Confessional. Part 34

She told him everything. Belov, the phone conversation with Maslovsky, Shepilov and Turkin, and finally, Alex Martin in Jersey.

Devlin was frowning thoughtfully as she finished. 'So they were on to you? Actually waiting in Jersey? How in the h.e.l.l would they know that?'

'I asked about the train times at hotel reception,' she told him. 'I didn't give my name or room number. I thought that covered it. Perhaps Belov and his people were able to make the right sort of enquiries.'

'Maybe. Still, you're here now. You'll be staying with me at my cottage in Kilrea. It isn't far. I've got a call to make

when we get in. With luck, we'll be able to set up the right kind of meeting for you tomorrow. Lots of photos for you to plough through.'

'I hope something comes of it,' she said.

'Don't we all? Anyway, a quiet night. I'll make the supper and a good friend of mine is joining us.'

'Anyone interesting?'

'The kind of man you'd find rather thin on the ground where you come from. A Catholic priest. Father Harry Cus-sane. I think you'll like him.'

He phoned McGuiness from his study. 'The girl is here. Staying with me at my place. How soon can you set up the right meeting?'

'Never mind that,' McGuiness told him. 'Have you heard about Cherny?'

Devlin was immediately alert. 'No.'

'Took a very long fall from a very high window at Trinity College this afternoon. The thing is, did he fall or was he pushed?'

'I suppose one could say his end was fortuitous,' Devlin said.

'For one person only,' McGuiness told him. 'Jesus, I'd like to get my hands on that sod.'

'Set up the meeting with the girl then,' Devlin said. 'Maybe she'll recognize him.'

'I'd go to confession again if I thought that could be guaranteed. Okay, leave it with me. I'll get back to you.'

Cussane robed for Ma.s.s in the sacristy, very calm, very cold. It wasn't like a play any longer. More like an improvisation in which the actors created a story for themselves. He had no idea what was going to happen.

The four acolytes who waited for him were village boys, clean and neat and angelic in their scarlet ca.s.socks and white

cottas. He settled the stole around his neck, picked up his prayer book and turned to them.

'Let's make it special tonight, shall we?'

He pressed the bellpush at the door. A moment later, the organ started to play. One of the boys opened the door and they moved through into the small church in procession.

Devlin was working in the kitchen preparing steaks. Tanya opened the French windows and was immediately aware of the organ music drifting across the garden from the other side of the wall. She went in to Devlin. 'What's that?'

'There's a convent over there and a hospice.- Their chapel is the village church. That'll be Harry Cussane celebrating Ma.s.s. He won't be long.'

She went back into the living room and stood listening at the French windows. It was nice and not only peaceful. The organ playing was really rather good. She crossed the lawn and opened the door in the wall. The chapel, on the end of the convent, looked picturesque and inviting, soft light flooding from the windows. She went up the path and opened the oaken door.

There were only a handful of villagers, two people in wheelchairs who were obviously patients from the hospice and several nuns. Sister Anne-Marie played the organ. It was not much of an instrument and the damp atmosphere had a bad effect on the reeds, but she was good, had spent a year at the Conservatoire in Paris as a young girl before heeding G.o.d's call and turning to the religious life.

The lights were very dim, mainly candles, and the church was a place of shadows and calm peace, the nuns' voices sweet as they sang the offertory:'Domine Jesu Christ, Rex Floriae.. /At the altar, Harry Cussane prayed for all sinners everywhere whose actions only cut them off from the fact of G.o.d's infinite mercy and love. Tanya took a seat to one side on her own, moved by the atmosphere. The truth was that

she had never attended a church service like this in her life. She couldn't see much of Cussane's face. He was simply the chief figure down there at the altar in the dim light, fascinating to her in his robes as was the whole business.

The Ma.s.s continued, most of those in the congregation went forward to the rail to receive the body and blood of Christ. She watched, as he moved from one person to the other, the head bending to murmur the ritual words and she was filled with a strange unease. It was as if she knew this man, some trick of physical movement that seemed familiar.

When the Ma.s.s was over, the final absolution given, he paused on the steps to address the congregation. 'And in your prayers during the coming days, I would ask each one of you to pray for the Holy Father, soon to visit England at a most difficult time.' He moved forward a little, the candlelight falling on his face. 'Pray for him that your prayers, added to his own, grant him the strength to accomplish his mission.'

His gaze pa.s.sed over the entire congregation and for a moment it was as if he was looking at her directly, then he moved on. Tanya froze in horror, the shock, the most terrible she had ever known in her life. When he spoke the words of the benediction, it was as if his lips moved with no sound. The face - the face which had haunted her dreams for years. Older, of course, kinder even, and yet unmistakably the face of Mikhail Kelly, the man they had named Cuchulain.

What happened then was strange, yet perhaps not so strange if one considered the circ.u.mstances. The shock was so profound that it seemed to drain all strength from her and she remained in the half-darkness at the back of the church while people moved out and Cussane and the acolytes disappeared into the sacristy. It was very quiet in the church and she sat there, trying to make sense of things. Cuchulain was Father Harry Cussane, Devlin's friend, and it explained so many things. Oh, my G.o.d, she thought, what am I going to do? And then the sacristy door opened and Cussane stepped out.

Things were almost ready in the kitchen. Devlin checked the oven, whistling softly to himself and called, 'Have you laid the table in there?'

There was no reply. He went into the living room. Not only was the table not laid but there was no sign of Tanya. Then he noticed the French window ajar, took off his ap.r.o.n and moved forward.

'Tanya?' he called into the garden, and in the same moment saw that the door in the garden wall stood open.

Cussane wore a black suit and clerical collar. He paused for a moment, aware of her presence although he made no sign. He'd noticed her almost at once during the Ma.s.s. The fact that she was a stranger would have made her stand out, but in the circ.u.mstances it had been obvious who she must be. Knowing that, there was the ghost of the child there in the face, the child who had struggled as he held her that day in Drumore, all those years ago. Eyes never changed, and the eyes he had always remembered.

He turned at the altar rail, dropping to one knee to genuflect, and Tanya, in a panic now and terribly afraid, forced herself to her feet and moved along the aisle. The door to one of the confessional boxes stood partially open and she slipped inside. When she pulled it close, there was a slight creaking. She heard him walk down the aisle, the steps slow, distinct on the stone flags. They came closer. Stopped.

He said softly in Russian, 'I know you are there, Tanya Voroninova. You can come out now.'

She stood there, shivering, very cold. He was quite calm, his face grave. Still in Russian, he said, 'It's been a long time.'

She said, 'So, do you kill me like you killed my father? As you have killed so many others?'

'I hoped that wouldn't be necessary.' He stood there looking at her, his hands in the pockets of his jacket, and then he

smiled gently and there was a kind of sadness there. 'I've heard you on records. You have a remarkable talent.'

'So have you.' She felt stronger now. 'For death and destruction. They chose you well. My foster-father knew what he was doing.'

'Not really,' he said. 'Nothing is ever that simple. I happened to be available. The right tool at the right time.'

She took a deep breath. 'What happens now?'

'I thought we were supposed to be having dinner together, you, I and Liam,' he said.

The porch door banged open and Devlin walked in. Tanya?' he called and then paused. 'Oh, there you are. So you two have met?'

'Yes, Liam, a long, long time ago,' Harry Cussane told him, and his hand came out of the right pocket of his jacket holding the Stechkin he had taken from Lubov.

At the cottage, he found cord in the kitchen drawer. 'The steaks smell good, Liam. Better turn the oven off.'

'Would you look at that?' Devlin said to the girl. 'He thinks of everything.'