Confessional

by Jack Higgins

  His wife and two children were away visiting her mother in Galway and he had closed the bar at eleven, intending fishing early. He was still awake when Cussane came down the street. He had been awakened from his bed by a phone call from one of McGuiness's men. Deegan offered an illegal way out of the country to the Isle of Man, a useful staging post for England. The description of Cussane which he had been given was brief and to the point.

  Deegan had hardly put the phone down when there was a knock at the door. He opened it and found Cussane standing there. He knew at once who his nocturnal caller was, although the clerical collar and black hat and raincoat would have been enough in themselves.

  'What can I do for you, Father?' Deegan asked, stepping back so that Cussane might come in.

  They went into the small bar and Deegan stirred the fire. 'I got your name from a parishioner, Danny Malone,' Cussane said. 'My name is Daly, by the way.'

  'Danny, is it?' Deegan said. 'I heard he was in a bad way.'

  'Dying, poor soul. He told me you could do a run to the Isle of Man if the price was right or the cause.'

  Deegan went behind the bar and poured a whiskey. 'Will you join me, Father?'

  'No thanks.'

  'You're in trouble? Political or police?'

  'A little of both.' Cussane took ten English fifty pound notes from his pocket and laid them on the bar. 'Would this handle it?'

  Deegan picked the notes up and weighed them thoughtfully. 'And why not, Father. Look, you sit by the fire and keep yourself warm and I'll make a phone call.'

  'A phone call?'

  'Sure and I can't manage the boat on my own. I need at least one crew and two is better.'

  He went out, closing the door. Cussane went round the bar to the phone there and waited. There was a slight tinkle from the bell and he lifted the receiver gently.

  The man was talking urgently. 'Deegan here at Ballywalter. Have you Mr McGuiness?'

  'He's gone to bed.'

  'Jesus, man, will you get him? He's here at my place now. That fella Cussane your people phoned about.'

  'Hold right there.' There was a delay, then another voice said, 'McGuiness. Is it yourself, Sean?'

  'And none other. Cussane's here at my pub. Calls himself Daly. He's just given me five hundred quid to take him to the Isle of Man. What do I do, hold him?'

  McGuiness said, 'I'd like nothing better than to see to him myself, but that's childish. You've got some good men there?'

  'Phil Egan and Tadgh McAteer.'

  'So - he dies, this one, Sean. If I told you what he'd done in the past, the harm he's done the movement, you'd never believe it. Take him in that boat of yours, nice and easy, no fuss, then a bullet in the back of the head three miles out and over the side with him.'

  'Consider it done,' Deegan told him. He put down the phone, left the living room, went upstairs and dressed fully. He went into the bar, pulling on an old pilot coat. 'I'll leave you for a while, Father, while I go and get my lads. Help yourself to anything you need.'

  'That's kind of you,' Cussane told him. He lit a cigarette and read the evening paper for something to do.

  Deegan was back in half an hour, two men with him. 'Phil Egan, Father, Tadgh McAteer.'

  They all shook hands. Egan was small and wiry, perhaps twenty-five. McAteer was a large man in an old reefer coat with a beer belly heavy over his belt. He was older than Deegan. Fifty-five at least, Cussane would have thought.

  'We'll get going then, Father.' Cussane picked up his bag and Deegan said, 'Not so fast, Father. I like to know what I'm handling.'

  He put Cussane's bag on the bar, opened it and quickly sifted through the contents. He zipped it up, turned and nodded to McAteer, who ran his hands roughly over the priest and found the Stechkin. He took it out and placed it on the bar without a word. Deegan said, 'What you need that for is your business. You get it back when we land you in the Isle of Man.' He put it in his pocket.

  'I understand,' Cussane said.

  'Good, then let's get going,' and Deegan led the way out.

  Devlin was in bed when McGuiness rang him. 'They've got him,' he said.

  'Where?'

  'Ballywalter. One of our own, a man called Sean Deegan. Cussane turned up there saying he was a friend of Danny Malone and needed an undercover run to the Isle of Man. Presumably Danny had told him a thing or two he shouldn't.'

