The Shark Net by Robert Drewe

Author:Robert Drewe
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781742284453
Publisher: Penguin Group Australia
Published: 2009-10-10T04:00:00+00:00

The homicide squad had its hands full that Christmas. Five days before Christmas Day, Jillian Brewer, described in the papers as ‘the beautiful twenty-two-year-old heiress to the MacRobertson chocolate fortune’, was murdered in her bed in her apartment in Brookwood Flats, on Stirling Highway in Cottesloe.

The killer had begun with a hatchet. He hacked into her face, breasts, thighs, stomach and pelvis. He severed her windpipe and fractured her skull and pubic bone. He struck so hard he split the hatchet’s wooden handle. Then he snatched up a pair of scissors and stabbed her in the breasts, abdomen, liver and buttocks.

The scissors belonged to the murdered woman, but the hatchet belonged to one of my best friends.

Simon Watson and I were in the same class at school. We swam and surfed together. I crewed on his old plywood Gwen-12 yacht, sitting out on the trapeze, my arse skimming the waves, while he shouted orders. We went to the Claremont dance. In lifesaving competitions we alternated as Rescuer and Patient, Hero and Drowning Swimmer.

Simon lived at 4 Renown Avenue, a block behind Brookwood Flats. Earlier on the Saturday of Jillian Brewer’s murder he’d been doing the gardening chores for his parents, using the hatchet to chip the edges of the lawn. That night, prowling first through the Watsons’ property, the killer had picked up Simon’s hatchet and taken it with him.

It turned out that the killer had worn gloves in order that any fingerprints at the scene or on the murder weapon would not be his. The next few weeks, encompassing Christmas and the first hot days of the summer holidays, were a difficult time for Simon and his family.

Brookwood Flats was prominently situated on the turnoff to North Cottesloe. I passed the big red-brick apartment building every time I went to the beach. I wanted to talk to Simon about Jillian Brewer’s murder. At the same time it was so terrible and gruesome it was beyond my understanding.

Simon was an open, chatty, humorous boy but he wouldn’t talk about the murder or even the murder weapon. By now I was thinking about the hatchet as if it were a person – as if it were the murderer.

The police didn’t want him to discuss it. Neither did his parents. If and when they caught the killer he’d probably have to give evidence. But … but … Jesus, Simon! Your axe killed that girl. The murderer was in your yard! He was looking through your windows at you, at your sister! Who do you think did it?

Simon gave a tortured look and clammed up.

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