A Prayer for the Dying (v5)

by Jack Higgins

  As Father da Costa fought to get towards her, O'Hara laughed out loud. 'Now look what you've done.'

  A soft, quiet voice called from the doorway, cutting through the noise.

  'Mickeen O'Hara. Is it you I see?'

  The room went quiet. Everyone waited. O'Hara turned, an expression of disbelief on his face that seemed to say this couldn't be happening. The expression was quickly replaced by one that was a mixture of awe and fear.

  'God in heaven,' he whispered. 'Is that you, Martin?'

  Fallon went towards him, hands in pockets and everyone waited. He said softly, 'Tell them to clean the place up, Mick, like a good boy, then wait for me outside.'

  O'Hara did as he was told without hesitation and moved towards the door. The other men started to right the tables and benches, one of them got a bucket and mop and started on the floor.

  Father da Costa had moved to comfort Anna and Fallon joined them. 'I'm sorry about that, Father,' he said. 'It won't happen again.'

  'Meehan?' Father da Costa asked.

  Fallon nodded. 'Were you expecting something like this?'

  'He came to see me earlier this evening. You might say we didn't get on too well.' He hesitated. 'The big Irishman. He knew you.'

  'Little friend of all the world, that's me.' Fallon smiled. 'Good night to you,' he said and turned to the door.

  Father da Costa reached him as he opened it and put a hand on his arm. 'We must talk, Fallon. You owe me that.'

  'All right,' Fallon said. 'When?'

  'I'll be busy in the morning, but I don't have a lunchtime confession tomorrow. Will one o'clock suit you? At the presbytery.'

  'I'll be there.'

  Fallon went out, closing the door behind him and crossed the street to where O'Hara waited nervously under the lamp. As Fallon approached he turned to face him.

  'Before God, if I'd known you were mixed up in this, Martin I wouldn't have come within a mile of it. I thought you were dead by now - we all did.'

  'All right,' Fallon said. 'How much was Meehan paying you?'

  'Twenty-five quid. Fifty if the priest got a broken arm.'

  'How much in advance?'

  'Not a sou.'

  Fallon opened his wallet, took out two ten-pound notes and handed them to him. 'Travelling money - for old times' sake. I don't think it's going to be too healthy for you round here. Not when Jack Meehan finds out you've let him down.'

  'God bless you, Martin, I'll be out of it this very night.' He started to turn away, then hesitated. 'Does it bother you any more, Martin, what happened back there?'

  'Every minute of every hour of every day of my life,' Fallon said with deep conviction and he turned and walked away up the side street.

  From the shelter of the porch, Father da Costa saw O'Hara cross the main road. He made for the pub on the corner, going in at the saloon bar entrance and Father da Costa went after him.

  It was quiet in the saloon bar which was why O'Hara had chosen it. He was still badly shaken and ordered a large whisky which he swallowed at once. As he asked for another, the door opened and Father da Costa entered.

  O'Hara tried to brazen it out. 'So there you are, Father,' he said. 'Will you have a drink with me?'

  'I'd sooner drink with the Devil.' Father da Costa dragged him across to a nearby booth and sat opposite him. 'Where did you know Fallon?' he demanded. 'Before tonight, I mean?'

  O'Hara stared at him in blank astonishment, glass half-raised to his lips. 'Fallon?' he said. 'I don't know anyone called Fallon.'

  'Martin Fallon, you fool,' Father da Costa said impatiently. 'Haven't I just seen you talking together outside the church?'

  'Oh, you mean Martin,' O'Hara said. 'Fallon - is that what he's calling himself now?'

  'What can you tell me about him?'

  'Why should I tell you anything?'

  'Because I'll ring for the police and put you in charge for assault if you don't. Detective-Superintendent Miller is a personal friend. He'll be happy to oblige, I'm sure.'

  'All right, Father, you can call off the dogs.' O'Hara, mellowed by two large whiskies, went to the bar for a third and returned. 'What do you want to know for?'

  'Does that matter?'

  'It does to me. Martin Fallon, as you call him, is probably the best man I ever knew in my life. A hero.'

  'To whom?'

  'To the Irish people.'

  'Oh, I see. Well, I don't mean him any harm, I can assure you of that.'

