Val McDermid - The Vanishing Point

She had to get out of there, had to make someone in authority understand that something terrible had happened, was still happening right now. Stephanie struggled against the back of the chair, trying to release her arms. But the more she wrestled against the rigid plastic, the more trammelled she felt. At last, she realised the design of the chair meant she couldn’t push her arms far enough behind her to clear its back. The fact that it was bolted to the floor meant she couldn’t even get to her feet and take it with her like some bizarre turtle shell.

She’d no sooner reached that conclusion than the woman who had spoken to her walked back into the room. She was followed by a lanky middle-aged man in the now-familiar TSA uniform who sat down opposite Stephanie without greeting her. Greying dark hair in an immaculate crew cut framed a face that was all hollows and angles, like something constructed from a kid’s magnet modelling kit. His eyes were cold, his mouth and chin too weak for the image he was trying to project. His name badge read Randall Parton and there were two gold stripes on the shoulder board of his blue shirt. Stephanie was relieved to find she could make sense of what she was seeing this time around.

‘Somebody kidnapped my boy,’ she said, urgency tumbling her words together. ‘You need to sound the alert. Tell the cops. Whatever it is you do when a stranger steals a kid.’

Parton kept up the stony stare. ‘What is your name?’ he said. Stephanie recognised the tight twang of New England in his speech.

‘My name? Stephanie Harker. But that’s not important. What’s important—’

‘We decide what’s important round here.’ Parton straightened his shoulders inside his neatly ironed shirt. ‘And what’s important right now is that you are a security risk.’

‘That’s crazy. I’m the victim here.’

‘From where I’m standing, my officer is the victim here. The officer you assaulted in your attempt to escape the security screening area before you could be searched. After you had set off the metal detector.’ Behind him, Stephanie could see the woman shift from one foot to the other, as if she was uncomfortable in the moment.

‘I set off the metal detector because I have a metal plate and three screws in my left leg. I was in a bad car accident ten years ago. I always set off the detectors.’

‘And as of now we have no way of determining the truth of that. Now what we need to establish before we go any further is that you are no risk to my country or my team. We require that you submit to a thorough search.’

Stephanie felt pressure building up inside her head, as if a blood vessel was about to burst behind her eyes. ‘This is crazy. What are my rights here?’

‘It’s not my job to inform you of your legal rights. It’s my job to maintain airport security.’

‘So why aren’t you searching for the kidnapper who stole my son? Jesus Christ.’

‘There’s no need for language like that. For all I know this story of a kidnap is an elaborate ruse. I’m still waiting for you to confirm you will submit to a thorough body search.’

‘I’m confirming nothing till you start dealing with what has happened to Jimmy, you idiot. Where’s your boss? I want to talk to someone in authority here. Get these handcuffs off me. I want a lawyer.’

Parton’s lips compressed in a tight smile that had nothing to do with humour. ‘Non-US citizens selected for a longer interview generally do not have the right to an attorney.’ There was more than a hint of triumph in his voice.

The woman officer cleared her throat and took a step forward. Lia Lopez, according to her name badge. ‘Randall, she’s talking about an abducted kid. She has the right to an attorney if we’re asking her about anything other than immigration status or security.’

Parton swung his head round portentously, as if it were as heavy as a bowling ball. ‘Which, as of right now, we are not doing, Lopez.’ He held the glare for a long moment then turned back to Stephanie. ‘You need to confirm your consent,’ he repeated.

‘Am I legally required to submit to a search?’ It had dawned on Stephanie that if this idiot wasn’t going to listen to her, somehow she had to get in front of someone who would. And quickly.

‘Are you refusing to confirm?’

‘No, I’m seeking clarification. Am I legally obliged to submit to a search? Or can I refuse?’

‘You’re not helping yourself here.’ There was a pale pink flush on Parton’s cheeks, as if he’d been out in a cold wind.

‘I don’t know the law here. As you have already noticed, I am not a US citizen. I’m simply trying to establish what my rights are.’

Parton’s head jutted forward, aggressive as a farmyard rooster. ‘You’re refusing to confirm your consent to a search? Right?’

‘Do you actually know the law? Do you actually know what my rights are? I want to talk to someone in authority, someone who knows what’s what.’

‘Listen, lady. You wanna play smartass, I’m not going to play your game. If you don’t give me the answers I’m looking for, the next person you’ll be talking to will be from the FBI. And that’s a whole other ball game.’ He pushed back from the table and turned to Lopez. ‘What have we got on her ID?’

Lopez muttered something into her radio and turned away. Parton spoke again, obscuring the other conversation. ‘Like I said, you’re not helping yourself here. You assaulted one of my officers. That’s all we know. Nobody witnessed any incident. Nobody reported a child being abducted. All I know, lady, is that you just went crazy on us. Why the hell did you break out of the box? Why did you assault that officer?’

Answering that question once had achieved nothing. There was no reason to suppose that repeating herself would take them any further forward. If she could have folded her arms across her chest, that’s what Stephanie would have done. There was no available body language for her to convey ‘enough’. She swallowed her panic, cocked her head and met his eye. ‘Am I legally obliged to answer that question?’

Exasperated, Parton slapped his hands on the tabletop. Lopez moved forward and said, ‘She entered the US half an hour ago here in Chicago. She came in on a flight from London Heathrow.’ She cleared her throat. ‘She was accompanied by a minor child.’

The silence expanded to fill the space available. In a voice cold with rage, Stephanie said, ‘Now can we get a real law-enforcement official in here?’

3

Parton’s bluster did not survive Lopez’s information. He ordered the cuffs to be removed, but couldn’t resist barking at her. ‘Keep your hands out of your pockets. And don’t use your phone.’

‘I don’t have my phone. It’s in a plastic box with all the other stuff that went through the X-ray machine. Which presumably includes Jimmy’s backpack. All you had to do to establish I was telling the truth was to take a look at what was sitting on the scanner belt.’ Stephanie didn’t even try to hide her disdain.

Parton said nothing more on his way out of the room. Lopez gave her a rueful smile. ‘Is he going to get someone in here who can do something about my child being kidnapped?’ Stephanie demanded, rubbing her wrists.

Lopez looked away as the door opened. A TSA officer brought two grey plastic trays into the room and dropped them on the floor. Stephanie could see that one contained her carry-on bag, while the other held her jacket, shoes, toiletries in clear plastic for easy examination and the assorted jumble of items from pockets. ‘Wait,’ she said. ‘There should be another. With Jimmy’s backpack and his hoodie.’

The officer shrugged one shoulder. ‘That’s all there is.’ He closed the door behind him.