9

The Executioner

The wind howled through the city like a living thing, driving rain before it, clearing the streets, rattling old window frames, tapping at the glass like some invisible presence.

When Billy Meehan went into Jenny Fox's bedroom, she was standing in front of the mirror combing her hair. She was wearing the black pleated mini skirt, dark stockings, patent-leather, high-heeled shoes and a white blouse. She looked extremely attractive.

As she turned, Billy closed the door and said softly, 'Nice, very nice. He's still in his room, isn't he?'

'He said he was going out again, though.'

'We'll have to change his mind then, won't we?' Billy went and sat on the bed. 'Come here.'

She fought to control the instant panic that threatened to choke her, the disgust that made her flesh crawl as she moved towards him.

He slipped his hands under her skirt, fondling the warm flesh at the top of the stockings. 'That's a good girl. He'll like that. They always do.' He stared up at her, that strange, dreamy look in his eyes again. 'You muck this up for me, you'll be in trouble. I mean, I'd have to punish you and you wouldn't like that, would you?'

Her heart thudded painfully, 'Please, Billy! Please!'

'Then do it right. I want to see what makes this guy tick.'

He pushed her away, got up and moved to a small picture on the wall. He removed it carefully. There was a tiny peephole underneath, skilfully placed and he peered through.

After a few moments, he turned and nodded. 'Just taken his shirt off. Now you get in there and remember - I'll be watching.'

His mouth was slack, his hands trembling a little and she turned, choking back her disgust, opened the door and slipped outside.

Fallon was standing at the washbasin, stripped to the waist, lather on his face, when she knocked on the door and went in. He turned to greet her, a bone-handled cut-throat razor in one hand.

She leaned against the door. 'Sorry about the razor. It was all I could find.'

That's all right.' He smiled. 'My father had one of these. Wouldn't use anything else till the day he died.'

A line of ugly, puckered scars cut across his abdomen down into the left hip. Her eyes widened. 'What happened?'

He glanced down. 'Oh, that - a machine-gun burst. One of those times I should have moved faster than I did.'

'Were you in the army?'

'In a manner of speaking.'

He turned back to the mirror to finish shaving. She moved across and stood beside him. He smiled sideways, crookedly, stretching his mouth for the razor.

'You look nice enough to eat. Going somewhere?'

There was that warmth again, that pricking behind her eyes and she suddenly realised, with a sense of wonder, just how much she had come to like this strange, small man, and in the same moment remembered Billy watching her every move on the other side of that damned wall.

She smiled archly and ran a finger down his bare arm. 'I thought I might stay in tonight. What about you?'

Fallon's eyes flickered towards her once, something close to amusement in them. 'Girl dear, you don't know what you'd be getting into. And me twice your age.'

'I've got a bottle of Irish whiskey in.'

'God save us and isn't that enough to tempt the Devil himself?'

He continued his shaving and she moved across to the bed and sat down. It wasn't going right - it wasn't going right at all and at the thought of Billy's anger, she turned cold inside. She summoned up all her resources and tried again.

'Mind if I have a cigarette?'

There was a packet on the bedside table and a box of matches. She took one, lit it and leaned back on the bed, a pillow behind her shoulders.

'Have you really got to go out?'

She raised one knee so that the skirt slid back provocatively exposing bare flesh at the top of dark stockings, sheer black nylon briefs.

Fallon sighed heavily, put down the razor and picked up a towel. He wiped the foam from his face as he crossed to the bed and stood looking down at her.

'You'll catch cold.' He smiled softly and pulled down her skirt. 'If you're not careful. And I'm still going out, but I'll have a glass with you before I do, so be off now and open the bottle.'

He pulled her up from the bed and pushed her firmly across the room. She turned at the door, fear in her eyes. 'Please?' she said fiercely. 'Please?'

He frowned slightly and then a brief, sad smile touched his mouth. He kissed her gently on the lips and shook his head. 'Not me, girl dear, not me in the whole wide world. You need a man ... I'm just a corpse walking.'

It was such a terrible remark, so dreadful in its implication, that for the moment it drove every other thought from her mind. She stared up at him, eyes wide, and he opened the door and pushed her outside.

Fear possessed her now, such fear as she had never known. She couldn't face what awaited her in her bedroom. If she could only get downstairs - but it was already too late for as she tiptoed past, the door opened and Billy pulled her so violently into the bedroom that she stumbled, losing a shoe and went sprawling across the bed.

She turned fearfully and found him already unbuckling his belt. 'You cocked it up, didn't you?' he said softly. 'And after all I've done for you.'

'Please, Billy. Please don't,' she said. 'I'll do anything.'

