The Vanishing Point

by Val McDermid

  He went back to his beer and sandwich and contemplated his options. He had another week’s work here in Detroit, then he was due to fly back to the UK. He had unfinished business with Stephanie and he wanted it sorted out sooner rather than later.

  Pete had been at a loss for some time over Stephanie. He couldn’t work out why she hadn’t come back to him. She belonged with him. He was devoted to her. Nobody could love her the way he did. He’d offered her everything a woman could want and still she denied herself. But now the kid was in the picture, he was sure she’d see things differently. You needed two people to take proper care of a kid. She must realise that now.

  OK, he’d resented Jimmy when he’d first been born, but that was because Stephanie was spending so much time and energy on that slapper Scarlett and her bastard. Time she should have been devoting to him and their relationship. All his mates agreed. Her place was in her own home, not out in that bloody plastic palace in the middle of Essex, helping out with a kid whose own father was too busy with his parasite DJ career to be bothered taking responsibility. Early on, he’d driven out there to take a look at it. Just out of curiosity. It wasn’t hard to find, and it was every bit as ugly as he’d expected. He couldn’t understand how a woman with as much taste as Stephanie could abide being there.

  But things were different now. OK, it wouldn’t be the same as having his own son. That would come later, once they were settled down as a ready-made family. But he could bring Jimmy up properly. Show him what it was to be a man. The kid had been over-indulged from birth. He’d been cuddled and soothed instead of disciplined. And what was the result? He was a spoilt cry-baby. But Pete would soon change that. Teach him to be a little man. Strong and resilient. Stephanie would be proud when she saw how he could take responsibility for giving a boy manly guidance. He could see them in years to come, the boy knowing his place and showing he knew the way to behave.

  He’d taken the first step by building a connection with Jimmy that was based on discipline and doing as he was told. Back when the Scarlett Harlot had still been alive, Pete had volunteered at the kid’s nursery school. They’d been delighted by this charming man who turned up once a week with various musicians dedicated to working with the children. The kids made noise on a variety of instruments, which Pete painstakingly recorded then engineered into something approximating music. He posted the end results on YouTube, where adoring parents could indulge in the fantasy that little Orlando and Keira were fast-tracking towards the Young Musician of the Year.

  And the teacher’s pet was little Jimmy Higgins. Actually, he did seem to have a bit more of an idea than most of the kids. Probably because he’d been exposed to loud rhythmic music from an early age, thanks to his useless waster father. Pete fed that green shoot and made Jimmy push himself to try harder. It had been gratifying to watch the kid learn about carrot and stick. Maybe, once he’d got Stephanie sorted out, he could make something of the kid as a musician.

  His fantasy was shattered by a faint, thin wail from above. Pete slapped his palm hard on the table then took off up the stairs. His hand was itching to deliver a hard slap. The kid had to learn, after all.

  32

  First there was the surgery. What Simon called ‘a wide local excision’, it was designed to leave Scarlett with as much breast tissue as possible. Because of the early diagnosis, he was confident they could cut away the cancerous tissue and clean margins around it, leaving the disease without a foothold in her body. As well as the cancer, they took the lymph node nearest that part of the breast. ‘We call this a sentinel node biopsy because it’s like an outpost for your immune system. If it’s clear, the chances are the rest of your body’s clear,’ he explained.

  Scarlett coped well with the surgery. Her high level of physical fitness helped. Even after Jimmy’s birth, she’d continued to swim every day. She’d bought a cross trainer too, and ran five kilometres three or four times a week. Simon said apart from the cancer she was in great shape and encouraged her to get back on her regime as soon as possible.

  But that wasn’t enough to keep the pain and fear at bay. She wasn’t on morphine for long, and I could see she was suffering. ‘You don’t have to put up with the pain,’ I said. ‘They’ll give you something to ease it. There’s no advantage in hurting.’

  She grimaced. ‘The painkillers send me sky high. I don’t like drugs. Don’t like the way they make me feel. Never have. It’s bearable, Steph, trust me. Because I know I’m getting better, I can stand it. It won’t last long.’ She puffed out a breath. ‘And Simon says the surgery was successful. Now I just have to go through the chemo and watch my hair fall out.’

