Val McDermid - The Vanishing Point

THE

VANISHING POINT

Also by Val McDermid

A Place of Execution

Killing the Shadows

The Distant Echo

The Grave Tattoo

A Darker Domain

Trick of the Dark

TONY HILL NOVELS

The Mermaids Singing

The Wire in the Blood

The Last Temptation

The Torment of Others

Beneath the Bleeding

Fever of the Bone

The Retribution

KATE BRANNIGAN NOVELS

Dead Beat

Kick Back

Crack Down

Clean Break

Blue Genes

Star Struck

LINDSAY GORDON NOVELS

Report for Murder

Common Murder

Final Edition

Union Jack

Booked for Murder

Hostage to Murder

SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS

The Writing on the Wall

Stranded

NON-FICTION

A Suitable Job for a Woman

THE

VANISHING POINT

VAL McDERMID

Copyright © 2012 by Val McDermid

All rights reserved.

First published in Great Britain in 2012 by Little, Brown an imprint of Little, Brown Book Group, London

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN-13: 978-0-8021-9397-1

Atlantic Monthly Press

an imprint of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

841 Broadway

New York, NY 10003

For the ones who got away while I was writing this book –

Davina McDermid, Sue Carroll and Reginald Hill.

Without all of you, in your very different ways,

I would never have made it this far.

Your absence is a constant presence.

Acknowledgements

It’s a learning curve, this writing business. Every book teaches me something about the world as well as the craft. And so I have a roster of people I need to thank:

Jon and Ruth Jordan for too many things to mention, but in particular this time for passing me on to a contact without whom this book would never have got started. Thanks for giving me the heads-up, Timm.

Linda Watson-Brown and Michael Robotham for sharing their experiences of donning the white sheet.

Kelly Smith for Detroit.

Professor Sue Black for the blood and for www.million-foramorgue.com.

Paula Tyler for giving me access to her encyclopaedic knowledge of family law.

The book doesn’t get from me to you without help. There’s a whole team of enthusiastic people at Gregory & Co, Little, Brown, Grove Atlantic and HarperCollins Canada who play a crucial role in making sure everything works the way it’s supposed to. In particular, I am indebted to Jane Gregory, Stephanie Glencross, Anne O’Brien and the inspirational David Shelley, whose passion infects us all.

And finally a big shout out to my family and friends, whose support I never take for granted. Thank you for cherishing me till the pips squeak.

If you come to fame not knowing who you are, it will define you.

OPRAH WINFREY

PART 1

flight

1

O’Hare Airport, Chicago

Stephanie Harker was just about old enough to remember when air travel had been exciting. She glanced down at the five-year-old fiddling with the tape stretched between the movable pillars that marked out the snaking line waiting to go through security. Jimmy would never know that feeling. He’d grow up to associate flying with tedium and the mounting irritation that came from dealing with people who were variously bored, dismissive or just plain rude. Jimmy seemed to sense her eyes on him and he looked up, his expression tentative and wary. ‘Can we go in the pool tonight?’ he asked, his voice tinged with the expectation of refusal.

‘Course we can,’ Stephanie said.

‘Even if the plane’s late?’ There was no sign that her words had allayed his anxiety.

‘Even if the plane’s late. The house has its own pool. Right outside the living room. It doesn’t matter how late we get in, you can have a swim.’

He frowned, weighing her response, then nodded. ‘OK.’

They shuffled forward a few more feet. Changing planes in America infuriated Stephanie. When you arrived by plane, you’d already been through security at least once. Sometimes twice. In most other countries, when you transferred to an onward flight, you didn’t have to go through a second screening. You were already airside. You’d been declared secure, the authorities figured. No need to go through the whole rigmarole yet another time.

But America was different. America was always different. In America, she suspected, they didn’t trust any other country on the planet to have proper airport security. So when you arrived in the US for a connecting flight, you had to emerge from airside to landside then, whoop-de-doo, you got to stand in a queue all over again to go through the same process you’d already endured to get on the first bloody plane. Sometimes even losing that bargain bottle of mandarin vodka you’d picked up on special offer at the duty free on the way out because you’d forgotten you’d have a second security examination where they’d be imposing the rule about liquids. Even liquids you’d bought in a bloody airport. Bastards.

As if that wasn’t irritating enough, the latest American version of the security pat-down nudged the outer limits of what Stephanie considered sexual assault. She’d become a connoisseur of the thoroughness of security personnel, thanks to the screws and plate that had held her left leg together for the past ten years. There was no consistency in the actions of the women who moved in to check her over after the metal detector had beeped and flashed. At one extreme, in Madrid she’d been neither patted down nor wanded. Rome was perfunctory, Berlin efficient. But in America, the thoroughness bordered on offensiveness, the backs of hands bumping breasts and butting against her like a clumsy teenage boy. It was uncomfortable and humiliating.

Another few feet. But now the line ahead was moving steadily. Slowly, but steadily. Jimmy swung under the tape at the point where the queue rounded the mark and bounced in front of her. ‘I beat you,’ he said.

‘So you did.’ Stephanie disengaged a hand from the carry-on bags to rumple his thick black hair. At least the frustrations of the journey were a distraction from worrying about holidaying with her son. Her nostrils flared as the unfamiliar phrase stuttered in her head. Holidaying with her son. How long would it be before that stopped sounding freakish, outlandish, impossible? In California, they’d be surrounded by normal families. Jimmy and her, they were anything but a normal family. And this was a trip she never expected to be making. Please, let it not go wrong.

‘Can I sit beside the window again?’ Jimmy tugged at her elbow. ‘Can I, Steph?’

‘As long as you promise not to open it in mid-flight.’

He gave her a suspicious look then grinned. ‘Would I get sucked out into space if I did?’

‘Yup. You’d be the boy in the moon.’ She waved him onward. They’d picked up speed and were almost at the point where they’d have to load their bags and the contents of their pockets into a plastic tray to pass through the X-ray scanner. Stephanie caught sight of a large Perspex enclosure beyond the metal detector and pursed her lips. ‘Remember what I told you, Jimmy,’ she said firmly. ‘You know I’ll set off the alarms and then I’ll have to stay inside that clear box until somebody checks me over. You’re not allowed in with me.’