“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 nu2zled 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 dosed 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, Tm 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.