg. ‘So, what sort of reaction are we getting to the murder at Adelaide oval story?’

  ‘It’s strong. It’s trending as the top story. All the other metros have picked it up, and it’s gone international. But forget about that. I’ve just got off the phone to China. I was about to ring you. Bo Yong is a Chinese businessman, but there is also evidence he hides his legitimate businesses behind organised crime. He’s connected to a triad called the Golden Dragon. He appears to have his fingers in many pies, including manufacturing clothes. You need to do more digging on both Sol Semler and Bo Yong. You need to get as much detail on them as you can. Follow every lead,’ Reg demanded.

  ‘But it’s a different triad than the White Lotus Society. What does that mean? Have we got two triads involved?’

  ‘Stuffed if I know. That’s one of the things you need to find out,’ Reg said.

  ‘There was Chinese writing on the cleaver handle.’

  ‘Did you get a close-up photo of it?’

  ‘Yeah, I did. I’ll get it translated.’

  ‘Right. After that, get your arse in here and get cracking on backgrounds on Sol Semler and Bo Yong. I take it they are both still in the country?’

  ‘Yeah. They are. The cops got a court order to confiscate their passports.’

  ‘Okay. I’m going to put a private detective on to Sol Semler and Bo Yong. He’ll follow their every move for the next few days. Let’s see if they make any mistakes.’

  Rebecca spent the day researching. Her investigations found Sol Semler was now the full owner of Pixie Browning Clothing and able to do with the business whatever he wanted. She found evidence that Sol had studied at the prestigious Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University. It explained his Mandarin. There’s more to this guy than meets the eye, she thought.

  But, with regards to Bo Yong, she could only find out about his legitimate business.

  Life’s a Beach

  Thursday was going to be even hotter than Wednesday. The weather bureau was forecasting forty-two degrees.

  It was only six o’clock in the morning. Despite being exhausted, Rebecca couldn’t stay in bed any longer. She needed to clear her head. She needed a swim. The ocean was the one thing that could always revitalise her.

  She called Reg, but his phone went straight to voicemail.

  ‘Hi, Reg. It’s me, Rebecca. I’ll be in a bit later this morning, around tennish. Oh, and I’ve got some news on that cleaver handle and on Sol that I know you’ll be interested in. It’s dynamite. See you later this morning. And, Reg. Don’t be a luddite; read your emails.’

  She then turned off her phone. It was something she rarely did, but when things were getting too much, she knew she had to cut herself off completely and give herself space. Being constantly on call was fine when she was on top of things. When she was fragile, she needed space to rebuild her mental strength without distractions.

  Rebecca pulled on her black bathers, slipped on a cheesecloth smock, and slid her feet into sandals. She grabbed a beach towel and headed for the car and the twenty-minute drive to the beach.

  Early morning at Henley Beach was magical. It was the beach where Rebecca’s dad used to drop the family off on a hot summer’s day during the school holidays before he headed to work, picking them up at the end of a long day. Rebecca remembered her mum making loads of sandwiches and mixing iced cordial in a ten-litre insulated jug, complete with a fitted plastic cup and tap. The family would vie with other families for a spot under the shade of the jetty. Their two-sided shade tent was insurance if they failed to nab the prime spot. Rebecca loved those lazy days on the beach. She would alternate from lying in the shade, reading a book, playing beach cricket with her brothers and running down to the water to plunge into the sea. At day’s end, Rebecca would look forward to her dad joining them. He would buy fish and chips for tea, and they would eat straight from the newspaper wrapping while watching the sunset over the gulf. Before going home, Rebecca used to go for one last swim to cool off. She knew she needed the coolness of that water now. She craved it.

  Rebecca plunged in head first. The cold water compared to the warm air temperature momentarily took her breath away. She flipped on to her back, paddling with her feet. It was delicious. The cold soon gave way to cool. The sun had just crept over the western hills and was soft enough for the colours to be vibrant. By midmorning the sun would be so strong that the colours of the sea and sky would be washed out. Rebecca looked back to the shore. She saw the wide sandy beach, the jetty to her left, the surf lifesaving clubrooms, and the array of shops and homes along the esplanade. If she lived anywhere other than inner city, it would be at the beach.

  After spending nearly half an hour in the water, mainly floating but with an occasional not-too-energetic breaststroke, Rebecca climbed out and made her way up to where she had left her towel and car keys. She laid her sandy body on the towel, under the growing warmth of the sun. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. She scanned her body, practising the meditation technique she had been taught by a Buddhist monk. She drifted off to her safe place, completely shut off from the worries and pressures of her work.

