a Prayer for the Dying (1974)[1]

by Jack Higgins

  Fallon straightened slowly and looked at her, a slight, puzzled frown on his face. 'When was this?'

  'About ten minutes ago. I wanted to come and get you, but he said there wasn't time.'

  'And where does he want to see me? At Holy Name?'

  She shook her head. 'No, he said he was taking his niece into the country. He thought it would be safer for her. A little place called Grimsdyke. It's about twenty miles from here in the marshes. He wants you to meet him there as soon as possible.'

  'I see,' Fallon said. 'Do you know where this place is?'

  She nodded. 'I used to go there for picnics when I was a kid. I've never been to this place he's going to, Mill House, he called it, but he told me how to get there.'

  Fallon nodded slowly. 'And you'd take me?'

  'If you like. We could go in my car. It wouldn't take much more than half an hour.'

  He stared at her, the eyes very dark, no expression there at all. She glanced away nervously, unable to meet his gaze, and flushed angrily. 'Look, it's no skin of my nose. Do you want to go or don't you?'

  He knew she was lying, yet it didn't seem to matter because for some strange reason he knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that she was leading him in the right direction.

  'All right,' he said. 'Fine. Just give me a couple of minutes to get cleaned up. I'll meet you downstairs.'

  As soon as she had gone he took the Ceska from his jacket pocket, ejected the magazine, reloaded carefully with eight rounds and slipped it into the right-hand pocket of his trench-coat.

  He moved across to the window, dropped to one knee and raised the carpet to disclose a Browning automatic he had used at his first meeting with Kristou in London. Underneath it was a large buff envelope containing the best part of two thousand pounds in ten-pound notes, the bulk of the money he had received from Meehan. He slipped the envelope into his breast pocket and checked the Browning quickly.

  He found a roll of surgical tape in the cabinet over the washbasin and cut off a couple of lengths, using the razor jenny had loaned him, then taped the Browning to the inside of his left leg just above the anklebone, covering it with his sock.

  He buttoned his trenchcoat as he went downstairs. Jenny was waiting in the hall dressed in a red plastic mac. She gave him a tight smile as she pulled on her gloves. 'Ready to go, then?'

  He opened the front door, but stopped her with a hand on her shoulder as she was about to step outside. 'There isn't anything else, is there? Anything you've forgotten to tell me?'

  She flushed and the anger was there in her voice again. 'Would I be likely to do a thing like that?'

  'That's all right, then,' He smiled calmly. 'We'd better get going.'

  He closed the door and followed her down the steps to the Mini-Cooper parked at the bottom. The marsh at Grimsdyke on the river estuary was a wild, lonely place of sea-creeks and mud flats and great, pale barriers of reeds higher than a man's head. Since the beginning of history men had come here for one purpose or another, Roman, Saxon, Dane, Norman, but now it was a place of ghosts. An alien world inhabited mainly by the birds, curlew and redshank and brent geese coming south from Siberia for the winter on the mud flats.

  They passed through the village, a pleasant enough little place. Thirty or forty houses, a garage and pub, and then they were out on the other side. It was raining quite hard, the wind driving it in off the sea and across the marshes in great clouds.

  'Half a mile beyond the village on the right.' Jenny glanced at Fallon briefly. 'That's what the man said.'

  'This looks like it,' Fallon told her.

  She turned the Cooper off the main road and followed a track no wider than a farm cart that was little more than a raised causeway of grass. On either side miles of rough marsh grass and reeds marched into the heavy rain and a thin sea mist was drifting before the wind.

  Fallon lowered the window on his side and took a deep breath of the pungent salt air. 'Quite a place.'

  'I used to love coming here when I was a kid,' she said. 'It was like nowhere else on earth. A different world after the city.'

  The closer they got to the estuary, the more the mist seemed to close in on them and then they topped a rise and saw what was very obviously the mill sticking up above a clump of trees about a hundred yards to the south of them.

  Fallon put a hand on her arm and she braked to a halt. 'Now what?'

  'We'll walk from here.'

  'Is that necessary?'

  'If I've learned anything in life it's never to take anything for granted.'

  She shrugged, but got out of the car without further argument and Fallon left the track and forced his way through a fir plantation towards the mill, dimly seen through the trees.

