A Prayer for the Dying (v5) by Jack Higgins Read Free Book Online Page B

that won't be possible now.'
    'May I ask why not, Father?' Miller demanded.
    Father da Costa had given considerable thought to his answer, yet in the end could manage nothing more original than, 'I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to help you, that's all.'
    Miller was genuinely puzzled and showed it. 'Let's start again, Father. Perhaps you didn't understand me properly. All I want you to do is to come down to the Department to look at some photos in the hope that you might recognise our friend of this morning.'
    'I know all that,' Father da Costa told him.
    'And you still refuse to come?'
    There wouldn't be any point.'
    'Why not?'
    'Because I can't help you.'
    For a moment, Miller genuinely thought he was going out of his mind. This couldn't be happening. It just didn't make any kind of sense, and then he was struck by a sudden, dreadful suspicion.
    'Has Meehan been getting at you in some way?'
    'Meehan?' Father da Costa said, his genuine bewilderment so perfectly obvious that Miller immediately dropped the whole idea.
    'I could have you brought in formally, Father, as a material witness.'
    'You can take a horse to water but you can't make him drink, Superintendent.'
    'I can have a damn good try,' Miller told him grimly. He walked to the door and opened it. 'Don't make me take you in formally, sir. I'd rather not but I will if I have to.'
    'Superintendent Miller,' Father da Costa said softly, 'men of a harsher disposition than you have tried to make me speak in circumstances where it was not appropriate. They did not succeed and neither will you, I can assure you. No power on earth can make me speak on this matter if I do not wish to.'
    'We'll see about that, sir. I'll give you some time to think this matter over, then I'll be back.' He was about to walk out when a sudden wild thought struck him and he turned, slowly, 'Have you seen him again, sir, since this morning? Have you been threatened? Is your life in any kind of danger?'
    'Goodbye, Superintendent,' Father da Costa said.
    The front door banged. Father da Costa turned to finish his whisky and Anna moved silently into the room. She put a hand on his arm.
    'He'll go to Monsignor O'Halloran.'
    'The bishop being at present in Rome, that would seem the obvious thing to do.' he said.
    'Hadn't you better get there first?'
    'I suppose so.' He emptied his glass and put it on the mantel-piece. 'What about you?'
    'I want to do some more organ practice. I'll be all right.'
    She pushed him out into the hall and reached for his coat from the stand with unerring aim. 'What would I do without you?' he said.
    She smiled cheerfully. 'Goodness knows. Hurry back.'
    He went out, she closed the door after him. When she turned, the smile had completely disappeared. She went back into his study, sat down by the fire and buried her face in her hands.
    Nick Miller had been a policeman for almost a quarter of a century. Twenty-five years of working a three-shift system. Of being disliked by his neighbours, of being able to spend only one weekend in seven at home with his family and the consequent effect upon his relationship with his son and daughter.
    He had little formal education but he was a shrewd, clever man with the ability to cut through to the heart of things, and this, coupled with an extensive knowledge of human nature gained from a thousand long, hard Saturday nights on the town, had made him a good policeman.
    He had no conscious thought or even desire to help society. His job was in the main to catch thieves, and society consisted of the civilians who sometimes got mixed up in the constant state of guerrilla warfare which existed between the police and the criminal. If anything, he preferred the criminal. At least you knew where you were with him.
    But Dandy Jack Meehan was different. One corruption was all corruption, he'd read that somewhere and if it applied to any human being, it applied to Meehan.
    Miller loathed him with the kind of obsessive hate that was in the end