Jackie Tyrrell had changed into wide black silk trousers and a fitted black top with just enough cleavage and black lace on show to ensure I would pay attention. Good for her: a healthy dose of vanity was one of the vital signs of life, particularly in a woman. I joined her on a white couch with a weathered gilt wood finish that I recognized as being French and very expensive; there was a matching occasional table where she sat; the room was full of similar pieces in assorted configurations. Late Romantic orchestral music played through speakers I couldn't see.
Jackie knelt up on her knees beside me as I sat down. Her eyes were clearer than before, her manner softer, flirtier, almost kittenish; it was as if she had drunk herself, if not quite sober, then mellow.
"Your face, my God," she said.
"You should see the other girl's," I said.
"What happened?"
I shook my head.
"Lassie slaps. Handbags at ten paces," I said.
She looked at me for a moment, an appalled expression on her face, then agreed to see the funny side.
"Their nails, was it?" she said, in an effortless Dublin accent.
"Going for my eyes, they were."
"Fucking bitches. I hate those fucking bitches so I do."
She poured me a drink from a pitcher of iced liquid the color of tea; it had the warmth of tea but more of a kick.
"Sidecar," she said.
"Brandy, lemon juice…triple sec."
"Cointreau. Same difference. Sláinte."
"Up."
I looked at Jackie as she drained the dregs of her glass and poured herself another. She couldn't drink like this every day, unless her face was a latex mask. I looked closer. No, it was the very moist, unlined skin of a woman in her early fifties: the folds around her throat showed the first signs of the next phase. Could Botox replenish your skin to such an extent if you regularly put away what she seemed capable of drinking? My face must have been an open book.
"This is a special occasion, Ed. I go for months without touching a drop. I assume that's what you're wondering? Why I don't have a face like a neon prune?"
"Forgive me."
"It's quite all right, I take the compliment whenever I can. Always take the compliment, girls. I do like to drink though, so I'm being a bit of a glutton today. Tonight. This morning."
"Good morning," I said.
"Nice morning," she said.
I drank up, and she refilled my glass. The music changed: low, brooding, ominous phrases filled the room.
"I know this," I said. "The Isle of the Dead."
"Rachmaninov. You're not supposed to like Rachmaninov, you know."
"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."