'God knows,' Father da Costa forced a smile and put a hand on her shoulder, a gesture of reassurance. 'I'm just going down to the church. Something I have to do. I won't be long.'

He left her there and hurried down through the cemetery, entering the church by way of the sacristy. He dropped on his knees at the altar rail, hands clenched together and looked up at Christ on the cross.

'Forgive me,' he pleaded. 'Heavenly Father, forgive me.'

He bowed his head and wept, for in his heart, he knew there was not one single particle of regret for what he had done to Jack Meehan. Worse than that, much worse, was the still, small voice that kept telling him that by wiping Meehan off the face of the earth he would be doing mankind a favour.

Meehan came out of the bathroom at the penthouse wearing a silk kimono and holding an ice-bag to his face. The doctor had been and gone, the bleeding had stopped, but his nose was an ugly, swollen, bruised hump of flesh that would never look the same again. Donner, Bonati and Rupert waited dutifully by the door. Donner's mouth was badly bruised and his lower lip was twice its usual size.

Meehan tossed the ice-bag across the room. 'No bloody good at all, that thing. Somebody get me a drink.'

Rupert hurried to the drinks trolley and poured a large brandy. He carried it across to Meehan who was standing at the window, staring out in the square, frowning slightly.

He turned, suddenly and mysteriously his old self again.

He said to Donner, 'Frank, what was the name of that old kid who was so good with explosives?'

'Ellerman, Mr Meehan, is he the one you're thinking of?'

'That's him. He isn't inside, is he?'

'Not that I know of.'

'Good, then I want him here within the next hour. You go get him and you can tell him there's a couple of centuries in it for him.'

He swallowed some more of his brandy and turned to Rupert. 'And you, sweetheart - I've got just the job for you. You can go and see Jenny for me. We're going to need her, too, for what I have in mind.'

Rupert said, 'Do you think she'll play? She can be an awkward bitch, when she feels like it.'

'Not this time.' Meehan chuckled. 'I'll give you a proposition to put to her that she can't refuse.'

He laughed again as if it was a particularly good joke and Rupert glanced uncertainly at Donner. Donner said carefully, 'What's it all about, Mr Meehan?'

'I've had enough,' Meehan said. 'That's what it's all about. The priest, Fallon, the whole bit. I'm going to clean the slate once and for all. Take them both out this very night and here's how we're going to do it.'

Harvey Ellerman was fifty years of age and looked ten years older, which came of having spent twenty-two years of his life behind bars if he added his various sentences together.

He was a small diffident individual who habitually wore a tweed cap and brown raincoat and seemed crushed by life, yet this small, anxious-looking man was reputed to know more about explosives than any man in the north of England. In the end, his own genius had proved his undoing, for such was the uniqueness of his approach to the task in hand that it was as if he had signed his own name each time he did a job, and for some years the police had arrested him with monotonous regularity the moment he put a foot wrong.

He came out of the lift into the penthouse, followed by Donner, holding a cheap fibre suitcase in one hand that was bound together by a cheap leather strap. Meehan went to meet him, hand extended, and Ellerman put the suitcase down.

'Great to see you, Harvey,' Meehan said. 'Hope you'll be able to help. Did Frank explain what I'm after?'

'He did, Mr Meehan, in a manner of speaking.' Ellerman hesitated. 'You won't want me personally on this thing, Mr Meehan? There's no question of that?'

'Of course not,' Meehan told him.

Ellerman looked relieved. 'It's just that I've retired from active participation in anything, Mr Meehan,' he said. 'You know how it is?'

'Too true, I do, Harvey. You were too bloody good for them.' He picked up Ellerman's suitcase and put it down on the table. 'Okay, let's see what you've got.'

Ellerman unfastened the strap and opened the suitcase. It contained a varied assortment of explosives carefully packed in tins, a selection of fuses and detonators, neat coils of wire and a rack of tools.

'Frank told me you wanted something similar to the sort of thing the IRA have been using in Ireland.'

'Not just similar, Harvey. I want it to be exactly the same. When the forensic boys get to examine what's left of this bomb I don't want there to be the slightest doubt in their minds where it's come from.'

'All right, Mr Meehan,' Ellerman said in his flat, colourless voice. 'Just as you say.' He produced a tin from the case. 'We'll use this, then. A Waverley biscuit tin. Made in Belfast. Packed with plastic gelignite. Say twenty pounds. That should do the trick.'

'What about a fuse?'

Ellerman held up a long, slim, dark pencil. 'They've been using a lot of these things lately. Chemical fuse of Russian manufacture. Virtually foolproof. Once you break the cap seal you've got twenty minutes.'

'Just the job,' Meehan rubbed his hands together. You'd better get started, then.'

He turned and walked across to the window, whistling happily.

14

Grimsdyke

Fallon came awake to find Jenny shaking him by the shoulder. 'Wake up!' she kept saying insistently. 'Wake up!'

There was a slight persistent throbbing ache behind his right eye, but otherwise he felt strangely light-headed. He sat up, swinging his legs to the floor, and ran his hands over his stubbled chin.

'What time is it?' he asked her.

'About four. Your friend, Father da Costa, was on the phone. He wants to see you.'

Fallon straightened slowly and looked at her, a slight, puzzled frown on his face. 'When was this?'

'About ten minutes ago. I wanted to come and get you, but he said there wasn't time.'

'And where does he want to see me? At Holy Name?'

She shook her head. 'No, he said he was taking his niece into the country. He thought it would be safer for her. A little place called Grimsdyke. It's about twenty miles from here in the marshes. He wants you to meet him there as soon as possible.'

'I see,' Fallon said. 'Do you know where this place is?'

She nodded. 'I used to go there for picnics when I was a kid. I've never been to this place he's going to, Mill House, he called it, but he told me how to get there.'

Fallon nodded slowly. 'And you'd take me?'

'If you like. We could go in my car. It wouldn't take much more than half an hour.'

He stared at her, the eyes very dark, no expression there at all. She glanced away nervously, unable to meet his gaze, and flushed angrily. 'Look, it's no skin of my nose. Do you want to go or don't you?'

He knew she was lying, yet it didn't seem to matter because for some strange reason he knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that she was leading him in the right direction.

'All right,' he said. 'Fine. Just give me a couple of minutes to get cleaned up. I'll meet you downstairs.'

As soon as she had gone he took the Ceska from his jacket pocket, ejected the magazine, reloaded carefully with eight rounds and slipped it into the right-hand pocket of his trench-coat.

He moved across to the window, dropped to one knee and raised the carpet to disclose a Browning automatic he had used at his first meeting with Kristou in London. Underneath it was a large buff envelope containing the best part of two thousand pounds in ten-pound notes, the bulk of the money he had received from Meehan. He slipped the envelope into his breast pocket and checked the Browning quickly.