Free Wages of Sin by J. M. Gregson Page B

then I’ll drive over behind you.’
    â€˜I’m coming with you,’ said his wife determinedly. ‘I’m not being left at home to go mad with worry.’
    Her husband looked at her for a moment, trying to deal with this picture. Then he said, ‘All right. We’ll go together.’
    Murphy said, ‘There’s no need for you to drive. We’ll take you over in the back of our car.’
    Frank Dunne argued a little, then accepted the offer. No one wanted to voice the thought that he might be too distressed to drive home after the identification.
    Father John Devoy was a Catholic priest who was well respected by his flock, even in these days of religious doubt. He was always welcome in the primary school behind his high stone church, and even after all the crippling revelations about paedophilia among the celibate clergy, the parents were happy to see him laughing with their children.
    As he moved about his duties in this largest Catholic parish in one of the most Catholic towns in England, Father Devoy gave no sign of the inner turmoil which rent his soul.
    He was forty-three now, old enough to have seen most of the joys and the tragedies of life, but young enough to bustle about his duties with an energy which spread a little of its force among those with whom he worked. Those of his flock who knew him well called him Father John: Devoy was easy enough to say, but it had a faintly Gallic ring, which made it suspect to these sturdy northern folk.
    He had been in Brunton for a few years now, after serving his time as a curate in less busy and challenging places. He was cheerful in times of celebration, gravely sympathetic in the face of death, unwanted pregnancies, drugs and the other tragedies which beset his flock. Everyone thought that in due course he would become the Canon in charge of St Matthew’s.
    The only person who was certain that he wouldn’t was Father Devoy himself. People put this down to a natural modesty, a Christian humility which they would have expected of Father John. Only John Devoy himself knew of the splinter of evil which was piercing his soul.
    Late on this Tuesday afternoon, Father Devoy took the holy oils and the blessed sacrament into the small, overheated terraced house where a man lay dying of cancer. He heard a last confession in the man’s erratic croak of a voice, placed the wafer of the Eucharist on the dry tongue as the man took his final communion. Then he anointed him with the holy oils, touching his lips and eyes and ears, reciting the ritual words of the Last Sacrament over the man who lay with closed eyes on the bed beneath him.
    Extreme Unction: the last and most solemn of the Roman Catholic Sacraments. The final solace of the dying. Sometimes Father John, whispering the soothing words over the still form which seemed already unconscious, would have been glad to have this final releasing balm administered to himself.
    The woman who was so soon to be a widow was resigned to the death. She was fifty-one, a year younger than her man, full of an energy which was carrying her through the final stages of this mortal sickness up the stairs. She handed the priest a cup of tea and said, ‘The doctor came this morning. He’s upped the dose of morphine. He says it won’t be long now.’
    Father Devoy sipped the tea he did not want: you were offered it at every house where you called in Lancashire. He tried to avoid the clichés he had heard too often, but sometimes what people expected to hear was the best therapy. ‘He’s at peace now, Mrs Fogarty.’
    She was called Debbie, but he could not bring himself to use the name, which seemed too young and frivolous for the situation. ‘He seems very serene. Ready to meet his maker in Heaven.’ It was easier when they had a serene faith in the afterlife. Too many of his parishioners now were troubled and uncertain about what awaited them. Father John couldn’t tell