The Vanishing Point

by Val McDermid

  I sighed. ‘They won’t take it seriously. Not until he actually does something. And no, that little incident in the car park doesn’t count as something.’

  We all stared glumly at our drinks in silence for a few minutes. Then Simon perked up. ‘What about if you knew a friendly cop you could draft in to give him the hard word?’

  ‘That would be worth a try,’ George said. ‘If you knew the right chap.’

  ‘I was thinking . . . what about the one who ran the inquiry into Joshu’s death? He seemed like a decent bloke. And you got on quite well with him, didn’t you? You were talking to him at the memorial service, I seem to remember.’ Simon smiled encouragingly.

  And that is how Nick Nicolaides and I got to be an item.

  47

  Nick wasn’t generally indecisive but standing outside Phat Phi D in the rain on the wrong side of midnight, he couldn’t make up his mind what to do for the best. He understood only too well that the most important thing was recovering Jimmy alive and well. But he wasn’t convinced that the best way of achieving that was by passing the latest information about Pete Matthews directly to Special Agent McKuras. OK, he wasn’t an expert in the ways of foreign law enforcement, but the image of the Americans going in with all guns blazing hadn’t become a cliché out of nowhere. He remembered Waco. He didn’t want Jimmy literally getting caught in the crossfire. Or Matthews either, come to that, if he was completely honest with himself. The guy was a bully and a sleaze, but he didn’t deserve to die.

  He turned up his collar against the weather and walked back slowly to his car. Slumped behind the steering wheel, he mulled over his encounters with Pete Matthews. The first time, at Joshu’s memorial service, he’d walked into something he didn’t understand. Stephanie had said he’d be doing Scarlett a favour by asking Matthews to leave, and yet she hadn’t denied it when Nick had suggested she was using him as cover to make her getaway. Which hadn’t quite made sense. He wasn’t even sure why he’d leapt to that conclusion. Something about her body language, he supposed. His psychology degree had included a fascinating module on kinesics. It seemed to Nick that kinesics codified what many people still thought of as intuition. He’d worked on absorbing the information till it had become second nature.

  He hadn’t needed kinesics to realise how pissed off Pete Matthews had been by his approach. Nick hadn’t said he was a cop at first. He’d simply walked up to him and said, ‘Mr Matthews, this is a private function to which you have not been invited. It would be much appreciated if you would leave.’

  Matthews’ eyes had widened and his mouth tightened in an expression of outrage. He glared at Nick and took a half-step towards him. When he realised Nick was not intimidated, he drew his brows down in a scowl. ‘Who the fuck are you to tell me what to do? It’s not your party, I know that much.’

  Nick slipped his warrant card from his jacket pocket. ‘Detective Sergeant Nicolaides. Met Police. This is private property where you have no right to be and you are being asked to leave. I’m sure the last thing you want is to make a scene when there are so many members of the press here.’

  Matthews sneered at him. ‘You have no idea what’s going on here, copper. You’ve got yourself caught in the middle of a lovers’ game. Whatever promises Stephanie’s made to you, she’s playing you. She’s not going to deliver, because she’s my woman. You understand? She’s making a point to me, showing me she can get a mug like you to do her bidding.’ He gave a harsh laugh, like one of those mynah birds they used to keep in the local pet shop when Nick was a kid. ‘Sucker.’ Then he held his hands up, palms out in the universal placatory gesture. ‘It’s OK, I’m not going to kick off and spoil Scarlett’s party. Even if it is just a hypocritical bit of headline-grabbing.’ He shook his head. ‘She’s not shedding real tears, you know, copper. Ask Stephanie how many more copies of the latest book they’ll sell now Joshu’s popped his clogs. Scarlett would rather have the money than the man any day.’ Then he looked over Nick’s shoulder and swore.

  Nick turned to follow his eyes and realised Stephanie was no longer where he had left her. He scanned the room but couldn’t see her anywhere. When he turned back, Matthews was already near the door, pushing his way through the crowd. Whether it was, as Matthews claimed, a lovers’ game, or something less romantic, Stephanie had clearly made her escape while he’d distracted Matthews. And whatever it was, it had diminished Stephanie’s appeal where Nick was concerned. He wasn’t interested in an involvement with a woman who was still entangled with another man. That was a scenario guaranteed to provoke sleepless nights and too many hours playing maudlin love songs.

