I pulled out the screwdriver from the door. It took some doing; it had been stabbed through Chan’s neck and driven into the timber like a nail into a wall. I slumped down against my doorway cradling Chan and hoping against hope that I might be able to save him. His poor little body was still warm, but not a breath passed his mouth. He was dead, and I just hoped it had been a quick death. I eased the screwdriver out of his body. That nearly made me sick. It had a note speared through it. I wasn’t surprised at the message it contained: Stay away, Punter, or you’ll end up like this.
I threw it and the screwdriver onto the hallway floor and cried. How I cried for that poor, defenceless little creature. He was a beautiful cat and he’d been a joy to me for five years. I sat there stroking him, his little eyes caught wide open in a terrified death stare. He’d be trusting of any stranger to have come around. Another big cat to spoil him, because that’s what we humans did, didn’t we? Fed him and patted him and pretended to scold him when he jumped up on the kitchen table. We were his protectors, his surrogate family. How I loved that cat. The way he woke me in the morning for his breakfast. The fascination he showed in rummaging around the garage. The way he groomed himself on top of the letterbox, letting passers-by admire him. Everybody knew and loved Chan around my block of flats. And now he was gone.
I brought him inside and placed him on his cushion in front of the fire. I rearranged him as best I could, as though he were curled up sleeping, as close as he could to the embers. That’s what he liked best. There was no fire going now, but I lit one for him anyway. I scrunched some twigs and kindling around a ball of crushed newspaper and put a match to it. Then, while that caught on, I grabbed a bottle of Scotch, some ice and a tumbler. I crouched down by the fire and fed it some small logs. When it had taken properly, I sat cross-legged on the floor next to my cat and looked at him. Blood had dripped from his stab wound down his neck and onto his tail. I wiped it tenderly with my hand, and then brushed it onto my jeans. I poured myself a Scotch. Took a deep swallow, then another quick one. I was going to get wrecked tonight, and by Christ I intended to make a proper job of it.
Just before dawn, I gathered up Chan in his basket and went downstairs. In the garage I grabbed a shovel and walked around to the little garden at the back of my apartment. Chan used to love it there. He’d rummage around for hours in the shrubs and sun himself on the little grassy patch that he’d made his own. I dug a little grave for him, in amongst the garden bed where he’d feel safe. Then I took off the little red medallion with his name on it from his collar. I slipped that onto my keyring. I put Chan and his basket in the hole I’d dug and tried to think of a little prayer or something to say. I’m not much good at dealing with death or funerals, although it seemed I’d had my share lately. In the end I whispered a little goodbye and imagined him purring up at me in that contented way he did. And then I buried my little friend.
Halfway up the stairs my mobile rang. It was O’Reilly.
‘Are you still coming out this morning, Punter?’ he asked cautiously. Perhaps he was still a little unsure, after we’d talked yesterday, whether I wanted to continue or not.
I looked at the gouge mark in my door, left by the screwdriver. Saw the pool of blood that had dripped down from Chan’s stabbing. Pictured the cruel sadist that must have done it.
‘I’ll be there, Sheamus. And I’m going to find the lowlife who’s getting to your horses.’
It was sevenish by the time I got out to the track. Late by racing’s standards. O’Reilly only had a few left to work by the time I joined him out in the middle where he watched them. He looked at me and I’m sure he half caught my breath. Scotch is hard to mistake at that hour of the morning. My appearance wouldn’t have suggested a good night’s sleep either.
‘Sleep in, did you?’ he said.
‘It wasn’t the sleeping in. It was the lack of it.’
‘Oh, one of those nights, was it?’
‘It was a long night.’
We watched a couple of his horses canter around. By now I recognised most of his team.
‘That Tempest, the dark horse with the white sock?’
‘Yep. As fit and well for Saturday as I can get her. I just hope she races up to her looks.’
‘Sheamus, I’ve been thinking things over. I want to try something different.’
