Beering filled me in with the details. They were still a bit on the sketchy side, but police had positively identified Gofer and confirmed he had died from multiple stab wounds to the chest region. There was some doubt about whether he had been killed there or taken from somewhere and dumped. It didn’t really matter, because the one hope we had of finding Ronnie Davis and his brother had just evaporated.
‘How did you find out so quickly? I thought you weren’t going to see West until Monday?’
‘I wasn’t going to, except for your harping at me over pulling my finger out. I actually rang West when I got in this morning, told her the Gofer story according to you and me. That’s when she cut me short and told me they’d found him early this morning. Of course, they hadn’t associated him with the Davis brothers and Michelle’s kidnap until I gave them our version of the story.’
‘Any witnesses?’ I asked.
‘None that have turned up as yet.’
‘Any clues on who did him in?’
‘You’re a betting man. You want to take a shot?’
‘I’d say a man who knows how to use a knife. Probably the same knife that was used on Michelle and Keegan’s wife. I’d give even money it was Craig Davis, with a little help from Ronnie.’
Beering nodded in agreement. ‘A dispute amongst the partnership?’
‘Maybe the Gofer passed his use-by date. Had nothing more to offer them.’
‘Yeah, that or they decided that Big Oakie’s ransom went further with just the two of ’em sharing it.’
‘So they took the little rat out. After all, no one would really miss him. And it would be getting rid of loose ends.’
‘Exactly. So, at the end of the day, we’re no closer to finding them. Unless you got any new ideas?’
I shook my head. ‘Ronnie’s been on the run for nine months and the police can’t find a trace of him or Craig. I reckon I’d have a better chance of finding Elvis.’
When I left Beering’s office, I called Kev and Tiny on my mobile and told them the news. As expected, they were both disappointed. Then I dropped by Oakie’s stand and told him. He took it pretty calmly, all things considered.
‘At least the little bastard got what he deserved,’ he said. ‘Back to square one then?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘Don’t worry. You’ll come up with something, we’ll get ’em yet.’
‘I hope so, Oakie. I hope so.’
The rest of the week passed by pretty quickly. I had a couple of surf sessions, one on the Sunday with Billco down at Big Lefts and another midweek down on the west coast by myself. I caught up with Billy on Wednesday night at Gino’s and then on the Friday I attended Nick Malloy’s funeral at St Aloysius. He was a popular young rider and a large portion of Melbourne’s racing fraternity turned out to farewell him. Most of O’Reilly’s stable were there: Sheamus and Frank, all the strappers and some of the stable’s owners. Malloy’s large Catholic family had all come, of course – a close-knit bunch who couldn’t understand why one so young had been snatched away from a life that had so much more to offer. His mother was surrounded by Malloy’s various siblings and relatives. Her husband sat stoically by her side as the priest commenced the service.
The parish priest asked us all to pray for Malloy to be in God’s care. Then he asked for forgiveness to be granted for his sins. I’m not a religious person, but I couldn’t see that an eighteen-year-old kid like Malloy would have a whole lot of sins to forgive. I mumbled a prayer anyway, along with the rest. On his coffin they had placed his racing saddle, some silks, his riding whip and a photo. In his photo he looked about thirteen. A baby-faced jockey whose final ride would soon be in the back of a hearse. In between the sermons, we stood to sing some hymns. One of his sisters played a guitar and sang one of Malloy’s favourite songs. I didn’t know the song, but she sang it well and put on a good show, all the while trying to stifle her tears.
Then they came to the eulogies. Malloy’s father spoke first. Talked of a son cut down in his prime. A son who his family would forever be proud of. It was a speech straight from the heart, a speech that only a father could make about his own flesh and blood. Frank, representing O’Reilly’s stable, gave a warm and moving speech. I was surprised at what a good public speaker he was. He brought a tear to everyone’s eye when he told the story of when Malloy had ridden his first winner for O’Reilly. Frank said, ‘I knew he’d make a good rider even then, when he got up on an outsider, which beat the stable favourite home. I don’t think the boss was too pleased with that ride!’ he said, looking at O’Reilly sitting in the pew. ‘But since that inauspicious start, it’s hard to believe he’s booted home more than a hundred winners in his short, but highly successful career. He was a credit to his profession, a real young gentleman, and I know I speak for everyone at our stable in saying he may be gone, but his spirit will always be with us.’
After the service had finished I hung around outside and talked to a few people I knew. I always felt awkward at these things, never knowing quite what to say or do.
I saw Chris Bassami, Inside Running’s racing editor, so I wandered over to him. He nodded at me.
‘Punter. Poor kid,’ he said. ‘What a way to go. Suppose it was over before he knew what hit him.’
‘Yeah. If you’ve gotta go, I suppose it’s better that way.’
Bassami lit up a smoke, and offered me one, which I declined. ‘I’ll tell you something,’ he said, blowing out a cloud, ‘that fuckin’ stable is jinxed at the moment. They can’t take a trick. Odds-on faves gettin’ beaten. Owners desertin’. And now that kid.’
