The Vanishing Point

by Val McDermid

  ‘Where’s my grandson?’ Chrissie wasn’t about to bother with details like introductions. Up close, I could see the damage that distance had obscured. Her skin was rough, broken veins imperfectly covered by foundation. Too much mascara and shadow wasn’t enough of a distraction from the yellow tinge to the whites of her eyes or the pouchy bags beneath them. Her teeth were yellow and chipped, and the closer she got, the more her rank breath sickened me. Her arms and legs were skinny, but her torso was round and hard, like a little barrel. If you’d been looking for Scarlett’s mother, you wouldn’t have picked her out of a line-up.

  ‘You must be Mrs Higgins,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry we’re meeting in such sad circumstances.’

  She looked baffled by my politeness, like a bulldog confronted with a kid blowing bubbles. Not so Jade, who was hovering at her mother’s shoulder, stick-thin and pale, junkie chic from head to toe. The sort who always looks grubby, even straight from the shower. ‘Don’t come the toff with us, you posh bitch,’ she snarled. ‘Where’s our lad? What have you done with our Jimmy?’

  Luckily for me, George was at my shoulder, the perfect mixture of urbanity and steel. ‘In no sense is Jimmy yours,’ he said. ‘Scarlett made her intentions perfectly clear. If you are unhappy about that, I suggest you employ a lawyer.’

  ‘A fucking lawyer? You think I need a fucking lawyer to tell me who my own family are? That boy’s my grandson.’ Chrissie pointed at me dramatically. I could hear cameras clicking all around me. ‘She’s got no claim on him. She’s only after our Scarlett’s money.’

  ‘Greedy bitch,’ Jade echoed.

  I knew I was lost if I engaged with them. I’d be dragged down to their level and frankly they had more experience at the scummy end of the argument. But it was tempting. As if sensing this, George put a hand on my arm. ‘I doubt you could even tell me the boy’s birthday,’ he said dismissively.

  ‘Shut your yap, arsehole.’ This from Jade. ‘It’s not you we’re talking to. It’s the scheming conniving bitch here that needs to answer to Jimmy’s family.’

  George shook his head. ‘You’re wasting your time. If you’re trying to screw some hard-done-by deal out of a tabloid, let me say loud and clear, Scarlett put a roof over your heads and paid your bills for the last six years. In exchange, all she wanted was for you to stay away from her. The boy is nothing to do with you. Now either you behave like civilised people or I will have you thrown out of here.’

  Chrissie threw herself at him, fists flailing. Before she could make contact, Simon grabbed her from behind, pinning her arms to her side with the ease of practice. ‘Time to walk away, Chrissie,’ he said, backing her away from George. ‘Come on, let’s have a drink and a little talk about Scarlett.’

  She gave in ungracefully. But as Simon started to turn her away from us, she hawked up a gob of smoker’s phlegm and spat it full force towards George. Startled, he stepped back just in time and it splatted on the wooden boards centimetres from his shiny black lace-ups. He looked at the disgusting gobbet then stared at Chrissie and Jade in retreat. ‘Excellent,’ he said softly to me. ‘Spitting is not a good look for the tabloids. Dear Chrissie’s blown her chance of getting one of them in her corner. They know that moment’s going to be all over YouTube by bedtime.’

  ‘Do you think they will try to get custody of Jimmy?’

  ‘They don’t have a leg to stand on, which any lawyer worth their salt will tell them.’ He sighed. ‘Christ, I need a drink. This is like one of Dante’s circles of hell.’

  Nothing I could argue with there. Nor could I see much point in us being there. I was with Marina. I didn’t need this in order to mourn Scarlett. It was an ordeal that had to be endured. And always at the back of my mind as I scanned the room and made Scarlett small talk with people I barely knew was the fear that Pete would use this event the same way he’d used Joshu’s memorial – to get his claws back into me.

  So I was only half-listening when one of the hacks button-holed me and started in on how wonderful it was of me to take Jimmy on. ‘He’s my godson,’ I said. ‘I was there when he was born and I’ve been part of his life ever since. I’m the lucky one here.’

  ‘All the same,’ she persisted. ‘To take on someone else’s kid when there’s no financial provision is a big ask. You get top marks in my book.’

