The Insider. Ava McCarthy
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Название: The Insider

Автор: Ava McCarthy

Издательство: HarperCollins

Жанр: Полицейские детективы

Серия:

isbn: 9780007321094

isbn:

СКАЧАТЬ ‘r’ and rapid-fire delivery. ‘It’s Spanish for pirate.’

      It suddenly sounded childish, but he nodded as though this were a sensible choice. He held her gaze, compressing his mouth into a neat smile. ‘Is it okay if I ask you these questions?’

      She nodded and felt the heat rise in her cheeks. She sat down on the bed and glared at her chunky shoes, willing her fiery colour to subside. She was acutely aware of her mother standing on the other side of the door, listening to every word.

      Dillon’s eyes swept the room, taking in the jumble of dismantled computer hardware and gutted radios. ‘Are you building something?’

      She attempted a casual shrug. ‘Put me in a room with a box that has wires in it and I’ll take it apart.’ Then she bit her lip, regretting the flippant attitude. She was in trouble here, and she knew it.

      Dillon wheeled out the chair from under her desk. There was a large red parcel on the seat. Harry snatched it out of his way and cradled it on her lap. He sat down facing her, arms folded.

      ‘You understand why I’m here, don’t you?’ he said.

      Now they were getting to it. She stared at the floor. ‘Yeah.’

      ‘Mind if I take a look?’ He gestured towards her PC.

      She shook her head, but he’d already turned round to face the screen. His fingers sped across the keyboard. Harry edged further along the bed until she was close enough to see what he was doing. Text flew up the screen as he browsed through her files and checked out her hacking tools.

      ‘Nice house you live in,’ he said, without looking at her.

      Harry raised her eyebrows. ‘I suppose. We’ve only been here a year.’ She looked at the frothy white curtains and the lacy bed linen. It was a princess’s room. Absurd that she should still miss the poky converted attic she’d shared with Amaranta, with its narrow divans and the skipping rope her sister had stretched along the floor to demarcate her territory. But her dad had got this new job. Her mother harped on about how badly the Schrodinger job had ended, but her dad said this time everything would be different. He was right about that.

      She turned back to Dillon to find him watching her. His gaze flicked over her school uniform and came to rest on the shoes that made her look like she had club feet. She closed her eyes in mortification.

      ‘Did you move schools too?’ he said, turning his attention back to her files.

      Something gnawed at her insides the minute she thought about school. She shrugged, and made the kind of face that said it was no big deal.

      ‘Yeah, but I can handle it. Except all they talk about are skiing holidays and designer clothes.’ She lowered her voice and nodded towards the door. ‘Mum thinks I should be making more friends.’

      ‘Mums are hard to please.’

      She darted a quick look at him. There was no hint of mockery in his dark eyes.

      He indicated the package on her lap. ‘Christmas present?’

      She shoved the parcel to one side. ‘It’s for my dad. Haven’t given it to him yet.’

      ‘He’s away?’

      ‘He played poker on Christmas Eve. He’ll probably turn up in a day or two.’

      Dillon stopped what he was doing. ‘He missed Christmas?’

      Harry shrugged. ‘He misses most Christmases.’

      Dillon was silent for a moment. She shoved the parcel on to the bed, the contents rattling. She’d bought her father a full poker set: six hundred plastic chips, two decks of cards and a thick rule book, all stored in their own shiny black case. She’d saved up for it for months.

      Dillon turned his attention back to the screen. His eyes narrowed as he worked through one of her files, and Harry peered at the screen to see what had caught his interest. It was the code for one of the hacker tools she had designed herself.

      With a staccato flick of the keys, Dillon snapped the file shut and opened up another one. He scrolled down through it, and then stopped to examine it line by line. He gave a low whistle, his eyes riveted to the screen.

      He pointed to a line in the code. ‘What’s this bit doing?’

      Harry read through it and then started to explain her design, the words tumbling over each other in her impatience to communicate her ideas. She had to lean across him to reach the keyboard, and she became aware of the warmth of his body and the light spicy soap that he used.

      When she finished, he looked at her for a long moment, his eyes searching her face. ‘Did you do all this yourself?’

      ‘Yes.’ Harry took a deep breath. ‘Can I ask you a question now?’

      ‘Sure.’ His eyes never left hers.

      ‘How did you find me?’

      ‘That was easy. You posted too many details of your exploit on the bulletin boards. Security guys monitor those things all the time, you know. Stay online long enough and we can track you down, too.’

      Harry felt like an idiot. So simple. She’d been careless. But then, she wasn’t used to hiding.

      Dillon tapped a few keys and closed down her files. Then he spun the chair so that he was facing her. He picked up the screwdriver again and began turning it end over end on the desk.

      ‘You interfered with trading records belonging to the Dublin Stock Exchange,’ he said. ‘Do you know what happened when they found the error?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘The database administrator almost lost his job.’ Dillon leaned forward, his face stern. ‘He’s only twenty-four and his wife is pregnant.’

      Harry hung her head. Her skin crawled as though she had a nasty rash. ‘I didn’t think. It seemed such a small thing to do.’

      Dillon shook his head. ‘You’re not just messing with computers here, you’re screwing up people’s lives.’

      She couldn’t look at him. ‘I’m sorry.’

      ‘So tell me about the other systems you’ve damaged.’

      She jerked her head up. ‘But I’ve never done anything like this before. I don’t damage things, I just look around.’

      He watched her for a moment. She couldn’t tell if he believed her. Then he tossed the screwdriver on to the desk with a clatter and folded his arms, as though he’d made up his mind.

      ‘Okay, I’ve seen how you hack,’ he said. ‘Now I want to know why.’

      ‘But I’ve told you why.’

      ‘No, you haven’t. Your answer was a cop-out. Tell me again. Why do you want to hack?’

      Harry’s mind went blank. What kind of answer was he looking for? She felt as if she was back at school, with the teacher СКАЧАТЬ