He looked at me quizzically. ‘What have you got in mind?’
What I had in mind was Tempest, who was racing on Saturday. I’d been so busy talking to as many people as I could, trying to watch everything going on, that I’d missed the obvious. I’d thought about it when I’d gone surfing yesterday; it had come to me like a shot. Why watch every horse and strapper and hanger-on around the stable, when I only needed to watch one? Whoever was responsible for stopping O’Reilly’s horses would only go after the one with the best winning chance. So there was no need to try spreading myself around a hundred different places. If I was going to be effective, all I had to do was watch his next race favourite carefully. Between now and Saturday, I figured that if I watched Tempest closely, I would have as much chance of finding the culprit as any.
On the way back in from track work I grabbed a couple of bacon and egg sandwiches and coffees from the takeaway café at the mile gap. When I got back to the stables I made straight for Tempest’s box. Her strapper, Caroline, was setting out her grooming gear, ready to dress her down.
‘Hungry?’ I asked, offering her a sandwich.
She looked up from her work, a little guarded and somewhat surprised. ‘I, er . . . we shouldn’t. I mean, the boss doesn’t like seeing staff lazing around talking when there’s work to be done.’
I laughed. ‘You let me worry about O’Reilly. Besides, I’m here to learn, and how can I find out anything unless I stand around and ask questions?’
She smiled and accepted the sandwich.
‘Here, there’s a coffee to go with that too.’
‘Thanks. Ta.’ She put her dandy brush down for a moment and started hungrily into her sandwich. She was youngish, a bit of a tomboy, still in her teens. Wore a pair of navy work jodhpurs that hugged her slender hips. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on her; she could have passed for a jockey with her small, athletic frame. I knew she could ride like one, I’d seen her in track work.
‘Have you learnt much from O’Reilly since you’ve been here?’ she asked me.
‘Oh yes, lots. He’s a hard taskmaster, but he doesn’t miss a trick, does he?’
Caroline started on the other half of her sandwich and nodded. ‘Too right. He sees everything a rider does on a horse. He always seems to ball me out when I make a mistake.’
I looked at the horse tied up in the box, contentedly chewing away on its hay net. ‘Tempest’ll be racing Saturday then?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘I saw her work on Tuesday. She’s going well. What’s the routine for her between now and raceday?’
‘Oh, she’ll have a gallop tomorrow on the grass track. Nothing too hard, she did enough on Tuesday morning. Then on Friday she’ll probably canter around, maybe have a swim. On race morning the boss might canter her down the straight, then he’ll probably give her a lap of the pool to keep her fresh.’
‘And what about in the afternoons?’
‘She’ll do the same as the other horses. A forty-five-minute walk and a pick of grass today and tomorrow. The same on Friday, or O’Reilly might substitute the walk for a swim.’
‘You’ll ride her work yourself?’
‘It depends. He might put a race jockey up tomorrow to get a feel of her. I generally ride her slow work, but the boss switches us around as he feels like.’
‘And what about afternoon exercise?’
‘That sort of depends on who’s rostered on or off. Frank usually delegates the horses to whichever strappers are on.’
She took a sip of coffee and adjusted the rug on Tempest’s quarters. ‘I better get back to work. You sure ask a lot of questions.’
‘Like I said, if you don’t ask, you don’t learn.’
I finished off my coffee and walked over to the other side of the stable, to where I could hear the farrier hammering away. He was in a box trying to shoe the front foot of some flighty colt. It wouldn’t stand still and kept leaning into him.
‘Want a hand holding that?’ I volunteered.
I got a grunt in reply from a thin-as-a-rake guy dressed in a blue singlet and jeans. He was around his late twenties, all bone and muscle. I unclipped the horse from his tie-up chain and grabbed him under the head collar, forcing him to stand up properly.
‘That better?’
Another grunt, sounded like a thanks.
‘By the way, I’m Punter. I part-own Romaro Boy. Just poking about trying to pick up some training tips from O’Reilly. You’d be Gary, right?’