  I must have looked puzzled, for she gave me a look of transparently fake concern. ‘You didn’t know? She’s left everything to her charity. Every last penny. The kid doesn’t get a shilling.’

  45

  I found George over by the buffet, delicately nibbling a sausage roll and surveying the room like a hawk waiting for prey to stoop. ‘I’ve just had a very bizarre conversation with a Herald hackette,’ I said. ‘One of those where you have to pretend you know what they’re talking about or else you look like a complete twat.’

  George raised his eyebrows. I think it still surprises him when I use sweary words. ‘How very awkward for you. What was she saying?’

  ‘George, do you know anything about the terms of Scarlett’s will?’ Sometimes, taking a leaf out of Chrissie Higgins’ book seems like the best line of approach. Especially when you’re dealing with a master of diplomacy like Georgie.

  His smile was pained. He wrapped the remains of the sausage roll in a cocktail napkin and put it down. ‘Ah,’ he said, reaching for his gin and tonic.

  ‘So it’s true then?’

  He waved his free hand in a way that I think was meant to be nonchalant. ‘I don’t know what you’ve been told, Stephanie.’

  ‘My friendly reptile reckons Scarlett left the lot to her charity. Everything goes to the TOmorrow charitable trust. The house, the cash, the merchandising rights. The whole lot. Is that right?’

  ‘I was planning on sitting you down and telling you later in the week,’ he said, his eyes hangdog.

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ I said. ‘Jimmy doesn’t get a thing?’

  ‘Personal effects, that’s all. Which essentially means jewellery.’ His smile was like the grimace of a man going down for the third time. ‘There are some rather good pieces.’

  ‘You don’t think I’m going to sell his mother’s jewellery, do you? Christ, George, what do you take me for? And why am I only hearing about this now?’

  ‘Please, keep your voice down, Stephanie. There are ears all around us. It’s not good to air this in public. Let’s walk.’ He steered me out of the ballroom and down the hall through the hotel reception to the car park. We ended up in a hideous grotto, built, I suspect, for the benefit of wedding photographers. ‘I’m sorry you were kept in the dark, but Scarlett was most insistent.’

  ‘Why? Did she think I was like her scummy relatives? That I’d only take Jimmy on if he came stuffed with tenners? How do you think that makes me feel, George?’ I was probably shouting by then but I was past caring.

  ‘I entirely agree with you. And that’s precisely what I said to Scarlett when she told me what she’d done. I knew you wouldn’t walk away from the boy, whatever the financial arrangement.’ Again the pained smile. ‘Poor Scarlett didn’t have the benefit of our experience. She still found it hard to trust people where money was concerned. That’s why she paid Chrissie’s utility bills directly rather than give her the money for them.’

  I threw my hands in the air. ‘I can’t believe she’s left nothing for Jimmy. What about a trust to pay for his education?’ George shook his head. ‘How am I supposed to explain that to him when he’s old enough to understand?’

  ‘All you can do is show him her will. I made her put a clause in explaining why she was doing what she did.’

  ‘Really? There’s an explanation? It’s not just that her bloody cancer spread to her brain?’

  George steered me over to a curved stone bench and sat down. He crossed one elegant leg over the other and took a cigar case from his inside pocket. He took out a small cigar and lit it with a match from a cardboard book advertising a bar in New Orleans. It was only the second or third tim
e in our acquaintance I’d seen him smoke. A measure, then, of how stressful he was finding this conversation.

  He exhaled a mouthful of aromatic blue smoke and fixed his sorrowful gaze somewhere in the middle distance. ‘Her position goes thus. She started with nothing. Less than nothing, one might say, given her disadvantages. And purely by her own hard work and determination, she made it. Along the way, she saw a lot of spoiled brats. People who had wasted the opportunities their lives had laid on a plate for them. She talked about Joshu in that regard. A boy who had both brains and choices and who opted for what she called “arsing about with a set of decks”. She was determined that her son would not go the same way. Scarlett worked for everything she had, and she valued it. She wanted him to have the same drive and the same satisfactions. Not to hand him the easy life on a platter. And that’s why she decided not to make him a child of privilege.’

