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

by TM Logan

  With both kids absorbed in what they were doing, she looked around quickly. No one behind her. No one coming towards her. There was a dog walker on the far bank, but he was facing the other way. A jogger in a bright pink windbreaker was coming towards her on this side of the pond. Sarah waited, watching the bright pink out of the corner of her eye. The jogger got to the bridge and kept on running, her back to Sarah as she drew further away.

  OK. Now.

  She took the folded-over plastic bag out of her handbag, moved up next to the railings and put her hand through the gap. Opening her hand, she let the bag fall, watching as it fell quickly and hit the choppy water with a flat crack.

  Grace looked up at the noise.

  Suddenly she thought: That was the other thing I was supposed to do. The SIM card. Oh shit, I didn’t take the SIM card out.

  Too late now.

  She watched as the air in the bag billowed upwards as it settled on top of the water. For a horrible moment, Sarah thought perhaps it wouldn’t sink at all. But then the bag rolled over, the Tesco logo visible for a second, before it sank beneath the grey surface of the pond.

  In the distance there was a low rolling growl of thunder, and it started to rain.

  42

  ‘Sorry, am I last again?’ Sarah said, putting her bag down and digging in it for her agenda. She had only made the departmental staff meeting with minutes to spare.

  ‘Not quite,’ Peter Moran said. ‘Alan’s not here yet.’

  ‘Did his first meeting overrun?’

  ‘No, he had nothing in the diary before this, according to Jocelyn.’

  Sarah felt her heart drop into her shoes. She’d spent most of yesterday afternoon and evening scouring the local news websites, listening to radio bulletins, trying to find out more about the body that had been pulled from the river. But no identity had been released yet and she had tried hard to convince herself that it was not Lovelock after all, that it was just a coincidence: this was just some other poor unfortunate who had met an untimely end.

  And yet . . . she’d never known Lovelock to be late for a staff meeting – not once in the two years she’d been in his department. His baritone voice dominated departmental meetings – it tended to dominate every meeting she’d ever had with him – so his absence would leave a large hole in the proceedings. He was normally at his desk for eight at the latest, firing off emails and Skyping with collaborating academics in time zones far away.

  Today, it was a few minutes before 9.30 and the chair at the head of the conference room table – his chair – was still empty.

  Perhaps today is the day after all, she thought. Conflicting emotions clashed inside her. The creeping sense of foreboding that had been growing for days rose up to full height, blocking out everything else. Her breakfast – what little she had managed to force down – rolled in her stomach. People were making small talk around her, but in Sarah’s head, all she could hear were the words of the TV reporter from yesterday morning.

  . . . the body – believed to be that of a man in his fifties – was found by a dog walker this morning . . .

  Moran handed her an agenda.

  . . . appears to have been in the water for at least a day . . .

  ‘Are you all right, Sarah? You look a bit pale.’

  ‘Has anyone heard from him?’

  . . . Police are treating the death as suspicious . . .

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Has Jocelyn tried ringing him?’

  ‘No answer, apparently.’

  . . . are still working to identify the dead man at this stage.

  ‘Perhaps we should give him a bit longer?’

  Moran gave a non-committal grunt and picked up his mobile. Checked it for messages before putting it down again.

  Marie gave her a sympathetic look from across the table, eyebrows raised as if to say Are you OK?

  Sarah nodded and gave her a tight smile. She felt sick.

  Moran cleared his throat.

  ‘Let’s get started, shall we? I’m sure Alan will be joining us shortly. Any other apologies for absence?’

  He scanned the faces around the table.

  ‘Looks like it’s just Alan,’ someone said.

  ‘OK . . . ’ Moran made a note. ‘First item for discussion: the mid-session January exams.’

  Sarah tried to concentrate on what Moran was saying, but it was impossible. Lovelock was never late. After a few minutes she reached down and took her phone from her purse. Holding it in her lap, and trying not to get Moran’s attention, she googled the news story about the body that had been found in the river. Maybe they had identified him already. If they had, his name would soon be out there in the media, and on social media.

  Maybe she would have to be the one to tell everyone what had happened. That his body had been identified.

  That he was dead.

  No. She didn’t think she could pull that off in a way that looked natural. Her voice was bound to give her away. Better to carry on as if everything was normal, and let it filter out in the usual way. It would probably be all around the department – all around the university – in a matter of hours.

  Act normal, she thought. As if it’s just another weekday morning.

  Act as if your deal with the devil didn’t just pay off.

  She hit refresh again but her phone wouldn’t reload the web page – there were signal black spots in some parts of the building and Lovelock’s office was one of them. She locked it again and put it back in her handbag.

  Someone else could break the news, it would be better that way. Maybe Jocelyn was on the phone now. Maybe the police were waiting in the outer office, two grim-faced detectives and a police car parked right out front where all the students would see it. Maybe they would handcuff her, frogmarch her out of the building in front of everyone. She thought about how she would need to look when she heard. Shock, disbelief. She should watch to see how the others reacted and then do what they did. Be natural. Easier said than done.