  Which it did, in handfuls. After the first dose of chemo, a grim day when Scarlett endured an intravenous infusion of toxic drugs and felt increasingly lousy as the hours passed, her hair started to thin. By the time she’d undergone three sessions, there were clumps missing. It looked like she’d been in a particularly aggressive catfight.

  Back at the hacienda that evening, she decided to take the bold step of shaving her head. But first she had to find a hat. Nothing in her wardrobe fitted the bill, so she dispatched Leanne down the A13 to the late-night shopping possibilities of Lakeside shopping centre.

  By the time Leanne returned with bulging carrier bags, we had trimmed Scarlett’s hair to stubble. She held the heavy swatch in her hand, her eyes glistening with tears. ‘What do you think, Steph? Should I keep it? Tie it up in a ribbon to remind myself what I’ve lost?’

  ‘It’s up to you. But it’ll grow back, you know. With some people, their hair actually comes back thicker than before.’

  She made a face. ‘You’re right.’ She crossed to the kitchen bin but just before she dumped the hair inside, she stopped herself. ‘What am I thinking?’ she said. ‘You need a picture of this. There’s a piece in this for somebody’s women’s page.’ Scarlett shook her head in disbelief. ‘Bloody hell, Steph, we’re losing our touch. Get the camera out.’

  And so I did what I was told. I shot her stubbled head from every side, I shot her looking regretfully at the severed tail of hair in her hands, I shot her gleaming head after the electric razor had stripped it bare and finally I shot her trying on the array of hats Leanne had brought back.

  ‘I like this best,’ Scarlett announced, turning her head this way and that in front of her dressing-room mirror. It was a sage-green cloche with an upturned brim made from a light fleece. It suited her, especially when she smiled.

  ‘Good pick,’ Leanne said. ‘They do it in three or four different fabrics and about ten colours. I can go back tomorrow and do a total commando raid. You’ll have hats for all weather and all your different outfits.’

  Scarlett caught my eye. ‘It’ll be a whole new me,’ she said, not quite managing to hide her sadness. ‘I’ll be like the queen, never seen out of the house without a hat.’

  ‘You’ll be a style icon,’ I said, trying to reassure her.

  ‘Maybe. But right now, this style icon needs to go to bed.’ She pulled the hat off, yawning. ‘Poor Jimmy’s going to freak out in the morning when he sees me.’

  But he didn’t. He barely registered the change. I was taken aback. Like Scarlett, I’d expected him to be scared or upset or, at the very least, bewildered. I asked Simon about it when I saw him at the next chemo appointment. ‘You’d be surprised,’ he said. ‘Kids respond to the person, not the appearance. I’ve seen cases where the parents were terrified of letting the child see the patient because they thought it would be a nightmarish experience. But that’s not how it works. Even when the cancer or the treatment causes quite serious disfigurement, the patient’s children seem not to be frightened or revolted. It’s an interesting demonstration of their ability to understand that what makes us who we are is what’s on the inside, not the outside.’ He gave a sad little smile. ‘One of the traits I wish we could hang on to into adulthood.’

  Scarlett had clearly taken Simon’s point on board. We were driving back to Essex whe
n she brought the conversation up again. ‘I’m glad Jimmy isn’t scared of my new look,’ she said.

  ‘He knows who you are. And he knows he loves you.’

  ‘He’s always known who I am. Not like the punters who’ve been fooled by Leanne all these years.’

  ‘People see what they expect to see,’ I said. ‘It’s why eyewitness evidence is notoriously unreliable in court. Our eyes see a glimpse of something and our brain fills in the rest of the picture based on what we remember and what we know. Punters in a club or at a fashion show or backstage at a gig expect to see Scarlett, so that’s what their brain tells them. You might have run into trouble if Joshu had started running off at the mouth and people started looking for incongruities. Because then they would have found them. But luckily that never came up.’

  ‘You wouldn’t need Joshu mouthing off now, though. Look at me. I’ve put weight on, my face looks like the full moon, and I’ve got no hair. I can’t have Leanne walking around looking like the old me, can I?’

