Last Rites Read Online Free Page A

inquisitive, staring all the same. And with each step he took beside her, proud at her bravery, Derek thinking if there was any such thing as justice then Michael would not be serving life nor anything like it, Michael would have been taken from that place and hung by the neck until dead, dead as his father before him. “Okay, now?” he whispered as Lorraine stood beside him. “Okay, sweetheart?” And squeezed her hand.
    The crematorium car park was full to the gills and they had to pull over against the grass verge, temporarily blocking the way. When Evan switched off the engine, the sound of singing could be heard, muffled, from behind the chapel doors.
    “You take him,” Evan said, sitting round in his seat. “I’ll deal with the car. Go on. Before it’s too late.”
    Preston leaned forward. “The cuffs,” he said. “I don’t want to go in there wearing no cuffs.”
    Evan hesitated.
    Alongside Preston, Wesley shook his head.
    “Do it,” Evan said decisively. “Uncuff him.”
    Disbelief in Wesley’s eyes.
    “We’re wasting time.”
    Out of the car, Evan moved in quickly on Preston, stopping close enough that their bodies were almost touching. “I’m trusting you,” he said. “Don’t let me down. When it’s over, you stay inside, wherever you are, let everyone else leave. That’s when the cuffs go back on. Agreed?”
    Preston held his gaze for a moment, then nodded once, Evan hesitating, waiting perhaps for thanks that didn’t come. “Okay,” Evan said, stepping back.
    Wesley walked with Preston toward the chapel doors, keeping approximately half a pace behind, Evan standing his ground until they had stepped inside and the doors had closed again behind them. Then, without looking either to left or right, he got back into the car and drove it slowly up toward the road.
    If this goes wrong, he was thinking … And then, if this were my dad, here in my shoes, this situation, what would he have done?
    It was Derek who noticed Michael first, glancing round at the sound of the heavy doors squeaking to a close. Michael standing quite still for a moment, blinking at the change of light before starting to walk slowly forward down the center aisle; the black man—his guard, Derek supposed—who had come in with him, remaining where he was. The congregation was singing a psalm about passing into the golden yonder.
    Lorraine sensed Michael’s presence before she saw him, recognizing, perhaps, the weight of his footsteps, clear along the cold tiles. Like a slow wave, voices broke around her and she, almost alone, continued singing, unable to turn her head for fear she was wrong.
    “Hi, Lo.” He repeated their old joke greeting close into her ear and something clutched and swept through her stomach, and then it was his hand steadying the small blue hymnal that shook between her fingers. “Budge up.”
    To Lorraine’s left, Derek moved along to make room, edging the children closer to the wall; Lorraine standing there with Michael’s shoulder touching hers, his elbow hard against her upper arm. The warmth of him. Lorraine terrified she might cry out, faint.
    The last sounds of the organ echoed to a halt and the vicar stepped forward, head raised, waiting for silence before beginning to speak.
    “We are here to celebrate the life of a remarkable woman; one to whom life presented a more than usually difficult path. A path which many of us would have found too arduous or too long, yet one which Deirdre traveled with great fortitude and grace.” The voice was oddly high and clear, somehow both old and young. “She was a valued member of the community, a willing worker, and, as the presence of so many of you here today testifies, a loyal and much-loved friend. Perhaps above all, though, we will remember her as a devoted mother, the loving and strong center of her family, a rock of consolation and forgiveness which held firm in the face of adversity of a singular and most terrible kind.”
    Lorraine sensed