'Has it, Monsignor?'

'But of course. They sent you to Holy Name as a punishment, didn't they? To teach you a little humility and here you are, up to your ears in scandal again.' He smiled wryly, 'I can see the expression on the Bishop's face now.'

The door opened and Miller and Fitzgerald were ushered in again. Miller nodded to da Costa. 'Good morning, Father.'

Monsignor O'Halloran pushed himself up on to his feet again, conscious that somehow the situation demanded it. He said, 'I've discussed this matter with Father da Costa, Superintendent. To be perfectly frank, there doesn't seem to be a great deal I can do.'

'I see, sir.' Miller turned to Father da Costa, 'I'll ask you again, Father, and for the last time. Are you prepared to help us?'

'I'm sorry, Superintendent,' Father da Costa told him.

'So am I, Father.' Miller was chillingly formal now. 'I've discussed the situation with my chief constable and this is what I've decided to do. A report on this whole affair and your part in it goes to the Director of Public Prosecutions today to take what action he thinks fit.'

'And where do you think that will get you?' Monsignor O'Halloran asked him.

'I should think there's an excellent chance that they'll issue a warrant for the arrest of Father da Costa on a charge of being an accessory after the fact of murder.'

Monsignor O'Halloran looked grave and yet he shook his head slowly. 'You're wasting your time, Superintendent. They won't play. They'll never issue such a warrant.'

'We'll see, sir,' Miller turned and went out followed by Fitzgerald.

Monsignor O'Halloran sighed heavily and sat down. 'So there we are. Now we wait.'

'I'm sorry, Monsignor,' Father da Costa said.

'I know, Michael, I know.' O'Halloran looked up at him. 'Is there anything I can do for you? Anything at all?'

'Will you hear my confession, Monsignor?'

'Of course.'

Father da Costa moved round to the side of the desk and knelt down.

When Fallon went into the church, Anna was playing the organ. It was obviously a practice session. Hymns in the main - nothing complicated. He sat in the front pew listening and after a while she stopped playing abruptly.

He walked up the steps between the choir stalls. 'The curse of the church organist's life, hymns,' he said.

She swung round to face him. 'You're early. Uncle Michael said one o'clock.'

'I'd nothing else to do.'

She stood up. 'Would you like to play?'

'Not at the moment.'

'All right,' she said. 'Then you can take me for a walk. I could do with some air.'

Her trenchcoat was in the sacristy. He helped her on with it. It was raining heavily when they went outside, but she didn't seem concerned.

'Where would you like to go?' he asked her.

'Oh, this will do fine. I like churchyards. I find them very restful.'

She took his arm and they followed the path between the old Victorian monuments and gravestones. The searching wind chased leaves amongst the stones so that they seemed like living things crawling along the path in front of them.

They paused beside an old marble mausoleum for Fallon to light a cigarette and it was that precise moment that Billy Meehan and Varley appeared at the side gate. They saw Fallon and the girl at once and ducked back out of sight.

'See, he's still here, 'Varley said. 'Thank God fot that.'

'You go back to Paul's Square and wait for Jack,' Billy said. 'Tell him where I am. I'll keep watch here.'

Varley moved away and Billy slipped in through the gate and worked his way towards Fallon and Anna, using the monuments for cover.

Anna said, 'I'd like to thank you for what you did last night.'

'It was nothing.'

'One of the men involved was an old friend of yours. O'Hara, wasn't that his name?'

Fallon said quickly, 'No, you've got it wrong.'

'I don't think so,' she insisted. 'Uncle Michael spoke to him after you'd left, in the pub across the road. He told him a great deal about you. Belfast, Londonderry - the IRA.'

'The bastard,' Fallon said bitterly. 'He always had a big mouth, that one. Somebody will be closing his eyes with pennies one of these fine days if he isn't careful.'

'I don't think he meant any harm. Uncle Michael's impression was that he thought a great deal about you.' She hesitated and said carefully, 'Things happen in war sometimes that nobody intends.'

Fallon cut in on her sharply. 'I never go back to anything in thought or deed. It doesn't pay.' They turned into another path and he looked up at the rain. 'God, is it never going to stop? What a world. Even the bloody sky won't stop weeping.'

'You have a bitter view of life, Mr Fallon.'

'I speak as I find and as far as I am concerned, life is one hell of a name for the world as it is.'

'And is there nothing, then?' she demanded. 'Not one single solitary thing worth having in this world of yours?'

'Only you,' he said.

They were close to the presbytery now and Billy Meehan observed them closely with the aid of a pair of binoculars from behind a mausoleum.

Anna stopped walking and turned to face Fallon. 'What did you say?'

'You've no business here.' He made a sweeping gesture with one arm encompassing the whole cemetery. 'This place belongs to the dead and you're still alive.'

'And you?'

There was a long pause and then he said calmly, 'No, it's different for me. I'm a dead man walking. Have been for a long time now.'

She was to remember that remark always as one of the most terrible things she had ever heard in her life.

She stared up at him, those calm, blind eyes fixed on some point in space, and then she reached up and pulled down his head and kissed him hard, her mouth opening in a deliberately provocative gesture.

She pulled way. 'Did you feel that?' she demanded fiercely. 'Did I break through?'

'I think you could say that,' he said in some amazement.

'Good,' she said. 'I'm going in now. I want to change and then I have lunch to get ready. You'd better play the organ or something until my uncle gets back.'

'All right,' Fallon said and turned away.

He had only taken a few steps when she called, 'Oh, and Fallon?' When he turned she was standing in the porch, the door half-open. 'Think of me. Remember me. Concentrate on that. I exist. I'm real.'

She went in and closed the door and Fallon turned and walked away quickly.

It was only when he was out of sight that Billy moved from the shelter of the mausoleum holding his binoculars in one hand. Fallon and the priest's nice. Now that was interesting.

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 squeeze 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?'