Val McDermid - The Vanishing Point

‘Six pounds two ounces. His name is Jimmy.’

‘But she’s not due for another . . . what? Six weeks?’

‘She got her dates wrong. She’s probably a couple of weeks early, but no more than that.’ I popped a pod into the coffee machine for myself.

He laughed affectionately. ‘Silly bitch can’t count. Well, shit me a rainbow. I’m a dad.’ He rubbed a hand over his hair and lurched towards the breakfast bar where he’d apparently left the contents of his pockets. He grabbed for his cigarettes and lit up. ‘It’s supposed to be a cigar, but this’ll have to do for now. You might have bought me a cigar on the way home, Stephanie.’

‘Funny, it never crossed my mind. You better get yourself cleaned up and over there. Oddly enough, she’s not best pleased with you.’ I plonked a cup of tea in front of him. ‘Get that down you.’

‘Was you there, like, with her?’

‘I was. It was really scary. They had to do an emergency section.’

‘A what?’

In my head, I sounded like my mother. What do they teach them in school these days? ‘The baby got stuck coming out. So they had to cut her belly open and get him out in a hurry.’

He took a tentative sip of his tea, then swigged the whole cup back in one. He shuddered, then straightened up. ‘What? They cut her belly open? That’s horrible. She gonna have a scar and that?’

‘Christ, Joshu. She lost more than half of her blood. They thought they were going to have to give her a blood transfusion. I think a scar was the least of her worries, frankly.’

He gave me a placatory nod. ‘Well, I suppose that means she’ll be OK down there. Like, still tight and that.’

I closed my eyes for a moment, wondering whether I should just throw my coffee over his head. I reminded myself that he was Jimmy’s father and Scarlett’s husband and better that he went to hospital as a visitor than as a patient. ‘You won’t have the chance to find that out for a while, you selfish bastard. She’s had major abdominal surgery, Joshu. You’re going to have to run around after her for months.’

He gave a nervous laugh. ‘I don’t think so. Georgie can sort somebody out to take care of her and the kid, yeah? That’s what we fucking pay him for, innit.’ He grinned again, and I caught a glimpse of the roguish charm that had captivated Scarlett. ‘I’ve got a son.’ Then he frowned. ‘Wait a minute. Did you say she’s called him Jimmy?’

‘That’s right.’

‘No, that’s all wrong. Jimmy Patel? What kind of name is that?’

Actually, it was going to be Jimmy Higgins. But I thought I’d leave that revelation for Scarlett. ‘It’s the one she wants. And since you weren’t around when he popped out, I reckon you’ve forfeited the right to have a say.’

‘Fucking Jimmy,’ he said, turning away and stubbing out his cigarette. ‘I’ll have something to say about that. I’m going for a shower, then I’m going over to see my son. And he’s not going to be Jimmy for much longer, you can count on that.’ And off he went, chest puffed out like a bantam cock.

The coffee was bitter and dense in my mouth. I was too tired to taste properly. I knew it was crazy to drive back to Hackney, only to return in a few hours to visit Scarlett and Jimmy. Joshu was about to go out. And there was a perfectly good guest room down the hall. The temptation was irresistible.

15

Hearing Stephanie describe Joshu’s reaction to his son’s birth, Vivian found it hard to resist the notion that he regarded the boy as his property. A man with that attitude would be the natural suspect in a case like this. The over-whelming majority of abducted children were stolen by or on behalf of the parent who didn’t have custody. In a case like this, where the person who had charge of the boy wasn’t even a relative, the father was the obvious person of interest.

‘You said you know where Joshu is,’ Vivian said. ‘I have to tell you, it sounds like he’s the person with the strongest interest in taking Jimmy away from you. Are you so sure he’s where you think he is, and not here in the US?’

Stephanie looked amused. ‘He’s definitely not in the US. He—’

‘Maybe not. But does he have the resources to hire people to kidnap Jimmy and bring the boy to him.’

‘No. If you’d just let me finish what I was about to say . . . Unless I’ve been burgled since we left for the airport, Joshu is exactly where I last saw him. Sitting in an urn on my mantelpiece. Joshu’s dead, Agent McKuras. His and Scarlett’s ashes sit in my living room like bookends above the fireplace. Jimmy says good morning and good night to them every day.’

Vivian felt ambushed. The blood rose in her cheeks and she drummed her fingers on the desk. She wanted to yell at Stephanie, but that wasn’t an option while the woman still might be the repository of information about the kidnap. ‘What happened to him?’

‘Like everything else connected to Scarlett and Jimmy, it’s a long story.’

This time, Vivian was not about to be seduced by narrative. Stephanie Harker was a terrific raconteur, so good that Vivian risked losing sight of the importance of time in tracking down a missing child. And maybe – just maybe – there was a deliberate point to Stephanie’s meandering stories. After all, who knew better than she that she’d be stopped by security? Who was better placed to set this up? She’d been left in charge of a rich woman’s brat with no money to pay for it. Maybe she’d decided to extort some cash from the charitable foundation she’d mentioned earlier. ‘These long stories aren’t taking me any nearer a valid suspect,’ she said, her voice cold. ‘Tell me, Stephanie. If you got a ransom demand for Jimmy, who would pay?’

Stephanie looked startled. ‘I . . . I don’t know. I never even thought about it.’ She spread her hands in a gesture of openness. ‘I don’t have that kind of money.’

‘What kind of money?’

She looked puzzled. ‘Well, when you hear about ransoms, it’s usually seven figures and upwards. I’m not a rich woman. I make a decent living, but I’m not a millionaire. I’d do my best to raise the money, but I don’t have much.’

‘Couldn’t you approach his mother’s charitable foundation?’

‘No chance,’ Stephanie said. ‘It was set up to benefit an orphanage in a remote part of Romania. Scarlett went there in 2007 as part of Caring for Kids – that’s a big charity telethon in the UK – and she was completely bowled over by the children. A lot of them have AIDS, and that’s how her dad died. She was appalled by the conditions there. So she set up the trust to take care of them. The orphanage is the sole beneficiary and there’s no way round it. I’ve got a friend who’s a trust lawyer and I asked her to check out whether I could claim anything for Jimmy’s education or maintenance. She said the trust was watertight. Unless we can transform Jimmy into a Romanian orphan, I’m all he’s got.’

‘What about his father’s estate?’

Stephanie snorted her ridicule. ‘What estate? Joshu spent money like water. Faster than he could earn it, latterly. He was too fond of drugs and fast cars and stupid women. The only thing he left Jimmy was his music, which is all boxed up in a storage unit. It might make a few grand if I sold it off on eBay, but not enough to pay a ransom. No, if somebody’s taken Jimmy for money, they’ve made a serious error of judgement.’ She ran a hand through her hair. ‘But at least they’ve got a vested interest in keeping him alive. Which is better than the alternative.’

‘Which means we’re back to square one.’ Vivian couldn’t help showing her impatience. ‘If you can’t take me closer to a viable suspect, who can?’