The Price of Blood

by Declan Hughes

  TWENTY-SIX

  The door swung open and the cold relentless wind brought, first Tommy Owens, his hands on his head and his right eye bruised, then Miranda Hart, wearing riding boots and a long Barbour jacket and carrying a black Adidas sports grip, and finally Steno, who wore a broad-brimmed hat and a long coat like an Australian and had a Heckler & Koch MP5K submachine gun in one hand. I didn’t check to see what he had in the other. Steno pointed the SMG at me, and I held my hands up and out to be searched. Just as the doorknob had creaked, just before the door opened, I had hidden the Glock 17 I was carrying among the cushions on the sofa. Miranda Hart appeared terrified, her hands shaking as she fumblingly unzipped the grip, her lips trembling as she produced hanks of nylon cord and bags of nylon grip ties and rolls of silver duct tape. Regina Tyrrell stared at what was unfolding before her eyes in astonishment and fear, then made a rush for the door, only to be brought up short by Steno waving the MP5 at her.

  "Karen," she cried. "Karen! What have you done with her?"

  "Calm, calm, she’s all right, she’s fine," Steno said.

  "Where is she?" Regina said.

  "She’s locked in her room. Miranda has the key. We’ve left food and drink there for her. It’s just for a short while, until Leopardstown is done. Miranda, why don’t you get things tied up with our friends here?" Steno said. "Take Mr. Loy first, if you would."

  I had quickly calculated that there was no percentage in trying to make a grab for the Glock: it wouldn’t make much of a show against an SMG. But it might come into its own later on. Miranda looked as if she wanted to say several things, but she didn’t say any of them; instead, she got her sports grip and Steno pointed me into a chair with the SMG, and without a word, Miranda tied me up with plastic grip ties around my wrists and ankles and nylon cord around my waist, and then frisked me. When her hand passed over my mobile phone in my jacket pocket, she tensed and looked me in the eye, and I waited for her to come to a decision. It was a moment in which time seemed to slow to a crawl, in which I sensed both her power over me and her powerlessness, now that she was in Steno’s thrall. And the strange thing is, in that instant, I felt so much toward her, such a mix of feelings: compassion, and sympathy, and fear for her welfare, and, despite all I knew then and all I suspected and was subsequently to discover, the hope that she and her daughter could somehow escape together, and put all the bad history behind them. And even as I tried to hold the thought in my mind, it turned to dust, like all dreams that involve fighting the past again and winning this time do, turned to dust and was scattered on the relentless wind. She passed over my phone and leant into my ear.

  "Please try and think kindly of me," she said, and turned to Steno.

  "He’s clean," she said, wafting past me, and I breathed her incense of oranges and salt, and the two things combined, the smell of love departed and the chirping of a tramp on the make, filled me with melancholy.

  Miranda moved toward Tommy, but he waved her off and approached Steno.

  "Steno, you remember me man," he said. "The back room of McGoldrick’s, with Leo an’ all. And then I was in with you the other day."

  Steno looked at Tommy’s ruined foot and nodded.

  "Sure. Tommy Owens? What’s on your mind?"

  Tommy looked at me, then approached Steno and spoke in a hushed, confidential voice, as if he’d been living a lie for a long time and was relieved finally to be able to come clean.

  "I’m just a hired hand here man," he said. "I mean, I don’t have any loyalty to your man Loy, know I mean? And frankly, I put him together with Leo, he beat the shite out of him for no reason, I think he’s losing it man. So if you’re putting something together you need an extra pair of hands, all I’m saying is, I’m here if you want me man, to drive, whatever."

  Steno stared at me, and I stared at Tommy. I knew Steno was trying to work out if Tommy was on the level. I was almost sure he wasn’t. Almost was as good as it got with Tommy, but from where I was sitting, bound if not yet gagged, almost didn’t feel like a lot. I let this curdle naturally into a glare of disgust at his betrayal; Tommy returned this with a shrug of indifferent scorn. We looked like thieves without honor. I prayed that’s not what we were.

  "You can drive?" Steno said.

  "Sure," Tommy said.

  "All right. Good to have an extra pair of hands along."