  It made a twisted kind of sense. Scarlett knew the level I lived at – comfortable, but not lavish. She knew I could afford the upkeep of a child, but not the indulgences of the rich. I only wished she’d trusted me enough to share her decision. ‘I can see her point,’ I said. ‘It would have been nice to hear it from her and not some tabloid hack, though.’

  George blew a perfect smoke ring. Of course he did. I suspect George was born with the ability to blow perfect smoke rings. ‘Scarlett didn’t always observe the niceties of civilised intercourse,’ he said wearily. ‘She did well for someone who had such a deprived upbringing. And I don’t mean deprived in the material sense. I mean deprived of all those elements that make you and me at home in the world. Stuff we take for granted. Like waiting for everyone at the table to be served before we begin eating. Like understanding that it’s possible to cook a curry from scratch. Like always saying thank you when someone sends you a bunch of flowers. They live like savages, Stephanie. The way she described her childhood made me want to weep. So she didn’t always understand the obligations of friendship. She should have told you. But I understand why she didn’t.’

  ‘I do too. And it makes me sad.’ I stood up and patted George’s shoulder. ‘There is one good thing about Scarlett’s will.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  I smiled. ‘I don’t think we’ll be hearing from Chrissie and Jade’s lawyers.’

  46

  You’d have thought I’d had enough shit to shovel for one day. But it wasn’t over yet. Not by a long chalk. I left George smoking his cigar in the ghastly grotto and headed back through the growing dusk across the car park to the hotel. I was almost home and dry when Pete stepped out from behind a parked SUV and blocked my way. ‘Hello, sweetheart,’ he said with the relaxed smile of a man who knows he’s welcome.

  My step stuttered and I recoiled backwards. But not fast enough. Pete moved more quickly than me and before I knew it, I had my back to the vehicle and he had an arm on either side of me. He stepped into me, pressing me close to the van. His familiar smell hit me and I felt sick. Impossible to remember now that once I’d revelled in the animal smell of him, loved that masculine fragrance that clung to his skin. Now I’d have settled for Scarlett Smile rather than this.

  ‘Let me go, Pete,’ I said, trying to sound calmer than I felt.

  ‘I can’t do that, Stephanie. It’s been too long since I held you.’ He rubbed his face against my neck. I felt the faintest shadow of stubble. He’d shaved before he came out and his skin was almost smooth against mine. There was something repulsive about the sensation.

  ‘Let me go,’ I insisted, turning my face away. ‘You know this is wrong, Pete. It’s over.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Stephanie. You need me now more than you ever did before. I know about the kid, you know. A boy needs a father if he’s not going to grow up a spoiled mummy’s boy. And I’m the perfect choice for the job.’ He was pressing me against the van. I could feel him growing hard against me. I was starting to feel genuinely afraid. This section of the car park was only overlooked by a few bedrooms and there were no lights on in any of them. His hot breath on my neck, his skin against mine, the pressure of his need combined to send a cold wave of fear through me. He’d never gone this far in his pursuit of me before.

  ‘I don’t need you, Pete. And I don’t want you. This isn’t right.’

  ‘Of course it’s right.’ His voice was harsher now. ‘You belong to me. You always have. Now we’re going to be a family. You and me and Jimmy. We’ll be together for ever.’

  ‘No,’ I shouted. ‘Get off me, Pete.’

  His hand shot out and slapped me. I gasped at the shock and pain, felt my eyes widening in fear and horror. ‘Don’t shout at me, Stephanie. Know what my trouble is? I let you get away with far too much before. I should have disciplined you more and indulged you less.’

  ‘Stop it, Pete.’ I didn’t mind begging if it got me off the hook. I was terrified now, knowing how much stronger than me he was.

  ‘“Stop it, Pete,”’ he mimicked. ‘Listen to yourself, Steph anie. You don’t exactly sound like you mean it. In fact I know you don’t mean it.’

  ‘This is wrong, Pete.’

  He gripped my cheeks tight in his hand, forcing my mouth into an O shape. ‘Where’s your policeman pal when you need him, eh? It’s not so much fun when you’ve not got a tame copper to warn me off, is it? What did you think you were doing, Stephanie, setting that plod on me? Do you really think he scared me, with his “It’s been pointed out to me that you are not an invited guest, sir. I’m afraid I’m going to have to escort you from the premises.” Pompous prick.’ He shook his head. ‘What? You couldn’t come and tell me yourself that I wasn’t welcome?’ He let go of my face, pushing my head back so it bounced painfully off the SUV’s window.

