Читать книгу The Courier - Ava McCarthy - Страница 11

‘Beth Oliver died four months ago.’

Harry turned away from the window and gaped at the plain-clothes detective by the door. ‘What?’

‘That’s right.’ He closed the door behind him and leaned against it, arms folded across his chest. ‘So now as well as all the other holes in your story, you’re saying you were hired by a dead lady.’

Harry squinted at him, as if sharpening her focus could change what he said. He was lean and wiry, his sandy hair cut short like a schoolboy’s. His name was Hunter, and he’d been questioning her in Beth’s kitchen for two hours.

She thought of Beth: the battered face, the passport, the bank statement. She shook her head, but her insides were sinking.

‘She was here, I talked to her.’

Hunter shrugged. ‘I don’t know who you talked to, but it wasn’t Beth Oliver. She died in a car accident last July.’

Harry groaned, and sank into a kitchen chair. She’d known something was off from the start. Why the hell hadn’t she just walked away?

She shook her head. She knew why. That damn vault. Even as a kid she’d been the same, hacking into computers just to prove she could. By the time she was eleven she could crack open almost anything, and mostly it just brought her trouble. Maybe at the age of twenty-nine it was time to consider grown-up things like consequences.

She looked up at Hunter and had a hard time meeting his eyes. ‘Seems like I misread my client.’

‘If there ever was a client.’

‘Look—’

‘The woman next door saw you charge out of the house, ready to take off.’

Harry glared at him. ‘I told you, I wasn’t taking off. I was looking for Beth.’

‘So why’d you go back into the house?’

She hesitated. She could hardly tell him she’d been looking for her business card, trying to cover her tracks. ‘I don’t know. To stay with the body, call the police. I don’t really remember.’

‘But you didn’t call us, the woman next door did.’ Hunter pushed himself away from the door and sauntered towards her, his thumbs hooked into the pockets of his chinos. ‘Imagine that. You’re standing here with a dead body and you don’t call the police.’

Harry met his gaze and tried not to blink. ‘I must have heard the sirens. Why would I call you if you were right outside?’

He stared at her for a long moment, and she made herself stare back. Faint cracks fanned out around his tired hazel eyes, but otherwise his skin was smooth. She guessed he was probably somewhere in his thirties.

‘So tell me more about this man with the gun,’ he said eventually.

‘I’ve told you all I can remember. He was wearing a baseball cap, and a light blue jacket and jeans, I think.’

‘Height?’

‘Five feet ten or eleven, maybe.’

‘Face? Age?’

Harry shrugged. ‘He was tanned, quite lined. Compact build. In his fifties, I’d say.’

‘Anything else?’

‘I only saw him for a minute through a narrow slit. Ask the woman next door. If she saw me, she might have seen him.’

‘We already did. She didn’t see anyone. No man in a baseball cap. No Beth-lookalike.’ He stepped closer towards her. ‘Just you, dumping a case into your car.’

‘That was the laptop, I told you. Here.’ She stood up, fished in her bag and held out her car keys. ‘Red Mini parked outside. Take the laptop, I don’t want it.’

Beth probably hadn’t wanted it either. She’d only been interested in the diamonds.

Hunter took the keys and tossed them to a uniformed officer, who caught them and left the room. Then Hunter turned back to Harry, moving in closer. He smelled of coffee and herbal deodorant.

‘Harry Martinez.’ He peered at her face. ‘Any reason I should know that name?’

Her stomach dipped. She shook her head and aimed for a casual shrug. After all, what could she say? That her father was Salvador Martinez, the high-profile banker who’d gone to prison for insider trading? That the fraud squad had been watching her now for six months, convinced she’d helped him stash some of his money?

Hunter’s eyes never left her face. ‘What’s Harry short for? Harriet?’

‘Henrietta.’ Her father had been the one to start calling her Harry. Harry the Burglar, to be precise, but now was not the time to share that particular detail.

Hunter’s eyes dropped to the business card she’d given him. ‘Blackjack Security. You own this company?’

Harry nodded. ‘I started it up a few months ago.’

‘What kind of work do you do?’

She shrugged. ‘It varies. Penetration tests to check system security, computer intrusion investigations, computer forensics for litigation.’

Hunter was nodding slowly. ‘You make a habit of breaking into people’s safes?’

Harry felt her cheeks burn. ‘Not without the owner’s permission. Look, you don’t really think I killed Garvin Oliver, do you?’

Hunter cocked his head, like a terrier processing signals. Then he waggled his hand, showing how much her credibility hung in the balance. Before she could press him further, the uniformed officer returned to the room and handed back her keys. Hunter threw him an inquiring look, and the officer nodded. Harry looked from one to the other, wondering what damning evidence they’d turned up against her in her own car.