  And so he had put Pete Matthews and Stephanie Harker out of his mind. Nevertheless, he’d recognised her voice as soon as she spoke on the phone. ‘Sergeant, I don’t know if you remember me—’

  ‘Stephanie Harker,’ he said. Annoyed that she had made him blush.

  ‘Wow,’ she said. ‘That’s impressive.’

  ‘I’m a musician, remember? I’m good at voices,’ he improvised. ‘How can I help you?’

  ‘It’s a bit awkward over the phone. Would it be possible to meet for a coffee? Or a drink?’

  In spite of his determination to have nothing to do with trouble, he’d agreed. They’d met at a Costa Coffee near his office. She’d been sitting at a table away from the windows when he arrived, but she’d sprung up when she saw him and insisted on buying his espresso. When they’d settled down and got past the inquiries about how Jimmy was doing, he’d sat back and given her an encouraging smile. ‘You wanted to talk to me?’

  And out had spilled a tale that ticked many familiar boxes. A possessive man who won’t take no for an answer, who convinces himself a woman belongs to him and only needs to be reminded of that fact enough times in order for it to become the truth. A man who stalks her with flowers and emails and letters and texts, who fills up answering machines and voicemail boxes, who can’t be invading her space because her space already belongs to him so how can that be an invasion?

  Nick listened, his coffee untouched, a chill in his guts. He’d heard this story before. Too often, he’d heard it from the grieving family and friends of a woman already lying in the morgue because she’d stood up to her persecutor once too often. Or not managed to escape far or fast enough. When Stephanie stumbled through a halting account of her confrontation with Matthews in the Essex hotel car park, he felt a mixture of rage and frustration burning like indigestion in his stomach. He wanted to punch Pete Matthews until he cried like a brutalised child. And also knew that wasn’t his way.

  ‘I spoke to a lawyer when he began pestering me after we first split up and she explained that there wasn’t much I could do unless he actually broke the law. But I don’t know what the law is. And it seemed to me that the way he made me feel, the threat in how he was with me – well, surely there must be something the police can do about that?’ She looked at him with a mixture of anxiety and apology that filled him with anger against the man who had put her in that place. But he also knew there wasn’t much he could lawfully do about Pete Matthews.

  ‘The lawyer was right, I’m afraid. If you kept a diary of his harassment, you could probably get a restraining order against him. But it wouldn’t have the power of arrest. You couldn’t just call the police if he breached it – you’d have to go back to court.’

  ‘Which means it would be meaningless, in effect?’

  ‘Yes. For us to take action, you would have to demonstrate that you have reasonable grounds to be in fear for your life, or at least in fear of serious violence. And from what you’ve said, he’s been very careful not to threaten you in that way.’

  She picked up the wooden stick and stirred her latte. ‘What you’re saying is, there’s nothing to be done.’

  And that’s when Nick crossed the line. ‘Officially, yes. Unofficially, there are possibilities.’ He’d had no idea that was what he was going to say until he’d said it. He knew then that he’d decided to follow his desire
rather than his head.

  Stephanie looked alarmed. ‘I didn’t mean—’

  ‘I know you didn’t.’ He pulled out his phone, summoned the notepad function and handed it to her. ‘Give me his address and phone number and leave it with me.’ Nick took in her anxiety and gave her a grim smile. He wiggled his fingers at her. ‘Have you ever heard of a band called Jethro Tull?’

  She’d looked completely baffled, but nodded. ‘Vaguely. Big in the seventies?’

  ‘That’s the one. Their front man, Ian Anderson, played the flute. He was so paranoid about his fingers being damaged that when people put their hand out to shake his, he’d offer them his elbow instead. Well, I’m not quite that anxious, but I’m not going to do anything to Pete Matthews that would put my lovely fingers at risk.’

  Her face lit up in a smile that made him fizz a little inside. ‘When you put it like that . . . ’ She tapped the information into his phone. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You’re welcome. But there will be a price to pay.’

