Hide and Seek Page 8

  'This one's done.' Lindsey passed Shelby the roan's lead rope so that she could take the newly wormed horse into the paddock. Outside the gate Shelby slipped off the halter and the horse sauntered away to graze. He still had white paste on his lips and poked his tongue out, as if he was thinking, 'Yucko!' Shelby stepped back into the yard to catch another.

  'So what do you think, Lin?' Shelby asked, trying again.

  'Think about what?'

  'About those people who had Diablo.'

  Lindsey bit the cap off another worming plunger and spat it into the dirt. 'I think there are good, strug-gling poor people, like your family, and then there are bad, drug-taking, stealing, no-fixed-address poor people,' Lindsey said.

  Shelby felt her mouth open with surprise. She had never heard her friend speak like this before. It made her uncomfortable. She had always thought that Lindsey's situation was the closest to her own.

  Hayley's parents gave her everything she wanted and Erin was pretty spoiled too. Neither of those girls knew what it was like to have to ask for things when you knew it would be a struggle for your parents.

  Lindsey and her mother worked hard every day. They didn't buy new things when a second-hand item would do the job. The Edels' house was small. It had old threadbare furniture in it, and it was untidy a lot of the time, with horse gear draped across the table, or rugs needing repair folded on the floor.

  'And what kind of a poor person are you?' Shelby asked.

  'Lindsey's not any kind of poor person!' Hayley laughed.

  Shelby frowned, confused.

  'Don't you know that?' Hayley grinned.

  'Shel, you know that property up on the corner that was for sale? It sold for two and a half million dollars a few weeks ago. It's five acres.' Erin smiled knowingly. 'Lindsey's mum has one hundred and seventy-five acres.'

  Shelby's eyes widened.

  'And that's just the value of the property. Think about how much this place rakes in. A service from Diablo is worth two and a half grand. You've seen how often mares go through here,' Erin said. 'How many trail riders are there every day? Twenty? At forty-five dollars a pop, that's what . . . twelve and a half grand just over this school holidays!'

  'And what about agistment?' Hayley added. 'People pay fifty dollars a week each, just to keep a horse in the very back paddock. That's not even counting all the horses in the front paddocks, or in the stables. And what about those ones like Ajax on full board? They pay a hundred and fifty dollars a week each! Lindsey is a multi-squillionaire, Shel!' Hayley laughed again.

  Shelby stared at her friend. 'Is this true?'

  Lindsey didn't answer. Instead she squeezed another tube of paste into the horse's mouth.

  'What do you do with it all?' Shelby whispered.

  'It's actually really hard to make money out of a horse business,' Lindsey said. Hayley groaned, but Lindsey ignored her. 'I know you guys think we charge a lot, but we're constantly upgrading the equipment, there are always fences that need doing, or mainten-ance to machinery, and we buy the best quality feed. Then there are clients who don't pay, or who leave us with vet bills. Half the riding school ponies are aban-doned agisters. People run up thousands of dollars in debt – way more then their horse is worth, and then just leave it here. We never hear from them again.'

  'Really?' Shelby was shocked.

  'We use them for the riding school, or we sell them. It happens all the time. That's why I'm riding Lyrical – the Arab. The guy said he was into endurance riding, but we haven't seen him for six months. If she's any good we'll tell him to post over her papers and we'll be square.'

  'Wow,' said Shelby. 'Free horses.'

  'No, they're not free,' Lindsey snapped. 'They owe us more than they're worth.'

  'Don't change the subject!' Hayley said.

  Shelby led the horse out and then caught another horse, Beaumont – affectionately known as Blockhead

  – a big, grey Percheron, and one of Shelby's favourites. 'Mum has a fair bit in managed funds,' Lindsey

  admitted.

  'What's that?' Shelby asked.

  'You've heard of shares, haven't you? Basically you pick a company that you think looks good and you buy a little part of it. With the extra money the company tries to make more money, and if it does, then all these other people want to own a little bit of it as well, so that means your share is worth more. Then you can sell your share and start again with a different company.'

  'Kind of like buying a horse at the sales and educating it,' Shelby said.

  'Or gambling,' Hayley joked.

  'Yeah, but Mum has this guy that runs it all.'

  'A professional gambler,' Hayley teased.

  Lindsey continued, 'Except sometimes just for fun we'll pick something random, like a goldmine or something.'

  'Just for fun?' Shelby repeated.

  Lindsey nodded.

  'You could buy whatever you wanted!' Shelby said. 'Why don't you buy more stuff?'

