Jack Higgins – A Prayer for the Dying

“The bastard,” he said softly. “The little Mick bastard I’ll show him.”

He produced a half-bottle of Scotch from his pocket and took a long pull.

Father da Costa hurried into the church. He took a Host out of the ciborium and hung it in a silver pyx around his neck. He also took holy oils with him to anoint the dying woman’s ears, nose, mouth, hands and feet and went out quietly.

The church was still and quiet, only the images floating in candlelight, the drift of rain against the window. It was perhaps five minutes after Father da Costa’s departure that the door creaked open eerily and Fallon entered.

He looked about him to make sure that no one was there, then hurried down the aisle, went inside the cage and pressed the button to ascend. He didn’t go right up to the tower, stopping the cage on the other side of the canvas sheet cover-ing the hole in the roof of the nave.

It only sloped slightly and he walked across the sheeting lead and paused at the low retaining wall, sheltering in the angle of a buttress with the tower.

From here, his view of the presbytery was excellent and two tall concrete lamp-posts in the street to the left towered above the cemetery walls, throwing a band of light across the front of the house.

There was a light in one of the bedroom windows and he could see right inside the room. A wardrobe, a painting on the wall, the end of a bed and then Anna suddenly appeared wrapped in a large white towel.

From the look of things she had obviously just got out of the bath. She didn’t bother to draw the curtains, probably secure in the knowledge that she was cut off from the street by twenty-foot high walls or perhaps it was something to do with her blindness.

As Fallon watched she started to dry herself off. Strange how few women looked at their best in the altogether, he told himself, but she was more than passable. The black hair almost reached the pointed breasts and a narrow waist swelled to hips that were perhaps a trifle too large for some tastes.

She pulled on a pair of hold-up stockings, black bra and pants and a green, silk dress with a pleated skirt and started to brush her hair, perhaps the most womanly of all actions. Fallon felt strangely sad, no desire in him at all, certainly not for anything physical. Just the sudden terrible knowledge that he was looking at something he could never have on top of this earth and there was no one to blame but himself. She tied her hair back with a black ribbon and moved out of sight. A second later, the light went off.

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, dosed the gate and pressed the button to descend, his heart racing.

The sight of Anna at the window had excited Billy Median 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, dosing 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.

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