A Prayer for the Dying

‘And what in the hell is this?’ Fallon said, picking it up.

‘A Czech Ceska,’ Kristou told him. ‘Seven point five millimetres. Model twenty-seven. The Germans took over the factory during the war. This is one of theirs. You can tell by the special barrel modification. Made that way to take a silencer.’

‘Is it any good?’

‘SS Intelligence used them, but judge for yourself.’

He moved into the darkness. A few moments later, a light was turned on at the far end of the building and Fallon saw that there was a target down there of a type much used by the army. A lifesize replica of a charging soldier.

As he screwed the silencer on to the end of the barrel, Kristou rejoined him. ‘Any time you’re ready.’

Fallon took careful aim with both hands, there was a dull thud that outside would not have been audible above three yards. He had fired at the heart and chipped the right arm.

He adjusted the sight and tried again. He was still a couple of inches out. He made a further adjustment. This time he was dead on target.

Kristou said, ‘Didn’t I tell you?’

Fallon nodded. ‘Ugly, but deadly, Kristou, just like you and me. Did I ever tell you that I once saw a sign on a wall in Derry that said: Is there a life before death? Isn’t that the funnlest thing you ever heard?’

Kristou stared at him, aghast, and Fallon turned, his arm swung up, he fired twice without apparently taking aim and shot out the target’s eyes.

2 (#ua70f83bb-cc2b-5d26-a107-b32237c5a5de)

Father da Costa (#ua70f83bb-cc2b-5d26-a107-b32237c5a5de)

… the Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. Father Michael da Costa spoke out bravely as he led the way up through the cemetery, his words almost drowned in the rush of heavy rain.

Inside, he was sick at heart. It had rained heavily all night, was raining even harder now. The procession from chapel to graveside was a wretched affair at the best of times, but this occasion was particularly distressing.

For one thing, there were so few of them. The two men from the funeral directors carrying the pitifully small coffin between them and the mother, already on the point of collapse, staggering along behind supported by her husband on one side and her brother on the other. They were poor people. They had no one. They turned inward in their grief.

Mr O’Brien, the cemetery superintendent, was waiting at the graveside, an umbrella over his head against the rain. There was a gravedigger with him who pulled off the canvas cover as they arrived. Not that it had done any good for there was at least two feet of water in the bottom.

O’Brien tried to hold the umbrella over the priest, but Father da Costa waved it away. Instead, he took off his coat and handed it to the superintendent and stood there in the rain at the graveside, the old red and gold cope making a brave show in the grey morning.

O’Brien had to act as server and Father da Costa sprinkled the coffin with holy water and incense and as he prayed, he noticed that the father was glaring across at him wildly like some trapped animal behind bars, the fingers of his right hand clenching and unclenching convulsively. He was a big man – almost as big as da Costa. Foreman on a building site.

Da Costa looked away hurriedly and prayed for the child, face upturned, rain beading his tangled grey beard.

Into your hands, O Lord,

We humbly commend our sister,

Lead her for whom you have

Shown so great a love,

Into the joy of the heavenly paradise.

Not for the first time, the banality of what he was saying struck him. How could he explain to any mother on this earth that God needed her eight-year-old daughter so badly that it had been necessary for her to choke to death in the stinking waters of an industrial canal to drift for ten days before being found.

The coffin descended with a splash and the gravedigger quickly pulled the canvas sheet back in place. Father da Costa said a final prayer, then moved round to the woman who was now crying bitterly.

He put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Mrs Dalton – if there’s anything I can do.’

The father struck his arm away wildly. ‘You leave her alone!’ he cried. ‘She’s suffered enough. You and your bloody prayers. What good’s that? I had to identify her, did you know that? A piece of rotting flesh that was my daughter after ten days in the canal. What kind of a God is it that could do that to a child?’

O’Brien moved forward quickly, but Father da Costa put up an arm to hold him back. ‘Leave it,’ he said calmly.

A strange, hunted look appeared on Dalton’s face as if he suddenly realised the enormity of his offence. He put an arm about his wife’s shoulders and he and her brother hurried her away. The two funeral men went after them.

O’Brien helped da Costa on with his coat. ‘I’m sorry about that, Father. A bad business.’

‘He has a point, poor devil,’ da Costa said, ‘After all, what am I supposed to say to someone in his position?’

The gravedigger looked shocked, but O’Brien simply nodded slowly. ‘It’s a funny old life sometimes.’ He opened his umbrella. ‘I’ll walk you back to the chapel, Father.’

Da Costa shook his head. ‘I’ll take the long way round if you don’t mind. I could do with the exercise. I’ll borrow the umbrella if I may.’

‘Certainly, Father.’

O’Brien gave it to him and da Costa walked away through the wilderness of marble monuments and tombstones.

The gravedigger said, ‘That was a hell of an admission for a priest to make.’

O’Brien lit a cigarette. ‘Ah, but then da Costa is no ordinary priest. Joe Devlin, the sacristan at St Anne’s, told me all about him. He was some sort of commando or other during the war. Fought with Tito and the Jugoslav partisans. Afterwards, he went to the English College in Rome. Had a brilliant career there – could have been anything. Instead, he decided to go into mission work after he was ordained.’

‘Where did they send him?’

‘Korea. The Chinese had him for nearly five years. Afterwards they gave him some administrative job in Rome to recuperate, but he didn’t like that. Got them to send him to Mozambique. I think it was his grandfather who was Portuguese. Anyway, he speaks the language.’

‘What happened there?’

‘Oh, he was deported. The Portuguese authorities accused him of having too much sympathy with rebels.’

‘So what’s he doing here?’

‘Parish priest at Holy Name.’

‘That pile of rubble?’ the gravedigger said incredulously. ‘Why, it’s only standing up because of the scaffolding. If he gets a dozen for Mass on a Sunday he’ll be lucky.’

‘Exactly,’ O’Brien said.

‘Oh, I get it.’ The gravedigger nodded sagely. ‘It’s their way of slapping his wrist.’

‘He’s a good man,’ O’Brien said. ‘Too good to be wasted.’

He was suddenly tired of the conversation and, for some strange reason, unutterably depressed. ‘Better get that grave filled in.’