Admitted he was and changed direction, taking the horse’s front foot and bringing it forward to rest on his knee under the horse’s neck.
‘I’d imagine you’ve got a good client in O’Reilly?’
The open-ended question seemed to do the trick. ‘Pays on the knocker every month.’
Gary was working up a sweat. It dripped down his neck and shoulders and soaked through his singlet. He finished tapping in his nails and clinching them and I passed him his file from the floor.
‘Thanks. Yeah, O’Reilly’s okay. Demanding, though. Very demanding. I don’t think there’s too many others who’d put up with him.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘He creates a lot of extra work. Most trainers, they’d be happy to see a horse shod at the end of the week if the shoes looked a bit thin. Not O’Reilly. He’s fanatical about their feet. Can’t stand seeing worn shoes. And because he walks exercise with ’em so much, they wear thinner here than most other stables. He’ll call me up day or night if he reckons there’s something wants shoeing. I earn my money, don’t worry. Plenty of times I’ve had to be here at five in the morning to fix a loose shoe. As it is, I show up six mornings a week and every afternoon.’
‘You’ve got no other staff to help, no apprentices?’
‘No. I couldn’t trust an apprentice with O’Reilly’s work. He’d get me sacked, he would. End up rasping too much toe off, or pricking a good thing on raceday.’
‘Does that happen often?’
‘Not with me, it doesn’t,’ he said defensively. ‘But it does happen now and again in the trade. Blacksmiths rushing to get a job done, or young apprentices not paying attention. Doesn’t take much to drive a nail a quarter-inch closer in than it should be.’
‘My horse, Romaro Boy. What are his feet like?’
‘Him? Tough as nails, that one. Never had a problem with him.’
‘It’s just that when he got beaten the other day, well, you know, you go looking for excuses.’
Gary gave a final rasp and let the horse’s hoof drop to the ground. He straightened up, glad to stretch his back. ‘Listen, mate, I’ll tell yer something. Neither your horse, or any other of O’Reilly’s horses, have been losing because of bad shoeing. If I wanted, I could make ’em lame. I could tighten the plates right up on raceday. I could make ’em get corns by fitting the hoof to fit the shoe and not the other way around. Or I could prick them, or make them strike themselves. There’s a dozen ways I could make them feel their feet and not want to stretch out properly. But none of his beaten ones are pulling up short in their action. Don’t worry, I’ve been dragged around here at seven o’clock at night by O’Reilly after the races, looking at his bloody horse’s feet. When July Morn was beaten the other day, O’Reilly made me pull off every aluminium racing plate, borrowed my pincers and prodded all her hoofs himself looking for any signs of lameness.’
‘I could imagine him doing that. He’s thorough.’
‘Yeah, well, he didn’t find any sign of lameness and neither did his vet. If they were sore from their shoes, it’s not something you can hide.’
Later that morning, when I got home, I found that Oakie had left a message on my machine. I called him back and got him just as he was leaving to go to the races.
‘Hi, Oakie. It’s Punter, I got your message.’
‘Oh, hi. I was just stepping out the door to head off to Sandown. Listen, I need to give you your money back for the ransom.’
‘What? You haven’t even got it back yet from the kidnappers.’
‘That doesn’t matter. I’ve done some refinancing and I want to fix you up. Speaking of which, any news on the Davis brothers?’
‘Zip. Not a sign. Kate’s got a couple of things she’s checking up on, but I wouldn’t hold your breath.’
‘Same for Tiny and Kevin, zilch. They’ve been asking around some of the old pubs and haunts the Davis brothers used to frequent when they were on the outside, but it’s like they’ve vanished into thin air. So, the money? You want it back in cash like you gave me?’
I thought it over for minute. ‘How much have I got in my account this month?’
‘Twenty-three hundred.’
‘Just put it down as a credit. Save me having to put it somewhere.’
