He stood up and pulled on his coat. She sat there, horror on her face and reached out a hand as if to touch him, pawing at space. He helped her to her feet and placed her coat about her shoulders.
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“And please God, you never should,” he told her softly. “Come on now and I’ll take you home.”
They went down the altar steps and out through the sac-risty. The door closed behind them. There was a moment of silence and then Billy Meehan stood up.
“Thank God for that. Can we kindly get the hell out of here now?”
“You can, not me,” Meehan told him. “Find Fallon and stick to him like glue.”
“But I thought that was Varley’s job?”
“So now I’m putting you on to it. Tell Varley to wait outside.”
“And what about you,” Billy said sullenly.
“Oh, I’ll wait here for the priest to get back. Time we had a word.” He sighed and stretched his arms. “I like it here. Nice and peaceful in the dark with all those candles flickering away there. Gives a fella time to think.” Billy hesitated as if trying to find some suitable reply and Meehan said irritably, “Go on, piss off out of it for Christ’s sake. I’ll see you later.”
He leaned back, arms folded, and dosed his eyes and Billy left by the front entrance to do as he was told.
It was raining hard in the cemetery. As they moved along the path to the presbytery, Fallon slipped her arm in his.
“Sometimes I think it’s never going to stop,” she said. It’s been like this for days.”
“I know,” he said.
They reached the front door, she opened it and paused in the porch while Fallon stood at the bottom of the steps looking up at her.
“Nothing seems to make sense to me any longer,” she said. “I don’t understand you or what’s happened today or any part of it – not after hearing you play. It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t fit.”
He smiled up at her gently. “Go in now, girl dear, out of the cold. Stay safe in your own small world.”
Not now,” she said. “How can I? You’ve made me an accessory now, isn’t that what they call it? I could have spoken up, but I didn’t.”
It was the most terrible thing she could have said to him. He said hoarsely. “Then why didn’t you?”
“I gave my uncle my word, had you forgotten? And I would not hurt him for worlds.”
Fallon moved back into the rain very softly, She called from the porch, “Mr.. Fallon, are you there?”
He didn’t reply. She stood there for a moment longer, uncertainty on her face, then went in and dosed the door. Fallon turned and moved back along the path.
Billy had been watching them from the shelter of a large Victorian mausoleum, or rather, he had been watching Anna. “She was different from the girls he was used to. Quiet, lady-like and yet she had an excellent figure. There was plenty of warmth beneath that cool exterior, he was certain of that, and the fact of her blindness made his stomach churn, exciting some perversity inside hi™ and he got an almost instant erection.
Fallon paused, hands cupped to light a cigarette, and Billy drew back out of sight.
Fallon said, “All right, Billy, I’m ready to go home now. Since you’re here, you can drive me back to Jenny’s place.”
Billy hesitated, then stepped reluctantly into the open. “Think you’re bleeding smart, don’t you?”
“To be smarter than you doesn’t take much, sonny,” Fallon told him. “And another thing. If I catch you hanging around here again, I’ll be very annoyed.”
“Why don’t you go stuff yourself,” Billy told him furiously.
He turned and walked rapidly towards the gate. Fallon was smiling as he went after him.
The city mortuary was built like a fort and encircled by twenty-foot walls of red brick to keep out prying eyes. When Miller’s car reached the main entrance the driver got out and spoke into a voice box on the wall. He climbed back behind the wheel. A moment later the great steel gate slid back automatically and they passed into an inner courtyard.