A Prayer for the Dying (v5) (7 page)

'I don't follow, Mr Meehan.' Donner was obviously mystified.

'Just till we sort things out, Frank,' Meehan told him. 'Then we drop both of them. Him
and
the priest.'

Donner grinned as a great light dawned. 'That's more like it.'

'I thought you'd approve,' Meehan smiled, opened the door and went inside.

* * *

Jenny Fox was a small, rather hippy girl of nineteen with good breasts, high cheekbones and almond-shaped eyes. Her straight black hair hung shoulder-length in a dark curtain and the only flaw in the general picture was the fact that she had too much make-up on.

When she came downstairs she was wearing a simple, white blouse, black pleated mini skirt and high-heeled shoes and she walked with a sort of general and total movement of the whole body that most men found more than a little disturbing.

Billy Meehan waited for her at the bottom of the stairs and when she was close enough, he slipped a hand up her skirt. She stiffened slightly and he shook his head, a sly, nasty smile on his face.

'Tights again, Jenny. I told you I wanted you to wear stockings.'

'I'm sorry, Billy.' There was fear in her eyes. 'I didn't know you'd be coming today.'

'You'd better watch it, hadn't you, or you'll be getting one of my specials.' She shivered slightly and he withdrew his hand. 'What about Fallon? Did he say anything?'

'Asked me if I had a razor he could borrow. Who is he?'

'None of your business. He shouldn't go out, but if he does, give Jack a ring straight away. And try to find out where he's going.'

'All right, Billy.' She opened the front door for him.

He moved in close behind her, his arms about her waist. She could feel his hardness pressed against her buttocks and the hatred, the loathing rose like bile in her throat, threatening to choke her. He said softly, 'Another thing. Get him into bed. I want to see what makes him tick.'

'And what if he won't play? she said.

'Stocking tops and suspenders. That's what blokes of his age go for. You'll manage.' He slapped her bottom and went out. She closed the door, leaning against it for a moment, struggling for breath. Strange how he always left her with that feeling of suffocation.

She went upstairs, moved along the corridor and knocked softly on Fallon's door. When she went in, he was standing in front of the washbasin in the corner by the window, drying his hands.

'I'll see if I can find you that razor now,' she said.

He hung the towel neatly over the rail and shook his head. 'It'll do later. I'm going out for a while.'

She was gripped by a sudden feeling of panic. 'Is that wise?' she said. 'I mean, where are you going?'

Fallon smiled as he pulled on his trench-coat. He ran a finger down her nose in a strangely intimate gesture that brought a lump to her throat.

'Girl dear, do what you have to, which I presume means ringing Jack Meehan to say I'm taking a walk, but I'm damned if I'll say where to.'

'Will you be in for supper?'

'I wouldn't miss it for all the tea in China.' He smiled and was gone.

It was an old-fashioned phrase. One her grandmother had used frequently. She hadn't heard it in years. Strange how it made her want to cry.

When Miller went into the Forensic Department at police headquarters, he found Fitzgerald in the side laboratory with Johnson, the ballistics specialist. Fitzgerald looked excited and Johnson seemed reasonably complacent.

Miller said, 'I hear you've got something for me.'

Johnson was a slow, cautious Scot. 'That just could be, Superintendent.' He picked up a reasonably misshapen piece of lead with a pair of tweezers. 'This is what did all the damage. They found it in the gravel about three yards from the body.'

'Half an hour after you left, sir,' Fitzgerald put in.

'Any hope of making a weapon identification?' Miller demanded.

'Oh, I've pretty well decided that now.' There was a copy of
Small Arms of the World
beside Johnson. He flipped through it quickly, found the page he was searching for and pushed it across to Miller. 'There you are.'

There was a photo of the Ceska in the top right-hand corner. 'I've never even heard of the damn thing,' Miller said. 'How can you be sure?'

'Well, I've some more tests to run, but it's pretty definite. You see there are four factors which are constant in the same make of weapon. Groove and land marks on the bullet, their number and width, their direction, which means are they twisting to the right or left, and the rate of that twist. Once I have those facts, I simply turn to a little item entitled the
Atlas of Arms,
and thanks to the two German gentlemen who so painstakingly put the whole thing together, it's possible to trace the weapon which fits without too much difficulty.'

Miller turned to Fitzgerald. 'Get this information to CRO at Scotland Yard straight away. This Ceska's an out-of-the-way gun. If they feed that into the computer, it might throw out a name. Somebody who's used one before. You never know. I'll see you back in my office.'

