Nancy said, ‘You trialled him at the distance?’
Tony shook his head. ‘No. He’s bred for the two miles but he’ll run a strong race at anything over two thou.’
She looked around the table. ‘I’ll do my best.’
Harry said, ‘You’ll understand if I say you can’t make any phone calls without Mr Ericson’s with you? You got a mobile with you?’
She shook her head. ‘Is this big?’ she asked.
Harry nodded. ‘Big enough.’
The tip of her tongue came out and moistened her lower lip. ‘I don’t have any calls to make,’ she said.
‘Good,’ said Harry. ‘There’s a thousand for the week’s work here. You want to talk about the race fee?’
Nancy looked at him, unsmiling. ‘It’s laid down.’ She paused. ‘Excuse me, are you the Harry Strang…?’
‘Things go right,’ Harry said slowly, ‘Mr Ericson here is a generous owner.’ He patted the table with both hands. ‘Well, business over. Let’s have a look at the bloke.’
At Dakota’s stable, a small girl in overalls was waiting, stroking the horse’s nose. She had short red hair and freckles.
‘This is me girl Denny,’ Ericson said. ‘Slim’s sort of her horse.’
Nancy shook hands with Denny. ‘Pleased to meet you, boss,’ she said. ‘Now that’s what I call grooming. You want to bring him out?’
The girl blushed with pleasure.
Dakota came out calmly, gleaming like a horse in a painting. Denny handled him as if he were a big labrador. He was saddled and bridled inside a minute. We walked behind Nancy, Denny and the horse to the track. Dakota had his head down, his neck extended. He looked as if he were deep in thought, a horse at peace with himself and his surroundings.
‘Walks like a stayer,’ Harry said. ‘You can always tell.’
At the track, Nancy adjusted the stirrups, swung up effortlessly.
‘Have a little muck about, get the feel of him,’ said Tony Ericson.
We watched for fifteen minutes while she took him up and down the track, trot, canter, short gallop, bit of walking around. When she came back to us, she said, ‘Nice horse, likes to run,’ rubbing his jaw. She got off and gave the reins to Denny.
‘Walk with me,’ Harry said. They hung back. When I looked around, they had their heads together, Harry talking with his hands. At the top of the gravel path, they caught up.
‘Friday, I’ll be back, talk some tactics, look at some movies,’ Harry said.
On the way home, Harry said to Cam, ‘Girl can ride. Strong, too. You got a feelin?’
Cam flicked a glance at him. ‘You know what Oscar Wilde said? Only one thing makes more of a fool of a man than a woman. And that’s a horse.’
Harry said, reflectively, ‘That so? Didn’t know old Oscar rode horses. Knew he rode everythin else.’
The sun came out as we drove over the Westgate Bridge. Off to the left, far off in the distance, I could see the observation platform at Yarra Cove. They had put three flags on it now. Big flags.
26
I got in another two hours’ work at Taub’s. The three tabletop boards had to be joined with hide glue. Charlie wouldn’t use anything else for this kind of work. Some cabinetmakers use epoxy resin glues. The joints were claimed to be stronger than the woods they joined. When I mentioned this to Charlie, he said, with feigned incomprehension, ‘Stronger than the wood? You want joints stronger than wood, welding is the trade.’
I measured out a quantity of hide glue, golden granules, dissolved them in water, added some more granules and heated up the liquid in the glue pot. While it was warming, I put the boards on the gluing stand and dry-clamped them. The fit was good. I unclamped them and, when the glue was hot, I carefully painted it on two interior edges with a hogbristle brush. Then I put hardwood strips down the outside to protect the outer edges and one-inch dowels outside them to spread the clamp pressure. I tightened the eight bar clamps, the outside pair first, then alternately on each side. At each end and at three intervals along the surface, I used three-by-three hardwood cauls and C-clamps to make sure that the pressure of the bar clamps wasn’t distorting the assembly.
It had to be absolutely flat. There were no second chances.
Then I tinkered with the clamps for a good fifteen minutes, trying to ensure that I had enough pressure but didn’t force out glue and starve the joints. ‘Trust your hands,’ Charlie used to say in the early days. ‘If you’re straining, it’s too tight.’ I didn’t quite understand this: Charlie could tighten the nuts on the Sydney Harbour Bridge with his bare hands without taking any strain.
When I’d cleaned up, I went home. Reluctantly.
Sunday night. I cleaned the kitchen and the bathroom, fed the dishwasher, tried to read the Sunday Age, opened a bottle of wine, drank half a glass, stared at the contents of the fridge. Made a cheese and gherkin sandwich. Women come into your life and all the hard-earned self-sufficiency deserts you. Suddenly you’re half a person again.
The phone rang. Long-distance beeps.
‘Jack Irish?’ Ronnie Bishop’s friend Charles Lee in Perth.
I said I was sorry about Ronnie’s death. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I wasn’t interested in Ronnie anymore.
‘Jack,’ he said. ‘I should tell the police this now that Ronnie’s dead. Remember I told you about the answering machine tape? How it was missing?’
‘I remember.’
‘Well, I found it. About half an hour ago. Under the drinks cupboard next to the phone. It must have slid under there when the burglar tipped out the phone table drawer. It’s got the messages from Melbourne for Ronnie.’
‘Have you listened to them again?’
‘Yes. They’re from different people. The first one left a name and phone number. Danny McKillop. Do you want the number?’
I said, ‘No. I’ve got that number. What about the other one?’
‘There’s just a message. No name. It’s a man.’
‘What’s the message.’
‘I’ve written it down. He said, “Ronald, listen to me carefully. It’s absolutely vital that you bring the evidence. You were stupid to take it and now you’ve been doubly stupid. I’ll have to extricate you.” Then he says something that sounds like “sculling’s the one in trouble”. And then he says, “Ring me when you get here.”’
‘Can you play that to me over the phone?’ I said.
Charles hesitated. ‘I can try. I’ll put it on the stereo tape deck and hold the phone near the speakers. Hang on.’
I could hear him moving about the room. There were a few false tape starts, then he came back on and said, ‘Here goes.’
There was an electronic whine, a pause, a throat-clearing. Then the rich voice of Father Rafael Gorman said, ‘Ronald, listen to…’
When the message finished, Charles said, ‘Did you get that?’
I said, ‘Loud and clear.’
‘Do you know who it is?’
‘I think so. Well done, Charles.’
‘I should tell the police, shouldn’t I, Jack? It could be very important.’
I made a decision without a second’s conscious thought. ‘Charles,’ I said, ‘this is important but I want you to wait until I call you before you tell the police. It won’t be more than forty-eight hours, I promise. Will you do that?’
He didn’t hesitate. ‘Yes. Yes, I will. Jack, there’s something else.’
‘Yes?’
I waited.
‘This is probably quite meaningless.’
I waited.
‘I certainly wasn’t going to tell those men, but there was something the day Ronnie left for Melbourne.’
‘What was that?’ I said encouragingly.