She said the words blankly, without affect.
"What about Hutton? What about Vincent Tyrrell?" I said.
Regina 's face clouded over.
"That's where it got…I never…oh God forgive me…it was Christmas, Vincent was staying here…I was drunk, and a bit…maybe I was talking loose…flirting with Francis, who wasn't responding, and with Vincent, who was…I got angry with them both, and stormed off…and Francis came, and said, why didn't I…if I slept with Vincent, I could be with him again…so I did. It wasn't even…I'm trying to make it better now on myself, saying I was drunk, I knew what I was doing…I knew damn well what I was doing. I don't know why I wanted it…still don't…Francis was all I ever wanted…"
"But you went with Vincent just the one time. How did you know Hutton was his child, and not Francis's?" I said.
"Francis had an operation, after Mary…after Miranda was born, a vasectomy. So nothing like that could happen again."
"And then when the boy was born, you said you couldn't raise him."
"The child of a priest? I couldn't. I wouldn't. I let him go. Francis persuaded me it was the best thing. I was young, starting out, I didn't need that. Didn't need it."
"But you stayed here all those years, and let them both come back into the house, and saw them come together-"
"I did everything I could to block that match. Everything. I…and don't forget, I didn't know Miranda was my daughter-"
"But you suspected. Why didn't you act on those suspicions?"
"I don't know."
"And then there was a child."
"There's nothing wrong with the child," Regina said. "She's had every test, every…they found no disability, nothing. And Francis…I don't think he enjoyed a day of peace after those children were born. Neither of us did, really. It was a kind of torture to him, knowing what he had done, never quite being able to forgive himself. I think…I think what we made was a kind of sacrifice, to live through it together. And I was blessed that Karen was given to me. Unworthy as I was."
"Why?" I said. "What possessed him? To experiment with human lives that way?"
Regina shook her head, all tears spent for now.
"He once told me, out in the stable, he said he thought the purest blood might make the finest offspring. That if it could work for horses…"
"But it doesn't work for horses."
Regina nodded.
"And you went along with him," I said. "Why?"
Regina looked at me with what almost looked like pity in her extraordinary eyes and shook her head. Again, when she spoke, it was in a voice that seemed to come from the very depths of her soul.
"You don't understand. No one could understand who wasn't there."
"Who wasn't where?"
Regina turned her gaze on Miranda as she spoke.
"My mother died when I was born, I told you that. But I didn't grow up here. I was taken into care, placed in a home. It was just the two boys and Da, in a small tenant cottage out the road a few miles from Tyrrellscourt, two rooms, that's all they had. Francis was fourteen, Vincent twelve. Da was a farm laborer, drinking a lot, and…well, other things. With both of them. Until Francis stood up to him. Francis put an end to that. Francis turned him out. And our da was never seen again. And Francis worked every hour God sent on farms in the area, his eye for a horse quickly noticed, training for this owner, then that one, and the winners began to come, and then the Derby in '65. Sure he became a hero in the town, more. He found this place, it was in a tumbledown condition, the family had left for England during the war and never come back, and he set us up here. Came and got me, told me my place was with him, was here, at the heart of the Tyrrells. Made sure I went to school. Sent Vincent for the priesthood."
"And was your name Tyrrell to begin with?"
Regina almost smiled, a rueful flicker, as if still bewitched by the family mythology.
"We…we became the Tyrrells," Regina said. "Francis called himself that after he got rid of Da. And then he had his name legally changed. The town had been on its knees until Francis came. So anyone who tried to call us something else was quickly silenced. And soon, no one even wanted to. It was as if we had been expected. As if F. X. Tyrrell was a king in exile, come home at last to regain his throne. Without him, what would anyone around here have been? And what would I have become, a charity girl scrubbing floors and scalding laundry in an orphanage?"
She looked at me as if there was any answer I could give her, other than: What have you become now? Her story had explained everything and nothing. I turned to Miranda, who was staring at Regina with tears in her reddened eyes, the Sig Sauer Compact suddenly flashing in her hand, a droning, humming sound coming from the back of her throat. She looked like she was ready to do something rash. I edged forward to the sofa to get the Glock 17 I'd hidden there, much use it had done me.
"Miranda?" I said.
"What?"
"Let me get this straight: Patrick was supposed to kill F. X. Tyrrell first, is that right?"
"That's right. First F.X. Then himself. He had a confession. That he was the Omega Man. He takes all the blame."
"He'd never killed anyone before, had he? Not intentionally, not in cold blood. How was he supposed to do it this time?"
"Because it was F. X. Tyrrell."
"And why should that have made a difference?"
"Because Vincent Tyrrell told us that F.X. had raped Patrick in St. Jude's. He said F.X. had been a frequent visitor there. He said that's largely why he was asked back to Tyrrellscourt in the nineties: to facilitate F.X.'s visits again."
"That can't be right," Regina said. "Francis always told me…that after you were born…and after Patrick…never again. That would be his way of atoning."
"His way of atoning," Miranda said, her scorn like a whip. "What about F.X. and Leo Halligan? You must have known about that."
Regina shook her head.
"I…since Karen came here, I suppose I…I've kept my head down. I've see as little of Francis as possible. I haven't wanted to know…about anything."
Regina was shaking, her face like a mask; she looked helpless and old, her last illusions carried away on the relentless wind.
"His way of atoning," Miranda said, rolling the words around in her mouth like sour fruit. "His way of atoning. What could that be? What could that possibly be?"
I had the gun now, and came up with it loose in my hand, not pointing it at her, just ensuring she could see it. Miranda saw it, and looked at me, and smiled.
"I'm sorry, Ed. I'm so very sorry. It was hard to know what to do. I know I've done wrong. I thought I could survive. But not everyone can be a survivor."
She turned to Regina.
"Please, just one thing. Don't tell Karen the truth. In this instance, it's better if she never knows. Do the right thing. Tell no one. Say nothing."
Miranda Hart put the barrel of the Sig Sauer compact in her mouth and pulled the trigger.
THIRTY
Regina ran to Miranda and fell to her knees and howled, and pulled Miranda's body to her and clung to it as she never had, as she never would, the daughter she had found and lost in a day. I located the key I was looking for in Miranda's sports grip. I tried to tell Regina I was going to check on Karen, but she couldn't see or hear for grief. I shut the door behind me and went down the corridor to the child's room. I checked my appearance in the window opposite to make sure that I wouldn't scare her, and I saw that the snow had finally come. I knocked, and identified myself, and turned the key in the lock and opened the door.
THEY NEVER FOUND Steno. They had a witness (Tommy) who saw his Range Rover leaving Jackie Tyrrell's house the night of her murder, and they reckoned they had enough forensic evidence from that messy night to make a case. They had Vincent Tyrrell as well, to testify to all manner of things he had been told by Miranda Hart, but they didn't think Vincent Tyrrell would stand up in court. But they had no Steno: he never returned to his house, or to Tyrrellscourt. No one has seen him since.