Silk Chaser

by Peter Klein

  ‘I was at Terry’s, the barber, and saw it on his shop wall along with all his other racing photos.’

  ‘Ah, figures. Terry’d be the only person who’d bother keeping a photo of a horse so slow.’

  ‘I gathered it wasn’t much good from what he told me. He said you’d sold it to someone in Queensland and it never won another race.’

  Chas nodded thoughtfully. ‘Yeah, I could probably have beaten it home in this thing,’ he said, slapping the side of his wheelchair.

  ‘The horse’s silks; I’m trying to find out who they were registered to. Were they yours or the owners’?’

  ‘Not mine, son. I’ve used the grey and yellow stripes ever since I started training fifty-seven years ago. They must have been Terry’s or the other owner.’

  ‘No, they weren’t Terry’s. So they must have belonged to Mr Whittle.’

  ‘Col Whittle,’ said Chas, nursing the photo on his lap. ‘Now there’s an owner I haven’t thought about for a long time.’

  ‘He still in the game?’

  ‘Lord, no. That was the last horse he ever owned. His interest waned after that and I heard he died in a car accident. Must be thirty years or so ago.’

  ‘Did you know him well?’

  ‘Not really. Let me think. My memory’s not what it used to be . . .’ Chas adjusted his glasses and peered at the photo, trying to remember. ‘Yeah, it was a long time ago but Col, he was a local builder if I remember correctly,’ he said, nodding with more certainty. ‘That’s right, it’s coming to me now. He was a good tradesman, always did a proper job. I got to know him when he put a new roof up over the stables for me. He was a keen racegoer and he ended up taking a share in a few horses I had over a couple of years. One of ’em won a couple of races, that’s what got him hooked. But Think I Can was his last horse with me.’

  ‘Would you know what happened to the colours?’

  ‘Jesus, son, I can’t even remember what won the last at Caulfield on Saturday, let alone what happened to a set of silks over forty years ago! I probably gave ’em back to Col when the horse was sold. But like I said, he’s long gone so they could be anywhere. Most likely buried in a tip by now. You can always get another set made up with the same colours if you want ’em so bad, you know.’

  ‘Tell me, was he married, have any family you knew about? I’m just wondering if they’ve been sitting in a garage somewhere hidden away all these years.’

  Chas stroked his chin, let his eyes wander over to the row of stables opposite. A couple of horses had their heads over the top of their boxes and were munching contentedly away at their feed bins while looking at us. The goat had stretched out to the very end of its tether rope and could just reach a patch of weeds in the garden bed which it was chewing at.

  ‘Col had a wife, Lillian, but I heard she passed away a few years ago.’ He frowned, a thought occuring to him. ‘Funny couple they made, her and Col.’

  ‘Funny?’

  ‘Funny strange. Something not quite right. You’d hear rumours at the track about her having it off with jockeys while Col was out working.’

  ‘Was it true?’

  Chas shrugged. ‘Dunno for sure. But where there’s smoke . . .’

  ‘Did you know where they lived?’

  ‘Col was a local, but I never went to his house.’

  ‘What about when you sent him a training bill, wouldn’t his address be in your records?’

  ‘Nah, I don’t keep any records going back more than a few years, let alone forty.’

  A phone rang from inside the house and his wife called out to him. ‘Chas, it’s for you.’

  ‘All right, I’m comin’,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I can tell you much more about the owner or those colours, son.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said, standing up to go. ‘It was a long time ago.’

  ‘Would you mind doing something for me on the way out?’ He smiled at me. ‘Tie that goat a bit closer to that weed patch. He’s only done half the job.’

  ‘You’re a hard taskmaster, Chas. I’m glad I never strapped for you.’

  He winked at me as he wheeled past in his wheelchair. ‘If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing properly.’

  I dropped by Beering’s office on the way back from Chas’ stables. He was out at lunch, so I left the photo with his receptionist and asked if she’d get Beering to call me when he got back. Mention of lunch made me think of getting a bite to eat myself, so I drove over to the main shopping strip and bought some sushi rolls which I sat down in my van to eat. Beering rang me just as I ripped the plastic wrapper off.