‘You got it. Hey, you going out to the track today?’
‘No. Had a bit of a late one last night.’
Oakie must have caught my mood. ‘You okay?’
The bottle of Scotch and an empty glass were still on the floor where I’d left them. Right by the screwdriver and the note. The same screwdriver that some sick bastard had used to kill Chan. I was still a little hungover from last night and it was starting to kick in now.
‘Punter, you still there? You all right?’
‘I’m here, Oakie. Someone sent me a message last night.’
‘They what? What happened?’
‘They got Chan last night, Oakie. Some bastard killed my cat.’
‘They killed your fuckin’ cat? Who killed it? What happened, Punter? Talk to me.’
‘They left a note by his body. “Stay away, Punter, or you’ll end up like this.” I’m getting near to O’Reilly’s nobbler, Oakie. Someone doesn’t like the way I’m nosing around his stable.’
‘For God’s sake, Punter. I told you to be careful about getting involved in O’Reilly’s mess. I’m not kidding. You gotta watch out. You want Kevin or Tiny to lend a hand?’
‘No. Not yet, anyway.’
‘You know who it is?’
‘Not yet. But I’m getting closer.’
‘You watch your back, you hear? You call me if you need me, right? I mean it.’
‘I’ll call.’
On Thursday I watched track work again with O’Reilly. If I hadn’t known about his crisis of beaten favourites, I wouldn’t have been any the wiser. All his horses worked beautifully. Romaro Boy galloped strongly. Whatever had ailed him last start, he looked to have brushed it off. And Tempest, who was in on Saturday, dashed down a half-mile and easily beat her stablemate by two lengths. It seemed like his horses were all in good nick and I said so to O’Reilly in-between him clocking gallops.
‘You’re right. They’ve all worked good. But they’ve all been working like that the past few weeks. It’s raceday that’s the problem. I can’t fault them during the week, but come raceday . . . that’s where it all goes pear-shaped.’
‘Tempest; tell me what you’re going to do with her between now and raceday.’
‘Not much. She’s had her final gallop. I’ll just go easy on her between now and then.’
‘Sheamus, I mean exactly what you intend to do with her. Like, between now and when she gets on the float on raceday, what’s her routine?’
O’Reilly thought for a bit, trying to formalise to an outsider what he instinctively did.
‘Well, she’ll go into the stables now and get a grooming and her feed. She’ll have a little swim and a pick of grass this afternoon. Tomorrow she’ll canter around in the morning and walk exercise in the afternoon. The vet will take a blood sample from her in the morning to see she’s doing okay. Then, on raceday, I’ll just canter her down the straight and maybe give her a lap of the pool.’
‘Who’s going to work and exercise her?’
‘I’ve told Frank that I don’t want anyone else touching her except Caroline and himself before raceday.’
In the afternoon, I walked out with Frank whilst he supervised a team of horses swimming in the specially designed equine pool. It was a circular pool about forty metres in circumference. Strappers walked their charges down a chute which dropped sharply off in depth and forced them to swim. Each strapper affixed a long bamboo pole with a clip to the horse’s head collar and guided them around the pool with that. Some horses swam like fishes. Others were more reluctant to take the plunge and needed persuasion. Frank chased up a cheeky colt who refused to walk down the race for his handler. He gave the animal a gentle tap around the quarters with the pole and he jumped forward in a rush, sending a spray of water splashing over his strapper as he plunged in.
‘Sometimes they just need a little gentle persuasion,’ said Frank.
Tempest swam next. Caroline led her up and she walked straight into the pool like a real professional.
‘If they were all like her,’ said Frank, ‘we’d only be here five minutes instead of taking half the afternoon.’
Tempest swam slowly and purposefully, keeping her head just above the water line. Caroline gave her a couple of laps and then led her over to the hose, where she washed her down and scraped her off. I gave Caroline a hand and then followed her out to the back of the course, where the horse was given a pick of grass.
