Val McDermid: The Vanishing Point

Goldfish Bowl pretended they were just as outraged as the country’s moral guardians and that night Scarlett was summoned to the Aquarium. Big Fish did the whole ‘more in sorrow than in anger’ routine and made her apologise to Danny, the rest of the contestants, the country at large and, really, the entire solar system. He made it sound like she could win a reprieve by grovelling enough, but of course the viewers knew it was nothing but a ritual humiliation. Scarlett was going and everybody knew it except her.

I can still remember the shocked disbelief on her face when, after she’d shed her tears and abased herself, Big Fish told her to pack her bag and make her way down to the dock. Everything went on hold for a long moment. Then Scarlett jumped to her feet and stabbed her finger at the camera. ‘You bastard,’ she said. ‘You were never going to let me stay, were you? Well, here’s the truth. I’m not fucking sorry. Not one fucking bit. So stick that up your arse and spin on it.’

I have to admit, right then it was hard not to admire Scarlett.

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As far as the watching world was concerned, that was it. Scarlett was whisked away from Foutra in shame. The press camped outside the hacienda were disappointed that she didn’t turn up there next day. Nobody seemed to know where she’d gone. ‘Where is the bitch?’ the headlines screamed for a couple of days, then the circus moved on.

But Scarlett wasn’t destined to stay out of the limelight for long. A week after her ignominy, readers of the Sun were greeted with a world exclusive. ‘“I’m pregnant,” Scarlett reveals.’ We were informed that disgraced reality TV star Scarlett Higgins had been so deranged by the hormones of pregnancy that she’d spoken words that never would have passed her lips in normal circumstances.

To his credit, like any good ghost, the journalist had put some fine sentiments in Scarlett’s mouth. She was apparently devastated at the pain and embarrassment she’d caused Danny; the makers of Goldfish Bowl ; her partner Joshu (‘who is a person of colour too’); her unborn child; and every minority citizen of these islands. What she’d said was the opposite of everything she believed. She loved gay people and black people and especially gay black people (not that she could actually name one . . .). Her own baby would be mixed race, she pointed out. And she was so ashamed that one day her child would discover her disgraceful past.

But the hormones . . . Everybody knew pregnancy turned women into mental cases. Poor Scarlett hadn’t realised she was pregnant, so what had happened had been even more bewildering to her. If she’d known she was pregnant, not a drop of alcohol would have passed her lips. Plus, everybody also knew that, when you were pregnant, you got drunk a lot more easily. So it was the wine too, not just the hormones.

And suddenly, Scarlett was the favourite daughter of a sizeable chunk of the British population again. They loved her for her fallibility. What had happened to her could have happened to any woman. The blokes totally got it, because they’d experienced women going off their chops about all sorts while they were pregnant. The women totally got it, because who hadn’t had a guilt-inducing drink or smoked themselves silly before they knew they were expecting? The tabloids loved it because it gave them an excuse to print endless features about women going off the rails because of their hormones. Lurid tales of the violence, strange cravings and temper tantrums of pregnant women filled pages of magazines and newspapers. It almost began to feel as if pregnancy was synonymous with psychosis.

And now I was being dragged into the final step on the road to Scarlett’s rehabilitation. The perfectly crafted final piece of the jigsaw would be her three-hundred page letter to her unborn child, a sanded-down and varnished version of her autobiography to resonate with her public and make sure the love-fest continued. I had a sneaking suspicion it would be a big ask. But I’ve never shied away from a professional challenge.

Of course, Maggie knew that.

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The more dubious the grounds for an individual’s celebrity, the more they need to be in control every step of the way. The ones who have genuinely achieved something or overcome true adversity are always happy to go along with my suggestions on how we manage the process. They understand that I’m the expert here, that experience has taught me the best way to do this. But when I’m dealing with the likes of Scarlett, the ones who are famous only for being famous, they’re always full of demands thinly disguised as suggestions.

The first of what I knew would be many skirmishes came over the venue for the initial meeting where Scarlett would decide whether she liked me as much as her agent and publisher did. She wanted us to take a suite in a Mayfair hotel. I wanted to go to her place. We both had our reasons. She wanted a symbol of how important she was. I wanted the scent and taste of her. And Maggie never wants to spend an unnecessary penny, because everything that gets lavished on the client up front has to be paid for somewhere down the line. There is no such thing as a free publisher’s lunch.

You don’t get anywhere as a ghost by stamping your feet and insisting on doing things your way. You have to sidle past their defences and make them think it’s all their idea. You know you’ve succeeded when you see them on daytime telly earnestly explaining to the host how they got up every morning two hours before the kids so they could find some peace to do their writing. By that stage, they really believe they did it themselves. That you were only there to put in the commas and check the spelling.

So Maggie called George, Scarlett’s agent, and they did their ritual dance. Maggie’s argument was that hotels leaked like sieves. That as soon as Scarlett showed her face in a five-star hotel, one of the staff would be on the phone to the press and they’d be full of Scarlett kiss’n’tell spoilers. I sat on the sofa in her office, admiring her greasing her way round Gorgeous George, a notoriously difficult man to flatter or cajole. But as I’d seen before, even he was no match for Maggie. ‘Darling,’ she said. ‘Let’s face it. Once they find out Stephie’s doing the book, she’ll be the focus for every devious hack in town. They’ll be going through her bins , chatting up her cleaner , tapping her phone for all I know. Anything to get the inside track.’

She stuck her tongue out at me then rolled her eyes and reached for the electronic cigarette she’d adopted since she’d given up smoking ahead of the workplace ban. She dragged on the tube and made a face. ‘New flavour,’ she muttered, hand over the phone mouthpiece. ‘ Supposed to be Camels. More like camel dung .’ A quick, artificial smile flashed across her face. ‘Well, of course , Georgie. I’m aware that the press have been staking out Scarlett’s house. But now the Sun ’s broken the story, they’ll move on. In a day or two, it’ll be business as usual. And of course , I’ll make sure the car has blacked-out windows so any of the parasites who are still hanging around won’t know it’s Stephie.’ There was more of the same. I tuned it out, confident of the outcome.

I was right. Two days later, a Mercedes with tinted windows whisked us past a couple of paparazzi. They’d been so bored for so long they barely got their cameras to their faces by the time we passed through the electric gates and up the herring bone brick drive to the hacienda. One of the triple garages was standing open, ready for us to drive in. ‘It was less hassle when I was doing a Spice Girl,’ I said.