Val McDermid - The Vanishing Point

Vivian frowned but couldn’t say anything through a mouthful of food.

‘Ask me how that could possibly be. I know you’re dying of curiosity,’ Abbott said.

Vivian swallowed and humoured him. ‘How could that possibly be?’ He was doing the scut work on the case, after all. He deserved a little slack.

‘At twelve fifty-seven, somebody sprayed black paint over the lens of the camera that covers the elevators on the thirteenth level. There weren’t many vehicles up there, so there wasn’t anyone around to witness what happened. Or if there was, they didn’t give a shit about somebody knocking out a CCTV camera.’

‘What images are there before twelve fifty-seven?’

‘Not much. There’s no sign of anyone approaching, which means they likely came up on the camera from behind and sprayed it kind of up and under. The control room noticed the camera was out of action about forty minutes later and reported it for routine maintenance. It was only when I started asking questions that they checked it out and discovered it hadn’t simply malfunctioned – it had been vandalised.’

‘To stop us seeing them emerging from the elevator,’ Vivian said. ‘Judging by the look on your face, we’re not about to cut to the good news.’

‘There is no good news. Not at this point. We don’t know what happened after they left the elevator. The presumption would be that they got into a vehicle. But which vehicle? We have no idea when they left the parking garage. They could have sat there for half-hour in the back of a panel van, for crying out loud. We have no way of knowing.’

‘What about the exit footage? Whatever vehicle they were in, they had to leave at some point.’

‘It’s a waste of time, Vivian. We don’t know what the guy looks like. It’s starting to look like he has an accomplice but there’s no telling whether that’s a male or a female. We are totally pissing into the wind.’

Vivian suddenly lost her appetite. With every lead that frittered away to nothing, the chances of recovering Jimmy alive grew smaller. It had been over five hours since he’d disappeared. The shrinking window of opportunity for his recovery left a bitter taste in her mouth that no amount of fast food could take away. She pushed her second burger away, then, on second thoughts, she picked it up. If she’d been starving, Stephanie would be too. ‘Thanks, Don. I appreciate you chasing this.’ She stood up. ‘I need to get back to the witness.’

‘Sure. The control room’s got a whole bunch of staff tracking back through the concourse cameras to try and get a fix on where he came from. I’ll let you know as soon as I have anything. None of the no-shows matched our guy, by the way. An elderly Hassidic Jew, a middle-aged black woman and a female student from Northwestern. So your witness was on the money with her suggestion.’ He followed her back down the concourse. As they grew close to the interview room, he put a hand on her arm. ‘Don’t take this too personally, Vivian.’

‘If you’d sat listening to that woman for as long as I have, you’d be taking it personally too, Don. Sometimes that’s the only acceptable route to go down.’ She shook off his hand. ‘I know you’re working your ass off on this,’ she added, softening her tone not because she was bothered about hurting his feelings but because she was happy to do whatever it took not to jeopardise Jimmy’s chances. ‘And I totally trust you not to leave a CCTV pixel unturned.’ She delivered her best smile but her head was already back with Stephanie, ready for the next instalment.

34

After our conversation about Leanne, I didn’t see Scarlett for the best part of a week. I was interviewing a TV presenter for her new motivational guide to rebuilding your life after divorce. Given how very publicly her marriage had collapsed, there was plenty of scope for the restoration project. I didn’t much like the woman, mostly because she’s one of those who never accepts any share of responsibility for what’s gone wrong in her life. A bit like blokes who hit their wives then complain the women provoked them by daring to be more verbally agile. Still, she had a smart mouth and she was good at coming up with catchy lines for chapter headings.

Next time I saw Scarlett, she seemed much more cheerful. It turned out that in my absence, Simon had sat with her during her last bout of chemo and his conversation had lifted her to a more positive frame of mind. ‘He says the right things,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how he manages it, but he’s got an instinct for putting his finger on what’s scaring me or what’s bothering me. And then he comes up with some story or statistic or whatever that just makes me feel better.’

I was relieved that she’d had someone there to keep her spirits up. I felt bad about missing a treatment, but Scarlett was insistent that I couldn’t turn my back on my career for her sake. ‘I’m glad you had good company,’ I said.

‘It turned out a real bonus,’ she said. ‘You’ll never guess who turned up at the clinic.’ Her lip curled in disgust. I could think of only one person who provoked that response in her.

‘Not Joshu?’

She nodded. ‘Got it in one. Bloody Joshu.’

My heart sank. Joshu was the ultimate bad penny. Whenever he turned up, trouble followed. He could still provoke Scarlett into a fight faster than I could credit. All her self-control went up in flames when he started on one of his riffs about her unfairness, her lousy parenting and her selfishness in respect of contact. It didn’t help that his dependency on drugs seemed to have grown incrementally since they’d split up. That was one more piece of blame he would lay at her door. Every imperfection in his life could be laid at Scarlett’s door. I felt sick at the thought of him showing up during her treatment. ‘How did he know where you were? And when you were having treatment?’

She shrugged. ‘It’s not exactly a state secret. The clinic’s been named in the papers. And you know how good Joshu is at wheedling shit out of women. He’ll have chatted up some nurse or secretary and found out when I was due in.’

‘How bad was he?’

She looked more pleased with herself than I expected. ‘He burst into the room and started going on about how I needed to make a will signing Jimmy over to him since I was going to pop my clogs any minute.’

‘What a complete and utter bastard he is. How dare he come storming in like that when you’re fighting for your life? Doesn’t he understand what’s at stake for you?’ I was outraged, but Scarlett wasn’t joining in.

‘The thing is, he was totally off his face. He was flapping his hands like a chicken. It should have been distressing but it wasn’t. It was funny. I was holding in my laughter, because I knew that would only make him wilder. But before I knew it, Simon was on his feet and hustling Joshu out the door. Literally. He had him by the hoodie, frogmarching him off the premises.’ She giggled. ‘My hero.’

‘Bloody hell,’ I said. ‘We should have had Simon on the team when Joshu kept trying to storm the gates after you dumped him.’

‘Don’t I know it. He was like a dog with its hackles up. Totally outraged that a gobshite like Joshu should disrupt his precious clinic and his patients.’

‘He has a point,’ I reminded her. ‘Nobody visits that clinic for fun. They’ve got more on their mind than the self-indulgent ranting of a spoilt brat like Joshu.’

‘Well, Simon sorted him out good style and in no time flat.’

‘This is a new angle, though. “I should have Jimmy because you’re dying.”’

Scarlett grew serious. ‘It’s a horrible angle. When you strip away all Joshu’s carry on, it’s not a pretty thought. What if Simon’s wrong and I don’t make it? Joshu is Jimmy’s dad, after all. It’s not like he’s estranged from the boy. They do have a relationship. They love each other, I’ve never denied that or tried to put a stop to it. But Joshu’s an irresponsible twat who can’t look after himself, never mind take care of a kid as well. Simon says not to worry, it’ll never happen. And that’s what I’m trying to hang on to.’ She gave me one of the old Scarlett’s smiles, that simple uncomplicated radiance that used to light up her face regularly before cancer complicated it.