  'You give me your word on it?'

  'Of course.'

  'All right, I won't tell you his name, his real name. It doesn't matter anyway. He was a lieutenant in the Provisional IRA. They used to call him the Executioner in Derry. I've never known the likes of him with a gun in his hand. He'd have killed the Pope if he'd thought it would advance the cause. And brains.' He shook his head. 'A university man, Father, would you believe it? Trinity College, no less. There were days when it all poured out of him. Poetry - books. That sort of thing - and he played the piano like an angel.' O'Hara hesitated, fingering a cirgarette, frowning into the past. 'And then there were other times.'

  'What do you mean?' Father da Costa asked him.

  'Oh, he used to change completely. Go right inside himself. No emotion, no response. Nothing. Cold and dark.' O'Hara shivered and stuck the cigarette into the corner of his mouth. 'When he was like that, he scared the hell out of everybody, including me, I can tell you.'

  'You were with him long?'

  'Only for a time. They never really trusted me. I'm a Prod, you see, so I got out.'

  'And Fallon?'

  'He laid this ambush for a Saracen armoured car, somewhere in Armagh. Mined the road. Someone had got the time wrong. They got a school bus instead with a dozen kids on board. Five killed, the rest crippled. You know how it is. It finished Martin. I think he'd been worrying about the way things were going for a while. All the killing and so on. The business with the bus was the final straw, you might say.'

  'I can see that it would be,' Father da Costa said without irony.

  'I thought he was dead,' O'Hara said. 'Last I heard, the IRA had an execution squad out after him. Me, I'm no account. Nobody worries about me, but for someone like Martin, it's different. He knows too much. For a man like him, there's only one way out of the movement and that's in a coffin.'

  He got to his feet, face flushed. 'Well, Father, I'll be leaving you now. This town and I are parting company.'

  He walked to the door and Father da Costa went with him. As rain drifted across the street, O'Hara buttoned up his coat and said cheerfully, 'Have you ever wondered what it's all about, Father? Life, I mean?'

  'Constantly,' Father da Costa told him.

  'That's honest, anyway. See you in hell, Father.'

  He moved off along the pavement, whistling, and Father da Costa went back across the road to the Holy Name. When he went back into the crypt, everything was in good order again. The men had gone and Anna waited patiently on one of the bench seats.

  'I'm sorry I had to leave you,' he said, 'but I wanted to speak to the man who knew Fallon. The one who started all the trouble. He went into the pub on the corner.'

  'What did you find out?'

  He hesitated, then told her. When he was finished, there was pain on her face. She said slowly, 'Then he isn't what he seemed at first.'

  'He killed Krasko,' Father da Costa reminded her. 'Murdered him in cold blood. There was nothing romantic about that.'

  'You're right, of course.' She groped for her coat and stood up. 'What are you going to do now?'

  'What on earth do you expect me to do?' he said half-angrily. 'Save his soul?'

  'It's a thought,' she said, slipping her hand into his arm and they went out together.

  * * *

  There was an old warehouse at the rear of Meehan's premises in Paul's Square and a fire escape gave easy access to its flat roof.

  Fallon crouched behind a low wall as he screwed the silencer on to the barrel of the Ce
ska and peered across through the rain. The two dormer windows at the rear of Meehan's penthouse were no more than twenty yards away and the curtains weren't drawn. He had seen Meehan several times pacing backwards and forwards, a glass in his hand. On one occasion, Rupert had joined him, putting an arm about his neck, but Meehan had shoved him away and angrily from the look of it.

  It was a difficult shot at that distance for a handgun, but not impossible. Fallon crouched down, holding the Ceska ready in both hands, aiming at the left-hand window. Meehan appeared briefly and paused, raising a glass to his lips. Fallon fired the silenced pistol once.

  In the penthouse, a mirror on the wall shattered and Meehan dropped to the floor. Rupert, who was lying on the couch watching television, turned quickly. His eyes widened.

  'My God, look at the window. Somebody took a shot at you.'

  Meehan looked up at the bullet hole, the spider's web of cracks, then across at the mirror. He got up slowly.

  Rupert joined him. 'You want to know something, ducky? You're getting to be too damn dangerous to know.'

