Bad Debts Part 11

Hardhills was a shop, a garage and a weatherboard pub at a churned-up crossroads. The nearest town of any size was thirty kilometres away. In between, it was all low sky, wet sheep and ponds in every hollow.

There were three utes outside the pub. Harry Strang eased the BMW to a stop beside the shop and switched off. He looked at his watch.

We sat in silence for five minutes. I was thinking about Ronnie Bishop. Cam was reading the Sporting Globe. Harry had his eyes closed, head back on the rest. Then he said, 'Now this fella Rex Tie, supposed to meet us out here twelve sharp, he's sittin in the pub over there with this other fella we've come to see. Talkin horses. Couple of the yokels no doubt waterin the tonsils. Publican's hangin about. Rex's takin the view that we'll come in, have a few gargles first.'

'Sounds reasonable,' I said.

'Not in this line of work,' Harry said. 'Thought I'd schooled Rex the last time. Easier to train a horse.'

At 12.15, two men came out of the pub. One of them, a gangling figure in a battered half-length Drizabone, came over to the car. At his approach, Harry pressed the b.u.t.ton and his window slid down. The man bent down to look in. He had a long, sad, middle-aged face, much of it nose.

'Sorry, Harry,' he said. 'Thought you might come in for a quick one.'

Harry looked at him. 'Rex, you've forgotten.'

Rex straightened up and then he came down again. 'Jeez, Harry, have a heart. This is b.l.o.o.d.y Hardhills. There's only about four people.'

'That's four too many, Rex. Drive. We'll follow.'

Rex and the other man got into their utes and drove off, the other man in front. We followed at a distance.

'Harry, why do you need a lawyer for driving around the Western District?' I asked. The question had been on my mind for some time.

He gave me a quick look. 'The yokels've got a lot of respect for lawyers, Jack. Doesn't hurt to show them one. That bloke up front, he's got a horse called Dakota Dreaming, five years old, hasn't run for two years. Not that it ran much before that either. What's the 'rithmetic, Cam?'

'Seven, one, one,' said Cam. He was studying the landscape out of the side window.

'Five-year-old. Seven races. Now that's what I call lightly raced,' Harry said. 'And the reason is, Jack, the animal's got a horrible record, truly horrible. Lucky he's not in the pet's mince or got a big copper's b.u.m on him. The fella up there, he's owner number four, and number three made him a gift of the horse. Gratis and for nothing. He's put two years into patchin up the beast and he reckons it's got one or two big runs in it. Tell Jack the history, Cam.'

Cam looked around. 'He's bred for staying. Third highest price for a yearling in New Zealand in his year. Won his first race by seven lengths. Then Edgar Charlton bought him for a fair bit for a dentists' syndicate. First time out he ran seventh against a good field, pulled up lame. Out for seventeen weeks. Came back at Sandown in December, second in a bunch of spring leftovers. Tendon trouble, twenty weeks off. March at Caulfield. Ninth out of thirteen. Ballarat three weeks later. Stone last. Bleeding. Took the compulsory count. The dentists spit the dummy, sold him. Turned out twice for the third owner for one sixth and one last.'

'Fella trains over near Colac,' Harry said. 'John Nisbet. Gave our friend up ahead the horse with a bowed tendon on his near side and bone chips in both front legs. A dead loss.'

'With respect, this outing doesn't look like an investment to me,' I said.

'Shake,' said Cam.

'Won't hurt to have a look,' Harry said. 'Old Rex's no Rhodes Scholar but he's not Curly Joe.'

The front vehicle turned right. A rutted track ran around the gentle eastern slope of a round-topped hill. At the foot of the northern slope were a farmhouse, stables, a.s.sorted sheds, a round yard. Horses in rugs were standing around looking bored in half a dozen paddocks. About a hundred metres from the buildings, the front driver pulled half off the track, got out and opened a gate. He waved us through.

Rex parked next to a shed and Harry pulled up beside him. We all got out and put on our coats. The north wind had ice in it.

'Christ, Harry,' said Cam, 'can't we do this in the summer? b.l.o.o.d.y nun's nipple.'

The lead driver parked next to the farmhouse. All the buildings except the stables were old but the place was kept up; fresh paint, taut wire, raked gravel. As we got out of the ute, a boy of about fourteen appeared at the front door of the house.

Harry introduced us to Rex and when the other man came over, Rex said, 'Tony Ericson, this is Harry Strang, Cam Delray, and Harry's lawyer, Jack Irish.'

We shook hands. Tony was jockey size but too heavy, lined face, thick dark hair cut short, big ears.

'Never thought I'd meet you,' he said to Harry. 'Me dad used to say, "Think you're Harry Strang?" when we tried some flash riding.'

'How's your dad?' asked Harry.

Tony Ericson c.o.c.ked his head. 'You remember me dad? He always said he knew you.'

'Ray Ericson,' Harry said. 'Still goin?'

Tony Ericson shook his head.

