The Courier

A hooter shrieked in the distance, and Okker froze. He narrowed his eyes. Then he rammed the club into Mani’s chest, forcing him backwards and pinning him against the wall. Jagged rock bit into Mani’s back.

‘I’ve been watching you.’ Okker’s voice was low. ‘And I know what you’re up to.’

Mani stopped breathing, every muscle suspended.

‘I don’t know how you’re doing it,’ Okker went on. ‘But I’m going to find out.’ He jabbed the club up under Mani’s chin, and leaned in close. His breath was hot and sour. ‘And when I do, you and the old man are dead.’

Mani dug his nails into the rock behind him, his muscles rigid. Okker’s eyes slid down to Takata’s motionless body. Then he jerked the club away and stepped back.

‘Get him out of here.’

Mani rubbed his jaw with a trembling hand, then bent down and lifted Takata to his feet. The old man was light, his flesh parchment-thin on birdlike bones. Takata was fifty-three, but his body was older, too old to be down here. His sons and grandsons all worked in the mine. So had his daughter, for a time.

Looping one arm around Takata’s waist, Mani half-carried him along the uneven path, ignoring the fiery pain in his own ribs. The tunnel widened. Cones of light criss-crossed through the blackness as other miners spilled from their own tunnels into the belly of the mine.

‘You should not have done that.’ Takata’s voice was low.

‘I should have let him kill you?’

Mani felt Takata shrug. He guided the old man towards the lift shaft.

‘Your daughter would not thank me for letting you die,’ Mani said.

Another shrug. ‘Asha, she knows I will not live for ever.’

Mani didn’t answer. Together they trudged alongside the metal conveyor that carried the ore to the crushers. It creaked and rattled, hauling thousands of tonnes through the tunnels. The dust here seemed paler but just as dense, whipped up by dry ore on the move. Dry drilling was the rule in the Van Wycks mine. Dust-suppressing water sprays would have cleaned the air, but were forbidden in case they harmed the kimberlite.

Mani pushed into the lift along with Takata and a dozen other men. Daylight bled down through the shaft, and all around him the miners hacked out their damp, rattling coughs.

The ancient crate groaned upwards. Inch by inch, the darkness thinned, the air grew warmer, until finally they broke through the surface. Mani squinted against the sunlight and the blizzard of dust. The lift clattered to a halt, and Takata hobbled out, following the other men. Mani trailed after them, his mask still in place.

The throb of diesel engines filled the air. Tractors and dumper trucks lumbered around the open pit. The men on the ground, mostly black, guided the heavy machinery with yells and hand signals. None of them wore a mask.

Mani flicked a glance at the tonnes of ore piled in the waste pits a few hundred yards away. There were diamonds in those discarded mounds, if you knew where to look.

‘I’m watching you, kaffir.’

Okker was so close that Mani could feel the heat radiating from his white flesh. He slid his gaze away and shuffled behind the other men, keeping his eyes on the ground until Okker had moved away. Then he turned to stare again at the stockpiles of kimberlite ore. Dust caught in his throat, and he coughed like the other men, pain slicing his lungs like slivers of glass. His eyes watered, blurring his focus. His gaze drifted beyond the waste pits to the shadowy Kuruman mountains in the north. The mountains they called the Asbestos Hills.

Diamonds and dust.

He wondered which would kill him first.

3

Harry yanked open the vault door and scrambled inside, Beth pushing in behind her. Outside in the hall, the front door slammed.

Harry’s eyes raked along metal shelves, her heart pumping. Together, they groped through them. Stacks of small coloured envelopes covered every surface. No sign of a laptop.

‘What the fuck?’ Garvin’s gravelly voice echoed in the hall.

Harry whipped around, but they were still alone. She turned back to the vault, craning to get a view of the top shelf. Blood drummed in her ears.

A second voice spoke, lighter than Garvin’s. ‘Move inside. Now.’

