by Joe McNally
We were silent for a few moments. I said, ‘It’s not Beckman, is it?’
‘I doubt it. He did a copycat on you for some reason. Listen, I’m heading for Yorkshire now. Want to meet up there?’
I pondered. ‘Mac, I don’t know what to do. I’m supposed to be trying to find David Cooper and it now looks like the killer doesn’t have him, which, if I want this reward, kind of sends me off in another direction.’
‘But the boy could be anywhere! It could take you years to find him!’
That was an argument too. ‘Look,’ I said, ‘let me ring his father. I’ll call you back.’
‘Eddie, remember, you’re still in this guy’s book somewhere.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘He paid you a visit, didn’t he, the day after he killed Tommy Gilmour? You won’t be off his radar, so I wouldn’t be getting complacent.’
‘Well, thanks, Mac. Is there any depths you won’t stoop to so I don’t pull out of this?’
‘I’m only saying...’
‘I’ll call you back.’
I think Jack Cooper was quietly impressed at me ringing him so early in the day. I told him about Rowlands and his groan of relief that it hadn’t been David was the first emotion, other than anger, I’d witnessed in him. I explained about Mac and how my loyalties were divided.
He said, ‘Listen, Malloy, go after this crazy bastard. If you’re right and he hasn’t got David, then at least I can assume the boy’s probably safe.’
‘And what if David turns up while I’m helping try to track the killer down? I’ve suddenly done fifty grand, haven’t I?’
‘Tough titty. What is The Jockey Club paying you to help out?’
‘Peanuts. It might feed me for a month or two, but I won’t retire on it.’
He was quiet for a moment then said, ‘Look, I’m feeling generous. If David turns up safe and you help catch this maniac, you get paid.’
‘What if I help catch him and David doesn’t turn up?’
‘Too bad. You get nowt. Whole duck or no dinner. Fair enough?’
‘Fair enough.’
I rang McCarthy. ‘Where do you want to meet?’
We had an appointment with Jeff Rowlands, the dead man’s son. His house was in Middleham, a sort of Newmarket of the north. I considered calling Lisa in as driver again, but if Mac caught sight of her she’d be finished in her job. I got behind the wheel. It felt strange to be driving again.
Mac was waiting when I reached the Rowlands’ place. He got in my car to brief me, and I learnt that Jeff Rowlands was well known to the Security Department as a big punter on the racecourse. He’d been in financial trouble more than once and only just escaped being warned off for gambling debts. Mac suspected him of shady dealings with jockeys but had never been able to prove it.
He had agreed readily to the meeting when Mac had phoned, though he seemed less than agreeable by the time we knocked on his door. Shushing three barking dogs, he ushered us into a large kitchen, apologising for his temper.
‘Fucking press!’ he complained. ‘Driving me crazy. The phone’s been non-stop. I had to take it off the hook. Six of the bastards are roaming around outside like jackals...try to be civil with them then it’s “When did you find him? Where was he? How bad were the wounds? Was it a burglary? Did he have any enemies?” ... Stupid bastards!’
We stood, nodding, trying to be sympathetic. Rowlands Junior was about forty; good thatch of fair wavy hair, strong jaw and nose, only his bulging blue eyes stopped him short of handsome. Slim and fit looking, he slid two chairs out from the oak table and we sat down.
He made coffee, having to stop at times to concentrate on where the cutlery, the milk and stuff were.
We offered condolences. He sat opposite us and a black Labrador sidled up for a comforting pat. Rowlands looked at the dog and rubbed its broad head. ‘Even the animals are fucking shattered.’ He said.
Then resting his elbows on the table, he massaged his face with both hands and sighed, which seemed to settle him a bit, ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘What can I tell you? How can I help?’
From then on he was cooperative and focused. We explained about the other murders and how we thought they were linked.
Was there anything in his father’s past that could possibly have set him up for this? Anything that could have riled some lunatic sufficiently?
No, nothing.