Fitzgerald went out quickly and Miller turned to Johnson. 'Anything else, let me know at once.' He went back to his office where he found a file on his desk containing a resume of Father da Costa's career. Considering the limited amount of time Fitzgerald had had, it was really very comprehensive.

He came in as Miller finished reading the file and closed it. 'I told you he was quite a man, sir.'

'You don't know the half of it,' Miller said and proceeded to tell him what had happened at the presbytery.

Fitzgerald was dumbfounded. 'But it doesn't make any kind of sense.'

'You don't think he's been got at?'

'By Meehan?' Fitzgerald laughed out loud. 'Father da Costa isn't the kind of man who can be got at by anybody. He's the sort who's always spoken up honestly. Said exactly how he felt, even when the person who was hurt most was himself. Look, at his record. He's a brilliant scholar. Two doctorates. One in languages, the other in philosophy, and where's it got him? A dying parish in the heart of a rather unpleasant industrial city. A church that's literally falling down.'

'All right, I'm convinced,' Miller said. 'So he speaks up loud and clear when everyone else has the good sense to keep their mouths shut.' He opened the file again. 'And he's certainly no physical coward. During the war he dropped into Yugoslavia by parachute three times and twice into Albania. DSO in 1944. Wounded twice.' He shrugged impatiently. 'There's got to be an explanation. There must be. It doesn't make any kind of sense that he should refuse to come in like this.'

'But did he actually refuse?'

Miller frowned, trying to remember exactly what the priest had said. 'No, come to think of it, he didn't. He said there was no point to coming in, as he wouldn't be able to help.'

'That's a strange way of putting it,' Fitzgerald said.

'You're telling me. There was an even choicer item. When I told him I could always get a warrant, he said that no power on earth could make him speak on this matter if he didn't want to.'

Fitzgerald had turned quite pale. He stood up and leaned across the desk. 'He said that? You're sure?'

'He certainly did.' Miller frowned. 'Does it mean something?'

Fitzgerald turned away and moved across the room to the window. 'I can only think of one circumstance in which a priest would speak in such a way.'

'And what would that be?'

'If the information he had at his disposal had been obtained as part of confession.'

Miller stared at him. 'But that isn't possible. I mean, he actually saw this character up there at the cemetery. It wouldn't apply.'

'It could,' Fitzgerald said, 'if the man simply went into the box and confessed. Da Costa wouldn't see his face, remember - not then.'

'And you're trying to tell me that once the bloke has spilled his guts, da Costa would be hooked?'

'Certainly he would.'

'But that's crazy.'

'Not to a Catholic it isn't. That's the whole point of confession. That what passes between the priest and individual involved, no matter how vile, must be utterly confidential.' He shrugged. 'Just as effective as a bullet, sir.' Fitzgerald hesitated. 'When we were at the cemetery, didn't he tell you he was in a hurry to leave because he had to hear confession at one o'clock?'

Miller was out of his chair and already reaching for his raincoat. 'You can come with me,' he said. 'He might listen to you.'

'What about the autopsy?' Fitzgerald reminded him. 'I thought you wanted to attend personally.'

Miller glanced at his watch. 'There's an hour yet. Plenty of time.'

The lifts were all busy and he went down the stairs two at a time, heart pounding with excitement. Fitzgerald had to be right - it was the only explanation that fitted. But how to handle the situation? That was something else again.

* * *

When Fallon turned down the narrow street beside Holy Name, Varley was no more than thirty yards in the rear. Fallon had been aware of his presence within two minutes of leaving Jenny's place - not that it mattered. He entered the church and Varley made for the phone-box on the corner of the street and was speaking to Meehan within a few moments.

'Mr Meehan? It's me. He's gone into a church in Rockingham Street. The Church of the Holy Name.'

'I'll be there in five minutes,' Meehan said and slammed down the receiver.

He arrived in the scarlet Scimitar with Billy at the wheel to find Varley standing on the street corner, miserable in the rain. He came to meet them as they got out.

'He's still in there, Mr Meehan. I haven't been in myself.'

'Good lad,' Meehan said and glanced up at the church. 'Bloody place looks as if it might fall down at any moment.'

'They serve good soup,' Varley said. 'To dossers. They use the crypt as a day refuge. I've been in. The priest, he's Father da Costa, and his niece, run it between them. She's a blind girl. A real smasher. Plays the organ here.'