  Then he poked the barrel of the SMG hard in Tommy’s face, hard enough to bruise.

  "I get so much as a glimmer you’re not down the line with me, you’re sneaking to Loy, or to the cops, you’re gone, understand, and a day, an hour later, I won’t even remember the hole you’re buried in, let alone your name."

  I had to give it to him, Steno was a scary piece of work. He threatened to kill Tommy like he was warning a lounge boy about skimming from the till, and you felt it was of as great, or as little, consequence to him.

  "All right Miranda, it’s Regina’s turn," Steno said.

  Regina sat in a chair opposite me, and Miranda fastened her to it in the same way she had fastened me, ties to wrists and ankles, cord around her waist. Both women were trembling, and Miranda kept apologizing for being too rough. Or at any rate, she kept apologizing. When Regina was secured, Steno made a call on his mobile.

  "All right," he said. "We’re ready up here."

  Steno went to the windows and opened the curtains. Gray dawn light trickled quickly in, borne by showers of sleet that pelted against the panes.

  Steno stood over me and spoke calmly to my face.

  "Whatever happens next, know this: if you contradict anything I say, I’ll take you out immediately. Plan A is the plan we’re working, for Miranda’s sake, for old times’ sake: I don’t claim to understand it myself, but that’s the route we’re taking. But if I think you’re putting that in jeopardy, even for an instant: Plan B, baby."

  "And what’s Plan B?"

  Steno almost smiled, his fleshy face heavy and still, his eyes genial and dead.

  "Kill every fucker standing, and get out of here fast. And don’t think I won’t."

  I didn’t. Steno gave Miranda a Sig Sauer compact, looked like one of the Halligan cache I’d brought down. There was a knock at the door, and then Francis Xavier Tyrrell was led in by a red-faced, straw-haired man I didn’t recognize, but whom I soon found out was Brian Rowan, the Tyrrells’ head man. Tyrrell looked around the room, his cheeks aflame, his sharp, intelligent features quivering with quiet anger and indignation. He wore a sleeveless padded green jacket over tweeds and a brown fedora. No one spoke. It felt as if a bunch of teenagers had been having a party and the father who had expressly forbidden them such an event had arrived home.

  "What the devil is all this?" he said.

  Regina’s emotion overflowed into tears; she spoke through them now in a rush.

  "Francis, they have Karen, they’re holding her."

  "They have Karen? What do you mean, they’re ’holding’ her? What do they want?"

  "They’ve kidnapped her, they want…"

  Regina faltered under F. X. Tyrrell’s glare. Steno looked to Miranda Hart, who beckoned F. X. Tyrrell to the open window.

  "Can you see the gallops? See the rider there? How’s he doing, do you think? Do you need binoculars?"

  "My sight is perfect," Tyrrell said.

  The room fell silent as he watched.

  "Good seat. Nice action. Who is that, one of the apprentices? Brian?"

  "His name is Patrick, boss."

  "We want Patrick to ride today," Miranda said. "The third race, the juvenile hurdle for three year olds. Barry Dorgan hasn’t made the weight for Bottle of Red. We want Patrick to start in Dorgan’s place."

  Miranda’s voice was shaky but firm; it also, for the first time, expressed for Patrick Hutton an emotion she hadn’t betrayed before, at least, not in my hearing: love. As Miranda spoke, dawn light from the window shifted slowly across her face. F. X. Tyrrell transferred his gaze to her as if seeing her for the first time.

&n
bsp; "You’re…you’re Mary Hart, aren’t you?"

  "Miranda."

  "Yes. Yes. Look at you child. All grown up."

  There was a silence, punctuated by Regina Tyrrell’s quiet sobbing; Miranda Hart looked quickly from Regina to F. X. Tyrrell and shuddered; F. X. Tyrrell shook his head suddenly, as if a ghost from his past had asked him for help and he found he had nothing left to give. Tyrrell looked out toward the gallops again, then he pursed his lips and wrinkled his nose.

  "You want Patrick to ride one of my horses? Patrick? Who the devil is Patrick?"

  "Patrick Hutton, remember?" Miranda said. "You remember Thurles? By Your Leave?"

