The Wolf at the Door

The Cooper turned another corner and pulled up outside their destination. The Church of the Holy Name, it said on the painted signboard beside the open gate, along with the times of confession and Mass. The church had a Victorian-Gothic look to it, which made sense because it was only in the Victorian era that Roman Catholics by law were allowed to build churches again. Dillon saw a tower, a porch, a vast wooden door bound in iron in a failed attempt to achieve a medieval look.

They stayed in the car for a few moments. Billy said, ‘The thing is, my mother was a strict Roman Catholic. Not our Harry. He doesn’t believe in anything he can’t put his hand on, but she really put me on stage. When I was a kid, I was an acolyte. I tell you, Dillon, it meant everything to her when it was my turn to serve at Mass.’

‘I know,’ Dillon said. ‘Scarlet cassock, white cotta.’

‘Don’t tell me you did that?’

‘I’m afraid so, and Billy, I’ve really got news for you. I did it in this very church we’re about to enter. I was twelve when my father brought me from Northern Ireland to live with him in Kilburn. That means it was thirty-seven years ago when I first entered this church, and the priest in charge is the same man, James Murphy. As I recall, he was born in 1929, which would make him eighty.’

‘But why didn’t you mention that to Ferguson and the others? What’s going on? I knew something was, Dillon. Talk to me.’

Dillon sat there for a moment longer, then took out his wallet and from one of the pockets produced a prayer card. It was old, creased, slightly curling at the golden edges. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us now and at the hour of our death, we who are ourselves alone.

‘Jesus, Dillon.’ Billy took it from him. ‘Where the hell did this come from?’

‘It was Father James Murphy, as he was then, who first received the news of my father’s death in that firefight in Belfast, an incident that turned me into what I am, shaped my whole life. A casualty of war, he told me, gave me the card and begged me to pray.’ He smiled bleakly, took the card and replaced it in the wallet. ‘So, here we are. Let’s go in, shall we? I see from the board someone’s hearing confessions in there, although it may not be the great man himself.’

He got out and Billy joined him, his face pale. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

They entered and walked through the cemetery, which was also Victorian-Gothic and rather pleasant, marble effigies, winged angels, engraved headstones and cypress trees to one side. ‘I used to like this when I was a boy, liked it more than I liked it inside the church in a way. It’s what we all come to, when you think of it,’ Dillon said.

‘For Christ’s sake, cut it out,’ Billy said. ‘You’re beginning to worry me.’

He turned the ring on the great door and Dillon followed him through. There was faint music playing, something subdued and soothing. The whole place was in a kind of half-darkness, but was unexpectedly warm, no doubt because of central heating. The usual church smell, so familiar from childhood, filled his nostrils. Dillon dipped his fingers in the bowl as he went past and crossed himself, and Billy, after hesitating, did the same.

The sanctuary lamp glowed through the gloom and to the left there was a Mary Chapel, the Virgin and Child floating in a sea of candlelight. The place had obviously had money spent on it in the past. Victorian stained glass abounded, carvings that looked like medieval copies, and a Christ on the Cross which was extremely striking. The altar and choir stalls, too, were ornate and, it had to be admitted, beautifully carved.

A woman was down there wearing a green overall, arranging flowers by the altar. A strong face with a good mouth, handsome in a Jane Austen kind of way, the hair fair and well-kept with no grey showing, although that was probably due more to the attentions of a good hairdresser than nature. She wore a white blouse and grey skirt under the overall, and half-heeled shoes. She held pruning scissors in one gloved hand, and she turned and glanced at them coolly for a moment, then returned to her flowers.

Dillon moved towards the confessional boxes on the far side. There were three of them, but the light was on in only one. Two middle-aged women were waiting, and Billy, sitting two pews behind them beside Dillon, leaned forward to decipher the name card in the slot on the confessional box doors.

‘You’re all right, it says Monsignor James Murphy.’

A man in a raincoat emerged from the box and walked away along the aisle, and one of the women went in. They sat there in silence and she was out in not much more than five minutes. She sat down and her friend went in. She was longer, more like fifteen minutes, then finally emerged, murmured to her friend, and they departed.

‘Here I go.’ Dillon whispered to Billy, got up, opened the door of the confessional box, entered and sat down.

‘Please bless me, Father,’ he said to the man on the other side of the grille, conscious of the strong, aquiline face in profile, the hair still long and silvery rather than grey.

