Читать книгу Hide Me - Ava McCarthy - Страница 8

Chapter 4

‘You’re a long way from home, Miss Martinez.’

Harry eyed the detective perched against the desk in front of her. He was leafing through her passport, his nostrils flared as though he’d found a dead bug between the pages.

‘I told you,’ she said. ‘I’m working for a client.’

She shifted in her chair. Riva was certainly one of the reasons she was here, anyway. The detective regarded her down the length of his nose. It was slightly hooked and, with his close-set eyes, it gave him the look of an eagle.

His name was Vasco. He was an inspector with the Ertzaintza, the police force of the Basque country, and so far he was the fourth guy to interview her about the events of last night.

He turned his attention to a stapled report, probably her signed statement. Fatigue shuddered through her. The police had grilled her till three in the morning, and had started again soon after breakfast. By now, it was early evening and what little sleep she’d got had been slashed by images of blood-soaked, slaughtered bulls.

‘You have been in San Sebastián before.’

Harry frowned. He made it sound like an accusation. And besides, how did he know?

‘That was a long time ago,’ she said. ‘My father brought me on visits as a child. He was born here.’

‘You have family in the city?’

She brushed at an imaginary speck of dust on her skirt. ‘I’m not sure.’

Her memories of those childhood trips were flimsy as cobwebs. Her older sister, Amaranta, had been there with her, but for reasons Harry had never understood, their mother had refused to come. Harry fiddled with the strap of her bag. Her personal link with San Sebastián was another reason she’d taken the job, but so far, she’d been too busy for cosy family reunions.

Her stomach dipped with an odd emptiness. The alienation she’d felt in Dublin had left a void like a doughnut hole inside her. She’d found herself re-examining her past, as if that would somehow plug the cavity: her nomadic Dublin childhood, where her father’s gambling had kept their finances on a pendulum swing; the upheavals from house to house, in line with his cashflow; the upmarket mansions, the low-rent bedsits, the ever-changing schools. She realized she had few treasured memories of ‘home’, the kind that others called nostalgia and that tied your heart to a place.

Harry swallowed against a pesky fullness in her throat. The job in San Sebastián had come at the right moment. She’d never fully explored the Spanish side of her identity, and it was probably time that she did.

Vasco tossed her passport into her lap, then strutted back around the desk. She took in his tall, elegant frame; the expensive suit and the slicked-back hair. The first ertzaina she’d talked to had been a uniformed guard, dishevelled from overwork. This guy looked more like a politician than a cop.

He sat down behind the desk, flipping up his coat-tails like a concert pianist taking position. ‘Tell me again why you followed him.’

His English was precise, his accent almost Etonian. The other cops had been relieved to revert to Spanish with Harry, but not Vasco. She pegged it as vanity, but to be fair, his fluency was impressive. Harry sighed.

‘I’ve already explained, I saw him—’

‘I know what you saw. Please answer my question. Why did you follow him? Why not follow the man you say collected the winnings?’

Harry pictured the American with his thatch of greying hair, queuing up at the cage. ‘He’d won a large amount of money. Assuming the casino was following regulations, he’d need to fill out forms with proven ID before cashing in that amount.’

‘So?’

Harry shrugged. ‘So I figured the casino already had a line on him. The other guy was the unknown quantity.’ For an instant, her breeziness deserted her and she was back in the old bullring: wide, staring eyes; butchered gullet. She swallowed. ‘Do you know who he was?’

Vasco stared at her, hawk-like, and didn’t answer. Then he said, ‘What is your connection with Riva Mills?’

‘I told you, she’s my client.’

‘And that’s all?’

Harry frowned. ‘What else would there be?’

‘So she contacts you out of the blue. An American businesswoman based in San Sebastián decides to hire a technology expert from Dublin.’ He leaned forward. ‘Who just happens to be you.’

‘It didn’t happen out of the blue. I was recommended to her by a mutual friend.’

‘What friend?’

‘Her name’s Roslyn Bloomberg.’ Harry watched him write it down. ‘She’s a diamantaire based in New York. My father’s known her for years, and it turns out Riva’s a client of hers.’

Harry had been surprised when she’d heard that Ros had recommended her. They’d parted on bad terms in Cape Town a few months before. For reasons too complex to sort through at the time, Ros had believed that Harry was a thief. Other people’s opinions didn’t usually count with Harry, but Ros had come close to being a substitute mother for a while. It hurt to be rejected by two mothers in a row, whatever way you looked at it.

Vasco slapped an eight-by-ten photograph on the desk. ‘Take a good look. He was a countryman of yours.’

Harry’s skin turned cold. The fat guy’s face shone back at her like a moon. His eyes were pale, his skin doughy and bloated. She couldn’t see his throat, but guessed that when he posed for the shot, he was already dead. Her insides shrivelled.

Vasco tapped the photo with a pen. ‘His name was Stephen McArdle. Does that mean anything to you?’

‘No.’