Harry frowned. Garvin hadn’t sounded like a man to take orders. Then her brow cleared. In the corner of the top shelf was a slender black shape.

‘Got it!’ she whispered. She stretched up, grabbed the laptop and shoved it into her case. ‘Come on, let’s go. He can’t take on both of us.’

She checked on Beth, one hand on the vault door. Beth was on her knees, stuffing blue and white envelopes into a black duffel bag. Why wasn’t she moving?

Ratchet-snap. Harry spun round. The spring-loaded action had come from the hall. When Garvin spoke, his voice was shaking.

‘You can’t shoot me,’ he said.

Harry’s eyes widened. Behind her, Beth had stopped moving.

‘Someone will hear.’ Garvin sounded close to tears. ‘There’ll be witnesses.’

‘I never leave witnesses.’

Harry’s hand flew to her mouth. She ducked back into the vault and swung the door to, leaving it open a slit.

‘The light!’ Beth pointed at a button on the door jamb.

Harry pressed it, keeping her finger down, and like a fridge light the bulb went out. She peered through the crack.

A heavy-set man was backing into the room, hands in the air. Crescents of sweat stained his shirt under the arms.

‘I’ve got money,’ Garvin said. ‘Take whatever you want.’

He stumbled against a chair and whimpered, his shoulders sagging. A middle-aged man in a baseball cap followed him in. His hands were clamped around a blocky pistol trained on Garvin’s face.

Harry swallowed. Her fingers felt slippery with sweat. Beside her, Beth had frozen.

The man gestured with the gun. ‘Face the window.’

Garvin swivelled obediently to his right, like a child anxious to please. Harry could see his profile: the trembling lip, the puffy face. The other man scanned the room, his gaze sliding towards the vault. Harry shrank back, pressing up against the shelves, her finger still on the light switch. Beth had flattened herself against one wall.

Metal snapped and clicked. Harry flinched, waiting for the shot. When none came, she inched forward and peeped out through the slit.

Garvin’s hands were handcuffed behind his back. The man jabbed the gun into his shoulder blade.

‘Kneel.’

Garvin dropped to his knees, making small mewling sounds. The man with the gun touched the elongated barrel to the back of Garvin’s head.

‘Any last requests? Sorry, too late.’ Phut-phut. The muffled shots spat into Garvin’s skull. He jerked once, then crumpled to the floor.

Harry gasped. Her finger slipped, and light flooded back into the vault. The man in the baseball cap whirled round and for an instant they locked eyes. Then he raised his gun to her face. Harry screamed, slammed the vault door shut. Bullets zinged against metal, and the door’s automatic bolts clanked home.

Harry backed away, her heart pounding. She could hear Beth moaning in the dark.

‘Who is he?’ Harry whispered, but Beth didn’t answer.

The door handle rattled, and Harry held her breath. She cocked her head, straining for more sounds. Nothing.

Slowly, her eyes adjusted to the dark. Beth had slid to the floor, knees up, hands over her ears. Harry had a sudden image of Garvin’s bulk, towering over Beth with a broken chair. She hugged her arms across her chest, and tried to be glad he was dead.

She squinted into the gloom. The only source of light was a small red dot blinking on the door, the twin of the light on the security panel outside.

Harry stiffened. The keycard! Had she left it in the slot? She couldn’t remember. But she’d dropped the wine gum to the floor, hadn’t she? Even if he found it, he couldn’t possibly guess its purpose.

Unless she’d left it on the sensor.

Dammit, why couldn’t she remember?

The light blinked amber, and Harry froze. He must have found the keycard and fed it back into the slot. She backed up against the wall in line with the door and lifted her case, ready to strike. It was the only weapon she had. Her eyes fastened on the amber dot, waiting for it to turn green.

Nothing happened.

‘What’s he doing?’ Beth whispered, clambering to her feet.

Harry shook her head. She pressed her ear up against the door. The steel was like ice on her cheek. She could make out a faint, scuffing sound, like something heavy being dragged.

