Mortal Causes

'Then I was attacked by someone trying to put me out of the game. The man was a pro, I'd swear to that, a streetslugger with a cutthroat razor. He had a Glasgow accent. You must have met a few hard men during your stint over there.’

'You think I hired him?’

'With all respect,' Rebus locked eyes with Kilpatrick, 'you must be off your rocker.’

'Madness comes from the head, not the blood, not the heart.’

Kilpatrick rested against a box. 'You think you can trust Abernethy, John? Well, good luck to you. I'm waiting.’

'For what?’

'Your next gimmick.’

He smiled. 'If you wanted to make a case against me, we wouldn't be meeting like this. You know as well as I do that a filing mistake and an innocent photograph don't make a case. They don't make anything.’

'You could be kicked off the force.’

'With my record? No, I might retire early, say on health grounds, but no one's going to sack me. It doesn't happen that way, I thought two experienced officers would know that. Now answer me this, Inspector Rebus, you set up an illicit surveillance: how much trouble can that get you in? With your record of insubordination and bucking the rules, we could kick you off the force for not wiping your arse properly.’

He rose from the box and walked to the edge of the lorry, then dropped to the ground and turned towards them. 'You haven't proved anything to me. If you want to try your act with someone else, be my guests.’

'You cold bastard,' Abernethy said. He made it sound like a compliment. He walked to the edge of the lorry and faced Kilpatrick, then slowly began to pull his shirt out from his trousers. He lifted it up, showing bare flesh and sticking plasters and wires. He was miked up. Kilpatrick stared back at him.

'Anything to add, sir?’

Abernethy said. Kilpatrick turned and walked away. Abernethy turned to Rebus. 'Quiet all of a sudden, isn't it?’

Rebus leapt from the lorry and walked briskly to the door. Kilpatrick was getting into his car, but stopped when he saw him.

'Three murders so far,' Rebus said. 'Including a police officer, one of your own. That's a madness of the blood.’

'That wasn't me,' Kilpatrick said quietly.

'Yes, it was,' Rebus said. 'There'd be none of it without you.’

'I don't know how they got to Calumn Smylie.’

'They hack into computers. Your secretary uses one.’

Kilpatrick nodded. 'And there's a file on the operation in the computer.’

He shook his head slowly. 'Look, Rebus…’

But Kilpatrick stopped himself. He shook his head again and got into the car, shutting the door.

Rebus bent down to the driver's-side window, and waited for Kilpatrick to wind it down.

'Abernethy's told me what it's about, why the loyalists are suddenly arming themselves. It's Harland and Wolff.’ This being a shipyard, one of the biggest employers in the province, its workforce predominantly Protestant. 'They think it's going to be wound up, don't they? The loyalists are taking it as a symbol. If the British government lets Harland and Wolff go to the wall, then it's washing its hands of the Ulster Protestants. Basically, it's pulling out.’

Hard to know whether Kilpatrick was listening. He was staring through the windscreen, hands on the steering wheel. 'At which point,' Rebus went on anyway, 'the loyalists are set to explode. You're arming them for civil war. But worse than that, you've armed Davey Soutar. He's a walking anti-personnel mine.’

Kilpatrick's voice was hard, unfeeling. 'Soutar's not my problem.’

'Frankie Bothwell can't help. Maybe he could control Soutar once upon a time, but not now.’

'There's only one person Soutar respects,' Kilpatrick said quietly, 'Alan Fowler.’

'The UVF man?’

Kilpatrick had started the engine.

'Wait a minute,' said Rebus. As Kilpatrick moved off, Rebus kept a grip of the window-frame. Kilpatrick turned to him.

'Nine tonight,' he said. 'At the Gar-B.’

Then he sped out of the compound.

Abernethy was just behind Rebus.

'What was he telling you?’ he asked.

'Nine o'clock at the Gar-B.’

'Sounds like a nice little trap to me.’

'Not if we take the cavalry.’

'John,' Abernethy said with a grin, 'I've got all the cavalry we'll need.’

Rebus turned to face him. 'You've been playing me like a pinball machine, haven't you? That first time we met, all that stuff you told me about computers being the future of crime. You knew back then.’

Abernethy shrugged. He pulled up his shirt again and started to pull off the wires. 'All I did was point you in the general direction. Look at the way I got on your tits that first time. That's how I knew I could trust you. I nettled you and you let it show. You'd nothing to hide.’

He nodded to himself. 'Yes, I knew, I've known for a long time. Proving it was the bugger.’

Abernethy looked at the compound gates. 'But Kilpatrick's got enemies, remember that, not just you and me any more.’

'What do you mean?’

But Abernethy just winked and tapped his nose. 'Enemies,' he said.