THERE IS
an old saying that in Belfast it rains five days out of seven, and it certainly was on the following Monday morning when Miller went down the gangway of the overnight boat from Glasgow. He carried a canvas holdall that contained his file and the barest of necessities: pajamas, underwear, a spare shirt, and a small folding umbrella. He raised the umbrella and proceeded along the quay in the cheap raincoat and suit, making exactly the impression he had wanted. Having examined the street map thoroughly, he knew where he was going and found St. Mary’s Priory with no difficulty at all.
It looked out over the harbor as it had done since the late nineteenth century; he knew that from the documents in his file and because that was the period when Catholics were allowed to build churches again. It had a medieval look to it, but that was fake, and rose three stories high, with narrow stained-glass windows, some of them broken and badly repaired. It had the look of some kind of church, which the pub down the street from it didn’t. A sign swung with the breeze, a painting of a sailor from a bygone age on it wearing a faded yellow oilskin and sou’wester. A long window was etched in acid
Kelly’s Select Bar.
In spite of the early hour, two customers emerged, talking loudly and drunkenly, and one of them turned and urinated against the wall. It was enough, and Miller crossed the road.
THE SIGN READ:
St. Mary’s Priory, Little Sisters of Pity. Mother Superior: Sister Maria Brosnan.
Miller pushed open the great oaken door and went in. A young nun was at a reception desk writing in some sort of register. A large notice promised soup and bread in the kitchen at noon. There was also a supper in the canteen at six. There were times for mass in the chapel noted, and also for confession. These matters were in the hands of a Father Martin Sharkey.
“Can I help you?” the young nun asked.
“My name is Blunt, Mark Blunt. I’m from London. I believe the mother superior is expecting me.”
The girl sparkled. “You’re from Wapping? I’m Sister Bridget. I did my novitiate there last year. How is the mother superior?”
Miller’s hard work reading the files paid off. “Oh, you mean Sister Mary Michael? She’s well, I believe, but I’m working out of Monsignor Baxter’s office at the Bishop’s Palace.”
A door to the paneled wall at one side of her, labeled
Sacristy,
had been standing ajar, and now it opened and a priest in a black cassock stepped through.
“Do you have to bother the boy with idle chatter, Bridget, my love, when it’s the mother superior he’s needing?”
She was slightly confused. “I’m sorry, Father.”
He was a small man, fair haired, with an intelligent face alive with good humor. “You’ll be the young man with the plans for the improvements we’ve been waiting for, Mr. Blunt, isn’t it?”
“Mark Blunt.” He held out his hand, and the priest took it.
“Martin Sharkey. You know what women are like, all agog at the thought that the old place is going to be finally put to rights.” There was only a hint of an Ulster accent in his voice, which was fluent and quite vibrant in a way. “I’m in and out of the place at the moment, but if there’s anything I can do, let me know. You’ll find the lady you seek through the end door there, which leads to the chapel.” He turned and went back into the sacristy.
THE CHAPEL WAS
everything Miller expected. Incense, candles, and holy water, the Virgin and child floating in semidarkness, the confessional boxes to one side, the altar with the sanctuary lamp. Sister Maria Brosnan was on her knees scrubbing the floor with a brush. To perform such a basic task was to remind her to show proper humility. She stopped and glanced up.
“Mark Blunt, Sister.”
“Of course.” She smiled, a small woman with a contented face. “You must excuse me. I have a weakness for pride. I need to remind myself on a daily basis.”
She put the brush and a cloth in her bucket, and he gave her his hand and pulled her up. “I was talking to Mr. Frobisher the other day. He asked to be remembered to you.”
“A good and kind man. He saw what was needed here a year ago and doubted the order could find the money.” She led the way into the darkness, opened a door to reveal a very ordered office, a desk, but also a bed in the corner. “But all that has changed, thanks to Monsignor Baxter in London. It’s wonderful for all of us that the money has been made available.”
“As always, it oils the wheels.”
She went behind her desk. “Take a seat for a moment,” she said, which he did. “As I understand it, you will examine everything referring to Mr. Frobisher’s original findings and report back to Monsignor Baxter?”