Nausea slithered inside her. Dear God. He was going to use Garvin’s fingers on the sensor. Harry closed her eyes, blocking out the image of him roughing up a corpse to press dead flesh against the pad.

The numbers. Concentrate on the numbers. Ten fingers, three shots. Maybe they’d get lucky and he’d strike out.

The scuffling grew closer.

Who was she kidding? Those odds weren’t real. After all, who used their pinkie on a biometric scanner? Chances were, Garvin had used his thumb or index finger, something the man in the baseball cap had probably worked out for himself.

Four fingers, three shots. Those odds were on the killer’s side.

The scuffling stopped. Harry waved Beth to the other side of the door, and raised her case back over her head. She stared at the amber light.

Handcuffs clicked, then clattered to the floor. A trickle of sweat ran down Harry’s back. There was a grunt, a final heave. Harry counted to three. Then a soft beep sounded from the other side of the door.

Strike one.

Harry took a deep breath and flexed her fingers on the case. Beth had found a metal cashbox on one of the shelves and was holding it high over her head. She traded looks with Harry and nodded, her eyes wide with fright.

They waited. One, two, three.

Another beep, faint but unmistakable. Harry let out a long breath. He had one shot left. If he failed, he’d need a code to reset the device before he could try again. And the only person who knew that code was dead.

Sweat ran into Harry’s eyes and the amber light blurred. Beth’s breathing came fast and shallow.

Beep-beep-beep. Amber flashed to red. The man outside roared, and gunshots pumped into the lock. Harry screamed, spinning away from the door. Metal screeched as the vault’s anti-attack bolts slammed into place, dead-locking it against assault. Bullets blasted the door, round after round, until finally the shooting stopped.

Harry glanced over at Beth. She was cowering on the floor, arms over her head. Had that become her only means of defence, curling into a submissive ball? Harry rubbed at her ears. They still pounded with echoes, or maybe it was her own blood exploding through her veins.

For a long time, neither of them moved. Hot metal ticked into the vault. The air grew muggy, heavy with exhaled moisture, and for the first time Harry worried about being able to breathe. The walls seemed to crush in on her, and she fought an urge to hyperventilate. How long could they last in here without fresh air?

‘Maybe he’s gone,’ Beth whispered eventually.

‘Maybe.’ Harry slid to the floor and tried to regulate her breathing. ‘Or maybe he’s just waiting us out.’

Beth’s face crumpled, making Harry feel like a brute for pointing out the truth. She studied her for a moment: the cropped hair, the bruised eye, the fingers that plucked at the black duffel bag.

‘Are you glad Garvin’s dead?’ Harry asked.

Beth shrugged, and didn’t look up. She twisted the bag’s cord around her fingers.

Harry had another question, though she didn’t expect an answer to this one either.

‘Why did you stay with him?’

This time, Beth looked up. ‘You think that, just by leaving, the violence would’ve stopped?’ She shook her head, jerking at the drawstring on her bag. ‘Leaving is more dangerous than staying, sometimes. Unless you plan it right.’

She slid Harry a glance, then dug an envelope out of the bag.

‘Know what this is?’ She hooked her fingers under the flap and extracted something small. ‘Here, catch.’

Harry caught the tiny pellet Beth had flung into the air. She rolled it between her fingers, then held it near the red light in the door. It looked like a piece of clouded crystal, about the size of a garden pea. Even in the tiny glow of light, its metallic lustre gleamed.

‘That’s over a carat,’ Beth said. ‘Maybe a hundred and twenty-five points.’

Harry stared at her. ‘This is a diamond?’

‘A rough diamond, uncut. Africa’s finest.’

Harry turned the stone over in her hand. It felt smooth, as though coated in an oily film, and looked more like a chip of polished lead than a diamond. She shook her head.

‘So I broke into Garvin’s safe to let you steal his diamonds?’

Beth pointed to her bloodied eye. ‘Call it compensation.’

