Declan Hughes - The Price of Blood

"Are you not? Who says?"

"The Musical Powers That Be."

"Yeah? Fuck them ."

"How do you know this? You're not secretly an expert cellist and a gourmet chef and a published poet and all those other things detectives are supposed to be while preferring not to go on about it?"

"No. But I was a barman."

"And like cabdrivers, barmen are in possession of absolute knowledge."

"No. I worked in an Irish pub in Santa Monica called Mother Magillacuddy's."

"Jesus."

"Well, I was young. Anyway, Irish music at the weekends, the rest of the time, we could play what we wanted. And there was a music student who worked there, a violinist. And this was one of her favorites. We used to blare it on a Monday night at all the people who didn't want to admit the weekend was over."

"I thought that was Sunday night."

"Amateurs want the weekend to keep going on Sunday. Monday is pros' night, real terminal cases. Hence The Isle of the Dead …"

"And this little violin case. Did you get anywhere with her? I bet you did. Tell all."

"You first. Fun and all as this is…you didn't by any chance call Leo Halligan on Saturday night, did you?"

"I wouldn't know how to go about calling Leo Halligan. I thought he was in jail," she said, sounding indignant at the very suggestion.

"He's out of jail now. And you're not exactly a million miles removed from him. His brother was in the parade ring in Gowran Park today, you could easily have asked him for Leo's mobile.

"So don't get airs, missus."

"Something like that."

She raised her glass, as if to concede the point.

"Was F. X. Tyrrell there today?" I said.

"Of course. So everyone thinks he's taking it seriously, and not just a way of setting the odds adrift for Leopardstown. He and George Halligan were chatting. More than once, as it happens."

The music had become higher and more insistent, delirious almost, woodwinds and swirling strings. Jackie had an "ask me, go on, ask me" glint in her eye.

"What do you think that was about, Jackie?"

" Well …there was talk…a lot of talk, at the time…back when Patrick was racing for Frank-"

"You guys were still married then?"

"The wheels were coming off, but the train was still rolling. Anyway, there was talk about Patrick and Leo Halligan-"

"How they rode together. Miranda didn't really deny it either."

"Yes, but there was more to it. I mean, sexwise, you're gay, you're straight, you're somewhere in between, who cares? Miranda didn't, she was always playing games back then anyway, it wasn't as if she was a little girl whose heart was rent in twain. No, what it was about was, Leo Halligan-acting for George-bribing a whole bunch of jockeys of the day to…well, to anything from holding a horse up to doping horses and all points in between. And obviously Patrick's…special relationship with Leo put him center stage for all this."

"And what, the idea was that Leo was just fronting for George, that he was using Hutton to get the scoop on F. X. Tyrrell's horses?"

"That was one possibility. Another was that Patrick and Leo were working together, Patrick a willing and devious agent in it all."

"And then what, at Thurles, F. X. Tyrrell wanted By Your Leave held back, and Patrick was under orders to win, so he compromised by making it clear he was acting against his will?"

"That's what some people were whispering behind their fans."

"And not long after, he vanishes. Jesus!"

I involuntarily plunged my head into my hands. I had known Leo Halligan had a crucial role in this story, and all I had had to do was remain patient with him. After all, who required the most patience? Devious little sociopaths like the Halligan brothers. Now I find he could be the key to the whole thing. And how patient had I been with him? Patient enough to break his nose. Twice.

"Done something you shouldn't have?" Jackie Tyrrell grinned.

"Everything, all the time," I said. "Can you draw a line to connect F. X. Tyrrell and George Halligan?"

"Not back then. Now-I don't know. How respectable has Halligan become?"

"Very, if you go by appearances. But he's still a gangster, we think he's still moving big shipments of coke into the country. Is there any reason why F.X. would want to be involved with that business?"

"The gang business?"

"The illegal-drugs business."

"Not that I can think of. I mean, he has more money than he knows what to do with. A life in racing…if you stay in the saddle…is not without its compensations. As you can see."

"What about…Miranda said you had no children…were there any issues there? That might have led to an extortion opportunity?"

"Was Frank gay? Was I his beard? God, no. No, he…oh dear, I really would rather not talk about this. I don't think Frank was gay. I never saw any evidence of it. I suppose he just wasn't the most…demanding man. I mean, he simply didn't have much of an appetite for…'that sort of thing'…and what we did have wasn't particularly…anything…for me, at any rate…and then that dwindled to nothing much. I suppose it sounds odd…but when you work as hard as we did, dawn till dusk…no, it still sounds odd. But I wasn't terribly experienced, and I mustn't have had much of a sex drive back then…we just…did without, by and large. It wasn't a good thing, it certainly didn't help when we began to drift apart. But Frank was very good about that, he set me up here, he paid all the bills. Very amicable, isn't that what they call it? Well, it was. How could it not be, really? There was no blood, no sex, no passion. That's what causes all the trouble. Isn't that right, Ed Loy?"

"I imagine you're right," I said. "I understand that to be the case. I wouldn't know, myself. So you weren't aware of any extortion attempts? Any way in which he could have been blackmailed by a gangster keen to beat the bookies? Not to mention launder vast sums of drug money through the Tyrrellscourt coffers?"

"No."

"What about Miranda? She told me she dropped out of sight after Patrick Hutton disappeared, went through what she called a few…'situations'. You've been something of a mentor to her, haven't you, you persuaded her father to let her work at Tyrrellscourt in the early days, you offered her work up here when she resurfaced. What happened to her in between?"

Jackie shook her head.

"I don't know. I think she might have been in London. She didn't stay in touch. Her parents were dead, she had no living relatives…and I had left Tyrrellscourt, I was keeping my head down, working hard to make a go of this place…for a time, it seemed as if her disappearance and Patrick's might have been connected. And then she just reappeared, out there on that doorstep. She never really told me what had happened. I thought drugs, maybe a miscarriage, but that was all guesswork on my part. I was just happy to have her back, and if no questions asked was the deal, that's how it had to be. I've always…I love Miranda, like a daughter, you know? Like the daughter Frank and I never had. And with grown-up daughters…well, you've got to be careful. You've got to keep your distance."

"Leo Halligan…I didn't really get a lot out of him…but he said if I wanted to know what happened to Patrick Hutton, I wasn't going to find the answers up here, I'd have to go down to Tyrrellscourt," I said.

What happened then took me aback. Maybe because I had gotten to like Jackie Tyrrell, I had somehow forgotten she was involved in the case, and was therefore likely to have something to hide. Maybe it was because my judgment was skewed on account of the booze. Whatever it was, you're always waiting for the shutters to come down, but when they came down for Jackie, I couldn't quite believe it. She nodded, and inclined herself away, and did something tight with her lips that I hadn't seen before.