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 “I944. 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 some-thing?”
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 con-fession. 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 comer of the street and was speaking to Meehan within a few moments.
“Mr.. Meehan? It’s me. He’s gone into a church in Rocking-ham Street. The Church of the Holy Name.”
“I’ll be there in, five minutes,” Meehan said and slammed down the receiver.