"I didn't really get a look-in. Jackie was hugger-mugger there. I liked her as a teenager, she used to haunt the yard, drive the lads wild. In every way. Reminded me a bit of myself at that age. When her mother died, her father sent her off to boarding school in England, and she came back talking like Lady Diana, Jasus, that was something to hear. Jackie kind of adopted her then, bought her clothes and all. Had her show-ponying around the place. I never thought Miranda had what it took to carry that off. Her name is Mary, you know."
"Mary?"
"Yeah. I think she took some stick from the gels in Cheltenham over that, about being a little Irish colleen, holy Mary, all this, so when she got back here for good, she was Miranda, with the yah accent. Jackie bought into the whole thing, and it stuck. 'Course everyone knew she was Paddy Hart the publican's daughter Mary, but if she says that's not who she is anymore, who's to say different?"
Regina 's tone was jaunty and high, as if discussing the amusing caprices of a neighbor's daughter. My next question not only put a stop to that, it retrospectively undermined any gaiety she had supposedly felt at Miranda's adventures.
"And what happened with Patrick Hutton?"
"That was just an unsuitable, a wrong marriage, I told Jackie from the very beginning, she should and could have stopped it, but no, I was being petit bourgeois and lower middle class apparently, the snotty Cork bitch, she thought it was wonderfully brave. I honestly think she pushed it out of spite, because I got Francis to try and intervene. If he's good enough to ride for F. X. Tyrrell, she said, he's good enough to marry a publican's daughter. As if all the Miranda stuff, the airs and graces she'd taught her, was for nothing, or worse, a game to keep herself amused, like the girl was a doll, a toy to be played with. I felt sorry for the child…"
She stopped, and raised her glass, and sighed, as if she'd said too much.
"She was adopted, wasn't she?" I said, in as pointed a manner as I could manage.
"Are you asking me what I think you're asking me?" Regina said.
"She's the image of you," I said.
"No, is the answer," she said. "Fuck's sake, I see the black eye, I'm not surprised, questions like that."
"She had a rough time of it after Hutton disappeared."
"A lot of which she brought on herself," Regina said. "Ah, she lost the place altogether, I don't know what happened to her. Drink, drugs…I suppose you heard she was little better than a prostitute there for a while. It wasn't as if she needed money."
"Did she not? She was renting out her house, I know."
"She inherited the Tyrrellscourt Arms when her father died sure. Ninety-two, was it? And she made a lot of money out of that."
"She sold it to you, didn't she?"
"For a quarter of a million pounds. That was before the boom, when two hundred and fifty thousand would have got you pretty much anything you wanted in Dublin. That little place in Riverside wouldn't have been more than sixty then, if that. I never knew what got into Miranda. She got over it, at least. Jackie gave her work, helped undo some of the harm she'd done."
Regina looked at her watch again.
"Now. Christmas Eve. I have family commitments."
"Just one last thing," I said. "Patrick Hutton. Didn't you ever wonder over the years what had happened?"
She stood up and shook her head.
"No," she said. "But I always hoped he was dead, to be honest with you. I hoped and prayed he was dead."
I couldn't hold her gaze, and looked out the window, to see that the Range Rover that had been parked near the walls of Tyrrells court House when we came up here had gone.
FIFTEEN
Regina Tyrrell walked me down to the lobby. At reception, a tall slim girl of about nine or ten with long dark hair and dark eyes was waiting. When she saw Regina she ran to her and kissed her.
"Karen, meet Edward Loy. Ed Loy, Karen Tyrrell. My daughter."
I shook the girl's hand, trying to fix a smile on my face. Her daughter? Behind the girl stood a slim male figure in his sixties, immaculate in tweed jacket, cavalry twill trousers, polished tan brogues, Tattersall shirt and cravat; only a small swollen belly betrayed F. X. Tyrrell's age. His weathered face had the same prominent cheekbones his brother's had; his eyes were smaller, but the same deep brown as his sister's; his lips were fleshy and loose. He had the quiet, watchful, half-sad, half-amused air of a man well used to having people report and defer to him; Regina, while not exactly going that far, seemed to genuflect an apology in his direction, which he dispelled with a half smile.
"I'm sorry for your loss, Mr. Tyrrell," I said.
He nodded to acknowledge my sympathy, and again to deflect it, gesturing toward the child. Everywhere in the lobby people were trying not to stare at F. X. Tyrrell and failing; they probably would have done so anyway, but with shy smiles on their faces; a glance at the pile of Evening Heralds at reception explained why they weren't smiling today: OMEGA MAN KILLS TRAINER'S EX-WIFE, screamed the headline. I quickly scanned the story. They still hadn't ID'd Hutton. When I turned back, it was to Karen Tyrrell alone; Regina had drawn F.X. off down the steps to one side, and they were locked in conversation. Karen smiled at me, and I smiled back.
"Do you have any children?" she said.
I couldn't really explain, not to a child.
"Yes," I said. "A little girl. She'd be about your age now."
"I'm nine," Karen said. "What's her name?"
"Lily," I said, and then heard myself saying: "She lives with her mother. In America."
"I live with my mother too," Karen said. "And Uncle Francis, but he's never there, and even when he is, he isn't. If that makes sense. Sometimes I don't make too much sense, Mum says."
"It sounds sensible to me," I said. "A lot of men are like that."
"I wouldn't know. My dad's dead," she said gravely.
"I'm sorry," I said.
"I suppose. I never knew him. I don't think Mum knew him very well either. She doesn't even have a photograph of him."
Karen had been surveying the come-and-go around the room while we talked; now she looked up at me through eyes widened to express her bemusement at the scant trail her father had left. Her gaze left me reeling, and I felt as if it was setting me a challenge which, if met, could solve the mystery of the Tyrrells and of the killer who could be on their trail. For Karen Tyrrell's eyes were not identicaclass="underline" one was brown, and one was dark blue.
Regina joined us and told me her brother was waiting to speak to me outside the hotel. I found him by the far end of the building, looking back toward his stables. He didn't turn as I stood alongside him, barely moved a muscle.
"Did Jackie say anything about me?" he said quickly.
His voice was quiet but perfectly pitched, the kind of voice you listened closely to for fear of missing a beat. A king's voice.
"She said several things."
"What were they?"
"Why do you want to know? It was a private conversation." F. X. Tyrrell made a sound in his throat, a sound like a dry branch snapping.
"Just answer my question."
"No, I don't think I will."
Tyrrell still hadn't moved, but I could hear his breath coming quickly through his nose. He started to say something that sounded like a threat, then stopped himself and changed course.
"She was my wife, Mr. Loy."
From another man it might have been a plea; F. X. Tyrrell made it sound like a command.
"I know that. But you weren't the subject of our meeting. Jackie spoke mainly about Miranda Hart, and Patrick Hutton. You know your brother has hired me to find Hutton?"
F. X. Tyrrell turned around and faced me, his small eyes blazing.