29 Seconds: From the author of LIES. You will not put this thriller down until the final astonishing twist . . .

by TM Logan

  Not knowing was driving her crazy.

  There was something else, too, a feeling almost like she was being watched at work by an unseen observer. As if Lovelock was constantly one step ahead of her. He’d known she was going to HR. He’d known she was going to record their last meeting, and that she’d spoken to the dean about the Atholl Sanders opportunity. But how did he know so much? She couldn’t pin it down, it was as if –

  ‘Dr Haywood?’

  Sarah came out of her reverie.

  ‘Sorry, what?’

  Peter Moran, the school manager, was staring at her across the polished oak table.

  ‘I was asking if you had anything to add to Charlotte’s suggestion?’

  Charlotte Hanson, the media relations manager assigned to their faculty, smiled at her expectantly. Sarah gazed around the table. Everyone seemed to be looking at her.

  ‘Oh, er, nothing,’ Sarah said. ‘Not at the moment.’

  Charlotte brushed her blonde curls behind her ear.

  ‘I was just suggesting some social media activity around the 450th anniversary of Marlowe’s birth. Some blogs and so forth, maybe a piece for The Conversation? Pitching you out to the media for some interviews, see who might be interested?’

  ‘Yes, that sounds good.’ Sarah tried to recover her thoughts. ‘Really good. I’ll pick up with you tomorrow if that’s OK.’

  ‘We’d also like to do some preparation with Professor Lovelock in advance of his book coming out in the spring,’ Charlotte added. ‘I know he’ll be doing lots with the BBC but we’d also like to get everything lined up at this end as well.’

  Sarah nodded but all she could think was: His book won’t be coming out in the spring, because he will be long gone by then. He will have disappeared. Or perhaps it will be published posthumously.

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Yes. Good idea.’

  She hurried back to her office after the meeting wound up, keen to be away from people for an hour or so before her next lecture.

  Her office phone rang as soon as she’d sat back at her desk and she jumped, startled. It was Jocelyn Steer, Lovelock’s PA.

  ‘Sarah, do you have five minutes?’

  ‘Err, sure.’

  ‘Super. Two things: just want to remind you that there is an extra departmental meeting this coming Monday and could you pop through to Alan’s office?’

  She tried and failed to come up with an excuse to dodge the request. Jocelyn could see her electronic diary on Outlook so Sarah couldn’t claim to have an imminent teaching commitment without being caught out in a lie.

  ‘Of course,’ she said instead. ‘When?’

  ‘Right away would be good. Thanks so much.’ She hung up.

  Her heart sinking, Sarah stood and gathered herself. Does he know something? About what I did? Or maybe this is the day he tells me he’s cut my post as part of the restructure. She stood in front of her desk for a moment, trying to work out which was the worse of the two options. Both were disastrous in their own separate ways, but surely the latter was much more likely than the former?

  Eventually she put on her jacket and went slowly through to Lovelock’s office. He was sitting on the edge of his desk, waiting for her.

  ‘Ah, Sarah. Thanks for coming through. Close the door, will you?’

  She pushed it shut behind her but stayed near to it, keeping as much distance as possible between the two of them. He gestured towards the chaise longue along the side wall between two floor-to-ceiling bookcases. It was covered with dark red leather and looked like an antique family heirloom, its upholstery faded with age.

  ‘Why don’t you have a seat?’

  ‘I’m OK, thanks.’

  ‘You make me nervous standing there by the door.’ He grinned wolfishly at her. ‘Come on, women prefer it on the couch, or so I’m told.’

  He gestured again at the chaise longue, and she went over and perched on the end furthest from him. He crossed his legs, angling his body towards her.

  ‘So: the departmental restructure. I wonder if you’ve had anymore thoughts on it.’

  She was amazed, even after working with him for three years, that he could behave in the way he did and then – a day later – act as if nothing had happened. As if he hadn’t made lewd remarks or harassed her or put his hands on her. It was a kind of selective amnesia, she thought, mixed with a colossal belief in his own irresistibility.