Meehan nodded. 'All right, you wait in a doorway. When he comes out, follow him again. Come on, Billy.'

He moved into the porch and opened the door gently. They passed inside and he closed it again quickly.

The girl was playing the organ, he could see the back of her head beyond the green baize curtain. The priest knelt at the altar rail in prayer. Fallon sat at one end of a pew halfway along the aisle.

There was a small chapel to St Martin de Porres on the right. Not a single candle flickered in front of his image, leaving the chapel in semi-darkness. Meehan pulled Billy after him into the concealing shadows and sat down in the corner.

'What in the hell are we supposed to be doing?' Billy whispered.

'Just shut up and listen.'

At that moment, Father da Costa stood up and crossed himself. As he turned he saw Fallon.

'There's nothing for you here, you know that,' he said sternly.

Anna stopped playing. She swung her legs over the seat as Fallon advanced along the aisle and Billy whistled softly. 'Christ, did you see those legs?'

'Shut up!' Jack hissed.

'I told you I'd see to things and I have done,' Fallon said as he reached the altar rail. 'I just wanted you to know that.'

'What am I supposed to do, thank you?' Father da Costa said.

The street door banged open, candles flickered in the wind as it closed again and to Jack Meehan's utter astonishment, Miller and Fitzgerald walked up the aisle towards the altar.

'Ah, there you are, Father,' Miller called. 'I'd like a word with you.'

'My God,' Billy Meehan whispered in panic. 'We've got to get out of here.'

'Like hell we do,' Meehan said and his hand gripped Billy's right knee like a vice. 'Just sit still and listen. This could be very interesting.'

7

Prelude and Fugue

Fallon recognised Miller for what he was instantly and waited, shoulders hunched, hands in the pockets of his trenchcoat, feet apart, ready to make whatever move was necessary. There was an elemental force to the man that was almost tangible. Father da Costa could feel it in the very air and the thought of what might happen here filled him with horror.

He moved forward quickly to place himself between Fallon and the two policemen as they approached. Anna paused uncertainly a yard or two on the other side of the altar rail.

Miller stopped, hat in hand, Fitzgerald a pace or two behind him. There was a slight awkward silence and da Costa said, 'I think you've met my niece, Superintendent. He has Inspector Fitzgerald with him, my dear.'

'Miss da Costa,' Miller said formally and turned to Fallon.

Father da Costa said, 'And this is Mr Fallon.'

'Superintendent,' Fallon said easily.

He waited, a slight, fixed smile on his mouth and Miller, looking into that white, intense face, those dark eyes, was aware of a strange, irrational coldness as if somewhere, someone had walked over his grave, which didn't make any kind of sense - and then a sudden, wild thought struck him and he took an involuntary step backwards. There was a silence. Everyone waited. Rain drummed against a window.

It was Anna who broke the spell by taking a blind step towards the altar rail and stumbling. Fallon jumped to catch her.

'Are you all right, Miss da Costa?' he said easily.

'Thank you, Mr Fallon. How stupid of me.' Her slight laugh sounded very convincing as she looked in Miller's general direction. 'I've been having trouble with the organ. I'm afraid that, like the church, it's past its best. Mr Fallon has kindly agreed to give us the benefit of his expert advice.'

'Is that so?' Miller said.

She turned to Father da Costa. 'Do you mind if we start, Uncle? I know Mr Fallon's time is limited.'

'We'll go into the sacristy, if that's all right with you, Superintendent,' Father da Costa said. 'Or up to the house if you prefer.'

'Actually, I'd rather like to hang on here for a few minutes,' Miller told him. 'I'm a pianist myself, but I've always been rather partial to a bit of organ music. If Mr Fallon has no objection.'

Fallon gave him an easy smile. 'Sure and there's nothing like an audience, Superintendent, for bringing out the best in all of us,' and he took Anna by the arm and led her up through the choir stalls.

From the darkness at the rear of the little chapel to St Martin de Porres, Meehan watched, fascinated. Billy whispered, 'I said he was a nutter, didn't I? So how in the hell is he going to talk his way out of this one?'

'With his fingers, Billy, with his fingers,' Meehan said. 'I'd put a grand on it.' There was sincere admiration in his voice when he added. 'You know something. I'm enjoying every bleeding minute of this. It's always nice to see a real pro in action.' He sighed. 'There aren't many of us left.'

Fallon took off his trenchcoat and draped it over the back of a convenient choir stall. He sat down and adjusted the stool so that he could reach the pedals easily. Anna stood at his right hand.