‘Wouldn’t believe it, would you.’
‘Hey,’ he said, ‘any more news on that kidnap thing you were mixed up in?’
I shook my head. ‘Nah, the police haven’t come up with anything new.’
Probably weren’t going to either, with Gofer snuffing it and the last link gone. But I wasn’t going to tell him that.
‘Okay. Cheers, Punter.’
‘Cheers.’
‘Oh, good luck with your horse tomorrow. Heard you’ve got a pack of stunners as your part-owners. What do they call ’emselves, Chicks at the races?’
‘Chicksdayattheraces Syndicate. There’s about a hundred of them in it. Come over tomorrow in the mounting yard and I’ll introduce you.’
‘Thanks. I will.’
I left Chris there and said a few words of condolences to Nicholas’s family and friends. Then I spoke briefly to Frank and told him what a good speech he’d made. He smiled kindly and thanked me. I asked him about Romaro Boy.
‘How’s the old fellow gone on since his last start?’
‘Well, he’s certainly done a treat. O’Reilly won’t hear of him being beaten tomorrow. And it does look a winnable race. But . . . you never can be sure, can you. Anyway,’ he said, ‘I wish you and your lovely lady friends all the best of luck tomorrow. I’ll see you out there.’
After the funeral I drove home and got stuck into some serious form study. Normally I go through the meeting field by field and sift through the better ones to play. But today I went straight to Romaro Boy’s race. He was in the sixth, a two-thousand-metre event. I didn’t really need a formguide to convince me he was a good thing. He was up against the winner of his last start at Mornington, but he met that horse much better off in the weights. Hayes had a horse engaged that would be thereabouts, but after those two, the list of chances looked pretty thin.
I looked back and saw Malloy’s name down as his previous rider. That was the last ride poor Malloy had ever had. Tomorrow, top hoop Gavin Spicer was booked to ride him. I flicked my video on and watched his run at Mornington a few times over. I liked the way he was really winding up and knuckling down to the task. With the extra distance in tomorrow’s race and his expected improvement in fitness, he was as good a bet as any I’d laid down for a while.
Chan broke my concentration by brushing up against my legs and letting me know it was time for his dinner.
‘What do you think, Chan, Romaro Boy a good thing for tomorrow?’
He meowed.
‘And I’ll get five to one about him?’
Meowed enthusiastically again. It was quite obvious to Chan that I’d get the fives.
‘You’re a ridiculous creature, but I love you. We could have this conversation forever, couldn’t we? I’m hungry. Fancy some nibblies?’
Chan thought the nibblies were an excellent idea, especially when he heard me opening a tin of smoked oysters. Don’t ask me how he knows, but whenever he hears me rip open the cardboard pack off a can of oysters, he’s there within a microsecond. Today he broke his previous personal best time and bounded into the kitchen at my feet as though he hadn’t been fed in a week.
‘Gosh, you’re a greedy little fellow, aren’t you?’
Chan didn’t deny it, giving me a chirping meow of anticipation at the tasty snack he knew was coming.
‘Only one then, right? Otherwise you’ll become the fattest cat on the block.’
I spooned one of the things into his bowl and he wolfed it down before looking up at me waiting for the next one. Gave me a pathetic look, appealing for more.
‘No. I said Only one.’ Discipline. That’s the shot. Pets need to know who the master is. ‘Oh all right then, just one more. Ridiculous creature.’
The next day at Flemington, I got there just before the fifth. That’s late for me, but Romaro Boy’s race wasn’t until the sixth and there was nothing else I wanted to back before then. George was standing patiently on duty by the entrance gate with his Salvation Army bucket.
‘Hi, Punter, you’re late today, aren’t you?’
Agreed with him. Joked I would be flat out holding down his job with the hours I kept. I gave him my usual contribution and made straight for my favourite little café in the members’ area on the ground floor. I’m a sucker for their crab sandwiches; could eat them by the bucket. They served chilled champagne too, but I passed on that. I don’t normally drink at the races. So I bought a couple of rounds of sandwiches and a coffee and sat down in front of a TV monitor. It’s a routine I go through every meeting I’m at. I sift through the scratchings and conditions. Check my own market prices against the paper’s and see if I’ve overlooked anything. Go through the form again and rationalise my main selections. But I don’t often change my mind. Usually the first horses that jump out of the formguide at you on a Friday morning are the ones you should stick with on the Saturday.
Around the room, there were several punters doing the same thing. I knew most by sight and nodded to a couple of them. Serious punters aren’t big on conversation at the track. We’re too busy studying form and looking for a winner.
I certainly thought I could win today. Romaro Boy ticked all the boxes as far as I was concerned. He had the form, he had the right alley. He had a gun rider in Spicer on board. The weight, the fitness, the distance, it was all there. I just needed to check out two more things before doing business. To look at him in the mounting yard and get a fair price.