  ‘Good timing, Jim, as always.’

  ‘My PA said you called and left a race photo for me.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘We’ll, what’s the story?’

  ‘Something that might save you guys a bit of legwork. Those colours in that photo, they’re the same as the strapper killer wore the night he attacked Maxine.’

  Beering went quiet for a moment, obviously taking in what I’d discovered. ‘You sure about that?’

  ‘I am now after seeing them in the photo. They’re a spitting image.’

  ‘Where did you get the photo?’

  I told him how I’d come across it and also what I’d found out from my visit to Chas Bannon’s stables earlier.

  ‘You’ve been busy.’

  ‘Yep. So your friends in Homicide can wrap up their search for the missing colours,’ I said. ‘They belonged to Col Whittle, who died about thirty-odd years ago according to Chas.’

  ‘I’ll let Homicide know about it,’ said Beering. ‘They might want to ask Chas some more questions. But I gotta say that even though you’ve traced whose colours they were, it sounds a bit of a dead end with both the Whittles dead.’

  ‘It’s a lead, isn’t it?’

  Beering sniffed down the phone. I’d heard that sniff before. It conveyed a cynical disinterest in pursuing something that he knew would be a timewaster.

  ‘What, stands to reason, doesn’t it?’ I said. ‘Find where the silks are and the last person holding them may be your killer.’

  A patient sigh followed a second cynical sniff. ‘Punter, you’ve done a good job finding that old race photo, even if it was a fluke. But let me tell you something for nothin’. Those colours could be anywhere. You said Chas thought he’d probably sent ’em back to Whittle when he sold his horse years ago.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Okay, what if he didn’t? What if he left ’em at the dry-cleaners and they threw ’em out when they got sick of waiting around for someone to collect ’em?’

  ‘I don’t think he would have done that.’

  ‘All right, what if he did send ’em back. Let’s suppose Whittle puts ’em in the garbage, or took ’em down to a charity bin. Either way, someone else such as the real strapper killer – and let’s face it; we know it’s not Whittle or his equally deceased missus – could have got their hands on ’em and we wouldn’t have a clue.’

  ‘Maybe his wife kept them and passed them on to one of their kids or something.’

  ‘Did Chas know if they had any children or not?’

  ‘I dunno. He didn’t say.’

  ‘Well, let’s run with that one, then. Maybe the wife kept the silks in a box in his wardrobe. But when she died, the kids fought over who gets what and cleaned out all the junk before the house was sold. We’re back to my garbage theory again.’

  I let off my own sigh of disappointment down the phone. ‘Jesus, do all investigations have to hit a brick wall?’

  ‘All I’m sayin’ is that even though you’ve found out who they belonged to, there’s lots of places those colours could be now after forty-odd years.’

  ‘Yeah, you’ve just about given me the complete list.’

  ‘Punter, I haven’t even started. They could have been taken home by the jockey who rode the horse in his last race. Maybe he gave ’em to his kids.’

  ‘So he’s got kids, has he?’

&nbs
p; ‘Okay, let’s say he hasn’t. They could have been left in the jockeys’ room and been sitting in lost property since 1966. A strapper might have left them sitting in a float. Yada yada, you want me to go on?’

  ‘I think I get the picture, Jim.’

  ‘You know what I reckon? Forget who might or might not have the colours. There’s too many variables. We’ve got Maxine’s likeness of the killer and someone will recognise him sooner or later.’

  Beering’s take on things soured the rest of my day. I thought I’d done good. Found some missing pieces in the jigsaw. Particularly in finding out who the colours belonged to. Trouble was, I was thinking like a mug gambler who thinks he’s found the only chance in a race. Beering thought like a cop; his training taught him there were many possibilities. Even so, I felt a bit of an emotional let-down after all my hard work. My feelings didn’t improve when I called Maxine later in the afternoon. She’d only just got back from her corporate planning weekend at Yarra Glen with that legal mob. Now she was telling me they wanted to send her away for three days to Sydney.

  ‘Jesus, honey, you’ve only just got back. I never see you,’ I blurted out. Didn’t mean to, but there it was. That was the problem, wasn’t it? She was always away on a business trip or working crazy hours for a client.