I used to do all of that years ago for my father. Walk exercise, muck out boxes and ride work. As a teenager, I thought that was all there was to life. It’s what my father channelled me and my brother into. But I rebelled against the discipline of it. The early-morning starts, the insistence of my father to do it ‘my way or the highway’, the pitiful pay packet and, of course, my rising weight, which meant I could never become a jockey. Yet, I remembered the carefree times I’d enjoyed as a strapper, just like these strappers. I looked along the fence line as a dozen stable hands leaned against the rail, picking their horses. Some had lit up a smoke, others were content to soak up the afternoon sun. I strolled up another couple of hundred metres to the familiar ochre brick wall of Parraboo Lodge, my father’s stables. You won’t find a horse called Parraboo in the racing hall of fame, but it did provide my father with his first ever winner and, importantly, the money to start training. My canny father backed it at odds of 25–1 and it landed the money by a short half-head. He’s trained a lot of good horses since Parraboo, but he’s never been tempted to rename the stables.
Further on past Parraboo Lodge was the twelve-hundred-metre start and another walking ring and some old stripping sheds. Years ago, the battling trainers from across the railway lines would walk their horses over and tie them up at the stalls before they worked them. Most of the stables were on the racecourse itself these days. The council was progressively closing down all the old stables built in the back yards of houses situated off-course. They said there was too much traffic now to lead racehorses across busy roads in the mornings. They were probably right, and the insurance was a killer now, too. This corner of the track was hardly used by trainers nowadays and had been earmarked for development of a new stable complex. So the old stripping sheds lay neglected and in a state of decay. There was a smallish trotting track which ran around the perimeter of a fenced-in bullring. Here, trainers taught their horses how to jump by chasing them around a high-fenced arena with four small hurdles inside it. The bullring was surrounded by bushes and trees and was like a little hidden forest in the wide open expanses of Caulfield. On the other side of the bullring was the racecourse perimeter fence, which ran the length of Queens Parade and the railway tracks. And nestled high above the fence was something I’d never really paid much attention to before. A stewards’ tower.
It was really nothing more than a green tin shed, perched precariously on a pole. Access was via a metal ladder that soared forty metres upwards to the viewing platform. There were other stewards’ towers around the course as well. One at the half-mile gap. Another before the winning post and another at the back of the course. They all offered a magnificent view of the horses racing down below. But none offered a better view of the track and the approaches to O’Reilly’s stables than this tower did. Funny, but in all my time working as a strapper at Caulfield I’d never been up in one of those towers before. And for good reason. The approach to the ladder was cordoned off by a steel gateway which you had to pass through in order to climb it. The rest of the ladder was encircled by steel mesh as a sort of safety device to prevent a fall. The gate had a huge padlock attached to the catch and a sign that said ‘Strictly off limits to unauthorised persons’.
Since when had that stopped me.
At three a.m. the next morning, I snuck into the racecourse like a burglar on his rounds. I certainly felt like one. I was wearing a japara, woollen beanie and gloves. In my backpack I had a small pencil torch and a set of bolt-cutters that I’d bought the previous day from Bunnings. I also had a flask of coffee, some bottled water, and a couple of ham sandwiches and chocolate bars. Hungry work, this burglar business. I passed through the gap at the half-mile mark and walked back under the shadow of the fence up the course proper towards the stewards’ tower. At that hour of morning it was deathly quiet and still, not a person or horse in sight. Nor would they be either, for at least a couple of hours. And that’s how I wanted it, so that I remained unseen.
When I reached the tower, I pulled the bolt-cutters out. I’d actually practised with them yesterday in my garage on a couple of padlocks I’d bought, along with the cutters. Don’t think it’s as easy cutting through locks as what you see on the TV. I’d got a good-sized pair, about the length of a large set of gardening shears, but even so, they still managed to slip off the steel you were trying to cut if you didn’t have them clamped on properly. I got a firm hold on the padlock, clamped the cutters over the metal bar and snipped them cleanly through the first time. Then I pulled the gate open, carefully closed it behind me and climbed up the ladder. I was feeling pretty clever. I’d got into the course unseen and broken successfully into the tower. Now I could carry out my plan.
