a Prayer for the Dying (1974)[1]

by Jack Higgins

  Meehan looked at him in awe. 'He was a bull this one and no mistake. Look at the dick on him.' He turned to Ainsley. 'Think of the women he pleasured. Think of that old lady. By God, I can see why she loved him. He was a man, this old lad.'

  His knee came up savagely. Henry Ainsley grabbed for his privates too late and he pitched forward with a choked cry.

  'Take him up to the coffin room,' Meehan told Donner. 'I'll join you in five minutes.'

  When Henry Ainsley regained his senses, he was lying flat on his back, arms outstretched, Donner standing on one hand, Bonati on the other.

  The door opened and Meehan entered. He stood looking down at him for a moment, then nodded. 'All right, pick him up.'

  The room was used to store coffins which weren't actually made on the premises, but there were a couple of workbenches and a selection of carpenter's tools on a rack on the wall.

  'Please, Mr Meehan,' Ainsley begged him.

  Meehan nodded to Donner and Bonati dragged Ainsley back across one of the workbenches, arms outstretched, palms uppermost.

  Meehan stood over him. 'I'm going to teach you a lesson, Henry. Not because you tried to fiddle me out of twenty quid. That's one thing that's definitely not allowed, but it's more than that. You see, I'm thinking of that old girl. She's never had a thing in her life. All she ever got was screwed into the ground.'

  His eyes were smoking now and there was a slightly dreamy quality to his voice. 'She reminded me of my old mum, I don't know why. But I know one thing. She's earned some respect just like her old fella's earned something better than a state funeral.'

  'You've got it wrong, Mr Meehan,' Ainsley gabbled.

  'No, Henry, you're the one who got it wrong.'

  Meehan selected two bradawls from the rack on the wall. He tested the point of one on his thumb then drove it through the centre of Ainsley's right palm pinning his hand to the bench. When he repeated the process with the other hand Ainsley fainted.

  Meehan turned to Donner. 'Five minutes, then release him and tell him if he isn't in the office on time in the morning, I'll have his balls.'

  'All right, Mr Meehan,' Donner said. 'What about Fallon?'

  'I'll be in the preparation room. 'I've got some embalming to do. When Fallon comes, keep him in the office till I've had a chance to get up to the flat, then bring him up. And I want Albert up there as soon as he comes in.'

  'Kid glove treatment, Mr Meehan?'

  'What else, Frank? What else?'

  Meehan smiled, patted the unconscious Ainsley on the cheek and walked out.

  The preparation room was on the other side of the Chapel of Rest and when Meehan went in he closed the door. He liked to be alone on such occasions. It aided concentration and made the whole thing somehow much more personal.

  A body waited for him on the table in the centre of the room covered with a sheet. Beside it on a trolley the tools of his trade were laid out neatly on a white cloth. Scalpels, scissors, forceps, surgical needles of various sizes, artery tubes, a large rubber bulb syringe and a glass jar containing a couple of gallons of embalming fluid. On a shelf underneath was an assortment of cosmetics, make-up creams and face powders, all made to order.

  He pulled away the sheet and folded it neatly. The body was that of a woman of forty - handsome, dark-haired. He remembered the case. A history of heart trouble. She'd died in mid-sentence while discussing plans for Christmas with her husband.

  There was still that look of faint surprise on her face that many people show in death; jaw dropped, mouth gaping as if in amazement that this should be happening to her of all people.

  Meehan took a long curved needle and skilfully passed a thread from behind the lower lip, up through the nasal septum and down again, so that when he tightened the thread and tied it off, the jaw was raised.

  The eyeballs had fallen into their sockets. He compensated for that by inserting a circle of cotton wool under each eyelid before closing it and cotton wool between the lips and gums and in the cheeks to give a fuller, more natural appearance.

  All this he did with total absorption, whistling softly between his teeth, a frown of concentration on his face. His anger at Ainsley had disappeared totally. Even Fallon had ceased to exist. He smeared a little cream on the cold lips with one finger, stood back and nodded in satisfaction. He was now ready to start the embalming process.

  The body weighed nine and a half stones which meant that he needed about eleven pints of fluid of the mixture he habitually used. Formaldehyde, glycerine, borax with a little phenol added and some sodium citrate as an anti-coagulant.