Harry patted his arm briskly. 'Sorry to hear it. Ray could get a camel to jump. Now what's the story?'

Tony Ericson looked at Rex Tie. 'You want to, Rex...'

'You go,' Rex Tie said.

'Let's get down the stables,' Tony said. 'I brung the horse in. Lives outside normal. b.u.g.g.e.r's had enough soft in his life.'

We went down a gravel path, through a gate and round the corner of a long cinderblock stable building. There were eight stalls but only one horse. It was waiting for us, brown head turned our way, nostrils steaming.

Tony said, 'Rex tell you his name's Dakota Dreamin? We call him Slim.'

The horse snickered as we approached. Tony stroked his nose and fed him something.

'They say he was a deadset mongrel, kickin, bitin, but we never seen it. Like a lamb. Me girl looks after him, ten-year-old.' He looked behind us and said, 'Tom, shake hands with the gentlemen. This is me boy Tom, waggin school. He'll give the horse a little hit out.'

The boy from the front door came up and shook hands awkwardly. Someone other than a barber had given him a recent haircut. He was going to be too big for a jockey.

We walked down a road between paddocks and over a small rise. Below us, invisible from the stables, was a training track. You could smell the watermelon scent of new-mown gra.s.s before you saw it.

'Two thousand four hundred metres,' said Tony Ericson. 'Got a twelve hundred metre chute over there.' He pointed to the left. 'Starting gate. Same gra.s.s as Flemington. Bloke done it in the sixties. Went bang here. Used to have rails and all. Had sheep on it for twenty years but we mowed it and rolled it and it come up good.'

I looked at Harry. He had his hands in the jacket pockets of his leather-trimmed loden jacket and a faraway expression on his face.

He took a hand out and rubbed his chin. 'Very nice,' he said. 'Pride of the district, I imagine.'

'Don't follow,' said Tony.

'Other people use this?'

Tony shook his head. 'No trainers around here. We only cleaned it up bout a year ago. Whole thing, that is.'

We all turned at the sound of hoofs. The boy, Tom, walked Dakota Dreaming up to us. The horse shone like gla.s.s, groomed to a standard only achievable by ten-year-old girls. It had pristine bandages on all legs. I knew enough about condition to know this creature was well advanced in his preparation to race.

Tony held the horse's head. 'Remember what I said. Take him out to the seven furlong. I'll give you a bang. Don't push him. If he's feelin strong at the three hundred, let him go.'

The boy nodded and took the horse off. On the track, they went into an easy canter.

We walked along to where a big tin lollipop painted red marked the finish. Cam lit a cigarette, held it in the corner of his mouth while he fiddled with his stopwatch. Harry took out a small pair of binoculars and hung them around his neck. Tony Ericson put a blank into a starting pistol.

'Don't he mind the gun?' asked Rex Tie.

'Can't hardly hear it over there,' said Tony. 'He's ready. Light's flashin.' He raised the pistol above his head, waved it. The boy's right arm went up and down. Tony fired, a flat smack.

Tom set a nice pace, about what you'd expect for a frontrunner over 1400 or 1600 metres on a country track. The straight was about 350 metres. When they came around the turn, you could see that the going was soft and that the horse was not entirely happy.

But the going wasn't going to stop Slim putting on a show. At the 300-metre mark, you could see Tom urge the horse with hands and heels. It didn't require much. With every appearance of enjoyment, the horse opened its stride, lowered its head and accelerated home. They went past the post flat out.

We stood in silence watching the boy, standing upright in the stirrups, slow the horse down.

Harry took off his hat and scratched his head. Cam was looking for a cigarette. Their eyes locked for a good three seconds.

'What's it say?' asked Harry.

Cam found a cigarette and lit it with his Zippo.

'For a stayer,' he said, 'smokin.'

15

Drew poured some red wine into our gla.s.ses, leant back and put his stockinged feet on the coffee table. 'You want my advice?'

Harry and Cam had dropped me off at home but I didn't go in. I'd been brooding all the way back from Hardhills and I felt the urge to talk to Drew. Once upon a time we'd talked to each other about all our problems.

I found him eating takeaway pizza over a pile of files in front of the fire in his house in Kew. The children were nowhere to be seen.

I said, 'Well. Yes.'

'Drop it. Forget Danny ever left the message. Take the gorilla's advice about this Bishop too. You've touched a nerve somewhere.'

'If I hadn't been three-quarters p.i.s.sed years ago I'd have tried to find out more about Danny's movements the night of the hit-and-run,' I said. 'I might have kept him out of jail.'

Drew chewed for a while, studying the flames. Finally he said, 'Bulls.h.i.t, mate. Even if you'd been stone-cold sober and at the top of your form, it would never have occurred to you. You'd have pleaded him. You had to plead him. Since when do lawyers go looking for other explanations when the Crown's got a case like that? Don't kid yourself. There was no negligence there. There's nothing owing on your part.'