They’d just run the fifth race, which I’d watched on the TV, so I walked back out into the betting ring to see what the early odds were. As usual, Oakie had his board set before anyone else. He had Romaro Boy a clear favourite at evens with a horse called Aloof, from the Hayes stable, at threes. The rest of the field was fives or better. Some of the other bookmakers were starting to set their prices and had posted Romaro Boy at a dollar ninety or less. Pathetic. I never take odds-on about a horse, unless it’s an out-and-out champion. Odds-on pops just seem to lose more than they win, and over a period of time there’s no beating the maths. If you take odds-on, you will lose. I’d priced him at two fifty and I still thought I’d get that by the time they jumped.
Out in the mounting yard they were starting to parade. Aloof looked good. The Hayes’ polish, bright eyes and pricked ears. She’d run a good race. The other runners straggled in, led by the clerk of the course on his grey thoroughbred. Romaro Boy walked in last, followed by O’Reilly and Frank. Some of the other horses were getting a bit toey and their handlers had to take a firm hold of their charges. Not so Romaro Boy. His strapper led him around on a loose lead, a perfect gentleman, saving his energy for the race. He looked fit and well and had certainly come on since his last run. O’Reilly had turned him out well; there was no doubt about that. I couldn’t fault him and I couldn’t see much else to trouble him except for Aloof.
Observations completed, I walked into the mounting yard and played at being an owner, which was a new experience for me. O’Reilly was talking to Frank, and Gavin Spicer, our jockey, was talking to Kate and the rest of the girls who made up our syndicate. If the horses looked well, then the girls were a lot more impressive. They were dressed to kill, each subtly trying to outdo the other in an unspoken fashion contest you were more likely to see on Oaks Day. I walked up to a sea of hats and fascinators, and nearly had my eye poked out by a giant feather from Georgina’s hat as she spun around and greeted me. I said hello to them all, winked at Kate, nodded at Frank and our jockey. Then we listened as O’Reilly gave his riding instructions. He looked a little tired and drawn. Perhaps the strain of recent events and Malloy’s funeral had contributed to that. He wasn’t quite so abusive towards his owners this time either. Today, he just plain ignored us and spoke to Spicer.
‘Have him travelling in the first four or five and don’t go gettin’ trapped behind anything from the three hundred onwards.’
‘I won’t. Don’t worry, I’ll give him a clear run,’ said Spicer, looking up at O’Reilly who towered over him.
‘Because I’d rather you go wide and give him a long, sustained run, than sit and wait for a split.’
‘Understood, boss.’ Spicer nodded his head towards the in-field tote board. ‘Got ’im nice and short, haven’t they! Evens on the billy goat.’
‘Billy goat?’ asked Julie, one of our owners.
‘Yeah, the billy goat. The pope. The tote.’
‘Oh . . . I see.’ She giggled and blushed, teased by her girlfriends. Lesson 101 in racing slang. In another ten years she’d know the complete A to Z and be a little the wiser.
‘He’s short all right,’ said O’Reilly. ‘Deserves to be favourite. And if I’m any judge, he’ll race like one. He should win easy, so ride him like a good thing, Gavin.’
‘We’ll get the bickies, don’t worry,’ said Spicer confidently.
The stewards called for riders to mount up and Frank legged our jockey into the saddle. Walking around, Romaro Boy looked like an old toff, a battle-hardened veteran ready to do his best. Out in the ring, I was glad to see a bit of common sense had prevailed. Romaro Boy was now out to two forty, and there had been some support for Aloof who was now in to two eighty. With three minutes to jump time, Oakie blew Romaro out to two fifty and I claimed him for eight hundred to two thousand.
‘You want to give me threes about Aloof as a saver?’ I asked.
He looked at his board and then had a quick sweep around the ring. ‘I’ll set you for two ninety, Punter, but I’m not a bloody charity.’
I laughed and took my ticket.
‘Hey, good luck with Romaro,’ he called out.
Up in the stand, I chose to sit in the members’ area away from where the owners sit. Romaro Boy had shortened again on the tote. That was good; I’d gotten the best price available. Below me, I could see the girls chattering away excitedly amongst themselves. This was the moment all owners waited for. The calm before the storm. Those few moments where a dream can come true and anything’s possible. I unpacked my binoculars from their cover and gave the lenses a cursory wipe with my handkerchief. At the barriers they were loading fast with only ours and two others to go in. I easily picked up O’Reilly’s colours of black, red and white, and then they were all loaded and ready to jump.
The race panned out just like I figured, only better. Tennis Diva led them up by two lengths. Romaro Boy found the rails in fourth position, with Aloof sitting outside him. At the turn, Spicer must have been mindful of O’Reilly’s advice of not getting trapped behind anything. Like me, he could see Tennis Diva tiring and dropping back to the field. If he stayed where he was he’d have to check his horse and lose momentum. That’s why he was a top jockey; he anticipated exactly that. He pushed out, ever so slightly, looking for the clear run. Aloof’s rider was awake to what he was doing and tried to hold him in the pocket. But Romaro Boy was travelling too well. He muscled past her and the tiring Tennis Diva and cruised to the lead at the three hundred mark. In fact, so well was he going that Spicer took a peek over his shoulder to see what the other riders were doing. That’s arrogance. That’s when you know you’ve got a race won. I could see the smile on his goggled face as they reached the clock tower. Perhaps he shouldn’t have smiled so soon. The racecaller described it all too well.
