The Vanishing Point

Hi, Kevin. I’m inquiring about a minor child your team admitted this afternoon. No immigration issue, but it looks as if the boy may have been subsequently abducted. He came in from the UK accompanied by Stephanie Jane Harker, UK citizen. According to my info, she was carrying British court papers authorising her to travel with the child. We have to put an Amber Alert together, so I need copies of everything you’ve got asap – the child’s name, DOB, description. If you’ve got a photo, either from the passport or the system, so much the better. We’ve got CCTV images, but they’re never hi-res enough to do much with. Also, any notes you’ve got regarding the paperwork would be helpful. Thanks.

And because she was a belt-and-braces kind of woman, she sent Kevin a text message to alert him to her request.

Deep breath.

Until she had some information to work with, there was nothing more she could do to set the Amber Alert in motion. Time to talk to Stephanie Jane Harker.

When a woman walked into the room instead of Randall Parton, Stephanie felt irrationally relieved. Years of working in an industry where the women were as likely to put the shaft in as any man should have cured her of such gender-based optimism, but she couldn’t help it. Especially where children were concerned, she still expected a smidgeon of solidarity from another woman.

This one looked as if she meant business. She glanced at Stephanie, then took Lopez to one side and bent her head to speak softly to the TSA officer. How would I describe her if I was writing about her? It was Stephanie’s default position when she met anyone new. Her clothes were neat but anonymous – dark-grey trousers, navy blazer, dark-green shirt with only the top button undone. A flash of gold chain at the neck, plain gold studs in the ears. Short brown hair, feathered round the ears and forehead to emphasise looks that might have been elfin if it hadn’t been for the square jaw. A lazy writer would have made something of the hint of Irish in the green eyes and faint dusting of freckles across nose and cheeks. But although Stephanie knew she was no great shakes as a writer, she’d never been quite that lazy. This was America, land of the melting pot. Not a place to make easy assumptions about roots.

Now the woman turned back to face her, flashing a perfunctory, formal smile. ‘I’m Special Agent Vivian McKuras,’ she said, pulling out the chair and sitting down. ‘Federal Bureau of Investigation.’

‘Thank God for that,’ Stephanie said. ‘A proper law-enforcement official at last. Presumably you know my legal rights?’ She was pleased to see a flash of surprise in the agent’s eyes.

‘As far as I’m concerned, Ms Harker, you’ve made an allegation of a serious crime. That’s my sole interest in you. I don’t see why you would need a lawyer to make a crime report. At some point, my colleagues in the TSA will want to give you a pat-down, since you set off the metal detector at the security point, but I don’t see why you’d need a lawyer for that either.’ She flipped open a tablet computer and woke it from its hibernation. ‘As far as I’m concerned, the most urgent thing right now is to track down a missing child.’

Stephanie felt her shoulders drop a fraction. At last, someone who was capable of talking sense. ‘Thank you for clearing that up,’ she said. ‘So have you put out an alert for Jimmy?’

Vivian looked her straight in the eye. ‘We’re in the process of gathering the necessary information to do just that. I’ve examined the CCTV footage of what happened in the security area but unfortunately we can’t see the face of the man who took your child.’

Stephanie swallowed hard. ‘He’s not actually my child.’ Vivian nodded. ‘We are aware of that. And I’m going to be asking you some questions about that shortly. But right now, my priority is to get this alert out there. First, what’s the boy’s name?’

‘Jimmy Joshu Higgins.’ She watched as Vivian typed. ‘That’s Joshu, without an “a” on the end. After his father. He was a DJ.’ Stephanie couldn’t quite keep a note of contempt from her voice.

‘You don’t think much of his father?’

‘No. I don’t.’ There was more to that story, but it would keep.

‘OK. How tall is Jimmy, would you say?’

‘He’s about three foot six. Quite gangly and skinny. He’s light for a five-year-old. He weighs just under three stone.’ Seeing Vivian’s frown, she added, ‘Around forty pounds.’

‘Thanks. We’re going to need a description, to put out with a photograph of Jimmy.’

‘He’s got thick black hair, cut quite shaggy. Did you ever see Jungle Book?’

Vivian looked at her as if she was crazy. ‘No. Is that a movie?’

‘It’s an animation. The kid in the cartoon, he’s called Mowgli. Jimmy looks kind of like him. Same hairstyle, similar kind of cheeky face. I don’t know how else to describe it. Google Mowgli, you’ll see what I mean.’ Frustrated by her inability to communicate an image of Jimmy, Stephanie thought for a moment. ‘Don’t you have his passport? It was in the same bin as mine.’

Vivian turned to Lopez. ‘We got that, Lia?’

Lopez shook her head. ‘No, ma’am. Only Ms Harker’s passport. There was nothing in the bin for the boy. I’ll check again, but . . . ’ She crouched down and began searching the plastic boxes.

‘What about his backpack?’ Stephanie asked. ‘The man he left with picked up the backpack. He must have grabbed the passport too.’

‘Nothing here,’ Lopez reported.

‘Shit,’ Stephanie said. Then she brightened. ‘My phone. I took a couple of pictures of him at the park last week. Would that help? My phone’s in the bin, right?’

Lopez stood up, waving the phone. ‘Here it is.’ She looked to Vivian for guidance. ‘Is it OK to give her the phone?’

‘Give it to me.’ Vivian quickly brought up the photo store and tapped the last photograph. A man in a denim shirt was sitting on a high stool, bent over a National steel guitar. His hair obscured most of his face. Obviously not Jimmy Higgins.

‘That’s a friend of mine,’ Stephanie said. ‘Try going back a bit.’

Another shot of the guitarist, this time with his head thrown back, the tendons in his arms and neck standing out. Then a small boy grinning at the camera, arm thrown out in an expansive gesture towards a clutter of ducks milling nearby. ‘That’s him. We were feeding the ducks.’ Her voice wobbled and tears pricked at her eyes. ‘He’s only little. You have to find him before something really bad happens to him. Please.’

5

Stephanie wasn’t sure how the hierarchy ran between the FBI and the TSA, but now Vivian McKuras was on the case, things were definitely improving. Vivian had departed, promising she’d be back once the Amber Alert was in place. In exchange, Stephanie had volunteered to let Lopez pat her down in the approved TSA manner, which was definitely more like a minor sexual assault than a security procedure. Lopez tried hard to maintain her distance and her dignity, but it was a struggle.

‘It’s not so straightforward when you’ve got to know the person you’re frisking, is it?’ Stephanie said, trying not to flinch at the hand probing the inside of her waistband.

‘It’s for your own safety,’ Lopez said. ‘You’d be pretty unhappy if you got blown up in mid-air because I didn’t do my job.’

‘You strike me as far too smart to fall for that bullshit.’

‘You want a cup of coffee?’ Lopez said, stepping back and peeling off the blue nitrile gloves.

It was ridiculous to feel weepy in response to such a banal kindness. But the longer she was separated from Jimmy, the more vulnerable Stephanie felt. Before Jimmy, she’d never known the responsibility of another person depending totally on her. There had been times in the previous nine months when she’d felt overwhelmed by the weight of it, and times when she’d had sudden flashes of unexpected delight that had made her heart swell. The very burden of the duty made the joy all the more devastating. She would have sworn the sensation was physical. And now he was cast adrift in the unknown, she felt lost. How much worse it must be for him.