  It was a simple enough case with little likelihood of complications so he decided to start with the axillary artery as usual. He extended the left arm at right angles to the body, the elbow supported on a wooden block, reached for a scalpel and made his first incision halfway between the mid-point of the collarbone and the bend of the elbow.

  It was perhaps an hour later as he tied off the last stitch that he became aware of some sort of disturbance outside. Voices were raised in anger and then the door flew open. Meehan glanced over his shoulder. Miller was standing there. Billy tried to squeeze past him.

  'I tried to stop him, Jack.'

  'Make some tea,' Meehan told him. 'I'm thirsty. And close that door. You'll ruin the temperature in here. How many times have I told you?'

  Billy retired, the door closing softly behind him and Meehan turned back to the body. He reached for a jar of foundation cream and started to rub some into the face of the dead woman with infinite gentleness, ignoring Miller completely.

  Miller lit a cigarette, the match rasping in the silence and Meehan said without turning round, 'Not in here. In here we show a little respect.'

  'Is that a fact?' Miller replied, but he still dropped the cigarette on the floor and stepped on it.

  He approached the table. Meehan was now applying a medium red cream rouge to the woman's cheekbones, his fingers bringing her back to life by the minute.

  Miller watched for a moment in fascinated horror. 'You really like your work, don't you, Jack?'

  'What do you want?' Meehan asked calmly.

  'You.'

  'Nothing new in that, is there?' Meehan replied. 'I mean, anybody falls over and breaks a leg in this town you come to me.'

  'All right,' Miller said. 'So we'll go through the motions. Jan Krasko went up to the cemetery this morning to put flowers on his mother's grave. He's been doing that for just over a year now - every Thursday without fail.'

  'So the bastard has a heart after all. Why tell me?'

  'At approximately ten past eleven somebody put a bullet through his skull. A real pro job. Nice and public, so everyone would get the message.'

  'And what message would that be?'

  'Toe the Meehan line or else.'

  Meehan dusted the face with powder calmly. 'I had a funeral this morning,' he said. 'Old Marcus the draper. At ten past eleven I was sitting in St Saviour's listening to the vicar say his piece. Ask Billy - he was with me. Along with around a couple of hundred other people including the mayor. He had a lot of friends had old Mr Marcus, but then he was a gentleman. Not many of his kind left these days.'

  He brightened the eyebrows and lashes with Vaseline and coloured the lips. The effect was truly remarkable. The woman seemed only to sleep.

  Miller said, 'I don't care where you were. It was your killing.'

  Meehan turned to face him, wiping his hands on a towel. 'Prove it,' he said flatly.

  All the frustration of the long years, all the anger, welled up in Miller threatening to choke him so that he pulled at his tie, wrenching open his collar.

  'I'll get you for this, Meehan,' he said. 'I'll lay it on you if it's the last thing I do. This time you've gone too far.'

  Meehan's eyes became somehow luminous, his entire personality assumed a new dimension, power seemed to emanate from him like electricity.

  'You - touch me?' He laughed coldly, turned and gestured to the woman. 'Loo
k at her, Miller. She was dead. I've given her life again. And you think you can touch me?'

  Miller took at involuntary step back and Meehan cried, 'Go on, get the hell out of it!'

  And Miller went as if all the devils in hell had been snapping at his heels.

  It was suddenly very quiet in the preparation room. Meehan stood there, chest heaving, and then reached for the tin of vanishing cream and turned to the woman.

  'I gave you life again,' he whispered. 'Life.'

  He started to rub the cream firmly into the body.

  6

  Face to Face

  It was still raining when Fallon crossed Paul's Square and went up the steps to the main entrance. When he tried the office it was empty and then Rupert appeared, having noticed him arrive through the glass door of the flower shop.

  'Can I help you, sir?'

  'Fallon's the name. Meehan's expecting me.'

  'Oh yes, sir.' Rupert was exquisitely polite. 'If you'd like to wait in the office I'll just see where he is.'

  He went out and Fallon lit a cigarette and waited. It was a good ten minutes before Rupert reappeared.