  Tyrrell looked out again at Hutton, and the blood drained from his face.

  "I remember, yes; I remember what he did to my beautiful By Your Leave."

  His face was creased with sudden pain, and then his small dark eyes blazed.

  "Get out of my sight, the lot of you! How dare you!" he cried.

  Nobody moved. Now there was silence, and the relentless wind, and the insistent sleet on the windowpanes. F. X. Tyrrell looked from face to face, and for the first time, uncertainty appeared on his. It was like an old play when the conspirators confront the king, and the king commands them to desist, failing to grasp that at the instant of their challenge, he has ceased to rule. He turned to Brian Rowan with his big plump farm-boy head, his shock of fair hair, his shrewd, watery blue eyes.

  "Brian," he said. "Brian, for God’s sake."

  Brian looked at the floor, then briefly at Steno, before fixing on Regina.

  "It’s like Miss Tyrrell said, boss," he said. "Think of Miss Karen. Better to go along with it. It’s…it’s just one race."

  The last idea was the one Rowan evidently found the most difficult to express, and it was clearly one of the major difficulties for F. X. Tyrrell as well.

  "Just one race?" he said, as if the very notion of looking at the sport in that light was so bizarre he’d never contemplated it before. "This is Bottle of Red."

  Regina spoke then, her tone suddenly hard and cold.

  "Francis. They know…everything." F. X. Tyrrell flashed her a look that mixed anger with real fear.

  Steno yawned and looked at his watch.

  "Want to get moving," he said quietly, waving his MP5K submachine gun gently back and forth, like a wand.

  Tyrrell peered at Steno as if he hadn’t noticed him before.

  "That’s Stenson, isn’t it?" F. X. Tyrrell said. "From McGoldrick’s? I’ll have you dismissed from your post for this."

  "I already quit," Steno said. Then he took Tyrrell’s right arm and bent it behind his back until his wrist was at his neck. The old man gasped in agony.

  "Now you go along with this, and behave yourself, and you do your thing in the parade ring, and you talk nice to the TV people with Patrick afterward if he wins, do you understand?"

  Tyrrell nodded, whimpering in pain.

  "And you don’t call for help, and you don’t tell anyone, especially not the Guards?"

  "No!"

  Steno let Tyrrell’s arm go, and the old man dropped to his knees. I don’t know if the hoarse sound he made was breathing or weeping, but I know that all the other men in the room turned away. When I looked at Regina Tyrrell and Miranda Hart, however, I saw that they could not take their eyes off his suffering. Brian Rowan helped Tyrrell to his feet and began to talk to him in a low, quiet voice as he led him out. Tyrrell’s face was haggard with pain and confusion.

  Steno summoned Tommy and gave him what looked like another warning. Then Steno nodded at Miranda, waved the SMG at us all and followed Tommy out.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Miranda Hart trailed after Steno. While she was gone, I thought about various ways of getting free of my bonds, but the chair was too solid to be wrenched apart, and I didn’t carry a blade as a matter of course, and short of launching myself out the window, nothing else occurred to me. If I could maneuver my way to the couch, I could maybe get hold of the Glock, although how I’d aim it at anything worth shooting was another matter. Just as this thought was forming, Miranda came back. She brought a tray with a pot of coffee, cups and milk with her and offered it round.

  "That’d be nice if we had our hands free," Regina said.

  Miranda looked at the grips tying our wrists to the arms of the chairs and nodded and apologized, then poured a coffee for herself.

  In the silence, I heard a muffled voice coming from down the hall. It was the voice of a child.

  "Mummy? Mummy? Mother? I can’t open the door!"

  "Karen…oh my God, let me go to her," Regina said.

  Miranda looked anxious and shook her head.

  "Just reassure her, all right? Shout from here."

  "Mummy? I’m locked in!"

  Regina took a deep breath to compose herself, then raised her voice to a yell.

  "It’s all right, sweetheart. The lock’s broken."

  "Just find the key."

  "The key won’t work. We have to find a locksmith."

  "Mummy!"

  The child was wailing. Miranda held her face in her hands.

  "It’s all right, sweetheart. Just…find a book and get back into bed. Or do some drawing. We’ll get you out soon. Okay?"

