Peter Corris - The Black Prince

The anti-steroid brigade was strident and vociferous. One article simply listed scores of adverse side-effects that had been detected in athletes using steroids and regarded that as Q.E.D. Another writer said that the supposed beneficial effects were illusory or temporary at best. It was claimed that some of the side-effects, particularly the masculinisation of women, were irreversible. The moral aspect came into play for some analysts who insisted, with athletes like Carl Lewis, that steroid-users were nothing more than cheats and should be treated accordingly. ‘They should be treated the way a golfer at the Augusta Masters who threw his ball out of a bunker would be-banned!’

What both camps agreed on was the danger involved in using black-market steroids produced under questionable conditions and likely to be adulterated. A sober medical study detailed the ways steroid use could kill you. The liver and the heart were viewed as particularly vulnerable. Damage to the liver could run from jaundice to a kind of hepatitis and the formation of tumours, both non-cancerous and malignant. Steroid use could cause the heart muscles to grow rapidly, leaving an area of tissue which was inadequately supplied with blood because the blood vessels couldn’t cope. Heart cells could die and a fatal heart attack could result. I wondered which of these very unpleasant side-effects had killed Angela Cousins.

I arrived at the sports centre at 5.30. Kathy was behind the desk but not looking her former perky self. Her eyes were red-rimmed and her shoulders drooped. I watched her going about her tasks for a few minutes before I approached. Reluctant wasn’t the word. She looked half-dead.

‘Hello, Kathy. Remember me?’

She looked at me dully. ‘No. Sorry.’

‘I’m the private detective who spoke to you about Clinton Scott a few months back. You put me onto Tanya Martyn and then you put Mark Alessio onto me. Remember now?’

The name got a reaction. A spark of interest in her eyes that flared and died. ‘Oh, yes. Sure.’

‘I was sorry to hear about Mark. You were close to him, weren’t you?’

She sniffed. ‘I tried to be. Look, I’ve got things to do… ‘

‘I need to talk to you, Kathy. About Mark. It’s important. I talked to him a couple of times and he sent me something in the mail. Do you get a break here?’

The idea of talking about Mark seemed to do her some good, as I hoped it would. She nodded. ‘In half an hour.’

‘We’ll have a cup of coffee and a talk.’

She nodded again and took a phone call. A section of the reception area was partitioned off and contained a couple of tables with chairs and a bank of self-serve machines. I sat and waited while Kathy worked. She did her best to be cheerful but it was a struggle. I stopped watching and doodled in my notebook instead. As the trainers and competitors came and went I speculated about which ones could be on steroids. Impossible to tell. I’d read that there were creams and oral treatments now to combat the pimples steroids often caused and more effective depilation procedures for women. There was always the giveaway of the so-called ‘roid rages’-uncontrollable, unprovoked, violent outbursts that had caused steroid users to injure themselves and others. But all was calm in the Southwestern University sports centre.

Tanya Martyn strode in and stopped when she saw me. She was wearing medium heels, a short, tight grey skirt and a red blazer. She was carrying a sports bag that looked heavy. I got up and went towards her.

‘Hello.’ She dropped the bag and clicked her fingers.

‘Hardy,’ I said. ‘Cliff Hardy.’

‘Oh, yes.’

Suddenly, I was tongue-tied. I was attracted to her but I was out of practice at talking to attractive woman. I almost said something inane like, ‘I bet you’re glad it’s not raining.’ Instead I muttered something about how her team was going and she replied non-committedly. We exchanged smiles and that was it. She went up a flight of stairs with her back straight and the muscles in her legs moving smoothly. I judged that she’d forgotten me as soon as she reached the top. She was, as the commentators say these days, focused.

Kathy came over and slumped into a chair.

‘Coffee?’

‘Please,’ she said. ‘White with three sugars.’

I fed the coins in and got the polystyrene cups filled. I put the three sachets of sugar and wooden stirrer down beside Kathy’s cup. I took mine black, mindful of my slight weight increase since quitting the gym. She drew out the fiddling with the sugar and stirred for as long as she could before she looked up at me.

‘I really liked him. He was so clever and so nice, so funny. Me, I’m just a dumb jockette. That’s what they call us sporting girls. I’m slowly getting together enough units for a diploma in human movement. A couple to go, but studying’s not my scene.’

‘The first night I saw you here you were efficient, on top of everything and very helpful to both me and Mark. You shouldn’t put yourself down, Kathy. You’ll get over this.’

She drank some coffee and sniffed loudly. ‘You think so?’

‘I know.’

‘It’s difficult, you see. A lot of women in the sport scene are dykes. They tell you what bastards men are, how weak and unreliable they are. And, you know, you find that’s true sometimes. I knew Mark was just on the rebound from Angela Cousins who he’d hardly even spoken to. I mean, that’s silly, isn’t it? To be in love with a star sportswoman like that when you can hardly…’

‘Throw a Coke can into a rubbish bin?’

She smiled. ‘He told you that?’

I drank some of the bitter, thin coffee and wished I’d put some sugar in it. ‘Yeah. And you’re right, it is silly. But it happens. So you spent some time with him recently?’

‘Uh huh. A bit. We went to the movies a couple of times and to the pub. I helped him with layout and such on the paper. I’m okay at that. We… did it three times, no four. I liked it, but… but I’m not sure that he did. Oh, shit…’

She was drooping again and I had to catch her before she slid down into the misery of indifference where one thing is much the same as another and memories are fuzzy. I leaned forward. ‘Kathy, what I need to know is about his investigation into the steroid suppliers. Did he talk to you about that?’

Another sniff. ‘Yes, he did. He didn’t mention any names because he said it wasn’t safe for me to know.’

Great, I thought. Very honourable. Thank you, Mark. ‘What did he say about it?’

She shrugged and drained her cup. ‘He said it was all going on in Sydney and out here. And that there was a lot of money in it. He said some athletes took out loans to buy the steroids because they thought taking them’d get them prize money and sponsors and that.’

‘He didn’t say where the buying and selling happened?’

‘No. But I’ll tell you one thing he said that’ll interest you, Mr Hardy. I’ve just remembered. I’ve got a lousy memory. Mark said he’d met someone who’d seen and talked to Clinton Scott.’

She was fragile and needed careful handling. ‘When was this?’ I said quietly.

‘Mark said it must’ve been not long after Angela went into hospital’

‘I see. And where did this happen?’

‘In Bingara. Mark went down there after she died, to talk to her family. He said one of them told him this young West Indian guy had been hanging around a few weeks before.’

‘What did Mark think about that?’

She shrugged and glanced at the clock. Her break time was running out. ‘He didn’t say much about it. Didn’t even say who’d told him. Mark didn’t like Clinton for obvious reasons. Look, I have to get back.’