Val McDermid - The Vanishing Point

But then a BBC investigative journalist heard that things weren’t quite as hunky-dory as the Romanian authorities would have us believe. He went in undercover and found that although most of the worst cases had been closed down, there were still isolated pockets of the country where conditions would have had their bosses tried for crimes against humanity if they’d been in war zones.

Before his report was aired, Scarlett was invited to come in for a screening. She told me later it was the most harrowing thing she’d ever seen. ‘One room, there must have been twenty disabled teenagers tied to cots, lying in their own piss and shit, skinny as skeletons. It turned my stomach, Steph. And the little kids, playing in the snow with stones and sticks because they didn’t have a toy to their names. Their clothes in rags. Filthy dirty, some of them with open sores. All of them, abandoned by their parents. A lot of them with AIDS.’ She was welling up, talking about it.

‘And I thought about my dad, and how I could have been one of those babies born with AIDS. But I’ve got this lovely life, with Jimmy, and my nice house and my career, and money in the bank. And I thought, fuck it, Steph, I’ve got to do something about this.’

So she insisted that, instead of painting a rosy picture of how there had been a successful transformation in the lives of thousands, she would go back with the journalist and confront the terrible reality that hundreds of people continued to endure. Never mind what had been achieved – Scarlett wanted to ram home the message of how much more was left to be done. Somebody else could deliver the happy-clappy message. She was going straight to the sharp end.

It was an astonishing move. The woman who had been dismissed as a brainless bigot had undergone the ultimate makeover. She wasn’t just making caring noises. She was prepared to stand up and be counted. And so she went to Timonescu orphanage in the Transylvanian mountains and confronted the horrors head on. She spoke to camera with tears running down her face and swore that she was going to do everything in her power to make a difference. ‘I want my son to grow up proud of his mum. Not for being on the telly, but for helping to transform the lives of these children,’ she said, a catch in her voice.

When it was screened as part of the Caring for Kids telethon, it created a sensation. Because the shock value of having a segment like this presented by someone like Scarlett was almost as great as the footage itself. I was at the hacienda with her and Leanne that night, and she was so proud of herself. ‘I’m going to set up a charity to support Timonescu,’ she said. ‘I’ve been talking about it with George and he’s getting all the paperwork done. I’m going to donate a tenth of all my income, and I’m going to get somebody to organise fundraisers. All them women out there doing their exercise classes – I’m going to get them to donate a week’s exercise expenditure to making a difference in some kid’s life.’

Even I was gobsmacked, and I already knew Scarlett was a very different proposition from the person the world thought they knew. As for the media, they were reeling in shock. Scarlett’s stock had never been higher. There were profiles of her everywhere, her troubled past being recast as youthful misdemeanours. Amazingly, given the tendency of the British media to take delight in chopping down to size anyone who dares to rise above the herd, there wasn’t a single bit of dirt-digging from any of the red-tops.

I said as much to George as we sipped champagne and nibbled canapés at the launch of TOmorrow, the charitable trust Scarlett had founded to support Timonescu Orphanage. ‘It’s not for want of trying,’ he said. ‘The thing is, Scarlett’s made such a fine job of cutting herself off from her past that her mother and her sister really have no possible revelations. That part of her history they know about is what’s covered most thoroughly in your excellent book.’ He chinked his glass against mine. ‘You gave the world just enough sordidness to make it interesting, and also to declaw Scarlett’s family. The tabloids can’t go with the “heartless bitch” line because she bought them a perfectly decent house to live in. And she still pays the council tax and the utility bills. She’s covered herself very cleverly.’

‘There’s always Joshu,’ I said. ‘Doesn’t he worry you?’

George sniffed. ‘With his drug habit? I rather think Scarlett has enough insurance to keep Joshu quiet.’

I hoped so. It would be a cruel person who wished Scarlett ill now she was riding the crest of a wave for all the right reasons. But as things turned out, I’d been looking for disaster in all the wrong places.

29

Nick had learned early on in his police career that nobody appreciated a copper on the doorstep late at night unless it really was a matter of life or death. He suspected that as far as Joshu’s parents were concerned, he’d be unwelcome at any time. They were under no obligation to talk to him, and he reckoned they would exercise their freedom of choice, not least because his was the face they would associate with the investigation into their only son’s death.

But there were other sources for information about the Patel family’s circumstances. During the inquiry into Joshu’s death, Nick had also spoken to both of the dead man’s sisters. Unlike their brother, Asmita and Ambar had fulfilled their parents’ ambitions. Asmita was an accountant with an international consultancy; Ambar had been on the point of qualifying as a barrister specialising in tax affairs. Dismayed but not surprised by her brother’s death, Ambar spoke about him with a world-weariness depressing in one so young and privileged, suggesting he had been a tragedy waiting to happen. ‘We washed our hands of him years ago,’ she’d said. ‘He made it clear he despised all of us, and frankly, I’d had enough of it. When he took up with that vile woman, that was the last straw. I never even told my friends we were related.’ It was a depressing epitaph for a young man who had been, in Nick’s view, essentially harmless. A waste of space, perhaps. But not a bad man. Not by the standards Nick was familiar with.

Asmita had been more upset. ‘I keep remembering what a funny little boy he was,’ she said. ‘My sweet little brother. I wish my parents hadn’t cut him out of our lives. We should have been there for him.’ Her regret was eating her up, that much had been clear. What depressed Nick more than her sister’s cynicism was that this grown woman hadn’t been able to find the courage to defy her parents and maintain contact with the brother she’d clearly still cared about. He wasn’t sentimental; he didn’t think Asmita could have saved Joshu from his burning drive towards self-destruction. But he didn’t think Joshu had deserved such an almighty fall from grace and he thought he’d let Asmita see that. If anyone in the Patel family was going to talk to him, it would be her.

This time of night wasn’t ideal, but child abduction changed all the rules. He hoped Asmita would appreciate that. She was still living at the same address, according to the council tax roll. As he drew near to her address, Adrian Legg’s polyphonic guitar blasting from his speakers, Nick’s memories of Asmita’s flat took shape. The building where she lived had been a primary school, built in the year of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, which probably explained the extravagance of the architecture. It looked more like a church with cathedral aspirations than an education factory for the children of the London poor. Nick pulled into the car park that had started life as the girls’ playground and found a guest slot in the furthest corner.

Asmita’s apartment was housed in the former infant department, occupying the upper floor of what would have been the nave if it really had been a church. He remembered high arched windows, a ribbed wooden ceiling like an upturned boat and wood everywhere – stripped floors, panelled walls, furniture in sympathetic shades. He pressed the intercom and waited. The voice that answered him was firm and slightly peevish. ‘Yes? Who is it?’