'You can say that again. You're going to get one of my specials, just to keep you in line, and maybe next time I tell you to do something, you'll bloody well make sure it gets done.' He started to unfasten his trousers. 'Go on, turn over.' She was almost choking and shook her head dumbly. His face was like a mirror breaking, madness staring at her from those pale eyes and he struck her heavily across the face.

'You do as you're bloody well told, you bitch.'

He grabbed her by the hair, forcing her round until she sprawled across the edge of the bed, face down. His other hand tore at her briefs, pulling them down, And then, as she felt his hardness, as he forced himself between her buttocks like some animal, she screamed at the top of her voice, head arched back in agony.

The door opened so violently that it splintered against the wall and Fallon stood there, one side of his face still lathered, the cutthroat razor open in his right hand.

Billy turned from the girl, mouthing incoherently, clutching at his trousers, and as he stood up Fallon took two quick paces into the room and kicked him in the privates. Billy went down like a stone and lay there twitching, knees drawn up to his chest in a foetal position.

The girl adjusted her clothes as best she could and got up, every last shred of decency stripped from her, tears pouring down her face. Fallon wiped lather from his cheek mechanically with the back of his hand and his eyes were very dark.

She could hardly speak for sobbing. 'He made me go into your room tonight. He was watching.'

She gestured towards the wall and Fallon crossed to the peephole. He turned slowly. 'Does this kind of thing happen often?'

'He likes to watch.'

'And you? What about you?'

'I'm a whore,' she said and suddenly it erupted from her. All the disgust, the self-hate, born of years of degradation. 'Have you any idea what that means? He started me early, his brother.'

'Jack Meehan?'

'Who else? I was thirteen. Just right for a certain kind of client, and from then on it's been downhill all the way.'

'You could leave?'

'Where would I go to?' She had regained some of her composure now. 'It takes money. And I have a three-year-old daughter to think of.'

'Here - in this place?'

She shook her head. 'I board her out with a woman. A nice woman in a decent part of town, but Billy knows where she is.'

At that moment he stirred and pushed himself up on one elbow. There were tears in his eyes and his mouth was flecked with foam.

'You've had it,' he said faintly. 'When my brother hears about this you're a dead man.'

He started to zip up his trousers and Fallon crouched down beside him. 'My grandfather,' he began in a conversational tone, 'kept a farm back home in Ireland. Sheep mostly. And every year, he'd geld a few to improve the flavour of the mutton or make the wool grow more - something like that. Do you know what geld means, Billy boy?'

'Like hell I do. You're crackers,' Billy said angrily. 'Like all the bloody Irish.'

'It means he cut off their balls with a pair of sheep shears.'

An expression of frozen horror appeared on the boy's face and Fallon said softly, 'Touch this girl in any way from now on,' he held up the cut-throat razor, 'and I will attend to you personally. My word on it.'

The boy scrambled away from him and pushed himself up against the wall, clutching at his trousers. 'You're mad,' he whispered. 'Raving mad.'

'That's it, Billy,' Fallon said. 'Capable of anything and don't you forget it.'

The boy ducked out through the open door, his feet thundered on the stairs. The front door banged.

Fallon turned, a hand to his cheek. 'Could I finish my shaving now, do you suppose?'

She ran forward, gripping his arms fiercely. 'Please don't go out. Please don't leave me.'

'I must,' he said. 'He won't be back, not as long as I'm staying here.'

'And afterwards?'

'We'll think of something.'

She turned away and he grabbed her hand quickly. 'I'll be an hour, no more, I promise, and then we can have that glass of whiskey. How's that?'

She turned, peering at him uncertainly. The tears had streaked her make-up, making her somehow seem very young. 'You mean it?'

'On the word of an Irish gentleman.'

She flung her arms about his neck in delight. 'Oh. I'll be good to you. I really will.'

He put a finger on her mouth. 'There's no need. No need at all.' He patted her cheek. 'I'll be back, I promise. Only do one thing for me.'

'What's that?'

'Wash your face, for God's sake.'

He closed the door gently as he went out and she moved across to the washbasin and looked into the mirror. He was right. She looked terrible and yet for the first time in years, the eyes were smiling. Smiling through that streaked whore's mask. She picked up a flannel and some soap and started to wash her face thoroughly.

Father da Costa couldn't understand it. The refuge had been open for just over an hour without a single customer. In all the months he had been operating from the old crypt he had never known such a thing.

It wasn't much of a place, but the stone walls had been neatly whitewashed, there was a coke fire in the stove, benches and trestle tables. Anna sat behind one of them, knitting a sweater. The soup was in front of her in a heat-retaining container, plates piled beside it. There were several loaves of yesterday's bread supplied free by arrangement with a local bakery.

