Silk Chaser

by Peter Klein

  ‘Actually, I’ve got some bad news myself,’ she said. ‘About Nathan.’

  I raised my eyes sharply. ‘Nathan?’

  ‘Yeah,’ she nodded. ‘Seems like it’s a bad week for people breaking up.’

  It took me a moment to pick up on what she meant. ‘Don’t tell me . . .’

  ‘Us too. We’ve split up. It didn’t work out.’

  ‘You poor thing.’

  ‘He said he’d found someone else; someone he knew he could really relate to.’

  ‘I can’t believe it. He left you for another woman? The fools deserve each other, then. That’s all I can say.’

  There was a little trickle of tears which she started dabbing at, but she sniffed them away defiantly.

  ‘He didn’t leave me for another woman, Punter. The new person in his life is Richard.’

  She spat out the name like a mouthful of rotten banana, and I nearly choked like I was swallowing one.

  ‘Um, did I just hear you right?’

  She sniffed again and patted Che for comfort. ‘You did. He’s bisexual. Bastard never told me he batted for both sides. You’d think I would have known; all that time he spent down at that bloody camp gym he used to work out at. Hanging out with his gay-boy mates every chance he got. I should have seen it coming.’

  ‘Jesus, I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘Yeah, well, it doesn’t exactly give the ego a boost, I can tell you.’

  She took another sip. ‘It’s not the only bad news I’ve got.’

  ‘There’s more?’

  ‘I’ve got to vacate my flat. My landlord’s moving his teenage daughter in so she can be nearer to uni.’

  ‘No way. You’ve been there forever.’

  ‘Well, forever runs out in four weeks.’

  I cracked open another bottle from the fridge; didn’t bother asking her permission as I topped up her glass and sat the bottle down between the jumbled pages of the weekend paper’s car guide. She jutted her chin at it.

  ‘See you’re still reading through the car section,’ she said, changing the subject.

  ‘Got to stay in touch with the latest trends in automotive technology.’

  She laughed. ‘Oh, of course; I can see why. Given that you’ve had your old kombi van for about twenty years. I don’t know why you bother to read up on it; it’s not as if you’ll ever buy a new car.’

  ‘Hey, you can talk. You and the movie reviews you pore over. When was the last time you ever actually went and saw a film?’

  ‘You know I can’t stand going to the movies. Everyone makes too much noise. I wait till they come out on DVD.’

  ‘Liar, you don’t even do that.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean I can’t read about them.’

  ‘My point exactly.’

  I played with my glass a bit; swirled the wine around in it and took a sip.

  ‘You know, if you’re stuck, there’s always the spare room out the back of my apartment.’

  ‘Thanks, Punter. That’s awfully kind, but you know it wouldn’t work out.’

  ‘No, I suppose not.’

  ‘We’re not really suited to each other. We’d clash; cramp each other’s style. We’d end up squabbling over things like the grocery bill.’

  ‘We would?’

  ‘Well, you insist on buying all those upmarket feline dishes for this spoilt creature,’ she said, scratching Che behind the ears. ‘And I’m not going halves on that when the home brands are just as good.’

  ‘He won’t eat the home brands.’

  ‘You don’t buy the home brands, Punter. Then of course there’s the problem of where I’d park my car.’

  ‘That’s no problem, there’s plenty of off-street parking.’

  Kate shook her head and took another mouthful. ‘No, I’m not going to park my little MG out in the rain and cold. It simply won’t do.’

  Che didn’t think it would do either. He gave a supportive little chirp; he was taking Kate’s side of the argument, the little traitor. Maybe I should take another look at buying the home brand cat food after all.

  ‘You’ve got a vacant garage.’

  ‘Uh-uh. That’s for my van.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Punter, when was the last time you actually parked your van anywhere but the street?’

  ‘All right, but I keep my surfing gear in there.’

  ‘Punter, there’s acres of room in that garage. It’s like a TARDIS and if you cleaned it up properly some day, it may surprise you to find that it can actually store both.’