‘. . . and don’t tell me another O’Reilly favourite’s gone down! I can’t believe it. Romaro Boy, who looked all over a winner three hundred out, has stopped like he was shot and has finished unplaced. I repeat, the favourite has finished unplaced behind Aloof.’
Down in the mounting yard, O’Reilly was a seething timebomb about to go off. His lips quivered and his eyes rolled with a rage and frustration at something he could do nothing about. Frank looked embarrassed standing by his side. They were joined by a decidedly quieter Kate and her grim-faced girlfriends. Gone was the excited giggling and chatter that had preceded Romaro Boy’s run. We all stood off a few steps behind O’Reilly, none of us game to provoke an outburst. I watched closely as Spicer trotted our horse back to scale. No slipped saddle or broken gear. No obvious cuts or lameness or bleeding. No excuses.
‘What the hell happened?’ demanded O’Reilly.
Spicer looked as puzzled as we all were. He took his time answering, sliding off the horse and ungirthing it, before his strapper led it away. ‘Dunno what to say, Sheamus. Thought it was a matter of how far at the three.’ He shook his head. ‘Then he just ran out of petrol.’
‘My horses don’t run out petrol!’ fumed O’Reilly. ‘He’s not right, there must be something wrong with him.’
Spicer shrugged. ‘Maybe,’ he said, walking off to the jockeys’ room. Jockeys have it easy in that they can excuse themselves from the heat of the moment after a disappointing run. Trainers can’t. They have to face the music with the owners, the press, and sometimes the stewards. O’Reilly was having to deal with that now and he wasn’t doing a particularly good job. I thought I’d ask the question all of us owners wanted to ask.
‘What do you make of his run, Sheamus?’
He glared at me like I was an idiot. ‘What do you bloody well think? He went like a busted arse. He should have bolted in today.’
Some reporters who had been hovering around behind us came forward. Chris Bassami was one of them, along with a couple of others from the Sunday papers. I remembered that at Malloy’s funeral I’d said I’d introduce Chris to the girls. It hardly seemed the appropriate time now. He nodded at me but made straight for O’Reilly, his tape recorder at the ready.
‘Sheamus, do you realise how many favourites of yours have got rolled in the past two months? Do you have a comment to make about that?’
O’Reilly had been waiting to vent his fury at something. He couldn’t blast his jockey because he’d delivered a faultless ride. But a hard-nosed journo sniping for a comment was fair game.
‘Oh, you keepin’ tabs on me now, are you? It’s none of your business.’
‘With respect,’ said Bassami cautiously, ‘it’s my business to let the racing public know what’s going on. And as a licensed trainer, you’re obligated to let the public know why your favourites are getting beaten.’
‘That’s a fair enough question,’ said another journalist from The Sun, lending support. ‘C’mon, Sheamus, you must have some idea why your horses aren’t performing?’
O’Reilly would have hit him if it hadn’t been for Frank stepping in between them and restraining O’Reilly. Even so, Frank couldn’t stop the splenetic abuse Sheamus spat out.
‘You filthy little muckraker. You’d write any shit to sell your rag. You’ve got no idea how hard it is to make a living training. When things go wrong, all you can do is kick a man in the guts. You want a comment, do you? Well, I’ll give you one.’ With both Frank’s arms around him, trying to drag him away, O’Reilly hissed at the reporter, ‘Here’s my comment: No fuckin’ comment!’
Frank succeeded in pulling him away before his rage could make an impossible situation any worse. But they only got as far as the steps of the mounting yard where they met the imposing figure of Des Haimes, the chief steward.
‘O’Reilly, I want a word with you. We’re opening an inquiry into your horse getting beaten today.’
I didn’t stick around after Romaro Boy’s race. I was feeling annoyed and angry with myself. It wasn’t just losing my money. I expect to lose around thirty per cent of the time, it goes with the business. Maybe it was the realisation that Romaro Boy wasn’t as good as I thought he was. That always hurts the ego. Perhaps I’d just bought into a dud syndicate because I was trying to do Kate a favour. Or maybe I was angry and confused with myself because I was no closer to finding out anything about the kidnappers. We’d lost our only lead, Gofer, and didn’t have a clue where the Davis brothers might be. Too right I was sore at myself about that.
A teenager carrying a handful of beers back from the bar staggered in front of me and spilt some on my arm. Arrogant little prick actually gave me some lip, told me to watch where I was fucking going, so forth, before lurching off to join his drunken mates. Can you believe it? That’s the type of young idiots we attract to the races now. They come for the grog and wouldn’t know what manners were unless it was a horse they were backing. I stopped and half thought about going on with it. I was in the mood for a fight. Let off a haymaker and deck the little bastard right in front of the bar. Might teach him a lesson and let off some steam for me.
