Confessional

by Jack Higgins

  'I've just heard from Paris. The Mona Lisa is smiling all over her face. See you soon.'

  And in Moscow important things had been happening that morning. Events that were to affect the whole of Russia and world politics generally, for Yuri Andropov, head of the KGB since 1967, was named Secretary of the Communist Party Central Committee. He still inhabited his old office at KGB headquarters at Dzerhinsky Square

  and it was there that he summoned Maslovsky just after noon. The General stood in front of the desk, filled with foreboding, for Andropov was possibly the only man he had ever known of whom he was genuinely afraid. Andropov was writing, his pen scratching the paper. He ignored Maslovsky for a while, then spoke without looking up.

  'There is little point in referring to the gross inefficiency shown by your department in the matter of the Cuchulain affair.'

  'Comrade.' Maslovsky didn't attempt to defend himself.

  'You have given orders that he is to be eliminated together with Cherny?'

  'Yes, Comrade.'

  'The sooner the better.' Andropov paused, removed his glasses and ran a hand over his forehead. 'Then there is the matter of your foster-daughter. She is now safely in London due to the bungling of your people.'

  'Yes, Comrade.'

  'From which city Brigadier Ferguson is having her flown to Dublin, where the IRA intend to give her any help she needs to identify Cuchulain?'

  'That would appear to be the case,' Maslovsky said weakly.

  'The Provisional IRA is a fascist organization as far as I am concerned, hopelessly tainted by its links with the Catholic Church, and Tanya Voroninova is a traitor to her country, her party and her class. You will send an immediate signal to the man Lubov in Dublin. He will eliminate her as well as Cherny and Cuchulain.'

  He replaced his glasses, picked up his pen and started to write again. Maslovsky said in a hoarse voice, 'Please, Comrade, perhaps…'

  Andropov glanced up in surprise. 'Does my order give you some sort of problem, Comrade General?'

  Maslovsky, wilting under those cold eyes, shook his head hurriedly. 'No, of course not, Comrade,' and he turned and went out, feeling just the slightest tremor in his limbs.

  At the Soviet Embassy in Dublin, Lubov had already received a signal from Paris informing him that Tanya Voroninova had slipped the net. He was still in the radio room digesting this startling piece of news when the second signal came through, the one from Maslovsky in Moscow. The operator recorded it, placed the tape in the machine and Lubov keyed in his personal code. When he read the message he felt physically sick. He went to his office, locked the door and got a bottle of Scotch from the cupboard. He had one and then another. Finally he phoned Cherny.

  'Costello, here.' It was the code name he used on such occasions. 'Are you busy?'

  'Not particularly,' Cherny told him.

  'We must meet.'

  'The usual place?'

  'Yes, I must talk to you first. Very important. However, we must also arrange to see our mutual friend this evening. Dun Street, I think. Can you arrange that?'

  'It's very unusual.'

  'As I said, matters of importance. Ring me back to confirm this evening's meeting.'

  Cherny was definitely worried. Dun Street was a code name for a disused warehouse on City Quay which he had leased under a company name some years previously, but that wasn't the point. What was really important was the fact that he, Cussane and Lubov had never all met together in the same place before. He phoned Cussane at the cottage without success, so he tried the Catholic Secretariat offices in Dublin. Cussane answered at once.

  'Thank God,' said Cherny. 'I tried the cottage.'

  'Yes, I've just got in,' Cussane told him. 'Is there a problem?'

  'I'm not sure. I feel uneasy. Can I speak freely?'

  'You usually do on this line.'

  'Our friend Costello has been in touch. Asked me to meet him at three-thirty.'

  'Usual place?'

  'Yes, but he's also asked me to arrange for the three of us to meet at Dun Street

  tonight.'

  'That is unusual.'

  'I know. I don't like it.'

  'Perhaps he has instructions for us to pull out,' Cussane said. 'Did he say anything about the girl?'

  'No. Should he have done?'

  'I just wondered what was happening there, that's all. Tell him I'll see you at Dun Street

  at six-thirty. Don't worry, Paul. I'll handle things.'