  ‘Like that would have worked,’ I spat back at him. ‘You can’t take a telling, can you? I am not your girlfriend,’ I said, syllable by angry syllable. ‘I never want to see you again.’

  I tensed for the slap that never came. Instead, I heard the familiar clatter of cowboy boots on Tarmac. Rapidly followed by Simon saying, ‘What the fuck? Steph, are you OK?’

  ‘Leave it out, pal, she’s with me,’ Pete snarled.

  I tried to wriggle free, but Pete’s weight told against me.

  ‘I think you better step away from the lady,’ Simon said. He looked more anxious than scary, but the bottom line was that he was a witness.

  ‘And I think you better butt out.’ To confront Simon, Pete had to turn sideways on to me. As he moved, I caught him off balance and pushed his hip forward as hard as I could. He stumbled away from me and that gave me enough time to get behind Simon. Forget feminism. At that moment I was more than happy to let a man protect me.

  ‘Are you OK, Steph?’ Simon didn’t take his eyes off Pete.

  ‘Thank you, yes.’

  ‘You’ve picked the wrong fight, mate,’ Pete said, eyes narrowing. ‘Never come between a man and his woman. Did they not teach you that at your posh school?’

  ‘He’s not my man and I am not his woman,’ I shouted. ‘He’s my ex but he can’t get that bit through his thick skull. It’s over, Pete. It’s been over for years. Now leave me alone.’

  Pete took a step towards Simon, hands clenching into fists. What I could see but he couldn’t was that George was moving up behind him, taking in the whole scenario with one long sweep of his eyes. To my astonishment, George set himself square on his toes behind Pete then with a swift one-two, he rabbit-punched him in the kidneys.

  Pete screamed in pain, half-turning as he fell to his knees. George side-stepped and gave him a mighty kick in the balls. Pete screamed again and rolled on to his side, curled up like a baby. ‘Leave her alone,’ George said in his dry, precise voice as he stepped over Pete’s moaning body, took my arm and swept me off towards the hotel.

  Simon brought up the rear, exclaiming at George’s pugilistic skills. ‘That was well impressive, George,’ he said for the third time as we turned into the foyer.

  ‘I had no idea you were the James B
ond sort of agent,’ I said, squeezing his arms.

  ‘I did a bit of boxing in the Guards,’ he said. ‘I train at a gym a couple of times a week, purely to keep fit. Haven’t hit a man in anger for thirty years.’ He winced. ‘I may have kicked him a little too hard. These are definitely not the shoes for it.’ He steered me away from the ballroom and into the hotel bar. We found a table in a corner and he sent Simon to the bar for large gins. ‘That was your ex, wasn’t it? The one you moved to Brighton to get away from?’

  I nodded. ‘That bit worked just fine. He doesn’t know where I live. That’s why he turned up today. And why he turned up at Joshu’s memorial. He’s still not given up.’

  ‘That’s not good,’ he said.

  Simon came back with the drinks. ‘Bloody right it’s not good. If George and I hadn’t happened to be there, that could have turned very nasty.’

  ‘Believe me, I know. And I appreciate it, guys.’ I raised my glass and toasted them.

  ‘What were you doing out there?’ George asked Simon.

  ‘I wanted some fresh air,’ he said. ‘I’ve been here for dinner with Scarlett and I remembered there was a little enclosed garden thing the far side of the car park. I didn’t think anyone would find me there.’ All of a sudden, he looked as if he would burst into tears. ‘Sorry. I miss her, that’s all. Not very professional, I know. But I’d grown very fond of her.’

  George cleared his throat. ‘Hard not to be when you got to know her.’ He took a long swallow of his drink. ‘Stephanie, I hate to put any more pressure on you, but you really will have to do something about that toerag. It’s bad enough when it’s just you he’s stalking. But there’s Jimmy to consider now. I shudder to think of the effect on that vulnerable little boy if he were to witness a scene like that. Or worse. I think you’re going to have to talk to the police.’