  I looked at her over the rim of my glass. Impossible woman. Would always beat me with logic and fact. ‘You’re right,’ I said. ‘It wouldn’t work out, would it?’

  ‘No,’ she agreed. ‘It wouldn’t work.’

  I topped up our glasses again and opened the car section. Pretended to read it just to annoy her. Not to be outdone, she foraged around until she found the movie guide. We both absorbed ourselves in silence for a few moments; me looking at cars I was never going to buy and Kate reading about films she had no intention of seeing.

  ‘You can have the room for an even two hundred a week and I’ll buy the cat food,’ I said, not looking up from the paper.

  ‘A hundred and fifty and I want the garage thrown in,’ she said, rustling her pages. Impossible woman.

  I got a call from Beering early on Tuesday morning. He brought me up to date on the latest about Matt.

  ‘Now that they know who he is,’ said Beering, ‘they’ve been able to correctly match DNA from all those victims directly to him. Going right back to Amanda Kaisha and the other five he killed. And the knife they found on him in the laneway is another nail in his coffin. I’m told police won’t have any trouble confirming that as the murder weapon. Oh, by the way, those jockey silks you found on his bike outside your place contain more than enough evidence to put him away.’

  I thought about Matt riding by my flat, stalking me. My own bloodstains could very nearly have been added to the others on those silks.

  ‘Jim, have they worked out why he did it?’

  ‘They’ve only just started questioning him. Took him two days before he could even talk after that bashin’ he copped. They’ll go over everything with a fine-tooth comb. It’ll all come out in the wash.’

  ‘Yeah, I guess. But the silk chaser messages; there’s something, I dunno . . . what made him do it, do you think?’

  ‘Son, he’s a nutter, a crazy, who knows? Twelve months from now, some psychologist will figure out a theory. Probably write a thesis about it and make up some fancy name for Matt’s condition. I’ll tell you something for nothin’, though, guys like him, once they start, they never stop. They just carry right on until they get caught.’

  ‘Yeah. Killers keep on killing.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘What’ll happen with him now?’

  ‘The normal legal process. They’ll charge him. He’ll eventually go to trial. It’s almost a certainty he’ll spend the rest of his life behind bars.’

  ‘I guess that’s some comfort for the families of the victims.’

  After Beering’s call I tuned into Russell Henshaw’s radio show. Becoming quite a convert, I was, in a perverse sort of a way. I’d be seeing him later that afternoon at the races, when Princess Upstart went around. He’d actually left a couple of messages on my mobile and even called my brother demanding to know about the registration of the ownership papers. Pushy bastard, he could bloody well wait until this afternoon when I was good and ready. Henshaw had one of his regular guests on his show; the police commissioner. That usually made for lively entertainment, so I turned up the radio. Henshaw was on his soapbox talking about one of his favourite topics, violence around the nightclub district. That subject included the strapper killer’s bashing and capture last Friday night which had been covered by the media to the point of saturation ever since. In fact, Henshaw’d had Maxine appear exclusively on his show yesterday for an hour to talk about her experience. How�
��s that for a scoop? ‘Superstar shock jock interviews daughter victim’. Love to see what ratings they pulled for that. The media angle now seemed to have switched to just how hard the police would actually look for the group who were responsible for Matt’s bashing. It raised an intriguing question and one which The Sun had put to a readers’ poll. Almost every respondent had replied with the predictable: ‘Thugs did a good turn for once’, or, ‘Served him bloody right, but didn’t go far enough’.

  Henshaw wasn’t silly. He was well attuned to the popular opinion of his listeners and how they felt about the fate of the strapper killer. This morning he was giving the police commissioner his usual grilling.

  ‘It does appear these thugs have actually done the public a favour, in this case,’ said Henshaw. ‘They’ve stopped the killer and given him a thrashing, which a lot of people would say he thoroughly deserved.’

  ‘We don’t condone violence in any shape or form,’ said the commissioner with staunch political correctness.

  ‘Right, but putting that aside, some might say they didn’t go far enough. Reports indicate that those louts may very well have killed him if they hadn’t been disturbed.’

