The Vanishing Point

by Val McDermid

  ‘Everybody that knew him says he wasn’t a bad lad,’ Scarlett said wearily. ‘He was just weak. And lazy. If you’re rich and you’re weak and lazy, somebody makes sure you end up with a job and shit. But if you’re poor, you end up like my dad.’ It was another of those startling insights. And as soon as she’d spoken, Scarlett looked as if she wanted to snatch the words back.

  I didn’t want to make an issue of it. I was beginning to suspect there might be more to the Scarlett Harlot than met the eye, and I didn’t want to make her wary of me. ‘How did he die?’ I said, moving the conversation along. I thought I knew the answer, but I wanted to hear it from her. To see how honest she was going to be.

  ‘You know how he died. You’ve not come here without googling me. It’s on the Internet. You tell me.’ Arms folded again, she stared me down.

  ‘Of course I googled you. I checked you out before I agreed to meet you in the first place. If I hadn’t been interested by what I read, you’d never have heard my name. But that doesn’t mean I believe everything online. I’d be pretty crap at my job if I did. I know what I read about your dad. You probably know what I read. What I’m asking is for you to tell me the truth.’ We were barely an hour into the day and already I was feeling worn out. Scarlett was harder to calm down than a cat in a vet’s waiting room. Most minor celebs were so thrilled to have an audience and so convinced that every aspect of their lives was fascinating, the problem was shutting them up. But Scarlett was making me work for a living. It had been a while, and I was no longer certain I was going to enjoy this project.

  She glared at me for a little longer, then relented. ‘It’s true. What it says online. He died from AIDS. He must have got it off a dirty needle. In jail, they all shared needles all the time. They didn’t have a choice. There’s no fucking needle exchanges in the nick. So, yeah, a dirty needle.’ Her mouth twisted in a harsh line. ‘Or else whatever he had to do to get smack when he was inside. I’m not stupid, I know what goes on.’

  ‘That must have been hard for your mum.’

  ‘No kidding. All the finger-pointing, the name-calling. I was too young to get it at the time, but believe me, it went on for years. Until I was well able to understand. Ignorant bastards that thought because he had AIDS, so did she. And so did me and Jade. At school, in the street, lads would point and jeer, “There goes the AIDS sisters,” and shit like that. We had to toughen up early, me and Jade.’

  ‘Was he back home when he died?’

  ‘No, thank God. That would have made it even worse. He died in jail. My mum went mental at them, said he should be allowed out on compassionate grounds, but her heart wasn’t in it. She likes a battle for its own sake. Having him home would have done her head in. It would have been me and Jade looking after him, not her.’

  ‘But you were only six. And Jade was, what, eight?’

  Scarlett’s wry smile reappeared. ‘You’ve led a sheltered life, haven’t you? When your dad’s a junkie and your mother’s an alkie, you grow up fast. Or you don’t grow up at all. I looked at them and I knew one way or another I wasn’t gonna end up like them. Like Jade turned out.’ She locked eyes with me. ‘I didn’t just fall into the Goldfish Bowl. I had a plan.’ She pushed her hair back from her face and thrust her chest out in a parody of seduction. ‘But we don’t have to tell them that, do we?’

  8

  I don’t know which of us was more taken aback by Scarlett’s moment of revelation. She backtracked almost immediately. ‘Listen to me,’ she laughed. ‘Bigging myself up. Like I’ve got brains enough to plan any further ahead than my next shag.’

  But I knew better. I knew I’d seen a glimpse of something that didn’t fit with her public image. Thick but well-meaning, that was how the world saw Scarlett. And that was the story I was being well paid to reproduce. I could do that standing on my head. What would make it much more interesting would be if there was another layer hidden beneath that surface. A layer I could never use in my ‘autobiography’. But writers waste nothing. Scarlett’s secret interior life might possibly be the springboard for the fiction I’d always nursed a desire to write.