‘We’ve built quite a profile on him. Thirty-four years old, born in Belfast. Started off doing work for IRA splinter groups, then later for Colombian revolutionaries, the PLO, even our own Basque separatists.’

Harry frowned, picturing the clumsy figure who’d barged ahead of her through the backstreets. ‘He was a terrorist?’

‘He was a hacker, Miss Martinez.’ Vasco’s gaze drilled into hers. ‘Just like you.’

Harry’s eyebrows shot up. She was about to reply when the door swung open. A short, stocky man shambled into the room and dropped a folder onto the desk. He stared at Harry. His unshaven face drooped with middle age, and his head looked too large for his body, though maybe that was down to his mess of dark, woolly curls. He took a seat by the wall, his eyes never leaving her face. Vasco went on, ignoring the interruption.

‘McArdle hired himself out to anyone who paid him well enough.’

Harry hesitated. The newcomer’s stare was unnerving. She cleared her throat.

‘Paid him well enough to do what?’

‘Help them fund their operations.’

‘By hacking?’

Vasco shrugged. ‘Terrorists raise funding in all sorts of ways. Drugs, smuggling, kidnapping, prostitution. Now they add cybercrime to the list.’

He picked up the folder and browsed through it. It looked like another set of photographs. He slotted one out for a closer look, and kept talking.

‘McArdle had quite the hacker’s pedigree. Credit-card company penetration, ATM heists, cyber protection rackets.’ He peered at her over the glossy eight-by-ten, his look predatory. ‘But then, you know more about this kind of thing than me.’

Harry narrowed her eyes. ‘Look, I don’t appreciate—’

Vasco smacked the photo onto the desk. ‘This man, who is he?’

Harry blinked. She recognized the florid face of the American from the casino.

‘He’s the one who collected the winnings. I don’t know his name.’

‘And this one?’

He tossed down another photo, a headshot of a woman. She looked thirty-something, a brunette with good bones, though the layers of make-up masked her features like a veil. Harry shook her head.

‘I’ve never seen her before.’

‘And him?’

Another headshot: a man in his late forties, pale crew cut, eyebrows bleached by the sun. His complexion looked mud-stained with freckles.

Harry shook her head again. ‘No. Is that Franco Chavez?’

Vasco broke eye contact. Over by the wall, his shaggy-haired colleague stirred in his chair. Eventually, Vasco said,

‘We don’t have an ID on Franco Chavez.’

‘I see.’ Harry looked from one to the other, trying to read their discomfort. ‘But these others, they’re all part of the casino-cheating crew?’

‘We believe so.’

‘Why do they need a hacker? Are they really using computers to cheat?’

‘Maybe.’ Vasco tilted his head, as though assessing her. ‘Or maybe they need a hacker for something else.’

Harry squinted. What was he getting at? He leaned forward, his eyes probing hers.

‘We know a lot about you, Miss Martinez.’

She lifted her chin. ‘Such as?’

‘We’ve been in touch with your police force in Dublin. They were very helpful.’ Vasco peered at her like a raptor bird, and Harry tried not to squirm. ‘You started young. I understand you hacked into the Stock Exchange when you were just thirteen.’

Harry’s eyes widened. How the hell did he know about that? No charges were ever filed. A childish misdemeanour, nothing more. Vasco was still talking.

‘Then more recently, there was the question of several million euros that went missing in the Bahamas. And later, some diamonds in Cape Town. Also missing.’

Harry’s brain raced. She’d sailed close to the winds of larceny more than once, but she’d had her reasons, all of them good ones. Trouble was, she couldn’t prove it. Then again, neither could they. She clenched her fists.

‘I’ve never been arrested for anything.’

‘Your father has. He served six years in prison for insider trading, didn’t he?’

Harry gaped. What was he doing, trying to build some kind of case against her? And for what?

‘Geldi!’

Harry snapped her gaze to the stranger by the wall. He’d shot to his feet, his expression stony, and was firing out what sounded like orders in rapid Basque. Vasco made a chopping motion with his hand, cutting him off. Then he turned back to Harry.

‘Have you talked to Riva Mills since McArdle was killed?’

Harry glared at him. ‘No, I haven’t had the chance.’

‘Well, don’t.’

‘What?’

He advanced around the desk towards her. Her heartbeat tripped. Behind him, his colleague was shaking his head.

‘You have an unusual mixture of skills, Miss Martinez.’ Vasco’s eyes bored into hers. ‘Think about it. You’re a professional hacker who knows her way around a casino. You’re part-Irish, part-Spanish. You have a reputation for bluffing and telling lies, not to mention out-manoeuvring the police. You even have a jailbird for a father. This really is a rare opportunity.’

Harry threw him a cagey look and slowly shook her head. Not in denial of his allegations, since most of them were true, but in an effort to ward off what she knew was coming next.

‘I have a proposition for you.’ Vasco loomed over her like an elegant bird of prey. ‘I want you to go undercover, Miss Martinez. I want you to take McArdle’s place.’