Confessional (1985) Read online

  'And what can we do for you, Professor?' she demanded.

  'You say that as if to the Devil coming through the door,' Devlin told her.

  'An observation of stunning accuracy.'

  They started up the stairs and Devlin said, 'Danny Malone - how is he?'

  'Dying,' she said calmly. 'Peacefully, I hope. He is one of those patients who responds well to our drug programme which means that pain is only intermittent.'

  They reached the first of the open plan wards. Devlin said, 'When?'

  'This afternoon, tomorrow - next week.' She shrugged. 'He is a fighter, that one.'

  'That's true,' Devlin said. 'Big for the cause all his life, Danny.'

  'Father Cussane comes in every night,' she said, 'and sits and lets him talk through this violent past of his. I think it troubles him now that he nears his end. The IRA, the killing.'

  'Is it all right if I sit with him for a while?'

  'Half-an-hour,' she said firmly and moved away followed by the interns.

  Malone seemed to sleep, eyes closed, the skin tight on the facial bones, yellow as parchment. His fingers gripped the edge of a sheet tightly.

  Devlin sat down. 'Are you there, Danny?'

  'Ah, there you are, Father.' Malone opened his eyes, focused weakly and frowned. 'Liam, is that you?'

  'None other.'

  'I thought it was Father Cussane. We were just talking.'

  'Last night, Danny. You must have fallen asleep. Sure and you know he works in Dublin at the Secretariat during the day.'

  Malone licked dry lips. 'God, but I could do with a cup of tea.'

  'Let's see if I can get you one,' Devlin got up.

  As he did so, there was a sudden commotion on the lower level, voices shouting, drifting up. He frowned and hurried forward to the head of the stairs.

  Billy White turned off the main highway on to the narrow road, flanked by fir plantations on either side, that led to Kilrea. 'Not long now.' He half-turned to speak to Levin behind him and noticed, through the rear window, a Gardai motorcyclist turn off the main road behind them.

  He started to slow and Levin said, 'What is it?'

  'Gardai,' Billy told him. 'Police to you. One mile over the limit and they'll book you, those sods.'

  The police motorcyclist pulled up alongside and waved them down. With his dark goggles and helmet, White could see nothing of him at all. He pulled in at the side of the road angrily. 'And what in hell does this fella want? I wasn't doing an inch over thirty miles an hour.'

  The animal instinct which had protected his life for many years of violence made him wary enough to have his hand on the butt of the revolver in the left pocket of his raincoat as he got out of the car. The policeman pushed the motorcycle up on to its stand. He took off his gloves and turned, his raincoat very wet.

  'And what can we do you for, officer, on this fine morning?' Billy asked insolently.

  The policeman's hand came out of the right pocket of his raincoat holding a Walther, a Carswell silencer screwed on the end of the barrel. White recognized all this in the last moment of his violent life as he frantically attempted to draw his revolver. The bullet ripped into his heart, knocking him back against the car. He bounced off and fell on his face in the road.

  In the rear seat, Levin was paralysed with horror, yet he was not afraid for there was an inevitability to all this as if it was somehow ordained. The policeman opened the door and looked in. He paused, then pushed up the goggles.

  Levin gazed at him in astonishment. 'Dear God in heaven,' he whispered in Russian. 'It's you.'

  'Yes,' Cuchulain answered in the same language. 'I'm afraid it is,' and he shot him in the head, the Walther making no more than an angry cough.

  He pocketed the weapon, walked back to the bike, pulled it off its stand and rode away. It was no more than five minutes later that a van making morning deliveries of bread to the village came across the carnage. The driver and his assistant got out of their van and approached the scene with trepidation. The driver leaned down to look at White. There was a slight groan from the rear of the car and he glanced inside quickly.

  'My God!' he cried. 'There's another in here and he's still alive. Take the van and get down to the village quick as you like and fetch the ambulance from the hospice.'

  When Devlin reached the foyer, they were pushing Viktor Levin on a trolley into the receiving room.

  'Sister Anne-Marie's on Ward Three. She'll be right down,' he heard one of the ambulancemen tell the young sister in charge. The driver of the bread van stood there helplessly, blood on one sleeve of his overall coat. He was shaking badly. Devlin lit a cigarette and handed it to him. 'What happened?'

