A Prayer for the Dying (v5) (15 page)

Fallon shivered as the wind drove rain in his face and turned up his collar. It was very quiet, only the occasional sound of a car muted in the distance, and then, quite clearly, he heard the crunch of a foot in the gravel on the path below.

As he peered down, a figure moved out of the shadows into the light, the white shoulder-length hair identifying him at once.
Billy Meehan.
As Fallon leaned forward, the boy mounted the steps to the front door and tried the handle. It opened to his touch and he passed inside.

Fallon turned and scrambled back across the roof to the hoist. He jumped inside the cage, closed the gate and pressed the button to descend, his heart racing.

* * *

The sight of Anna at the window had excited Billy Meehan to a state where he could no longer contain himself. The ache between his legs was unbearable and the half-bottle of whisky which he had consumed had destroyed completely any last vestige of self-control.

He moved into the porch and tried the door and when it opened to his touch, he almost choked with excitement. He tiptoed inside, closing it behind him, and pushed the bolt home.

He could hear someone singing softly from a room at the end of the passage. He approached quietly and peered in through the partly opened door.

Anna was sitting at one end of a Victorian sofa, a small table at her elbow and the large sewing-box which stood on it was open, She was sewing a button on a shirt and as he watched, she reached into the mending-box, fumbled for a pair of scissors and cut the thread.

Billy took off his overcoat, dropped it to the floor and moved towards her, shaking with excitement. She was aware first of the coat dropping and then the faint sound of his approach and frowned, her face turned towards him.

'Who is it? Is anyone there?'

He paused momentarily and she stood up. Billy approached on tiptoe and as she half-turned, clutching the shirt to her, a needle in the other hand, he circled behind her.

'Who is it?' she demanded, fear in her voice.

He slipped a hand up her skirt from the rear, cupping it between her thighs and giggled. 'That's nice. You like that, don't you? Most girls like what I do to them.'

She gave a cry of horror, pulling away, turning to face him at the same moment and he reached forward and slipped a hand inside the neck of her dress feeling for a breast.

Anna cried out, her face a mask of horror. 'No, please - in the name of God! Who is it?'

'Fallon!' he said. 'It's me, Fallon!'

'Liar!' she screamed. 'Liar!' and lashed out blindly, catching him across the face.

Billy slapped her back-handed. 'I'll teach you, you bitch. I'll make you crawl.'

He knocked her back across the sofa tearing at her pants, forcing her thighs apart brutally, crushing his mouth on hers. Through the unbelievable horror of it, the nameless disgust, she was aware of his hand between his legs fumbling with the zip of his trousers and then the hardness pushing against her.

She screamed, he slapped her again, forcing her head back across the end of the sofa and her right hand, grabbing at the table for support, fastened upon the scissors. She was almost unconscious by then so that as the darkness flooded over her, she was not aware of her hand swinging convulsively, driving the scissors up under the ribs with all the force of which she was capable, piercing the heart and killing him instantly.

Finding the front door barred. Fallon had only been able to gain entry by breaking a kitchen window. He arrived in the sitting-room to find Billy Meehan sprawled across the unconscious girl and hurled himself on him. It was only in dragging him away that he saw the handle of the scissors protruding beneath the ribs.

He picked her up in his arms and carried her upstairs. The first room he tried was obviously her uncle's, but the second was hers and he laid her on the bed and covered her with an eiderdown.

He sat there holding her hand and after a while her eyelids flickered. She started violently and tried to pull her hands away.

Fallon said soothingly, 'There, now, it's me - Martin Fallon. You're all right now. You've nothing to worry about.'

She gave a great shuddering sigh. 'Thank God! Thank God! What happened?'

'Can't you remember?'

'Only this dreadful man. He said he was you and then he tried to ... he tried to ...' She shuddered. 'Oh, God, the feel of his hands. It was horrible. Horrible. I fainted, I think.'

'That's right,' Fallon said calmly. 'Then I arrived and he ran away.'

She turned her face to him, those blind eyes focusing to one side. 'Did you see who it was?'

'I'm afraid not.'

'Was it...' She hesitated. 'Do you think Meehan was behind it?'

'I should imagine so.'

She closed her eyes and when Fallon gently took her hand, she pulled it away convulsively. It was as if for the moment she could not bear the touch of a man - any man.

He steeled himself for the obvious question. 'Did he have his way with you?'

'No, I don't think so.'

'Would you like me to get you a doctor?'

'For God's sake, no, not that. The very idea that anyone should know fills me with horror.'

'And your uncle?'

'He's attending a dying woman at the infirmary. He could be hours.'

Fallon stood up. 'All right - stay here and rest. I'll bring you a brandy.'

She closed her eyes again. The lids were pale, translucent. She seemed very vulnerable and Fallon went down the stairs full of controlled, ice-cold anger.

He dropped to one knee beside Billy Meehan, took out a handkerchief, wrapped it around the handle of the scissors and pulled them out. There was very little blood and obviously most of the bleeding was internal.

He cleaned the scissors, then went to the door and picked up the boy's overcoat. Some car keys fell to the floor. He picked them up mechanically, then draped the coat across the body.

As he looked down at it, he was conscious only of disgust and loathing. The world was well rid of Billy Meehan. His ending had been richly deserved, but could Anna da Costa live with the knowledge that she had killed him? And even if the verdict of the court was as it should be - even if she were exonerated, the whole world would know. At the thought of the shame, the humiliation for that gentle creature, Fallon's anger was so great that he kicked the corpse in the side.