  ‘I’m sorry, your point is?’

  ‘That if they’d taken this killer out, they’d have saved everyone the time and money of an expensive trial that will probably see him spend the rest of his life behind bars anyway.’

  ‘That’s just conjecture. I’m not going to hypothesise on what might have happened.’

  ‘Well, we don’t have the death penalty in this state anymore, so that’s where he’d end up, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘And tell me, Commissioner, police won’t be exactly falling over themselves to find these thugs who bashed the killer, will they?’

  ‘We’ll continue to make inquiries and those responsible will be pursued just as in any other assault case.’

  ‘Of course, of course. You’ll do what you can, Commissioner,’ Henshaw said affably. ‘But the public would understand that the police have only got finite resources.’

  ‘They’re your words, not mine.’

  ‘We’re going to open up the lines now, and listeners, I want you to ask yourselves this; should the strapper killer bashers be applauded or apprehended?’

  I got to Caulfield a little before twelve. It felt funny catching a train in, but the van was at the panel beaters and they hadn’t even got around to assessing the damage yet, let alone repairing it. I might have to look at getting a hire car if it dragged on too much longer, but for now I had a zone two met ticket to get me around town. Inside the course I tipped some change into old George’s bucket, then grabbed a cup of coffee and a sandwich in the members’ bar. I sat down by an empty table opposite a TV monitor and checked my scratchings, went through my prices and looked at some form again for a couple of horses I wasn’t quite sure about. Most of the card today was rubbish, a typical bookmaker’s picnic which I had no intention of playing. But there was one horse that interested me in the first race of the day.

  With twenty minutes to go I walked down to the mounting yard. Only three horses had entered the ring, their strappers parading them around in a circle to a small group of owners and trainers. The others were stringing along slowly up the walkway, ready to join them. The top weight was a dud; even the girl in the cloakroom knew that. Hadn’t won since fluking a stakes race on a heavy track a year ago. Pass. O’Reilly’s horse, number three, looked well. They always did, but the form was all wrong. Dismiss. Pricey’s filly? Maybe as a saver if I got decent odds.

  The remaining horses started to trickle in. I could see Princess Upstart being led up the chute. Hard to miss her or her attendant. There was no strapper’s prize being awarded today, but Maxine still stood out like a model amongst the other stablehands. She wore the hip-hugging white jodhpurs, the knee-high boots. No outrageous silk-coloured hat on today, thank god. That was replaced by a red checked scarf. I watched her lead the filly around the yard. She gave a flick of her hair and seemed to share her smile with every male aged between fifteen and seventy who stood staring at her over the mounting yard fence, drooling.

  Gorgeous? Yes, undeniably.

  Desirable? I had once found her so.

  She used to be mine, you know.

  I flashed my pass at the gateman and went over to join my father and David, who were talking to our jockey. Dad gave me his usual nod and grunt. The original man of few words.

  ‘Oh, hello, owner,’ said David, ribbing me good-naturedly. ‘You sure know when to jump on board. A last start winner and a short-priced favourite today . . . not bad timing to get in on a horse.’

  ‘Got Russell’s generosity to thank for that,’ I said.

  ‘He’s been trying to track you down since last Friday about the registration papers. He’s convinced you’ve cocked them up somehow, made a mistake with the ownership details.’

  He opened up his race book and held it up for me to see. ‘You want to check it over again? If it’s wrong, we’ll need to notify the stewards.’

  Even Dad joined in with a warning growl. ‘I don’t want Henshaw mucked about, he’s an important client to me.’

  I ignored David’s race book and brushed off Dad’s concern. ‘It’s all good, trust me.’

  ‘Well, you can tell him yourself. Here he comes now,’ said David.

  Henshaw came bustling up through the side gate carrying a race book and a pair of binoculars in their case. He had on a grey suit and a loud yellow tie with a matching carnation in his lapel; way over-dressed for a lowly mid-week meeting like today’s. He looked around amongst the other trainers and jockeys and when he saw us, he made a beeline straight for me.

