Ava McCarthy - The Insider

‘I’ll put someone else on the pen test.’

‘No, Dillon, I’ll handle it. You just took me by surprise, that’s all. Seriously, I’m fine.’

But she hadn’t been fine. She’d been touchy and, worst of all, mouthy. Not an unusual combination for her, she’d be the first to admit, but she hated to let herself down like that. She’d tried to walk it off, turning away from the train station near the IFSC and choosing instead to march along the Liffey. She’d given up after ten minutes. Kitten heels just weren’t built for cleansing power-walks.

Harry looked at the display again. The minute was up. A draught sliced at her cheek. The pigeon flapped into the air as though it had just seen a cat. People crushed in around her. Someone pressed against the length of her body and catapulted her six inches forward.

‘Hey!’ She made to turn her head, but felt herself rammed forward again, forced out on to the edge of the platform. She caught sight of the black tracks below and squeezed her eyes shut. Digging her heels in, she leaned backwards and drove her elbows into the crowd.

A shout came from behind her. ‘Stop pushing!’

Hot breath whispered against her ear. A hard fist shoved her in the small of her back, and she pitched forward, weightless. Her eyes widened, transfixed. Steel rails accelerated towards her. She thrust out her hands and braced herself for the fall.

Her body slammed into the ground. Sharp stones pierced the palms of her hands, and her knee crunched against the concrete crossbar of the track. Somebody screamed.

Harry lifted her head and gaped at the winding tracks ahead. Her limbs were paralysed. The rails click-clacked.

Move!

She grasped the rails and tried to heave herself up. Hot pain shot through her knee as it gave way beneath her. She collapsed back on to the track, stretched across it.

The rails vibrated against her hands. A horn shrieked. She snapped her head up. A train roared round the bend into the station, blinding her with its headlights. Sweat flashed over her.

Harry dropped to the ground and rolled. Her shoulders hammered against iron and stone. Something yanked her back. She looked over her shoulder. Her bag had snagged on a bolt in the rail. The train thundered towards her. She whipped the strap off over her head and threw herself clear of the track.

She lay face down, breathing in the smell of dust and metal and gripping on to the northbound track. Her whole body trembled. The first carriage crashed past. People screamed at her, but she couldn’t move. Not yet.

Then there was another sound. Tick-tack, tick-tack. The rails buzzed beneath her fingers. She forced her eyes open, and her heart raced. Another train was screeching into the far end of the station and she was right in its path.

A yell froze in her throat. No time. She shot a glance at the northbound platform. She’d never make it. Behind her, the southbound train was still hurtling past.

There was nowhere to go.

She looked at the space between the two sets of tracks. It was only a few feet wide, but she had no choice. She flung herself down on to the stones separating the north and southbound rails. She knew she had to stay level with the ground. Any mistakes and the trains would slice her in two.

Harry turned her face to one side and stared at the black stones, waiting. Her breathing had almost stopped.

The two trains screamed past each other, catching her in their crossfire as together they blocked out the light. Gusts of air whipped her face. The huge roar of the engines filled her body and made her want to hunch her shoulders and cover her ears. But she had to stay still.

The joint in the rails beside her crick-cracked as each giant wheel pressed down on it. She focused on the undercarriage of the train, a mess of iron blocks and corrugated tubes charging by, inches from her face.

Brakes scraped against the tracks and the carriages hissed, until finally the trains squealed to a halt. Harry lay there trembling. The engines rumbled alongside her, like two old lorries. Her mouth was dry and tasted of iron and coal dust.

Doors slammed. People were screaming. Feet crunched over the stones towards her.

‘Jesus! Miss? You all right?’

Harry closed her eyes. Bad idea. She snapped them open again. The back of her neck felt clammy and the world roared in her ears.

God, she couldn’t faint now.

Strong arms lifted her to her feet, half-carried her across the tracks. More hands grabbed at her, heaving her on to the platform.

‘Get back! Give her room!’

‘Someone call an ambulance!’

Slowly, Harry eased herself up on to her hands and knees. She stayed there on all fours, swaying, as the blood drizzled back into her head. On the ground beside her was her battered satchel. Someone must have retrieved it from the track. She reached out for it, her fingers touching the silver DefCon logo.

Someone put a hand on her arm. ‘Are you okay? Did you … was it an accident?’

Harry swallowed, and thought back to the fist in the small of her back, and the words someone had whispered in her ear before she fell.

The Sorohan money … The ring …

She shivered, looking up into the sea of strangers’ faces. She couldn’t deal with their questions. Not now.

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘It was just an accident.’

7

‘Are you sure that’s what he said?’

Harry shivered and shook her head. ‘I’m not sure of anything right now.’

She closed her eyes and sank lower into the seat of Dillon’s car, trying not to mark the upholstery. Her suit was streaked with grime and black dust, like something that belonged in a skip, and she guessed her face must be the same. Her whole body ached, and her right knee had swollen to the size of a grapefruit.

She peeked at Dillon’s profile. His nose always reminded her of Julius Caesar’s, strong and straight with a high, aristocratic bridge. He was dark, almost as dark as she was, and his six-foot frame slotted easily into the driver’s seat of his Lexus.

‘So come on, tell me again,’ he said. ‘What exactly did this guy say?’

‘It was more of a whisper, really. Sort of rough and sandpapery.’

Dillon turned to look at her. He had a habit of setting his mouth in a straight line, with an upward tuck in one corner as if he was holding back a smile. ‘Okay then, what did he whisper?’

‘I can’t be sure, but it was something like: “The Sorohan money, give it back to the ring.”’

‘But what the hell does it mean?’

Harry shrugged, and examined the palms of her hands. They still stung where the gravel from the railway tracks had dug into her flesh.

‘And he didn’t say anything else?’ Dillon said.

‘There wasn’t time to say anything else. I was falling, remember?’

‘I can’t believe someone tried to push you under a bloody train.’

‘I’m finding it kind of hard to deal with myself. Not sure the police believed me, either.’

A tall young police officer with a bobbing Adam’s apple had arrived at the train station to question her. Someone had wrapped her in a scratchy blanket, and she’d told her story between sips of hot sugary tea. All except for the words that she’d heard before she fell. That would have to keep for a while. When Dillon had phoned and insisted on coming to get her, she’d been glad for once to let someone else take charge.

Dillon swerved to avoid a cyclist and Harry’s stomach flipped, taking a moment to catch up with the rest of her insides. So far, it had been a jerky ride. Dillon alternated between pumping the accelerator and slamming on the brakes, with no real let-up in between. At this rate, she’d be lucky not to get whiplash.

She’d worked for Dillon for less than a year. He’d head-hunted her the previous summer from another software firm, hounding her with the same restless energy he seemed to apply to everything. It was the second time their paths had crossed in the last sixteen years. The first time, she’d only been thirteen.