  Now she looked anxious again. ‘I’m not a free woman,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a child to take responsibility for these days.’

  ‘You live in Brighton, right?’

  ‘Yes, but I’m still staying at Scarlett’s place in Essex till we sort out moving Jimmy down to my place. Because the house has to be cleared and sold, according to that bloody self-indulgent will.’ She pulled a face. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t whinge. I don’t care on my account, but it would have been easier on Jimmy if he could have stayed put, at least for a few months.’

  ‘On the other hand, probably better for you to be in Brighton rather than somewhere Matthews knows he can find you.’

  She nodded acceptance of what he said. ‘That’s true.’

  ‘So here’s my price. Once you’ve moved back to Brighton, I get to come down on my day off and take you out to lunch while Jimmy’s at school. How does that sound?’

  Stephanie looked relieved, then delighted. ‘That would be lovely. Thank you. For all of it.’

  That same evening, Nick checked out Pete Matthews’ address. It was the garden flat in a tall Victorian terraced house in Kentish Town, a couple of streets back from the main drag. The handiest thing about it was that the front door was down a shallow flight of steps, more or less invisible from the street above unless someone was standing on the pavement next to it. There was a sturdy chain holding the gate closed, but Nick reckoned it would yield to a decent set of boltcutters.

  Matthews’ flat was in darkness, so he took a chance on ringing the doorbell of the main house. The man who answered looked like a Regency fop gone to seed. His shortish dark hair was gelled into a wedge on the top of his head and his tight floral shirt did nothing to disguise a hard little pot belly. He wore white jeans deliberately cut to make him look hung like a horse. Nick, whose jeans were chosen for comfort rather than vainglory, had never understood the style. Mutton dressed as ram. The man pursed his lips waspishly, which provoked nests of wrinkles that would doubtless have mortified him had he known. ‘Yes?’ he said irritably.

  Nick showed his warrant card and looked humble. ‘Are you the householder, sir?’

  ‘How very Edwardian. Technically, that would be my wife and I. But I am the man of the house.’ He was, Nick thought, trying to sound posher than he was.

  ‘I wonder if I might have a word?’

  ‘Have we committed some unwitting crime, officer?’

  ‘No, sir. I just wondered if anyone had been home this morning between nine and eleven. We’re investigating an assault and we’re looking for witnesses.’

  Now the man looked shocked. ‘An assault? Was one of the neighbours attacked?’

  ‘No, nothing like that. We think the victim and the assailant knew each other and had a chance encounter on this street. Did you see or hear anything? You or your wife?’

  He shook his head prettily, as if it were a matter of huge personal regret that he was unable to help. ‘My wife Madeleine and I left the house together at ten to nine, as we always do, to go to work. I work at the BBC and she runs a charitable foundation round the corner from BH, so we travel in together on the tube. I’m afraid neither of us was at home.’

  ‘What about your downstairs neighbour?’ Nick pretended to consult his notebook. ‘Mr . . . Matthews?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. He doesn’t keep regular hours. He works in the music business, you see. You’d need to ask him and I’ve not a clue when he’ll be back. Sometimes he’s away for weeks at a time.’

  Nick closed his notebook and smiled. ‘Sorry to have bothered you. Thanks for being so patient.’ He didn’t wait for the man to close the door. He had what he needed. The upper part of the house would be empty during the day. And Nick had a day off on Wednesday, which gave him a whole day to make his arrangements.

  Back at the office, he put a call in to an old mate in the Tactical Support Group. Nick had trained with Declan Rafferty and a bunch of other Greater Manchester Police recruits at the Bruche training centre. They soon discovered they shared similar tastes in music. Like Nick, Declan would rather drive for an hour to listen to an obscure new band than head straight for the nearest pub and get rat-arsed with his fellow trainees. It doesn’t take much in a quasi-military ambience like police college to forge bonds when you find common ground, and so it was with Declan and Nick. Although they’d chosen different paths and styles of policing, they still remained friends. At least once a month, they’d make pilgrimage to an unsung venue to hear music that barely made it on to the radar, even in these days of Internet accessibility to all. Discovering new acts before the herd was still a badge of pride for them both.

