Pride's Harvest (24 page)

The horses were now out on the track for the first race, breaking away from the strappers leading them out of the gate and beginning their canter down to the starting barrier.

Malone said, “I thought there might have been some Kooris acting as strappers. They're supposed to be good with horses, aren't they?”

“Kooris?” Carmody looked at him quizzically, but made no further comment on Malone's use of the word. It was obviously not one he himself used; but then, like Fred Strayhorn, he was an old-timer, a generation that, without meaning real offence, had used words like “blackfellers” and “darkies.” Malone decided that he would not use “Koori” again, realizing that it might sound affected; even patronizing, to the Kooris themselves.

“There usually are some of them out here, working as casuals,” said Carmody. “Come to think of it, I haven't seen any of them at all out here today. Some of them might come up to the bookies to make a bet, but they don't mix. They usually stay together down there at the far end of the straight.”

Malone made no mention of the gathering they had seen in the blacks' settlement this morning. He turned his attention to the first race, which an announcer, his voice crackling over a faulty public address system, said was about to start. Everybody looked across to the far side of the course, where
the
starting barrier was obscured behind a thin screen of trees.

Suddenly: “They're off!”

But only one horse came out from behind the trees, galloping flat out at once, pulling hard as its jockey tried to jerk its head in and slow it down. It swept round the far side of the course, round the bend and down the straight, still pulling hard as its jockey tried to control it. The other horses had now come out from behind the trees, but were standing still, they and their jockeys staring after the runaway like dancers in a ballet where one of the corps had suddenly run amok.

The runaway's sides were a lather of foam; it went past the grandstand, its eyes wild and its mouth gaping, hell-bound for only the God-of-Bent-Bookies knew where. The crowd fell about laughing as the horse disappeared round the far curve, heading down the track again for the distant barrier, where the other horses patiently awaited the return of the stoned prodigal.

“False start!” crackled the announcer and it was difficult to tell whether it was static or laughter that was breaking him up.

Carmody wiped his eyes with a handkerchief. “Doped to the eyeballs! They've given him too much!”

“It was Mulga Lad!” Ida was a shaking mixture of laughter and surprise. “It's one of Trevor's!”

“Trevor's been got at,” said her father. “Someone's double-crossed him.”

“Someone's double-crossed
me
,” said Lisa.

“Why?” asked Malone, the police mind working again.

“I don't know. I heard a bookie say he was thirty-three to one and that sounded like a good price to me, a bargain. So I backed him.”

Malone looked at her lovingly, his momentary concern put at rest; then he looked past her at Carmody. “Normally she's the level-headed one in the family.”

“I wish I'd known you'd done that,” Ida told Lisa. “I'll give you your money back. I don't think Trevor thought it had a chance—it was probably the trainer who nominated it for the race and paid the fee. Trevor's other horse, Go Boy, is the favourite. He's two to one on.”

“
Who's the trainer?” said Malone.

“A boy named Phil Chakiros, his father is—”

“I know him,” said Malone; and marvelled at his own lack of surprise. The skeins around here seemed to be as interwoven as those in a Chinese string puzzle.

“They're off!” yelled the PA system.

“What—again?” said a voice behind Malone.

The horses came out from behind the screen of trees, bunched in a moving floral bouquet, the jockeys' colours bright even at a distance. This first race was a maiden handicap; all these horses were scrubbers. They were the bottom end of a long line of descendants from the legendary Byerley Turk and other Arab stallions of the seventeenth century in England, the product of equine sperm that had finally run out almost to piss. They galloped with no enthusiasm, they had little or no desire to finish in front of another horse; if they had pricked their ears before they had started it was only because a bush-fly had stung them. They gave meaning to the term “horse sense:” winning might be the name of the game to football coaches and other egomaniacs, but these awkward nags knew better. They raced now with the jockeys shouting at them to get a move on, at least to put on a show; but no horse showed any inclination to break free to a clear lead, they were egalitarian, none wanted to show he was any better than the others.

