‘Rick still hasn’t confirmed the date of the transaction with me,’ she said.

‘The more I think about it,’ said Frank, ‘the more it sounds like the guns haven’t even entered the country yet.’

‘Where do you think he’s getting them from exactly?’

Frank nodded at Dale’s bag containing the sample. ‘Well, seeing as that pistol, the K100, is made in Slovakia, and the CZ 805 assault rifles are made in the Czech Republic, it doesn’t seem too much of a leap to conclude that he’s getting them from somewhere in Eastern Europe, which isn’t that surprising. A lot of illegal guns entering the UK originate from that part of the world. If he is getting them from Eastern Europe, then there’s a good chance they’ll be entering the UK via Rotterdam. The Molloys will probably have done a deal with a Dutch OCG who, in turn, will have purchased the guns from an Eastern European OCG. But it’ll be up to Rick’s crew to determine exactly how the weapons will be smuggled into Britain.’

Bailey paused and thought back to something Rick had said during the meal at the country club.

‘You know, Rick did mention that he had a property development in Gravesend.’

Frank and Dale both looked at her blankly.

‘So?’ prompted Dale.

‘Well, what’s just across the river?’ she said.

Realisation dawned in Frank’s eyes. ‘Of course,’ he whispered. ‘Tilbury. Massive container port.’

Bailey nodded. ‘It’s a huge hub for stuff coming in from Europe. They process hundreds of thousands of containers a day. The guns could be concealed in any one of them. Hidden in fresh produce, car parts, you name it…’

‘Yeah,’ Frank agreed. ‘Only one in a hundred containers is checked at Rotterdam anyway, and who knows, they might even have insiders over there in the Netherlands who make sure that it doesn’t even go through those checks.’

‘So once the guns are here, how do they get them from the container port to the property development?’ asked Dale.

‘They could also have insiders at Tilbury,’ said Bailey. ‘The containers come in. The insiders remove the guns before the containers go through the customs check they have to go through before being allowed out of the port. They load them onto a boat on the dockside in the middle of the night. The boat takes them across the river to the property development. It’s an ideal place in which to transfer the weapons to a large vehicle before moving them wherever they’re supposed to be headed. Everything will be hidden behind hoardings, and if it’s a building site, then lots of big lorries going back and forth won’t look unusual. The fact that the Molloys own the place means they can do whatever they want there.’

Frank and Dale both looked impressed.

‘Interesting hypothesis,’ said Frank.

The three of them paused for thought.

‘Incidentally,’ she added. ‘I also found out something else the other day. Connected to Adrian’s murder. It might be nothing. Or it might be something.’