Declan Hughes - The Price of Blood

Vincent Tyrrell almost smiled. That was usual with him, the almost: his smile always looked as much like it was congratulating himself on his superior intelligence or his steely detachment from the little people or his conviction that whatever you were going to say, it couldn't possibly surprise him, as it did like a smile. Once again, I wanted to wipe that smile off his face.

"He was on a dump near Roundwood, and I had identified him to my satisfaction, and it was only a matter of time before the Guards ID'd him too. At least, that was what I thought. But of course, I turned out to be completely wrong: that wasn't Patrick Hutton at all. It was someone called Terence Folan, who was a jockey at Tyrrellscourt, too; indeed he took over when Hutton was sacked by your brother. He was at St. Jude's as well: who knows, perhaps you picked him out for F.X. I'm not really sure how that side of it was handled, but it must have been very difficult to turn a blind eye. Patrick Hutton, alive. Have you known all along?"

"She said-" he started to say, and then stopped. His eyes flickered across the table, and my mind went back to the first time I saw it, with the remnants of three breakfast plates. One of them had had two cigarette butts stubbed out in bacon rind. I flashed on Miranda Hart in my kitchen this morning, stubbing her cigarette out in her half-eaten breakfast, and in that instant, I knew she had been the other breakfast guest, along with Leo Halligan. Her elaborate fear of Vincent Tyrrell must have been, in part at least, a charade.

"She said what? That Hutton was dead? Or gone? That it would be safe? You knew people were being slain. Two men. Your brother's ex-wife? Did it not matter to you? What did Miranda Hart tell you?"

He shook his head.

"Tell me about St. Jude's, Father Tyrrell. You must have known what was going on there. I think I was in your room. The red one, with the Sacred Heart, and the Poussin Last Supper. That's a tasteful atmosphere in which to rape a teenager. Did you do it yourself, or did you let F.X. come in and sample the wares?"

"I'm not going to rise to this."

"What did you think you were going to achieve by digging all this up? What did Miranda Hart promise you? That everything could be buried? Or was it not her idea? Maybe she didn't have any choice in the matter. Yes, that's more like it: Patrick Hutton was back, and he had a plan. I don't know what that plan is. Maybe none of us does. We've seen what the first three installments are, but the rest of it? Who can say?"

"Have you seen him?" Tyrrell asked quietly.

"Yes, I think I have."

"How…how does he look?"

"He looks…like he's suffered a lot. He looks quite mad."

"Mary…Miranda…God help the poor child…she feels loyal to the creature…"

I didn't expect Vincent Tyrrell to astonish me, but spontaneous compassion for a fellow human being was enough to do it.

"There are a lot of questions you could answer," I said. "Is Regina Miranda's mother? Is Karen Tyrrell Miranda's child? Was Patrick Hutton the father of that child?"

"Why is any of that any of your business?"

"I think you know why. And to know and do nothing makes you just as guilty."

Tyrrell ran his fingers over his Leopardstown chart.

"See here, the third race. Francis has Bottle of Red running, she's a fine filly, but her rider will be lucky to make it. Fillies are allowed an extra five pounds over the ten-stone-nine, but Barry Dorgan is a greedy little boy, I remember him from St. Jude's distinctly, round face full of sweets, a smiler and a crybaby. Francis has persisted with Dorgan, but to my mind it's a sentimental attachment that has no place in the game: it's unfair to the punters, it's unfair to the horse and it's unfair to the sport."

"A sentimental attachment."

"Dorgan has a plump wife and two plump babies. I think Francis is simply fond of the boy."

"Like a son."

"Well, perhaps. I wouldn't know about that."

"Neither would he. You don't deny that F. X. Tyrrell had sexual relationships with boys from St. Jude's?"

"I wouldn't deny that he had an unfortunate relationship with young Halligan, which has brought nothing but complications upon his shoulders. I wouldn't deny that. As to the others: I really couldn't say."

"Couldn't or wouldn't?"

"It all amounts to the same thing. It will come out eventually, I have no doubt. Bottle of Red, that would be my strongest tip for St. Stephen's Day. The uncertainty about the rider has seen the odds drift satisfactorily; I'd say you could get it for nine to two, even five to one if you were up early. I imagine you get up early, Edward Loy."

"Patrick Hutton-the man I believe to be Patrick Hutton-gave the strong impression that he had been raped, in that room at St. Jude's-it was your room, wasn't it?"

Tyrrell shrugged and nodded.

"He made it clear he had been blindfolded, that he hadn't seen his rapist."

"Perhaps it wasn't rape. Perhaps it was consensual, and now he's decided to cavort as if it wasn't."

"Cavort?"

"Hutton and young Halligan were…well, they were about to be expelled for indecent conduct. I thought Hutton would fare well in the stables, I thought he had the makings of a jockey. I knew F.X. liked the look of him. And Leo…Leo was part of the deal. For Hutton and, eventually, for Francis. To the ultimate cost of each."

"Two of the care staff at St. Jude's were known abusers."

"Have you been talking to your burly lesbian friend again? No charges were ever laid, no case was ever brought. I've always found it curious, these liberals, they have a very illiberal concept of justice: they seem ready to destroy a person's life on the basis of one accusation."

All of this came from the side of his mouth as he pored over his chart. I had rattled him, but not nearly enough. I put my coat on and joined him at the table.

"When we spoke last, you talked about By Your Leave. Said it was something of a freak. What did you mean by that?"

"I told you to ask someone who knew."

"I did. I asked your brother. He said he'd stick to his discipline and you should stick to yours."

Tyrrell didn't flinch.

"Martha O'Connor-you know, the burly lesbian you're so fond of-her documentary about St. Jude's was halted because nobody wanted to speak ill of F. X. Tyrrell. I don't think anyone has the same sensitivity when it comes to his estranged brother, the Catholic priest. Maybe you are dying of cancer. You're not dead yet. I could make your last days here a misery. Given the degree to which, as far as I'm concerned, you've obstructed this case-Jackie Tyrrell might be alive were it not for you-all because of your bullshit about what you know being told to you in confession."

"But it was," Tyrrell said. "It's not bullshit at all. That part of it is God's truth."

He leant his hands on the chart.

"Very well. See here."

He pointed to Bottle of Red.

"Below the name of every horse, there's a list with the year of foaling, color, sex, and then the name of sire and dam. That's the horse's father and mother. Bottle of Red is by Dark Star out of No Regrets. Now, Francis went through a phase of experimenting with extremely close breeding. That means mating between parents and offspring, or siblings. Siblings are the most volatile in any pedigree breeding, and you have to use the very finest mares and stallions, but even then, it's discounted for everything except genetic research purposes: to breed out abnormalities, say, or uncover hidden gene types."

"And are Dark Star and No Regrets brother and sister?"

"Oh Lord, no. No, Francis has stopped all that. Or it was stopped for him."

"With By Your Leave. A thing of beauty, like a Grecian urn."

"What?"

"You said By Your Leave was all we know on earth, and all we need to know. Keats. 'Ode on a Grecian Urn.'"