The Courier

Beth marched back to the desk and snatched an envelope from one of the drawers. ‘I’m well used to people not believing what I say.’ She handed the envelope over. ‘Especially where Garvin’s concerned.’

Harry opened the flap. Inside, she found a passport and a bank statement, both in Beth’s name. The passport showed a woman with high cheekbones and a slight upward tilt to her eyes. Harry glanced over at Beth. It could’ve been her, but the bug-eyed shades made it hard to tell.

The bank statement showed a payment to Bull Safehouses Limited and another to a local computer store. Stapled to the back were a receipt for a Dell laptop and an invoice for the vault, both dated some six months previously.

Harry raised her eyebrows at the woman’s efficiency. Either her personal accounts were in better shape than Harry’s, or she’d been planning this for some time. She ran her eye over the rest of the statement, noting the substantial payments made to men’s clothing outlets, utilities, supermarkets and petrol stations. It was clear Beth paid for a significant chunk of the household outgoings, whether her husband contributed or not.

Harry handed the paperwork back to Beth. ‘So what’s on the laptop that’s so important?’

‘Proof that he has money of his own.’

Harry threw her a sharp look, and Beth nodded.

‘He’s had money for some time, I’m convinced of it,’ she said. ‘Six months, maybe more. His suits are flashier, he’s upgraded his car. And I haven’t been getting the bills.’

‘Surely that’s good?’

Beth stared at Harry from behind her dark shades.

‘I’m about to divorce him. I need to show he has money of his own, otherwise he’ll come after mine.’ A tiny muscle flexed in her jaw. ‘And he’s had all he’s getting from me.’

Harry flashed on the scam she’d pulled in the Bahamas that year. She’d soft-soaped a banker with tales of a cheating spouse and the need to hide her assets before her divorce. Sympathy and plausibility. Vital ingredients for any fraud. Was Beth’s story really any different?

Harry stared at the woman’s pinched profile reflected in the vault door.

‘Has the black eye anything to do with it?’ she said.

Beth shot her a look, and Harry pointed at the shining steel.

‘The glasses hide a lot, but you can still see it from the side.’

Beth checked her reflection, then dropped her gaze. She slipped off the glasses and fiddled with the stems, not meeting Harry’s eyes.

She looked older without the shades, her weathered skin at odds with her youthful frame. She was probably in her mid-thirties, just a few years older than Harry, and she had the slanted eyes and fine bone structure of the woman in the passport photo. The only difference was her left eye. The skin around it was plum-purple, the cornea shot through with blood.

‘How’d that happen?’ Harry asked.

Beth didn’t answer. Instead, she tugged her shirt collar tighter round her neck, but not before Harry had spotted the bruises. For a moment, neither of them spoke.

Finally Harry said, ‘Are you planning on cleaning him out?’

Beth hugged her chest. ‘I don’t want anything from him, I just want to get away.’ She glanced at her watch and rubbed her arms, as though trying to keep warm. ‘Look, are you going to help me or not? Because we’re running out of time, and believe me, you don’t want to be here when he gets back.’

Harry studied her for a moment, tossing around the possibilities. The bank statement, the passport, the black eye. Her eyes flicked towards the gleaming vault, its winking light daring her to crack it open. She made up her mind.

‘How long do we have?’ she said.

Beth’s good eye lit up. ‘Forty minutes, maybe less.’

Harry whipped a standard contract out of her bag and filled in the blanks. As she watched Beth sign, her mind ran through a checklist of the tools she’d brought along: torch, pliers, plastic bags, screwdriver, bottled water and a packet of wine gums. She’d left her laptop on the back seat of her car. She could go back out if she needed it.

She tucked the signed contract into her bag, then turned her attention to the vault. Below the small screen on the security panel was an ATM-like slit. Below that was a recessed opening with a flat metal pad about the size of a large coin. And engraved in gold at the bottom of it all was a tiny padlock logo.

Beth shifted her feet. ‘Like I said on the phone, it’s got biometric access. Have you bypassed that kind of thing before?’

‘A few times.’

In truth, Harry had only done it twice. Hacking biometric security was an unpredictable science, and mostly it took time. She peered at the slit and the small metal pad. On the face of it, she’d need two things, neither of which she had: a digital keycard and one of Garvin’s fingers.

‘He always keeps the card on him,’ Beth said, as if reading her mind. ‘Even at night. There’s no way I can get hold of it.’

Harry nodded. In her experience, people kept a backup for something that important. She moved over to the desk, scrutinizing the items on its surface: phone, pens, notepad, some disconnected cables and a silver-framed photo.

She rummaged in her case and found her torch. Then she crouched down low, training the beam on the underside of the desk. She’d once known a target who’d taped an envelope to the bottom of his desk, a secret stash for all his bank accounts and passwords. Ever since then, she’d paid attention to nooks and crannies.

She craned her neck, squinting between the cross-planks and into all the corners. Nothing.

Harry straightened up and sank into the office chair, scooting in close to the desk. Most people kept notes to jog their memories, but this guy kept things clean. No doodles, no scraps of paper, no printed reports. Her own desk was a lot more topsy-turvy.

She opened the drawers. Paperclips, spare pens, boxes of staples. She hitched the drawers out of the desk, hoisting them around and checking every surface. Still nothing.

Beth prowled around the room, checking her watch at ten-second intervals.

‘Relax,’ Harry said. ‘You’re making me nervous.’

‘You don’t know what he’s like. The last time he came home and found someone unexpected in the house, he just threw her out.’ Beth waved a hand in the air. ‘Oh, he was very civil about it, but she must have known something was wrong. She still left, though.’ Her voice grew quieter. ‘She was family, she should’ve known.’

Harry shot her a look. Beth was slumped against the vault, picking at her nails.

‘Known what?’ Harry said.

Beth shoved her hands into her pockets. ‘That he’d turn on me. The minute she’d gone, he smashed up a chair and used it to break my ribs.’

‘Jesus.’ Harry stared at her. ‘Why?’

‘No reason. There never has to be a reason.’

Harry blinked. She tried to imagine being tied to a man who made you feel afraid. Without warning, she flashed on a familiar face: someone she’d trusted, who’d later tried to kill her. Her heartbeat picked up, and she shook the thought away.

She drummed her fingers on the desk, trying to re-focus. Her gaze flicked over the silver-framed photo, and she reached out for a closer look. A young girl in a school uniform smiled up at her with Beth’s tilted eyes.

‘My little girl, Evie,’ Beth said. ‘She’s in boarding school. Safer there.’

Harry nodded, and turned the photo round in her hand. The glass seemed loose, the backing board not quite flush with the frame. She prised up the clips and tipped the photo out on to the desk. Tucked in against the backing board was a blue plastic swipe card, with a gold padlock logo in one corner.

Hairs rippled at the back of her neck. Beth strode towards her.

‘Don’t get too excited.’ Harry headed over to the vault. ‘We still need your husband’s fingerprint.’