  'God knows. We found this car a couple of miles up the road. One was dead beside it and him in the back. They're bringing the other in now.'

  As Devlin, filled with a terrible premonition, turned towards the door, the ambulancemen hurried in with Billy White's body, his face plain to see. The young sister came out of the receiving room and went next door to check White. Devlin stepped in quickly and approached the trolley on which Levin still lay, moaning softly, blood congealing in a terrible head wound.

  Devlin leaned down. 'Professor Levin, can you hear me?' Levin opened his eyes. 'I am Liam Devlin. What happened?'

  Levin tried to speak, reached out one hand and got hold of the lapel of Devlin's jacket. 'I recognized him. He's here.'

  His eyes rolled, there was a rattle in his throat and as his grip slackened, Sister Anne-Marie hurried in. She pushed Devlin to one side and leaned over Levin, searching for a pulse. After a while, she stepped back. 'You know this man?'

  'No,' Devlin told her, which was true in a sense.

  'Not that it would matter if you did,' she said. 'He's dead. A miracle he didn't die instantly with a head wound like that.'

  She brushed past him and went next door where they had taken White. Devlin stood looking down at Levin, thinking of what Fox had told him of the old man, of the years of waiting to get out. And this was how it had ended. He felt angry, then, at the brutal black humour of life that could allow such a thing to happen.

  Harry Fox had only just arrived back at Cavendish Square, had hardly got his coat off, when the phone rang. Ferguson listened, face grave, then placed a hand over the mouthpiece. 'Liam Devlin. It seems the car with your man, Billy White, and Levin was ambushed just outside Kilrea. White was killed instantly, Levin died later in the hospice at Kilrea.'

  Fox said, 'Did Liam get to see him?'

  'Yes. Levin told him it was Cuchulain. That he recognized him.'

  Fox threw his coat on the nearest chair. 'But I don't understand, sir.'

  'Neither do I, Harry.' Ferguson spoke into the mouthpiece, 'I'll get back to you, Devlin.'

  He put the receiver down and turned, hands out to the fire. Fox said, 'I doesn't make sense. How would he have known?'

  'Some sort of leak, Harry, at the IRA end of things. They never keep their mouths shut.'

  'The thing is, sir, what do we do about it?'

  'More important, what do we do about Cuchulain?' Ferguson said. 'That gentleman is really beginning to annoy me.'

  'But there isn't much we can do now, not with Levin gone. After all, he was the only person who had any idea what the bastard looked like.'

  'Actually, that isn't quite true,' Ferguson said. 'You're forgetting Tanya Voraninova, who at this precise moment is in Paris. Ten days, four concerts, and that opens up a very interesting possibility.'

  About the same time, Harry Cussane was at his desk in the press office of the Catholic Secretariat in Dublin talking to Monsignor Halloran who was responsible for public relations.

  From his comfortable chair, Halloran said, 'It's a terrible thing that such a significantly historical event as the Holy Father's visit to England should be put in such jeopardy. Just think of it, Harry, His Holiness at Canterbury Cathedral. The first Pope in history to visit it. And now ...'

  'You think it won't come off?' Cuss
ane asked.

  'Well, they're still talking away in Rome, but that's how it looks to me. Why, do you know something I don't?'

  'No,' Cussane told him. He picked up a typed sheet. 'I've had this from London. His planned itinerary, so they are still acting as if he's coming.' He ran an eye over it. 'Arrives on the morning of 28th May at Gatwick Airport. Mass at Westminster Cathedral in London. Meets the Queen at Buckingham Palace in the afternoon.'

  'And Canterbury?'

  'That's the following day - Saturday. He starts early with a meeting with religious at a London college. Mainly monks and nuns from enclosed orders. Then by helicopter to Canterbury, stopping at Stokely Hall on the way. That's unofficial, by the way.'

  'For what reason?'

  'The Stokelys were one of the great Catholic families that managed to survive Henry VIII and hung on to their faith over the centuries. The National Trust own the house now, but it contains a unique feature: the family's private chapel. The oldest Catholic church of any description in England. His Holiness wishes to pray there. Afterwards, Canterbury.'