  'Like what?' Lindsey asked. 'What don't I have?'

  Shelby led Beaumont out to the yard, frowning while she thought about it. 'Nice new furniture for your house?' she suggested.

  'Are you kidding? All that stuff is antique! One-off collector's items. Besides, I only go in there to sleep.'

  'More horses then,' Shelby said.

  Lindsey looked around. 'How many more horses do you think I need, Shelby?'

  17 A Clue

  When the trail riders had left for the day and Shelby had finished making up the feeds, she continued with her investigation.

  She wandered up the laneway between the stable blocks. There were lots of people around making a day of it as the weather had cleared and the trails were much drier.

  Over near the jumping arena one family had set up a barbecue and were selling sausage sandwiches for a dollar a pop. Shelby could smell the frying onion and her mouth watered. She felt in her pockets but she didn't have any change.

  She stopped at the stable rented by her friend Monica, who had a fine thoroughbred hack that she showed with some success. Monica was sitting on the step to her tack shed, cleaning her bridle. There was a pile of dirty rugs and saddle blankets near the gate. Shelby assumed that Monica was taking them home to wash.

  'Good time for a clean out,' Shelby observed.

  'Yep, every school holidays. Mum dreads it. She says I'm wrecking her washing machine.'

  'Weird about Diablo going missing, eh? Wonder how he got out?' Shelby stole a glance at Monica.

  Monica put down the bridle. 'Actually, I saw some-thing funny around then, but it wasn't to do with Diablo. I was going to tell Mrs E. Come on, I'll show you.'

  Monica led Shelby down the laneway and into the broodmares' paddock. 'Now, where is she?' she muttered to herself. Having spotted the horse she was after, Monica led the big mare towards the gate to the back paddock – the one with the latch that Shelby had noticed before. Now it was tied closed with baling twine.

  'That's the mare that Lindsey thought was Diablo,' Shelby said.

  'You think?' Monica looked the mare up and down. 'Maybe in the dark. Can you untie that baling twine for me?'

  Shelby did so and waited on the other side.

  The big mare strode purposefully towards the gate. 'Be ready to catch her!' warned Monica.

  The mare nosed at the latch, at the same time kicking the bottom of the gate. She flicked the latch with her lips. Soon she had the latch lifted, and simul-taneously her kicking of the gate made it ricochet forwards. She nudged the gate open with her nose and squeezed through.

  Shelby caught hold of the mare's hood to prevent her from escaping any further.

  'She's clever, isn't she?' said Monica, smiling. 'I've found her in here a few times. That's why I put the baling twine around it. All she does is stand on the other side wanting to be let back in again.'

  'Have you seen any of the others come through?' Shelby asked.

  'She can't do it from the other side,' Monica explained. 'The gate alwa
ys swings back and relocks itself. It's weird, though, because I told Kim about it, and she said that she found her in the laneway between this paddock and Diablo's the other day. So she must be able to open that gate as well, but I've only ever seen her open this one.'

  'What day was that?' Shelby asked.

  'One afternoon last week. I can't remember.' Monica shrugged.

  'Was it Good Friday?'

  'It could have been. Yes, I think it was. Kim was helping Mrs Edel with the poo vac.'

  Shelby remembered seeing Lindsey's mum drive through the breezeway on the quad bike while she had been talking to Mrs Crook.

  'I'll tell Mrs Edel,' Shelby said. 'She should probably replace this latch.'

  'Good idea. Although the baling twine seems to be working for now. They can only escape into the back paddock, so it's not a huge risk, and besides, none of the other horses seem to have mastered the trick.' Shelby nodded. She wondered if Diablo knew a trick like that – or maybe he had help.

  18 Contradictions

  That night Shelby updated the timeline on the blackboard.

  'Friday 5 pm – Kim finds accomplice equine in alleyway.'

  Afterwards, she lay in bed thinking it through. The mare must have opened the gate again later on Good Friday night, and opened both the electric and metal gates to Diablo's paddock, and then the two of them must have gone back into the mare's paddock, and down to the far gate. Then the mare opened the gate to the back paddock – the one with the latch that Shelby had seen that day – and somehow Diablo got through before the mare did. Then he headed over the broken fence and into the Gully, and miraculously, out of all the trails he could have chosen, he took the path to the far side and turned up at the property belonging to the circus people.

  Shelby rolled over. That didn't make sense either! Only one of the gates was self-closing. How did they manage to lock the other three gates behind them – one of them electric? There was no churned-up grass in the alley, as you would expect if the two horses were galloping up and down in a storm. Why would the stallion leave all those mares to go into the back paddock? And then leave those horses to go into the Gully? Why didn't the others follow him? If the mare had opened the second gate into the alleyway twice on that night, then why hadn't she done it again since?

