Free Eye for an Eye by Graham Masterton Page B

over the flower bed where Father Fiachra was lying and the rain was rattling on it loudly. Eithne O’Neill and Tyrone Byrne were crouching next to the body, both wearing noisy white Tyvek suits. The chief technical officer, Bill Phinner, was standing beside them, looking as depressed as ever, as if he couldn’t understand what he was doing here, underneath this tent, on a wet Thursday afternoon, with a dead priest lying at his feet.
    Eithne leaned forward to take close-up photographs of Father Fiachra’s smashed-in head, and as Katie and Detective O’Donovan crossed the lawn to join Bill in the tent her LED flashlight made the garden flicker like a film premiere.
    Detective O’Donovan peered at Father Fiachra. His eyes were still open, although they were beginning to turn misty. He had bushy white eyebrows and a large nose with a cleft in the end, and deeply lined cheeks. His mouth was slightly open, revealing his mottled brown teeth.
    ‘Jesus. Somebody really smashed the shite out of him,’ said Detective O’Donovan. ‘Is that the rock he was clattered with?’
    ‘That’s the one,’ said Bill, nodding towards a jagged limestone block that was lying on the wet grass nearby. It was almost as big as Father Fiachra’s head, and although the technical experts had covered it over with a transparent evidence bag, which was speckled with raindrops, Katie could see the dark red bloodstains on one edge of it.
    ‘He was struck at least three times,’ Bill told her. ‘The first blow when he was standing up and the next two when he was lying face-down on the ground. I’d say his assailant was standing behind him and slightly to his right when he first hit him. The rock weighs approximately five kilos, which is twice the weight of your average house-brick, so it’s likely that the first blow would have been enough to crack his skull open and kill him.’
    ‘Maybe his assailant was just making sure he was dead,’ said Katie. ‘Or he could have been angry, or vengeful, or drunk, and that’s why he hit him more than he needed to. I say “he” because that’s one hell of a rocker for a woman to be lifting. What about the rocker itself? Do you think you’ll be able to get much off it?’
    Bill shook his head. ‘Doubtful. It’s a fierce rough lump of limestone, so there’s not much hope of lifting fingerprints off it, and if his assailant was wearing gloves there won’t be any chance of DNA, either. All the same, if his gloves were wool, or cotton, we might find some trace of fabric on it. It’s always worth a try. You remember that fellow from Togher, the one who strangled his landlady? A single fleck of wool from his sock got caught on a splintery floorboard and that was enough to convict him. That was my finest hour when he was sent down.’
    ‘Any other evidence?’ asked Katie. ‘Any footprints?’
    ‘There’s a couple of partials over there – you see, where the fence is broke? We’ll be taking casts, but they’re not too distinct. All the same, they could be an indication that the offender gained entry to the garden through that gap.’
    ‘So if she was inside the house at the time, it’s possible that Mrs Woman might not have seen him?’ said Detective O’Donovan.
    ‘She might and she mightn’t. I gather she’s refusing to speak about it. Sergeant O’Malley said she had the fear of God in her.’
    ‘More like the fear of the Devil,’ said Katie. ‘That’s if the crucifix and the holy water are anything to go by.’
    ‘Up until now we haven’t found any hoof prints,’ said Bill. ‘I think it’s more likely we’re looking for a mortal, unless Satan’s taken to wearing gullies.’
    Katie went across to the gap in the fence, which was right at the back of the garden, on the left-hand side, and partially concealed by a sprawling laurel bush. On the other side of the fence, she could see the back of a single-storey concrete building, one of the workshops of the Toolmate factory next