I didn’t do anything. Instead, I took my angry and confused thoughts with me and kept walking. Out through the bar and the betting ring and through the turnstiles.
There were still two races to go on the card and no one else was really leaving the racecourse yet except me. When I walked out of the exit to the driveway leading to the car park, I saw something that made my blood boil.
Two guys were standing over an older man lying on the ground. It was old George from the Salvos. He was hanging on grimly to his donations bucket and the two guys were trying to rob him. One of them yanked at the handle, swearing at him, the other was laying in the boot in a cowardly attack. I ran hard at the one kicking George. King-hit him from behind. A lot of rage went into that punch. It should have been for the drunk who spilt the beer on me. No matter, this was a better cause. I might have broken his jaw, I didn’t stop to find out, because he dropped like a bag of shit and I spun around to face the other one. He looked at me in surprise and fright. His mate was down; someone had come to the rescue. The odds had suddenly changed.
‘You fuckin’ lowlife,’ I growled at him. ‘You’d rob a fuckin’ Salvos’ bucket, would you?’
He looked at me, eyes agog like a goldfish as if still trying to work out what had gone wrong. I gave him two quick righthanders. Drew blood too, from his nose, and he let go of the bucket handle.
I was only getting started. ‘Here, you want this, do you?’ I said, snatching at the bucket handle. It was weighty, had a fair bit of coin in it. Been a good day for collections for poor old George. The guy backed off, pathetically holding his bleeding nose with one hand. I swung the bucket around by the handle and brought it down over his head. He stumbled and fell over his loser mate who was lying on the ground where I’d dropped him.
‘Here you go, mate.’ Bang. I hit him again. Then again and again. ‘You like that? You like taking from the Salvos, do you? You piece of shit. You fuckin’ worthless dog.’
I was losing it big-time, and when I swung the bucket once more, the lid came off with the force of it and showered a pile of coins over him like a slot machine paying out. I raised it again and would probably have kept bashing him over the head until his skull caved in, but George grabbed my arm. ‘Leave him, Punter, he’s not worth it.’
I turned to face George, who’d dragged himself upright. His two attackers took the opportunity to make their escape. They hobbled off, looking almost comical as they held hands to their injuries.
‘You all right, George? Here, let me help you. I’ll get the ambulance.’
‘No, I’m all right, really. I think it’s those two who’ll need the ambulance.’
I helped George scoop his pile of coins back into the bucket and saw him safely back into the course again, after convincing him he should at least go to the first-aid room and get checked over. I left him there and he thanked me again for helping him.
‘You know, Punter, you always leave me a tip, but that’s probably the biggest contribution you’ve ever made since I’ve known you.’
I laughed. My blues had suddenly disappeared. It’s never a bad day if you can help out the Salvos.
Next morning the Sunday papers gave O’Reilly a savaging. The Sun was particularly scathing. Given the tongue-lashing that O’Reilly had let fly, it was probably warranted.
O’REILLY FAILS AGAIN
Caulfield trainer Sheamus O’Reilly sent out short-priced favourite Romaro Boy yesterday at Flemington, only to see it beaten out of a place. According to Sun records, this is the seventh time in the past two months that a favourite trained by O’Reilly has been beaten. Are O’Reilly’s horses struck by some sort of virus? Are there suggestions of improper practice at play? Sun readers aren’t likely to get a comment from O’Reilly. In fact, the only comment this scribe got by way of explanation from O’Reilly was ‘No ****** comment.’ One thing that the racing industry seems to have forgiven O’Reilly over the years, is his lack of communication skills. It seems he will have to polish up on these fairly quickly. Stewards yesterday opened an inquiry into Romaro Boy finishing unplaced. The Sun looks forward to covering the inquiry and O’Reilly’s explanation as to why Romaro Boy (and six similar favourites) have failed recently.
There wasn’t a paper that missed him. Even the Sydney papers had a field day. The Telegraph reported that he’d lost yet another owner after the Romaro Boy incident:
Wealthy Chinese restauranteur Charlie Kwong confirmed yesterday that his top three-year-old, Kadiver, would be trained in Sydney by Gai Waterhouse when it commences its next preparation. The top colt, formerly trained by Sheamus O’Reilly in Melbourne, was unbeaten after four starts and was the early Caulfield Guineas favourite. Kwong said, ‘That stable is unlucky. My horse, he deserves to be in a lucky stable. Is unfortunate for O’Reilly, but I have to do what is right for the horse and me.’
The besieged O’Reilly has lost a string of horses recently after a horror run of outs with favourites. At yesterday’s Flemington meeting, an inquiry was opened into O’Reilly’s horse Romaro Boy running unplaced as the short-priced favourite. The horse’s rider, top jockey Gavin Spicer, suggested to stewards that the horse ‘felt like he’d run out of petrol’.