  ‘I didn’t think it was down to me.’

  He stood up and moved over to her on the chaise longue, perching on the end with his right leg dangling. He was wearing slippers, she noticed, suede moccasins that seemed thoroughly out of place at work.

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t want you to have that impression. You can certainly influence the outcome of what’s decided.’

  I’m pretty sure I’ve influenced the outcome, she thought. But not in a way you’re going to like.

  He carried on talking, gesturing, moving closer, but she couldn’t hear his words. They were simply noise, drowned out by the volume of thoughts in her head.

  He knows. He knows.

  Don’t be ridiculous. Of course he doesn’t. It was a stupid idea. There was no way he could know about her contact with Volkov. But what if he does? What if he knows there is a blade hanging over his head, ready to swing?

  His smell was stronger now, a sharp body odour. He’d once told Sarah that a man’s natural pheromones should not be masked with chemicals, and consequently his office always had a very specific smell to it. Smells like a tomcat’s jockstrap, Marie had once said. It had been funny at the time but it wasn’t now. She leaned away slightly and tried to breathe as lightly as possible.

  She looked at him and tried to feel bad for what she had done. Tried to stoke up her guilt again, to find some strands of remorse for this thing that she had set in motion.

  But it wouldn’t come.

  Another thought struck her with a force so strong she caught her breath.

  Unless I tell him.

  Is that the right thing to do? Warn him that he is in danger?

  But he would never believe her. And there wasn’t a way of saying it which didn’t sound completely mad. As fast as it had arrived, she banished the thought.

  What’s done is done. Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.

  Instead, as Lovelock edged further into her personal space, one thought drowned out all the rest: maybe this will be the last time I’ll have to go through this. The last time.

  Because you’re a dead man walking, Alan.

  He was still talking.

  ‘The clock is ticking, Sarah. Tick-tock. Decisions will be made, one way or the other.’ He shifted towards her in the seat, resting his arm along the back until his fingertips brushed her shoulder. ‘You’ll either be part of the new structure, or you won’t. It’s up to you. But changes are going to be made – soon. Changes are coming.’

  You bet they are, she thought.

  Ten minutes later she stumbled out of his office. Angry and embarrassed, again. Flushed and fearful. She’d lost count of the number of times it had happened now. Maybe a dozen. Maybe more. But today was different. Because maybe today would be the last time.

  Jocelyn Steer’s eyes followed her as she hurried away down the corridor.

  40

  Saturday passed in a flurry of housework and playing with the children, of taxiing them to swimming lessons and friends’ parties, of cooking and cleaning and washing. She wanted to be busy, to be doing something to take her mind off the events of the previous week, and she was glad when she was able to slump exhausted in front of a film after the children had gone to bed.

  On Sunday morning, Sarah prepared lunch while the children painted at the kitchen table, aprons plastered with colour. Harry seemed to have got more of the poster paint on himself than on the paper in front of him, but he was happy enough, his face a picture of concentration. Grace was running through a long and complicated falling-out between her friends that had come to a head at a birthday pa
rty the previous day.

  ‘Chloe was mean to Millie,’ her daughter explained, ‘and then Francesca said that she’d been invited to Chloe’s birthday party and she didn’t want Tara to go, and if she did go then she wouldn’t, so then Chloe said that Tara couldn’t go after all and then Millie told Alisha that she didn’t want to go if Tara wasn’t going and that Chloe’s mum was mean and horrible and a chav.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘But I think it was all Francesca’s fault really. She’s the one who started it.’

  ‘Mmm. Yes.’

  ‘What do you think, Mummy?’

  ‘I think you should all just be friends, darling, and try hard to be nice to each other.’

  ‘Even Francesca?’

  ‘Yes. Even Francesca.’

