Last Rites Read Online Free Page B

Michael tense beside her, heard his breathing change, a low clearing of his throat. Behind them, the chapel was silent, poised. For a moment, she thought that Michael might be about to move, step forward, speak. Then she realized that he was crying, making no effort to disguise it, tears that curled around the corners of his mouth, ran without let or hindrance down his face.
    “If there is one thing,” the vicar continued, “we should remember most about the life of Deirdre Preston, it is that, no matter what the pain she suffered, no matter the magnitude of sorrow and sadness she was forced to face, she never once sank into despair, she never lost her faith.
    “Now, in silence, let us each remember Deirdre in our own way, and let us pray for her soul, now and everlasting …”
    Lorraine and Michael, standing there together: Michael staring upward, the ceiling blurred by tears; Lorraine bent forward, eyes closed, long fingers winding restlessly in and out, sobbing. Happy.

Six
    “I’ve already fucking told you,” Billy Scalthorpe insisted, his voice a raw whine against the backdrop of overlapping conversations. “How many more fuckin’ times?”
    Carl Vincent shifted his weight on to his other foot. “How about once more?”
    “Okay. Mark’s walkin’ out, right? Me and Adam, we’re arguin’ the toss up at the counter, Adam wants Coke without ice, and what they’ve give him is Coke with ice. Anyway, I turn me head, gonna shout to Mark to hang on, right? And there’s these two blokes come at him from both sides and before you can fuckin’ do anythin’ they’ve shot him in the fuckin’ head. Legged it out of here like they was in the fuckin’ Olympics.”
    “Into a car, yes? There was a car waiting?”
    Scalthorpe shook his head. “I didn’t see no car.”
    Three different witnesses had spoken of a black four-door saloon, a Ford, most probably an Escort.
    “But you saw them, the pair who attacked him?”
    “Course I fuckin’ saw ’em.”
    “You recognize them?”
    “What?”
    “These two, you knew who they were?”
    “’Course I never.”
    “No?”
    “No.”
    “Never seen them before?”
    “I dunno.”
    “Then you might have?”
    “Yeh, I might. S’pose I might.”
    “But you claimed not to have recognized them.”
    Scalthorpe shook his head in amazement. “They was fuckin’ runnin’ away. All I saw was the backs of their fuckin’ heads, wa’n it? Fuckin’ baseball caps, arse to front, like they all wear.”
    “All?”
    “You know what I mean.”
    Scalthorpe held Vincent’s stare for a moment, then blinked. A rosary of tiny white spots circled his mouth, mingling here and there with wisps of fledgling mustache. Vincent smiled: the two attackers were black, most probably a similar shade of black to himself. Yes, he knew what Scalthorpe meant. And if a leading sports commentator could claim, without embarrassment, not to be able to distinguish between one black soccer player and another, what else could he expect?
    “You did get a good look, though,” Vincent said, “at what they were wearing?”
    “The one that shot him,” Adam Bent was saying, “he had on this silver jacket, short, you know? Padded, maybe. Yeh, I think it was padded. Blue jeans. Trainers. Nike, maybe, I’m not sure. Blue. Blue and white.”
    “And a cap,” Naylor prompted him, glancing up from his notebook. “You said something before about a cap.”
    “Oh, yeh. Dark blue with some sort of logo. Letterin’, you know?”
    Naylor nodded. “And his mate?”
    “Sports gear. Green and white. Cap, too. Pulled back. Washington Redskins. I know that ’cause I used to have one meself. Lost it down Forest, larkin’ around after the match. You don’t go to Forest, do you?”
    Naylor shook his head.
    “Used to be a lot of your lot down there, Sat’days. Hanging round, outside the ground. Still, have to be in uniform, I s’pose, do something like that?”
    Naylor nodded again. “The one who did the