“That’s it exactly, but let me stress that I don’t think you have the slightest need to worry. There is a very firm intention to proceed. I just need a few days to check things out. I understand I can stay here?”
“Absolutely. I’ll show you around now.”
“I met Father Sharkey on my way in,” Miller told her.
“A great man—a Jesuit, no less.”
“Soldier of Christ.”
“Of course. We are fortunate to have him. Father Murphy, our regular priest, was struck down the other week with pneumonia. The diocese managed to find Father Sharkey for us. He was due at the English College at the Vatican, a great scholar, I understand, but he’s helping out until Father Murphy is fit again. Now let’s do the grand tour.”
SHE SHOWED HIM
everything, starting with the top floor, where there was dormitory space for twenty nuns, then the second floor, with special accommodations for nursing cases of one kind or another, a theater for medical attention. There were half a dozen patients, nuns in attendance.
“Do you get people in and out on a regular basis?”
“Of course—we are, after all, a nursing order. Five of the people on this floor have cancer of one kind or another. I’m a doctor, didn’t you know that?”
All Miller could do was say, “Actually, I didn’t. Sorry.”
The doors stood open for easy access, and a couple of the nuns moved serenely in and out, offering help as it was needed. Some patients were draped in a festoon of needles and tubes, drips of one kind or another. Sister Maria Brosnan murmured a few words of comfort as she passed. The end room had a man in a wheelchair, what appeared to be plaster of Paris supporting his head, a strip of bandage covering his left eye. He was drinking through a straw from a plastic container of orange juice.
“Now then, Mr. Fallon, you’re doing well, but try a little walk. It will strengthen you.”
His reply was garbled and they moved to the next room, where a woman, looking pale as death, lay propped up against a pillow, eyes closed. Sister Maria Brosnan stroked her forehead, and the woman’s tired eyes opened.
“You’re very good to me,” she whispered.
“Go to sleep, dear, don’t resist it.”
They walked out. Miller said, “She’s dying, isn’t she?”
“Oh, yes, and very soon now. Each is different. A time comes when radiotherapy and drugs have done their best and failed. To ease the patient’s journey into the next world then becomes one of our most important duties.”
“And Fallon?”
“He’s different. According to his notes, he has a cancer biting deep into the left eye and it also affects his speech. He’s only been with us for two days, waiting for a bed at the Ardmore Institute. You see, radiotherapy is beyond our powers here. Up at Ardmore, they do wonderful things.”
“So there could still be hope for him?”
“Young man, there is hope for all of us. God willing. With cancer, I’ve seen total remission in some cases.”
“A miracle?” Miller said.
“Perhaps, Mr. Blunt.” Her simple faith shone out of her. “Our Lord performed them.”
They were on the ground floor: kitchens, canteen, a dormitory for twenty-five with a divider, women one side, men the other.
“Street people. They queue to get a bed for the night.”
“Amazing,” Miller said. “You really do good work.”
“I like to think so.” They were back in the entrance hall, Bridget at her desk.
She produced a parcel. There was a bright label that read
Glover Hi-Speed Deliveries.
“For you, Mr. Blunt,” she said. “A young man on a motorcycle—I had to sign for it.”
Miller took it and managed to smile. “Something I needed to help me in my work,” he said to the mother superior.
She accepted that. “Just come this way.” He followed her toward the chapel entrance, and she turned into a short corridor with a door that said
Washroom
and two doors opposite.
“Father Sharkey has one room, now you, the other.” She turned the key in the door and opened it. There was a locker, a desk, and a small bed in the corner.
“This will be fine,” Miller told her.
“Good. Obviously, you’re free to go anywhere you want. If you need me, just call. One thing—do keep your room locked. Some of our guests can be light-fingered.”
She went out. Miller locked the door, sat on the bed, and tore open the package. Inside in a cardboard box was a soft leather ankle holder, a Colt .25 with a silencer and a box containing twenty hollow-point cartridges, a lethal package if ever there was one. There was no message; the name Glover Hi-Speed Deliveries said it all, the deliveryman on the motorcycle probably SAS.