We sat in silence for a while, looking at the flames. A wind had come up and every now and again it made a hollow sound in the chimney.

'Remember that week fishing on the Delat.i.te?' Drew asked. 'I reckon that was the best holiday of my adult life.'

'You've never said that before,' I said. 'We caught about three fish.'

'Didn't matter a b.u.g.g.e.r. It was great. It's all the kids seem to remember of their entire childhoods. Apart from the times I'm supposed to have been awful.'

I never thought about that trip. I'd curtained it off. It was the last holiday with Isabel.

'It was good,' I said. 'Like being a kid again.'

'Can't get enough of that.' Drew shifted in his chair. 'Listen, Jack, Danny was probably knocked for some drug scam. This other bloke, from what you say, was a candidate for doing something unpleasant. If there are feral cops involved, the next thing is that you have an accident.'

I nodded. I knew he was right. It was too late to do the right thing by Danny McKillop. The guilt that had taken me to Perth was pointless. With a sense of relief, I held out my wine gla.s.s.

'We'll just finish this drop in here,' said Drew, 'and then I want to show you a little 1978 shiraz off vines that were ninety years old then. Client gave me a case.'

I ended up sleeping in the spare room.

I put in the next day at Taub's, cutting a taper on and hand-morticing the legs of the boardroom table. It was soothing work for someone not feeling all that flash. Charlie didn't make tables any more unless he had to. Having me around meant he didn't have to. 'A table is pretty much a table,' he said. 'When you can't make a complete ruin.'

My cabinetmaking began as a kind of therapy on my way back from self-destruction. I can see that now. At the time it just seemed to happen. I noticed Charlie's workshop while looking at the old tailor's shop that is now my office. I went in on impulse. Sunlight was slanting in through the high windows, the air smelled of wood shavings and linseed oil and Charlie was at his workbench whistling while carving the back of a reproduction George III mahogany chair he was making to fill a gap in what the antique trade calls a long set. In that moment I fell in love with the idea of being a cabinetmaker. No such thought had ever entered my mind before. I knew absolutely nothing about woodwork. I went up to Charlie and said, 'I'll pay you to teach me something about making furniture.'

Charlie had given me his interested look and said, 'Three things let me tell you. Number one, see a doctor. Number two, I'm too old to have an apprentice. Number three, you haven't got enough money.'

After I moved into my office, I began to hang around Taub's, making myself useful where I could. Charlie seemed to like the company. And he couldn't stop himself showing me how to do things.

Just before 4 p.m., the phone rang. It was switched through from my office. It was Mrs Bishop, Ronnie's mother.

'Mr Irish,' she said, 'I'm sorry to bother you but I'm so dreadfully worried about Ronnie. I've been going over everything in my mind and I remembered him making a phone call. Well, I went to the phone, it's in the pa.s.sage, and looked at the little pad I keep there and there's two numbers written down. By Ronnie.'

I said, 'Good work, Mrs Bishop. Numbers mean anything to you?'

'No. I don't know them. I was going to ring them, but then I thought I'd ask you first. Should I tell the police? Would they be interested?'

'Let me ring them first,' I said. 'The police often take some time to get around to things.'

I took down the numbers and went around to my office. I had a feeling about the first number. My scratchpad was beside the phone and on it a number was circled.

The first number was Danny McKillop's.

I sat down and dialled the second number. The phone rang two or three times and then a voice said, 'Father Gorman's residence.'

It was another sour day, full of wind and rain. It took a long time to get across the city to the address Father Rafael Gorman had given me. The urban planners wrecked the traffic flow when they turned Swanston Street, once Melbourne's spine, into some kind of half-baked pedestrian mall. Urban planners are people who know best. They should make them all marry social workers.

I sat in the jams and listened to Claude Haynes, the afternoon man on the ABC, interview the Premier. Like most men on the ABC, Claude had started out to be a clergyman but tossed in the frock after going a couple of rounds with G.o.d in the seminary. I don't know whether the experience of the religious life left these people sadder but it certainly left them believing they were wiser than anyone else.

'Premier,' Claude said, making it sound like an a.s.sumed name, 'the Opposition leader says you and your Planning Minister, Mr Pitman, are turning the State into a paradise for carpetbaggers and quick-buck artists. How do you respond to that?'

'With a smile,' said Dr Marcia Saunders, no trace of amus.e.m.e.nt in her voice. 'Mr Kerr has no commercial experience and no commercial sense. He wouldn't know a carpetbagger from the chairman of the Reserve Bank.'

Claude said, 'Mr Kerr gave AM a list of what he called "Projects for the Pals" this morning-Yarra Cove, the Footscray Sportsdome, the new privately run remand centre and several others. He says they are all being developed by government pals. Are the developers your pals?'

'Mr Kerr should know about pals,' Dr Saunders replied. 'He's got where he is because of pals. If he'd had to rely on brains or ability, he'd still be teaching geography in primary school.'