"Please try and think kindly of me," she said, and turned to Steno.

"He's clean," she said, wafting past me, and I breathed her incense of oranges and salt, and the two things combined, the smell of love departed and the chirping of a tramp on the make, filled me with melancholy.

Miranda moved toward Tommy, but he waved her off and approached Steno.

"Steno, you remember me man," he said. "The back room of McGoldrick's, with Leo an' all. And then I was in with you the other day."

Steno looked at Tommy's ruined foot and nodded.

"Sure. Tommy Owens? What's on your mind?"

Tommy looked at me, then approached Steno and spoke in a hushed, confidential voice, as if he'd been living a lie for a long time and was relieved finally to be able to come clean.

"I'm just a hired hand here man," he said. "I mean, I don't have any loyalty to your man Loy, know I mean? And frankly, I put him together with Leo, he beat the shite out of him for no reason, I think he's losing it man. So if you're putting something together you need an extra pair of hands, all I'm saying is, I'm here if you want me man, to drive, whatever."

Steno stared at me, and I stared at Tommy. I knew Steno was trying to work out if Tommy was on the level. I was almost sure he wasn't. Almost was as good as it got with Tommy, but from where I was sitting, bound if not yet gagged, almost didn't feel like a lot. I let this curdle naturally into a glare of disgust at his betrayal; Tommy returned this with a shrug of indifferent scorn. We looked like thieves without honor. I prayed that's not what we were.

"You can drive?" Steno said.

"Sure," Tommy said.

"All right. Good to have an extra pair of hands along."

Then he poked the barrel of the SMG hard in Tommy's face, hard enough to bruise.

"I get so much as a glimmer you're not down the line with me, you're sneaking to Loy, or to the cops, you're gone, understand, and a day, an hour later, I won't even remember the hole you're buried in, let alone your name."

I had to give it to him, Steno was a scary piece of work. He threatened to kill Tommy like he was warning a lounge boy about skimming from the till, and you felt it was of as great, or as little, consequence to him.

"All right Miranda, it's Regina 's turn," Steno said.

Regina sat in a chair opposite me, and Miranda fastened her to it in the same way she had fastened me, ties to wrists and ankles, cord around her waist. Both women were trembling, and Miranda kept apologizing for being too rough. Or at any rate, she kept apologizing. When Regina was secured, Steno made a call on his mobile.

"All right," he said. "We're ready up here."

Steno went to the windows and opened the curtains. Gray dawn light trickled quickly in, borne by showers of sleet that pelted against the panes.

Steno stood over me and spoke calmly to my face.

"Whatever happens next, know this: if you contradict anything I say, I'll take you out immediately. Plan A is the plan we're working, for Miranda's sake, for old times' sake: I don't claim to understand it myself, but that's the route we're taking. But if I think you're putting that in jeopardy, even for an instant: Plan B, baby."

"And what's Plan B?"

Steno almost smiled, his fleshy face heavy and still, his eyes genial and dead.

"Kill every fucker standing, and get out of here fast. And don't think I won't."

I didn't. Steno gave Miranda a Sig Sauer compact, looked like one of the Halligan cache I'd brought down. There was a knock at the door, and then Francis Xavier Tyrrell was led in by a red-faced, straw-haired man I didn't recognize, but whom I soon found out was Brian Rowan, the Tyrrells' head man. Tyrrell looked around the room, his cheeks aflame, his sharp, intelligent features quivering with quiet anger and indignation. He wore a sleeveless padded green jacket over tweeds and a brown fedora. No one spoke. It felt as if a bunch of teenagers had been having a party and the father who had expressly forbidden them such an event had arrived home.

"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.