  'Danny's a dying man. He wouldn't know what he was saying half the time,' Devlin said.

  'Anyway, Cussane, or Father Daly as he's now calling himself, is in for a very unpleasant shock. Three miles out, Deegan and his boys nail the coffin lid on him and over he goes. I told you we'd get the sod.'

  'So you did.'

  'I'll be in touch, Liam.'

  Devlin sat there thinking about it. Too good to be true. Cussane had obviously discovered from Danny Malone that Deegan offered the kind of service he did. Fair enough, but to turn up as he had done, no attempt at disguise beyond a change of name… He might have assumed that it would be morning before Devlin and Tanya would be found, but even so… It didn't make any kind of sense - or did it?

  There was a light mist rolling in from the sea as they moved out, but the sky was clear and the moon touched things with a luminosity that was vaguely unreal. McAteer busied himself on deck, Egan had the hatch to the small engine room off and was down the ladder and Deegan was at the wheel. Cussane stood beside him, peering out through the window.

  'A fine night,' Deegan observed.

  'Indeed it is. How long will it take?'

  'Four hours and that's taking it easy. It means we can time it to catch the local fishing boats going back to the Isle of Man with their night catches. We'll land you on the west coast. Little place I know near Peel. You can get a bus across to Douglas, the capital. There's an airport, Ronaldsway. You can get a plane to London from there or just across the water to Blackpool on the English coast.'

  'Yes, I know,' Cussane told him.

  'Might as well go below. Get your head down for a while,' Deegan suggested.

  The cabin had four bunks and a fixed table in the centre, a small galley at one end. It was very untidy, but warm and snug in spite of the smell of diesel oil. Cussane made himself tea in a mug and sat at the table drinking it and smoking a cigarette. He lay on one of the bottom bunks, his hat beside him, eyes closed. After a while, McAteer and Egan came down the companionway.

  'Are you all right, Father?' McAteer enquired. 'Cup of tea or anything?'

  'I've had one, thank you,' Cussane said. 'I think I'll get some sleep.'

  He lay there, eyes almost closed, one hand negligently reaching under the hat. McAteer smiled at Egan and winked and the other man spooned instant coffee into three mugs and added boiling water and condensed milk. They went out. Cussane could hear their steps on deck, the murmur of conversation, a burst of laughter. He lay there, waiting for what was to come.

  It was perhaps half an hour later that the engine stopped and they started to drift. Cussane got up and put his feet to the floor.

  Deegan called down the companionway, 'Would you come up on deck, Father?'

  Cussane settled his hat on his head at a neat angle and went up the ladder. Egan sat on the engine hatch, McAteer leaned out of the open wheelhouse window and Deegan stood at the stern rail, smoking a cigarette and looking back towards the Irish coast two or three miles away.

  Cussane said, 'What is it? What's happening?'

  'The jig's up!' Deegan turned, holding the Stechkin in his right hand. 'You see, we know who you are, old son. All about you.'

  'And your wicked ways,' McAteer called.

  Egan rattled a length of heavy chain. Cussane glanced towards him, then turned to Deegan, taking off his hat and holding it across his chest. 'There's no way we can discuss this, I suppose?'

  'Not a chance,' Deegan told him.

  Cussane shot him in the chest through the hat and Deegan was punched back against the rail. He dropped the Stechkin on the deck, overbalanced, grab
bed for the rail unsuccessfully and went into the sea. Cussane was already turning, firing up at McAteer in the wheelhouse as he tried to draw back, the bullet catching the big man just above the right eye. Egan lashed out at him with the length of chain. Cussane avoided the awkward blow with ease.

  'Bastard!' Egan cried, and Cussane took careful aim and shot him in the heart.

  He moved fast now. Pocketing the Stechkin Deegan had dropped he launched the inflatable with its outboard motor which was stowed amidships. He tied it to the rail and went into the wheelhouse where he had left his bag, stepping over McAteer's body to get it. He opened the false bottom, took out the plastic explosive and sliced a piece off with his pocket knife. He stuck one of the pencil timers in it, primed to explode in fifteen minutes and dropped it down the engine hatch, then got into the inflatable, started the motor and moved back to shore at speed. Behind him, Sean Deegan, still alive in spite of the bullet in his chest, watched him go and kicked slowly to keep afloat.

