Val McDermid - The Vanishing Point

‘You had him tabbed as somebody tenacious then? A guy who wasn’t going to give up and walk away?’

Stephanie looked fed up. ‘Well, obviously. Given the way he started stalking me. And given what I knew about his temperament. He was an obsessive perfectionist at work. But I was equally determined not to make it easy for him to force his way back into my life. I thought he would give up if he couldn’t make any headway.’ She shook her head. ‘I was wrong.’

Vivian pulled her laptop back in front of her and brought up the footage from the security area. She freeze-framed the image immediately before the kidnapper appeared. ‘I want you to look at this very carefully and tell me whether you think this man could be Pete Matthews.’ She turned the screen so that Stephanie could see it.

Stephanie’s first reaction was to gasp at the sight of Jimmy. Her hand flew to her mouth, she drew her breath in sharply. Her other hand moved towards the screen. ‘Jimmy,’ she murmured. A single tear spilled from the corner of her eye and her face twisted in sorrow.

Vivian gave her a moment to compose herself. Either this woman was a consummate actress or she was entirely innocent of any involvement in the boy’s disappearance. Vivian wished she’d thought of confronting her with the CCTV footage sooner, if only to clarify that issue.

Stephanie sniffed hard and wiped her eyes roughly with the back of her hand. ‘It’s OK,’ she croaked, nodding and blinking. Vivian pressed play. The footage jerked into motion. The man came into shot, his cap obscuring his face. His legs were long compared to his torso, which looked strangely paunchy in contrast with limbs that seemed skinny. He bent slightly to talk to Jimmy, took the boy’s hand, grabbed his backpack and passport and walked briskly away. Through it all, Stephanie held her breath. When they disappeared from sight, she released it in a soft moan.

‘Is it him?’ Vivian asked.

Stephanie frowned. ‘I’m really not sure. I don’t think it’s him, but . . . I don’t know, there’s something familiar about the way he moves.’ Bewildered, she looked up at the FBI agent. ‘I don’t think it’s Pete, but I couldn’t swear to it.’

‘What about his build? His height and weight? Look again, Stephanie.’ Vivian ran the short segment for a second time.

Stephanie still looked doubtful. ‘It’s hard to be sure about his height. He’s got that paunch, which Pete definitely didn’t have the last time I saw him. But apart from that, he’s got the same sort of build.’

It was enough for Vivian. She knew all about the reluctance of witnesses to make identifications that went against what they wanted to believe about people in their lives. Stephanie had taken a long time to get to Pete Matthews as a possible perp. She wasn’t going to suddenly go all out to point the finger now. A possible ID was a pretty good starting point as far as Vivian was concerned. If Detective Sergeant Nicolaides couldn’t positively place Matthews in the UK, she would happily promote him to number one on her suspect list. Be honest, Viv, he’s your only suspect right now. She swung the computer back round to face her. Time to change tack.

‘What happened when Detective Nicolaides told Pete to leave the memorial?’

‘I didn’t find that out till much later,’ Stephanie said. ‘All I knew was that Pete didn’t show up in Brighton. And he wasn’t waiting for me at Scarlett’s when I went back to pick up my car. I really did think he’d finally got the message. To be honest, he hardly crossed my mind.’ Her expression darkened again. ‘There were other things happening that were a lot more important to me than whatever was going on in Pete’s head.’

41

After Joshu’s memorial, we all turned our focus back on Scarlett and her treatment. The chemo was almost over, then there was a brief course of radiotherapy. And then, miraculously, the all-clear. Simon told her that the treatment had been successful and although she would continue with drug therapy for the next five years, the chances were high that she was now clear of cancer.

We celebrated with a banquet out at the hacienda. It was a small party – Scarlett, Leanne, George and his partner, Marina, Simon and me. We’d hired a couple of chefs from the local Chinese restaurant and they presented us with a stunning sequence of irresistible courses that left us all groaning. We washed it all down with buckets of Prosecco, toasting Scarlett with every course. ‘And my new book,’ she said on the third or fourth toast. ‘Now I’ve got the all-clear, we can publish, right, George?’

‘Absolutely,’ he said. ‘I know Stephanie’s all set with the typescript. And a very moving read it is too, girls. You’ve outdone yourselves with this one.’

Leanne, who’d had a few more drinks than the rest of us, gave her cousin a sloppy kiss on the cheek. ‘And for the first time in his sorry life, Joshu had perfect timing. Right, Scarlett?’

There was a moment of grisly silence as we all exchanged horrified looks. Then Scarlett said, ‘For fuck’s sake, Leanne, not in front of Jimmy.’

Leanne opened her mouth to say something, but Simon cut across her. ‘We’re here to salute the future, not brood on the past, Leanne. Let’s raise a glass to our generous hostess and her son. To Scarlett and Jimmy!’

It was the perfect diversion and we all fell on it gratefully. It turned out to be the only sour moment in a sweet evening of celebration. Jimmy soon grew tired and, before he could become fractious, Marina whisked him away and miraculously got him to go to sleep. She was always amazing with Jimmy, much more so than any of the rest of us, including his mother. If I could have tempted her back to the UK to help me take care of Jimmy, I’d have done it in a heartbeat.

Simon had been right with the toast, though. It was time to look to the future. I was pleased that my friend had been granted time and health. Selfishly, I was also looking forward to having more time to myself. I didn’t begrudge Scarlett a moment I’d devoted to her during the trauma of diagnosis and treatment. However, I needed to get on with my work, and with establishing my new life in Brighton. She’d always be part of my world, like any good friend. But I was beginning to make new connections – a book group, a pub quiz team – and I wanted that part of my life to grow too.

It turned out I wasn’t the only one who was ready for change. It was about ten days later that I next saw Scarlett, and this time she came down to Brighton. ‘It’s not fair, you always trailing up to mine,’ she said. ‘It’s nice to have a day out by the seaside, and now Jimmy’s in nursery all day, I’ve got more time to myself.’

We wandered round the Lanes for a while, looking for bargains and finding none. She did end up buying a Navajo blanket for the living room, paying about twice as much as I’d have done, even supposing I had her kind of money. And she was making good money by then – the TV shows, the merchandising, the endorsements for everything from kids’ clothes to vitamin supplements. What the books earned was the icing on a towering layer cake. True to her word, a tenth of everything she earned was funnelled into the charitable trust she’d set up for the Romanian orphanage, and she planned to visit them again later in the year to see what practical use had been made of the money she’d raised. ‘I’m going to set up a sponsored night swim,’ she said. ‘Sort of like the Moonwalk, only in swimming pools. From midnight till six in the morning. Women can form teams or do it individually.’

‘That’s a great idea.’ I meant it. ‘Will you take part yourself?’

‘Course I will. I’ll put a team together with the girls from the show. It’ll be a laugh.’ She gave me a wry smile. ‘There’ll be plenty waiting for me to fall on my arse. But they don’t know I swim every bloody day, do they?’