Part 36 (1/2)

'Derek?' he said.

'Yes.'

'Racehorses aren't routinely tested for cocaine because it isn't a stimulant. Normally a racehorse could be full of cocaine and no one would know.'

'If it isn't a stimulant,' I said, loosening my tongue, 'why give it to them?'

'If you believed it was a stimulant, you might. Knowing it wouldn't be tested for.'

'How could you believe it?'

'It's one of the drugs that potentiates adrenalin. I particularly asked the lab to test for all drugs like that because of what you said about adrenalin yourself.

What happens with a normal adrenalin surge is that after a while an enzyme comes along to disperse some of it while much gets stored for futwe use. Cocaine blocks the storage uptake, so the adrenalin goes roaring round the body for much longer. When the cocaine decays, its chief metabolic product is benzyl ecognine which is what the lab found in its gas chromatograph a.n.a.lyser this afternoon.'

'There were some cases in America...' I said vaguely.

'It's still not part of a regulation dope test even there.'

'But my G.o.d,' I said blankly, 'Nicholas Loder must have known.'^ 'Almost certainly, I should think. You'd have to administer the cocaine very soon before the race, because its effect is short lived. One hour, an how and a half at most. It's difficult to tell, with a horse. There's no data. And although the metabolise would appear in the blood and the urine soon after that, the metabolise itself would be detectable for probably not much longer than forty-eight hours, but with a horse, that's still a guess.

We took the sample from Dozen Roses on Monday evening about fifty-two hows after he'd raced. The lab said the metabolise was definitely present, but they could make no estimate of how much cocaine had been a.s.similated. They told me all this very carefully. They have much more experience with humans. They say in humans the rush from cocaine is fast, lasts about forty minutes and brings little post-exhilaration depression.'

'Nice,' I said.

'In horses,' he went on, 'they think it would probably induce skittishness at once.'

I thought back to Dozen Roses's behaviour both at York and on the TV tapes. He'd certainly woken up dramatically between saddling box and starting gate.

'But,' Phil added, 'they say that at the most it might give more stamina, but not more speed. It wouldn't make the horse go faster, but just make the adrenalin push last longer.'

That might be enough sometimes, I thought. Sometimes you could feel horses 'die' under you near the finish, not from lack of ability, but from lack of perseverance, of fight. Some horses were content to be second. In them, uninhibited adrenalin might perhaps tip the balance.

Caffeine, which had the same potentiating effect, was a prohibited substance in racing.

'Why don't they test for cocaine?' I asked.

'Heaven knows,' Phil said. 'Perhaps because enough to wind up a horse would cost the doper too much to be practicable. I mean . . . more than one could be sure of winning back on a bet. But cocaine's getting cheaper, I'm told. There's more and more of it around.'

'I don't know much about drugs,' I said.

'Where have you been?'

'Not my scene.'

'Do you know what they'd call you in America?'

'Wllat?'

'Straight,' he said.

'I thought that meant heteros.e.xual.'

He laughed. 'That too. You're straight through and through.'

'Phil,' I said,'what do I do?'

He sobered abruptly. 'G.o.d knows. My job ends with pa.s.sing on the facts. The moral decisions are yours. All I can tell you is that some time before Monday evening Dozen Roses took cocaine into his bloodstream.'

'Via a baster?' I said.

After a short silence he said, 'We can't be sure of that.'

'We can't besure he didn't.'

'Did I understand right, that Harley Ostermeyer picked up the tube of the baster and gave it to you?'

'That's right,' I said. 'I still have it, but like I told you, it's clean.'

'It might look clean,' he said slowly, 'but if cocaine was blown up it in powder form, there may be particles clinging.'

I thought back to before the race at York.

'When Martha Ostermeyer picked up the blue bulb end and gave it back to Rollway,' I said, 'she was brus.h.i.+ng her fingers together afterwards . . . she seemed to be getting rid of dust from her gloves.'

'Oh glory,' Phil said.

I sighed and said, 'If I give the tube to you, can you get it tested without anyone knowing where it came from?'

'Sure. Like the urine, it'll be anonymous. I'll get the lab to do another rush job, if you want. It costs a bit more, though.'

'Get it done, Phil,' I said. 'I can't really decide anything unless I know for sure.'

'Right. Are you coming back here soon?'

'Greville's business takes so much time. I'll be back at the weekend, but I think I'll send the tube to you by carrier, to be quicker. You should get it tomorrow morning.'

'Right,' he said. 'We might get a result late tomorrow.

Friday at the latest.'

'Good, and er . . . don't mention it to Milo.'

'No, but why not?'

'He told Nicholas Loder we tested Dozen Roses for tranquillizers and Nicholas Loder was on my phone hitting the roo'