  Once they’d sorted their next night out, Nick slid into the real reason for his call. ‘You on the station van this week?’ he asked, referring to the quick-response vehicle the TSG used as a mobile control and incident room as well as the wheels deployed to get their officers to the scene of trouble fast.

  ‘I am. Not much happening, though,’ Declan said. ‘We’ve been kicking our heels. It’s all gone very bloody quiet out there.’

  ‘I wanted to ask a favour. Mate to mate. No blowback, you know what I mean?’

  ‘If I can, I will. It’ll only cost you a bottle of tequila gold.’

  ‘Bloody hell, your tastes are turning expensive.’

  ‘What’s the favour?’

  ‘I need to borrow the big key. And a set of heavy-duty dikes.’

  Declan whistled. ‘You don’t ask much, do you? I take it this isn’t official?’

  ‘Definitely off the books.’

  Nick counted eleven seconds of silence, a long time in phone years. Then Declan sighed. ‘Where? And when?’

  ‘Ideally, tomorrow morning around ten. In Kentish Town. But I don’t want to meet you there. If it all goes pear-shaped, the last thing I want is any of the neighbours identifying a TSG officer on the scene.’

  In the end, they agreed Declan would bring the steel battering ram and the diagonal cutters he’d asked for round to Nick’s flat after dark that night. Provided they weren’t needed in the interim – ‘Not likely, we’re like the Olympic torch these days. Never go out.’ – Nick would return them to Declan the following evening.

  The next morning at ten, Pete Matthews’ street was as close as Kentish Town got to tumbleweed. Nick had been parked fifty feet away from Matthews’ flat and had hidden behind his Indy when the sound engineer had emerged at a trot half an hour before. Nick watched Matthews hurry in the direction of the tube, but waited to make sure he hadn’t just nipped out for milk and a paper.

  Nick pulled on a pair of leather gloves then got out of the car and grabbed a holdall from the back seat. He walked confidently to Pete Matthews’ gate and put the holdall down. Out with the heavy-duty bolt cutters, a matter of seconds and he managed to catch the chain before it clattered to the ground. He hustled down the stairs and readied the Enforcer, sixteen kilos of tubular steel designed to generate maximum impact with minimum expenditure o
f energy. Declan had warned him to be careful with it. ‘We don’t call it the Big Key for nothing. It can deliver three tonnes of kinetic energy,’ he’d said, as if he understood what that meant.

  ‘You mean it’s a bloody big bang?’

  ‘I mean it’s a helluva wallop. Do it wrong and it’ll knock you off your feet.’

  Nick braced and balanced himself, each hand gripping a handle. The door looked solid, but it was only wood. Even an amateur like him should be able to crack it open in a oner. He drew the ram back then let its own momentum carry it forward.

  There was a dull crack and thud as the steel plate hit the door just above the lock. The door swung lazily open as if it had never been latched, never mind locked. ‘Fuck me,’ Nick said, admiring his handiwork. He packed the ram, the cutters and the broken chain in the holdall and took it back to the car. Still there was nobody on the street, not so much as a twitching net curtain to suggest there were any witnesses.

  He walked back to the flat and this time he went in. The smell of coffee hung in the stuffy air. Nice place, Nick thought as he did the tour. Gig posters on the walls, vinyl and CDs shelved everywhere. High-end hi-fi system with slave speakers in every room. The furniture looked functional but comfortable. A dirty mug sat in the sink, an Italian Moka Express pot beside it. It seemed a shame, but it was time to give Pete Matthews a taste of his own medicine.

  Nick began with the kitchen. He did what Stephanie had described to him. Emptied the cupboards and the drawers. Dragged his feet through the mess, trailing it through the house. He didn’t deliberately break stuff, simply let it fall where it would. He moved into the living room, sweeping CDs and albums from their shelves, walking over the resulting piles and relishing the bullet-crack sounds from the shattering CD cases. In the bedroom, he strewed Matthews’ clothes all over the floor, and in the bathroom he tossed the few toiletries into the toilet bowl.