"So I won't give you any more publicity."

"Promise. Swear."

"I swear, if I get anything I can use that won't land me with a libel action, I'll take full credit and cut you out totally. If you had a lawyer, he'd fire you."

"I do have a lawyer."

"Where is he?"

"He fired me. It was the practice, apparently stretching back I don't know how long, but an earnest little researcher like yourself should be able to find out, for a couple of likely lads a year from St. Jude's to be taken on as apprentices at Tyrrellscourt stables."

"By whom? F. X. Tyrrell?"

"That's what I was told. But the lady who told me-"

"Wouldn't stick around to cook your dinner."

"It may have been the head man who picked them out, I don't know. But F.X. still takes credit for horses from his stables, he's still hands-on there, so there's no reason to suppose he wouldn't handpick potential jockeys."

"Nobody said anything to me directly about this. But when it emerged that there was no interest in making a follow-up film, the decision came wrapped up in a ribbon that said Bloodstock-Industry-Tyrrellscourt-Stud-National-Good-News-Story-Irish-Win-At-Cheltenham-Shut-The-Fuck-Up-You-Fat-Troublemaking-Shit-Stirrer."

"You're just big-boned."

"I have a horrible personality, though."

"F. X. Tyrrell's late ex-wife, Jackie, told me that they hadn't had much of a sex life of any kind. She put it down to a kind of neutered quality in him, an absence of a sex drive, rather than anything else. F. X. Tyrrell personally requested that his brother, Vincent, come down from Bayview, where he had been parish priest for twenty years, to serve as his own personal prelate in Tyrrellscourt: say private masses, bless the horses and the jockeys before races, take care of all that. The archbishop of the time-"

"The one who looks like a nun's granny-"

"Apparently was happy to facilitate this request, so down Vincent went to perform these arduous duties. And also to pay pastoral visits to St. Jude's."

"Is there more? You say Vincent claimed he wasn't involved in anything."

"This is a family that seems to specialize in looking the other way. It was Father Vincent Tyrrell who hired me. I didn't think he was…in the front line, so to speak. Now I'm not so sure."

"Is there more?"

"I was in St. Jude's last night. There was a guy who let me in. One of Tyrrellscourt's walking wounded. He brought me up to a room-a room I think belonged to, or at least was furnished by, Vincent Tyrrell, and basically simulated being raped. It was pretty grotesque."

"Who was the guy?"

"That's a very good question."

"Ed, don't fuck me around."

"I'm not. He's a strange-looking guy, I was given one name for him, I suspect he might be someone else. I don't know which is the truth, and until I do, I don't even want to tell myself, let alone you. Do you understand? Because that's how I work, I feel my way through the dark until there's a ray of light. And no light yet."

Martha took that. By her smile, she even seemed to like it.

"The impression he gave though was that he hadn't seen who had done it to him. Or that he had, but he couldn't tell any one."

"So what, F. X. Tyrrell, facilitated by his brother, plus one or two of the older lads, was coming in to rape selected boys, grooming them or training them in or assessing them and then selecting them as apprentices for his stables."

"Is one possible version."

"Or Vincent Tyrrell himself doing it all, with the promise to F.X. that he'll pass the best ones on when he's done."

"Is another."

My phone rang. It was Dave Donnelly. At first, I thought I wouldn't answer it; I figured I deserved a day off from the Donnelly maritals; then I remembered he'd promised to check out Don Kennedy's place for case files.

"Dave?"

"Ed. You're going to want to see this yourself."

"Where are you?"

Dave gave me an address in Ringsend, and I said I'd see him there.

"There's one other thing, Martha," I said. "Tyrrellscourt. I assume that's some Anglo family from the eighteenth century or before. Is it just a coincidence that F.X. has the same surname?"

"And this would rank in priority where?" Martha asked.

"Low, I guess. But it would be nice to know."

"I'll see what I can dig up, Ed."

I thanked Martha O'Connor for the dinner, and she thanked me for the company. Part of me regretted leaving her alone for the evening, but it was overwhelmed by the part that was relieved I didn't have to stay; I suspect she felt the same way: when I left, she was clutching a box set of Barbara Stanwyck movies. Loneliness is sometimes easier solved alone than in company, and especially on Christmas Day.

I told Martha O'Connor I needed to see Dave Donnelly urgently, but I didn't want to see him yet; I was haunted by the spectral memory of Vincent Tyrrell on the altar that morning, afraid he would die before the light I was searching for would come. It would have been quicker to stop off in Ringsend before heading out to Bayview, but at this stage in the case, in any case, I needed the time that driving brought, the sense that as I watched the dark road, the case was smoldering at the back of my mind: when I reached my destination, with luck, another spark would be lit.

On the coast road into Seafield, I reached for the radio, and came in on a Bothy Band tune as it was starting, "Martin Wynne's/The Longford Tinker," from the first album. I'd never been much for trad growing up in Dublin, seeing it as the preserve of beardy blokes in jumpers and the women who looked like them, but a Donegal barman at Mother McGillicuddy's gave me an education that showed me the error of my ways. (He'd got the job because he used to come in every Monday night, one of the terminal cases, and demand we play "Coinleach Ghlas An Fhomhair," a beautiful, melancholic song from Clannad's second album, before they turned into a kind of musical backdrop to aromatherapy; he'd sit and drink and pretend he wasn't crying until the owner took pity on him and offered him a job on condition he didn't cry behind the bar. He was still desperately homesick, and left at the first opportunity, but not before he had he taught us all a thing or two about Irish music.)

The Bothy Band played like a runaway horse you'd just about clung on to; the delirium of pipes and fiddle on "The Longford Tinker" was euphoric and tortured, swaggering and mournful all at once; it felt like the sound track to the case, where the exhilaration of progress told an increasingly tragic tale; like any case, it was absorbing and relentless; by the end of the tune, I was thirty kilometers over the limit and had to brake hard just to get my bearings.

The church car park was locked, so I parked up near the new houses on the other side and hopped over the hedge into the church grounds. I don't know what I expected Father Vincent Tyrrell to be doing on Christmas night. At best I thought he'd be drunk on Manzanilla and full of bile. But there he was, alive and possessed with energy, darting around his table, blue eyes flashing. The table was covered with a chart made out in different colored inks. At the top was the legend:

Leopardstown Festival-

St. Stephen's Day, December 26th

Below, there were seven columns, one for each race, each with a title and a time:

FIRST RACE: 12:25-Maiden Hurdle for Five years old and upward

SECOND RACE: 12:55-Maiden Hurdle for Four years old only

THIRD RACE: 1:30-Juvenile Hurdle for Three years old only

FOURTH RACE: 2:00-Handicap Hurdle for Four years old and upward

FIFTH RACE: 2:35-Novice Steeplechase for Four years old

SIXTH RACE: 3:10-Handicap Steeplechase for Four years old and upward

SEVENTH RACE: 3:40-Flat Race for Four-year-old colts and geldings only