Free Confessional by Jack Higgins

and totally sincere. 'Good to see you, Harry.' His arms went around Fox in a light embrace.

'And you, Liam.'

Devlin looked beyond him at the car and Billy White behind the wheel. 'You've got someone with you?'

'Just my driver.'

Devlin moved past him, went along the path and leaned down to the window.

'Mr Devlin,' Billy said.

Devlin turned without a word and came back to Fox. 'Driver, is it, Harry? The only place that one will drive you to is straight to Hell.'

'Have you heard from Ferguson?'

'Yes, but leave it for the moment. Come along in.'

The interior of the house was a time capsule of Victoriana: mahogany panelling and William Morris wallpaper in the hall with several night scenes by the Victorian painter, Atkinson Grimshaw, on the walls. Fox examined them with admiration as he took off his coat and gave it to Devlin. 'Strange to see

these here, Liam. Grimshaw was a very Yorkshire Englishman.'

'Not his fault, Harry, and he painted like an angel.'

'Worth a bob or two,' Fox said, well aware that ten thousand pounds at auction was not at all out of the way for even quite a small Grimshaw.

'Do you tell me?' Devlin said lightly. He opened one half of a double mahogany door and led the way into the sitting room. Like the hall, it was period Victorian: green flock wallpaper stamped with gold, more Grimshaws on the walls, mahogany furniture and a fire burning brightly in a fireplace that looked as if it was a William Langley original.

The man who stood before it was a priest in dark cassock and he turned from the fire to greet them. He was about Devlin's height with iron-grey hair swept back over his ears. A handsome man, particularly at this moment as he smiled a welcome; there was an eagerness to him, an energy that touched something in Fox. It was not often that one liked another human being so completely and instinctively.

'With apologies to Shakespeare, two little touches of Harry in the night,' Devlin said. 'Captain Harry Fox, meet Father Harry Cussane.'

Cussane shook hands warmly. 'A great pleasure, Captain Fox. Liam was telling me something about you after you rang earlier.'

Devlin indicated the chess table beside the sofa. 'Any excuse to get away from that. He was beating the pants off me.'

'A gross exaggeration as usual,' Cussane said. 'But I must get going. Leave you two to your business.' His voice was pleasant and rather deep. Irish, yet more than a hint of American there.

'Would you listen to the man?' Devlin had brought three glasses and a bottle of Bushmills from the cabinet in the corner. 'Sit' down, Harry. Another little snifter before bed won't kill you.' He said to Fox, 'I've never known anyone so much on the go as this one.'

'All right, Liam, I surrender,' Cussane said. 'Fifteen minutes, that's all, then I must go. I like to make a late round

at the hospice as you know and then there's Danny Malone. Living is a day-to-day business with him right now.'

Devlin said, Til drink to him. It comes to us all.'

'You said hospice?' Fox enquired.

'There's a convent next door, the Sacred Heart, run by the Little Sisters of Pity. They started a hospice for terminal patients some years ago.'

'Do you work there?'

'Yes, as a sort of administrator cum priest. Nuns aren't supposed to be worldly enough to do the accounts. Absolute rubbish. Sister Anne Marie, who's in charge over there, knows to every last penny. And this is a small parish so the local priest doesn't have a curate. I give him a hand.'

'In between spending three days a week in charge of the press office at the Catholic Secretariat in Dublin,' Devlin said. 'Not to mention flogging the local youth club through a very average five performances ofSouth Pacific, complete with a star cast of ninety-three local school kids.'

Cussane smiled. 'Guess who was stage manager? We're tryingWest Side Story next. Liam thinks it too ambitious, but I believe it better to rise to a challenge than go for the easy choice.'

He swallowed a little of his