Jack Higgins – A Prayer for the Dying

But here, a terrible thing happened, for his throat went dry and he seemed to choke on the very name.

Once the Mass was over and the absolutions given, the nuns carried the coffin out through the rain to the small private cemetery in a corner between the inner and outer walls of the convent.

At the graveside Father da Costa sprinkled the grave and the coffin with holy water and incensed them and after he had prayed, some of the nuns lit candles, with some difficulty because of the rain, to symbolise Sister Marie Gabrielle’s soul, with God now and shining still, and they sang together, very sweetly, the twenty-third psalm which had been her favourite.

Father da Costa remembered her, for a moment, during those last days, the broken body racked with pain. Oh God, he thought, why is it the good who suffer? People like Sister Marie Gabrielle?

And then there was Anna. So gentle, so loving, and at the thought of what had taken place the night before, black rage filled his heart.

Try as he might, the only thought that would come to mind as he looked down into the open grave was that Meehan’s firm had probably made the coffin.

Jenny Fox had taken two sleeping pills the previous night and overslept. It was after eleven when she awakened and she put on her dressing-gown and went downstairs. She went into the kitchen and found Fallon sitting at the table, the bottle of Irish whiskey in front of him, a half-filled tumbler at his elbow. He had taken the Ceska to pieces and was putting it carefully together again. The silencer was also on the table next to the whiskey bottle.

“You’re starting early,” she commented.

“A long time since I had a drink,” he said. “A real drink. Now I’ve had four. I had some thinking to do.”

He emptied his glass in a single swallow, rammed the magazine into the butt of the Ceska and screwed the silencer on the end of the barrel.

Jenny said wearily, “Did you come to any conclusions?”

“Oh yes, I think you could say that.” He poured himself another whiskey and tossed it down. “I’ve decided to start a Jack Meehan-must-go campaign. A sort of one man crusade, if you like.”

“You must be crazy,” she said. “You wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“He’ll be sending for me some time today, Jenny. He has to because he’s shipping me out from Hull tomorrow night so we’ve got things to discuss.”

He squinted along the barrel of the gun and Jenny whis-pered, “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to kill the bastard,” he said simply. “You know what Shakespeare said. A good deed in a naughty world.”

He was drunk, she realised that, but in his own peculiar way. She said desperately. “Don’t be a fool. Kill him and there’ll be no passage out of Hull for you. What happens then?”

“I couldn’t really care less.”

He flung up his arm and fired. There was a dull thud and a small china dog on the top shelf above the refrigerator shattered into fragments.

“Well now,” he said “If I can hit that at this range after half-a bottle of whiskey, I don’t see how I can very well miss Dandy Jack.”

He stood up and picked up the bottle of whiskey. Jenny

said, “Martin, listen to me for God’s sake.”

He walked past her to the door. “I didn’t go to bed last night so I will now. Wake me if Meehan calls, but whatever happens, don’t let me sleep past five o’clock. I’ve got things to do.”

He went out and she stood there listening as he mounted the stairs. She heard the door of his bedroom open and close and only then did she move, going down on her hands and knees wearily to pick up the shattered fragments of the china dog.

The Bull and Bell yard was not far from Paul’s Square, a dirty and sunless cobbled alley named after the public house which had stood there for two hundred years or more. Beside the entrance to the snug stood several overflowing dustbins and cardboard boxes and packing cases were thrown together in an untidy heap.

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