by Dick Francis
I had been to see him the day following the car crash, at the Thames Valley Police headquarters near Oxford. He’d told me that the driver of the silver hatchback, known to me as Kipper but now properly identified as a Mr. Mervyn Williams, had indeed survived, but he was still in a critical condition and had been transferred to the special head-injury unit at Frenchay Hospital in Bristol. Apparently, according to the police who had attended the scene, he hadn’t been wearing his seat belt at the time of the accident.
“It wasn’t an accident,” I’d said flatly. “The man was trying to shunt me off the road at the time, and I was just lucky that the truck hit him and not me.” I had decided against telling the chief inspector about me making an emergency stop in order to precipitate the crash in the first place.
“But why?” he had asked me.
“Because I think he’s the man who murdered my father. I presumed that he was trying to do the same to me, to eliminate me as a witness.”
“What makes you think it’s the man who murdered your father?” he’d asked.
“I think I recognized him at one point, when he tried to pass me.”
“How very interesting,” the chief inspector had said, and he’d lifted the telephone on his desk.
Mervyn Williams, I discovered at a second meeting with the chief inspector just a week later, was a qualified veterinary surgeon, originally from Chepstow in South Wales, but he had been living in Newbury for the past ten years as some sort of veterinary investigator for the RSPCA. A police search of his house had uncovered a black-and-red rucksack still with an airline baggage tag attached with GRADY printed on it. Results were eagerly awaited for a DNA test of blood spots discovered on the sleeve of a charcoal-gray hoodie from Mr. Williams’s wardrobe and consistent with my description of the Ascot attacker’s clothes. And a further search of the mangled remains of his silver hatchback had also uncovered a kitchen knife of the correct proportions to have inflicted the fatal wounds to my father’s abdomen.
I chose not to ask the chief inspector if they had also found the remote control to my kitchen television, although I could really have done with it back.
“So what happens now?” I’d asked instead.
“That depends on if, and how well, Mr. Williams recovers,” the chief inspector had said. “He’s been formally arrested on suspicion of murder, but the doctors are saying he has massive brain damage, so he’ll probably never be fit to plead even if he survives.”
“What does that mean?” I’d asked.
“If he’s unfit to plead, there would be no criminal trial as such. But there would be what is called a ‘trial of the facts,’ when the evidence is placed before a jury and they would effectively decide if he had done it or not. But, of course, there would be no actual declaration of guilt or innocence and no sentence.”
“So what would then happen to Mervyn Williams?”
“If he’s unfit to plead, he’d technically be a free man, but if he recovers enough so that he becomes fit he could still be tried for murder. There doesn’t seem to be much doubt that he was the man responsible, and the DNA should prove it. Your e-fit was remarkably accurate considering you saw him for only a second or two in the Ascot parking lot, and with his hood up too.”
I hadn’t enlightened him that the fleeting glimpse in the Ascot parking lot hadn’t been, in fact, the only occasion I’d seen the man.
The chief inspector had shown me a photograph of Mr. Mervyn Williams that the police had taken from his home. I looked once more at the man I had known only as shifty-eyed Kipper, with his eyes set rather too close together for the shape of his face, the man I’d last seen laughing at me as he’d tried to overtake me on the road to Leek Wooton.
“So is that it?” I’d said.
“For the moment,” the chief inspector had replied cautiously. “But I still have a niggling feeling you haven’t told me the whole truth.”
He was, I supposed, quite a good detective, really.
Thanks to the nearly six-hundred-thousand-pound generosity of Mr. Henry Richard Feldman, Sophie and I traveled upstairs, in Club Class, from London to Sydney on a British Airways jumbo jet, sipping vintage champagne for most of the way.
It had taken a little while for Tony Bateman (Turf Accountants) Ltd to pay out on the juvenile delinquents’ bets, but they had been persuaded by HRF Holdings Ltd, their parent company, to see sense in the end.
