"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.
"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."