Ava McCarthy - Hide Me

His name was Vasco. He was an inspector with the Ertzaintza, the police force of the Basque country, and so far he was the fourth guy to interview her about the events of last night.

He turned his attention to a stapled report, probably her signed statement. Fatigue shuddered through her. The police had grilled her till three in the morning, and had started again soon after breakfast. By now, it was early evening and what little sleep she’d got had been slashed by images of blood-soaked, slaughtered bulls.

‘You have been in San Sebastián before.’

Harry frowned. He made it sound like an accusation. And besides, how did he know?

‘That was a long time ago,’ she said. ‘My father brought me on visits as a child. He was born here.’

‘You have family in the city?’

She brushed at an imaginary speck of dust on her skirt. ‘I’m not sure.’

Her memories of those childhood trips were flimsy as cobwebs. Her older sister, Amaranta, had been there with her, but for reasons Harry had never understood, their mother had refused to come. Harry fiddled with the strap of her bag. Her personal link with San Sebastián was another reason she’d taken the job, but so far, she’d been too busy for cosy family reunions.

Her stomach dipped with an odd emptiness. The alienation she’d felt in Dublin had left a void like a doughnut hole inside her. She’d found herself re-examining her past, as if that would somehow plug the cavity: her nomadic Dublin childhood, where her father’s gambling had kept their finances on a pendulum swing; the upheavals from house to house, in line with his cashflow; the upmarket mansions, the low-rent bedsits, the ever-changing schools. She realized she had few treasured memories of ‘home’, the kind that others called nostalgia and that tied your heart to a place.

Harry swallowed against a pesky fullness in her throat. The job in San Sebastián had come at the right moment. She’d never fully explored the Spanish side of her identity, and it was probably time that she did.

Vasco tossed her passport into her lap, then strutted back around the desk. She took in his tall, elegant frame; the expensive suit and the slicked-back hair. The first ertzaina she’d talked to had been a uniformed guard, dishevelled from overwork. This guy looked more like a politician than a cop.

He sat down behind the desk, flipping up his coat-tails like a concert pianist taking position. ‘Tell me again why you followed him.’

His English was precise, his accent almost Etonian. The other cops had been relieved to revert to Spanish with Harry, but not Vasco. She pegged it as vanity, but to be fair, his fluency was impressive. Harry sighed.

‘I’ve already explained, I saw him—’

‘I know what you saw. Please answer my question. Why did you follow him? Why not follow the man you say collected the winnings?’

Harry pictured the American with his thatch of greying hair, queuing up at the cage. ‘He’d won a large amount of money. Assuming the casino was following regulations, he’d need to fill out forms with proven ID before cashing in that amount.’

‘So?’

Harry shrugged. ‘So I figured the casino already had a line on him. The other guy was the unknown quantity.’ For an instant, her breeziness deserted her and she was back in the old bullring: wide, staring eyes; butchered gullet. She swallowed. ‘Do you know who he was?’

Vasco stared at her, hawk-like, and didn’t answer. Then he said, ‘What is your connection with Riva Mills?’

‘I told you, she’s my client.’

‘And that’s all?’

Harry frowned. ‘What else would there be?’

‘So she contacts you out of the blue. An American businesswoman based in San Sebastián decides to hire a technology expert from Dublin.’ He leaned forward. ‘Who just happens to be you.’

‘It didn’t happen out of the blue. I was recommended to her by a mutual friend.’

‘What friend?’

‘Her name’s Roslyn Bloomberg.’ Harry watched him write it down. ‘She’s a diamantaire based in New York. My father’s known her for years, and it turns out Riva’s a client of hers.’

Harry had been surprised when she’d heard that Ros had recommended her. They’d parted on bad terms in Cape Town a few months before. For reasons too complex to sort through at the time, Ros had believed that Harry was a thief. Other people’s opinions didn’t usually count with Harry, but Ros had come close to being a substitute mother for a while. It hurt to be rejected by two mothers in a row, whatever way you looked at it.

Vasco slapped an eight-by-ten photograph on the desk. ‘Take a good look. He was a countryman of yours.’

Harry’s skin turned cold. The fat guy’s face shone back at her like a moon. His eyes were pale, his skin doughy and bloated. She couldn’t see his throat, but guessed that when he posed for the shot, he was already dead. Her insides shrivelled.

Vasco tapped the photo with a pen. ‘His name was Stephen McArdle. Does that mean anything to you?’

‘No.’

‘We’ve built quite a profile on him. Thirty-four years old, born in Belfast. Started off doing work for IRA splinter groups, then later for Colombian revolutionaries, the PLO, even our own Basque separatists.’

Harry frowned, picturing the clumsy figure who’d barged ahead of her through the backstreets. ‘He was a terrorist?’

‘He was a hacker, Miss Martinez.’ Vasco’s gaze drilled into hers. ‘Just like you.’

Harry’s eyebrows shot up. She was about to reply when the door swung open. A short, stocky man shambled into the room and dropped a folder onto the desk. He stared at Harry. His unshaven face drooped with middle age, and his head looked too large for his body, though maybe that was down to his mess of dark, woolly curls. He took a seat by the wall, his eyes never leaving her face. Vasco went on, ignoring the interruption.

‘McArdle hired himself out to anyone who paid him well enough.’

Harry hesitated. The newcomer’s stare was unnerving. She cleared her throat.

‘Paid him well enough to do what?’

‘Help them fund their operations.’

‘By hacking?’

Vasco shrugged. ‘Terrorists raise funding in all sorts of ways. Drugs, smuggling, kidnapping, prostitution. Now they add cybercrime to the list.’

He picked up the folder and browsed through it. It looked like another set of photographs. He slotted one out for a closer look, and kept talking.

‘McArdle had quite the hacker’s pedigree. Credit-card company penetration, ATM heists, cyber protection rackets.’ He peered at her over the glossy eight-by-ten, his look predatory. ‘But then, you know more about this kind of thing than me.’

Harry narrowed her eyes. ‘Look, I don’t appreciate—’

Vasco smacked the photo onto the desk. ‘This man, who is he?’

Harry blinked. She recognized the florid face of the American from the casino.

‘He’s the one who collected the winnings. I don’t know his name.’

‘And this one?’

He tossed down another photo, a headshot of a woman. She looked thirty-something, a brunette with good bones, though the layers of make-up masked her features like a veil. Harry shook her head.

‘I’ve never seen her before.’

‘And him?’

Another headshot: a man in his late forties, pale crew cut, eyebrows bleached by the sun. His complexion looked mud-stained with freckles.

Harry shook her head again. ‘No. Is that Franco Chavez?’

Vasco broke eye contact. Over by the wall, his shaggy-haired colleague stirred in his chair. Eventually, Vasco said,

‘We don’t have an ID on Franco Chavez.’

‘I see.’ Harry looked from one to the other, trying to read their discomfort. ‘But these others, they’re all part of the casino-cheating crew?’