A Prayer for the Dying - Jack Higgins [59]
'Thanks,' he said. 'Don't wait up for me.'
The door banged and he was gone. She stood there for a moment, staring into space sadly and then she returned to her ironing.
Anna da Costa was about to get into the bath when she heard the phone ringing. She put on a robe and went downstairs, arriving in the hall as her uncle replaced the receiver.
'What is it?' she asked.
'The Infirmary. The old Italian lady I visited the other day. She's had a relapse. They expect her to die some time tonight. I'll have to go.'
She took down his coat from the hallstand and held it out for him. He opened the front door and they moved out into the porch. The rain was pouring down.
'I'll walk,' he said. 'It's not worth taking the van. Will you be all right?'
'Don't worry about me,' she said. 'How long will you be?'
'God knows, probably several hours. Don't wait up for me.'
He plunged into the rain and hurried down the path passing a magnificent Victorian mausoleum, the pride of the cemetery with its bronze doors and marble porch. Billy Meehan dropped back into the shadows of the porch quickly, but when the priest had gone past, he moved forward again.
He had heard the exchange at the door and a cold finger of excitement moved in his belly. He had already had intercourse twice that night with a prostitute, not that it had been any good. He didn't seem to be able to get any satisfaction any more. He'd intended going home and then he'd remembered Anna - Anna at the window undressing.
He'd only been lurking in the shadows of that porch for ten minutes, but he was already bitterly cold and rain drifted in on the wind. He thought of Fallon, the humiliation of the previous night, and his face contorted.
'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 covering 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