  ‘I’m sorry, sweetie. But it’s more work from Freedales and it’s worth a stack. Rodney Ellis has gone out of his way to pass work on to me, so I can’t really knock it back, can I?’

  ‘You’ve just spent all weekend working for them and I haven’t seen you since Phar Lap won the Cup.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be silly, you’re exaggerating. I’ll be back on Thursday. I’ll see you then, I promise.’

  Maxine cut the call short and rang off. Wisely, I thought. I’d have liked to tell her what she ought to do with Freedales and that toffy-sounding QC, Rodney Ellis. I ended up getting stuck into the form for the following day’s Sandown meeting. It wasn’t bad as far as a summer mid-week card went. Three of the eight races looked playable, including one of my father’s horses whom I’d been waiting to see step out. I was halfway through the program when the phone rang with Chas Bannon on the line.

  ‘G’day, son,’ he said. ‘I got to thinking about Col Whittle and that horse I trained for him after you left.’

  ‘The horse wouldn’t bear a lot of thinking about, Chas. Could do its form in about three seconds flat.’

  ‘True, he was no good. But something about Col buzzed about in my mind all afternoon and I couldn’t quite remember what it was. But then it came back to me, so I thought I’d give you a call before it slipped away again.’

  I pushed my formguide to the side of my desk and sat to attention. ‘What is it about Whittle you remembered?’

  ‘It’s not really Whittle, it’s his son.’

  ‘He had a kid?’

  ‘Well, a stepson. His wife Lillian already had a young boy from a previous marriage. Meggsy, his name was. Least that’s all I remember him by.’

  ‘Ginger Meggs. Let me guess, on account of his red hair?’

  ‘Biggest mop you’ve ever seen. I didn’t think of him at first; was trying to remember about the horse and the colours. But here’s the funny thing. After Col died, I heard from his wife. Hadn’t heard from her in years; no reason she’d keep in touch with me, I s’pose. But then out of the blue, I got this call from Lillian in the early eighties. Seems the kid, who’d grown into a teenager by then, was at a bit of a loose end. Wasn’t doing well in school. Didn’t have any friends or hobbies and his mother was getting worried about him. He was only a small chap, so Lillian asked if I’d give him a go as an apprentice jockey.’

  ‘Did you take him on?’

  ‘I didn’t want to. Bloody kids are a pain in the arse as far as I’m concerned. But Lillian really pleaded with me, said she was desperate to find him something and thought if I could just give him a chance, he’d turn out all right. I wished I’d listened to my better judgement. But I was short of a strapper at the time and the kid wouldn’t cost me nearly as much in wages, so I gave him a start.’

  ‘How did he work out?’

  ‘When he first started he’d hardly say boo to me or anyone else. Like he had withdrawn into his own little shell. Green, of course, because he’d never touched a horse till he set foot in my yard. But he seemed to learn quick enough. Within a month he was mucking out stables and leading ’em around. I even put him up on a couple of quiet ’uns and let him walk exercise. He seemed to gain confidence every day he was there. But after about six months, he put on a growth spurt and shot up. Happens all the time with kids. One day an aspiring jock, the next they’re playing ruck for a league team. I let him stay on as a strapper, but I had to let him go a couple of months after.’

  ‘Why was that?’

  Chas paused a moment as if reluctant to go on. ‘He was a bit of a sly bugger and I always had my suspicions; dogs cowering behind me when he walked into the yard or the cats running off whenever they saw him. I sprung him one day belting a young horse of mine with the handle of a pitchfork and fired him on the spot.’

  I asked Chas a few more questions, but there wasn’t anything else he could tell me. No, he didn’t remember the kid’s proper name. And no, he had no idea where he might be now. When he hung up, I rang Beering. He wasn’t picking up, so I left a message on his answering service anyway telling him about Whittle having a stepson called Meggsy, who once worked for Chas.