Over coffee and breakfast, I counted no fewer than five articles about O’Reilly. None of them were flattering. Radio’s racing round-up was the same. They slammed him. Tore shreds off him for not coming clean with punters. They issued an open invitation for him to appear on the program. If yesterday’s media performance was any guide, I could only hope he’d stay away. For years he’d been terrorising reporters, putting them down and dismissing them as irrelevant. He’d been able to get away with it because of his constant stream of winners. But now that had come to a stop, they were going for the jugular. He was getting a public hanging, and if he didn’t turn things around soon, he wouldn’t have any horses left to train.
Twenty minutes later, my phone rang. All things considered, it was the last person I expected to call. The gruff manner and the abusive, threatening growl were gone. They were replaced by a genuinely frightened and bewildered voice.
‘Punter, it’s me . . . Sheamus O’Reilly. I need to talk to you.’
He drove around to my flat half an hour later. Must have been sick of being holed-up in his house and dodging reporters. When he knocked on the door, I let him in and showed him through to my kitchen. He looked drawn and worried. Probably hadn’t slept too well last night.
‘I need to talk to you,’ he said again.
‘Coffee, tea?’
‘No.’
‘You sure? I’m having a coffee anyway.’
‘All right then, a coffee.’
He looked like he could use a Scotch, but it was a little too early in the day to be offering him one.
I sat him down at the kitchen table, and waited for him to say what was on his mind. He came straight to the point.
‘You’re probably wondering why I called.’
‘Why don’t you tell me?’
‘This is very difficult for me . . . I don’t know who I can turn to. The last few months, I don’t know if you’re aware . . .’ He shot a questioning look at my Sunday papers scattered on the table, the racing sections blaring out his name for all the wrong reasons in bold headlines.
I nodded. ‘You’d have to be living under a rock to have missed you in the press lately.’
O’Reilly shook his head slowly from side to side. ‘I don’t know what’s happening to me, to my stable. It’s all . . . gone to pieces, and I can’t understand why.’
I passed him a cup of coffee, which he didn’t seem to notice. ‘My business . . . if I can’t find out what’s wrong I’ll be ruined. I have to fix it. Fix it fast. That’s why I’m here, Punter, to ask for your help.’
For a man who’d only ever scowled at me and told me he didn’t like gamblers in his stable, I thought it was a bit rich. But I let that pass for the moment.
‘My help?’ I shook my head. ‘I don’t know what I can do, Sheamus. If you don’t know what’s going on at your own stable, then I certainly don’t. Other than what I see in the papers, I haven’t got a clue what’s going on with your horses. If something’s happening, you’d be better off getting the stewards involved.’
‘The stewards!’ he scoffed. ‘Those bastards are out to lynch me as it is. Here, look at this.’ He grabbed one of the papers with the story about the stewards’ inquiry. ‘The only way they’ll become involved is if I make an official complaint for them to investigate.’
‘Well, why don’t you?’
‘Because there is nothing official to investigate! Don’t you see, Punter, I’ve been right through the whole thing a dozen times over. There’s nothing concrete I can give them. There are no jockeys pulling them up. There are no mystery plunges on outsiders trying to beat mine. There’s no stranger that we’ve caught in the yard with a needle in their hand and a sign on their head saying nobbler!’
‘You must have some idea of why they’re getting beaten, surely? Maybe it’s a mystery virus or something, like one of the papers suggested?’
‘That’s tommyrot. My vet has taken so many blood tests the horses must think he’s Dracula. Believe me, I’ve racked my brains for something, anything, that might be the cause of this.’
‘What about the racing squad? You know Jim Beering?’
‘Of course I know Beering. And so does every other two-bit crook working in the racing industry. If I got him and his department involved, you might as well take an ad out on TV and tell everyone he’s coming.’
‘He can be discreet. And it is his line of work.’
‘No. I don’t want this thing just going away temporarily. If Beering started sniffing around the stables, all that would happen is he’d drive it underground for a while.’
‘Well, I don’t know what I can do that Beering or the stewards can’t.’
O’Reilly leant forward and looked at me with the face of a truly desperate man. He shut his eyes for a moment, gathering his thoughts, then he spoke quietly and urgently.
‘Look, Punter, I know you better than you think. I mightn’t have said boo to you over the years, but don’t think I haven’t noticed you around the traps. It was your undercover work that helped put away Carvill-Smyth, that drug king involved in your father’s stables last year. You managed to find out things about him that no one else could.’
Jesus, bloody Carvill-Smyth. Would I never live that down? I shook my head. ‘I got lucky. I was personally involved.’
‘Maybe so, but you’ve solved other crimes around the racetrack. There was that insurance racket with Whittaker’s Brokers over horses being put down. You must have saved them from paying out thousands in false claims. And that lunatic arsonist no one could stop . . . it was you who figured out who was setting the stables on fire.’
I could still smell the singe of burning horseflesh and the whinny of terrified horses trapped by a serial barn-burner. What a nutter he turned out to be.
‘I’m a punter, not an investigator, Sheamus. I didn’t mean to get involved in any of those cases. I just started asking around and . . . well, I guess I know what goes down at the track better than most.’
