Meehan laughed out loud. “God, but I wish you could see yourself. You look bloody ridiculous. Men in skirts.” He shook his head. “It’ll never catch on.”
Father da Costa said patiently, “I don’t expect it will Now can we talk?”
Meehan indicated Donner and Rupert with a wave of the hand. “There’s nothing you can say to me that these two can’t hear.”
“Very well,” Father da Costa said. It’s simple enough, I want you to stay away from Holy Name and I don’t want any rep-etition of what happened at the presbytery last night.”
Meehan frowned, “What in the hell are you talking about?”
“All right, Mr. Meehan,” Father da Costa said wearily. “Last night, someone broke into the presbytery when I was out and attacked my niece. If Fallon hadn’t arrived at the right mo-ment and chased the man away anything might have happened to her. On the other hand, I suppose you’ll now tell me that you know nothing about it.”
“No, I bloody well don’t.” Meehan shouted.
Father da Costa struggled to contain his anger. “You’re lying,” he said simply.
Meehan’s face was suffused with blood, the eyes bulging. “Who in the hell do you think you are?” he demanded hoarsely.
“It’s my final warning,” Father da Costa said. “When we last spoke I told you my God was a God of Wrath as well as of Love. You’d do well to remember that.”
Meehan’s face was purple with rage and he turned to the barman in fury. “Get him out of here I’
Harry lifted the bar flap and moved out. “Right, on your way, mate.”
Til go when I’m ready,” Father da Costa told him.
Harry’s right hand fastened on his collar, the other on his belt and they went through the door on the run to a chorus of laughter from Donner and Rupert. They crowded to the door to see the fun and Meehan joined them.
Father da Costa was on his hands and knees in the rain in a puddle of water. “What’s up, ducky?” Rupert called. “Have you pissed yourself or something?”
It was a stupid remark, childish in its vulgarity, and yet it was some sort of final straw that set black rage boiling inside Father da Costa so that when Harry dragged him to his feet, an arm about his throat, he reacted as he had been taught to react thirty years earlier in that hard, brutal school of guerrilla warfare and action by night.
Harry was grinning widely. “We don’t like fancy sods like you coming round here annoying the customers.”
He didn’t get a chance to say anything else. Father da Costa’s right elbow swung back into his ribs and he pivoted on one foot as Harry reeled back, gasping.
“You should never let anyone get that close. They haven’t been teaching you properly.”
Harry sprang forward, his right fist swinging in a tremen-dous punch. Father da Costa swayed to one side, grabbed for the wrist with both hands, twisted it round and up, locking the arm and ran him headfirst into the stack of packing cases.
As Father da Costa turned, Donner came in fast and received a kick under the right kneecap, perfectly delivered, that doubled him over in pain and Father da Costa followed with a knee in the face that lifted him back against the wall.
Rupert gave a cry of dismay and in his haste to regain the safety of the snug, slipped on the top step, bringing Meehan down with him. As Meehan started to get up, Father da Costa punched him in the face, a good, solid right hand that carried all his rage, all his frustration with it. Bone crunched, Meehan’s nose flattened beneath Father da Costa’s knuckles and he fell back into the snug with a groan, blood gushing from his nostrils.
Rupert scrambled behind the bar on his hands and knees and Father da Costa stood over Meehan, the killing rage still on him, his fists clenched. And then he looked down at his hands, saw the blood on them and an expression of horror appeared on his face.
He backed slowly out into the yard. Harry lay on his face amongst the packing cases, Donner was being sick against the wall. Father da Costa looked in horror once again at the blood on his hands, turned and fled.