  The rest of the week passed by pretty quickly. On Tuesday I went to Sandown and had an all right day. I backed Dad’s horse at fours and it never looked like losing. I went to the Triangle in the evening and met up with the guys. We played snooker till around eleven and then I came home and went to bed. On Wednesday I seemed to spend half the day answering texts and playing catch-up with messages. I don’t know how I could miss so many calls; it was like everyone waited for me to go out of the house and then rang to catch me out.

  Maxine had left a couple of texts for me. I don’t mind reading them, but I hate trying to respond to the damn things. I called Maxine but she wasn’t answering so I left a message on her phone and sure enough, an hour later another text came back from her saying she’d missed my call. Well, of course she had, that’s why she wasn’t there to take it in the first place. I’m sure Telstra’s making a fortune out of everyone who feels compelled to respond every time someone rings or texts.

  Kate had left a message on my home answering machine. At least she used the phone in the way it was supposed to be used. She wanted to know if there were any new developments about the strapper killer. Beering had also rung and left yet another message, a one-sentence question which sounded less than enthusiastic. He said, ‘Does Meggsy have a real name and a current address?’

  I could have predicted his response. Maybe he was right, and all this running around was just a waste of time. I called Billco later in the morning. I didn’t get him either, but at least I got hold of his son, who said he still wasn’t home from his art exhibition at Byron Bay. He said he’d let Billco know to call me. Another win for Telstra.

  On Thursday I went to Ballarat races. I should have stayed home. I got a speeding ticket just as I came over the hill near the tourist castle. Bloody cops had a radar set up just over the dip. An oncoming car flashed its lights at me but it was too late, I’d been zapped. Wasn’t over by much, but no one likes starting the day a hundred and ten dollars in the red. I slipped further into deficit as the day wore on. My first horse got beaten in a photo by a sixteen-to-one outsider. I almost willed the jockey to protest, find some excuse that might turn around the result, but it was beaten fair and square and the judge wasn’t going to change his mind. I had some luck in the two-thousand-metre race when the favourite won at skinny odds. Then I gave it back in the last when my top two picks ran third and fourth respectively.

  I consoled myself with a cup of coffee in the members’ café, thinking about how I couldn’t take a trick. Away from the track, things weren’t exact
ly humming along either. The search for the strapper killer seemed to have slowed somewhat since the flurry of activity last weekend. Maybe that was just my perception because things weren’t falling into place, but that was the story of my life at the moment. Even things with Maxine didn’t feel quite right. I’d hardly sighted her since last weekend, since she’d been staying at her old man’s penthouse. And it didn’t help that she was doing all that bloody work for the legal firm. She was either interstate or attending some damn conference they were putting on. Mental note to self: never engage Freedales for any legal work – they’re too busy running in-house seminars to represent you properly. On the drive home my spirits lifted when my mobile rang and Billco answered. He told me he’d had a successful showing in Byron Bay and managed to sell four paintings and take another two orders. Plus, he’d scored a surf, dawn and evening, every day he’d been there. He asked me what I’d been up to and when I told him why I’d rung, he agreed on the spot to my request.

  On Friday night, much against Maxine’s wishes, I drove her down to Billco’s place on the peninsula. She’d got back the day before from interstate, but she was still tired from the trip and couldn’t see much point in what I was proposing.

  ‘Look,’ I said. ‘What have you got to lose? You want to catch this guy, right?’

  ‘Of course I do. I just don’t see how one of your surfy mates can improve on what the police have already done.’

  ‘Billco’s got other talents apart from surfing.’

  When we got there, Maxine changed her tune almost immediately Billco greeted us and showed us down the hallway. It was covered in watercolours, small landscapes mainly, and it took Maxine a good five minutes or so to get past looking at those.

  ‘Punter never told me you were a real artist,’ she said to Billco. ‘I mean, these are fabulous.’

  Billco grinned modestly. ‘There’s more inside. Come through and I’ll show you around.’

  He led us into the large studio-cum-display room I knew from my previous visits. It had probably been the lounge at one time, but it looked like he’d knocked down a wall to make it big enough for his purposes. He had an easel set up in the corner with a half-finished watercolour on it. A variety of paintings and sketches hung on the walls. Maxine dived in straightaway and went into raptures.