‘No, it’s more than that,’ said O’Reilly, gripping my arm intently. ‘You hear things at the track, you find out what goes on. You see things that others don’t. People tell you things they wouldn’t tell others. I don’t want a bloody detective like Beering or a panel of stewards marching in and frightening the culprits off. I want you. If there’s something going on at my stable, I know you’ll find it. I’m asking you . . . pleading with you. Will you help me?’
‘Sheamus, I wouldn’t know where to start.’
‘Just come down and poke around. See what you can turn up. If it’s a fee you’re worried about, I’m happy to pay whatever you want.’
‘I wouldn’t know what to charge.’
‘I tell you what. You and your syndicate lease Romaro Boy from me at the moment. I’ll sign over full ownership of Romaro Boy to you all and I’ll train him for nothing. That’s got to be worth a bit to you and the girls. He’s a handy horse if we can get him right.’
I had to agree it was a generous offer, but it wasn’t the money I was worried about.
‘How are you going to explain my presence around the stable, if I agree?’
‘I’ve thought about that,’ he said. ‘You’ll only be around a few days, maybe a week at most. We’ll put it out that you are thinking about taking out your trainer’s license. That you’re learning what you can from me. That way, you can watch track work, hang about the stable and not arouse any suspicions.’
‘Me, a trainer? That’ll be the day.’
‘Why not? Everyone knows your father is a trainer. You worked for him years ago and now you want to see how other trainers’ methods differ from your dad’s. And you’ve got a horse with me as well. It’s the perfect cover. What do you say, will you see what you can find out?’
For Christ’s sake. Punter, pizza-shop proprietor and now a bloody private investigator.
I started that very afternoon. O’Reilly, like most trainers, did little to his team on a Sunday other than fluff up the boxes, fill the hay nets and water buckets and give some of his horses a pick of grass and a roll in the sand. He had a skeleton staff working; most of the strappers were enjoying their day off. Frank was there, along with four other stable-hands. O’Reilly gruffly introduced me and the reason I was there. He was actually pretty convincing, I had to admit.
‘Punter fancies himself as a trainer in the making. He’ll be here for the next week or so to pick up what he can about how we do things differently from his father. And Frank,’ he said as a warning, ‘I don’t want him treated any different from the rest of the staff. So put him to work and don’t let me see him standing around with his hands in his pockets.’
Frank smiled warmly at me. ‘We don’t often get owners working for us as strappers. Welcome aboard.’
‘Thanks. But really, I’m here to learn. What can I do?’
‘You can give a hand with feeding up,’ said Frank. ‘Come around with me and help collect the waste feed.’
Frank found a couple of empty chaff bags and we went and collected all the feed that had been left over from the morning. Some horses had little to collect, whilst others had several dippers still left in their feed bins.
‘Some horses are better doers than others,’ he said, scooping just a small handful of feed from a cheeky young colt. ‘Like this bugger. Would eat your hand off if he could. And your horse, Romaro Boy, he’s a good eater too.’
We were outside Romaro Boy’s box. He was stretched lazily out on his straw bed, his feeder licked clean.
‘That run never hurt him, that’s for sure. But we still can’t work out why he was beaten so easily. I know the boss is going crazy over it. We’ve never seen a run of outs like he’s experienced in the past couple of months.’
We collected the feeds up one side of the stable and then did the same all down the other. Frank carefully noted everything left in each horse’s feeder or if they’d eaten up. ‘The boss’ll want to know, you can be sure of that.’
When we’d finished collecting the feeds, Frank let me pick a few horses out on the lawn while the strappers did their boxes and freshened their hay nets. A young kid who couldn’t have been more than fourteen or fifteen joined me with another horse on the grassy verge in the middle of the stables.
‘G’day,’ he sniffed at me. ‘Smoke?’
I shook my head.
‘Probably just as well. The boss don’t like seein’ people smoke about the place. If you see ’im comin’, give us a shout, will ya.’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Are you gonna be bunkin’ in with the rest of us? There’s four of us all sharing the dormitory now. And if you were to take the empty bed, we’d have to take the telly off it. I’m Paul, by the way.’
‘Pleased to meet you, Paul. I’m, er, okay for accommodation, thanks anyway. Have you been with O’Reilly long?’
‘Longafuckinough.’ He stopped talking to blow out his smoke, glancing furtively now and then up to the feedroom to make sure O’Reilly wouldn’t catch him. ‘In September I’ll have been here six months and the boss says he’ll let me ride work, then give me a go as an apprentice. That’s if there’s any horses left to ride. Rate they’re walkin’ out the gate, I’ll be flat out ridin’ a rockin’ horse.’
I had to suppress the urge to laugh. The kid was trying to be ten years older than he was and it was almost comical watching him steal illicit drags of his cigarette and talk up his prospects.
‘Yeah, been a few go lately?’
‘A few? The boss has lost a stack of ’em lately. They’re all gettin’ beat. Yesterday we lost Kadiver. He was the best horse in the joint. And a few weeks back, all of Sir Frank Mostyn’s horses. That’s right; he sent ’em up to your old man to train. Eh, how come you don’t just work with him instead of O’Reilly?’