  'All of which, at the moment, is on paper only,' Halloran said.

  The phone rang. Cussane picked it up. 'Press office. Cussane here.' His face grew grave. He said, 'Is there anything I can do?' A pause. 'I'll see you later then.'

  Halloran said, 'Problems?'

  Cussane replaced the receiver. 'A friend from Kilrea. Liam Devlin of Trinity College. It seems there's been a shooting incident outside the village. Two men taken to the hospice. Both dead.'

  Halloran crossed himself. 'Political, is it?'

  'One of them was a known member of the IRA.'

  'Will you be needed? Go if you must.'

  'Not necessary.' Cussane smiled bleakly. 'They need a coroner now, Monsignor, not a priest. I've plenty to do here anyway.'

  'Yes, of course. Well, I'll leave you to it.'

  Halloran went out and Cussane lit a cigarette and went and stood at the window looking down into the street. Finally, he turned, sat at his desk and got on with some work.

  Paul Cherny had rooms at Trinity College which being, as so many people considered, at the centre of Dublin, suited him very well indeed. But then, everything about that extraordinary city commended itself to him.

  His defection had been at Maslovsky's express orders. A KGB general was not to be argued with. He was to defect in Ireland, that had been the plan. One of the universities was certain to offer him a post, his international reputation would assure that. He would then be in a perfect position to act as Cuchulain's control. Difficult in the early days with no Soviet Embassy in Dublin and the necessity always to work through London, but now that had been taken care of and his KGB contacts at the Dublin embassy gave him a direct link with Moscow.

  Yes, the years had been good and Dublin was the kind of paradise he'd always dreamed of. Intellectual freedom, stimulating company and the city - the city he had grown to love. He was thinking these things as he left Trinity that afternoon, walked through College Green, and made towards the river.

  Michael Murphy followed at a discreet distance and Cherny, unaware that he was being tailed, walked briskly along beside the Liffey until he reached Usher's Quay. There was a rather ugly Victorian church in red brick and he moved up the steps and went inside. Murphy paused to examine the board with the peeling gold paint. It said Our Lady, Queen of the Universe. Underneath were the times of Mass. Confessions were heard at one o'clock and five on weekdays. Murphy pushed open the door and entered.

  It was the sort of place that merchant money had been poured into back in the prosperous days of the Quays during the nineteenth century. There was lots of Victorian stained glass and fake gargoyles and the usual smell of candles and incense. Half-a-dozen people waited by a couple of confessional boxes and Paul Cherny joined them, seating himself on the end of the bench.

  'Jesus!' Murphy muttered in surprise. 'The bugger must have seen the light.' He positioned himself behind a pillar and waited.

  It was fifteen or twenty minutes before Cherny's turn came. He slipped into the oaken confessional box, closed the door and sat down, his head close to the grill.

  'Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,' he said in Russian.

  'Very funny, Paul,' the reply came from the other side of the grill in the same language. 'Now let's see if you can still smile when you've heard what I've got to say.'

  When Cuchulain was finished, Cherny said, 'What are we going to do?'

  'No need to panic. They don't know who I am and they aren't likely to find out now that I've disposed of Levin.'

  'But me?' Cherny said. 'If Levin told them about Drumore all those years ago, he must have told them of my part in it.'

  'Of course. You're under surveillance now. IRA variety, not British Intelligence, so I wouldn't worry just yet. Get in touch with Moscow. Maslovsky should know about this. He might want to pull us out. I'll phone you again tonight. And don't start worrying about your tail. I'll take care of it.'

  Cherny went out and Cuchulain watched through a crack in the door as Michael Murphy slipped from behind the pillar and followed him. There was a bang as the sacristy door opened and shut and an old cleaning woman came down the aisle as the priest in alb and black cassock, a violet stole around his shoulders, came out of the confessional box.

  'Are you finished, Father?'

  'I am so, Ellie.' Harry Cussane turned, a smile of great charm on his face as he slipped off the stole and started folding it.

  *

  Murphy, with no reason to think that Cherny was doing anything other than return to college, stayed some distance behind him. Cherny stopped and entered a telephone box. He wasn't in it for long and Murphy, who had paused under a tree as if sheltering from the rain, went after him again.

