Mortal Causes

'They go to Scandinavia.’

'This one doesn't.’

He had a point. Rebus decided to try again.

'Boats then?’

'Boats, yes. We think boats.’

Rebus had expected the voice to be basso profondo, but it was curiously high, as though it hadn't broken properly in Smylie's teens. Maybe it was the reason he didn't say much.

'You're interested in boats then?’

'Only if they're bringing in contraband.’

Rebus nodded. 'Guns.’

'Maybe guns.’ He pointed to some of the east European ports. 'See, these days things being what they are, there are a lot of weapons in and around Russia. If you cut back your military, you get excess. And the economic situation there being what it is you get people who need money.’

'So they steal guns and sell them?’

'If they need to steal them. A lot of the soldiers kept their guns. Plus they picked up souvenirs along the way, stuff from Afghanistan and wherever. Here, sit down.’

They sat at Smylie's desk, Smylie himself spilling from a moulded plastic chair. He brought some photographs out of a drawer. They showed machine guns, rocket launchers, grenades and missiles, armour-piercing shells, a whole dusty armoury.

'This is just some of the stuff that's been tracked down. Most of it in mainland Europe: Holland, Germany, France. But some of it in Northern Ireland of course, and some in England and Scotland.’

He tapped a photo of an assault rifle. 'This AK 47 was used in a bank hold-up in Hillhead. You know Professor Kalashnikov is a travelling salesman these days? Times are hard, so he goes to arms fairs around the world flogging his creations. Like this.’ Smylie picked out another photograph. 'Later model, the AK 74. The magazine's made of plastic. This is actually the 745, still quite rare on the market. A lot of the stuff travels across Europe courtesy of motorcycle gangs.’

'Hell's Angels?’

Smylie nodded. 'Some of them are in this up to their tattooed necks, and making a fortune. But there are other problems. A lot of stuff comes into the UK direct. The armed forces, they bring back souvenirs too, from the Falklands or Kuwait. Kalashnikovs, you name it. Not everyone gets searched, a lot of stuff gets in. Later; it's either sold or stolen, and the owners aren't about to report the theft, are they?’

Smylie paused and swallowed, maybe realising how much he'd been talking.

'I thought you were the strong silent type,' Rebus said.

'I get carried away sometimes.’

Rebus wouldn't fancy being on stretcher detail. Smylie began to tidy up the photographs.

'That's basically it,' he said. 'The material that's already here we can't do much about, but with the help of Interpol we're trying to stop the trafficking.’

'You're not saying Scotland is a target for this stuff?’

'A conduit, that's all. It comes through here on its way to Northern Ireland.’

'The IRA?’

`To whoever has the money to pay for it. Right now, we think it's more a Protestant thing. We just don't know why.’

'How much evidence do you have?’

'Not enough.’

Rebus was thinking. Kilpatrick had kept very quiet, but all along he'd thought there was a paramilitary angle to the murder, because it tied in with all of this.

'You're the one who spotted the six-pack?’ Smylie asked. Rebus nodded. 'You might well be right about it. If so, the victim must've been involved.’

'Or just someone who got caught up in it.’

'That tends not to happen.’

'But there's another thing. The victim's father is a local gangster, Big Ger Cafferty.’

'You put him away a while back.’

`You're well informed.’

`Well,' said Smylie, 'Cafferty adds a certain symmetry, doesn't he?’

He rose briskly from his chair. 'Come on, I'll give you the rest of the tour.’

Not that there was much to see. But Rebus was introduced to his colleagues. They didn't look like supermen, but you wouldn't want to fight them on their terms. They all looked like they'd gone the distance and beyond.

One man, a DS Claverhouse, was the exception. He was lanky and slow-moving and had dark cusps beneath his eyes.

'Don't let him fool you,' Smylie said. 'We don't call him Bloody Claverhouse for nothing.’

Claverhouse's smile took time forming. It wasn't that he was slow so much as that he had to calculate things before he carried them out. He was seated at his desk, Rebus and Smylie standing in front of him. He was tapping his fingers on a red cardboard file. The file was closed, but on its cover was printed the single word SHIELD. Rebus had just seen the word on another file lying on Smylie's desk.

'Shield?’ he asked.

'The Shield,' Claverhouse corrected. 'It's something we keep hearing about. Maybe a gang, maybe with Irish connections.’

`But just now,' interrupted Smylie, `all it is is a name.’

Shield, the word meant something to Rebus. Or rather, he knew it should mean something to him. As he turned from Claverhouse's desk, he caught something Claverhouse was saying to Smylie, saying in an undertone.

`We don't need him.’