  Cussane was well on his way when the explosion rent the night, yellow and orange flames flowering like petals. He glanced back only briefly. Things couldn't have worked out better. Now he was dead and McGuiness and Ferguson would call off the hounds. He wondered how Devlin would feel when he finally realized the truth.

  He landed on a small beach close to Ballywalter and dragged the inflatable up into the shelter of a clump of gorse bushes. Then he retraced his steps up to the wood where he had left the motorcycle. He strapped his bag on the rear, put on his crash helmet and rode away.

  It was another fishing boat from Ballywalter, the Dublin Town, out night-fishing, which was first on the scene. The crew, on deck handling their nets about a mile away, had seen the explosion as it occurred. By the time they reached the position where the Mary Murphy had gone down, about half an hour had elapsed. There was a considerable amount of wreckage on the surface and a life-jacket with the boat's name stencilled on it told them the worst. The skipper notified the coastguard of the tragedy on his radio and continued the search for survivors or at least the bodies of the crew; but he had no success and a thickening sea mist made things even more difficult. By five o'clock, a coastguard cutter was there from Dundalk, also several other small fishing craft, and they continued the search as dawn broke.

  The news of the tragedy was passed on to McGuiness at four o'clock in the morning and he, in turn, phoned Devlin.

  'Christ knows what happened,' McGuiness said. 'She blew up and went down like a stone.'

  'And no bodies, you say?'

  'Probably inside her, or what's left of her on the bottom. And it seems there's a bad rip tide in that area. It would carry a body a fair distance. I'd like to know what happened. A good man, Sean Deegan.'

  'So would I,' Devlin said.

  'Still, no more Cussane. At least that bastard has met his end. You'll tell Ferguson?'

  'Leave it with me.'

  Devlin put on a dressing gown, went downstairs and made some tea. Cussane was dead and yet he felt no pain for the man who, whatever else, had been his friend for more than twenty years. No sense of mourning. Instead a feeling of unease like a lump in the gut that refused to go away.

  He rang the Cavendish Square

  number in London. It was picked up after a slight delay and Ferguson's voice answered, still half asleep. Devlin gave him the news and the Brigadier came fully awake with some rapidity.

  'Are you sure about this?'

  'That's how it looks. God knows what went wrong on the boat.'

  'Ah well,' Ferguson said. 'At least Cussane's out of our hair for good and all. The last thing I needed was that madman on the rampage.' He snorted. 'Kill the Pope indeed.'

  'What about Tanya?'

  'She can come back tomorrow. Put her on the plane and I'll meet her myself. Harry will be in Paris to brief Tony Villiers on this Exocet job.'

  'Right,' Devlin said. 'That's it then.'

  'You don't sound happy, Liam. What is it?'

  'Let's put it this way. With this one, I'd like to see the body,' Devlin said and rang off.

  The Ulster border with the Irish Republic, in spite of road blocks, a considerable police presence and the British Army, has always been wide open to anyone who knows it. In many cases, farms on both sides have land breached by the border's imaginary line and the area is criss-crossed by hundreds of narrow country lanes, field paths and tracks.

  Cussane was safely in Ulster by four o'clock. Any kind of a vehicle on the road at that time in the morning was rare enough to make it essential that he drop out of sight for a while, which he did on the other side of Newry, holing up in a disused barn in a wood just off the main road.

  He didn't sleep, but sat comfortably against a wall and smoked, the Stechkin ready to hand just in case. He left just after six, a time when there would be enough early workers on the road to make him inconspicuous, taking the Ai through Banbridge to Lisburn.

  It was seven-fifteen when he rode into the carpark at Aldergrove Airport and parked the motorcycle. The Stechkin joined the Walther in the false bottom of the bag. The holiday season having started, there was a flight to the Isle of Man leaving at eight-fifteen, with flights to Glasgow, Edinburgh and Newcastle as possible alternatives if there was difficulty in obtaining a seat, all leaving within a period of one hour. The Isle of Man was his preference because it was a soft route, used mainly by holiday makers. In the event, there was space available and he had no difficulty in obtaining a ticket.