  He crouched under a bush, pulling Jenny down beside him and examined the place carefully. There was a three-storeyed stone tower, roof open to the sky. At one end there was an extension made of wood which looked like a barn and seemed to be in a better state of repair than the rest of the building. A thin trickle of smoke drifted up from an iron chimney.

  At the other side there was an immense water-wheel and it was moving round now with an unearthly creaking and groaning, forced by the rushing waters of the flooded stream.

  'No sign of his mini-van,' Fallon said softly.

  'He'll have it inside that barn, won't he?' Jenny replied, and then added impatiently, 'For goodness sake, make your mind up. Are we going on or aren't we? I'm getting wet.'

  She seemed angry and yet the fingers of her left hand trembled slightly. He said, 'You go. Give me a call if everything is all right.'

  She glanced at him with a certain surprise in her eyes, then shrugged, stood up and walked out into the open. He watched her go, all the way to the barn. She turned to look at him once, then opened the big double door and went in.

  She reappeared a moment later and called, 'It's all right. Everything's fine. Come on.'

  Fallon hesitated for a moment and then shrugged and walked out into the clearing, a slight, fixed smile on his face. When he was four or five yards from the door, Jenny said, 'They're here,' and she went back inside.

  He followed her in without hesitation. The place smelled of old hay and mice. There was a decrepit cart in one corner and a large loft ran round three sides of the building with round glassless windows letting in light. A fire was burning in an old iron stove in the corner.

  There was no sign of Father da Costa or Anna, not that Fallon had really expected there to be. Only Jenny, standing alone beside a small iron cot bed against the far wall on which a little fair-haired girl was apparently sleeping, covered by a blanket.

  'I'm sorry, Martin,' she said, and there was genuine distress in her face now. 'I didn't have any choice.'

  'Up here Fallon,' a voice called.

  Fallon looked up and saw Donner on the edge of the loft holding an Armalite rifle. Rupert was standing beside him clutching a sawn-off shotgun and Harry, the barman from the Bull and Bell, appeared in the loft at the other side of the building, some sort of revolver in his hand.

  Donner raised the Armalite a little. 'They tell me that a bullet from one of these things goes in at the front and out at the back and takes a sizeable piece of you with it on the way, so I'd advise you to stay very still.'

  'Oh, I will,' Fallon assured him without irony. And he raised his hands.

  Harry came down the ladder from the loft first. He looked terrible. His left eye was completely closed and one side of his face was very badly bruised. He stood a yard or two away, covering Fallon with his revolver while Rupert followed him down the ladder. When they were both in position, Donner lowered the Armalite and joined them.

  'Never trust a woman, ducky,' Rupert said with a mocking smile. 'I'd have thought you'd have learnt that. Unreliable bitches, the lot of them. Ruled by the moon. Now me, for instance ...'

  Donner kicked him in the leg. 'Shut up and search him. He'll probably have the shooter in his right-hand pocket.'

  Rupert found the Ceska at
once and the buff envelope containing the money. Donner looked inside and whistled softly. 'How much?' he demanded.

  'Two thousand,' Fallon said.

  Donner grinned. 'That must be what they meant by an unexpected bonus.'

  He put the envelope in his inside pocket and Rupert started to run his hands over Fallon's body. 'Lovely,' he breathed. 'I could really go for you, ducky,' and he patted Fallon's cheek.

  Fallon sent him staggering back with a stiff right arm. 'Put a hand on me again, and I'll break your neck.'

  Rupert's eyes glittered and he picked up the sawn-off shotgun and thumbed back the hammer. 'My, my, aren't we butch?' he said softly. 'But I can soon fix that.'

  Donner kicked him in the backside. 'You bloody stupid little bitch,' he cried. 'What are you trying to do? Ruin everything at this stage?' He shoved him violently away. 'Go on and make some tea. It's all you're fit for.'

  Rupert moved over to the stove sullenly, still clutching his shotgun, and Donner took a pair of regulation police hand-cuffs from his pocket. He snapped them around Fallon's wrists, locked them and slipped the key into his breast pocket.

  'You can have it the hard way or you can have it easy,' he said. 'It's all one to me. Understand?'