Or so I thought. When I reached the shed at the top of the pole, I discovered the damn door was locked. Shit. How ridiculously protective was that? As if the locked gate wasn’t enough. The door had a keyhole, but no handle that I could try and force. It wasn’t a particularly strong door. If I’d wanted, I could have kicked it in, but the racket I’d make doing that would alert someone for sure.
I poked my head around the side and took a look. Facing the front were a bank of louvre windows. They were all half ajar and I found I could open them right up and feel inside with my hand. I tiptoed around as far as I could on the narrow step by the door, but, try as I might, I couldn’t reach in with my hand and unsnip the lock. Great. The one thing I didn’t think of, a bloody locked door.
I shuffled around as best I could to the front of the shed. There was a slight edge to stand on but, at most, I had only a toehold, a slippery one at that, and a sheer drop of forty metres to the turf below. From the front of the shed, I slipped my hand through the louvre window and found I could just unlock the door from that angle. It swung open and I trod carefully back around the ledge, went inside and pulled the door shut.
It was cramped inside. You could just squeeze two people in between one small stool and a little bench that ran the length of the window, just big enough to rest a race book and binoculars on. I sat down on the floor, took my pack off and poured myself a coffee from my flask. Time to wait.
At ten past five, I heard my first horse working by. I couldn’t see properly yet. Dawn hadn’t broken and was still some time off. The horse’s shadow bobbed between the spotlights as it cantered its way around the sand. I scanned the tracks with my binoculars and I could just make out the lights of the fast-food caravan way over near the mile gap. Ghostly shapes and shadows milled about. In the stables below, sleepy strappers walked their horses’ exercise and trainers squinted through the half-dark clocking gallops. O’Reilly would be out there soon. But he wouldn’t be expecting me this morning. Yesterday I had rung him and said I was going to watch his horses, especially Tempest, from somewhere different. Somewhere away from him where I couldn’t be seen.
‘Suit yourself,’ he’d said. ‘It can’t do any harm.’
I hadn’t told O’Reilly about Chan and the warning-off I’d received. I didn’t want to burden him with that at the moment. Nor had I gone to the police. There was no point; we both knew already that someone was getting to his horses, and whoever it was didn’t want an outsider like me sticking my nose in. Bringing the police in at this late stage would only cause them to go to ground when we were so close to flushing them out.
I was tempted to tell Kate about Chan. I’d get some sympathy from her. I know she teases me about him from time to time, but she’d understand what he meant to me.
But if I told her about Chan now, I’d have to fill her in on snooping around O’Reilly’s stables. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Kate, I did, but the fewer people who knew what I was up to at O’Reilly’s, the better. She’d have to wait. I could tell her when this was all over. Maybe over dinner or a show. Perhaps try and change her mind about Guys and Dolls? Jesus, I had that show on my mind. Forget it, Punter, it’s really not going to happen, is it?
I nibbled on a sandwich and refilled my coffee. Up here, in my castle in the sky, I had a bird’s-eye view. Not only could I see the entire track, I could see all the way down to the fourteen-hundred-metre chute, the back of O’Reilly’s stables and the swimming pool. It also overlooked my father’s stables and the trotting ring. The idea had come to me yesterday. It was all very well watching track work with O’Reilly, but the nobbler was hardly going to show his hand whilst the trainer was around. If I was going to flush them out, it would have to be well away from O’Reilly.