  Grace harrumphed as if this was a ridiculous answer and returned to her painting.

  She planned to take the children to Alexandra Park in the afternoon, but only if the rain held off. The TV was on mute in the kitchen, switched to the lunchtime news bulletin. With both children painting happily, she leaned back against the worktop with her coffee to wait for the local weather forecast. The image switched from the national news to BBC London for the regional bulletin. She turned the sound up.

  ‘Our top story today,’ the well-coiffured presenter announced. ‘Police are investigating the death of a man whose body was recovered from the River Lee in the early hours of this morning. Detectives have cordoned off a stretch of the bank of the river in Edmonton, as forensic teams comb the area for clues. Liz Storey has more.’

  All the strength seemed to go from Sarah’s legs. She put her cup down heavily, spilling coffee across the counter. The cup rolled off and smashed onto the floor, Grace squealing in alarm.

  Sarah ignored the mess and the noise, grabbing the remote and turning the TV’s sound up.

  The pictures on the screen cut to a smartly dressed young reporter standing on the bank of a river. Behind her was a lock, water rushing over, where a policeman in a high-vis jacket stood by blue and white crime scene tape strung between two trees at the water’s edge.

  The reporter looked into the camera and it seemed to Sarah that she was staring straight at her.

  ‘The body – believed to be that of a man in his mid-fifties – was found by a dog walker this morning but appears to have been in the water for at least a day.’ The picture cut away to another shot of the crime scene tape, two police cars backed up near to the scene and evidence technicians in white coveralls going back and forth. ‘Police are treating the death as suspicious but are still working to identify the dead man at this stage. Unconfirmed reports suggest that the victim may have been mutilated. The coroner has been informed and an inquest is due to be opened in the coming days. This is Liz Storey, BBC London News, reporting from Pickett’s Lock on the River Lee.’

  Sarah froze.

  Oh God oh God. How did they get to him so fast?

  She knew the area. She’d taken Harry to a summer birthday party at a five-a-side football centre just down the road from there. It wasn’t far from Wood Green.

  Her hand shaking, she opened her laptop and called up Google Maps, scrolling until she found the river and the lock. There. A thin horizontal line that marked where the concrete structure spanned the river from side to side. That was the spot where the BBC reporter had been standing moments ago for her live report. She zoomed out slowly, the map bringing in more and more names as the scale increased. Her heart was beating so hard she thought she might faint, or be sick. She zoomed out a little more and scrolled slightly north before she found what she was looking for.

  The village of Cropwell Bassett.

  The lock was about three miles from Lovelock’s house.

  A man in his fifties.

  Police treating the death as suspicious.

  Unconfirmed reports suggest the victim may have been mutilated.

  Sarah felt a tidal wave of horror mixed with a tiny pinprick of . . . What, exactly? Not relief. Not that. It was the weirdest feeling.

  She covered her hand with her mouth as a voice whispered in her head. Asking the same question, over and over again.

  What have you done?

  What have you done?

  She felt sick.

  The body was the right age, right gender and found in the right area. The identity was not confirmed yet, but that would surely come in a day or two. And then all hell would be let loose.

  She had been stupid and naive to believe Volkov. He had lied to her, had promised that he could make someone disappear and never be seen again. Had promised that Lovelock would vanish off the face of the earth.

  And now a body had turned up in the river three miles from his house.

  41

  Be calm, she told herself. Focus. Now this thing is done, this debt has been paid – whether you wanted it to happen or not. Now you have to be smart, to do what is necessary to make sure that this act of violence never, ever, attaches itself to you or your family. It must not even come close.

  She had to think clearly. Gripping the edge of the kitchen worktop, knuckles white, she stared out of the window. What now? What was the first thing she should do, right away? The first priority had to be getting rid of any evidence, anything at all that connected her to Volkov. She realised with a start that she still had the mobile phone that he had given her. She had meant to throw it away, but she’d forgotten. Deep down she had never really thought anything would happen.

