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?'