  'I'll take you up now, sir,' he said, and with a flashing smile led the way out into the hall.

  'And where would up be?' Fallon asked him.

  'Mr Meehan's had the attics of the three houses knocked together into a penthouse suite for his personal use. Beautiful.'

  They reached a small lift and as Rupert opened the door Fallon said, 'Is this the only way?'

  'There's the back stairs.'

  'Then the back stairs it is.'

  Rupert's ready smile slipped a little. 'Now don't start to play games, ducky. It'll only get Mr Meehan annoyed, which means I'll end up having one hell of a night and to be perfectly frank, I'm not in the mood.'

  'I'd have thought you'd have enjoyed every golden moment,' Fallon said and kicked him very hard on the right shin.

  Rupert cried out and went down on one knee and Fallon took the Ceska out of his right-hand pocket. He had removed the silencer, but it was still a deadly-looking item in every way. Rupert went white, but he was game to the last.

  'He'll crucify you for this. Nobody mixes it with Jack Meehan and passes the post first.'

  Fallon put the Ceska back in his pocket. 'The stairs,' he said softly.

  'All right,' Rupert leaned down to rub his shin. 'It's your funeral, ducky.'

  The stairway started beside the entrance to the Chapel of Rest and they climbed three flights, Rupert leading the way. There was a green baize door at the top and he paused a few steps below. 'That leads directly into the kitchen.'

  Fallon nodded. 'You'd better go back to minding the shop then, hadn't you?'

  Rupert needed no second bidding and went back down the stairs quickly. Fallon tried the door which opened to his touch. As Rupert had said, a kitchen was on the other side. The far door stood ajar and he could hear voices.

  He crossed to it on tiptoe and looked into a superbly furnished lounge with broad dormer windows at either end. Meehan was sitting in a leather club chair, a book in one hand, a glass of whisky in the other. Billy, holding the whippet, stood in front of an Adam fireplace in which a log fire was burning brightly. Donner and Bonati waited on either side of the lift.

  'What's keeping him, for Christ's sake?' Billy demanded.

  The whippet jumped from his arms and darted across to the kitchen door. It stood there, barking, and Fallon moved into the lounge and crouched down to fondle its ears, his right hand still in his coat pocket.

  Meehan dropped the book on the table and slapped a hand against his thigh. 'Didn't I tell you he was a hard-nosed bastard?' he said to Billy.

  The telephone rang. He picked it up, listened for a moment and smiled. 'It's all right, sweetheart, you get back to work. I can handle it.' He replaced the receiver. 'That was Rupert. He worries about me.'

  'That's nice,' Fallon said.

  He leaned against the wall beside the kitchen door, hands in pockets. Donner and Bonati moved in quietly and stood behind the big leather couch facing him. Meehan sipped a little of his whisky and held up the book. It was The City of God by St Augustine.

  'Read this one, have you, Fallon?'

  'A long time ago.' Fallon reached for a cigarette with his left hand.

  'It's good stuff,' Meehan said. 'He knew what he was talking about. God and the Devil, good and evil. They all exist. And sex.' He emptied his glass and belched. 'He really puts the record straight there. I mean, women just pump a man dry, like I keep trying to tell my little brother here only he won't listen. Anything in a skirt, he goes for. You ever seen a dog after a bitch in heat with it hanging half out? Well, that's our Billy twenty-four hours a day.'

  He poured himself another whisky and Fallon waited. They all waited. Meehan stared into space. 'No, these dirty little tarts are no good to anybody and the boys are no better. I mean, what's happened to all the nice clean-cut lads of sixteen or seventeen you used to see around? These days, most of them look like birds from the rear.'

  Fallon said nothing. There was a further silence and Meehan reached for the whisky bottle again. 'Albert!' he called. 'Why don't you join us?'

  The bedroom door opened, there was a pause and a man entered the room who was so large that he had to duck his head to come through the door. He was a walking anachronism. Neanderthal man in a baggy grey suit and he must have weighed at least twenty stone. His head was completely bald and his arms were so long that his hands almost reached his knees.

  He shambled into the room, his little pig eyes fixed on Fallon. Billy moved out of the way nervously and Albert sank into a chair on the other side of Meehan, next to the fire.