  The door from the outer office opened sharply.

  All heads turned towards it as Alan Lovelock bustled in, bringing the smells of rain and sweat and cold November air into the room with him.

  43

  Sarah spent the rest of the day riding a wave of relief so powerful it made her dizzy. She struggled to concentrate on anything beyond the simple knowledge that she could get her old life back. It had all been a misunderstanding. Or a con trick, or something. Despite what Volkov had said, he’d not made anyone disappear after all. Because here was Alan Lovelock, just as before.

  She would get her life back. Her old life. She tried not to think about the flip side. The fact that this meant all of her old life – including the fact that he was still here. Still her boss.

  As day turned into evening, the initial feeling of relief at seeing Lovelock still alive was slowly replaced with the leaden knowledge that he was, well . . . the same. That nothing was going to change. He would block her promotion and threaten her with the sack and harass her whenever he could get away with it. She was still powerless to stop him. She was back in the same hole she had been in last week, last month, last year. Back to square one.

  *

  Sitting in her office the next morning, Sarah read the story on the BBC News online for the third time.

  Police have named the man whose body was found in the River Lee on Sunday as 56-year-old Brian Garnett.

  Mr Garnett, of no fixed address, had been missing for more than a week and was last seen at a homeless shelter in Walthamstow. His body was found at Pickett’s Lock and is believed to have been in the water for several days.

  An inquest is due to be opened by the coroner tomorrow. Police have appealed for information to establish Mr Garnett’s whereabouts in the days before his death.

  Detective Sergeant Emma Sharpe said: ‘I would urge anyone who knew Brian, or who saw him at any point in the last two weeks, to come forward so that we can pie
ce together his last movements. He was known at a number of homeless shelters in north London and may have been drinking on the day he went missing.’

  She googled the local weekly paper, the Gazette, which had a little more detail and some quotes of the usual ‘You don’t expect that around here’ variety from dog walkers and the local councillor for the area. According to the Gazette, there were suggestions that Mr Garnett had suffered with drug and alcohol problems for many years, and that he may have fallen into the river while under the influence of one or both. There was no mention of the body being mutilated, as the original TV report on Sunday had stated.

  Feeling more than a little foolish, she closed the browser tab and sat for a moment. Behind it was another tab, www.jobs.ac.uk, the place to go for jobs in academia. There was nothing doing at Belfast or Edinburgh Universities, the other two UK centres for study in her specialist field. There was a job that she could potentially go for at Bristol University, but it was another fixed-term contract, outside her area of expertise, a step backwards in career terms.

  And it was one hundred miles away.

  And the kids were in good schools now.

  And she was just barely scraping by on one salary, never mind the expense of moving.

  She wasn’t going anywhere.

  She closed all the remaining browser tabs to reveal her email inbox, heavy with unread messages from the last couple of days. Focusing on work is difficult when you’ve asked someone to make your boss disappear off the face of the earth.

  She saw now that the whole thing had been ridiculous, a weird glimpse into a parallel universe that existed alongside her own. A universe with its own laws and rules, its own violent code of honour, its own balance of revenge and reward. Its own broken promises, too.

  Of course, there had been relief when Lovelock had appeared. But the relief had quickly been squashed by the leaden reality that she was firmly back in her rut, fighting a battle against impossible odds. A battle she couldn’t win.

  She went back to marking a stack of first-year essays on sixteenth-century poet Edmund Spenser, a contemporary of Christopher Marlowe’s in Tudor London. Uncapping her red pen with a sigh, she began to annotate the essay in front of her – which would be vastly improved if the student could spell Spenser’s name correctly, she thought. That would be a good start, but it seemed that even the brightest of her undergraduates didn’t pay much attention to spelling. Autocorrect had a lot to answer for.

  Peter Moran appeared at the door of her office, one hand gripping the door frame. He was red-faced and looked out of breath.

  ‘Have you seen Alan today?’

  ‘No. Is he not in his office?’

  Moran frowned as if this was a stupid question.

  ‘Obviously not, hence me asking you.’

  ‘I’ve not seen him – but I’ve had my head down marking these papers, to be honest.’

  ‘He’s due to give a presentation to the Vice Chancellor and executive board this morning.’

  ‘He’s probably on his way there now?’

  ‘It was supposed to start fifteen minutes ago. It’s not like him to be late, not for something as important as that. The VC’s kicked off and everyone’s running around like headless chickens trying to find out where the hell Alan’s got to.’

  A feeling of dread began to crawl up Sarah’s spine. She made an effort to keep her voice level.

  ‘Maybe he’s had car trouble again? Like he had the other day?’

  ‘He would have rung in to let us know – it’s too important a presentation. I’ve tried calling him but his mobile is switched off.’

  Moran went to the next office along the corridor. She heard him ask the same question but she couldn’t hear the reply. She sat, frozen, at her desk.

  Be calm, she told herself. It’s another false alarm, just like the body in the river. It’ll be fine, probably his car again, or an issue at home. Maybe a bout of flu. That’s it – he’s probably ill, laid up at home with a temperature.