  She didn’t know how long she had been lying there when yells woke her. There was something about the yells that Rebecca couldn’t ignore. She looked down to the edge of the sea where a small crowd had gathered next to the jetty pylons.
Someone was pointing to a floating object just out past the end of the jetty. Rebecca sat up and tried to take in what was happening. She saw a young man take off his jogging shoes, run into the water, and swim out to the object. Rebecca got up and walked down to join the others, now aware that the floating object was a body.

  As she drew closer, and even though the body was about a hundred metres out, Rebecca could see the person was floating face down. ‘Has anyone called the police and an ambulance? And what about the surf lifesavers?’

  An older woman answered, ‘Yes, I have, dear. The police and ambulance are on their way. As for the surf lifesaving club, the patrols don’t come on until the afternoon during the week, about one o’clock, I think. But I believe the young man who has swum out is a surf lifesaver out for his morning jog.’

  The lifesaver reached the body and flipped it. He looked like he was attempting mouth-to-mouth. Rebecca wondered how effective that would be while the body was still floating. She decided to dive in and help the young man bring the body to shore. The crowd watched as she ran into the water. She swam hard and met the young man as he was attempting to swim with the body. Rebecca yelled, ‘Is he still alive?’

  The young man yelled back, ‘It’s a woman, and I don’t know. She looks dead, but I’m not sure.’

  Rebecca could hear sirens. ‘Here, let me help.’

  She did sidestroke on the opposite side of the body to the young man and used her spare hand to gently hold the woman’s chin, keeping her head above water. The lifesaver had an arm hooked under the woman’s armpit. She was large. Rebecca looked at her face, already bloated and distorted, and felt uneasy. Despite bloating, there was something familiar about her. They reached the shore. A couple of people waiting grabbed the woman under her armpits and dragged her up onto the wet sand.

  An ambulance and a patrol car drove onto the beach and stopped near the small crowd, officers rushing to the body. They started working on her immediately, pumping her chest and putting an oxygen mask on her face.

  ‘No pulse!’ yelled one of the ambulance officers as they continued to work on her.

  Rebecca saw a patrol officer had taken the young surf-lifesaver aside and was asking him questions. Another officer was interviewing a bystander.

  Rebecca kept looking at the woman’s face as the ambulance officers worked on her. Suddenly the body arched. Vomit and water erupted from the woman’s mouth, jettisoning the oxygen mask.

  ‘Oh thank God! She’s alive,’ screamed the older woman.

  There was spontaneous applause from the crowd, including from the policemen. Rebecca looked horrified. Now that the woman’s face had come alive, she recognised her.

  ‘Matilda Lambert!’ she exclaimed to no one in particular.

  One of the policemen came up to Rebecca. ‘Do you know this woman?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I do. It’s Matilda Lambert, a professional golfer. She’s one of the suspects in the Pixie Browning murder,’ said Rebecca. Seeing the puzzled look on the officer’s face, she added, ‘The Blood on the Tracks murder.’

  ‘Oh!’ nodded the officer. ‘I better call DCI Jarvie,’ he said to the other officer as he reached for his phone.

  Rebecca couldn’t believe she was now at the scene of yet another catastrophic event.

  After giving a statement to the police officer, and after watching Matilda being lifted into the ambulance and driven off to hospital, Rebecca walked through the heavy sand to her car, retrieving her handbag and phone from the boot. She rang Reg.

  ‘Where the hell have you been? And why the hell have you had your phone turned off? All hell has broken here, and I couldn’t get hold of you.’

  Rebecca was so curious about what Reg meant when he referred to ‘all hell’ that she didn’t immediately offer up her news. ‘So what’s happened?’

  ‘Sol Semler has been charged with the murder of Pixie Browning, that’s what.’

  ‘On what evidence?’

  ‘His fingerprints were discovered all over the body and the bag. They should have known this information days ago, but there’s been bloody industrial action in pathology. Hopeless!’

  ‘Really? Do they have any other evidence apart from the fingerprints?’

  ‘Not that we know of yet. And what did you find out about Sol and that cleaver handle? You said you had dynamite. You didn’t know about the fingerprints, did you?’

  ‘No, I didn’t know about Sol’s fingerprints. The cleaver handle has the insignia of the White Lotus Society. So there’s another link. But the real dynamite is that I’ve found evidence Sol is a member of the White Lotus Society. But I have to tell you about another twist.’

