The Courier - Ava McCarthy

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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

      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.

      He lifted his head. In front of him, the x-ray cubicle stood open, waiting for him like a giant, Perspex capsule. To his right was the conveyor belt that scanned outgoing luggage and to his left was another guard in a white coat, watching from behind a screened-off booth. His name was Volker, and he’d worked the x-ray unit for the last two years. He rapped on the reinforced glass.

      ‘Stand up!’

      Mani struggled to his feet, the diamond slicing through his gut. Volker tapped the keyboard in front of him.

      ‘Name?’

      ‘Mani…’ His voice cracked. Then he cleared his throat and lifted his chin. ‘Mani Eduardo Tavares Villa dos Santos.’

      Volker’s eyes narrowed at the full Portuguese name. Mani kept his chin raised. He’d spent most of his life trying to live up to that name. His parents had been Angolans, living half their lives under Portuguese rule, the rest under bloody civil war. His surname followed the Portuguese pattern of combining both their names. But his maternal grandmother had been Congolese, a strong, raucous woman who’d lived in the shadow of the Blue Mountains close to the Congo River. She’d asked that her first grandson be given a Congolese name, so he became Mani, meaning ‘from the mountain’. He could still hear his father’s scornful voice: The man from the mountain, he should be a warrior with a gun, not a mouse with a book.

      Mani squared his shoulders, trying to ignore the fiery pain in his belly.

      Volker stepped out from behind the screen, his redrimmed eyes fixed on Mani’s face. Mani gritted his teeth, then rolled up his left sleeve to show the bandage on his upper arm. Slowly, he unravelled the filthy dressing to expose the knife wound underneath. He sucked in air at the sight of it. Red, raw flesh bulged out through a gaping rent in his skin. The puckered edges were too far apart to knit together, but so far there was no sign of infection. No oozing pus, no bad smell. He knew what to

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