‘I worked for my father for a dozen years. Sometimes it’s good to branch out and see how other people train.’
‘I s’pose so,’ he said, thinking about what I’d told him.
‘Why do you think they’re all getting beaten? I mean, O’Reilly’s been a top trainer for years.’
The kid screwed up his face and took a final drag of his smoke before stubbing it out and carefully putting it in his pocket.
‘Leave ’em around and he’ll see ’em for sure,’ he said, nodding towards the feedroom. ‘I dunno. But there’s a lot of people wander in and out of here.’
‘Like who?’
‘You know, owners, vets, saddlers, float drivers. We get strappers from the other yards visiting us. We’re not supposed to, but you can’t stop people dropping by.’
‘What about security?’ I nodded at the wire-mesh gate with barbed wire on top.
‘That!’ he laughed. ‘It’s never been locked since I’ve been here. Like I said, too many people need to come in and out to be able to keep it locked all the time. What would happen if the feed truck came and he couldn’t get in to unload? He’d just drive off. Nah, the stable’s an open house, but I suppose every stable’s the same around here. Look.’ He pointed. ‘See what I mean?’
A man in jeans and a T-shirt had walked in through the gateway and made straight for one of the boxes. He carried a leather satchel of tools and unwrapped them outside the stable door.
‘He’s your stable blacksmith, though, isn’t he?’
‘Yeah. He’s okay. But anyone could just walk in and look at the blackboard if they wanted to find out where any horse was.’
‘The blackboard?’
‘Yeah, the boss writes up on the blackboard in the feedroom what feed each horse gets and which box they’re in.’
Later, I saw first-hand the blackboard that Paul had spoken about. When we’d finished picking the horses and done all the boxes, we helped the other strappers in the feedroom to run the evening feeds. O’Reilly had listed every one of his horses, their feed requirements and box numbers on a huge blackboard on the feedroom wall. It made perfect sense, except of course if you wanted to hide it from prying eyes. I looked through the list and identified the horses I knew. Romaro Boy was in box six. July Morn was in twelve. Duredin, the kicker who had killed Malloy, was down the end in box fifteen. There were a few gaps which had been rubbed out with the blackboard duster. I assumed those were the horses O’Reilly had lost recently. I took a chaff bag of feed that Frank had mixed and made sure I had the correct box.
‘Number eight?’ I asked.
‘That’s right. Just put it inside his feed bin and lock the top and bottom bolts of the doors when you come out.’
Between myself and the four other strappers, we completed feeding in about half an hour. Then we swept the yard, gave the horses a final check and were finished our duties at around five. The strappers went back to their quarters and Frank and I walked out with O’Reilly towards the car park.
‘Frank will give you some horses to muck out and saddle up tomorrow morning,’ said O’Reilly. ‘Then come out onto the track after you finish. I’ll show you how I work them of a slow morning.’
We watched O’Reilly drive off and Frank said, ‘How are the arms, from sweeping? You wouldn’t have done that since working for the old man, would you?’
‘It’s like riding a bike.’ I grinned. ‘You never lose it. See you tomorrow.’
Being near dinnertime, I decided I might as well call into Gino’s as it was only five minutes’ drive away. I sat down at my table and Billy fixed up my usual Seafood Delight. While I was waiting for my pizza, I phoned Oakie and told him I hadn’t heard any more news about Gofer’s death. He sounded reasonably upbeat about the whole thing considering.
‘Don’t worry, Punter, we’ll find ’em eventually. They’ll slip up, get cocky and make a mistake. And when they do, I’ll be waiting for ’em. Hey, by the way, what happened to your horse yesterday? I coulda beat him home myself.’
‘Tell me about it. I dropped a packet on him, as you’d know.’
‘There’s some strange stuff going on at that stable. I tell you, if I were a punter, I’d be steering well clear of his horses.’
‘I know. I’m sorta looking into it.’
‘You’re what?’
I told Oakie how O’Reilly had come to see me that afternoon and what I’d agreed to do for him.
‘Shit, you be careful, Punter.’
‘Are you kidding? After Michelle’s kidnap and running that ransom money of yours around town, this’ll be a picnic. Anyway, all I’ll be doing is poking about his stables for a couple of days and telling him what he probably already knows.’
I rang off, saying I’d call him later in the week if I heard anything new about the Davis brothers.
When Billy brought my pizza around he sat down and joined me. Like everyone else, he knew all about Romaro Boy’s failure yesterday.
‘Fair dinkum, I thought he was a good thing,’ he said. ‘’Specially after his Mornington run.’
‘So did I, Billy. So did a lot of people. But he got beaten, and by a decent margin too. I can’t find an excuse for him. Maybe he was underdone, who knows?’
‘One of four thousand ways to get beat?’
I grinned. ‘Yep, just one of four thousand ways.’
‘Maybe he was just tired.’
‘Tired? It was only his second run for O’Reilly.’
‘Well, I dunno. I’m no trainer, but he sure looked tired to me.’