  ‘Bigger than Sol being a member of the same triad that’s been caught up in all of this? You should have filed that by now. Jesus, Rebecca, we should be running that story now. What the hell have you been doing?’

  ‘It’s in your inbox, Reg,’ said Rebecca.

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Reg, a little less shrill.

  ‘I wrote the copy and emailed it to you last night before I left work. I also rang you this morning to discuss it, but you didn’t pick up. In my voice message, I told you to read your emails.’

  ‘You know I get a zillion emails, and I can’t stand going through them. You should have told me outright!’

  ‘I thought it was pretty plain. Plus, you could have just done a search for my emails, given I told you to check your emails,’ said Rebecca, frustrated at Reg’s inability to handle his email traffic.

  ‘You’re being too smart by half, Rebecca, and you know smartarses piss me off.’

  Rebecca had to admit that she could have been less cryptic in her message, but she had been tired and grumpy. Teaching Reg a lesson probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do when the stakes were so high.

  ‘Sorry, Reg. You’re right. I was being a smartarse. Anyway, I’ve got something else for you. Matilda Lambert nearly drowned at Henley Beach this morning. I helped to pull her from the water. We thought she was dead, but the ambos were able to revive her. They’re taking her to the Royal Adelaide Hospital. The police don’t think there’s anything suspicious at this stage. They suspect she tried to top herself. I’m not sure if she’s done any permanent damage.’

  ‘Got copy?’

  ‘Yep. I’ve typed a few pars. I’ll send them through as soon as we hang up.’

  ‘Photos?’

  ‘No. And before you start yelling again, my phone was in the car. The ambos took her away before I could get my phone. And I couldn’t get it earlier, as I was helping to save her life!’

  ‘Not good enough,’ Reg said and hung up.

  Rebecca sat in her car and sent through the copy. She then pulled her beach towel over her head, and burst into tears.

  Someone tapped on her car window.

  ‘Go away,’ she said sobbing, not looking up.

  ‘Rebecca, it’s me, Gary.’

  Rebecca whipped the towel off her head, and opened the car door. She leapt into Gary’s arms, pressing her sandy and almost-naked body against his.

  ‘What sort of mess have you got yourself mixed up in now?’ soothed Gary before he put his lips on her salty mouth.

  After a lingering kiss, Rebecca pulled away, unable to keep her curiosity at bay. ‘So you’ve arrested Sol Semler for the murder of Pixie Browning on fingerprint evidence. Is that all you’ve got?’

  ‘You know I can’t go into details.’

  Rebecca wouldn’t give up. ‘Are you charging Sol with Bruce Wells’s murder as well?’

  ‘No. I’m not. I haven’t got any evidence to link him to Wells’s killing.’

  ‘Ah. Got you! So you don’t know Sol Semler was a member of the White Lotus Society triad, and you don’t know the cleaver they found in Bruce Wells’s back had the White Lotus Society triad insignia on it?’ Rebecca gloated.

  Gary looked at her curiously. He didn’t want to admit that he didn’t have the translation of the cleaver handle yet. He had been hoping it would be on
his desk this morning. ‘How do you know Sol Semler is mixed up with the White Lotus Society?’

  ‘Clever research, that’s how.’

  ‘Can you be more specific?’

  ‘I asked around on the darknet, and had it confirmed by four sources.’

  ‘Rebecca! What the hell are you doing on the darknet? Do you know how dangerous that is?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. I’m really careful, and I’ve got special software that makes it impossible for people to track me,’ said Rebecca, giving Gary a cheeky smile.

  ‘I didn’t think you would be so stupid!’ exclaimed Gary before adding more calmly, ‘As for using the word of people you track down on the darknet, it’s hardly credible.’

  Rebecca was hurt by Gary calling her an idiot. ‘Well, I think it’s credible, and I’ve written a story off the back of it. And even if you don’t trust my sources, at least it should be enough for you to follow it up as a lead.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll get someone on it,’ said Gary as he grabbed Rebecca’s towel from the car and draped it around her.

  ‘But what I don’t understand is why Sol was doing business with another triad,’ said Rebecca coolly.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Our correspondent in China has found evidence that Bo Yong is a member of the Golden Dragon triad, and if Sol is a member of a rival triad, the White Lotus Society, why would they be in business together?’

  ‘Who knows? Perhaps Yong wasn’t trying to do business with Sol but take the business from him. But stop this, Rebecca. We’ve charged Sol with one murder and if I find credible evidence that he was involved in killing Bruce Wells, I’ll charge him with that murder as well. Now you’ve just had a shock with Matilda Lambert, you need to go home. ‘