Harry stared at the frail woman in front of her. Battered wife or burglar, who could tell? At this point, Harry’s internal barometer was swinging wildly.

She held the stone out to Beth, who waved it away.

‘Keep it,’ she said. ‘You’ve earned it.’

Harry shook her head and tossed the stone into Beth’s lap. Then she sprang to her feet, her limbs suddenly twitchy with the need to get away. She switched her attention to the vault door, running her hands along the cold steel. The man with the gun must have gone by now. Surely he couldn’t risk hanging around a dead body, live witnesses or not?

‘How do we get out of here?’ Beth’s voice was tight.

But Harry wasn’t worried about how to get out. Security was paramount for this kind of vault, but its focus was to keep intruders out, not lock hapless prisoners in.

The question was not how to open the door, but what was waiting for them on the other side of it.

Harry’s fingers groped in the dark till she found what she was looking for: a long metal lever. It was the vault’s internal escape mechanism, required by safety regulations in case someone got trapped inside. The regulators probably hadn’t had her exact situation in mind, but Harry was grateful for their foresight.

She pressed her ear to the door. Nothing. Then she wiped her palms against her thighs, and gripped the lever. She glanced back at Beth.

‘Ready?’

Beth jumped to her feet and nodded, hitching the duffel bag over her shoulder.

Harry pushed the lever down with both hands. Bolts shunted back through metal, one after the other. The light flicked green. Holding her breath, Harry pressed her shoulder to the door. It didn’t budge.

Shit. Had the killer’s bullets damaged the mechanism?

She slapped her palms flat against the door, arms fully extended. ‘Come on, push.’

Beth joined her at the door, and together they heaved. A chink of light sliced into the vault.

‘Keep pushing!’ Harry said.

‘Something’s jammed up against it!’

Grunting, they leaned their weight into the door until finally it gave way, breaking open a small gap. Beth’s rail-thin figure disappeared through it.

‘Beth, wait!’ Harry froze, waiting for the spray of bullets. When it didn’t come, she peeped out into the room. It was empty.

She grabbed her case and squeezed through the gap, stumbling over the reason why the door had jammed. Garvin’s body lay wedged against it, face down on the floor.

His hair was wet with blood, and Harry caught a whiff of dried urine in the air. She backed away, clutching the case to her chest, then raced out into the hall.

‘Beth?’

The front door was wide open. Harry sprinted outside, checking the street. People were out strolling, taking in the sea view over the wall. There was no sign of Beth.

A siren whined in the distance. Harry whirled round, taking in her choices. Behind her, the open front door. To her left, her red Mini parked by the kerb. In spite of the chill blowing in from the sea, Harry’s brain was over-heating.

She edged towards her car, raking over the highlights of her morning so far. A safe that she’d broken into illegally. A client who’d disappeared. A duffel bag full of stolen diamonds. Not to mention a dead body. The list wasn’t encouraging.

The siren grew louder and she fumbled for her keys. Did she really want to stick around for the police? The last time she’d got close to an investigation, she’d ended up a suspect. Still was, for all she knew. That wouldn’t help her credibility this time round.

With trembling fingers, she opened the boot of her car and dumped her case inside. She thought of the man in the baseball cap who didn’t leave witnesses, and her throat closed over. She knew she should talk to the police, but for the second time that day, a voice in her head screamed ‘run’.

The siren grew more strident. It wasn’t too late. After all, no one knew who she was. The killer didn’t know her name, and the police didn’t need to know it either.

Harry gasped. Her business card. It was still on the desk inside. She spun round and scrambled back up the steps, taking them two at a time. The siren was close now, in the same street. She raced back into the house and made straight for the office. Averting her eyes from Garvin’s body, she scoured the surface of the desk. She hauled out drawers, checked on the floor.

Tyres squealed outside, car doors slammed. A cold shiver rippled down Harry’s spine.

Her business card was gone.

4

‘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.’