  Meehan said, 'All right, Fallon. You cocked it up.'

  'You wanted Krasko dead. He's on a slab in the mortuary right now,' Fallon said.

  'And the priest who saw you in action? This Father da Costa?'

  'No problem.'

  'He can identify you, can't he? Varley says he was close enough to count the wrinkles on your face.'

  True enough,' Fallon said. 'But it doesn't matter. I've shut his mouth.'

  'You mean you've knocked him off?' Billy demanded.

  'No need.' Fallon turned to Meehan. 'Are you a Catholic?'

  Meehan nodded, frowning. 'What's that got to do with it?'

  'When did you last go to confession?'

  'How in the hell do I know? It's so long ago I forget.'

  'I went today,' Fallon said. 'That's where I've been. I waited my turn at da Costa's one o'clock confession. When I went in, I told him I'd shot Krasko.'

  Billy Meehan said quickly, 'But that's crazy. He'd seen you do it himself, hadn't he?'

  'But he didn't know it was me in that confessional box - not until he looked through the grille and recognised me and that was after I'd confessed.'

  'So what, for Christ's sake?' Billy demanded.

  But his brother was already waving him down, his face serious. 'I get it,' he said. 'Of course. Anything said to a priest at confession's got to be kept a secret. I mean, they guarantee that, don't they?'

  'Exactly,' Fallon said.

  'It's the biggest load of cobblers I've ever heard,' Billy said. 'He's alive, isn't he? And he knows. What guarantee do you have that he won't suddenly decide to shoot his mouth off?'

  'Let's just say it isn't likely,' Fallon said. 'And even if he did, it wouldn't matter. I'm being shipped out from Hull Sunday night - or have you forgotten?'

  Meehan said, 'I don't know. Maybe Billy has a point.'

  'Billy couldn't find his way to the men's room unless you took him by the hand,' Fallon told him flatly.

  There was a dead silence. Meehan gazed at him impassively and Albert picked a steel and brass poker out of the fireplace and bent it into a horseshoe shape between his great hands, his eyes never leaving Fallon's face.

  Meehan chuckled unexpectedly. 'That's good - that's very good. I like that.'

  He got up, walked to a desk in the corne
r, unlocked it and took out a large envelope. He returned to his chair and dropped the envelope on the coffee table.

  'There's fifteen hundred quid in there,' he said. 'You get another two grand on board ship Sunday night plus a passport. That clears the account.'

  That's very civil of you,' Fallon said.

  'Only one thing,' Meehan told him. 'The priest goes.'

  Fallon shook his head. 'Not a chance.'

  'What's wrong with you, then?' Meehan jeered. 'Worried, are you? Afraid the Almighty might strike you down? They told me you were big stuff over there, Fallon, running round Belfast, shooting soldiers and blowing up kids. But a priest is different, is that it?'

  Fallon said, in what was little more than a whisper, 'Nothing happens to the priest. That's the way I want it. That's the way it's going to be.'

  'The way you want it?' Meehan said and the anger was beginning to break through now.

  Albert tossed the poker into the fireplace and stood up. He spoke in a rough, hoarse voice. 'Which arm shall I break first, Mr Meehan? His left or his right?'

  Fallon pulled out the Ceska and fired instantly. The bullet splintered Albert's right kneecap and he went back over the chair. He lay there cursing, clutching his knee with both hands, blood pumping between his fingers.

  For a moment, nobody moved and then Meehan laughed out loud. 'Didn't I tell you he was beautiful?' he said to Billy.

  Fallon picked up the envelope and stowed it away in his raincoat. He backed into the kitchen without a word, kicked the door shut as Meehan called out to him and started down the stairs.

  In the lounge, Meehan grabbed his coat and made for the lift. 'Come on, Billy!'

  As he got the door open, Donner called, 'What about Albert?'

  'Call that Pakistani doctor. The one who was struck off. He'll fix him up.'

  As the lift dropped to the ground floor Billy said, 'Look, what are we up to?'

  'Just follow me and do as you're bleeding well told,' Meehan said.

  He ran along the corridor, through the hall and out of the front door. Fallon had reached the other side of the road and was taking one of the paths that led across the green centre of the square.