Only two of the thirty had failed to make the bet, instead pocketing the two-hundred-pound stake. They were now ruing their mistake to the tune of four thousand eight hundred smackers, as well as the well-earned derision of the other twenty-eight.
Duggie and Luca had given some of their own winnings to refit the electronics club with new equipment, and I’d spent a couple of thousand of mine on some more comfortable dining chairs for the mental hospital grand salon.
Just in case.
The source of all our riches, the horse Oriental Suite, now running as Cricket Hero, had raced twice more since Bangor-on-Dee, winning easily on both occasions, but at starting prices far shorter than our hundred-to-one bonanza of July. His trainer, Miles Carpenter, also known to me as Mr. Paddy Murphy, had stated in a television interview that he hoped the horse would win at the Cheltenham Steeplechase Festival the following March.
However, according to reports in the Racing Post in early December, Cricket Hero had suffered a massive heart attack at home on the gallops and had dropped stone dead. “Just one of those things,” the paper had said. “Sadly, it happens all too often in racing.”
I, meanwhile, wondered if it had actually been that particular horse which had died, if table-tennis balls had been involved and whether or not he’d been insured for a small fortune.
Sophie and I landed in Sydney at six in the morning on a glorious January, Southern Hemisphere summer day just as the sun began to peep over the horizon to the east. I had a wonderful view of the city as we approached from the north, with the still-dark Sydney Harbour Bridge spanning a ribbon of early light reflected from the water beneath.
I was so excited.
I had always wanted to go to Australia, even before I had discovered that my father had been living there. Somehow, to me it still represented the new frontier of man’s occupation of the planet, although I am sure the Aboriginal people would have viewed things somewhat differently.
All the way from England on the airplane, I had read my guidebooks and, by the time we arrived in Sydney, I’d become a bit of an expert on all things Australian.
The very first sighting by a European of what is now Australia didn’t take place until 1606, by which time William Shakespeare was writing and performing his plays in London, and Christopher Columbus had known about the Americas for more than a hundred years. The very first settlers, together with the first convicts, didn’t arrive to set up a penal colony in Botany Bay for almost another two centuries and some twelve years after the United States had declared its independence from Britain.
By European standards, Australia is vast and still rather empty. The land area is nearly twice that of the whole of the European Union while the population is less than a twentieth. If spread out evenly, only seven Australians would live in each square mile of their country, whereas more than a thousand would occupy the same space in England.
But, according to my guidebooks, the Australians are not spread out evenly, with nine out of ten of them living in the major coastal cities. Meanwhile, much of the interior is barren, uninhabited desert, with such original names as the “Great Sandy Desert” and the “Little Sandy Desert.” However, there is also tropical rain forest covering a great swathe of the state of Queensland in the northeast.
In fact, I was astounded by the diversity of physical geography that exists within a single country. But I supposed I shouldn’t have been. Australia stretches from almost the equator in the north to halfway to Antarctica in the south, and is as far across from east to west as the distance from New York to Los Angeles.
&n
bsp; How was I ever going to find my sisters in such a huge country?
Sophie and I had planned to spend the first few days in Sydney, getting over jet lag and doing the things all tourists do.
Courtesy of Tony Bateman, we stayed in a magnificent five-star hotel overlooking the busy harbor. I could have happily sat by the window in our room watching the yellow-and-green harbor ferries shuttling in and out of the wharves on Circular Quay, but Sophie was keen for us to walk everywhere and see everything.
First, we climbed the steps to the Opera House and marveled at the shell-like arches of its iconic roof. Then we trekked around the Botanical Gardens and rested on Mrs. Macquarie’s Chair, a seat carved out of the natural rock by the convicts in 1810. The seat has a panoramic view of Sydney Harbour, and, the story goes, Mrs. Macquarie, the governor’s wife, would sit there for hours on end longing to be aboard one of the ships leaving for England and home.
