And then, unaccountably, as his lips moved in prayer, the gun was lowered. The priest bent down to pick something up. The dark eyes stared into his for a second longer and then he slipped back through the door and was gone.
Father da Costa threw the umbrella to one side and dropped to his knees beside the man who had been shot. Blood trickled from the nostrils, the eyes were half-closed and yet, incredibly, there was still the sound of laboured breathing.
He began to recite in a firm voice, the prayers for the dying. Go, Christian Soul, from this world, in the Name of God the Father Almighty who created thee and then, with a hoarse rattle, the breathing stopped abruptly.
Fallon followed the path at the north end of the cemetery, walking fast, but not too fast. Not that it mattered. He was well screened by rhododendron bushes and it was unlikely that there would be anyone about in such weather.
The priest had been unfortunate. One of those time and chance things. It occurred to him, with something like amusement and not for the first time in his life, that no matter how well you planned, something unexpected always seemed to turn up.
He moved into a small wood and found the van parked in the track out of sight as he had left it. There was no one in the driver’s seat and he frowned.
Varley, where are you?” he called softly.
A small man in a raincoat and cloth cap came blundering through the trees, mouth gaping, clutching a pair of binocu-lars in one hand. He leaned against the side of the van, fighting for breath.
Fallon shook him roughly by the shoulder. “Where in the hell have you been?”
“I was watching,” Varley gasped. He raised the binoculars. “Mr. Meehan’s orders. That priest. He saw you. Why didn’t you give it to him?”
Fallon opened the van door and shoved him in behind the wheel. “Shut up and get driving!”
He went round to the rear, opened the doors, got in and closed them again as the engine roared into life and they lurched away along the rough track.
He opened the small window at the rear of the driver’s compartment. “Steady,” he said. “Easy does it. The slower the better. A friend of mine once robbed a bank and made his escape in an ice-cream van that couldn’t do more than twenty miles an hour. They expect you to move like hell after a killing so do the other thing.”
He started to divest himself of the raincoat and cassock. Underneath he wore a dark sweater and grey slacks. His navy blue trench coat was ready on the seat and he pulled it on. Then he took off the rubber galoshes he was wearing.
Varley was sweating as they turned into the dual carriage-way. “Oh, God,” he moaned. “Mr.. Meehan will have our balls for this.”
“Let me worry about Meehan.” Fallon bundled the priest’s clothing into a canvas hold all and zipped it shut,
“You don’t know him, Mr.. Fallon,” Varley said. “He’s the devil himself when he’s mad. There was a fella called Gregson a month or two back. Professional gambler. Bent as a cork-screw. He took one of Mr. Meehan’s clubs for five grand. When the boys brought him in, Mr.. Meehan nailed his hands to a tabletop. Did it himself, too. Six-inch nails and a five-pound hammer. Left him like that for five hours. To consider the error of his ways, that’s what he said.”
“What did he do to him after that?” Fallon asked.
“I was there when they took the nails out. It was horrible. Gregson was in a terrible state. And Mr.. Meehan, he pats him on the cheek and tells him to be a good boy in future. Then he gives him a tenner and sends him to see this Paki doctor he uses.” Varley shuddered. “I tell you, Mr.. Fallon, he’s no man to cross.”
“He certainly seems to have his own special way of winning friends and influencing people,” Fallon said. “The priest back there? Do you know him?”
“Father da Costa?” Varley nodded. “Has a broken-down old church near the centre of the city. Holy Name, it’s called. He runs the crypt as a kind of doss house for down-and-outs. About the only congregation he gets these days. One of these areas where they’ve pulled down all the houses.”