  He rang off and Cherny got straight back to Lubov. 'Six-thirty, is that all right?'

  'Fine,' Lubov told him.

  'He asked me if you'd heard anything about the girl in Paris.'

  'No, not a word,' Lubov lied. 'I'll see you at three-thirty.' He rang off, poured himself a drink, then unlocked the top drawer of his desk, took out a case and opened it. It contained a Stechkin automatic pistol and a silencer. Gingerly, he started fitting them together.

  In his office at the Secretariat, Harry Cussane stood at the window, looking down into the street. He had listened in to Devlin's conversations with Ferguson before leaving the cottage and knew that Tanya Voronmova was due that evening. It was inconceivable that Lubov would not have heard, either from Moscow or Paris, so why hadn't he mentioned it?

  The meeting at Dun Street

  was unusual enough in itself, but in view of that meeting, why meet Cherny in the usual back row at the cinema first? What could possibly be the need? It didn't fit, any of it, and every instinct that Cussane possessed, honed by his years in the trenches, told him so. Whatever Lubov wanted to see them for, it was not conversation.

  Paul Cherny was reaching for his raincoat when there was a knock at the door of his rooms. When he opened it, Harry Cussane was standing outside. He wore a dark trilby hat and raincoat of the kind affected by priests and looked agitated.

  'Paul, thank God I caught you.'

  'Why, what is it?' Cherny demanded.

  'The IRA man who followed you, the one I disposed of the other day. They've set another one on. This way.'

  Cherny's rooms were on the first floor of the old greystone college building. Cussane went up the stairs quickly to the next floor and turned at once up another flight of stairs.

  'Where are we going?' Cherny called.

  'I'll show you.'

  On the top landing, the tall Georgian window at the end had its bottom half pushed up. Cussane peered out. 'Over there,' he said. 'On the other side of the quad.'

  Cherny looked down to the stone flags and the green grass of the quadrangle. 'Where?' he asked.

  There was the hand in the small of his back, a sudden violent push. He managed to cry out, but only just as he overbalanced across the low windowsill and plunged head first towards the stone flags eighty-feet below.

  Cussane ran along the corridor and descended the back stairs hurriedly. In a sense, he had been telling the truth. McGuiness had indeed replaced Murphy with a new watchdog, in fact two of them this time, sitting in a green Ford Escort near the main entrance, not that it was going to do them much good now.

  Lubov had the back row to himself. In fact, there were only five or six people in the cinema at all as far as he could see in the dim light. He was early, but that was by intention, and he fingered the silenced Stechkin in his pocket, his palms damp with sweat. He'd brought a flask with him and took it out now and swallowed deep. More Scotch to give him the courage he needed. First Cherny and then Cussane, but that should be easier if he was at the warehouse first and waiting in ambush. He took another swig at the flask, had just replaced it in his pocket when there was a movement in the darkness and someone sat down beside him.

  'Paul?' he turned his head.

  An arm slid round his neck, a hand clamped over his mouth. In the second that he recognized Cussane's pale face under the brim of the black hat, the needle point of the stiletto, the other held in his right hand probed in under his ribs, thrusting up into the heart. There was not even time to struggle. A kind of blinding light, n
o pain, then only darkness.

  Cussane wiped the blade carefully on Lubov's jacket, eased him back in the seat as if asleep. He found the Stechkin in the dead man's pocket, took it out and slipped it into his own. He had been right, as usual. The final proof. He got up, went down the aisle, a shadow only in his black coat, and left through one of the exit doors.

  He was back at the office in the Secretariat within half an hour, had hardly sat down when Monsignor Halloran came in. Halloran was very cheerful and obviously excited.

  'Have you heard? Just had the confirmation from the Vatican. The Pope's visit is on.'

  'So they've decided. You'll be going across?'

  'Yes indeed. Seat booked in Canterbury Cathedral. An historic occasion, Harry. Something for people to tell their grandchildren about.'

  'For those who have any,' Cussane smiled.

  Halloran laughed. 'Exactly, which hardly applies to us. I must be off. I've got a dozen things to organize.'