After three days of dawn-to-dusk tourism, including climbing to the very top of the Harbour Bridge, Sophie and I were exhausted, and our sore feet were grateful for the short breather as we flew the hour or so to Melbourne.
Before we’d left England, I had used the Internet to engage a private detective to help in the search for my sisters, and he was waiting for us at Melbourne Airport.
“Lachlan Harris?” I asked a young man holding up a TALBOT sign at the baggage claim.
“Sure am,” he said. “But call me Lachie.” He was short, about thirty, with a well-bronzed face and spiky fairish hair, with highlights.
“Ned Talbot,” I said, shaking his hand. “And this is my wife, Sophie.”
“G’day,” he said in typical Australian fashion. He shook her hand too. “Good to meet you both.”
“Any news?” I asked, eager to hear immediately. I had purposely not called him from Sydney, although, at times, I had been quite desperate to do so.
“Yes,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I have some good news for you. But let’s get out of the airport first. I’m taking you to see your father’s house.” And, with that, he picked up our suitcases and turned for the exit. We followed, but I was rather frustrated by his lack of explanation.
“All in good time,” he said when we were in his car leaving the airport.
“But what’s the news?” I asked him again.
“I’ve found the two daughters of Mr. Alan Grady,” he said.
“My sisters,” I said, all excited like a young child on Christmas morning.
“Yes,” he said. “As you say, your sisters.” He didn’t go on.
“And?” I asked eagerly. “When can I meet them?”
“There’s a slight problem,” he said.
“What problem?”
“They don’t believe you’re their brother.”
“What?” I cried. It wasn’t something that I had even considered. “Why not?”
“They say they have documentary evidence that shows their father, Alan Charles Grady, was born in Melbourne in March 1948. I’ve checked with the State of Victoria Record Office,” Lachie said. “Alan Charles Grady was indeed born in the Royal Melbourne Hospital on March 15, 1948. I’ve got a copy of his birth certificate.” He removed a folded sheet of paper from his jacket pocket and handed it over.
Mr. John Smith, or whoever he was, had told me in my car near Stratford that my father’s “Alan Grady” birth certificate had been genuine, but I hadn’t really believed him.
“It must be a fake,” I said. “Or else my father must have stolen the identity of the real Alan Grady.”
“I’ve checked in the register of deaths,” Lachie said. “No one called Alan Charles Grady who had that birthday has been recorded as dying.”
“Perhaps he died somewhere else, not in Australia.” I said. “Maybe on the ship where my father worked.”
I looked at the birth certificate. Both of Alan Grady’s parents were named, together with their addresses and occupations.
“How about these parents shown on the certificate?” I asked.
“Both dead,” said Lachie. “I checked. It seems they both died in the swine flu epidemic that struck Melbourne in 1976. They were quite old by then, in their seventies. You know, they were elderly parents even when their son was born.”
“Did they have any other children?” I asked him.
“None that I could find.”
“So where does that leave me?” I asked, somewhat deflated.
“I didn’t say the Grady daughters wouldn’t meet you,” he said. “Simply that they don’t accept that you are their brother.”
“Oh,” I said. “That’s all right, then. I’ll just have to convince them.”
Lachie Harris drove Sophie and me to Macpherson Street, in Carlton North, and pulled up outside number 312.
It was the middle property of a terrace row of single-story houses, all with verandas and elaborate wrought-iron railings.
“Victorian,” Lachie said. “That’s Victorian by era rather than by the state we’re in.” He laughed at his little joke. “These types of properties are known as ‘Boom Homes,’ as they were built during the boom time of the nineteenth century. After the gold rush of the 1850s.”
“They’re very pretty,” Sophie said. “But they must be dark inside.”
The houses were long and thin from front to back, and, as terrace homes, they had no windows down the sides.
“Can we see?” I asked. “I’ve got the keys.” I showed him the ring and the three keys that had been in my father’s rucksack.