  But now it had.

  She found the little Alcatel phone in the bottom of her handbag and turned it over in her hand, still not believing what she had unleashed with a single phone call. How many ripples would flow out from that call? How far would they reach?

  She opened it and switched it on. The battery still had 58 per cent charge.

  She selected Contacts and dialled the number again, just in case it had been reconnected, hope rising in her chest that perhaps she could still do something to change the course of whatever it was she had begun.

  The line was dead. Just like before.

  The number was useless, but for some reason she didn’t want to lose it forever. She found a Post-it note, scribbled Volkov’s number on it, and tucked the note into her purse.

  The phone had to go. But where? The dustbin wasn’t due to be emptied for another ten days. That was no good. It had to be away from here, away from her home and her children. Somewhere it would never be found.

  She put the phone in a plastic bag, fetched a handful of heavy stones from the garden and dropped them in, before tying the top of the bag in a rough knot.

  Wait. What about fingerprints?

  She went into the utility room by the back door and fetched her gardening gloves from the cupboard under the little sink, pulling them on. She undid the plastic bag, tearing it in the process, and took the phone out again. How was this done? She had seen it on TV but had no idea whether it worked in reality or not. She took a wet wipe from the packet next to the washing machine and wiped the phone down thoroughly, handling it only with her gloved hands. When she was content she’d wiped every part of it, she dried it with a towel from the washing basket and tucked it back into the plastic bag. Wrapping the bag tightly with a length of Sellotape, she wedged it into her handbag. There was something else she should do, she felt sure of it, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. What was it? What else connected her to these men? There was no time to think about it now. Every minute this phone was in her possession, she was connected to a dead man in the river.

  Not just any man.

  Her boss.

  She put her coat on and returned to her children in the kitchen, who were still happily painting at the table. It was a scene of such happy normality, such a contrast from the darkness gathering around her, that she had to stop in the doorway and catch her breath for a moment. She covered her mouth with her hand, wishing she could capture this moment and stay in it forever.

  Whatever else she did, she had to pr
otect these two little ones from the darkness. Even if she failed at everything else, she had to succeed at that.

  ‘Come on, you two, let’s wash our hands now so we can get coats and shoes on,’ she said as brightly as she could. ‘We’re going to feed the ducks.’

  Harry jumped off his chair.

  ‘Yes! Ducks!’

  Grace wrinkled her nose.

  ‘Do we have to?’

  ‘Yes, Grace, we all need some fresh air and the ducks need some lunch. The sun’s going to come out later. Come on.’

  ‘Can we get a McFlurry after?’

  ‘I don’t know, Grace, we’ll see.’

  ‘Does that mean yes?’

  Harry latched on to Sarah’s leg and looked up at her with his big blue eyes.

  ‘Maccyflurry! Maccyflurry!’

  Sarah couldn’t remember everything being a negotiation when she was younger. She remembered getting what she was given by her parents, and being mostly happy with that. But now it seemed that every straightforward instruction she gave had the potential to turn into a bargain to be struck or a treat to be had. On any other day it might have niggled at her, but today she was glad of the distraction.

  She smiled at her daughter.

  ‘It means we’ll see, Grace. Now put your coat and shoes on, those poor little ducks will be starving.’

  They drove through Sunday traffic, through Crouch End and Highgate, parked on the edge of Hampstead Heath and walked to the first footbridge over the bathing pond, the children running ahead so they could be first across the water to the little jetty where the ducks gathered.

  The sky was dark and the air heavy with impending thunder.

  The children reached the jetty and Sarah watched from the bridge as a dozen hungry ducks made a beeline for them across the water. Grace was in charge of the bag of bird seed, and she had given her brother a handful. With his small fingers, he was taking one seed at a time and throwing it to the ducks quacking around his feet, laughing as they circled him.

  Sarah stopped halfway across the bridge. At the centre, where the water beneath would be deepest.