The sun peeped through a ridge of cloud cover and suddenly it seemed like a veil had been lifted as the track became visible. I grabbed a seat on the little stool and scanned the course with my Zeiss 10 × 40s. The first trainer I saw was actually O’Reilly, he was walking out to the middle of the track where he usually watched from. Pretty soon he was joined by half a dozen horses circling about waiting for instructions. When he told them what to do, three of them trotted off to the sand track. One I recognised as Romaro Boy. I hoped he’d made a good recovery from his last start; he was racing next week. Another pair were sent out to gallop on the grass track. The last horse O’Reilly inspected carefully. He walked around it, eyed it off and motioned with a sweep of his hand what to do. I knew the horse – Tempest – and I also knew the work she would do too. With only one horse to watch, my task was made fairly easy. Tempest was a plain brown mare with no distinguishable marks, except for a small white sock on her off-hind leg. Caroline cantered her past the stewards’ tower with her head on her chest, a little ball of muscle. I’d done the form last night and she was the one to beat in her race today. The bookmakers’ early prices had her a three-dollar favourite and she certainly worked like one.
I kept the glasses on her all the way. She cantered around nice and relaxed until she pulled up at the gap and walked back to O’Reilly in the middle of the course. Then he gave her another thorough going-over, his watchful eyes searching for any lameness, any soreness, anything not quite right. He looked at her head on, inspecting her eyes for any sign of dullness. Still not satisfied, he got Caroline to trot her up and back for a little way just to make doubly sure she was one hundred per cent. He needn’t have bothered. I could tell from where I was that she was cherry ripe. There simply wasn’t a fitter horse at Caulfield. Finally, he seemed satisfied, and sent Tempest back into the stable. I guess he had a lot riding on her today.
With Tempest’s work over, I poured another coffee from the flask and ate the last of my sandwiches. Although I was well rugged up, I didn’t have a lot of room to move around and was starting to feel the cold from lack of exercise. I looked at my watch and five minutes had elapsed since Tempest had gone back to the stable. She’d probably be another five minutes by the time she came back out for a swim. Even so, I kept an eye out for any horse coming up the chute from O’Reilly’s stables. From my vantage point I could see the swimming pool and all the horses in it. There were three having a swim in there now. Their contented snorting and blowing noises drifted across the track and up into my tower in the sky. I could see all and hear all, yet I was invisible. Below me a track-rider urged his horse to gallop with a good-natured curse.
‘Gorn, you useless bludger! Don’t be such a tired, weak bastard.’
The horse didn’t look tired as much as slow, but I suppressed a laugh as he tried to scrub it up and get it to stretch out. What he had said strangely echoed Billy’s words, which had been playing in my mind over the past week or so. Tired. Billy had said Romaro Boy had raced like a tired horse. That single word had given me the idea that I thought could spring O’Reilly’s nobbler.
There’re ways to make a horse tired. You can over race it, overwork it in track work, or not give it enough track work so that it knocks up in races. O’Reilly’s horses hadn’t suffered from the first or the last. So that left the overworking. I’d seen O’Reilly in action – he didn’t miss a thing. No one was pulling the wool over his eyes at track work. His horses were doing exactly what he wanted them to. Not too much, and certainly not too little. And if you ruled out vet interference through drugs, dishonest jockeys, or eliminated sullen blacksmiths deliberately pricking hooves, then I kept coming back to the one thing that would make a horse tired and lose a race.
I refocused the Zeiss’s back towards the pool. Gee they were good glasses. They were probably getting on to fifteen years old, but the Krauts do know how to engineer things to last. I focused the lenses to optimum sharpness and picked up Caroline’s familiar blue-checked skull cap as she led Tempest up to the pool. O’Reilly had said he’d give her a lap, just enough to keep her fresh. But that wasn’t what I was counting on.
The one area where O’Reilly was never sighted during track work was at the swimming pool. I figured if something was going on, that’s where it would occur. Swimming is hard work. A lap or two keeps a horse on its toes. But when I started to think about tired horses, I thought, what if a horse did more than two laps on race morning? What if it did eight, or ten, or more? What if it went around fifteen laps? How would that affect them? They wouldn’t exactly be jumping out of their skin come the afternoon’s race.
