following the fat guy along the cobbled streets of the Old Quarter.
Glasses clinked from the tourist-filled bars, and the air was thick with the salty scent of sausage. Harry fixed her gaze on the figure ahead. He must have been a hundred pounds overweight, but it didn’t seem to slow him down.
She picked up the pace, trying to fix her bearings. Navigational challenges were never her strong point, and she hadn’t been here long enough to tag many landmarks. She scanned the medieval-looking buildings. There were plenty of signs, but most of them in Basque, with its unintelligible x’s and k’s.
Up ahead, the fat guy moved like a barge, parting the crowds in a backwash behind him. He made a sharp right, and Harry trotted after him into another lantern-lit alleyway.
She recalled how he’d smoothed a hand over his hair at the casino. If her guess was correct, it was some kind of signal, a cue for his accomplices to cut and run. Right now, he was probably headed for an emergency location, or maybe back to wherever he was staying.
Just stay in the casino. Nothing can happen in front of the cameras.
She flicked a quick glance over her shoulder. All she planned to do was pinpoint an address. At least then she’d have something to offer Riva before terminating their arrangement.
Harry winced. Backsliding out of a job made her insides squirm, but the truth was, Riva didn’t need her. Harry’s expertise was in computer security, investigating forensics and security breaches for criminal and civil litigation. At least, that was the whitewashed version. Actually, she’d been a hacker since the age of nine and that was still what she did best. But whatever her skills, she certainly wasn’t equipped to crack open a ring of casino cheaters.
She huffed out a breath, picking her way over the cobbles. The maze of laneways reminded her of Temple Bar, Dublin’s alleged Bohemian Quarter, though the cobbles here were easier on her feet. The thought of her native Dublin triggered another squirm. Ever since her return from Cape Town a few months before, she’d had trouble settling back into her hometown. All her ties were there: her parents, her sister, her friends, her business. And Hunter, of course. The detective who’d recently stirred her body chemistry, brewing up something she didn’t quite recognize. But still, Dublin left her feeling displaced. Like a jigsaw piece tidied into the wrong box.
The truth had crystallized during a rare phone call with her mother.
‘A vagrant, just like your father,’ her mother had said. ‘You’ve moved three times in the last twelve months. Different homes, different countries, different jobs. Are you the same with men? Hopping from one bed to the other?’
Harry’s cheeks stung at the memory. Jesus, weren’t mothers supposed to be on your side? But at least the woman’s hostility had made her face facts. Harry’s sense of dislocation wasn’t new. Nothing like having a frosty mother all your life for making you an outsider in your own home.
Glass shattered on the cobbles behind her. Harry squeezed through a scrum of tourists, still keeping tabs on the fat guy. Her feet ached, and it occurred to her she was wasting her time. Maybe he was just a regular punter who had nothing to do with Franco Chavez.
She squinted through the alleyway. The fat guy shot a glance over his shoulder. Then he dipped his head, switched gears and put more distance between them. Harry frowned. Had he spotted her?
She hung back, her eyes roaming the busy tangle of streets. Tiers of wrought-iron balconies loomed above her, and every alley seemed to converge on a Gothic church spire. Her back tingled. She was worryingly far from her navigational comfort zone.
Something tugged at her gut, willing her to turn back. Was there really any point in following a guy who knew she was there? She slowed her pace, giving in to the notion. Then suddenly the fat guy stopped and spun around.
Harry jerked to a halt. Goosebumps erupted along her arms. He was staring right at her. His gaze drifted over her shoulder, his eyes widening. Then he whirled away and barrelled down the laneway.
Harry whipped her head around. What had he seen? She scoured the narrow backstreet, searching for false notes. She peered at the tourists, at the local Basque vendors, but nothing seemed out of place.
Was someone else following him?
She snapped her eyes back. He’d almost disappeared, and she took off after him at a jog, not sure of her intentions. She followed him to the end of the laneway and found herself on the edge of a large, open square. Sandstone buildings enclosed it on all sides, with rows of balconies rising up like seats in an amphitheatre. At ground level, the square was bordered by a colonnade of shadowy archways.
Harry felt her limbs relax. Finally, a place she recognized: the city’s old bullring, Plaza de la Constitución.
She slowed to a walk, scanning the area. It was less crowded in here, and the place scattered echoes like an empty church. You could still see the numbers over the shuttered windows from a time when the balconies were rented out as seats.
Harry spotted the fat guy scurrying for cover under the walkway of arched porticos. She hesitated. The porches looked gloomy, in spite of the lanterns dotting the colonnades. Better to stick to the safety of open country. Besides, he had to emerge sooner or later to exit back onto the streets.
She struck out across the plaza in line with the archways, trailing his ample silhouette as he blundered in and out of the shadows. Voices echoed in the hollow acoustics, and for an instant, Harry heard the roar of crowds lusting for blood at the bullfights. An image thrust itself into her head: a quivering animal, slashed and butchered, who could do nothing but stand and bleed. She shuddered, shaking the memory off. Her father had taken her to a bullfight as a child. It was the first time she’d seen violent death.
She blinked and focused back on the porticos, waiting for the fat guy to reappear. She slowed to a halt. Flicked her gaze across the arches.
There was no sign of him.
Shit. Had he doubled back? She whirled around, scouring the square. Nothing.
Dammit.
Harry peered at the gloomy archways. The notion of going in there made her spine hum. She dug her nails into her palms, then edged across the plaza and stepped under the portico, retracing the fat guy’s steps. By now, the square was almost empty. Her shoes slapped chapel-like echoes off the walls, and a chill skittered through her. Then something behind her made a bubbling sound, and she turned.
The fat guy was sitting on the ground, leaning against one of the columns. He was staring up at her, his eyes wide. He looked as though he was about to accuse her of something. Then she saw the bloody gash that had ripped his throat open, and she screamed.
Chapter 4
‘You’re a long way from home, Miss Martinez.’
Harry eyed the detective perched against the desk in front of her. He was leafing through her passport, his nostrils flared as though he’d found a dead bug between the pages.
‘I told you,’ she said. ‘I’m working for a client.’
She shifted in her chair. Riva was certainly one of the reasons she was here, anyway. The detective regarded her down the length of his nose. It was slightly hooked and, with his close-set eyes, it gave him the look of an eagle.
His name was Vasco. He was an