Murphy said, ‘May our Lord Jesus bless you and help you to tell your sins.’

‘Oh, that would be impossible, for they are so many.’

The head turned slightly towards him. ‘When did you last make confession, my son?’

‘So long ago, I can’t remember.’

‘Are your sins so bad that you shrink from revealing them?’

‘Not at all. I know the secrets of the confessional are inviolate, but acknowledging the deaths of so many at my hands in no way releases me from the burden of them.’

Murphy seemed to straighten. ‘Ah, I think I see your problem. You are a soldier or have been a soldier, as with so many men these days.’

‘That’s true enough.’

‘Then you may certainly be absolved, but you must help by seeking comfort in prayer.’

‘Oh, I’ve tried that, Father, saying Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us now and at the hour of our death, we who are ourselves alone.’

There was a moment of silence, then Murphy turned full face, trying to peer through the grill. ‘Who are you?’

‘God bless you, Father, but isn’t that breaking the rules? Still, I’ll let it go for once and put you out of your misery. Sean Dillon, as ever was. Thirty years since you last saw me. I was nineteen and you were the man the police asked to break the news that my father was dead, killed accidentally while on a trip to Belfast. You told me he was a casualty of war.’

‘Sean,’ Murphy’s voice quavered. ‘I can’t believe it. What can I say?’

‘I think you said it all thirty years ago when you urged me to pray, particularly the special one on a prayer card you gave me, the prayer I’ve just quoted to you.’

‘Yes, I recollect now.’ The voice was unsteady. ‘A wonderful prayer to the Virgin Mary.’

‘I remember you saying it would be a comfort for all victims of a great cause. Which made sense, as the prayer is directed at we who are ourselves alone and “ourselves alone” in Irish is Sinn Fein. So, it had a definite political twist to it, urging a nineteen-year-old boy whose father had ended up dead on a pavement in the Falls Road, to get angry, clear off to Belfast and join the Provos to fight for the Glorious Cause. Now, aren’t you proud of me?’

The door to Dillon’s half of the confessional box was yanked open and the woman in the green overall was there, blazingly angry. ‘Come out of there,’ she shouted and grabbed at him. Behind her, Billy moved in to pull her off.

‘You got good and loud, Sean. Only her and me in the place and we heard most of what you said.’

She pulled away from Billy and glared at Dillon. ‘Get out of here before I call the police.’

Billy produced his warrant card. ‘Don’t waste your breath. MI5, and he’s got one, too.’

The other door opened and Murphy came out, an imposing figure at six feet with the silver hair, dressed in a full black cassock, an alb, violet stole draped over his shoulder.

‘Leave it, Caitlin, this is Sean Dillon. As a boy of nineteen, I had to tell him his father was murdered by British soldiers in Ulster. He left for Belfast for his father’s funeral and never returned. There were rumours that he had cast in his lot with the Provisional IRA. If so, I can’t see that it in any way concerns me. As to the prayer card which I gave him as a comfort, it may be found on the internet if you look carefully, Sean, and has been available to all since Easter 1916. We have a Hope of Mary hospice and refuge where the card is readily available.’ He put a hand on Dillon’s left shoulder. ‘You are deeply troubled, Sean, that is so obvious. Your dear father worked and did so much for the church in his spare time. The lectern in beechwood by the high altar was his work. If I can help you in any way, I am here.’

‘Not right now,’ Dillon said, ‘but before I go, the score for dead cardholders right now is four: Henry Pool, John Docherty, Frank Barry in New York, Jack Flynn in Long Island.’

‘What on earth are you talking about?’ Murphy looked shocked.

‘Don’t listen to him, he’s lost his wits entirely.’ Caitlin moved close to Dillon and slapped his face. ‘Get out.’

‘My, but you’re the hard woman. Come on, Billy, let’s go.’ Billy opened the great door and Dillon turned and they were standing close, Murphy with his head inclined while she whispered to him.

Dillon called, ‘If you know anybody named Cochran, tell him we found his wallet and the prayer card, too. God bless all here.’

And Caitlin Daly snapped completely. ‘Get out, you bastard.’ Her voice echoed around the church and Dillon followed Billy to the Cooper and they drove away.

‘Do you think there’s anything doing?’ Billy asked.

‘Oh, yes,’ Dillon said. ‘However bizarre it sounds, I think there’s something going on there.’