"Higgins, Jack - Prayer For The Dying" - читать интересную книгу автора (Higgins Jack)

He started to divest himself of the raincoat and cassock. Underneath he wore a dark sweater and grey slacks. His navy blue trench coat was ready on the seat and he pulled it on. Then he took off the rubber galoshes he was wearing.

Varley was sweating as they turned into the dual carriage-way. "Oh, God," he moaned. "Mr.. Meehan will have our balls for this."

"Let me worry about Meehan." Fallon bundled the priest's clothing into a canvas hold all and zipped it shut,

"You don't know him, Mr.. Fallon," Varley said. "He's the devil himself when he's mad. There was a fella called Gregson a month or two back. Professional gambler. Bent as a cork-screw. He took one of Mr. Meehan's clubs for five grand. When the boys brought him in, Mr.. Meehan nailed his hands to a tabletop. Did it himself, too. Six-inch nails and a five-pound hammer. Left him like that for five hours. To consider the error of his ways, that's what he said."

"What did he do to him after that?" Fallon asked.

"I was there when they took the nails out. It was horrible. Gregson was in a terrible state. And Mr.. Meehan, he pats him on the cheek and tells him to be a good boy in future. Then he gives him a tenner and sends him to see this Paki doctor he uses." Varley shuddered. "I tell you, Mr.. Fallon, he's no man to cross."

"He certainly seems to have his own special way of winning friends and influencing people," Fallon said. "The priest back there? Do you know him?"

"Father da Costa?" Varley nodded. "Has a broken-down old church near the centre of the city. Holy Name, it's called. He runs the crypt as a kind of doss house for down-and-outs. About the only congregation he gets these days. One of these areas where they've pulled down all the houses."

"Sounds interesting. Take me there."

The car swerved violently, so great was Valley's surprise and he had to fight to regain control of the wheel. "Don't be crazy. My orders were to take you straight back to the farm."

"I'm changing them," Fallon said simply and he sat back and lit a cigarette.

The Church of the Holy Name was in Rockingham Street, sandwiched between gleaming new cement and glass office blocks on the one hand and shabby, decaying warehouses on the other. Higher up the street there was a vast brickfield where old Victorian slum houses had been cleared. The bull-dozers were already at work digging the foundation for more tower blocks.

Varley parked the van opposite the church and Fallon got out. It was a Victorian-Gothic monstrosity with a squat, ugly tower at its centre, the whole networked with scaffolding although there didn't seem to be any work in progress.

"It isn't exactly a hive of industry," Fallon said.

"They ran out of money. The way I hear it the bloody place is falling down." Varley wiped sweat from his brow nervously. "Let's get out of it, Mr.. Fallon - please."

"In a minute."

Fallon crossed the road to the main entrance. There was the usual board outside with da Costa's name there and the times of Mass. Confession was at one o'clock and five on weekdays. He stood there, staring at the board for a moment and then he smiled slowly, turned and went back to the van.

He leaned in the window. "This funeral place of Meehan's -where is it?"

"Paul's Square," Varley said. "It's only ten minutes from here on the side of the town hall"

"I've got things to do," Fallon said. "Tell Meehan I'll meet him there at two o'clock."

"For Christ's sake, Mr.. Fallon," Varley said frantically. You can't do that," but Fallon was already halfway across the road going back towards the church.

Varley moaned, "You bastard "I" and he moved into gear and drove away.

Fallon didn't go into the church. Instead, he walked up the side street beside a high, greystone wall. There was an old cemetery inside, flat tombstones mainly and a house in one corner, presumably the presbytery. lt looked to be in about the same state as the church.

It was a sad, grey sort of place, the leafless trees black with a century of city soot that even the rain could not wash away and he was filled with a curious melancholy. This was what it all came to in the end whichever way you looked at it. Words in cracked stones. A gate clicked behind him and he turned sharply.

A young woman was coming down the path from the presbytery, an old trench coat over her shoulders against the rain. She carried an ebony walking stick in one hand and there was a bundle of sheet music under the other arm.