The only time his father had ever upset anyone was when his head lad had been caught embezzling. The guy, Nick Canning, had helped himself to over twenty grand in a two-year period, earning himself three years in jail. Despite promises by Canning to repay him, and pleas from Canning’s wife not to leave their child fatherless, Garfield Rowlands had testified at the trial.
Jeff Rowlands did stress that at no point had Canning threatened his father, and that Canning, although involved in fraud before, had no history of violence as far as he knew. He suggested we ask around, as Canning had been in racing most of his life.
Thinking of Gilmour and Donachy, I said, ‘Do you know if Canning might have had a grudge against anyone else?’
‘Not to my knowledge. I think you’re on the wrong track there anyway. I heard he’d got converted in prison, born-again Christian and all that.’
Mac and I hesitated, waiting for him to realize the implication in what he’d just said. It didn’t seem to sink home. I said, ‘Who told you about this supposed conversion, can you remember?’
Massaging his forehead, he said, ‘Christ, no, it was ages ago.’ Then it reached him and he stopped the tired rubbing and stared at me. ‘Did the others have these Bible quotes attached to their bodies?’
Mac, in a particularly bold move for him, admitted, ‘Yes, they did, but the police are especially keen to keep that quiet.’
‘So Canning might have had something to do with it?’ Rowlands said.
Mac said, ‘Put it this way, we’d certainly like to speak to him. I’m sure the police would too.’ Mac left him a card and he promised to get in touch if he heard any news about Canning.
I asked Rowlands if the quote found on his father meant anything to him: “And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and the name that sat on him was death.”
He frowned for a while, staring at the floor, then shook his head. ‘Not a thing.’ He said. We shook hands and he quickly closed the door behind us.
We sat in my car. Mac said, ‘What do you think of young Mister Rowlands?’
‘I don’t know what to make of him. If all that Canning stuff was an act, planting the suspicion, pleading on the guy’s behalf then carelessly dropping in the born-again bit, well, he’s an awful ham. It was so bad it makes me think he might be genuine.’
‘I checked with a few bookies this morning, Rowlands owes almost eighteen grand, he is in severe trouble.’ Mac said.
‘And he’s an only child and sole heir to the farm?’
‘Correct.’
‘Do the cops know he’s got gambling debts?’
‘I haven’t told them.’
‘But you will?’
He nodded.
‘Kavanagh and Miller on this one too?’
‘Yep.’
I shook my head. ‘No wonder so many villains are running loose.’
38
Two messages were on my answer-phone tape, Lisa, and Jack Cooper’s secretary. I returned Lisa’s call first and told her about Rowlands. I’d expected her to be annoyed that I hadn’t rang her before I’d travelled up to meet Mac, but she didn’t mention it.
We talked about Jeff Rowlands, and Beckman, and David Cooper until I was tired of it. I said, ‘We’re covering the same ground over and over as though somehow something’s going to jump out and shout This Way Please!’
‘You sound well pissed off,’ she said.
‘I am. I can’t get my head round anything. Motive’s the key, but what is it?’
‘Hmm.’
We were quiet again a while, both thinking. I said,
‘Do you know the most puzzling part for me?’
‘Go on.’
‘This bone-breaking thing. With Tommy and Donachy he did it less than an hour before killing them. I’ll bet the autopsy on Rowlands will prove the same thing. What’s the point? If he wants to cause people real suffering before pulling the trigger, why not beat them senseless? Why not break both legs and leave them in agony for hours? I’m sure it’s a ritual of some sort, the same as the Bible notes are a ritual, but where the hell do they tie together?’
Lisa said, ‘And it was Rowlands’ shoulder he broke?’
‘His left shoulder.’
‘Why? Why not his leg like the others?’
‘Wish I knew.’
She was quiet for a moment then asked, ‘Was it the same leg with Donachy and Tommy?
‘I don’t know.’
‘That could be relevant.’
‘How?’
‘If it’s some kind of ritual.’
‘I’ll ask McCarthy.’