  A car drew into the kerb in front of him and the driver, a priest, got out, went round and looked at the nearside front tyre. He turned and catching sight of Murphy, said, 'Have you got a minute?'

  Murphy slowed, protesting, 'I'm sorry, Father, but I've an appointment.'

  And then the priest's hand was on his arm and Murphy felt the muzzle of the Walther dig painfully into his side. 'Easy does it, there's a lad. Just keep walking.'

  Cussane pushed him to the top of stone steps that went down to a decaying wooden jetty below. They moved along its broken planks, footsteps echoing hollowly. There was a boathouse with a broken roof, holes in the floor. Murphy wasn't afraid, but ready for action, waiting his chance.

  'That'll do,' Cussane said.

  Murphy stayed, his back towards him, one hand on the butt of the automatic in his raincoat pocket. 'Are you a real priest?' he asked.

  'Oh, yes,' Cussane told him. 'Not a very good one, I'm afraid, but real enough.'

  Murphy turned slowly. His hand came up out of the raincoat, already too late. The Walther coughed twice, and the bullet caught Murphy in the shoulder spinning him around. The second bullet drove him headfirst into a ragged hole in the floor and he plunged down into the dark water below.

  Dimitri Lubov, who was supposedly a commercial attache at the Soviet Embassy, was, in fact, a captain in the KGB. On receiving Cherny's carefully worded message, he left his office and went to a cinema in the city centre. It was not only relatively dark in there, but reasonably private, for few people went to the cinema in the afternoon. He sat in the back row and waited and Cherny joined him twenty minutes later.

  'Is it urgent, Paul?' Lubov said 'Not often we meet between fixed days.'

  'Urgent enough,' Cherny said. 'Cuchulain is blown. Maslovsky must be informed as soon as possible. He may want to pull us out.'

  'Of course,' Lubov said, alarmed. I'll see to it as soon as I get back, but hadn't you better fill me in on the details?'

  Devlin was working in his study at the cottage, marking a thesis on T. S. Eliot submitted by one of his students, when the phone rang.

  Ferguson said, 'It's a fine bloody mess. Someone must have coughed at your end. Your IRA cronies are not exactly t
he most reliable people in the world.'

  'Sticks and stones will get you nowhere,' Devlin told him. 'What do you want?'

  'Tanya Voroninova,' Ferguson said. 'Harry told you about her?'

  'The little girl from Drumore who was adopted by this Maslovsky character. What about her?'

  'She's in Paris at the moment to give a series of piano concerts. The thing is, being foster-daughter to a KGB general gives her a lot of leeway. I mean, she's considered an excellent risk. I thought you might go and see her. There's an evening flight from Dublin direct to Paris. Only two and a half hours, Air France.'

  'And what in the hell am I supposed to do? Get her to defect?'

  'You never know. When she hears the whole story, she might want to. See her anyway, Liam. It can't do any harm.'

  'All right,' Devlin said. 'A little breath of French air might do me good.'

  'I knew you'd see it my way,' Ferguson said. 'Report to the Air France desk at Dublin Airport. They've got a reservation. When you arrive at Charles de Gaulle, you'll be met by one of my chaps based in Paris. Fella called Hunter - Tony Hunter. He'll see to everything.'

  'I'm sure he will,' Devlin said and rang off.

  He packed a bag quickly, feeling unaccountably cheerful and was just pulling on his trenchcoat when the phone went again. It was Martin McGuiness. 'A bad business, Liam. What exactly happened?'

  Devlin told him and when he was finished, McGuiness exploded. 'So, he exists, this bastard?'

  'It would appear so, but more worrying from your point of view is, how did he know Levin was due in? The one man who might be able to identify him.'

  'Why ask me?'

  'Because Ferguson thinks there's been a leak at your end.'

  'Well, screw Ferguson.'

  'I wouldn't advise it, Martin. Listen, I've got to go. I've a flight to Paris to catch.'

  'Paris? What's there, for Christ's sake?'

  'A girl called Tanya Voroninova who might be able to identify Cuchulain. I'll be in touch.'