When she opened the sacristy door, the music seemed to fill the church. He was playing Pavane for a Dead Infanta, infinitely moving, touching the very heart of things, the deep places of life, brilliant technique and emotion combining in a way she would never have thought possible.

He finished on a dying fall and sat, shoulders hunched for a long moment as the last echoes died away. When he swung round on the stool, she was standing at the altar rail.

'I've never heard such playing,' she told him.

He went down through the choir stalls and stood on the other side of the rail from her. 'Good funeral music.'

His words touched the heart of her like a cold finger. 'You mustn't speak like that.' She forced a smile. 'Did you want to see me?'

'Let's say I hoped you'd come.'

'Here I am, then.'

'I want you to give your uncle a message. Tell him I'm sorry, more sorry than I can say, but I intend to put things right. You'll have nothing more to worry about, either of you. He has my word on that.'

'But how?' she said. 'I don't understand.'

'My affair,' Fallon told her calmly. 'I started it, I'll finish it. Goodbye, Anna da Costa. You won't see me again.'

'I never have,' she said sadly, and put a hand on his arm as he went by. 'Isn't that a terrible thing?'

He backed away slowly and delicately, making not the slightest sound. Her face changed. She put out a hand uncertainly. 'Mr Fallon?' she said softly. 'Are you there?'

Fallon moved quickly towards the door. It creaked when he opened it and as he turned to look at her for the last time, she called, 'Martin, come back!' and there was a terrible desperation in her voice.

Fallon went out, the door closed with a sigh and Anna da Costa, tears streaming down her face, fell on her knees at the altar rail.

The Little Sisters of Pity were not only teachers. They also had an excellent record in medical missionary work overseas, which was where Father da Costa had first met Sister Marie Gabrielle in Korea in nineteen fifty-one. A fierce little French-woman who was probably the kindest, most loving person he had met in his entire life. Four years in a communist prison camp had ruined her health, but that indomitable spirit, that all-embracing love, had not been touched in the slightest.

Some of the nuns, being human, were crying as they sang the offertory; 'Domine Jesu Christ, Rex Glorias, libera animas omnium fidelium ...'

Their voices rose sweetly to the rafters of the tiny convent chapel as Father da Costa prayed for the repose of Sister Marie Gabrielle's soul, for all sinners everywhere whose actions only cut them off from the infinite blessing of God's love. For Anna, that she might come to no harm. For Martin Fallon that he might face what must be done and for Dandy Jack Meehan ...

But here, a terrible thing happened, for his throat went dry and he seemed to choke on the very name.

Once the Mass was over and the absolutions given, the nuns carried the coffin out through the rain to the small private cemetery in a corner between the inner and outer walls of the convent.

At the graveside Father da Costa sprinkled the grave and the coffin with holy water and incensed them and after he had prayed, some of the nuns lit candles, with some difficulty because of the rain, to symbolise Sister Marie Gabrielle's soul, with God now and shining still, and they sang together, very sweetly, the twenty-third psalm which had been her favourite.

Father da Costa remembered her, for a moment, during those last days, the broken body racked with pain. Oh God, he thought, why is it the good who suffer? People like Sister Marie Gabrielle?

And then there was Anna. So gentle, so loving, and at the thought of what had taken place the night before, black rage filled his heart.

Try as he might, the only thought that would come to mind as he looked down into the open grave was that Meehan's firm had probably made the coffin.

Jenny Fox had taken two sleeping pills the previous night and overslept. It was after eleven when she awakened and she put on her dressing-gown and went downstairs. She went into the kitchen and found Fallon sitting at the table, the bottle of Irish whiskey in front of him, a half-filled tumbler at his elbow. He had taken the Ceska to pieces and was putting it carefully together again. The silencer was also on the table next to the whiskey bottle.

'You're starting early,' she commented.

'A long time since I had a drink,' he said. 'A real drink, Now I've had four. I had some thinking to do.'

He emptied his glass in a single swallow, rammed the magazine into the butt of the Ceska and screwed the silencer on the end of the barrel.

Jenny said wearily, 'Did you come to any conclusions?'

'Oh yes, I think you could say that.' He poured himself another whiskey and tossed it down. 'I've decided to start a Jack Meehan-must-go campaign. A sort of one man crusade, if you like.'

'You must be crazy,' she said. 'You wouldn't stand a chance.'

'He'll be sending for me some time today, Jenny. He has to because he's shipping me out from Hull tomorrow night so we've got things to discuss.'

He squinted along the barrel of the gun and Jenny whispered, 'What are you going to do?'

'I'm going to kill the bastard,' he said simply. 'You know what Shakespeare said. A good deed in a naughty world.'

He was drunk, she realised that, but in his own peculiar way. She said desperately. 'Don't be a fool. Kill him and there'll be no passage out of Hull for you. What happens then?'

'I couldn't really care less.'

He flung up his arm and fired. There was a dull thud and a small china dog on the top shelf above the refrigerator shattered into fragments.

'Well now,' he said. 'If I can hit that at this range after half-a bottle of whiskey, I don't see how I can very well miss Dandy Jack.'

He stood up and picked up the bottle of whiskey. Jenny said, 'Martin, listen to me for God's sake.'

He walked past her to the door. 'I didn't go to bed last night so I will now. Wake me if Meehan calls, but whatever happens, don't let me sleep past five o'clock. I've got things to do.'

He went out and she stood there listening as he mounted the stairs. She heard the door of his bedroom open and close and only then did she move, going down on her hands and knees wearily to pick up the shattered fragments of the china dog.

The Bull and Bell yard was not far from Paul's Square, a dirty and sunless cobbled alley named after the public house which had stood there for two hundred years or more. Beside the entrance to the snug stood several overflowing dustbins and cardboard boxes and packing cases were thrown together in an untidy heap.

The Bull and Bell itself did most of its trade in the evening, which was why Jack Meehan preferred to patronise it in the afternoon. For one thing it meant that he could have the snug to himself, which was handy for business of a certain kind.

He sat on a stool, a tankard of beer at his elbow, finishing a roast beef sandwich and reading the Financial Times. Donner was sitting in the window seat playing solitaire.

Meehan emptied his tankard and pushed it across the bar. 'Same again, Harry.'

Harry was a large, hefty young man who, in spite of his white apron, had the physique of a professional Rugby player. He had long dark sideburns and a cold, rather dangerous-looking face.

As he filled the tankard and pushed it across, the door opened and Rupert and Bonati came in. Rupert was wearing a sort of caped, ankle-length highwayman's coat in large checks.

He shook himself vigorously and unbuttoned his coat. 'When's it going to stop, that's what I'd like to know.'