Val McDermid - The Vanishing Point

‘Are you on a ride?’ I spoke softly, not wanting to break the moment.

‘I’m on my dad’s shoulders. I’m up above everybody’s heads. It’s dark, ’cos it’s night time. There’s coloured lights everywhere, it’s like I’m inside a rainbow or summat. My hand’s in my dad’s hair, it’s really thick and wiry and if I grab on too tight he shouts at me to leave off.’

‘Is your mum there too?’

‘I can see the top of her head if I look down. They’ve both got cans, I can smell they’re drinking beer. But they’re laughing and joking and it’s like we’re just like everybody else.’ She opened her eyes and sat up abruptly. ‘That’s why I remember it. For once, I didn’t feel scummy. Like everybody was looking down on us.’ She shook her head with a grim smile. ‘We were the neighbours from hell. Nobody wanted us living next door.’

‘But you still managed to have a good time together. At the fair.’

‘Why do you think I remember it?’ Scarlett leans forward, apparently animated by genuine curiosity.

‘Because it was fun, I suppose?’

‘Because it was a complete bloody one-off,’ she said bitterly. ‘I hardly have any memories of my dad. I was only six when he died and he spent most of those six years inside. Apart from the fair, all I remember is him and my mum drunk and fighting. Shouting and slapping each other. The kind of thing that makes you want to hide under the bed and lie in your own piss when you’re little.’

There wasn’t much I could say that didn’t sound patronising or dismissive. ‘Do you ask people about him? People who knew him?’

‘Of course I do. You want to know shit like that, don’t you?’

‘Of course you do. And you want to pass that knowledge on to your kid. So tell me what you know about him. What other people have told you.’

It was a depressing tale. Alan Higgins was one of seven kids who had run wild from childhood thanks to an alcoholic father and a tranked-up mother. His older brothers had introduced him to burglary, car theft and a wide range of scams at an early age and he’d taken to crime with gusto. Unfor tunately his enthusiasm wasn’t matched by his skill, his intelligence or his luck. By the time he’d met Chrissie, he’d been in detention twice as a juvenile and once as an adult. Last time, he’d discovered the delights of heroin and from then on, his life became a tired treadmill of stealing to feed his habit, getting caught, going to jail and coming out to start the cycle all over again. He managed to stay out long enough to impregnate Chrissie with Scarlett and Jade, her older sister, but he was seldom around for the day-to-day.

‘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

Idon’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.