  For the rest of the day, she played to her image so thoroughly I almost believed I’d been mistaken. But when I went home and started transcribing the recording of our session, I could hear that spark firing like an artillery piece among the dull thudding of Scarlett’s narrative. I’d garnered a lot of material for Scarlett’s early days – and a lot I would leave on the cutting-room floor, for everyone’s sake – but more importantly I’d found a reason to be excited about this project. I was just sorry that Pete was working so I couldn’t share my enthusiasm with him. Disappointed, I settled for texting him. But he was obviously too busy to respond. At least there was a reply waiting when I got up – he’d eventually got back to me at 3.17 a.m. Of course, I’d been fast asleep by then.

  I was eager to get back to Scarlett. I had no idea what I might tease out of her but I had a feeling that what lay beneath might animate the superficial story itself, making it a better read.

  This time, when I pulled into the hacienda there was no room in the garage. The convertible had been joined by a jacked-up black Golf with a full body kit, gold trim and tinted windows. It had to be Joshu’s wheels. Anybody else would have been too embarrassed to be seen behind that bling on wheels. Next to it was a discreet silver BMW 5-series.

  I didn’t have to wonder about the Beemer’s owner for long. When I walked into the kitchen, Scarlett, Joshu and George were standing at three points of a triangle, every one of them posturing like an illustration for a kinesics seminar. Scarlett had her arms folded tight across her chest in a defiant statement I was growing all too familiar with; Joshu, charmless in bed hair, boxers and an Arsenal T-shirt, had his head thrust forward and his hands on his hips; while George leaned languid against the range, right hand cupping his left elbow, left hand tickling the air.

  They barely glanced at me as I entered. ‘It makes sense whichever way you look at it,’ George said. ‘Surely you must see that?’

  ‘Not the way I look at it,’ Joshu muttered mutinously. ‘What about my image, man?’

  ‘You’re already spoken for, in the eyes of your public, Joshu,’ George said. ‘It’s not as if your relationship with Scarlett is a state secret.’ He dipped his head towards me and, without breaking stride, added, ‘Good morning, Stephanie. How lovely to see you.’

  ‘Just because everybody knows she is my woman doesn’t mean I is not my own man, like. And what you is proposin’ is like a shackle to me.’

  In spite of Joshu’s mangling of the English language, a little sense was starting to emerge. I gave George my best Lady Bracknell. ‘You’re suggesting they get married?’

  ‘Call me old-fashioned, but she is having his baby.’ George unfolded his arms and made for the coffee machine. Scarlett opened the cupboard and threw the bag of capsules down in front of him. Dangerously close to ‘at’ him.

  ‘We’re having a baby together,’ Scarlett corrected him. ‘And I don’t see any need to be married for that to happen.’

  ‘Yeah. We don’t need a piece of paper from the man.’ Joshu scratched his balls. I think he was going for nonchalant.

  ‘I appreciate that.’ George turned to me. ‘Coffee, Stephanie?’

  ‘Please. I think I had the purple one yesterday.’

  ‘Good choice. Joshu, I’m not suggesting for a moment that you need a marriage licence to legitimise your relationship with Scarlett. The paparazzi seem to have obviated that necessity, frankly. What I am suggesting is that a wedding would be a marvellously profitable enterprise in the not too distant future.’

  ‘Say again?’ Joshu cleaned his ear with his fingernail then chewed off the residue.

  ‘What he’s saying is we can turn it into a nice little earner,’ Scarlett said. ‘Am I right, Georgie?’

  He smiled. ‘In a nutshell, my dear. Think of it as a business proposition. We’ll make a TV documentary, get some designer to do the
clothes and some hotel to do the catering. We’ll flog the exclusive to Yes! and we’ll bring out a new fragrance for the ceremony. Stephanie, remind me, when’s the book due to be published?’

  ‘A month before the baby’s due.’

  ‘Perfect. Then that’s when we’ll do it.’ George beamed around the room as he handed me my coffee. ‘It’ll put thousands on the book sale.’

  ‘What? So I can look like a bloody beached whale in my wedding photos?’ Indignation had brought a flush to Scarlett’s cheeks.

  ‘Darling, we’ll get the best designer to do the frock,’ George said. ‘You’ll look bloody gorgeous – nobody will notice your bump.’