  Cussane sat there thinking about it, then reached for his raincoat where he'd thrown it on a chair and took the poniard out in its leather sheath. He put it in one of the desk drawers then took out the Stechkin. What a bungling amateur Lubov had been to use a weapon of Russian manufacture. But it was the proof that he had needed. It meant that to his masters he was not only expendable. He was now a liability.

  'So what now, Harry Cussane?' he asked himself softly. 'Where do you go?'

  Strange that habit, when speaking to himself, of addressing Cussane by his full name. It was as if he were another person which, in a way, he was. The phone rang and when he answered, Devlin spoke to him.

  There you are.'

  'Where are you?'

  'Dublin airport. I'm picking up a house-guest. A very pretty girl, actually. I think you'll like her. I thought we all might have supper tonight.'

  'That sounds nice,' Cussane said calmly. 'I've agreed to take evening Mass, though, at the village church. I'll be finished at eight. Is that all right?'

  'Fine. We'll look forward to seeing you.'

  Cussane put the phone down. He could run, of course, but where and to what purpose? In any event, the play had at least one more act to go, all his instincts told him that.

  'No place to hide, Harry Cussane,' he said softly.

  When Harry Fox and Tanya came through the gate into the arrival hall, Devlin was waiting, leaning against a pillar, smoking a cigarette, wearing the black felt hat and trenchcoat. He came forward, smiling.

  'Cead mile failte,' he said and took the young woman's hands. 'That's Irish for a hundred thousand welcomes.'

  'Go raibh maith agat.' Fox gave him the ritual thanks.

  'Stop showing off.' Devlin took her bag. 'His mother was a decent Irishwoman, thank the Lord.'

  Her face was shining. 'I'm so excited. All this is so - so unbelievable.'

  Fox said, 'Right, you're in safe hands now. I'm off. There's a return flight in an hour. I'd better book in. We'll be in touch, Liam.'

  He went off through the crowd and Devlin took her elbow and led her to the main entrance. 'A nice man,' she said. 'His hand? What happened?'

  'He picked up a bag with a bomb in it in Belfast one bad night and didn't throw it fast enough. He gets by very well with the electronic marvel they've given him.'

  'You say that so calmly,' she said as they crossed to the carpark.

  'He wouldn't thank you for the wrong kind of sympathy. Comes of his particular kind of upbringing. Eton, the Guards. They teach you to get on with it, not cry in your beer.' He handed her into his old Alfa Romeo sports car. 'Harry's a special breed, just like that ould bastard Ferguson. What's known as a gentleman.'

  'Which you are not?'

  'God save us, my ould mother would turn in her grave to hear you even suggest it,' he said as he drove away. 'So, you decided to give things some more thought after I left Paris? What happened?'

  She told him everything. Belov, the phone conversation with Maslovsky, Shepilov and Turkin, and finally, Alex Martin in Jersey.

  Devlin was frowning thoughtfully as she finished. 'So they were on to you? Actually waiting in Jersey? How in the hell would they know that?'

  'I asked about the train times at hotel reception,' she told him. 'I didn't give my name or room number. I thought that covered it. Perhaps Belov and his people were able to make the right sort of enquiries.'

  'Maybe. Still, you're here now. You'll be staying with me at my cottage in Kilrea. It isn't far. I've got a call to make when we get in. With luck, we'll be able to set up the right kind of meeting for you tomorrow. Lots of photos for you to plough through.'

  'I hope something comes of it,' she said.

  'Don't we all? Anyway, a quiet night. I'll make the supper and a good friend of mine is joining us.'

  'Anyone interesting?'

  'The kind of man you'd find rather thin on the ground where you come from. A Catholic priest. Father Harry Cussane. I think you'll like him.'

  He phoned McGuiness from his study. 'The girl is here. Staying with me at my place. How soon can you set up the right meeting?'

  'Never mind that,' McGuiness told him. 'Have you heard about Cherny?'

  Devlin was immediately alert. 'No.'

  'Took a very long fall from a very high window at Trinity College this afternoon. The thing is, did he fall or was he pushed?'