Father da Costa put more coke on the stove and stirred it impatiently with the poker. Anna stopped knitting. 'What do you think has happened?'

'God knows,' he said. 'I'm sure I don't.' He walked to the door and went out to the porch. The street was apparently deserted. The rain had declined into a light drizzle. He went back inside.

The Irishman, O'Hara, the one Varley had referred to as Big Mick, moved out of the entrance to a small yard halfway up the street and stood under a lamp. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man, six foot three or four at least, with curling, black hair and a perpetual smile. The man who moved out of the shadows to join him was two or three inches shorter and had a broken nose.

It was at this moment that Fallon turned into the end of the street. He approached silently, pausing in the darkness to take stock of the situation when he saw O'Hara and his friend. When the Irishman started speaking. Fallon moved into a convenient doorway and listened.

'Sure and I think the reverend gentleman's just about ready for it, Daniel,' O'Hara said. 'How many have we got in there now?'

Daniel snapped his fingers and several shadowy figures emerged from the darkness. He counted them quickly. 'I make it eight,' he said. 'That's ten including us.'

'Nine,' O'Hara said. 'You stay outside and watch the door, just in case. They all know what to do?'

'I've seen to that,' Daniel said. 'For a quid apiece they'll take the place apart.'

O'Hara turned to address the shadowy group. 'Remember one thing. Da Costa - he's mine.'

Daniel said, 'Doesn't that worry you, Mick? I mean you being an Irishman and so on. After all, he's a priest.'

'I've a terrible confession to make, Daniel.' O'Hara put a hand on his shoulder. 'Some Irishmen are Protestants and I'm one of them.' He turned to the others. 'Come on, lads,' he said and crossed the road.

They went in through the door and Daniel waited by the railings, his ear cocked for the first sound of a disturbance from inside. There was a slight, polite cough from behind and when he turned, Fallon was standing a yard or two away, hands in pockets.

'Where in hell did you spring from?' Daniel demanded. 'Never mind that,' Fallon said. 'What's going on in there?'

Daniel knew trouble when he saw it, but completely miscalculated his man. 'You little squirt,' he said contemptuously. 'Get the hell out of it.'

He moved in fast, his hands reaching out to destroy, but they only fastened on thin air as his feet were kicked expertly from beneath him.

He thudded against the wet pavement and scrambled to his feet, mouthing obscenities. Fallon seized his right wrist with both hands, twisting it up and around. Daniel gave a cry of agony as the muscle started to give. Still keeping that terrible hold in position, Fallon ran him headfirst into the railings.

Daniel pulled himself up off his knees, blood on his face, one hand out in supplication. 'No more, for Christ's sake.'

'All right,' Fallon said. 'Answers then. What's the game?'

'They're supposed to turn the place over.'

'Who for?' Daniel hesitated and Fallon kicked his feet from under him. 'Who for?'

'Jack Meehan,' Daniel gabbled.

Fallon pulled him to his feet and stood back. 'Next time you get a bullet in the kneecap. That's a promise. Now get out of it.'

Daniel turned and staggered into the darkness.

At the first sudden noisy rush, Father da Costa knew he was in trouble. As he moved forward, a bench went over and then another. Hands pawed at him, someone pulled his cassock. He was aware of Anna crying out in alarm and turning, saw O'Hara grab her from behind, arms about her waist.

'Now then, darlin', what about a little kiss?' he demanded.

She pulled away from him in a panic, hands reaching out blindly and cannoned into the trestle table, knocking it over, soup spilling out across the floor, plates clattering.

As Father da Costa fought to get towards her, O'Hara laughed out loud. 'Now look what you've done.'

A soft, quiet voice called from the doorway, cutting through the noise.

'Mickeen O'Hara. Is it you I see?'

The room went quiet. Everyone waited. O'Hara turned, an expression of disbelief on his face that seemed to say this couldn't be happening. The expression was quickly replaced by one that was a mixture of awe and fear.

'God in heaven,' he whispered. 'Is that you, Martin?'

Fallon went towards him, hands in pockets and everyone waited. He said softly, 'Tell them to clean the place up, Mick, like a good boy, then wait for me outside.'

O'Hara did as he was told without hesitation and moved towards the door. The other men started to right the tables and benches, one of them got a bucket and mop and started on the floor.

Father da Costa had moved to comfort Anna and Fallon joined them. 'I'm sorry about that, Father,' he said. 'It won't happen again.'

'Meehan?' Father da Costa asked.

Fallon nodded. 'Were you expecting something like this?'