  Joshu sniggered. ‘It’s not a designer you’re gonna need, it’s a brick wall for her to stand behind.’

  ‘Shut it, you,’ Scarlett snarled. ‘If it wasn’t for me, nobody would be interested in buying up your wedding.’

  ‘If it wasn’t for you, nobody would be talking about me having a fucking wedding except my aunties.’

  The conversation was depressing the hell out of me. It’s not that I’m a great believer in the institution of marriage. But one thing I do believe is that love should have something to do with it. For as long as I’d been in the room, nobody had mentioned love or affection. They’d only talked about the baby as a cog in the business wheel. You didn’t have to be clairvoyant to know that, if this marriage happened, they’d be lucky to make their paper anniversary.

  ‘Think of it as the final public rehabilitation,’ George said.

  ‘Nobody can accuse you of being racist if you’re marrying Joshu.’

  ‘Oh, so I is the token black man in my own marriage, is that it?’

  For once, I was with Joshu.

  ‘Shut up,’ Scarlett said again. ‘I got nothing to prove on that score, Georgie. If I do marry this twat, it won’t be to save my skin from the bleating lefties. What you said about making a big deal out of it – you think that’ll work? You think we’ll get it all paid for, and an earner too?’

  ‘I’m absolutely certain,’ George said. ‘I’ve sounded out a couple of people already and believe me, the market is definitely there. Stephanie, tell her how getting the headlines can impact on a book’s sales.’

  I gave George a quick glance that should have told him how little I appreciated being dragged into this sordid arrangement. ‘He’s right,’ I admitted. ‘Being in the news will take the sales to a different level. It reminds people of who you are and why they should be interested in you. It’s like doubling or trebling your advertising budget.’

  ‘See, Joshu?’ Scarlett crossed the room and put her arms round him. ‘We should do it. We’re not going to be headlines forever, babe—’

  ‘You speak for yourself,’ he grumbled.

  She pulled away. ‘OK, then. I’m not going to be headlines forever, so I need to make my pile while I can. And don’t be kidding yourself, Joshu. This isn’t the wedding I was dreaming of. A little bit of romance would have been nice. But I gotta take my chances when they come up. If we can really make ourselves some serious cash here, we should do it. It’s not going to change anything between us.’

  ‘And you can have a pre-nup drawn up, if you’re worried about losing out should things not go the way you hope,’ George chimed in. ‘Really, Joshu, there’s no downside to this.’

  ‘Not for you, maybe. But my family’s never going to speak to me again.’

  ‘You hate your family,’ Scarlett said. She leaned into him and rubbed the tip of her nose against his. ‘And who else would have you, anyway?’

  ‘I could have my pick,’ he said. But his heart wasn’t in it. He grabbed her buttocks and hauled her close. ‘Aw, fuck it, why not? OK, George, we’ll do it. Sort out all the arrangements, but you better make sure we got an A-list guest list and all the expenses covered. I don’t want to be shelling out for no wedding.’

  George beamed. ‘I knew you’d see sense.’

  I tried not to gag. ‘There’s just one thing,’ I said. They all looked at me expectantly. ‘You need to come up with a romantic proposal story for the media. Because it’s supposed to be the groom who makes the proposal, not your agent.’

  For the first time, they were all lost for words.

  Trust is the keystone of being an effective ghost. You’ve got a very small window of opportunity to build a bridge. I’ve heard some ghosts say it doesn’t matter whether the clients like you, it’s whether they think you can deliver. But I don’t agree. I think you need to make them think you’re friends.

  I take pride in my work. I want to write the best book possible. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve worked with individuals I didn’t gel with and I knocked myself out to keep that lack of rapport from the readers. But if you want them to open up, to share the things they’ve never spoken of before, to admit you to the story behind the story, you need trust.

  Damage takes people different ways. Sometimes it leaves them frantic to believe in someone. Anyone, really. Even someone who’s paid to smile and tell them they’re extraordinary. Others swing to the opposite pole. It’s as if their receptors have been permanently degraded so they can’t let themselves rely on another. I thought at first Scarlett was one of those. That no matter how hard I tried to build a connection with her, it wouldn’t ever be more than superficial. It was a frustrating thought, because those glimpses behind the mask had intrigued me personally as well as professionally.