'Have you tried leaving the trumpet in as I suggested?' he asked.

She nodded. 'It made quite a difference.'

'Good. I'll play something pretty solid and we'll see what else we can find wrong. What about the Bach Prelude and Fugue in D Major?'

'I only have it in Braille.'

'That's all right. I know it by heart.' He turned and looked down at Father da Costa and the two policemen on the other side of the altar rail. 'If you're interested, this is reputed to have been Albert Schweitzer's favourite piece.'

No one said a word. They stood there, waiting, and Fallon swung round to face the organ. It had been a long time - a hell of a long time and yet, quite suddenly and in some strange, incomprehensible way, it was only yesterday.

He prepared the swell organ, hands moving expertly - all stops except the Vox Humana and the Celeste and on the Great Organ, Diapasons and a four foot Principal.

He looked up at Anna gravely. 'As regards the Pedal Organ, I'd be disinclined to use any reed stops on this instrument. Only the sixteen-foot Diapason and the Bourdon and maybe a thirty-two-foot stop to give a good, solid tone. What do you think?'

She could not see the corner of his mouth lifted in a slight, sardonic smile and yet something of that smile was in his voice. She put a hand on his shoulder and said clearly, 'An interesting beginning, anyway.'

To her horror he said very softly, 'Why did you interfere?'

'Isn't that obvious?' she answered in a low voice. 'For Superintendent Miller and his inspector's sake. Now play.'

'God forgive you, but you're a terrible liar,' Fallon told her, and started.

He opened with a rising scale, not too fast, allowing each note to be heard, heeling and toeing with his left foot in a clear, bold, loud statement, playing with such astonishing power that Miller's wild surmise died on the instant for it was a masterly performance by any standard.

Father da Costa stood at the altar rail as if turned to stone, caught by the brilliance of Fallon's playing as he answered the opening statement with the chords of both hands on the sparkling Great Organ. He repeated, feet, then hands again, manual answering pedals until his left toe sounded the long four bar bottom A and his hands traced the brilliant passages announced by the pedals.

Miller tapped Father da Costa on the shoulder and whispered in his ear, 'Brilliant, but I'm running out of time, Father. Can we have our chat now?'

Father da Costa nodded reluctantly and led the way across to the sacristy. Fitzgerald was the last in and the door banged behind him in a sudden gust of wind.

Fallon stopped playing. 'Have they gone?' he asked softly.

Anna da Costa stared blindly down at him, a kind of awe on her face, reached out to touch his cheek. 'Who are you? she whispered. 'What are you?'

'A hell of a question to ask any man,' he said and, turning back to the organ, he moved into the opening passage again.

The music could be heard in the sacristy, muted yet throbbing through the old walls with a strange power. Father da Costa sat on the edge of the table.

'Cigarette, sir?' Fitzgerald produced an old, silver case. Father da Costa took one and the light that followed.

Miller observed him closely. The massive shoulders, that weathered, used-up face, the tangled grey beard, and suddenly realised with something close to annoyance that he actually liked the man. It was precisely for this reason that he decided to be as formal as possible.

'Well, Superintendent?' Father da Costa said.

'Have you changed your mind, sir, since we last spoke?'

'Not in the slightest.'

Miller fought hard to control his anger and Fitzgerald moved in smoothly. 'Have you been coerced in any way since this morning sir, or threatened?'

'Not at all, Inspector,' Father da Costa assured him with complete honesty.

'Does the name Meehan mean anything to you, sir?'

Father da Costa shook his head, frowning slightly, 'No, I don't think so. Should it?'

Miller nodded to Fitzgerald, who opened the briefcase he was carrying and produced a photo which he passed to the priest. 'Jack Meehan,' he said. 'Dandy Jack to his friends. That one was taken in London on the steps of West End Central police station after he was released for lack of evidence in an East End shooting last year.'

Meehan, wearing his usual double-breasted overcoat, smiled out at the world hugely, waving his hat in his right hand, his left arm encircling the shoulders of a well-known model girl.

'The girl is strictly for publicity purposes,' Fitzgerald said. 'In sexual matters his tastes run elsewhere. What you read on the sheet pinned to the back is all we have on him officially.'