  Meehan shoved him away angrily. 'Get me a drink, damn you. I've got to think this thing out.'

  A couple of minutes later the phone rang. When he picked up the receiver, he got a call-box signal and then the line cleared as a coin went in at the other end.

  'That you, Meehan?' Fallon said. 'You know who this is?'

  'You bastard,' Meehan said. 'What are you trying to do?'

  'This time I missed because I meant to,' Fallon said. 'Remember that and tell your goons to stay away from Holy Name - and that includes you.'

  He put down the receiver and Meehan did the same. He turned, his face white with fury, and Rupert handed him a drink. 'You don't look too good, ducky, bad news?'

  'Fallon,' Meehan said between his teeth. 'It was that bastard Fallon and he missed because he wanted to.'

  'Never mind, ducky,' Rupert said. 'After all, you've always got me.'

  'That's right,' Meehan said. 'So I have. I was forgetting,' and he hit him in the stomach with his clenched fist.

  It was late when Fallon got back, much later than he had intended, and there was no sign of Jenny. He took off his shoes and went up the stairs and along the landing to his room quietly.

  He undressed, got into bed and lit a cigarette. He was tired. It had certainly been one hell of a day. There was a slight, timid knock on the door. It opened and Jenny came in.

  She wore a dark-blue nylon nightdress, her hair was tied back with a ribbon and her face was scrubbed clean. She said, 'Jack Meehan was on the phone about half an hour ago. He says he wants to see you in the morning.'

  'Did he say where?'

  'No, he just said to tell you it couldn't be more public so you've nothing to worry about. He'll send a car at seven-thirty.'

  Fallon frowned. 'A bit early for him, isn't it?'

  'I wouldn't know.' She hesitated. 'I waited. You said an hour. You didn't come.'

  'I'm sorry,' he said. 'It couldn't be helped, believe me.'

  'I did,' she said. 'You were the first man in years who didn't treat me like something you'd scrape off your shoe.'

  She started to cry. Wordless, he pulled back the covers and held out a hand. She stumbled across the room and got in beside him.

  He switched off the lamp. She lay there, her face against his chest, sobbing, his arms about her. He held her close, stroking her hair with his other hand and after a while, she slept.

  10

  Exhumation

  The car that called to pick Fallon up the following morning at seven-thirty was a black, funeral limousine. Varley was at the wheel dressed in a neat blue serge suit and peaked cap. There was no other passenger.

  Fallon climbed into the rear and closed the door. He reached across and slid back the glass window between the driver's compartment and the rest of the car.

  'All right,' he said, as Varley moved into gear and drove away. 'Where are we going?'

  'The Catholic cemetery.' Fallon, in the act of lighting his first cigarette of the day, started, and Varley said soothingly, 'Nothing to worry about, Mr Fallon. Honest. It's just that Mr Meehan has an exhumation first thing this morning.'

  'An exhumation?' Fallon said.

  'That's right. They don't come along very often and Mr Meehan always likes to see to a thing like that personally. He's very particular about his funeral work.'

  'I can believe that,' Fallon said. 'What's so special about this case?'

  'Nothing really. I suppose he thought you might find it interesting. The man they're digging up is a German. Died about eighteen months ago. His wife couldn't afford to take him back to Germany then, but now she's come into a bit of money, and wants to bury him in Hamburg.' He swung the car out into the main road and added cheerfully, 'It's a fascinating game, the funeral business, Mr Fallon. Always something new happening.'

  'I just bet there is,' Fallon said.

  They reached the cemetery in ten minutes, and Varley turned in through the gate and drove up the drive, past the chapel and the superintendent's office, following a narrow track.

  The grave they were seeking was on top of the hill covered by a canvas awning. At least a dozen people were grouped around it and there was a truck and a couple of cars. Meehan was standing beside one of them talking to a grey-haired man in rubber boots and an oilskin mac. Meehan wore a Homburg hat and his usual melton overcoat and Donner stood beside him holding an umbrella over his head.

  As Fallon got out and splashed through the heavy rain towards them, Meehan turned and smiled. 'Ah, there you are. This is Mr Adams, the Public Health Inspector. Mr Fallon is a colleague of mine.'