“Ah,” said Lachie apologetically, “I’m afraid we can’t.”
“Why?” I asked. “I am his son.”
“His daughters have taken out an injunction to prevent you entering the property.”
“They’ve done what!” I was astounded.
“Sorry,” said Lachie. “These types of property are worth quite a lot these days, and the Grady daughters tend to believe that you are only here because you are after their inheritance.”
I sat there with my mouth open.
“I don’t want money,” I said, exasperated. “I want family.”
“Nevertheless,” Lachie went on. “This whole business is going to be a legal can of worms. Alan Grady left a will, and, as we all know, where there’s a will, there’s a disgruntled relative.” He laughed again.
“But if there’s a will, then what’s the problem?” I said. “Surely he would have left everything to his daughters anyway.”
“The will is in the name of Alan Charles Grady,” Lachie said,
“and, according to the registry here, he’s not dead. You, meanwhile, claim that the man who owned this house was your father, a Peter James Talbot, now deceased, but it doesn’t say that on the property deeds.”
Now it was me who laughed. Absolutely nothing about my father was as it appeared.
“Can’t we just go and have a quick peep inside?” I said. “No one would ever know.”
“I’m afraid we can’t,” he said. “Those keys might work in the door locks, but they won’t be any good for the padlocks the court has had applied as well.”
“Oh,” I said, peering closely at the house, but it was too dark behind all the lacy ironwork to see the front door properly.
The earlier excitement of my arrival in Australia had evaporated completely. I felt dejected and lost. “So what’s next?” I asked miserably.
“Well, let’s look on the bright side,” he said. “The Grady girls have agreed to meet you, and I have set up the meeting for tomorrow. It’s Australia Day, and we are going to the races.”
“Horse racing?” I asked.
“Yes, of course,” he said. “I’ve arranged for us to meet them at Hanging Rock races tomorrow afternoon.”
“Are they married?” I asked, eager for knowledge. “Do they have children?”
“Not married,” Lachie said. “Can’t say about children, but I don’t think so.”
“Didn’t some schoolgirls once go missing at Hanging Rock?” Soph
ie said. “During a picnic.”
“That was in a film,” said Lachie. “But it wasn’t a true story.”
“What are their names?” I asked.
“What, the girls in the film?” Lachie said.
“No, silly, the Grady daughters.”
“Patricia and Shannon. Patricia’s the elder. She’s twenty-nine. Shannon is two years younger.”
I was absolutely astounded. My much-maligned but innocent father had apparently named his first Australian daughter after his murdered English wife.
Lachie picked up Sophie and me from our hotel at eleven o’clock the following morning and drove us the hour and a half northwest of the city to Hanging Rock races.
“It’s been a dry summer,” said Lachie as he drove past mile after mile of scorched brown farmland. “There’s a serious bushfire risk at the moment. I’m quite surprised they’re even racing at Hanging Rock. They ran out of water last year and had to transfer the races to another course at Kyneton.”
“Why exactly are we meeting my sisters up here?” I asked.
“They live up this way.” It seemed like a good reason.
“How many meetings do they have a year?” I asked him.
“At Hanging Rock?”
I nodded
“They race only two days. New Year’s Day and Australia Day. It’s country racing. Quite small. It’s not like Flemington.” Flemington was where the Melbourne Cup was held each November.
Hanging Rock racetrack was indeed no Flemington nor Royal Ascot either. But it was lively and bustling with people on their Australia Day out. Most of the buildings were temporary hospitality tents, and, like Bangor-on-Dee, there was no grandstand other than a natural bank from which to watch the racing.
The racetrack was within the Hanging Rock Recreation Reserve and was dominated, as its name might suggest, by the hanging and other rocks of a five-hundred-foot-high volcanic outcrop behind the enclosures. Unlike Leicester racetrack, this one did have trees in the middle. Lots of them. Eucalyptus gum trees that would at times obscure the horses on the far side from the crowd.