Father da Costa read it with interest. Jack meehan was forty-eight and had joined the Royal Navy in 1943 at eighteen, serving on minesweepers until 1945 when he had been sentenced to a year's imprisonment and discharged with ignominy for breaking a Petty Officer's jaw in a brawl. In 1948 he had served six months on a minor smuggling charge and in 1954 a charge of conspiracy to rob the mails had been dropped for lack of evidence. Since then, he had been questioned by the police on over forty occasions in connection with indictable offences.

'You don't seem to be having much success,' Father da Costa said with a slight smile.

'There's nothing funny about Jack Meehan,' Miller said. 'In twenty-five years in the police force he's the nastiest thing I've ever come across. Remember the Kray brothers and the Richardson torture gang? Meehan's worse than the whole damn lot of them put together. He has an undertaking business here in the city, but behind that facade of respectability he heads an organisation that controls drug-pushing, prostitution, gambling and protection in most of the big cities in the north of England.'

'And you can't stop him? I find that surprising.'

'Rule by terror, Father. The Krays got away with it for years. Meehan makes them look like beginners. He's had men shot on many occasions - usually the kind of shotgun blast in the legs that doesn't kill, simply cripples. He likes them around as an advertisement.'

'You know this for a fact?'

'And couldn't prove it. Just as I couldn't prove he was behind the worst case of organised child prostitution we ever had or that he disciplined one man by crucifying him with six-inch nails and another by making him eat his own excreta.'

For the briefest of moments, Father da Costa found himself back in that camp in North Korea - the first one where the softening up was mainly physical - lying half-dead in the latrine while a Chinese boot ground his face into a pile of human ordure. The guard had tried to make him eat, too, and he had refused, mainly because he thought he was dying anyway.

He pulled himself back to the present with an effort. 'And you think Meehan is behind the killing of Krasko this morning?'

'He has to be,' Miller told him. 'Krasko was, to put it politely, a business rival in every sense of the word. Meehan tried to take him under his wing and he refused. In Meehan's terms, he wouldn't see reason.'

'And a killer was brought in to execute him publicly?'

'To encourage the others,' Miller said. 'In a sense, the very fact that Meehan dares to do such a thing is a measure of just how sick he is. He knows that
I
know he's behind the whole thing. But he wants me to know - wants everyone to know. He thinks nothing can touch him.'

Father da Costa looked down at the photo, frowning, and Fitzgerald said, 'We could get him this time, Father, with your help.'

Father da Costa shook his head, his face grave. 'I'm sorry, Inspector. I really am.'

Miller said in a harsh voice, 'Father da Costa, the only inference we can draw from your strange conduct is that you are aware of the identity of the man we are seeking. That you are in fact protecting him. Inspector Fitzgerald here, himself a Catholic, has suggested a possible explanation to me. That your knowledge is somehow bound up with the secrets of the confessional, if that is the term. Is there any truth in that supposition?'

'Believe me, Superintendent, if I could help you I would,' Father da Costa told him.

'You still refuse?'

'I'm afraid so.'

Miller glanced at his watch. 'All right, Father, I have an appointment in twenty minutes and I'd like you to come with me. No threats - no coercion. Just a simple request.'

'I see,' Father da Costa said. 'May I be permitted to ask where we are going?'

'To attend the post mortem of Janos Krasko at the city mortuary.'

'I see,' Father da Costa said. 'Tell me, Superintendent, is this supposed to be a challenge?'

'That's up to you, Father.'

Father da Costa stood up, suddenly weary. His will to resist was at a new low. He was sick of the whole wretched business. Strangely enough the only thing of which he was aware with any clarity was the sound of the organ, muted and far away.

'I have evening Mass, Superintendent, and supper at the refuge afterwards. I can't be long.'

'An hour at the most, sir, I'll have you brought back by car, but we really will have to leave now.'

Father da Costa opened the sacristy door and led the way back into the church. He paused at the altar, 'Anna?' he called.

Fallon stopped playing and the girl turned to face him. 'I'm just going out, my dear, with Superintendent Miller.'

'What about Mass?' she said.

'I won't be long. As for the organ,' he added, 'perhaps Mr Fallon would come back after Mass? We could discuss it then.'

'Glad to, Father,' Fallon called cheerfully.

Father da Costa, Miller and Inspector Fitzgerald walked down the aisle, past the chapel of St Martin de Porres, where Jack Meehan and his brother still sat in the shadows, and out of the front door.

It banged in the wind. There was silence. Fallon said softly, 'Well now, at a rough estimate, I'd say you've just saved my neck. I think he suspected something, the good Superintendent Miller.'