  But her instincts told her otherwise. The Vice Chancellor was the most important man on campus, the head of the whole university, and Lovelock would not have missed a meeting with him unless he was – unless he was what? Deep down, she knew that this was it – this was the real deal. He was gone.

  She went outside to the little walled garden behind the arts faculty building. It was empty. The students never came here and it was usually quiet outside lunchtime. She found a bench and sat down, trying to make sense of her emotions, to work out how she felt about the latest news.

  It’s happened. This time they’ve done it.

  She took a deep breath, then another. In through the mouth, out through the nose. She sat up straighter, looking around to see if anyone was watching.

  This is what you wanted. This is your doing.

  It was important that she acted normally, to give the outward impression that she had no idea where Alan Lovelock might have disappeared to.

  After all, there’s no way it can be connected to me.

  Is there?

  44

  The days passed in a blur. Sarah kept her office door shut and avoided close contact with colleagues as far as possible, but still overheard the gossip in corridors as staff speculated on where Lovelock had gone and what might have happened to him. Naturally, it had become the most talked-about subject in the department, and speculation was rife – even the students were starting to cotton on that something was not right.

  Slowly, the facts – which seemed to be few and far between – began to emerge from the spiderweb of gossip and guesswork that had become part of every conversation. Lovelock had left his house at the usual time on Tuesday morning, and his wife insisted that he seemed his normal self. But he never arrived at the university. Somewhere between home and work, he had gone missing – and forty-eight hours later he’d still not been seen. His car had disappeared too and his mobile was either switched off or out of battery.

  To all intents and purposes, he had vanished off the face of the earth.

  Sarah’s stomach clenched every time she heard a colleague talking about it. At night she lay awake for hours, the same thought on a loop, over and over.

  You did this. You did this. You did this.

  On Thursday morning there was a strange, charged atmosphere in the faculty when she returned from lectures. Sarah sensed it straight away: a tension in the air, office doors open, whispered conversations, people looking over their shoulders. No one was at their desk, everyone was up, talking quietly, checking phones, huddled in small groups. She slowed as she passed Lovelock’s open office door. Jocelyn Steer appeared to be the one exception, typing steadily at her desk, her face the usual mask of frosty indifference.

  Sarah could already feel her stomach tightening as she bumped into Marie at the top of the stairs. Her friend looked agitated.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Sarah said. ‘What’s going on?’

  Marie checked over her shoulder and leaned in close, speaking quietly.

  ‘Big meeting with all the top bods – directors of HR, communications, security and legal. They’ve been in there for an hour already.’

  Sarah groped for the right response, the innocent response, that would sound right in the circumstances.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Are you for real?’ Marie snapped. ‘What do you think everyone’s talking about? Alan, of course.’

  ‘Is he back? Has he been in touch?’

  ‘Don’t think the top brass would be meeting like this if everything was OK, do you?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe they’ve had some news from –’ From the police, she was going to say, but caught herself just in time.

  ‘News from who?’ Marie said.

  ‘I don’t know. His wife?’

  As she was about to say something else, Jonathan Clifton emerged from one of the meeting rooms deep in conversation with a heavy white-haired man in his early sixties. Sarah recognised him vaguely from stories on the un
iversity’s internal news service – a pro-vice chancellor, one of six who sat at the university’s top table, the Executive Management Board. Peter Moran, the school manager, and a handful of others followed close behind. All of them wore harried, tight expressions.

  Sarah and Marie exchanged a glance and hurried down the corridor into the common room, where more faculty staff were gathered, clutching mugs of tea and coffee.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Marie said.

  All eyes in the small group turned to Diana Carver, a junior lecturer in the department, who was standing next to the kettle.

  ‘They found his car, apparently. Alan’s car.’

  ‘What?’ Sarah said, before she could stop herself. ‘Where?’

  ‘His Merc. The police found it parked up at some reservoir in Enfield, back of an industrial estate.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ Marie said quietly.

  ‘I’ve googled it,’ someone else said, two-finger scrolling on his phone screen. ‘It’s sort of halfway between here and his house. Bit of a detour, but it’s kind of on his route into work.’

  ‘He disappeared on his way to campus, didn’t he?’ Marie said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Carver said, nodding slowly. ‘Tuesday morning.’

  Sarah interrupted, trying to keep her voice even.

  ‘But he wasn’t . . . ’ She tailed off, her mouth dry. ‘He wasn’t with the car?’

  ‘No sign of him.’

  ‘Maybe he’s in the reservoir,’ someone said, almost in a whisper.

  They were all silent for a moment, contemplating possibilities.

  Sarah’s mind raced in a different direction.

  Was this deliberate? A ploy to throw police off the scent? Was that it? Was the Mercedes all they would ever find of him?

  ‘Are they searching the reservoir?’ Marie said finally. ‘With divers?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ Carver said. ‘There’s nothing on the news about it, I’ve checked.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said another voice. ‘Doesn’t look good, though, does it?’