  'I always try to,' Fallon said.

  'Right, go and sit down by the bird where I can keep an eye on both of you.'

  Fallon moved across to the cot and sat down beside it, his back against the wall. He looked at the child. Her eyes were closed, the breathing easy.

  'The daughter you told me about?' he said. 'Is she all right?'

  She nodded. 'They gave her a sedative, that's all.' Her eyes were bright with tears. 'I'm sorry, Martin, I didn't have any choice. I collected her after lunch like I do every Saturday and took her to the playground in the local park. That's where Rupert and that creep Harry picked us up.'

  'And they threatened you?'

  'They said they'd hang on to Sally. That I could have her back if I managed to get you out here.' She put a hand on his arm. 'What else could I do? I was terrified. You don't know Jack Meehan like I do. He's capable of anything - just like Billy.'

  'Billy will never bother you again,' Fallon said. 'I killed him last night.'

  She stared at him, eyes wide. 'You what?'

  'Just as I intend to kill Dandy Jack,' Fallon said calmly. 'There's a packet of cigarettes in my left-hand jacket pocket, by the way. Light me one, will you, like a good girl?'

  She seemed stunned by the enormity of what he had said but did as she was told. She put a cigarette in his mouth and as she struck a match, Donner joined them. He was carrying a tartan bag in one hand and squatted down in front of Fallon and unzipped it. One by one he produced three bottles of Irish Whiskey and placed them on the ground.

  'Jameson,' Fallon said. 'My favourite. How did you guess?'

  'And all for you,' Donner told him. 'All three bottles.'

  'I must say it sounds like an interesting idea,' Fallon said. 'Tell me more.'

  'Why not?' Donner said. 'Actually, it's very good. I think you'll like it. You see, we have three problems, Fallon. The priest and his niece, because they know more than what's good for them.'

  'And me?' Fallon said.

  'Exactly.' Donner helped himself to a cigarette. 'Anyway, Mr Meehan had this rather nice idea. It's beautifully simple. We get rid of da Costa and his niece and put the blame on you.'

  'I see,' said Fallon. 'And just how do you propose to do that?'

  'You were a big man with a bomb in your hand over there in Ulster, weren't you? So it would make sense if you used the same method when you wanted to knock someone off over here.'

  'My God,' Jenny said.

  Donner ignored her and he was obviously enjoying himself. He said, 'Evening Mass at Holy Name is at six o'clock. When it's over, Mr Meehan and Bonati will pick up Father da Costa and his niece and take 'em up that tower, together with about twenty pounds of plastic gelignite and a chemical fuse packed in a Waverley biscuit tin. When that little lot goes up, they go with it and the church comes down.'

  'I see,' Fallon said. 'And me - what about me?'

  'That's easy. Bonati drives out here in da Costa's mini-van. You get three bottles of Irish Whiskey poured down your throat, we put you behind the wheel and send you for a drive. There's a hill called Cullen's Bend about three miles from here. A terrible place for accidents.'

  'And you think that will wrap things up?' Fallon asked him.

  'As neat as a Christmas parcel. When they check what's left of that van they'll find bomb-making equipment and a few sticks of gelignite from the same batch the church bomb was manufactured from, not to mention the gun that was used to kill Krasko. The forensic boys will have a field day and let's face it - the Special Branch and Intelligence have been after you for years. They'll be delighted.'

  'Miller won't buy it for a second,' Fallon said. 'He knows Meehan was behind the Krasko killing.'

  'Perhaps he does, but there won't be a thing he can do about it.'

  Jenny said in a whisper, 'It's murder. Coldblooded murder. You can't do it.'

  'Shut your mouth!' Donner said.

  She backed away fearfully and then she noticed an extra-ordinary thing. Fallon's eyes seemed to have changed colour slightly, the dark flecked with light, and when he looked up at her there was a power in him that was almost physical, a new authority. Somehow it was as if he had been asleep and was now awake. He glanced across at the other two. Harry was examining the old cart, his back to them, and Rupert stood beside the stove fingering the shotgun.

  'That's it then?' he said softly.

  Donner shook his head in mock sorrow. 'You should have stayed back home in the bogs, Fallon. You're out of your league.'

  'So it would appear,' Fallon said.