I called Cooper’s secretary. She told me her boss was in hospital, intensive care. He’d collapsed with a heart attack just after speaking to me this morning, and his secretary wondered if I’d given him some bad news on the phone.
I said I was sorry to hear it and told her what Jack and I had discussed. She said he was still critically ill. I offered my sympathies again saying I sincerely hoped he’d pull through. I had no great love for the man, but the practical side was that if he died there’d be no reward money.
I phoned McCarthy to tell him about Jack Cooper. He said he’d heard news from Kavanagh about the ex-Rowlands groom, Nick Canning.
Mac confirmed that he had become a born-again Christian in prison. I said, ‘I wouldn’t read too much into that. I think a lot of these guys do it to help their parole chances.’
He said, ‘Maybe, but listen, Jeff Rowlands got it wrong. Canning has a number of convictions for violence, one of them GBH. He broke a guy’s arm with a hammer.’
I waited.
‘They’ve found out where he’s living and they’re going in at dawn tomorrow.’
‘Any chance we can tag along?’
‘Four thirty kick off. They wanted to do it at six until I told them most of Lambourn would be well awake by that time.’
‘The whole shebang then, a truckload of cops with battering rams and guns?’
‘Sanders will want to make it as dramatic as possible, so, probably. But they won’t let us within a mile of it.’
‘Is it far from your house?’
‘Forget it, Eddie, leave them to it. It’s too dangerous.’
I hated missing anything that generated adrenaline but I knew Mac was right. ‘Okay. Call me when they get him.’
39
The breakfast news on radio carried a short piece about the police firing two shots in a house in Lambourn in the early hours. No one was injured but an animal had died. The Independent Police Complaints Commission had been informed. I called Mac. He said he was waiting to speak to Inspector Sanders for the full story, but the word in Lambourn village was that there had been a major balls-up by the cops.
An hour later Mac rang. ‘Red faces times ten for your friends Kavanagh and Miller.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘Canning wasn’t there when they burst through the door of his flat this morning.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘The reason he wasn’t there is that he’s been in jail for six months. Assaulted a barman in Newbury. Got a year for it.’
I couldn’t suppress a smile.
Mac said, ‘And, they shot his girlfriend’s dog, a pedigree poodle she used for breeding. She’s suing.’
‘Why did they shoot the dog?’
‘Kavanagh claims it took them by surprise when it ran out from under the bed.’
I laughed. ‘That pair wouldn’t even get into the Keystone Kops. What’s their excuse with Canning?’
‘They say an informant let them down.’
‘Badly.’
‘Anyway,’ Mac said, ‘Canning’s out of the running. We’re left with Beckman.’
‘You might be and the cops might be, but he’s not for me. The killer’s a psycho, a “man with a mission” type. I’m sure of it.’
Mac said, ‘So, what’s the mission?’
‘If we find that out we’ve nailed him. There’s something in his mind that links the victims so far, some definite tie-up.’
We dissected things again for the umpteenth time and I suggested we’d been looking too closely at the personal lives of the dead men, searching for a connection in their nationalities, their family problems. The only solid link they had was racing.
‘Why don’t we have a really close look at the form book?’ I said.
‘What for?’
‘I don’t know, but at the moment we’ve got nothing else. We might turn up some connection.’
Mac said ‘You’re talking about a mountain of work. Where the hell do you start?’
‘Weatherbys. They’ll probably have everything on computer.’
‘They will but they’re administrators. Slow, meticulous, detailed.’
‘Maybe, but they’re your administrators, the Jockey Club’s. I’m sure your boss can persuade them to be fast, meticulous and detailed.’
‘Let me make a call.’
Next morning, Lisa and I sat in the reception area of Weatherbys in Northampton waiting for our contact, Colin Tindall. He came smiling toward us, offering his hand three strides away. Mid-thirties, short and thin, about nine stone; a jockey’s build.
Lisa had assured me no one here knew her by sight. I introduced her as Linda, just to be safe. I explained to Colin we were there simply to do some research into certain trainers and jockeys.
