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touch with Rob Taylor, who will be off the circuit for a few more months recovering from the wrist injury he suffered in Florida. And I have a surprise that I think will please you all very much.”
    She stopped to enjoy the swivel of curious faces in her direction. But Hy looked in puzzlement down the table to Roch. Had he not told her? The guilty expression in Roch’s apologetic eyes gave him his answer.

CHAPTER TWO
    March, 1992, Mt Armand
    L iam O’Hagan was in charge of Le Centre for the whole day. He could not remember a time since his arrival there six months ago at the tail end of the show season when his boss, Roch Laurin, had left the stables for more than a few hours. And then there was always someone higher up in charge: Bridget or Fran, or Michel, Roch’s son. True, Gilles Lefebvre, Roch’s nephew, was here today, but he was junior to everyone. So was Benoit Desrochers, whose main job was to muck out mornings and afternoons and strip–clean the stalls on a rotational basis.
    There was Jocelyne, who only looked after Michel’s horses, though she was supposed to help in the barn if needed, and she was working today. Jocelyne didn’t count either. But the others, the higher–ups, were all of them away, and Roch had seemed confident about Liam looking after things. He’d left early in the morning with the owner–the Jew Jacobson–for Ottawa, and would probably only be back late in the afternoon.
    Of course there were no lessons scheduled to create additional hubbub and work, and few, if any, of the private clients would go out hacking in this bloody freezing weather, killing it was, he’d never get used to it. Not that he intended to. He gave this job another few months at most. Until he’d fulfilled his mission . Then he’d be off. To somewhere warm. Georgia, maybe. Bremen. There was activity there of the kind he was now addicted to. And horses, of course. Where there were horses, there was work for Liam O’Hagan.
    Liam thought about what form his mission might take. It was a shame that it always came down to getting even, but there it was. In his earlier life, the word itself–revenge–had been charged with emotion, guilt and pain. Growing up in Belfast, seeing the wreckage and sometimes the bodies, feeling the suffering and anger of the grown–ups, hearing the gruesome stories, dreaming his own death night after night, he had used to think he would give anything to live in a world without conflict.
    But it was terrible to be hated, a terrible thing. And not by one or two people, but by everyone around you. That’s how it had been since he left Ireland. And it had been hard to bear. Hard to be mocked and ostracized by the English riders in the barns where he always found work. Equally hard to be ignored and isolated by the grooms and the other lads. They all thought they were so superior .
    He’d been lucky to get away from Belfast and Ireland altogether. He was under suspicion by association, and could probably never go back. His brother Mick now, he’d been locked up for all these years, and who knew for how many more? For what? For nothing. For keeping a few bits and pieces in the cellar for his mates.
    Liam looked up and down the 130 ft. main aisle. He patrolled it to make sure the horses were all finishing their lunch, water running free from the automatic dispensers, none of them off his feed or restless or lying down too long. All the horses here were boarders and school horses, except the two stalls facing each other at the very end under the window.
    Those belonged to Rockin’ Robin, Bridget’s stallion, and his nine–year old get, Robin’s Song, a gelding, owned by a Mrs. Ankstrom in Toronto. Jocelyne had told him the lady’s daughter had died in a terrible fall riding him in a Three–Day Event last year. She had told him so he wouldn’t ask dumb questions around Bridget. It was a sensitive point apparently, as the lady had never agreed to its being her daughter’s fault, and