And in the same moment, a thought came to him that was so incredible it almost took his breath away. What if she didn't have to know, now or ever? What if Billy Meehan vanished utterly and completely from the face of the earth as if he had never existed? There was a way. It could be done. In any event, he owed it to her to try.

The keys which had fallen from the overcoat pocket indicated the presence of Billy's car somewhere in the vicinity and if it was the red Scimitar, it should be easy enough to find. Fallon let himself out of the front door, hurried through the cemetery to the side gate.

The Scimitar was parked at the kerb only a few yards away. He unlocked the tailgate and when he opened it, Tommy, the grey whippet, barked once, then nuzzled his hand. The presence of the dog was unfortunate, but couldn't be helped. Fallon closed the tailgate and hurried back to the presbytery.

He pulled off the overcoat and went through the boy's pockets systematically, emptying them of everything they held. He removed a gold medallion on a chain around the neck, a signet ring and a wrist-watch and put them in his pocket, then he wrapped the body in the overcoat, heaved it over his shoulder and went out.

He paused at the gate to make sure that the coast was clear, but the street was silent and deserted. He crossed to the Scimitar quickly, heaved up the tailgate with one hand and dumped the body inside. The whippet started to whine almost immediately and he closed the tailgate quickly and went back to the presbytery.

He washed the scissors thoroughly in hot water in the kitchen, went back to the sitting-room and replaced them in the mending-box. Then he poured a little brandy in a glass and took it upstairs.

She was already half asleep, but sat up to drink the brandy. Fallon said, 'What about your uncle? Do you want him to know what happened?'

'Yes - yes, I think so. It's right that he should know.'

'All right,' Fallon said, and he tucked the quilt around her. 'Go to sleep now. I'll be downstairs. You've nothing to worry about. I'll wait till your uncle comes back.'

'He might be hours,' she said sleepily.

'That's all right.'

He walked to the door, 'I'm sorry to be such a nuisance,' she whispered.

'I brought you to this,' he said. 'If it hadn't been for me none of this would have happened.'

'It's pointless to talk like that,' she said. 'There's a purpose to everything under heaven - a reason - even for my blindness. We can't always see it because we're such little people, but it's there.'

He was strangely comforted by her words, God knows why, and said softly, 'Go to sleep now,' and closed the door.

Time, now, was the critical factor and he quietly let himself out of the front door and hurried through the churchyard to the Scimitar.

Strangely enough, the whippet gave him no trouble during the drive. It crouched in the rear beside the body, whining only occasionally, although when he put a hand on it, it was trembling.

He approached Pine Trees Crematorium by the back lane Varley had used that morning, getting out of the car to open the five-barred gate that led into the estate. He followed the same narrow track down through the cypress trees, cutting the engine for the last hundred yards which was slightly downhill. Not that it mattered, for as he remembered it, the superintendent's house and the main gate were a good quarter of a mile from the crematorium itself, so noise was really no problem.

He left the Scimitar at the side of the chapel and gained access by reaching in through the broken pane in the lavatory which he had noticed during his visit that morning and unfastening the window itself.

The chapel door had a Yale lock so it opened easily enough from the inside. He returned to the Scimitar. There was a torch in the glove compartment which he slipped into his pocket, then he raised the tailgate and heaved the body over his shoulder. The whippet tried to follow, but he managed to shove it back inside with his free hand and closed the tailgate again.

He gained access to the furnace room by sliding the body along the rollers of the movable belt and crawling through after it himself, following the route the coffin had taken that morning.

The furnaces were cold and dark. He opened the door of the first one and shoved the body inside. Next he produced the various items he had taken from Billy Meehan's pockets and examined them in the light of the torch. Those things which would burn, he placed on top of the body. The ring, the watch and the medal he put back in his pocket. Then he closed the oven door and pressed the switch.

He could hear the muted rumble of the gas jets as they roared into life and peered inside. What was it Meehan had said? An hour at the most. He lit a cigarette, opened the back door and went outside.

The sound of the furnace in operation was barely discernible outside the building. Not at all when he moved a few yards away. He went back inside to see what was happening. The gauge was just coming up to the thousand degrees centigrade mark and as he peered through the observation panel in the door, the wallet he had left on the body's chest burst into flames. The clothing was already smouldering, there was a sudden bright flash and the whole body started to burn.

He lit another cigarette, went and stood at the back door and waited.

At the end of the specified period he switched off. There was part of the skull, the pelvic girdle and some of the limbs clearly visible, and much of this crumbled into even smaller pieces at the first touch of the rake.

He filled the tin box, found a handbrush and shovel, carefully swept up every trace of ash that he could see, then closed the furnace door leaving it exactly as he had found it. Certainly all heat would be dissipated again before the morning.

He found an empty urn, screwed it on the bottom of the pulveriser then poured in the contents of the tin box. He clamped down the lid and switched on. While he was waiting, he opened the desk drawer and helped himself to a blank Rest-in-Peace card. When he switched off about two minutes later and unscrewed the urn, all that was left of Billy Meehan was about five pounds of grey ash.

He walked along the path to the point Meehan had taken him to that morning until he came across a gardener's wheelbarrow and various tools, indicating where the man had stopped work that afternoon.

Fallon checked the number plate and strewed the ashes carefully. Then he took a besom from the wheelbarrow and worked them well in. When he was satisfied, he replaced the besom exactly as he had found it, turned and walked away.

It was when he reached the Scimitar that he ran into his first snag for as he opened the door to get behind the wheel, the whippet slipped through his legs and scampered away.

Fallon went after it fast. It went round the corner of the chapel and followed the path he had just used. When he reached the place where he had strewn the ashes, the whippet was crouching in the wet grass, whining very softly.