Then, abruptly, a horse did break clear: it was Go Boy, the favourite. He came round the bend into the straight a good two lengths in the lead. Malone, using the spare set of binoculars Carmody had brought for him, could see the jockey looking anxiously over his shoulder and shouting, as if to urge the others to make a race of it and not leave him out here in this undemocratic position. The other horses, however, despite their jockeys' efforts, weren't interested. They plodded along, intent only on getting past the post and going home.

Then Mulga Lad, still foam-decked, came out of the pack. He caught up with Go Boy and the two horses came down the straight locked together. Malone, binoculars to his eyes, saw the favourite's jockey pulling hard on the reins, almost standing straight up in the stirrups to get more leverage. The two horses came to the winning post: they didn't exactly
flash
by it, but they did go past it. Mulga Lad was a
neck
in front, covered now in more foam than a blocked drain; Go Boy, mouth wide open from the pull on the bit, was a disgraceful second. Twenty yards past the post Mulga Lad went down head first, throwing his jockey; the boy, who must have been expecting it, did a professional tumble and picked himself up at once, dodging to one side as the other horses came cantering through. Mulga Lad lay still, obviously dead.

Everyone in the stand and the enclosure had begun to laugh; but now they were abruptly quiet. The race had been a joke; but it was no joke to kill a horse. They were country people and only an absolute bastard would treat a horse that way.

“Why did they let him run?” said Malone.

“You'd better ask the stewards that,” said Carmody. “Ray Chakiros is the chief steward.”

Another skein woven. “What'll they do?”

“They'll take a swab and send it down to the lab in Sydney. By then all the bookies will have paid out and be long gone. None of them are locals. Go down and collect your money, Lisa.”

“I can't. I couldn't bear to win money on a horse that died for it!”

Ida said, “Go and collect, Lisa. Otherwise, it'll be only the bookies who win. For all we know, some of them were probably in on the scam.”

“What'll happen to Trevor as the owner?” said Malone. “Both horses were his, and the favourite wasn't trying. Down in Sydney that jockey would get at least twelve months.”

“Trevor will be okay,” said Carmody. “Nobody would ever suspect him of being a party to anything as blatant as that. Young Phil Chakiros will be the one they'll question, him and the two jockeys. And whichever bookie was in it with them. Go and get your money, Lisa.”

“I'll get it,” said Malone and took the ticket from Lisa, got up and went down to the betting ring. He had seen Chess Hardstaff stand up, face livid, and he wanted a closer look to see how the president of the turf club had taken this crude scandal. Even in a nation of gamblers, whose patron saint was a bushranger, it was not the sort of thing to be staged in front of the Governor-General. Though the Queen, a racing enthusiast, far away in Buckingham Palace, might laugh if ever she got to hear of it. She knew her Aussie subjects.

Hardstaff
had come down from the official box and had reached the bottom step of the grandstand when Malone paused in front of him. “Nice start to the meeting, Mr. Hardstaff. Is it going to get better?”

Hardstaff, eyes sharp, saw the betting ticket in Malone's hand. “Did you have a bet on the race?”

“I backed the winner. Pity he won't win any more races.”

“How did you know what to back?”

“Oh, I think I'll keep that till the inquiry, in case I'm called. There'll be one, I suppose?”

“Did you know something?”

“Nothing. I just bet on suspicion. It's a police habit.”

Hardstaff gave no answer to that. He brushed by Malone and went over towards the saddling paddock, where Ray Chakiros was snarling at his son. Malone glanced up at the Governor-General, who looked as if he were praying for a national emergency that would call him back to Canberra within the next couple of minutes. At least there the scandals were never so out in the open, they might politically kill an opponent but never in front of a grandstand crowded with voters. One Governor-General, sure, killed a
government,
but there had been no betting scam on that.

