Free The Price of Blood by Declan Hughes

Jackie Tyrrell were the Queen and she’d just put me on the spot.
    "Do you breed, Jackie?" I said.
    "Not as a rule, but with you, I’d make an exception," she said, and blew me a kiss. She sat back and poked Seán Proby in the ribs, and he dutifully exploded with laughter again. I looked at Miranda Hart, who leant in and said quickly and quietly, "They were at Gowran Park, they’ve been going since lunchtime."
    The starters came, and we ate in silence. Jackie put her face down and shoveled onion soup and bread into it. At length she resurfaced, flush-cheeked and panting. Little beads of sweat dotted her mysteriously unlined brow, and frosted the tiny soft hairs above her upper lip.
    "I don’t breed anymore," she announced. "I used to look after that side of things for Frank. The Tyrrellscourt Stud. Still going strong. I’ve a good eye for a horse still, though. I’ll go on a trip with him, when he’s buying. As long as he’s buying."
    "No one is allowed to call F. X. Tyrrell Frank except Jackie," said Seán Proby, the first coherent utterance he had made in my hearing.
    "Well, no one does, at any rate, "Jackie said. "Maybe no one wants to."
    "How was Gowran today?" Miranda said to Proby.
    "Not bad," Proby said. "Nothing like a small country meeting. Jack was working, of course; I was merely Mrs. Tyrrell’s lunch companion. But we did all right."
    "The bookies always do," snapped Jackie.
    "The Tyrrell horses underperformed nicely," Miranda said.
    Jackie smiled thinly at this.
    "Leopardstown’s the main event," she said. "The ground was too firm today anyway."
    "Did Jack of Hearts place?" I said.
    "Won the first by four lengths at six to one. Held up well," Proby said.
    "Why the interest?" Jackie said. I had the impression she was playing with me.
    "It just caught my eye."
    "I thought it might be because of its owner. You know who owns it, of course."
    "Do I?"
    "I think you do, Edward Loy. After all, when you’re not writing books about horse racing in Ireland, which I would say is all of the time, you hire yourself out as a private detective. And a while back you had a hand in putting away Podge Halligan, the drug dealer, also the brother of George Halligan, who owns Jack of Hearts. Miranda, why did you think it necessary to fabricate an absurd identity for Mr. Loy? A writer, of all things. Everyone knows writers are all badly dressed overweight cantankerous faux-humble alcoholics with a chip on each shoulder and a grudge against the world. And that’s just the women."
    Miranda looked like a schoolgirl hauled before the head mistress; she stared at her plate in silence, her face burning.
    "It was my idea," I said.
    "And gallant too. Tall and gallant. We don’t see many of you round here anymore. You’re not gay, are you?"
    Seán Proby shook his head.
    "Absolutely not," he said.
    "Seán’s my gaydar when it comes to men. Are you working, Ed Loy?"
    "He’s looking for Patrick," Miranda said, her voice thick with emotion. She choked back what might have been a sob, then muttered an apology and fled to the loo. The waiter came and took our plates. I watched Jackie Tyrrell closely, but her expression was blank; she gave nothing away. When the table had been cleared, and Seán Proby had gone outside for a smoke, she smiled keenly at me.
    "You know about Patrick Hutton and the Halligans?" she said.
    I shook my head.
    "Patrick and Leo—" she began, and then stopped as cutlery arrived for the main course. She repeated the names when the waiter had gone, her eyes dancing, then stopped again as Miranda came back to the table, eye makeup freshly and thickly applied.
    "I’ll tell him about that myself, Jackie, if it’s all right with you," Miranda said, quite sharply to my ears.
    "But of course, my darling, of course," Jackie said, all charm.
    "He was my husband, and I think I’m best placed to know what’s important and what’s just rumor and innuendo, don’t you?"
    Jackie Tyrrell gave Miranda Hart what looked to me