Authors: Jack Higgins

Tags: #Fiction, #Thrillers, #Espionage

Confessional (8 page)

BOOK: Confessional

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Cussane smiled. 'Guess who was stage manager? We're tryingWest Side Story next. Liam thinks it too ambitious, but I believe it better to rise to a challenge than go for the easy choice.'
He swallowed a little of his Bushmills. Fox said, 'Forgive me for asking, Father, but are you American or Irish? I can't quite tell.'
'Most days, neither can he,' Devlin laughed.
'My mother was an Irish-American who came back to Connacht in 1938 after her parents died, to seek her roots. All she found was me.'
'And your father?'
'I never knew him. Cussane was her name. She was a Protestant, by the way. There are still a few in Connacht, descendants of Cromwell's butchers. Cussane is often called Patterson in that part of the country by pseudo-translation from Casan, which in Irish means path.'
'Which means he's not quite certain who he is,' Devlin put in.
'Only some of the time.' Cussane smiled. 'My mother
returned to America in 1946 after the war. She died of influenza a year later and I was taken in by her only relative, an old great-uncle who ran a farm in the Ontario wheat belt. He was a fine man and a good Catholic. It was under his influence that I decided to enter the Church.'
'Enter the Devil, stage left.' Devlin raised his glass.
Fox looked puzzled and Cussane explained. 'The seminary that accepted me was All Souls at Vine Landing outside Boston. Liam was English professor there.'
'He was a great trial to me,' Devlin said. 'Mind like a steel trap. Constantly catching me out misquoting Eliot in class.'
'I served in a couple of Boston parishes and another in New York,' Cussane said, 'but I always hoped to get back to Ireland. Finally, I got a move to Belfast in 1968. A church on the Falls Road.'
'Where he promptly got burned out by an Orange mob the following year.'
'I tried to keep the parish together using a school hall,' Cussane said.
Fox glanced at Devlin, 'While you ran around Belfast adding fuel to the flames?'
'God might forgive you for that,' Devlin said piously, 'for I cannot.'
Cussane emptied his glass. 'I'll be off then. Nice to meet you, Harry Fox.'
He held out his hand. Fox shook it and Cussane moved to the French windows and opened them. Fox saw the convent looming up into the night on the other side of the garden wall. Cussane walked across the lawn, opened a gate and passed through.
'Quite a man,' he said, as Devlin closed the windows.
'And then some.' Devlin turned, no longer smiling. 'All right, Harry. Ferguson being his usual mysterious self, it looks as if it's up to you to tell me what this is about.'
In the hospice, all was quiet. It was as unlike the conventional idea of a hospital as it was possible to be and the architect
had designed the ward area in a way that gave each occupant of a bed a choice of privacy or intimacy with other patients. The night sister sat at her desk, the only light a shaded lamp. She didn't hear Cussane approach, yet suddenly he was there, looming out of the darkness.
'How's Malone?'
'The same, Father. Very little pain. We have the drug in-put just about in balance.'
'Is he lucid?'
'Some of the time.'
Til go and see him.'
Danny Malone's bed, divided from the others by bookshelves and cupboards, was angled towards a glass window that gave a view of grounds and the night sky. The night light beside the bed brought his face into relief. He was not old, no more than forty, his hair prematurely white, the face like a skull under taut skin, etched in pain caused by the cancer that was slowly and relentlessly taking him from this life to the next.
As Cussane sat down, Malone opened his eyes. He gazed blankly at Cussane, then recognition dawned. 'Father, I thought you weren't coming.'
'I promised, didn't I? I was having a nightcap-with Liam Devlin, is all.'
'Jesus, Father, you're lucky you got away with just the one with him, but big for the cause, Liam, I'll give him that. There's no man living done more for Ireland.'
'What about yourself?' Cussane sat down beside the bed. 'No stronger fighter for the movement than you, Danny.'
'But how many did I kill, Father, there's the rub, and for what?' Malone asked him. 'Daniel O'Connel once said in a speech that, although the ideal of Irish freedom was just, it was not worth a single human life. When I was young, I disputed that. Now I'm dying, I think I know what he meant.' He winced in pain and turned to look at Cussane. 'Can we talk some more, Father? It helps get it straight in my own mind.'
'Just for a while, then you must get some sleep,' Cussane
smiled. 'One thing a priest is good at is listening, Danny.'
Malone smiled contentedly. 'Right, where were we? I was telling you about the preparation for the bombing campaign on the English Midlands and London in seventy-two.'
'You were saying the papers nicknamed you the Fox,' Cussane said, 'because you seemed to go backwards and forwards between England and Ireland at will. All your friends were caught, Danny, but not you. How was that?'
'Simple, Father. The greatest curse on this country of ours is the informer and the second greatest curse is the inefficiency of the IRA. People full of ideology and revolution blow a lot of wind and are often singularly lacking in good sense. That's why I preferred to go to the professionals.'
'Professionals?'
'What you would call the criminal element. For example, there wasn't an IRA safe house in England during the seventies that wasn't on the Special Branch's list at Scotland Yard sooner or later. That's how so many got caught.'
'And you?'
'Criminals on the run or needing a rest when things get too hot have places they can go, Father. Expensive places, I admit, but safe and that's what I used. There was one in Scotland south from Glasgow in Galloway run by a couple of brothers called Mungo. What you might call a country retreat. Absolute bastards, mind you.'
The pain was suddenly so bad that he had to fight for breath. 'I'll get sister,' Cussane told him in alarm.
Malone grabbed him by the front of his cassock. 'No, you damn well won't. No more painkillers, Father. They mean well, the sisters, but enough is enough. Let's just keep talking.'
'All right,' Harry Cussane said. Malone lay back, closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again. 'Anyway, as I was saying, these Mungo brothers, Hector and Angus, were the great original bastards.'
Devlin paced up and down the room restlessly. 'Do you believe it?' Fox asked.
'It makes sense and it would explain a great deal,' Devlin said. 'So let's just say I accept it in principle.'
'So, what do we do about it?'
'What dowe do about it?' Devlin glared at him. 'The effrontery of the man. Let me remind you, Harry, that the last time I did a job for Ferguson, the bastard conned me. Lied in his teeth. Used me.'
That was then, this is now, Liam.'
'And what is that pearl of wisdom supposed to mean?'
There was a soft tapping at the French window. Devlin opened the desk drawer, took out an old-fashioned Mauser pistol, with an SS bulbous silencer on the end and cocked it. He nodded to Fox, then Devlin pulled the curtain. Martin McGuiness peered in at them, Murphy at his shoulder.
'Dear God!' Devlin groaned.