So I watched in trepidation as Caroline led Tempest up for her swim. The other horses had finished their swimming exercise, so Caroline had the pool to herself. She walked Tempest in and the mare started swimming almost straightaway. Caroline let her have her head; Tempest knew the routine and she stuck to the middle of the pool like most sensible horses do. When they got to the fly bridge at the end of the circuit, strappers had to either cross over and commence another lap, or guide their horses up the race and out of the pool. You could have knocked me over with a feather when Caroline called it quits after just one lap, as instructed.
So much for my overwork-them-by-swimming theory. How could I have even suspected Caroline? She was just a devoted strapper doing her best. I stood staring with my binoculars as Caroline hosed down her charge and scraped her dry, preparing to take her home. Christ, I was an idiot. I should have listened to Big Oakie and stayed clear away from the whole affair.
I stared stubbornly through my glasses, almost willing Caroline to make Tempest swim some extra laps, to prove my theory right. It wasn’t to be. In fact, to rub salt in my wounds, Frank came down to the pool leading a saddled horse. He swapped it with Caroline’s horse, legging her up into the saddle for her to ride it work, then turned around and walked Tempest back to the stable.
I was so disgusted I almost called it a day then. But, to make matters worse, I realised I couldn’t leave the tower until after track work had finished, or else someone would notice me climbing down. So as well as wasting the entire morning on some cock-and-bull theory, I’d have to endure another hour of cold stuck in the tower. The weather was having its usual effect on the male anatomy. I’d had a flask of coffee and half a bottle of water and I needed to pee. Badly. Normally a discreet visit behind a bush would have done the trick. None of those up here. I ended up improvising with the coffee flask and made a mental note not to use it again. Ever.
I scanned the track with my glasses to pass the time. O’Reilly was still out in the middle, supervising his team. I could see into the back yard of my father’s stables at Parraboo Lodge. Saw my brother David busy hosing down a horse. Wondered what he’d think of me spying on him from up here. A horse cantered by, its hoofs pounding like a bass drum on the sand track.
When it had passed, I noticed another faint noise, something I hadn’t heard all morning. It sounded like an occasional spit or a hiss, followed by a knocking against timber. Puzzled, I put my glasses down and tried to locate the source of the noise. It was only now and then, before it stopped and then started up again. I couldn’t see any horses out on the track making the sound. Nor was there any machinery like a tractor out on the track that could be responsible. I glanced behind me to the railway tracks, thinking perhaps the sound might have come from a train. No go there either. The lines were empty. All was quiet for a moment and I strained my ears to try and hear.
I caught a glimpse of something before I heard the noise again, and I wouldn’t have seen it unless I was up in the tower. Through the bushes and trees, in the far corner of the course, were the high timber fences of the bullring. And in the bullring was a horse galloping around the hurdles. I picked up my glasses again and focused them on the horse. It was being driven by someone with a stockwhip. They were an expert in plying the whip, too. No sound of a crack, just flicking it out in an evil hiss if the horse even looked like slowing down. I couldn’t make out who the strapper was at first; their back was to me and they all look much alike in skullcaps and riding gear in the half-light of morning track work anyway. But when I saw the person head on, I nearly dropped my glasses in astonishment when I recognised who it was. Jesus, Punter, how could you have been so blind?
The horse baulked once at one of the jumps, and received a flick around the hocks for its troubles. Frightened, it stumbled forward again, brushing the hurdle with its front feet. That accounted for the brushing sound against timber that I had heard. Mostly it jumped clean and hard, the deep sand of the bullring muffling any sound from its hooves. Around and around it went, relentlessly driven by the ever-present threat of the whip. I counted twenty-five laps before the horse’s strapper stopped hunting it. It must have completed at least another half-dozen before I’d noticed it.
When its strapper cornered and caught the horse, I got a chance to look it over properly. It was a dark brown horse, nothing exceptional about it except for a small white sock on its off-hind leg. It was Tempest.