Hunter’s phone rang. He checked the caller ID, and his mouth tensed. She could see him debating whether to take the call, then he answered it in terse tones. While he listened tight-lipped to the voice on the other end, Harry thought of her missing business card.

She longed to believe that Beth had taken it, but she knew the chances were slim. More likely the man in the baseball cap had seen it and slipped it into his pocket. The notion made Harry’s brain jangle. The killer already knew her face; now he knew where to find her, too.

‘She what?’

Harry snapped her eyes back to Hunter. He was glaring at her, deep lines carving up his forehead. Her heartbeat geared up a notch. He listened some more to the voice on the phone. Then he ended the call, his eyes still drilling through hers.

‘That was Detective Inspector Lynne,’ he said. ‘Ring a bell?’

Harry’s fingers tightened around her keys. For an instant, she was back in the Bahamas, a suitcase full of banknotes by her side; and waiting for her in Dublin was a detective with watchful grey eyes. She swallowed.

‘I think so,’ she managed. ‘Isn’t he with Fraud?’

‘I put in a call to check you out. Seems Lynne has dibs on the name Martinez. Gets alerted any time it turns up.’ His eyes probed hers. ‘He reminded me about the case against your father.’

‘So? My father went to prison for six years. Case closed.’

‘Apparently not.’ Hunter shook his head. ‘Sal Martinez. I should’ve made the connection. Earned millions in insider trading, didn’t he?’

‘Which he forfeited to the courts as part of his sentencing. He paid out over forty million euros.’

‘But according to Lynne, there was more. And it’s missing.’

Harry thrust out her chin. ‘What’s all that got to do with me?’

‘Lynne’s a tenacious man.’ He paused. ‘He asked me to give you a message.’

‘Oh?’

‘He advises you not to plan another trip to the Bahamas.’

Harry flashed on another image: jade green sea, baking sand and the slick-slick of cards being dealt. She shook her head.

‘Am I being accused of something here?’ she said.

‘Like I said, Lynne is tenacious.’ Hunter glared at her. ‘He doesn’t give up.’

Harry sighed. Suddenly her whole body ached, as if reminders of the past had sapped her energy.

‘Look, if I’m not under arrest for anything, I’d like to go.’

Hunter shrugged. ‘You can go. For now.’

She made her way past him towards the door, then hesitated and looked back.

‘The man with the gun.’ She bit her lip. ‘He saw me.’

‘So you said.’

‘He might find me. He said—’

‘—that he never leaves witnesses. You said that too.’

Harry stared at him. ‘Aren’t you going to do anything about that? Offer some kind of protection?’

Hunter shrugged. ‘We’ll get a patrol car to cruise by your house once in a while.’

‘What good will that do? He’s not going to wait in the street with a rifle, is he?’

‘I don’t know, you tell me.’ Hunter narrowed his eyes. ‘You’re the only one who saw him.’

He turned away, dismissing her. Harry’s insides plummeted. She thought of the man in the baseball cap and how he’d locked eyes with her just before he pulled the trigger. She thought of her business card, in plain view on the desk. Her head reeled. She stumbled through the hall and out on to the street. The air was fresh and salty, and she gulped it down. Then slowly, she moved towards her car.

Instinctively, she checked over her shoulder, her eyes sweeping across the array of windows fronting the Georgian terrace. So many places for a man with a gun to hide. She shuddered.

If she could just find the woman she still thought of as Beth, then maybe the police would believe her. But how? Somehow, she was connected to Garvin Oliver, but what did Harry know about him? According to Beth he was a sponging wife-beater, but her version of events was hardly reliable now.

Harry began to regret handing over the laptop. It might have revealed information about Garvin Oliver that could have helped to track Beth down. On the other hand, maybe she should just let the police handle it. Right now, they didn’t believe a word she said, but they were bound to discover the truth eventually.

Raindrops spat against her face. She unlocked her car and ducked inside, and immediately her nose wrinkled at an alien smell. The uniformed officer must have been a smoker; he’d left his tell-tale sootiness behind. She opened a couple of windows to generate a cross-breeze, and did a quick visual survey of her car.

Everywhere showed signs of a cursory search. The pile of computer books on the passenger seat had been rearranged and her notepads had fallen to the floor. She flipped open the glove compartment. Her maps and screwdrivers had been disturbed too. She felt a creeping sense of violation at the thought of someone rifling through her things. Then she checked the back seat, and frowned. Her laptop was missing.

Harry’s spine buzzed. She leapt out of the car, hauled open the boot and stared inside. The raindrops were heavier now, raucous seagulls free-wheeling inland in packs. Harry reached for the case that lay where she’d left it. Inside it, her torch, pliers and the rest of her toolkit were all undisturbed.

And alongside them was Garvin Oliver’s laptop.