He opened the French window and McGuiness smiled as he stepped in. 'God bless all here!' he said mockingly and added to Murphy, 'Watch the window, Michael.' He closed it and walked over to the fire, holding his hands to the warmth. 'Colder as the nights draw in.'

'What do you want?' Devlin demanded.

'Has the Captain here explained the situation to you yet?'

'He has.'

'And what do you think?'

'I don't think at all,' Devlin told him. 'Especially where you lot are concerned.'

'The purpose of terrorism is to terrorize, that's what Mick Collins used to say,' McGuiness told him. 'I fight for my country, Liam, with anything that comes to hand. We're at war.' He was angry now. 'I've got nothing to apologize for.'

'If I could say something,' Fox put in. 'Let's accept that Cuchulain exists, then it isn't a question of taking sides. It's accepting that what he's doing has needlessly protracted the tragic events of the past thirteen years.'

McGuiness helped himself to a whiskey. 'He has a point. When I was O.C. Derry in nineteen seventy-two, I was flown to London with Daithi O'Connell, Seamus Twomey, Ivor Bell and others to meet Willie Whitelaw to discuss peace.'

'And the Lenadoon shooting broke the cease-fire,' Fox said and turned to Devlin. 'It doesn't seem to me to be a question of taking sides any more. Cuchulain has worked deliberately to keep the whole rotten mess going. I would have thought anything that might have helped stop that would be worth it.'

'Morality is it?' Devlin raised a hand and smiled wickedly.

'Good then, let's get down to brass tacks. This fella, Levin, who actually saw Kelly or Cuchulain or whatever his name is, all those years ago. I presume Ferguson is showing him pictures of every known KGB operative.'