  'I suppose one could say his end was fortuitous,' Devlin said.

  'For one person only,' McGuiness told him. 'Jesus, I'd like to get my hands on that sod.'

  'Set up the meeting with the girl then,' Devlin said. 'Maybe she'll recognize him.'

  'I'd go to confession again if I thought that could be guaranteed. Okay, leave it with me. I'll get back to you.'

  Cussane robed for Mass in the sacristy, very calm, very cold. It wasn't like a play any longer. More like an improvisation in which the actors created a story for themselves. He had no idea what was going to happen.

  The four acolytes who waited for him were village boys, clean and neat and angelic in their scarlet cassocks and white cottas. He settled the stole around his neck, picked up his prayer book and turned to them.

  'Let's make it special tonight, shall we?'

  He pressed the bellpush at the door. A moment later, the organ started to play. One of the boys opened the door and they moved through into the small church in procession.

  Devlin was working in the kitchen preparing steaks. Tanya opened the French windows and was immediately aware of the organ music drifting across the garden from the other side of the wall. She went in to Devlin. 'What's that?'

  'There's a convent over there and a hospice. Their chapel is the village church. That'll be Harry Cussane celebrating Mass. He won't be long.'

  She went back into the living room and stood listening at the French windows. It was nice and not only peaceful. The organ playing was really rather good. She crossed the lawn and opened the door in the wall. The chapel, on the end of the convent, looked picturesque and inviting, soft light flooding from the windows. She went up the path and opened the oaken door.

  There were only a handful of villagers, two people in wheelchairs who were obviously patients from the hospice and several nuns. Sister Anne-Mane played the organ. It was not much of an instrument and the damp atmosphere had a bad effect on the reeds, but she was good, had spent a year at the Conservatoire in Paris as a young girl before heeding God's call and turning to the religious life.

  The lights were very dim, mainly candles, and the church was a place of shadows and calm peace, the nuns' voices sweet as they sang the offertory: 'Domine Jesu Christ, Rex Flonae . . ! At the altar, Harry Cussane prayed for all sinners everywhere whose actions only cut them off from the fact of God's infinite mercy and love. Tanya took a seat to one side on her own, moved by the atmosphere. The truth was that she had never attended a church service like this in her life. She couldn't see much of Cussane's face. He was simply the chief figure down there at the altar in the dim light, fascinating to her in his robes
as was the whole business.

  The Mass continued, most of those in the congregation went forward to the rail to receive the body and blood of Christ. She watched, as he moved from one person to the other, the head bending to murmur the ritual words and she was filled with a strange unease. It was as if she knew this man, some trick of physical movement that seemed familiar.

  When the Mass was over, the final absolution given, he paused on the steps to address the congregation. 'And in your prayers during the coming days, I would ask each one of you to pray for the Holy Father, soon to visit England at a most difficult time.' He moved forward a little, the candlelight falling on his face. 'Pray for him that your prayers, added to his own, grant him the strength to accomplish his mission.'

  His gaze passed over the entire congregation and for a moment it was as if he was looking at her directly, then he moved on. Tanya froze in horror, the shock, the most terrible she had ever known in her life. When he spoke the words of the benediction, it was as if his lips moved with no sound. The face — the face which had haunted her dreams for years. Older, of course, kinder even, and yet unmistakably the face of Mikhail Kelly, the man they had named Cuchulain.

  What happened then was strange, yet perhaps not so strange if one considered the circumstances. The shock was so profound that it seemed to drain all strength from her and she remained in the half-darkness at the back of the church while people moved out and Cussane and the acolytes disappeared into the sacristy. It was very quiet in the church and she sat there, trying to make sense of things. Cuchulain was Father Harry Cussane, Devlin's friend, and it explained so many things. Oh, my God, she thought, what am I going to do? And then the sacristy door opened and Cussane stepped out.

  Things were almost ready in the kitchen. Devlin checked the oven, whistling softly to himself and called, 'Have you laid the table in there?'

  There was no reply. He went into the living room. Not only was the table not laid but there was no sign of Tanya. Then he noticed the French window ajar, took off his apron and moved forward.