The Price of Blood by Declan Hughes

Author:Declan Hughes [Hughes, Declan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2010-08-01T07:00:00+00:00

FIFTEEN

Regina Tyrrell walked me down to the lobby. At reception, a tall slim girl of about nine or ten with long dark hair and dark eyes was waiting. When she saw Regina she ran to her and kissed her.

"Karen, meet Edward Loy. Ed Loy, Karen Tyrrell. My daughter."

I shook the girl’s hand, trying to fix a smile on my face. Her daughter? Behind the girl stood a slim male figure in his sixties, immaculate in tweed jacket, cavalry twill trousers, polished tan brogues, Tattersall shirt and cravat; only a small swollen belly betrayed F. X. Tyrrell’s age. His weathered face had the same prominent cheekbones his brother’s had; his eyes were smaller, but the same deep brown as his sister’s; his lips were fleshy and loose. He had the quiet, watchful, half-sad, half-amused air of a man well used to having people report and defer to him; Regina, while not exactly going that far, seemed to genuflect an apology in his direction, which he dispelled with a half smile.

"I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Tyrrell," I said.

He nodded to acknowledge my sympathy, and again to deflect it, gesturing toward the child. Everywhere in the lobby people were trying not to stare at F. X. Tyrrell and failing; they probably would have done so anyway, but with shy smiles on their faces; a glance at the pile of Evening Heralds at reception explained why they weren’t smiling today: OMEGA MAN KILLS TRAINER’S EX-WIFE, screamed the headline. I quickly scanned the story. They still hadn’t ID’d Hutton. When I turned back, it was to Karen Tyrrell alone; Regina had drawn F.X. off down the steps to one side, and they were locked in conversation. Karen smiled at me, and I smiled back.

"Do you have any children?" she said.

I couldn’t really explain, not to a child.

"Yes," I said. "A little girl. She’d be about your age now."

"I’m nine," Karen said. "What’s her name?"

"Lily," I said, and then heard myself saying: "She lives with her mother. In America."

"I live with my mother too," Karen said. "And Uncle Francis, but he’s never there, and even when he is, he isn’t. If that makes sense. Sometimes I don’t make too much sense, Mum says."

"It sounds sensible to me," I said. "A lot of men are like that."

"I wouldn’t know. My dad’s dead," she said gravely.

"I’m sorry," I said.

"I suppose. I never knew him. I don’t think Mum knew him very well either. She doesn’t even have a photograph of him."

Karen had been surveying the come-and-go around the room while we talked; now she looked up at me through eyes widened to express her bemusement at the scant trail her father had left. Her gaze left me reeling, and I felt as if it was setting me a challenge which, if met, could solve the mystery of the Tyrrells and of the killer who could be on their trail. For Karen Tyrrell’s eyes were not identical: one was brown, and one was dark blue.

Regina joined us and told me her brother was waiting to speak to me outside the hotel.

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