Ava McCarthy - The Courier

‘I don’t understand,’ he said.

‘The Van Wycks mine.’ Ezra licked his parched lips. ‘There is something about it you need to know.’

And then, in the smoky, stifling hut, Ezra had explained.

He’d been on a toilet break when he found the first stone. He’d wandered up to the waste pit behind the latrine, putting off going back to his shift, and the diamond had glowed at him from underneath the rubble.

Ezra’s eyes glazed over. ‘It was bigger than a sparrow-hawk’s egg.’

He’d hidden it again beneath a deeper pile of stones until he could figure out what to do with it. One thing was certain: if there was one diamond, there were others. But after several furtive visits to the pit, he still hadn’t found any more.

Then late one night, he’d thought about the waste rock. Most of it was debris, discarded by the crusher and the separation plant. But piled here and there were larger boulders, the kind Van Wycks had been dumping for years. The geologists had tested them but declared them uneconomical to mine. So they fell uncrushed out of the separation plant and ended up in the waste pits along with the rest of the rubble.

But what if the Van Wycks scientists were wrong?

The next time Ezra had visited the waste pit, he’d taken a lump hammer with him.

Mani stared at his brother in the smoke-filled hut, the crackle of the cooking fires starting up outside. ‘You broke up the boulders?’

‘Van Wycks, they were wrong.’ Ezra’s eyes were bright. ‘One boulder, it gave me three diamonds, over a hundred and fifty carats each.’

He went on to explain how he’d smuggled the diamonds out. A cousin of theirs supplied cocaine to many of the mercenaries guarding the mine, and according to him, the x-ray operator was in deeper than most. Volker, it turned out, was more than willing to take payment in diamonds in exchange for clearing Ezra’s x-rays.

Ezra had brought his first stones out of the mine over a year ago and sold them on the local black market.

‘For a day, I was rich.’ Ezra closed his eyes and smiled, his gums a ghostly grey around his missing tooth.

Mani groaned. Like his father, Ezra never held on to money for long. Drink and gambling usually soaked up most of it. ‘What happened?’

Ezra dragged his eyes open, the smile gone. ‘Stones that big, it is hard to keep them a secret.’

Avoiding Mani’s gaze, he explained how he’d woken up in the dark, after several days of celebrating. His drunken friends were gone, and so was all his money. But he wasn’t completely alone. Kneeling over him was a man in dark clothes, his white face smeared with mud. The blade of his knife was pricking Ezra’s throat.

Three other men had crept out of the shadows and held Ezra down while the first man wielded his knife. First he carved it along Ezra’s chin, then sliced it into his shoulder, then worked his way down into the softer areas of flesh, until finally Ezra gave them what they wanted. From now on, he was to act as their courier, funnelling large stones out of the mine and selling exclusively to them. He’d been following their orders now for almost a year.

Mani stared around the dingy shack. ‘But then, where is all the money?’

Ezra swallowed, his throat working hard. ‘He pays me next to nothing.’ His eyes slid over to the hanging sack that served as a door. On the other side of it, Asha was stoking the fire. ‘If I don’t do as he says, he will kill us.’

And then Ezra told him what the man with the knife had said, as he’d left him whimpering on the ground. Go home and see what I have done , just in case you feel like changing your mind.

And so Mani had learned the truth about how his mother had died.

The x-ray machine clanked to a halt. The cubicle door slid open and Mani stepped outside. Volker was still at his console. Mani didn’t know how the guard smuggled out his stones, but white workers weren’t subjected to as many searches as blacks.

Mani exhaled a long breath. His body felt warm and sluggish. Today was his last time. The last time he’d open his gullet to swallow a diamond so big it tore up his insides. The last time he’d cram stones into a seeping wound, tears burning his eyes. The last time he’d drink the foul mixture of water and spoiled milk that would purge his body out.

His brief contract with Van Wycks was up. Tomorrow Volker would clear him and the contraband in his luggage as he finally left the compound. And he was never coming back.

Volker raised his head. ‘You can go.’

Mani nodded, making his way towards the exit. ‘Tomorrow there will be more.’

Volker shrugged. ‘I won’t be here.’

Mani froze. He stared at the guard. ‘But I leave the compound. You must pass me through x-ray, my luggage—’

‘You’ll have to make other arrangements.’ Volker turned back to his console. ‘My time here is up, I leave this evening. It’s getting too risky, Okker’s asking questions. My replacement starts in the morning.’

Mani’s head swam. Heat washed over him as he thought of Ezra in his stinking shack, of Asha whom he’d loved since he was ten, of his mother who’d fought to keep him at school, of Alfredo, of Takata. But most of all, he thought of the killers waiting on the next shipment of stones.

What would they do when he couldn’t deliver?

‘Dammit!’

Harry snapped the laptop shut and massaged the corners of her eyes. They felt gritty from staring at the screen.

Wrong place, wrong time. That was supposed to explain her connection with Garvin’s death. Even Hunter had conceded it was a possibility. But with her name chiselled into one of his files, who’d believe her now?

She bundled up her laptop, along with the printouts she’d made of Garvin’s spreadsheets. She noticed she was making a lot of packing-up sounds, just to create some noise. By now, she was alone in the office. The winter darkness had rolled in like a tide, though it was barely five thirty. She’d intended to leave with Imogen, perhaps give her a lift home. Safety in numbers was a theory Harry subscribed to. But Imogen’s fiancé had arrived unannounced and whisked her away before she and Harry had talked.

Now Harry was alone in the dark, which wasn’t how she’d planned it.

She killed the lights, set the alarm and scuttled across the deserted reception as though helped along by a tailwind. Empty buildings had their own ghosts, and Harry’s spine was already tingling. She shouldered her laptop bag. She’d review her findings later on, but right now she had someone to see.

She jabbed at the door-release button and trotted out into the street. The building opened on to Sugar House Lane, a narrow, cobbled alleyway that ran alongside the walls of the Guinness brewery. She scanned the shadows ahead. The alley twisted away into the darkness, forking out to the backstreets that skulked behind the brewery. The right fork led past the entrance to the Storehouse tours. The left wound its way into Marrowbone Lane, which was where she’d parked her car.

Harry hesitated, the malty scent of hops filling her nostrils. Then she hitched her bag high on to her shoulder and clopped over the lumpy cobbles. Ancient building walls closed in on both sides. With their bricked-up windows and rusted bars, they looked like abandoned prisons. Harry hunched her shoulders, picking up the pace.

She thought about her name on Garvin’s files. Was it a coincidence, or had Beth deliberately set her up? She fingered the cold diamond still in her pocket. At this point, she was inclined to believe the worst.

Something rustled in the darkness. She snapped her head around, but all she could see were black, brick walls. Her skin prickled, and she speeded up.