  Donner leaned across to help himself to another cigarette. Fallon got both hands to the butt of the Browning he had taped so carefully to the inside of his leg above the ankle, tore it free and shot Donner through the heart at point blank range.

  The force of the shot lifted Donner off his feet, slamming him back against the ground, and in the same instant Fallon shot Harry in the back before he could turn, the bullet shattering his spine, driving him head first into the cart.

  And as Jenny screamed, Fallon knocked her sideways, on his feet now, the Browning arcing towards Rupert as he turned in alarm, already too late, still clutching the shotgun in both hands.

  His mouth opened in a soundless scream as Fallon's third bullet caught him squarely in the forehead. Blood and brains sprayed across the grey stones as the skull disintegrated and Rupert was knocked back against the wall, his finger tightening convulsively on the trigger of the shotgun in death, discharging both barrels.

  Jenny sprawled protectingly across the child, still deep in her drugged sleep. There was silence. She looked up fearfully and saw that Fallon was standing quite still, legs apart, perfectly balanced, the Browning held out in front of him in both hands. His face was very white, wiped clean of all expression, the eyes dark.

  His right sleeve was torn and blood dripped to the floor. She got to her feet unsteadily. 'You're hurt.'

  He didn't seem to hear her, but walked to the cart where Harry sprawled on his face and stirred him with his foot. Then he crossed to Rupert.

  Jenny moved to join him. 'Is he dead?' she whispered, and then she saw the back of the skull and turned away, stomach heaving, clutching at the wall to steady herself.

  When she turned again, Fallon was on his knees beside Donner, fumbling in the dead man's breast pocket. He found the key he was looking for and stood up.

  'Get me out of these things.'

  The stench of that butcher's shop filled her nostrils, seeped into her very brain, and when she walked towards him, dazed and frightened, she stumbled and almost fell down.

  He grabbed her by one arm and held her up. 'Steady, girl. Don't let go now. I need you.'

  'I'm fine,' she said. 'Really I am.'

  She unlocked the handcuf
fs. Fallon threw them to one side, dropped to one knee again and took the buff envelope from Donner's inside pocket.

  As he stood up, Jenny said wearily, 'You'd better let me have a look at that arm.'

  'All right,' Fallon said.

  He took off his jacket and sat on the edge of the bed, smoking a cigarette while she did what she could for him.

  The arm was a mess. Three of four nasty wounds where steel buckshot had ripped into the flesh. She bandaged it as best she could, with the handkerchief from Donner's breast pocket. Fallon picked up one of the bottles of Jameson, pulled the cork with his teeth and took a long swallow.

  When she was finished, she sat on the bed beside him and looked around the barn. 'How long did it take? Two - maybe three seconds?' She shivered. 'What kind of man are you, Martin?'

  Fallon pulled on his jacket awkwardly, 'You heard Donner, didn't you? A little Mick out of his league, who should have stayed back home in the bogs.'

  'He was wrong, wasn't he?'

  'Where I come from, he wouldn't have lasted a day,' Fallon said dispassionately. 'What time is it?'

  She glanced at her watch. 'Five-thirty.'

  'Good.' He stood up and reached for his trenchcoat. 'Evening Mass at Holy Name starts at six and finishes around seven. You take me there - now.'

  She helped him on with the trenchcoat. 'That boat,' she said. 'The one you were supposed to leave on from Hull? I heard the name. Donner and Rupert were talking. You could still go.'

  'Without a passport?'

  He turned, trying to belt his coat, awkwardly because of his wounded arm, and she did it for him.

  'Money talks,' she said. 'And you've got plenty in that envelope.'

  She stood very close, her hands around his waist, looking up at him. Fallon said calmly, 'And you'd like to come with me, I suppose?'

  She shook her head. 'You couldn't be more wrong. It's too late for me to change now. It was too late the day I started. It's you I'm thinking of. You're the only man I've ever known who gave me more than a quick tumble and the back of his hand.'

  Fallon stared at her somberly for a long moment and then said quietly, 'Bring the child.'

  He walked to the door. Jenny picked up her daughter, wrapped her in a blanket and followed. When she went outside, he was standing, hands in pockets, staring up into the rain where brent geese passed overhead in a V formation.