Ava McCarthy - The Courier

A flash of heat washed over her. What the hell was she thinking? She should have taken Garvin’s laptop back to Hunter the minute she’d realized the mistake. The longer she held on to it, the worse it would get. Already, she felt as if something radioactive was glowing through the boot of her car.

Harry geared down into third, negotiating the bends on the coast road. Waves slapped against the wall to her left, tossing spray into the air like confetti.

She came to a T-junction and slowed down, considering her options. Turn right, and she could loop back to Garvin Oliver’s house and hand the laptop over.

Turn left, and she could be home in fifteen minutes. Harry chewed her bottom lip.

When you got right down to it, the police had been the ones who’d screwed up, not her. After all, it wasn’t her fault the officer had snatched the first laptop case he’d seen.

She checked left and right. Naturally, she wouldn’t dream of withholding evidence. She gripped the steering wheel and swung left. She’d hand over the laptop just as soon as she could, but not until she’d peeked at it herself first.

Harry wound her way south, her whole body clenched, her eyes darting to her mirror. No one seemed to be following her, but it was hard to tell. On her left the beach curved like a bow, the slate-grey water reflecting the rain clouds above. Her arms ached from gripping the wheel, but relaxing them was beyond her.

She cruised through Killiney Village, cutting left down a rough track tucked in behind a row of new builds. She pulled up in front of the only house on the lot: a small, stone cottage with double-glazed windows and matching white UPVC door. She stared at it and felt herself droop.

Six months ago she’d been renting an apartment close to the city, where she’d basked in Dublin’s lively buzz and felt that she belonged. But lately she’d had an urge to buy her own place. She’d rented the cottage as an experiment. Living close to the sea was supposed to be soothing. But instead, there was something unsettling about the greyness of the beach and the isolation of her new home.

Harry sighed and climbed out of the car. Maybe it wasn’t just her professional instincts that were becoming unreliable.

She hauled her case out of the boot and trudged inside the cottage, passing through the narrow hall into the cramped kitchen beyond. She dumped the case on the table, then flung open the small windows at the rear of the house. Sharp, salty air perked up the room, but she didn’t stop to enjoy the view. Right now, she had other things on her mind.

She eyed up the case. Beth had only been interested in the diamonds, but the laptop must have had some importance if Garvin locked it up in a vault. She wiped her palms along her thighs. It was a long shot to hope it might lead her to Beth, but it was worth a try.

Harry slid the laptop out of the bag. Something small rattled out with it, clattering on to the floor. She peered under the table, and her whole body froze. Almost invisible against the stone tiles was a smooth, pea-sized pebble. Harry bent to retrieve it, then rolled it between her fingers, holding it close to her face. Beth’s uncut diamond. It felt cold, as though it had been kept in the fridge. She watched its steely lustre catch the light for a moment. Then she buried the stone in her fist.

Beth must have slipped it deliberately into her bag. Had she been leaving her a gift, or planting evidence? Harry was inclined to believe the worst, but either way, it’d be hard to explain to the police. She shook her head and dropped the pebble into her jacket pocket. She’d work out what to do with it later, but right now, she had a laptop to cross-examine.

She reached out to flip open the lid, then hesitated. Any snooping she did on the laptop could probably be traced. Worse still, her activities might overwrite valuable data on the hard drive. Apart from getting caught, the last thing she wanted was to compromise a murder investigation.

She frowned. Then she marched to the spare bedroom where she kept her field kits and retrieved a stash of hardware: a digital camera, a screwdriver, a sanitized hard drive, a spare laptop and a bunch of cables and switches. Adding a clutch of paperwork to the mix, she set the lot on the kitchen table and went to work.

First, she grabbed the camera and took some shots of the laptop, recording the make, model and serial number and documenting her actions as she went. Next, she unscrewed the laptop chassis, exposing the hard drive and releasing it from its caddy. She photographed the disembowelled hardware, labelled each component, then photographed it all again. It was tedious work, but she needed a record of her activities. If the integrity of the hard drive was ever in doubt, at least she could prove chain of custody. Inwardly, she winced. Her own integrity might be a little trickier to establish.

Snatching at the cables, she hooked up the hard drive to a set of switches, connecting it to the blank drive which in turn was plugged into the spare laptop. She powered everything up, worked the keyboard for a moment and then stood back. It would take a few hours, but soon she’d have a duplicate of Garvin Oliver’s hard drive.

Odd to think that somewhere the police were putting her own laptop through the same paces. Acquiring a forensic duplication was the first step in analysing a hard drive for evidence. She’d worked her share of computer forensics cases in her last job with Lúbra Security. Of course, that was before she’d got sidetracked by a crooked trader who’d tried to kill her for her father’s money.

Harry shivered. Her eyes swept the room, taking in the slanted ceilings and exposed oak beams. She’d thought it was the need for a slower pace that had taken her out here. She suspected now it was more to do with having somewhere to lick her wounds.

She shook her head. Godammit, enough introspection. The need to pace up and down jerked through her limbs, but the cottage just wasn’t built for it. Instead, she flung herself into a chair and thought about Beth. Or whatever her real name was.

She scribbled down everything she knew about her, which didn’t amount to much: her physical description; her intimate knowledge of the contents of Garvin’s safe. She recalled the woman’s likeness to the passport photo belonging to the real Beth, and her story of Garvin’s beatings. She was family, she should’ve known.

Harry frowned. Were she and Beth sisters?

She thought of the next-door neighbour who’d seen Harry poised for flight. Neighbours usually had plenty to tell, as long as they were asked the right questions. Would the woman next door know anything about Beth’s family?

Harry tapped a fingernail against her teeth. Talking to the neighbour in person was out of the question. She’d hardly chitchat to someone she’d just witnessed fleeing the scene of a crime. On the other hand, what choice did Harry have? She had no name or phone number. All she had was an address.

The hairs on the back of her neck prickled. She snatched up her car keys and headed for the door.

Sometimes, an address was all it took.

The closer Harry got to Garvin Oliver’s house, the harder it was to breathe. She cracked open a window and sucked in the sea air. Ahead of her, yellow police tape snapped in the breeze, and an officer stood on guard by the railings. Traffic slowed to a crawl as motorists rubbernecked at the scene. Harry inched her car in behind them.

Her stomach was taut, as though braced for a punch. An image flashed before her: Garvin kneeling, head bent as though in prayer; the gun barrel touching his skull.

I never leave witnesses.

Sweat spilled down her back. The notion that someone out there wanted her dead jammed up her brain.