  There was silence then. Miranda looked shamefaced, and shook her head at me, as if to say that she wasn’t in fact responsible for this. I shook my head right back and looked her in the eye.

  "One thing I don’t understand, Miranda," I said. "Well, that’s not true, actually, there are many things I don’t understand about this case, but best to take them one at a time. What’s in it for Steno?"

  "You have to understand," Miranda began. "You have to try and track this from the beginning. It’s all because of Patrick. And Patrick will have what he’s dreamed of today, after all this time. He’s been training, he’s in good condition. It’s the least he deserves."

  "And what? Are the other horses just going to sit back and let him win?"

  "You’ll just have to wait and see. Live on television."

  "And what then? He takes the fall? He has his Tyrrellscourt tattoo, he has no tongue, he’s perfect for a clogger like Myles Geraghty. Best of all, you probably have him so he wants to confess. He’s the Omega Man, he acted alone, and you all walk away scot-free? But what about Steno, what does he get? I mean, Regina here is in the way, isn’t she? Maybe the Omega Man needs to claim a fourth victim. Get rid of Regina and Miranda hits the jackpot. Karen Tyrrell is the heiress, Miranda is reunited with her daughter, and Gerald Stenson gets paid off until his dying day."

  Miranda shook her head.

  "You’re looking at everything the wrong way round. Start with Patrick, living half-wild up on the Staples place, a bunch of scrap and a fistful of memories, some sweet, many bitter. The private detective Don Kennedy found his birth certificate. It wasn’t in Lombard Street, it was at the registration office in Naas, I remember that much. Maybe because I was trying to remember anything but what he was telling me. See, Kennedy didn’t come to me first, like he was supposed to. From the word go he had wanted to go and see Folan, he kept saying since Folan and Patrick were contemporaries, and in many ways had a shared history, he was a crucial witness. I kept making excuses not to go—I don’t think I could have handled it. Anyway, I think he suspected Folan was Patrick, and now he had a foolproof way of finding out. He went up to the Staples place and showed Patrick the birth certificate, right there in black and white: Mother: Regina Mary Immaculate. And I can’t remember what Patrick was working on at the time, I think he might have been putting up some fencing. Anyway, he had a pair of metal snips in his flight suit pocket. I don’t know why, he took to dressing in flight suits when he went to live up there. Kennedy confronted him with the birth cert, and asked him what he thought. And Patrick took snips and pulled his tongue out and snipped a good half of it off."

  Regina screamed at this, and began to shake her head, wailing. While I listened to that sound, and to Miranda tal
king, I was aware again of Karen calling for her mother, over and over again, sometimes through tears, sometimes angrily, rattling the door or banging on it. I hoped the sash windows in her room were too stiff for her to open, and if they weren’t, that she didn’t do anything foolish. Regina was still wailing, keening like a banshee. Miranda leant across and slapped her hard across the face, and she stopped.

  "Listen to me," she said. "This is the beginning. This is just the beginning. Don’t forget what you did to him, Regina. Don’t forget you dumped your son into an orphanage, no, a torture chamber, then took him into your house while never acknowledging him. Do you know what that did to him when he found out? That you were his mother, but you had never treated him like a son?"

  It couldn’t have been much after nine in the morning then, but that was the point where I thought: I could really do with a drink.

  "Kennedy got Patrick a doctor he knew, avoided a hospital situation where the police would have been involved. Setting me and Patrick up, getting us to trust him, so he could blackmail the fuck out of us. But you know what Patrick told me? He wrote it down, he couldn’t speak at all back then. Because I kept asking, in the days and weeks after, pleading with him to tell me why he had done it. And eventually he took a piece of paper and he wrote two things on it. The two things were: ’Tell No One,’ and ’Say Nothing.’

  "I knew what that meant. When Patrick had been in St. Jude’s, he’d been raped twice. He didn’t know who the rapists were. He wasn’t even sure there were two, but he thought there were, he said they smelled different. He said sometimes he thought it might have been Vincent Tyrrell, sometimes Leo, sometimes even Steno. I asked Steno and he swore he hadn’t touched Patrick."