  ‘What the devil did you do with those registration papers I gave you?’ he demanded.

  I gave him a blank stare. ‘Sorry, what do you mean?’

  He waved the race book in front of me and pointed at Princess Upstart’s entry.

  ‘This!’ he said by way of explanation. ‘All you had to do was fill in your ownership details and lodge the form like I told you. But you’ve gone and messed it all up.’

  I stood next to him and leant over the race book, pretending to make a study of it.

  ‘No, definitely no mistake there, Russell,’ I said thoughtfully.

  ‘Well, of course there is! I gave you a half share in the filly, so it should be your name in the race book and mine. So who in hell is this Caff Girls Dreaming Syndicate which appears there?’

  ‘Perhaps you’d better ask them.’

  They came pottering through to the mounting yard like a conga line of old teapots, a dozen elderly ladies clutching their handbags and dressed in their best Sunday dresses. Daisy led them proudly along, the matriarch of the clan. I took a step towards her and gave a wave. She saw me, gave a quick little wave back and hurried the rest of her group over to join us; a pack of Dots and Ediths and Merles.

  ‘Hullo, luv,’ she said, kissing me like a long-lost nephew. ‘It was such a nice thing for you to do. And when you said we were racing it with Russell Henshaw, well, we were all so excited!’

  Henshaw looked on, his mouth agape, mystified at this sudden intrusion of pensioners into his inner racing sanctum.

  ‘I’d better introduce you and the girls, Daisy. This is Russell Henshaw, and of course, you know my father and David.’

  ‘Ooh, Mr Henshaw,’ Daisy said, grabbing hold of his arm, ‘I listen to you every single morning, I do. Haven’t missed your show in years. All of us tune in at the café before the races come on, don’t we, girls?’

  An immediate chorus of agreeable clucking noises.

  ‘Er, that’s nice,’ said Henshaw, ‘but –’

  ‘When Punter told us he had a quarter share in his filly we could race with you, we just about died of excitement!’

  ‘But, it’s not . . .’

  ‘We said we couldn’t possibly afford it, but Punter kindly offered to deed us half of his share for nothing. Wasn’
t that lovely of him?’

  Henshaw seemed lost for words. At least words that we could hear. His mouth opened and shut and he seemed to be making an effort to talk, but nothing came out. David grinned and a wry smile appeared on Dad’s face.

  ‘I said to the rest of the girls that the least we can do to repay Punter is give him a cup of coffee and a sandwich on the house whenever he drops by. And you can too, luv,’ said Daisy, taking a firmer hold of Henshaw’s arm. ‘You feel free to come around the caff any time and me an’ the girls will see you right.’

  Henshaw looked aghast. I could just see him swapping his permanent raceday booking at the Blue Diamond restaurant to line up in the café queue with the hoi polloi.

  When the stewards called for the riders to mount up, David and my father went out into the mounting yard, leaving me and Henshaw with the rest of the ladies. Henshaw was looking to bail, but Daisy still had a hand looped through his arm. Escape wasn’t so easy.

  ‘Now then, luv, where do you sit; up in the owners’ stand? Me and the girls will follow you up.’

  ‘Er, I really need to check out the betting ring first. In fact, I’d better get a move on. Don’t want to miss out on the best price, do we!’

  ‘Of course not, luv. We’ll save a seat for you.’

  Henshaw extricated himself from Daisy’s clutches and scurried off, glaring at me as he pushed past.

  Out in the ring, they were giving two seventy about Princess Upstart. Big Oakie had her a tad longer so I claimed him and backed Pricey’s horse at the fours as a saver as well. I sat in my usual spot in the grandstand although today, I was perfectly entitled to a seat in the owners’ section. I swung my binoculars over to that part of the stand and immediately picked up Henshaw, surrounded by Daisy and her teapots chattering him to death. His face was as red as beetroot and when my father and David walked up into the stand, I saw him waving furiously at them to come and sit beside him. They did join him, but I chuckled to myself because he still couldn’t shake off Daisy, who was sticking tighter than a shoe nailed to a hoof.