The Courier

Harry shrugged, avoiding Imogen’s gaze. ‘I didn’t notice until now. I’ve only just got here.’

‘How do we know it hasn’t been tampered with?’

‘I secured it in the safe the minute I realized your mistake.’ She drilled him with a look. ‘This is a computer forensics lab. Preserving evidence is a priority around here.’

Hunter raised an eyebrow, scanning the room. ‘Looks like an ordinary office to me.’

Harry began checking things off on her fingers. ‘You can’t get in here without a security pass, and there’s a CCTV camera pointed at the safe, which, by the way, you can’t open without the access code and swipe card. There’s no way anyone could have tampered with it.’

Lynne spoke quietly from the doorway. ‘Nobody except you.’

Harry locked eyes with him for a moment. She could sense Imogen’s open-mouthed stare, and even Hunter seemed unwilling to break the silence. She spun towards the safe, swiped her card and punched in the access code. When the door clicked open, she pointed at the laptop, motioning for Hunter to help himself.

Lynne cleared his throat. ‘Make sure you take the right one this time, Hunter.’

Hunter froze, his mouth fixed in a tight line. Then he grasped the laptop with both hands.

‘What about my laptop?’ Harry said. ‘You still have it.’

Hunter’s eyes flicked sideways at Lynne. ‘We need to hold on to that for a while. You’ll get it back eventually.’

A muffled ring tone sounded nearby, and Lynne stepped out of the room to take the call. Harry clicked the safe shut, glancing over at Hunter. She wondered about the friction between the two officers, and whether it might be worth tapping into. She cocked her chin in the direction of the door.

‘Isn’t it a little unusual for Fraud to tag along on a murder investigation?’

Hunter shrugged. ‘Not necessarily. Fraud, Customs, they’re all piling in on this one.’

‘Really? Lynne doesn’t exactly strike me as a team player.’

Hunter snorted, but didn’t answer. He busied himself with a chain of custody form, filling out the details. She wondered how far she could push him.

‘Is he your boss?’

For a second, his pen froze. ‘No.’

‘He certainly acts like it.’

Hunter glared at her. ‘This is my investigation. I’m in charge, and don’t you forget it.’

Sweat glinted on his upper lip in between the stubble, and she took it as a sign that she’d pushed enough. She perched against a desk, arms folded, while he finished off the form. When he finally looked up, his eyes were hard to read.

‘We’ve been watching Garvin Oliver for some time.’ He wrestled the laptop into a silver anti-static bag. ‘His diamond operation isn’t entirely legit, but then you probably know that.’

Harry thought of Garvin’s hidden files, then blanked the knowledge out in case it showed on her face.

Hunter drilled her with a look. ‘Illicit diamond trading is one thing, but do you really want to get yourself involved in murder?’

Illicit diamonds. Africa’s finest, Beth had said. Harry’s mouth felt dry.

‘Look, you’re really wasting your time with me,’ she said. ‘I’m not involved in all of this.’

Hunter held her gaze. The hazel eyes looked muddy and tired. Then he nodded and sighed, and for the first time seemed to loosen the tight rein that he kept on himself. He held up his hands.

‘Okay. It’s possible you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. It happens.’ He sneaked a glance at the door, then lowered his voice. ‘But if not, I’m warning you, we’ll soon find out.’

His eyes locked on to hers, his expression an odd mix of threat and empathy. Then Lynne slipped back into the room and clicked his fingers.

‘Let’s go.’

Hunter stiffened, and Harry could have sworn she saw his fists clench. Then he snatched up the laptop and strode to the door. Harry didn’t know what kind of politics Hunter was up against, but it looked as though Lynne was pulling rank.

She watched them go, her eyes falling on the silver evidence bag tucked under Hunter’s arm. Suddenly her breathing stalled. The notion of the police getting hold of Garvin’s data started an inexplicable hum in her throat, and she felt an overwhelming urge to snatch the laptop back.

‘Harry?’

Imogen was staring at her. Harry gave herself a mental shake. What was the matter with her? There was nothing on Garvin’s laptop that could get her into trouble. She wheeled round and scampered back to her desk, Imogen close behind.

‘What’s going on, Harry?’

‘I’ll explain in a minute.’

Something in Garvin’s hidden inventory file had snagged her attention and she needed to check it out. First, she pulled up the original inventory that Garvin had left in plain view: ‘Stock Inventory October 2009’. The familiar set of images flicked across the screen: the cloudy pebbles weighing 0.25 carats, each the size of a match head; metallic specks, 0.03 carats, no bigger than sugar crystals. The largest on the list was a yellow, 4-carat octahedron the size of a raisin. According to his records, Garvin had sold it for €10,000.

Then she switched back to the hidden file, VW-Stock.tmp. Many of the stones were christened, just like before: Yellow Mist, Helios, Pink Heart. There were almost three hundred stones in all, with dates going back over a year.

She homed in on the images. Most incorporated ordinary objects to lend the diamonds scale, and her eyes widened at the numbers. A gleaming, metallic stone, the size of a gobstopper: 100 carats. Another the colour of weak camomile tea and bigger than a jumbo marble: 175 carats. But most of them were as big as hen’s eggs and weighed in at over 200 carats. The last on the list was the largest of them all, a silvery crystal of 270 carats. It had been sold over a year ago to someone called Fischer for almost five million euros.

Harry let out a long breath. Was that what this was about? Was Garvin smuggling large stones, and trying to cover his tracks? She checked the file again. Whoever Fischer was, he’d only bought one stone. The rest had been sold exclusively to a buyer called Gray.

Harry’s brain hummed with questions, and she almost forgot about VW-Cargo.tmp, the second hidden file. She clicked it open, her mind preoccupied. Where did Beth fit into all of this? Another array of names flashed up on the screen. At the top was an obscure twelve-digit number: 881677273934. Harry doodled it down on her pad, her eyes travelling over the column of names: Excelsior, Artemis, Dawn Light.

Harry frowned. Dawn Light. The name seemed familiar. Dim memories floated like ghosts. Frosty mornings, bright colours. She shook her head. It wouldn’t come.

She checked the name again, and her whole body went still. Her breathing stopped, her fingers froze; the only part of her that moved was the pulse pounding in her jugular. She swallowed, and stared at the screen.

Recorded against the entry for Dawn Light, was the name HARRY MARTINEZ.

12 (#ulink_e84dc7c8-9e38-5380-9d59-5bcd4b986f9c)

Mani stumbled into the x-ray room, sweat drenching his body. Outside, he could still hear Okker’s yells as he gloated over Alfredo’s butchered torso. The image burned into Mani’s brain, and he clenched his fists to stop his arms from trembling.

‘Over there!’

The guard called Janvier slammed Mani up against the wall. He jammed the butt of his gun against Mani’s cheek, forcing his head sideways, while the younger guard shone a torch in Mani’s ear. Then between them, they whipped Mani’s head around to check the other side. Janvier wrenched Mani’s mouth open and poked a spatula inside it until Mani gagged. Then he tore at Mani’s eye sockets and crushed his nostrils while the other guard kept him pinned to the wall.

The search wasn’t necessary. The x-ray machine performed a whole-body scan, and stones inside any part of him would be found. But Janvier and some of the other guards still indulged in their own spot checks. They liked the humiliation it caused.

When they were done, they hauled him out from the wall and shoved him to the floor. They patted him down, then turned and left. Mani stayed on his hands and knees, his elbows locked but his arms still trembling. Behind him, the door clunked shut, sucking all sound from the room.