'He came to see me earlier this evening. You might say we didn't get on too well.' He hesitated. 'The big Irishman. He knew you.'

'Little friend of all the world, that's me.' Fallon smiled. 'Good night to you,' he said and turned to the door.

Father da Costa reached him as he opened it and put a hand on his arm. 'We must talk, Fallon. You owe me that.'

'All right,' Fallon said. 'When?'

'I'll be busy in the morning, but I don't have a lunchtime confession tomorrow. Will one o'clock suit you? At the presbytery.'

'I'll be there.'

Fallon went out, closing the door behind him and crossed the street to where O'Hara waited nervously under the lamp. As Fallon approached he turned to face him.

'Before God, if I'd known you were mixed up in this, Martin I wouldn't have come within a mile of it. I thought you were dead by now - we all did.'

'All right,' Fallon said. 'How much was Meehan paying you?'

'Twenty-five quid. Fifty if the priest got a broken arm.'

'How much in advance?'

'Not a sou.'

Fallon opened his wallet, took out two ten-pound notes and handed them to him. 'Travelling money - for old times' sake. I don't think it's going to be too healthy for you round here. Not when Jack Meehan finds out you've let him down.'

'God bless you, Martin, I'll be out of it this very night.' He started to turn away, then hesitated. 'Does it bother you any more, Martin, what happened back there?'

'Every minute of every hour of every day of my life,' Fallon said with deep conviction and he turned and walked away up the side street.

From the shelter of the porch, Father da Costa saw O'Hara cross the main road. He made for the pub on the corner, going in at the saloon bar entrance and Father da Costa went after him.

It was quiet in the saloon bar which was why O'Hara had chosen it. He was still badly shaken and ordered a large whisky which he swallowed at once. As he asked for another, the door opened and Father da Costa entered.

O'Hara tried to brazen it out. 'So there you are, Father,' he said. 'Will you have a drink with me?'

'I'd sooner drink with the Devil.' Father da Costa dragged him across to a nearby booth and sat opposite him. 'Where did you know Fallon?' he demanded. 'Before tonight, I mean?'

O'Hara stared at him in blank astonishment, glass half-raised to his lips. 'Fallon?' he said. 'I don't know anyone called Fallon.'

'Martin Fallon, you fool,' Father da Costa said impatiently. 'Haven't I just seen you talking together outside the church?'

'Oh, you mean Martin,' O'Hara said. 'Fallon - is that what he's calling himself now?'

'What can you tell me about him?'

'Why should I tell you anything?'

'Because I'll ring for the police and put you in charge for assault if you don't. Detective-Superintendent Miller is a personal friend. He'll be happy to oblige, I'm sure.'

'All right, Father, you can call off the dogs.' O'Hara, mellowed by two large whiskies, went to the bar for a third and returned. 'What do you want to know for?'

'Does that matter?'

'It does to me. Martin Fallon, as you call him, is probably the best man I ever knew in my life. A hero.'

'To whom?'

'To the Irish people.'

'Oh, I see. Well, I don't mean him any harm, I can assure you of that.'

'You give me your word on it?'

'Of course.'

'All right, I won't tell you his name, his real name. It doesn't matter anyway. He was a lieutenant in the Provisional IRA. They used to call him the Executioner in Derry. I've never known the likes of him with a gun in his hand. He'd have killed the Pope if he'd thought it would advance the cause. And brains.' He shook his head. 'A university man, Father, would you believe it? Trinity College, no less. There were days when it all poured out of him. Poetry - books. That sort of thing - and he played the piano like an angel.' O'Hara hesitated, fingering a cirgarette, frowning into the past. 'And then there were other times.'

'What do you mean?' Father da Costa asked him.

'Oh, he used to change completely. Go right inside himself. No emotion, no response. Nothing. Cold and dark.' O'Hara shivered and stuck the cigarette into the corner of his mouth. 'When he was like that, he scared the hell out of everybody, including me, I can tell you.'

'You were with him long?'

'Only for a time. They never really trusted me. I'm a Prod, you see, so I got out.'

'And Fallon?'

'He laid this ambush for a Saracen armoured car, somewhere in Armagh. Mined the road. Someone had got the time wrong. They got a school bus instead with a dozen kids on board. Five killed, the rest crippled. You know how it is. It finished Martin. I think he'd been worrying about the way things were going for a while. All the killing and so on. The business with the bus was the final straw, you might say.'

'I can see that it would be,' Father da Costa said without irony.

'I thought he was dead,' O'Hara said. 'Last I heard, the IRA had an execution squad out after him. Me, I'm no account. Nobody worries about me, but for someone like Martin, it's different. He knows too much. For a man like him, there's only one way out of the movement and that's in a coffin.'

