“Fifteen thousand pounds,” Father da Costa told him. “For essential preliminary work. More would be needed later.”
“Easy,” Meehan said. “With my help you could pick that up inside two or three months.”
“Might I ask how?”
Meehan lit a cigarette. “For a start, there’s the clubs. Dozens of them all over the north. They’ll all put the old collecting-box round if I give the word.”
“And you actually imagine that I could take it?”
Meehan looked genuinely bewildered. “It’s only money, isn’t it? Pieces of paper. A medium of exchange, that’s what the bright boys call it Isn’t that what you need?”
“In case you’ve forgotten, Mr.. Meehan, Christ drove the money-lenders out of the temple. He didn’t ask them for a contribution to the cause.”
Meehan frowned. “I don’t get it.”
“Then let me put it this way. My religion teaches me that reconciliation with God is always possible. That no human being, however degraded or evil, is beyond God’s mercy. I had always believed that until now.”
Meehan’s face was pale with fury. He grabbed da Costa’s arm and pushed him towards the rail, pointing down at the brickfield
“Thirteen, Khyber Street A back-to-back rabbit hutch. One room downstairs, two up. One stinking lavatory to every four houses. My old man cleared off when I was a kid – he had sense. My old lady – she kept us going by cleaning when she could get it When she couldn’t, there were always ten bob quickies behind the boozer on a Saturday night. A bloody whore, that’s all she was.”
“Who found time to clean and iron your cassock and cotta each week?” Father da Costa said. “Who fed you and washed you and sent you to this church?”
“To hell with that,” Meehan said wildly. “All she ever got – all anybody from Khyber Street ever got – was screwed into the ground, but not me. Not Jack Meehan. I’m up here now. I’m on top of the world where nobody can touch me.”
Father da Costa felt no pity, only a terrible disgust. He said calmly, “I believe you to be the most evil and perverted creature it has ever been my misfortune to meet. If I could, I would hand you over to the proper authorities gladly. Tell them everything, but for reasons well known to you, this is impossible.”
Meehan seemed to be more in control of himself again. He said, with a sneer, “That’s good, that is. Me, you wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole, but Fallon, he’s different, isn’t he? I mean, he only murders women and children.”
For a moment, Father da Costa had to fight for breath. When he spoke, it was with difficulty, “What are you talking about?
“Don’t say he hasn’t told you,” Meehan jeered. “Nothing about Belfast or Londonderry or that bus full of school kids he blew up?” He leaned forward, a strange intent look on his face and then he smiled, softly “You don’t like that, do you? Fell for his Irish charm. Did you fancy him, then? I’ve heard some of you priests…”
There was a hand at his throat, a hand of iron and he was back against the cage of the hoist, fighting for his very life, the priest’s eyes sparking fire. Meehan tried to bring up a knee and found only a thigh turned expertly to block it. Father da Costa shook him like a rat, then opened the door and threw him inside.
The cage door slammed as Meehan picked himself up. Til have you for this,” he said hoarsely. “You’re dead meat.”
“My God, Mr.. Meehan,” Father da Costa said softly through the bars of the cage, “is a God of Love. But he is also a God of Wrath. I leave you in his hands.”
He pressed the button and the cage started to descend.
As Meehan emerged from the church porch, a sudden flurry of wind dashed rain in his face. He turned up his collar and paused to light a cigarette. It was beginning to get dark and as he went down the steps he noticed a number of men wailing by a side door, sheltering against the wall from the rain. Human derelicts, most of them, in tattered coats and broken boots.