  I suppose I hadn’t really considered the question till Scarlett brought it up. ‘You mean it’s time for her to go back to being a brunette?’

  Scarlett sighed. ‘For starters. Yeah. She needs a different haircut too. Short, something that makes the shape of her face look different. More than that, though. I think it might be time for her to bugger off to Spain.’

  I was shocked by her casual delivery. Leanne had lived with her for a couple of years by that point. She’d picked up the pieces when Scarlett’s marriage collapsed. She’d played a crucial role in bringing up Jimmy. She’d supported her through the cancer diagnosis, not to mention the exhaustion and depression that came with the chemo. And now Scarlett was talking about sending her cousin into exile with as much emotion as she’d shown when she’d changed window cleaners the year before.

  ‘You don’t think you’re going to need her help getting through the rest of the treatment? She’s been a real rock.’

  Scarlett reached into her bag and pulled out her water bottle. She took a long drink, then smacked her lips in satisfaction. ‘It’s not been as bad as I thought it was going to be,’ she said. ‘Yeah, I feel like shit after I’ve had a session, but I can cope with it. I’ve got Marina looking after the cooking and taking care of Jimmy and running the cleaners.’ She reached over and patted my thigh. ‘And you’ve been fantastic. I couldn’t have got through this without you, Steph. But the last thing I need at the moment is for somebody to see Leanne out and about in Tesco looking like a healthy version of me. All it takes is one happy snapper to post a pic on Twitter or a few seconds of video on YouTube and suddenly the red-tops’ll be asking all the wrong questions.’ She pulled her hat off and scratched her head. ‘I’m not up to handling that,’ she said. ‘No way.’

  She had a point. And it wasn’t as if Leanne had any grounds for complaint. She’d done what was asked of her, no question about it. Even when she’d had a drink, even in the small hours when the freelances were pretending to be her friend, even in the ladies’ rooms in the VIP areas when the Colombian marching powder was on offer, she’d kept her mouth shut and never so much as hinted that there was a dark secret lurking in the closet.

  But on the other side of the equation, she’d lived a life she could only have dreamed of when she was scraping along the bottom on a scummy Dublin satellite housing estate. She’d been housed and fed, she had money in her pocket for clothes and make-up and spa treatments. She’d been to every cool party and hip club that she fancied and, unlike most of the bimbos on the circuit, she hadn’t had to shag anyone to earn that access. The upside of the childcare she’d provided had been the chance to spend time with Jimmy, a kid who was generally more rewarding to be with than most toddlers.

  And it wasn’t as if Scarlett was planning to cast her adrift without a bean. Leanne had already visited the villa in the Spanish hills that Scarlett had bought for her. Scarlett had organised the conversion of the pool house into a nail bar where she could do manicures, pedicures and reflexology. Leanne would walk into a home of her own with a readymade business literally at her fingertips. Really, she could have no grounds for complaint.

  And yet. And yet . . . I couldn’t help thinking it wasn’t going to be smooth sailing. But Scarlett clearly shared none of my misgivings.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘I think I’ll give it a couple of weeks then tell her it’s time to start making plans.’

  A lot can happen in a couple of weeks. By the time Scarlett’s notional deadline rolled around, getting rid of Leanne was the last thing on her mind.

  33

  Stephanie paused to drink from her water bottle. Vivian glanced at her watch. She’d missed lunch and it looked like dinner was going the same way. ‘You weren’t lying when you said it was a long story.’

  ‘I’m sorry. But you did say you wanted to know everything that might have a bearing on Jimmy’s disappearance.’

  ‘It certainly sounds like he’s had an exceptional run of experiences.’ And will spend most of his adult life in therapy. ‘I think we need to—’ Her attempt to suggest a break for food was sabotaged by a knock at the door. Vivian nodded to Lia Lopez, who opened up to reveal Abbott looking pissed off.

  ‘Sorry to interrupt,’ he said. ‘But I need to speak with Agent McKuras.’