  Shelby tossed over again. There was no way Diablo escaped on his own. She was equally convinced that the circus people weren't after the stallion specif-ically. Someone set Diablo free.

  Who would do that? Why?

  Shelby kicked back the covers and lay in the dark, watching the shadows play over the ceiling.

  The gate mystery wasn't the only thing troubling her. Shelby had been so wrong about Lindsey not having much money. Now she had time in the quiet to think over the things Lindsey had said that day – her 'poor people' philosophy. It was so different from the beliefs and values that Shelby had grown up with. She had always been taught to respect people for who they were rather than how much they earned. Her parents had always showed compassion for people who were worse off.

  Shelby remembered once a woman had approached her mother in the shopping centre. She had wild eyes and smelt of old sweat and cigarettes. She had several facial piercings and Shelby couldn't help staring. The woman said she had lost her wallet and need some change to catch the bus. Shelby's mother gave her five dollars. Shelby waited until the woman walked away and then she said, 'I don't think that lady was telling the truth. She'll spend it on cigarettes or drugs.'

  Shelby's mother had sighed. 'You're probably right, honey, but it would be so awful to have to beg from strangers.'

  When she said that Shelby had thought about what it would be like to feel so desperate that you would ask a complete stranger for help, and then to have people sneer at you and turn their heads away as though you weren't even worth looking at. Shelby couldn't imagine how bad that would feel from the inside.

  She wriggled with discomfort. Was it possible to remain friends with someone whose attitudes to people were so different from your own? Should she tell Lindsey that she thought her way of thinking was wrong?

  Shelby linked her fingers behind her head. She had been so shocked to discover that Lindsey was rich – and disappointed too. Were their beliefs so different? Didn't Shelby really, in her heart, think the same sort of thing as Lindsey, but in reverse? Wasn't she prejudiced against rich people?

  She hoped she wasn't prejudiced. She wondered if it was just plain old jealousy. That would be better, because she could decide right this minute to be a bigger person. Maybe it was neither.

  There in the dark Shelby could see her old broken saddle lying in a heap on the floor. She'd stared at it night after night, having dreams of what she might do in the future – making plans for her own life. She'd always thought it was a symbol of what she didn't have, but now she thought something different. Shelby funded her hobby with her own sweat, and that was something to be proud of.

  19 A Delicate Balance

  'How goes Operation Beelzebub?' Shelby's mum asked at breakfast the next morning.

  Shelby explained all the contradictions to her mother while she cut Blake's toast into soldiers. Blake took the plate from his sister and returned to his cartoon show. Connor lay on his stomach on the floor in the lounge room spooning cereal into his mouth.

  'Did you know the Edels were rich?' Shelby asked.

  'I would have thought so, yes,' said her mother. 'You're ignoring a whole avenue of investigation, though. Perhaps you should talk to these circus people. Find out what happened from their end.'

  'They wouldn't talk to me!'

  'Maybe not as Shelby Shaw, private investigator, or even as Shelby-friend-of-the-Edels. There's nothing for it, Cherub,' her mother said, taking a sip of coffee. 'You're going to have to go deep undercover.'

  'What would be my disguise?'

  Her mother shrugged. 'You could go wild and crazy and pretend you are a girl with an interest in horses.'

  'I have just the outfit!' Shelby grinned at her mother and then ran down the hallway to get dressed. She put on her jodhpurs and old joggers, tucking her boots under her arm.

  On the way to the stables in the car Shelby asked her mother, 'And so when I go deep undercover, this isn't lying? This is hide and seek too?'

  'If they ask, you tell them the truth. You tell them your name is Shelby Shaw. You can even say you keep your horse at the stables.'

  'What if they ask if I'm friends with the Edels?'

  'Then tell them that you are . . . associates.' Her mother paused. 'You could try not to give them reason to ask that. Maybe you could highlight your friendship with Chad first?'

  'Highlight?' Shelby looked out the window. 'Sounds like a fib to me.'

  Her mother pulled up at the front of the stables. 'It's a delicate balance.'

  Shelby stared at her mother.

  'You know when your father puts on those bright orange tracksuit pants with the stripe? I don't mention that he looks as though he's just escaped from a high security facility. Or when Connor makes me a cup of tea with two teaspoons of what he thinks is sugar, but is actually bicarbonate of soda. Or any one of Blake's homemade birthday presents.'