But Stephanie was smart enough to know that didn’t mean she was free of her history. And right now, the coldest fear in her heart was that Jimmy was the latest victim of her past.
The dregs of the coffee were stone cold by the time Vivian returned, and Stephanie’s anxiety had soared to new levels. ‘What’s happening?’ she demanded as soon as the FBI agent entered the room. ‘You’ve been gone nearly an hour.’
‘I had to pull together all the available information then speak to the Emergency Alert System people. I’m sorry it took so long, but I needed some information from Immigration before I could go ahead. We’re also pulling in all the CCTV footage for the whole terminal. We need to backtrack the kidnapper’s movements, to see if we can figure out where he came from. If he was dropped off kerbside or if he came in on public transit.’
‘What about forensics? Surely there must be fingerprints or DNA or something?’
Vivian shook her head. ‘There’s nothing meaningful we can pick up from the security area. Too many people pass through there. And because we didn’t realise right away what was going on, other people passed through after the abduction. I’m sorry, but that’s a dead end.’ She sat down and placed a digital voice recorder on the table between them. ‘Now everything’s running, it’s time for you to fill in a few blanks for me. According to the documents you presented to the Immigration Service, Jimmy’s not your actual son? But you’re responsible for him?’
‘That’s right. I’m his legal guardian.’
‘So what’s the story there?’
Stephanie ran her fingers through her hair, leaving it in a chaotic cloud around her head. ‘How long have you got?’
Vivian leaned back in her chair. ‘We’ve got all night. There’s nothing more we can do right now except try to figure out who’s behind this. Unless this was a random thing, the chances are the reasons for this crime lie in the boy’s background. And you’re my only source for that. So unless you’ve got any bright ideas about the kidnapper’s identity, you’d better start at the beginning.’
The air conditioning suddenly kicked into life, startling Stephanie. But the shiver that ran through her was nothing to do with the draught of chill air. She couldn’t give voice to the suspicion gnawing at the back of her mind. That would give it too much solidity. She was crazy even to entertain the thought. She wrapped her arms around her slender frame and blinked hard. ‘The first thing you need to know is who Jimmy is. And to understand that, you need to know who his mother was.’
PART 2
ghost
1
London. Five years and five months earlier
Sometimes random play of the music streaming on my computer seems to conspire against me. So far that morning, I’d had Janis Ian being miserable, Elvis Costello being miserable and The Blue Nile being miserable. Now Mathilde Santing was singing ‘Blue Monday’, which just about summed up my mood. My last project had been exhausting but it had been three weeks since I’d finished it. I’d been looking forward to spending more time with Pete – that’s Pete Matthews, the man I’d been going out with for the past seven months. But the end of my undertaking had marked the start of a new assignment for him, and he’d been working crazy hours in the studio. I’d discovered some time earlier that there was nothing glamorous about being a sound engineer. Just unpredictable hours, late nights and the sour aftertaste of prima donnas with less talent than they believed or their fans knew.
I’ll be honest. A little light romance would have suited me perfectly right then. I always become antsy when I’m between jobs. As soon as I’ve recovered from the exhaustion of meeting my deadline, I start to obsess over where the next contract’s going to come from. What if that was it? What if I crashed and burned and didn’t get any more work? How would I pay the mortgage? Would I have to sell up, abandon London and go back, God help me, to my parents in their poky little terraced house in Lincoln? I could handle a few days of reading and shopping, a couple of lunches with the girls, a movie matinee or two. But then I started chafing at the bit for a new challenge.
Pete always laughed at me when I talked about my fears. ‘Listen to yourself,’ he would tease. ‘You go from nought to disaster in ten seconds. Look at your track record, girl. They know when they hire you, they get total commitment. You’re their bitch from the minute the ink’s dry till you’ve delivered the goods.’
It’s not really how I see myself, but I took his point. I’ve never taken my projects lightly and in this business, people talk to each other about that kind of thing. I try to believe I have a good reputation. But sometimes it’s hard to cling to that self-belief. Pete could point to his name on CDs. He had tangible validation. But the whole point of what I do is that I remain invisible. Sometimes I show up on the title page or in the acknowledgements, but mostly my clients want to maintain the illusion that they can string sentences together on the page. So when Pete and I were out with friends, there was almost nothing I could say about my work. It was like being a member of the mafia. Except they have the family around them for support. Me, I was just the insignificant one in the shadows.
I cut Mathilde Santing off mid-bar and retreated to the kitchen. I’d barely set the kettle on to boil when the phone rang. Before I could say anything, the voice on the other end had launched into conversation. ‘Stephie, darling, I have such a fabulous assignment for you, wait till I tell you. But how are you, dearheart?’ My agent, Maggie Silver. Irrepressible, irresistible and irreplaceable. And always italicised. Nobody does the business like Maggie. Well, nobody does it louder, at least. My spirits lifted at the very sound of her voice.
‘Ready for a fabulous assignment,’ I said. Even I could hear amusement in my tone.
‘Perfect. Because I have just the thing. They asked for you. No messing about with beauty parades. The publisher is convinced you’ll be the perfect fit.’
‘Who is it?’ Pop star? Actor? Politician? Sportsman? I’ve done them all. When people do find out what I do for a living they always ask who I’ve done and what category I like best. The truth is I have no favourites. There isn’t much to choose between those who have been kissed by fame. Scrape away the superficial differences and the gilded pretensions are much the same. But revealing that to the public isn’t my job. My only role in my subjects’ lives is to make them interesting, loveable and desirable. They call me a ghost, but I think of myself as the good fairy, waving a magic wand over their lives to make a narrative that glows with achievement.
‘You know Goldfish Bowl?’
I couldn’t help myself. I groaned. Reality TV. Was this what it had come to? I’d just transformed a former Tory cabinet minister into a dashing, intellectually respectable hero. And my reward was some here-today-gone-tomorrow nobody from a boring market town who would be famous for fifteen minutes. A bestseller for a month, then straight to the remainder table. ‘Christ, Maggie,’ was all I could manage.
‘No, listen, darling, it’s not what you think. Truly, there’s a story to tell. It’s Scarlett Higgins. You must have heard of her.’