  But I was wrong about Scarlett. By the end of our nine days together, it felt like we’d taken the first steps towards an unlikely friendship. I’d started in my usual position of being prepared to put aside what I thought of her in the interests of making a book. By the end, I found that I actually liked her. That liking didn’t alter the facts of Scarlett – she was ignorant, she was brash, she was adrift from any kind of roots. But honestly, what else could she have been, given the hand she’d been dealt?

  The thing about Scarlett was that she was a lot smarter than she let on when the cameras were on her. She knew the unpalatable facts about herself and in private, when nobody was looking, she was trying to change that. I caught her watching a history channel on the TV one morning when I arrived earlier than expected. Once when she was out of the room, I flicked on her iPad and found she was reading a book about Michelle and Barack Obama. One evening when there had been a mix-up over car bookings, I drove her up to Stansted airport and when I went to change the station from Radio 4, she told me to leave it on, casual as you like. It wasn’t exactly Pygmalion, but it was interesting.

  I admired her for that. I also respected the way she hadn’t been destroyed by her background. It seemed that everyone she’d grown up around was addicted or behind bars. Or both. Drink, drugs and violence were the chains that shackled her family and her neighbours. Somehow, Scarlett had found the bloody-minded strength to choose a different path. Even Joshu wasn’t quite the skank he appeared to be – I had a shrewd feeling the nice middle-class upbringing would surface when he’d finished playing with the bad boys. I’m pretty good at walking in other people’s shoes, but I could not imagine what it had taken for Scarlett to reach escape velocity from the grinding awfulness of her life in Leeds.

  Scarlett had made a difference in her own life. It was up to me to help her show the world – and the kid this book was for – just how much steel there was beneath the brass.

  9

  Vivian McKuras looked unimpressed with Stephanie’s description of Scarlett Higgins. But before she could pass judgement, her phone beeped. ‘I’ll be back,’ she said, heading for the door without a backward glance.

  ‘Abbott,’ she said once she was clear of the interview room. ‘Thanks for touching base.’

  She’d kept her message to her two colleagues as low key as she could. They were both technically senior to her, but she was determined not to back down from the lead role in this investigation. The ambitious part of her had almost hoped neither would get back to her, but the decent humane part knew she’d need help w
ith the nuts and bolts. Of the two agents stationed at the international terminal, Don Abbott had been the one she’d hoped would respond to her message about the abducted child. He was smart and keen, but most of all, he treated Vivian exactly the same as his male colleagues. ‘What do you need?’ he asked. ‘You got the Amber Alert up and running, I see. You got any leads that need chasing down?’

  ‘It’s not straightforward.’ It wasn’t easy for her to admit that, but at least Abbott wouldn’t use it against her in front of colleagues later. ‘They’re British. I’ve been interviewing the woman who was with the kid – she’s in the process of adopting him. And so far, she’s not given me anything you could call a motive.’

  Abbott made a growling noise in his throat. ‘Pain in the ass. Your note says the kid’s birth mother was a reality TV star. What about good old-fashioned kidnap for ransom?’

  ‘It could be, but that’s a waiting game and we’ve heard nothing so far.’

  ‘Sounds like you need to get back in the interview room. See if you can get something more solid from this woman. In the meantime, do you want me to check out the CCTV footage? See if I can maybe pinpoint them leaving the terminal?’

  ‘That would be great. The control room are pulling it together for us, but I’d be a lot happier to have your eyes across it than theirs. The other thing I haven’t had a chance to check out – this guy must have followed them airside somehow. The easiest way is for him to have had a boarding pass for a flight going out of here sometime today. But obviously, he didn’t get on a plane. So some airline has a no-show that must be our guy.’

  ‘I get you. Someone who checked in and cleared security but didn’t show up at the gate. There’s always a few of those every day. Leave it with me, Vivian. I’ll see what I can chase up.’

  ‘Thanks, Don.’

  ‘No problem. When it’s a kid at stake, we all gotta run the extra mile.’