A Prayer for the Dying

It was a change to feel useful again. The door clicked, there was the scrape of the chair being moved on the other side of the grille.

'Please bless me, Father.'

It was an unfamiliar voice. Soft. Irish - an educated man without a doubt.

Father da Costa said, 'May our Lord Jesus bless you and help you to tell your sins.'

There was a pause before the man said, 'Father, are there any circumstances under which what I say to you now could be passed on to anyone else?'

Da Costa straightened in his chair. 'None whatsoever. The secrets of the confessional are inviolate.'

'Good,' the man said. 'Then I'd better get it over with. I killed a man this morning.'

Father da Costa was stunned. 'Killed a man?' he whispered. 'Murdered, you mean?'

'Exactly.'

With a sudden, terrible premonition, da Costa reached forward, trying to peer through the grille. On the other side, a match flared in the darkness and for the second time that day, he looked into the face of Martin Fallon.

* * *

The church was still when Anna da Costa came out of the sacristy and crossed to the choir stalls. The Braille transcripts were where she had left them. She found what she was looking for with no difficulty. She put the rest back on the stand and sat there for a few moments, remembering the stranger with the soft Irish voice.

He'd been right about the trumpet stop. She put out a hand and touched it gently. One thing putting everything else out of joint. How strange. She reached for her walking stick and stood up and somewhere below her in the body of the church, a door banged and her uncle's voice was raised in anger. She froze, standing perfectly still, concealed by the green curtains which hung beside the organ.

Father da Costa erupted from the confessional box, flinging the door wide. She had never heard such anger in his voice before.

'Come out - come out, damn you, and look me in the face if you dare!'

Anna heard the other door in the confessional box click open, there was the softest of footfalls and then a quiet voice said, 'Here we are again then, Father.'

Fallon stood beside the box, hands in the pockets of the navy blue trenchcoat. Father da Costa moved closer, his voice a hoarse whisper.

'Are you a Catholic?'

'As ever was, Father.' There was a light mocking note in Fallon's voice.

'Then you must know that I cannot possibly grant you absolution in this matter. You murdered a man in cold blood this morning. I saw you do it. We both know that.' He drew himself up. 'What do you want with me?'

'I've already got it, Father. As you said, the secrets of the confessional are inviolate. That makes what I told you privileged information.'

There was an agony in Father da Costa's voice that cut into Anna's heart like a knife. 'You used me!' he cried. 'In the worst possible way. You've used this church.'

'I could have closed your mouth by putting a bullet between your eyes. Would you have preferred that?'

'In some ways I think I would.' Father da Costa had control of himself again now. He said, 'What is your name?'

'Fallon - Martin Fallon.'

'Is that genuine?'

'Names with me are like the Book of the Month. Always changing. I'm not wanted as Fallon. Let's put it that way.'

'I see,' Father da Costa said. 'An interesting choice. I once knew a priest of that name. Do you know what it means in Irish?'

'Of course. Stranger from outside the campfire.'

'And you consider that appropriate?'

'I don't follow you.'

'I mean, is that how you see yourself? As some romantic desperado outside the crowd?'

Fallon showed no emotion whatsoever. 'I'll go now. You won't see me again.'

He turned to leave and Father da Costa caught him by the arm. 'The man who paid you to do what you did this morning, Fallon? Does he know about me?'

Fallon stared at him for a long moment, frowning slightly, and then he smiled. 'You've nothing to worry about. It's taken care of.'

'For such a clever man, you really are very foolish,' Father da Costa told him.

The door at the main entrance banged open in the wind. An old woman in a headscarf entered. She dipped her fingers in the holy water, genuflected and came up the aisle.

Father da Costa took Fallon's arm firmly. 'We can't talk here. Come with me.'

At one side of the nave there was an electric cage hoist, obviously used by workmen for access to the tower. He pushed Fallon inside and pressed the button. The cage rose through the network of scaffolding, passing through a hole in the roof.

It finally jerked to a halt and da Costa opened the gate and led the way out on to a catwalk supported by scaffolding that encircled the top of the tower like a ship's bridge.

'What happened here?' Fallon asked.

'We ran out of money,' Father da Costa told him and led the way along the catwalk in the rain.

Neither of them heard the slight whirring of the electric motor as the cage dropped back to the church below. When it reached ground level, Anna da Costa entered, closed the gate and fumbled for the button.

The view of the city from the catwalk was magnificent although the grey curtain of the rain made things hazy in the middle distance. Fallon gazed about him with obvious pleasure. He had changed in some subtle, indefinable way and smiled slightly.

'Now this I like. Earth hath not anything to show more fair: isn't that what the poet said?'

'Great God in heaven, I bring you up here to talk seriously and you quote Wordsworth to me? Doesn't anything touch you at all?'

'Not that I can think of.' Fallon took out a packet of cigarettes. 'Do you use these?'

Father da Costa hesitated, then took one angrily. 'Yes, I will, damn you.'

'That's it Father, enjoy yourself while you can,' Fallon said as he struck a match and gave him a light. 'After all, we're all going to hell the same way.'

'You actually believe that?'

'From what I've seen of life it would seem a reasonable conclusion to me.'

Fallon leaned on the rail, smoking his cigarette, and Father da Costa watched him for a moment, feeling strangely helpless. There was obvious intelligence here - breeding, strength of character - all the qualities and yet it seemed impossible to reach through and touch the man in any way.

'You're not a practising Catholic?' he said at last.

Fallon shook his head. 'Not for a long time.'

'Can I ask why?'

'No,' Fallon told him calmly.

Father da Costa tried again. 'Confession, Fallon, is a Sacrament. A Sacrament of Reconciliation.'

He suddenly felt rather silly, because this was beginning to sound dangerously like one of his Confirmation classes at the local Catholic school, but he pressed on.

'When we go to confession we meet Jesus who takes us to himself and, because we are in him and because we are sorry, God our Father forgives us.'

'I'm not asking for any forgiveness,' Fallon said. 'Not from anybody.'

'No man can damn himself for all eternity in this way,' Father da Costa said sternly. 'He has not the right.'

'Just in case you hadn't heard, the man I shot was called Krasko and he was the original thing from under a stone. Pimp, whoremaster, drug-pusher. You name it, he had a finger in it. And you want me to say sorry? For him?'

'Then he was the law's concern.'

'The law!' Fallon laughed harshly. 'Men like him are above the law. He's been safe for years behind a triple wall of money, corruption and lawyers. By any kind of logic I'd say I've done society a favour.'

'For thirty pieces of silver?'

'Oh, more than that, Father. Much more,' Fallon told him. 'Don't worry, I'll put something in the poor box on the way out. I can afford it.' He flicked his cigarette out into space. 'I'll be going now.'