A Prayer for the Dying. Jack Higgins

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      And in the darkness at the back of the church, Fallon sat waiting.

       3

       Miller

      Father da Costa was just finishing his second cup of tea in the cemetery superintendent’s office when there was a knock at the door and a young police constable came in.

      ‘Sorry to bother you again, Father, but Mr Miller would like a word with you.’

      Father da Costa stood up. ‘Mr Miller?’ he said.

      ‘Detective-Superintendent Miller, sir. He’s head of the CID.’

      It was still raining heavily when they went outside. The forecourt was crammed with police vehicles and as they walked along the narrow path, there seemed to be police everywhere, moving through the rhododendron bushes.

      The body was exactly where he had left it although it was now partially covered with a groundsheet. A man in an overcoat knelt on one knee beside it making some sort of preliminary examination. He was speaking in a low voice into a portable dictaphone and what looked like a doctor’s bag was open on the ground beside him.

      There were police here everywhere, too, in uniform and out. Several of them were taking careful measurements with tapes. The others were searching the ground area.

      The young detective-inspector who had his statement, was called Fitzgerald. He was standing to one side, talking to a tall, thin, rather scholarly-looking man in a belted raincoat. When he saw da Costa, he came across at once.

      ‘There you are, Father. This is Detective-Superintendent Miller.’

      Miller shook hands. He had a thin face and patient brown eyes. Just now he looked very tired.

      He said, ‘A bad business, Father.’

      ‘It is indeed,’ da Costa said.

      ‘As you can see, we’re going through the usual motions and Professor Lawlor here is making a preliminary report. He’ll do an autopsy this afternoon. On the other hand, because of the way it happened you’re obviously the key to the whole affair. If I might ask you a few more questions?’

      ‘Anything I can do, of course, but I can assure you that Inspector Fitzgerald was most efficient. I don’t think there can be anything he overlooked.’

      Fitzgerald looked suitably modest and Miller smiled. ‘Father, I’ve been a policeman for nearly twenty-five years and if I’ve learned one thing, it’s that there’s always something and it’s usually that something which wins cases.’

      Professor Lawlor stood up. ‘I’ve finished here, Nick,’ he said. ‘You can move him.’ He turned to da Costa. ‘You said, if I got it right from Fitzgerald, that he was down on his right knee at the edge of the grave.’ He walked across. ‘About here?’

      ‘That’s correct.’

      Lawlor turned to Miller. ‘It fits, he must have glanced up at the crucial moment and his head would naturally be turned to the right. The entry wound is about an inch above the outer corner of the left eye.’

      ‘Anything else interesting?’ Miller asked.

      ‘Not really. Entry wound a quarter of an inch in diameter. Very little bleeding. No powder marking. No staining. Exterior wound two inches in diameter. Explosive type with disruptions of the table of the skull and lacerations of the right occipital lobe of the brain. The wound is two inches to the right of the exterior occipital protuberance.’

      ‘Thank you, Doctor Kildare,’ Miller said.

      Professor Lawlor turned to Father da Costa and smiled. ‘You see, Father, medicine has its jargon, too, just like the Church. What I’m really trying to say is that he was shot through the skull at close quarters – but not too close.’

      He picked up his bag. ‘The bullet shouldn’t be too far away, or what’s left of it,’ he said as he walked off.

      ‘Thank you for reminding me,’ Miller called ironically.

      Fitzgerald had crossed to the doorway and now he came back, shaking his head. ‘They’re making a plaster cast of those footprints, but we’re wasting our time. He was wearing galoshes. Another thing, we’ve been over the appropriate area with a tooth comb and there isn’t a sign of a cartridge case.’

      Miller frowned and turned to da Costa. ‘You’re certain he was using a silencer?’

      ‘Absolutely.’

      ‘You seem very sure.’

      ‘As a young man I was lieutenant in the Special Air Service, Superintendent,’ da Costa told him calmly. ‘The Aegean Islands – Jugoslavia. That sort of thing. I’m afraid I had to use a silenced pistol myself on more than one occasion.’

      Miller and Fitzgerald glanced at each other in surprise and then Father da Costa saw it all in a flash of blinding light. ‘But of course,’ he said. ‘It’s impossible to use a silencer with a revolver. It has to be an automatic pistol which means the cartridge case would have been ejected.’ He crossed to the doorway. ‘Let me see, the pistol was in his right hand so the cartridge case should be somewhere about here.’

      ‘Exactly,’ Miller said. ‘Only we can’t find it.’

      And then da Costa remembered. ‘He dropped to one knee and picked something up, just before he left.’

      Miller turned to Fitzgerald who looked chagrined. ‘Which wasn’t in your report.’

      ‘My fault, Superintendent,’ da Costa said. ‘I didn’t tell him. It slipped my mind.’

      ‘As I said, Father, there’s always something.’ Miller took out a pipe and started to fill it from a worn leather pouch. ‘I know one thing. This man’s no run-of-the-mill tearaway. He’s a professional right down to his fingertips, and that’s good.’

      ‘I don’t understand,’ Father da Costa said.

      ‘Because there aren’t many of that calibre about, Father. It’s as simple as that. Let me explain. About six months ago somebody got away with nearly a quarter of a million from a local bank. Took all weekend to get into the vault. A beautiful job – too beautiful. You see we knew straight away that there were no more than five or six men in the country capable of that level of craftsmanship and three of them were in jail. The rest was purely a matter of mathematics.’

      ‘I see,’ da Costa said.

      ‘Now take my unknown friend. I know a hell of a lot about him already. He’s an exceptionally clever man because that priest’s disguise was a touch of genius. Most people think in stereotypes. If I ask them if they saw anyone they’ll say no. If I press them, they’ll remember they saw a postman or – as in this case – a priest. If I ask them what he looked like, we’re in trouble because СКАЧАТЬ