  Vivian was on her feet before he’d finished talking. She took his arm and steered him back into the corridor. ‘Sorry, but I need to eat,’ she said, leading the way down the hallway towards the concourse. ‘I can’t concentrate for five more minutes unless I get some food in me.’

  ‘OK,’ Abbott said, trailing in her wake. He was a married man; he knew better than to argue when a woman displayed all the signs of low blood sugar. Vivian strode through the crowds of passengers, making straight for the Burger King on the food court. Once she had two cheeseburgers and a large coffee in front of her, he decided it was safe to speak.

  ‘We’ve tracked the boy and his kidnapper from the security area. They took the first available exit and emerged on to the landside concourse. They didn’t go near baggage reclaim. Instead they made straight for the parking garage across the way from the arrivals hall. Interestingly, the guy didn’t go to the payment machines. He didn’t seem to have a parking ticket to validate. He just walked straight in with the kid and they got into an elevator. And that’s where it gets interesting. They don’t show up on any of the footage of the elevator exits.’

  Vivian frowned but couldn’t say anything through a mouthful of food.

  ‘Ask me how that could possibly be. I know you’re dying of curiosity,’ Abbott said.

  Vivian swallowed and humoured him. ‘How could that possibly be?’ He was doing the scut work on the case, after all. He deserved a little slack.

  ‘At twelve fifty-seven, somebody sprayed black paint over the lens of the camera that covers the elevators on the thirteenth level. There weren’t many vehicles up there, so there wasn’t anyone around to witness what happened. Or if there was, they didn’t give a shit about somebody knocking out a CCTV camera.’

  ‘What images are there before twelve fifty-seven?’

  ‘Not much. There’s no sign of anyone approaching, which means they likely came up on the camera from behind and sprayed it kind of up and under. The control room noticed the camera was out of action about forty minutes later and reported it for routine maintenance. It was only when I started asking questions that they checked it out and discovered it hadn’t simply malfunctioned – it had been vandalised.’

  ‘To stop us seeing them emerging from the elevator,’ Vivian said. ‘Judging by the look on your face, we’re not about to cut to the good news.’

  ‘There is no good news. Not at this point. We don’t know what happened after they left the elevator. The presumption would be that they got into a vehicle. But which vehicle? We have no idea when they left the parking garage. They could have sat there for half-hour in the back of a panel van, for crying out loud. We have no way of knowing.’
/>   ‘What about the exit footage? Whatever vehicle they were in, they had to leave at some point.’

  ‘It’s a waste of time, Vivian. We don’t know what the guy looks like. It’s starting to look like he has an accomplice but there’s no telling whether that’s a male or a female. We are totally pissing into the wind.’

  Vivian suddenly lost her appetite. With every lead that frittered away to nothing, the chances of recovering Jimmy alive grew smaller. It had been over five hours since he’d disappeared. The shrinking window of opportunity for his recovery left a bitter taste in her mouth that no amount of fast food could take away. She pushed her second burger away, then, on second thoughts, she picked it up. If she’d been starving, Stephanie would be too. ‘Thanks, Don. I appreciate you chasing this.’ She stood up. ‘I need to get back to the witness.’

  ‘Sure. The control room’s got a whole bunch of staff tracking back through the concourse cameras to try and get a fix on where he came from. I’ll let you know as soon as I have anything. None of the no-shows matched our guy, by the way. An elderly Hassidic Jew, a middle-aged black woman and a female student from Northwestern. So your witness was on the money with her suggestion.’ He followed her back down the concourse. As they grew close to the interview room, he put a hand on her arm. ‘Don’t take this too personally, Vivian.’

  ‘If you’d sat listening to that woman for as long as I have, you’d be taking it personally too, Don. Sometimes that’s the only acceptable route to go down.’ She shook off his hand. ‘I know you’re working your ass off on this,’ she added, softening her tone not because she was bothered about hurting his feelings but because she was happy to do whatever it took not to jeopardise Jimmy’s chances. ‘And I totally trust you not to leave a CCTV pixel unturned.’ She delivered her best smile but her head was already back with Stephanie, ready for the next instalment.