  Adams shook hands and turned back to Meehan. 'I'll see how they're getting on, Mr Meehan.'

  He moved away and Fallon said, 'All right, what game are we playing now?'

  'No games,' Meehan said. 'This is strictly business and I've a funeral afterwards so I'm busy all morning, but we obviously need to talk. We can do it in the car on the way. For the moment, just stick close to me and pretend to be a member of the firm. This is a privileged occasion. The cemetery superintendent wouldn't be too pleased if he thought an outsider had sneaked in.'

  He moved towards the grave, Donner keeping pace with the umbrella, and Fallon followed. The smell was terrible - like nothing he had ever smelt before and when he peered down into the open grave, he saw that it had been sprinkled with lime.

  'Two feet of water down there, Mr Meehan,' the Public Health Inspector called. 'No drainage. Too much clay. Means the coffins going to be in a bad state. Probably come to pieces.'

  'All in the game,' Meehan said. 'Better have the other one ready.'

  He nodded and two of the gravediggers standing by lifted a large oaken coffin out of the back of the truck and put it down near the grave. When they opened it, Fallon saw that it was zinc lined.

  The old coffin drops inside and we close the lid,' Meehan said. 'Nothing to it. The lid has to be welded into place, mind you, in front of the Public Health Inspector, but that's what the law says if you want to fly a corpse from one country to another.'

  Just then there was a sudden flurry of movement, and as they turned, the half-dozen men grouped around the grave heaved up the coffin. Webbing bands had been passed underneath, which to a certain extent held things together, but as the coffin came into view, the end broke away and a couple of decayed feet poked through minus their toes.

  The smell was even worse now as the half-dozen unfortunate gravediggers lurched towards the new coffin clutching the old. Meehan seemed to enjoy the whole thing hugely and moved in close, barking orders.

  'Watch it, now! Watch it! A little bit more to the left. That's it.'

  The old coffin dropped into the new, the lid was closed. He turned triumphantly to Fallon. 'I told you there was nothing to it, didn't I? Now let's get moving. I've got a cremation at nine-thirty.'

  The gravediggers seemed badly shaken. One of them lit a cigarette, hands trembling, and said to Fallon
in a Dublin accent, 'Is it a fact that they're flying him over to Germany this afternoon?'

  'So I understand,' Fallon said.

  The old man made a wry face. 'Sure and I hope the pilot remembers to wind the windows down.'

  Which at least sent Fallon to the car laughing helplessly to himself.

  Donner drove and Meehan and Fallon sat in the back seat. Meehan opened a cupboard in the bottom half of the partition between the driver's compartment and the rear and took out a Thermos flask and a half-bottle of Cognac. He half-filled a cup with coffee, topped it up with Cognac and leaned back.

  'Last night. That was very silly. Not what I'd call a friendly gesture at all. What did you have to go and do a thing like that for?'

  'You said the priest would be left alone,' Fallon told him, 'then sent O'Hara to the crypt to smash it up. Lucky I turned up when I did. As for O'Hara - he and I are old comrades in a manner of speaking. He's cleared off, by the way. You won't be seeing him around here any more.'

  'You have been busy.' Meehan poured more Cognac into his coffee. 'I do admit I got just a little bit annoyed with Father da Costa. On the other hand he wasn't very nice when I spoke to him yesterday evening and all I did was offer to help him raise the money to stop that church of his from falling down!'

  'And you thought he'd accept?' Fallon laughed out loud. 'You've got to be joking.'

  Meehan shrugged. 'I still say that bullet was an unfriendly act.'

  'Just like Billy playing Peeping Tom at Jenny Fox's place,' Fallon said. 'When are you going to do something about that worm, anyway! He isn't fit to be out without his keeper.'

  Meehan's face darkened. 'He's my brother,' he said. 'He has his faults, but we all have those. Anyone hurts him, they hurt me too.'

  Fallon lit a cigarette and Meehan smiled expansively. 'You don't really know me, do you, Fallon? I mean, the other side of me, for instance? The funeral game.'

  'You take it seriously.'

  It was a statement of fact, not a question and Meehan nodded soberly. 'You've got to have some respect for death. It's a serious business. Too many people are too off-hand about it these days. Now me, I like to see things done right.'