“So it begins,” he said softly, and unpacked his holdall.
THERE WAS A CRYPT
beneath the chapel, he knew that from Frobisher’s plans. He found the entrance in the dark shadows and noticed a couple of nuns sitting on one of the benches by the confessional boxes. The door opened behind him, he turned, and Father Sharkey entered the chapel, a violet stole around his neck.
“Confession about to start. Are you interested?”
“Actually, I’m about to examine the crypt.”
“There is electric light in the crypt itself, but once you move on from there, it’s a creepy old place.”
“I’ve had a look at Frobisher’s plans.”
Sharkey was speaking softly because there was a murmur of prayer from the nuns. “It’s an underworld down there, extending not only under the Sailor but along the quay itself. Go poking your nose in there and it’s tricky. No lights. There’s a battery lantern on the shelf at the top of the crypt steps for emergencies.”
“Thanks. I’ll take care.”
Starkey crossed to the confessional boxes and entered one of them, and Miller opened the crypt door and entered. It was cold and damp, and he switched on the light, found the lantern, and took it with him when he ventured down the steps. There was an arched entrance into a cellar, a sound of dripping water, and he moved on. A single bulb, and through another entrance, only darkness.
He switched on the lantern and kept going, aware of noise somewhere near at hand. Some of it was overhead, voices, laughter, and then he came to a wooden door secured by massive bolts. When he opened it, the light from his lantern disclosed a large cellar, barrels, crates of beer bottles, wine racks. There was a table, chairs, a door on the far side with a wooden cupboard beside it.
He opened the door to a stairway and the voices seemed clearer from up above. He closed it again, opened the cupboard door, and found six AK47 assault rifles above a khaki-painted ammunition box. So Kelly was still in business? He turned to go back to the other door and noticed a grille in the wall, originally a Victorian innovation to allow air to circulate, and then he heard somebody calling through the other door, hurried back, bolted the door, and turned off his lantern.
He waited. The other door opened and the light was switched on, shining fingers stabbing through the grille. He could hear perfectly, managed to peer through, and recognized Kelly at once. The other man was one of the two he’d seen coming out of the bar that morning.
Kelly was speaking. “Well, God’s been good to us and the weather’s not held the
Lost Hope
up too much, Flannery.”
“Tomorrow evening, is it?” Flannery asked.
“If we’re lucky. Reach over and get a couple of bottles of the Beaujolais. They’ll see to lunch for us.”
There was the clink of bottles. “So, we’ll get a chance to meet the man himself, the great Liam Ryan, and me never having even clapped eyes on him,” Flannery said.
“And neither have I. A man to avoid, and that’s a fact. He’s been known to remove fingers with bolt cutters and make his victims swallow them.”
“Mother Mary, what kind of a man would do that?”
“A monster, if all they say about him is true. So the boat comes in, but he won’t be on it. He always covers his back, you see. When he’s satisfied it’s safe, he’ll be in touch and check that I’ve paid up in Geneva. Only then do we unload the Stingers. We’ll hide them down here for the time being.”
“And he’s away out of it when the boat leaves?”
“I’ve no idea, and I don’t care as long as he goes. . . . That’s enough of the talking now. I’m parched. Let’s get back upstairs and sample the wine.”
The light went out, and the door shut with a hollow boom. Miller switched on the lantern, turned, and made his way back to the crypt. A stroke of luck, hearing all that. It certainly clarified a few things, and the fact that Ryan wouldn’t be on the boat when it came was important. So where would he be? He thought about that as he went back up to the chapel.
SISTER BRIDGET
at her reception desk smiled at him. “Can I help in any way?”
“I could do with a bite. Can I eat here?”
“Certainly, but for lunch we only do bread and vegetable soup. It’s very nourishing, but the Sailor does burgers and pies and Irish stew.” She hesitated. “They’re a rough lot in there.”
“So Mr. Frobisher told me in London.”
“Father Sharkey goes there sometimes. He’s just left, so I expect he’s gone.”
Miller thought about it. In a way, it was necessary for him to step into the circle of danger that was the Sailor. Given that, it seemed to him that he had a better hope of survival if the priest was present.