Out on the track a truck had already appeared and was dragging the dead horse down to the far end of the straight. In the small betting ring the bookmakers were wiping tears from their cheeks: it was difficult to tell whether they were from laughter or for the dead horse. Malone presented Lisa's ticket to a nuggety, walnut-faced man who could have been an ex-jockey. He was one of the game's battlers, not one of your expensively-suited bookies who had the rails stands at Randwick and Flemington. He wore jeans, a turtlenecked sweater and a hat whose brim had been greased by years of thumbing. He had the sort of eyes that had never been innocent, he would have winked knowingly at his father the first time he had been put to his mother's nipple.

He scrutinized the betting ticket, then Malone. “I don't remember you, sport. Where'd you pick this up?”

Malone
looked at the man's name on the bag hanging like a leather sporran in front of him. “We haven't met, Mr. Gissop. I'm Detective-Inspector Malone.”

Gissop's face went pale under his deep tan. “Look, sport, I didn't have nothing to do with that out there—” He nodded out towards the track. “I'd never kill a horse—Christ, I love „em like me own kids—”

“I'm from Homicide,” said Malone, enjoying every moment.

“Jesus, mate, look, I told you—You're from
what?
Homicide? You're investigating a dead
horse
?”

Malone laughed, let the bookie off the hook and collected Lisa's winnings. He went back towards the grandstand feeling a little better. If he was still alive the day the world ended, he hoped he would find a laugh somewhere amongst all the wreckage.

He went up a different set of stairs, saw a vacant seat beside Dr. Bedi and dropped into it, taking off his hat. She smiled, her big dark eyes glistening with amusement. It struck him that she was one of the few people he had met since coming to Collamundra who looked totally relaxed.

“You're always a gentleman, Inspector? Taking your hat off to a lady?”

“I always thought there was supposed to be more gentlemen in the bush than in the city.”

“Not around here. Not to me.” She was still smiling as if unperturbed by the lack of respect shown to her. “But then Indian men are no better. Worse, perhaps. Unless one is a rich old maharani—then they bow and scrape like men everywhere.”

“I've never met a rich old maharani. Is there a Mr. Bedi?”

“Yes. He is back in Simla, where I come from. He couldn't face the thought of outback Australia.”

She looked out at the local example of outback Australia. She was facing west, towards the plains stretching away forever. She would never become accustomed to the limitless flatness; she missed the mountains, the towering peaks against the Himalayan sky, more than she did her husband. She could close her eyes here in Collamundra and see, with heart-aching clarity, the view from the Mall in Simla in the early morning: the air so clear that one felt one could reach out and touch the glittering peaks a
hundred
miles away, the pennants of snow streaming from their tops in the winds, the silence, the voice of Himalaya, the snow abode. She turned back to Malone.

“My husband is a great cricket fan like so many Indian men. He was afraid that all Australian men would be like your fast bowlers, aggressive and vicious.”

“I was a fast bowler, once.”

She raised her eyebrows. “A fast bowler
and
a policeman? Are you popular?”

“In Australia fast bowlers have always been more popular than policemen. Even the vicious ones. Dr. Nothling's not here?”

“He is coming later, I understand. He is entertaining some Japanese gentlemen at the moment.”

There was no one seated near them; everyone was down in the betting ring or parading up and down in the dust bowl. He moved closer to her. “Dr. Bedi, did Dr. Nothling examine Ken Sagawa's body at all?”

The amusement faded from her eyes; they became as opaque as he had seen them yesterday afternoon at the hospital. “There is a question here, Inspector, of professional etiquette—”

“You mean one doctor won't point the finger at another? I understand you're all gentlemen in that respect, even the ladies.”

She studied him as if he were a specimen under a microscope. “You're quite a mixture, aren't you? You can be rough-and-ready and other times you're as smooth as—as—”

“As a Macquarie Street specialist? Or the president of the AMA?”

Her eyes became a little less opaque, some light showing in them. “You don't like doctors, do you, Inspector?”

“You don't like policemen. Or anyway, Dr. Nothling doesn't. You haven't answered my question. Forget the professional etiquette. I'm trying to find a murderer, Dr. Bedi, I'm not trying to send Dr. Nothling or anyone else up before the medical ethics committee. Though I might do that if I had to.”