'And all known adherents of the IRA, UDA, UVF. Anything and everything,' Fox said. 'That will include looking at what Special Branch in Dublin have because we swop information.'

'The bastards would,' McGuiness said bitterly. 'Still, I think we've got a few that neither the police in Dublin nor your people in London have ever seen.'

'And how do we handle that?' Fox demanded.

'You get Levin over here and he and Devlin look at what we've got - no one else. Is it agreed?'

Fox glanced at Devlin who nodded. 'Okay,' Fox said. Til ring the Brigadier tonight.'

'Fine.' McGuiness turned to Devlin. 'You're sure your phone's not tapped or anything like that. I'm thinking of those Special Branch bastards.'

Devlin opened a drawer in the desk and produced a black metal box which he switched on so that a red light appeared. He approached the telephone and held the box over it. There was no reaction.

'Oh, the wonders of the electronic age,' he said and put the box away.

'Fine,' McGuiness said. 'The only people who know about this are Ferguson, you, Captain, Liam, the Chief of Staff and myself.'

'And Professor Paul Cherny,' Fox said.

McGuiness nodded. 'That's right. We've got to do something about him.' He turned to Devlin. 'Do you know him?'

'I've seen him at drinks parties at the university. Exchanged a civil word, no more than that. He's well liked. A widower.

His wife died before he defected. There's a chance he isn't involved in this, of course.'

'And pigs might fly,' McGuiness said crisply. 'The fact that it was Ireland he defected to is too much of a coincidence for me. A pound to a penny he knows our man, so why don't we pull him in and squeeze it out of him?'

'Simple,' Fox told him. 'Some men don't squeeze.'

'He's right,' Devlin said. 'Better to try the softly-softly approach first.'

'All right,' McGuiness said. Til have him watched twenty-four hours a day. Put Michael Murphy in charge. He won't be able to go to the bathroom without we know it.'

Devlin glanced at Fox. 'Okay by you?'

'Fine,' Fox told him.

'Good.' McGuiness buttoned his raincoat. Til get off then. I'll leave Billy to look after you, Captain.' He opened the French window. 'Mind your back, Liam.' And then he was gone.

Ferguson was in bed when Fox phoned, sitting up against the pillows, working his way through a mass of papers, preparing himself for a Defence committee meeting the following day. He listened patiently to everything Fox had to say. 'So far, so good, Harry, as far as I can see. Levin spent the entire day working through everything we had at the Directorate. Didn't come up with a thing.'

'It's been a long time, sir. Cuchulain could have changed a lot and not just because he's older. I mean, he could have a beard, for example.'

'Negative thinking, Harry. I'll put Levin on the morning flight to Dublin, but Devlin will have to handle him. I need you back here.'

'Any particular reason, sir?'

'Lots to do with the Vatican. It really is beginning to look as if the Pope won't come. However, he's invited the cardinals of Argentina and Britain to confer with him.'

'So the visit could still be on?'

'Perhaps, but more.important from our point of view, the

war is still on and there's talk of the Argentinians trying to get hold of this damned Exocet missile on the European black market. I need you, Harry. Catch the first flight out. By the way, an interesting development. Tanya Voroninova, remember her?'

'Of course, sir.'

'She's in Paris to give a series of concerts. Fascinating that she should surface at this particular moment.'

'What Jung would call synchronicity, sir?'

'Young, Harry? What on earth are you babbling about?'

'Carl Jung, sir. Famous psychologist. Synchronicity is a word he coined for events having a coincidence in time and, because of this, the feeling that some deeper motivation is involved.'

'The fact that you're in Ireland is no excuse for acting as if you've gone soft in the head, Harry,' Ferguson said testily.

He put down the phone, sat there thinking, then got up, pulled on his robe and went out. He knocked on the door of the guest room and went in. Levin was sitting up in bed wearing a pair of Ferguson's pyjamas and reading a book.

Ferguson sat on the edge of the bed. 'I thought you'd be tired after going through so many photos.'

Levin smiled. 'When you reach my age, Brigadier, sleep eludes you, memory crowds in. You wonder what it has all been about.'

BOOK: Confessional

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