  All hand baggage would be x-rayed, but that was true at most international airports these days. At Belfast, most baggage destined for the hold was x-rayed also, but this did not always apply to the softer routes during the holiday season. In any case, the false bottom of his bag, which was only three inches deep, was lined with lead. The contents would not show. Any difficulty he might have would present itself at Customs in the Isle of Man.

  It was approximately eight-thirty and Cussane had been airborne for a good ten minutes when the Dublin Town, running low on fuel, gave up the fruitless search for survivors from the Mary Murphy and turned towards Ballywalter. It was the youngest member of the crew, a fifteen-year-old boy coiling rope in the prow, who noticed the wreckage to starboard and called to the skipper, who altered course at once. A few minutes later, he cut the engines and coasted in beside one of the Mary Murphy's hatches.

  Sean Deegan was sprawled across it on his back. His head turned slowly and he managed a ghastly smile. 'Took your sweet time about it, didn't you?' he called in a hoarse voice.

  At Ronaldsway Airport, Cussane had no difficulty with the Customs. He retrieved his bag and joined the large number of people passing through. No one made any attempt to stop him. As with all holiday resorts, the accent was on making things as painless for the tourist as possible. Islander aircraft made the short flight to Blackpool on the English coast numerous times during the day, but they were busy that morning and the earliest flight he could get was at noon. It could have been worse, so he purchased a ticket and went along to the cafeteria to have something to eat.

  It was eleven-thirty when Ferguson answered the phone and found Devlin on the line. He listened, frowning in horror. 'Are you certain?'

  'Absolutely. This man Deegan survived the explosion only because Cussane shot him into the water beforehand. It was Cussane who caused the explosion, then took off back to the shore in the fishing boat's inflatable. Almost ran Deegan down.'

  'But why?' Ferguson demanded.

  'The clever bastard has been beating me at chess for years. I know his style. Always three moves ahead of the game. By staging his apparent death last night, he pulled off the hounds. There was no one looking for him. No need.'

  Ferguson was filled with a dreadful foreboding. 'Are you trying to say what I think you are?'

  'What do you think? He's on your side of the water now, not ours, Brigadier.'

  Ferguson swore softly. 'Right, I'll get some official help from Special Branch in Dublin. They can turn over that cottage of
his for us. Photos, fingerprints. Anything useful.'

  'You'll need to inform the Catholic Secretariat,' Devlin told him. 'They're going to love this one at the Vatican.'

  'The lady at number ten isn't likely to be too ecstatic about it either. What plane had you booked the Voroninova girl on?'

  Two o'clock.'

  'Come with her. I need you.'

  There is just one item of minor importance, but worth mentioning,' Devlin told him. 'On your side of the water, I'm still a wanted man from way back. A member of an illegal organization is the least of it.'

  'I'll take care of that, for God's sake,' Ferguson said. 'Just get your backside on that plane,' and he hung up.

  Tanya Voroninova brought tea in from the kitchen. 'What happens now?'

  'I'm going with you to London,' he said, 'and we'll take it from there.'

  'And Cussane? Where is he, would you say?'

  'Anywhere and everywhere.' He sipped some of his tea. 'He has one problem however. The Pope arrives Friday according to the morning paper. Visits Canterbury the next day.'

  'Saturday the twenty-ninth?'

  'Exactly. So Cussane has some time to fill. The question is, where does he intend to go?'

  The phone rang. McGuiness was on the other end. 'You've spoken to Ferguson?'

  'I have.'

  'What does he intend to do?'

  'God knows. He's asked me to go over.'

  'And will you?'

  'Yes.'

  'Jesus, Liam, did you hear about this Russian, Lubov, turning up dead in the cinema? He preaches a hell of a sermon this priest of yours.'

  'He's developed a slightly different attitude to the job since he discovered his own people were trying to knock him off,' Devlin said. 'Interesting to see where it takes him.'