He got to his feet, face flushed. 'Well, Father, I'll be leaving you now. This town and I are parting company.'

He walked to the door and Father da Costa went with him. As rain drifted across the street, O'Hara buttoned up his coat and said cheerfully, 'Have you ever wondered what it's all about, Father? Life, I mean?'

'Constantly,' Father da Costa told him.

'That's honest, anyway. See you in hell, Father.'

He moved off along the pavement, whistling, and Father da Costa went back across the road to the Holy Name. When he went back into the crypt, everything was in good order again. The men had gone and Anna waited patiently on one of the bench seats.

'I'm sorry I had to leave you,' he said, 'but I wanted to speak to the man who knew Fallon. The one who started all the trouble. He went into the pub on the corner.'

'What did you find out?'

He hesitated, then told her. When he was finished, there was pain on her face. She said slowly, 'Then he isn't what he seemed at first.'

'He killed Krasko,' Father da Costa reminded her. 'Murdered him in cold blood. There was nothing romantic about that.'

'You're right, of course.' She groped for her coat and stood up. 'What are you going to do now?'

'What on earth do you expect me to do?' he said half-angrily. 'Save his soul?'

'It's a thought,' she said, slipping her hand into his arm and they went out together.

* * *

There was an old warehouse at the rear of Meehan's premises in Paul's Square and a fire escape gave easy access to its flat roof.

Fallon crouched behind a low wall as he screwed the silencer on to the barrel of the Ceska and peered across through the rain. The two dormer windows at the rear of Meehan's penthouse were no more than twenty yards away and the curtains weren't drawn. He had seen Meehan several times pacing backwards and forwards, a glass in his hand. On one occasion, Rupert had joined him, putting an arm about his neck, but Meehan had shoved him away and angrily from the look of it.

It was a difficult shot at that distance for a handgun, but not impossible. Fallon crouched down, holding the Ceska ready in both hands, aiming at the left-hand window. Meehan appeared briefly and paused, raising a glass to his lips. Fallon fired the silenced pistol once.

In the penthouse, a mirror on the wall shattered and Meehan dropped to the floor. Rupert, who was lying on the couch watching television, turned quickly. His eyes widened.

'My God, look at the window. Somebody took a shot at you.'

Meehan looked up at the bullet hole, the spider's web of cracks, then across at the mirror. He got up slowly.

Rupert joined him. 'You want to know something, ducky? You're getting to be too damn dangerous to know.'

Meehan shoved him away angrily. 'Get me a drink, damn you. I've got to think this thing out.'

A couple of minutes later the phone rang. When he picked up the receiver, he got a call-box signal and then the line cleared as a coin went in at the other end.

'That you, Meehan?' Fallon said. 'You know who this is?'

'You bastard,' Meehan said. 'What are you trying to do?'

'This time I missed because I meant to,' Fallon said. 'Remember that and tell your goons to stay away from Holy Name - and that includes you.'

He put down the receiver and Meehan did the same. He turned, his face white with fury, and Rupert handed him a drink. 'You don't look too good, ducky, bad news?'

'Fallon,' Meehan said between his teeth. 'It was that bastard Fallon and he missed because he wanted to.'

'Never mind, ducky,' Rupert said. 'After all, you've always got me.'

'That's right,' Meehan said. 'So I have. I was forgetting,' and he hit him in the stomach with his clenched fist.

It was late when Fallon got back, much later than he had intended, and there was no sign of Jenny. He took off his shoes and went up the stairs and along the landing to his room quietly.

He undressed, got into bed and lit a cigarette. He was tired. It had certainly been one hell of a day. There was a slight, timid knock on the door. It opened and Jenny came in.

She wore a dark-blue nylon nightdress, her hair was tied back with a ribbon and her face was scrubbed clean. She said, 'Jack Meehan was on the phone about half an hour ago. He says he wants to see you in the morning.'

'Did he say where?'

'No, he just said to tell you it couldn't be more public so you've nothing to worry about. He'll send a car at seven-thirty.'

Fallon frowned. 'A bit early for him, isn't it?'

'I wouldn't know.' She hesitated. 'I waited. You said an hour. You didn't come.'

'I'm sorry,' he said. 'It couldn't be helped, believe me.'

'I did,' she said. 'You were the first man in years who didn't treat me like something you'd scrape off your shoe.'

She started to cry. Wordless, he pulled back the covers and held out a hand. She stumbled across the room and got in beside him.

He switched off the lamp. She lay there, her face against his chest, sobbing, his arms about her. He held her close, stroking her hair with his other hand and after a while, she slept.