A Prayer for the Dying

Fallon judged her to be in her late twenties with black shoulder-length hair and a grave, steady face. One of those plain faces that for some strange reason you found yourself looking at twice.

He got ready to explain himself as she approached, but she stared straight through him as if he wasn’t there. And then, as she went by, he noticed the occasional tap with the stick against the end of a tomb – familiar friends.

She paused and turned, a slight, uncertain frown on her face. ‘Is anyone there?’ she called in a calm, pleasant voice.

Fallon didn’t move a muscle. She stayed there for a moment longer, then turned and continued along the path. When she reached a small door at the end of the church, she took out a yale key, opened it and went inside.

Fallon went out through the side gate and round to the main entrance. When he pushed open the door and went inside he was conscious of the familiar odour and smiled wryly.

‘Incense, candles and the holy water,’ he said softly and his fingers dipped in the bowl as he went past in a kind of reflex action.

It had a sort of charm and somewhere in the dim past, some-body had obviously spent a lot of money on it. There was Victorian stained glass and imitation medieval carvings everywhere. Gargoyles, skulls, imagination running riot.

Scaffolding lifted in a spider’s web to support the nave at the altar end and it was very dark except for the sanctuary lamp and candles flickering before the Virgin.

The girl was seated at the organ behind the choir stalls. She started to play softly. Just a few tentative chords at first and then, as Fallon started to walk down the centre aisle, she moved into the opening of the Bach Prelude and Fugue in D Major.

And she was good. He stood at the bottom of the steps, listening, then started up. She stopped at once and swung round.

‘Is anyone there?’

‘I’m sorry if I disturbed you,’ he told her. ‘I was enjoying listening.’

There was that slight, uncertain smile on her face again. She seemed to be waiting, so he carried on. ‘If I might make a suggestion?’

‘You play the organ?’

‘Used to. Look, that trumpet stop is a reed. Unreliable at the best of times, but in a damp atmosphere like this –’ he shrugged. ‘It’s so badly out of tune it’s putting everything else out. I’d leave it in if I were you.’

‘Why, thank you,’ she said. ‘I’ll try that.’

She turned back to the organ and Fallon went down the steps to the rear of the church and sat in a pew in the darkest corner he could find.

She played the Prelude and Fugue right through and he sat there, eyes closed, arms folded. And his original judgement still stood. She was good – certainly worth listening to.

When she finished after half an hour or so, she gathered up her things and came down the steps. She paused at the bottom and waited, perhaps sensing that he was still there, but he made no sign and after a moment, she went into the sacristy.

And in the darkness at the back of the church, Fallon sat waiting.

3 (#ulink_6aebe22a-794d-50cd-8b5f-5e5213e1ed1a)

Miller (#ulink_6aebe22a-794d-50cd-8b5f-5e5213e1ed1a)

Father da Costa was just finishing his second cup of tea in the cemetery superintendent’s office when there was a knock at the door and a young police constable came in.

‘Sorry to bother you again, Father, but Mr Miller would like a word with you.’

Father da Costa stood up. ‘Mr Miller?’ he said.

‘Detective-Superintendent Miller, sir. He’s head of the CID.’

It was still raining heavily when they went outside. The forecourt was crammed with police vehicles and as they walked along the narrow path, there seemed to be police everywhere, moving through the rhododendron bushes.

The body was exactly where he had left it although it was now partially covered with a groundsheet. A man in an overcoat knelt on one knee beside it making some sort of preliminary examination. He was speaking in a low voice into a portable dictaphone and what looked like a doctor’s bag was open on the ground beside him.

There were police here everywhere, too, in uniform and out. Several of them were taking careful measurements with tapes. The others were searching the ground area.

The young detective-inspector who had his statement, was called Fitzgerald. He was standing to one side, talking to a tall, thin, rather scholarly-looking man in a belted raincoat. When he saw da Costa, he came across at once.

‘There you are, Father. This is Detective-Superintendent Miller.’

Miller shook hands. He had a thin face and patient brown eyes. Just now he looked very tired.

He said, ‘A bad business, Father.’

‘It is indeed,’ da Costa said.

‘As you can see, we’re going through the usual motions and Professor Lawlor here is making a preliminary report. He’ll do an autopsy this afternoon. On the other hand, because of the way it happened you’re obviously the key to the whole affair. If I might ask you a few more questions?’

‘Anything I can do, of course, but I can assure you that Inspector Fitzgerald was most efficient. I don’t think there can be anything he overlooked.’

Fitzgerald looked suitably modest and Miller smiled. ‘Father, I’ve been a policeman for nearly twenty-five years and if I’ve learned one thing, it’s that there’s always something and it’s usually that something which wins cases.’

Professor Lawlor stood up. ‘I’ve finished here, Nick,’ he said. ‘You can move him.’ He turned to da Costa. ‘You said, if I got it right from Fitzgerald, that he was down on his right knee at the edge of the grave.’ He walked across. ‘About here?’

‘That’s correct.’

Lawlor turned to Miller. ‘It fits, he must have glanced up at the crucial moment and his head would naturally be turned to the right. The entry wound is about an inch above the outer corner of the left eye.’

‘Anything else interesting?’ Miller asked.

‘Not really. Entry wound a quarter of an inch in diameter. Very little bleeding. No powder marking. No staining. Exterior wound two inches in diameter. Explosive type with disruptions of the table of the skull and lacerations of the right occipital lobe of the brain. The wound is two inches to the right of the exterior occipital protuberance.’

‘Thank you, Doctor Kildare,’ Miller said.

Professor Lawlor turned to Father da Costa and smiled. ‘You see, Father, medicine has its jargon, too, just like the Church. What I’m really trying to say is that he was shot through the skull at close quarters – but not too close.’

He picked up his bag. ‘The bullet shouldn’t be too far away, or what’s left of it,’ he said as he walked off.

‘Thank you for reminding me,’ Miller called ironically.

Fitzgerald had crossed to the doorway and now he came back, shaking his head. ‘They’re making a plaster cast of those footprints, but we’re wasting our time. He was wearing galoshes. Another thing, we’ve been over the appropriate area with a tooth comb and there isn’t a sign of a cartridge case.’

Miller frowned and turned to da Costa. ‘You’re certain he was using a silencer?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘You seem very sure.’