‘How far back do you want to go?’
I thought of Rowlands. ‘Could be twelve, fifteen years.’
He made that teeth-sucking noise which pleases people who know something you don’t.
I said, ‘You’re going to tell me it’s not on computer.’
‘Most of it probably is.’ He smiled. ‘But the system’s down at the moment, I’m afraid.’
Lisa asked, ‘When is it likely to be up again?’
‘This afternoon, hopefully.’
We sat at a long table in a room brightly lit by neon strips, one of which buzzed so annoyingly that I stood on a chair and removed it.
‘Let there not be light.’ Lisa said.
I said, ‘Let there be peace.’
Blue-covered form books were stacked around us, sandbagging us in with their weight of information. Each contained a full season’s worth of results. Every runner in every race listed right down to last place, every faller, every horse which started but failed to complete. All we needed was hidden in those tissue-thin pages, but where should we begin?
Ideally we wanted a huge database where we could key in: list full information on all horses ridden by T. Gilmour, i.e., owner, trainer, breeder, finishing position, betting fluctuations, etc. The same then for Donachy and Rowlands, and we could even have tried David Cooper in there in the hope that some link would be thrown up.
That was what we wanted.
What we had were thousands of galloped miles and forests of jumped fences filtered clean of the bruises and sweat, the shouts and the whip-cracks, the joy and the sadness; just dry records, names and places, dates and starting prices.
Lisa said, ‘Maybe we should start with Horses in Training, find Mr Rowlands’ horses then start checking them one by one in the form books.’
I sighed, ‘Okay.’
‘At least it’s a start, Eddie, cheer up.’
‘I’m cheered, I’m cheered,’ I said, reaching for a copy of Horses in Training. ‘I’ll take his final year training if you do the year before that.’
‘All right. Do you know how long he trained for?’
‘Around fifteen years, Mac said.’
Opening her book, she raised her eyes. ‘They’ll find our sk
eletons in here covered in cobwebs.’
After a while I put my pen down, shoved a space among the pile of books and laid my head wearily on the desk, encircling it with my arms. ‘God,’ I said, ‘talk about needles in haystacks.’
Lisa said, ‘Eddie, an ounce of persistence is worth a pound of talent.’
‘So I hear, but there’s got to be an easier way.’
Lisa said, ‘Let’s list everything we know again.’
‘We’ve done that a hundred times!’
‘Maybe we overlooked something.’ She was admirably, annoyingly calm.
Pushing myself wearily upright, I reached for my notepad and flipped to a fresh sheet. We went through it all again: victims, names, cause of death, which limb was broken, what the Bible quotes said, traced the last runner each had had, mixed and matched, stood things on their head... nothing.
Back to the grind.
Three fruitless finger-licking cross-eyed hours later, McCarthy rang. ‘Find anything?’ he asked.
‘The computers are down and we’re not far behind them.’
‘We?’
‘Me and my fingers,’ I improvised. ‘It’s going to be a very long job, Mac, I think I’ll chuck it until the computer’s working again. It’s like ploughing a field with a fucking fork.’ Suddenly conscious of the inadvertent curse, I glanced at Lisa. She didn’t even look up.
‘When will it be fixed?’ Mac asked.
‘God knows. This morning they said this afternoon. It’s almost four o’clock. I’ll give it another hour.’
‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I’ve been checking the sort of people who use ether regularly...’
He did his usual tail-off, waiting for the prompt. ‘And?’ I said.
‘... the most common users these days are Animal Research labs.’
He left it hanging in the air for my instinct to sniff at. ‘What else?’ I asked.
‘That’s all.’
‘They use it as an anaesthetic?’
‘On small animals. They also use it as a cleaning agent.’
‘Mmmm...’ My mind sieved the facts, automatically trying to shake out the relevant pieces... fragments tumbled around, dead jockeys, broken limbs, animal research, crazy quotes... Scraps of Rowlands’ Bible verse came back to me: A pale horse... the name on him was death... horse... death...