"All right: Are you still tied to the Halligans because of what they've got on your old man?"
"What have they got?"
"Photos of him and Leo Halligan. Photos his family wouldn't like to see. Let alone the great Irish public."
Jack Proby suddenly looked like his collar was a size too small for him; he worked his neck around and blinked his eyes and sniffed.
"What is this? Is this blackmail, friend? 'Cause I tell you, if it is-"
"It isn't. It's tell me what I want to know and don't be a fucking prick."
"Because I know some important people in this town-"
"See, you've won already. The only important people I get to meet hire me to clean up the mess they make because they spent too much time with corrupt moneygrubbing scumbags like you. And afterward, they don't want to know me. The feeling's mutual, mind. Believe me, I've places I'd rather be today and all. Anywhere tops the list."
Proby, calculating I'd got the market in aggressiveness tied up for the moment, nodded his consent, as if to a waiter.
"All right," I said. "To be honest, I don't much care if you're feeding the Halligans tips or if they're feeding you the inside on Tyrrellscourt horses-"
"George Halligan is a legitimate player now, friend, he has horses in half a dozen stables, not just F. X. Tyrrell's."
"That's what makes our system so great, isn't it? Any murdering drug-dealing scum-sucking savage can call himself an entrepreneur and be forgiven. Business washes us all clean. But I'm not one of the ruthless boys in a hurry, impatient to get on with making and building and storing up wealth for the winter months. I'm one of the laggards, the stick-in-the-muds who are always looking back, endlessly worrying about some sticky little detail everyone else is too busy going forward to be bothered with."
Proby looked at me as if the whiskey had gone to my head. Maybe it had. Get a refund if it hadn't. Proby signaled to the waiter for more. I shook my head, but he pointed to himself. He leant forward, all confidential.
"Look, I'm not proud of the life I led for a stretch there, in the late nineties…I ran with a pretty wild crowd…did a bit of this and that…but I swear, I was never a pimp."
"I know."
"You know?"
"Miranda told me. Mind you, she tends to lie."
The waiter brought Proby his second whiskey and he drank half of it back in one, and within seconds, seemed to turn into himself. He was that kind of drinker.
"She's not lying about that. We were both strung out for a while…I came out of a failed marriage, and she, well, there was the whole Patrick Hutton thing, you know? She was still freaking out about all that. But it was, it started off as, just a great time down there, party town, coke, champagne, all this bread, and I was doing some work for the old man, but it was so easy to keep George Halligan sweet. We had enough of the jockeys to spread the fixes to lay it so the betting patterns were never noticed. It was a fucking operation. Coining it. Beautiful, so it was. And then came heroin."
"Whose idea was that?"
"I don't remember. Because I asked myself that, like with some mad fucking bird you wake up with, you know, retrace your steps, locate the fatal moment, don't do this at home, kids. But I can't…eventually it was that ponytail guy who ended up barman in McGoldrick's, unbelievable, only in Tyrrellscourt would a smack dealer be taken on as head barman, what's this his name was?"
"Steno?"
"Steno, the very fellow. Anyway, we got into it, and after a while, you start running low on readies, no matter who you are, drugs cost a lot of bread, so Miranda decides to sell her stuff. I didn't like it, I argued against it, I was supposed to be her boyfriend, for fuck's sake, but…I was out of it anyway. What was I gonna do?"
Proby shrugged and finished his whiskey and immediately waved up two more.
"And why do you think, was there any other reason for her to get into heroin? Apart from it being there?"
"I think…well, I think after the whole thing with the baby, she found it hard to get back on track."
"What baby?"
"She had a kid…I can't really remember the order of events back then…but she had a kid and gave it up for adoption…would it have been before Hutton took off? Or afterward? I think afterward, yeah, that's why she gave it up, because he took off."
Proby nodded stupidly, already drunk. He beamed as the fresh drinks arrived. I still had half of my first.
"Weird to do something like that in 1997, '98," I said. "Lots of women raising kids on their own then."
"Not Miranda. Not her scene at all," Proby said.
"And you don't know who were the adoptive parents?"
He shook his head, then held a finger up.
"Tell you what I do remember. Who introduced smack to the Tyrrellscourt scene."
"Who?" I said.
"Patrick Hutton!" he said delightedly.
"Patrick Hutton vanished after By Your Leave was put down at Thurles. Before Christmas 1996."
"Oh no. No he didn't. No, he was around, because he was around when the kid was born, except he was smacked out of it then. Wasn't racing, wasn't anything, just…hanging around town for it. And after that he disappeared. Kaput! I don't know if they were still happy families, but I remember the three of them being around. And then it was just Miranda."
Proby nodded, seemingly relieved to have sorted that out. I took out the photograph Miranda had given me and showed it to Proby.
"Patrick Hutton," I said.
"Patrick Hutton," he said. Then he peered at the photograph again.
"Except, that isn't Patrick Hutton."
"I'm sorry."
"That isn't Patrick Hutton. That's the other guy."
"What other guy?" I said, but his name was on my lips, had been from the moment Miranda asked for the photograph back.
"The jockey F.X. got in to replace Hutton. Only he didn't last long. He lost it completely, became a kind of wino. Bomber, they called him."
I could have prompted him, but I waited. He was the kind of drunk whose wits accumulate as the spirit level rises. He studied the photograph again, then lifted his weak face in triumph.
"Terry Folan," he said. "Terry 'Bomber' Folan. One for the road? Come on, it's Christmas."
IN MY CAR, I called Miranda Hart on her mobile and landline and left remorseful messages on each; the trip to Martha O'Connor's place took me past Riverside Village but there was no one home and the Porsche was gone. I stood by my car and swore quietly. If the body I had thought was Patrick Hutton was Bomber Folan-and I had been led to believe that by the photograph Miranda Hart gave me-then there was a good chance Bomber Folan was really Hutton, and either Miranda Hart was in league with him, or she was in his power. Bomber/Hutton was obviously a disturbed individual; if he was responsible for the killings so far, it was clear he had some kind of plan; it was entirely possible Miranda had been drawn into this plan out of fear, either for her own safety, or the safety of someone she prized. Jack Proby had told me Miranda had had a baby, with or without Hutton: that child would be about nine or ten now, and might well look like the girl Regina Tyrrell was raising as her own; I had thought Regina was Miranda's mother, they looked so alike; equally Karen Tyrrell could be Miranda Hart's daughter. Was Bomber/Hutton threatening Miranda's child in order to make her an accomplice to the murders? It was all guesswork at this stage. I called Tommy and left a message on his voice mail asking him to set up surveillance on Bomber Folan/Patrick Hutton when he got established at Tyrrellscourt. Then I got back on the road.