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.