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toward the Angelsea entrance. It was an ancient animal with wicker panniers and red-and-white check ribbons tied through the braids in its mane. Its gait was stiff and arthritic.
    “And there too. Especially there.”
    “Don’t want much, do you?” Flynn raised an arm and the lights went on. The tape was over.
    “How ’bout yourself?” McGarr went to reach for his flask once more, but Flynn stayed him.
    “How many times does this make it?”
    “Make what?”
    “That you’ve seen this thing.”
    “I don’t know. A couple. Three.”
    Flynn closed his eyes and shook his head. “Six.”
    “Well.” McGarr stood up. “I don’t think you’d deny that it’s a work of art.”
    “I’d be the last. The last. But I smell a rat.”
    “You mean you’ve got smell on that thing along with voice? Next thing I know you’ll be telling me it’s got touch and I can go to the ‘feelies’ anytime I choose. You’ll make matrimony passé.”
    Flynn only looked down into his cup and shook his head. “Now you really do owe me one.
    “You know, the last man to watch this thing had to pay for it.”
    McGarr only stared at him, his gray eyes clear and unblinking.
    “Bechel-Gore paid us to make a copy of the tape.”
    “When?”
    “A couple of months ago.”
    “He say why?”
    “Something about wanting to correct his style in the saddle. Caught me by surprise—didn’t think a character like him would have a sense of humor.”
    Already McGarr was out in the hall of the modern building, moving quickly toward the door. “Shall I wait for the tape or do you want to send it to me?”
    “Wait, wait. Jesus! I’ll get it for you myself.”
    Moments later, McGarr was pushing through the glass doors that opened on the parking lot, Flynn right behind him.
    A gust of wind, hot and wet, struck them. On the eastern horizon a bank of clouds, a storm front, had passed in front of the sun and shone like hot, burnished silver. The light in the parking lot was yellow and filmy. In a way, McGarr wished it would rain.
    “So you believe all his nonsense about the horse being spooked?”
    “I always did.”
    “Point is—can you prove it?”
    McGarr only canted his head. The whole thing—having again seen Keegan’s face in the photo at the apartment of his murdered sister—could be a mere coincidence, but he didn’t think so.
    “Still—it hasn’t stopped him much.”
    “Who?”
    “Bechel-Gore.”
    McGarr placed the canister on the passenger seat of the Cooper and straightened up. The rear of the small car was filled with hat-boxes. “How do you mean?”
    “He’s got a horse in the internationals this year.”
    “For Ireland?”
    Flynn nodded.
    “Isn’t that a switch?”
    “It could be, but then again the horse is Kestral.”
    McGarr turned to Flynn. “Is he cracked?”
    “Maybe, but surely his rider is.”
    Once more McGarr only stared at Flynn.
    “His wife, Grainne.” He tapped his forehead. “She’s beautiful, there’s no denying that, but a sad case.”
    McGarr blinked. “But can she ride the horse?”
    “So it would seem. She’s been winning with the mare right along. Came away with the whole bit at the Royal Windsor—puissance and the time trials. Don’t you read the papers, Inspector, or—” he eyed him, “—watch the news on TV?
    “Will you keep me in the picture?”
    “About what?”
    “You’re onto something here, I can tell.”
    “How?” McGarr turned the switch and the small, powerful engine of the Cooper sprang to life.
    “You tell me what you’re doing here the morning after a murder, messing about with a case that’s at least a year old.”
    McGarr sighed and slid the shift into first. “You should have been a detective, Dermot.”
    “I hope you’ll remember that when I get the sack.”
    McGarr waved and let out the clutch.
     
    Ward didn’t see McGarr pull the Cooper around the lemon-yellow convertible that was stopped at the guardhouse, waiting for a parking pass to be issued.