He was about to turn away when a movement at one of the presbytery windows caught his eye. He moved back into cover and raised the binoculars.
Anna was standing at the window and as he watched, she started to unbutton her blouse. His mouth went dry, a hand seemed to squee2e his insides and when she unzipped her skirt and stepped out of it, his hands, clutching the binoculars, started to shake.
The bitch, he thought, and she’s Fallon’s woman. Fallon’s. The ache between his thighs was almost unbearable and he turned and hurried away.
Fallon had been playing the organ for just over an hour when he paused for breath. It had been a long time and his hands were aching, but it was good to get down to it again.
He turned and found Father da Costa sitting in the front pew watching him, arms folded. “How long have you been there?” Fallon got up and started down the steps between the choir stalls.
“Half and hour, maybe more,” Father da Costa said. “You’re brilliant, you know that, don’t you?”
“Used to be.”
“Before you took up the gun for dear old mother Ireland and that glorious cause?”
Fallon went very still. When he spoke, it was almost in a whisper. “That’s of no interest to you.”
“It’s of every interest,” Father da Costa told him. “To me in particular, for obvious reasons. Good God, man, how could you do what you’ve done and you with so much music in you?”
“Sir Philip Sidney was reputed to be the most perfect of all knights of the court of Elizabeth Tudor,” Fallon said. “He composed music and wrote poetry like an angel. In his lighter moments, he and Sir Walter Raleigh herded Irishmen to-gether into convenient spots and butchered them like cattle.”
“All right,” Father da Costa said. Point taken. But is that how you see yourself? As a soldier?”
“My father was.” Fallon sat back on the altar rail. “He was a sergeant in the Parachute Regiment Killed at Amhem fighting for the English. There’s irony for you.”
“And what happened to you?”
“My grandfather raised me. He had a hill farm in the Sperrins. Sheep mostly – a few horses. I ran happily enough, wild and barefooted, till the age of seven when the new schoolmaster, who was also organist of the church, discovered I had perfect pitch. Life was never the same after that.”
“And you went to Trinity College?”
Fallon frowned slightly. “Who told you that?5
“Your friend O’Hara. Did you take a degree?”
There was sudden real humour in Fallon’s eyes. “Would you
“I30
believe me, now, Father, if I told you the farm boy became a doctor of music, no less?”
“Why not?” da Costa replied calmly. “Beethoven’s mother was a cook, but never mind that. The other? How did that start?”
“Time and chance. I went to stay with a cousin of mine in Belfast one weekend in August “I969. He lived in the Falls Road. You may remember what happened.”
Father da Costa nodded gravely. “I think so.”
“An Orange mob led by B specials swarmed in bent on burning every Catholic house in the area to the ground. They were stopped by a handful of IRA men who took to the streets to defend the area.”
“And you became involved.”
“Somebody gave me a rifle, let’s put it that way, and I discovered a strange thing. What I aimed at, I hit.”
“You were a natural shot.”
“Exactly.” Fallon’s face was dark and suddenly, he took the Ceska out of his pocket. “When I hold this, when my finger’s on the trigger, a strange thing happens. It becomes an exten-sion, and extension of me personally. Does that make sense?”
“Oh, yes,” Father da Costa said. “But of the most horrible kind. So you continued to kill.”
“To fight,” Fallon said, his face stony, and he slipped the Ceska back inside his pocket. “As a soldier of the Irish Republican Army.”
“And it became easier? Each time it became easier.”
Fallon straightened slowly. His eyes were very dark. He made no reply.
Father da Costa said, “I’ve just come from a final showdown with Superintendent Miller. Would you be interested to know what he intends?” ,