by T. M. Logan
He hung up before Sarah could ask anything else.
She sat for a minute, staring at the wall, waiting for her racing heart to slow a little.
Think about what you’re going to say. Think about what an innocent person would say.
She rang her dad, but he wasn’t answering his mobile. He wasn’t picking up the landline either. Then she remembered: he played bowls on a Friday.
She checked her handbag and quickly packed a separate day bag with the kids’ water bottles, colouring books, pens, tissues, wet wipes, a couple of brunch bars and three bananas. Her hands gripped the wheel tightly as she drove, the children unusually subdued in the back of the car.
In her office, she set Harry up with his colouring book and pens, and gave Grace her book and mobile, selecting the Crossy Road app that she liked to play on.
‘How long will you be, Mummy?’ her daughter asked.
‘Not long. Ten minutes. I’ll be just next door, talking to the policewoman.’
‘What are you talking to her about?’
‘Just some work things.’
‘Are you in trouble?’
‘No, Gracie.’ She made herself smile. ‘I’m not in trouble.’
Harry slammed down his colouring pen on the desk with a smack and let his head roll back.
‘I’m bored,’ he said.
‘Already?’
‘Boooooooored . . . ’
‘We’ve not even been here two minutes.’
Her son let his body go floppy, sliding off the seat and onto the floor, where he proceeded to roll around saying the same word over and over again.
‘Bored bored bored.’
Sarah lifted him to his feet, brushed him down, her mind reaching for something that might hold his attention for a quarter of an hour. She looked around, and her eyes settled on the old-fashioned blackboard in the corner of her office, a relic from when the building had been occupied by the maths department in a previous decade.
‘Look, Harry, I’ll let you draw on the blackboard – you can be like the teacher at school. There’s even a little step you can stand on.’
She handed him a long, thick stick of white chalk.
Harry trotted over to the blackboard and picked up a second piece of chalk, grinning, with one in each hand.
‘I can be the teacher,’ he said. ‘The teacher of all the receptions.’
Sarah turned to Grace. ‘You’re in charge. Look after your brother.’
‘Do I have to?’ Grace complained. ‘He’s annoying.’
‘Yes. I’ll be in the next room along if you need me for anything. Otherwise stay in here, OK?’
Grace nodded reluctantly and Sarah backed out, pulling the door shut behind her.
Sarah entered the vacant office next door, which had been commandeered by a couple of detectives for the afternoon as they spoke with members of staff. The policewoman smiled and held out a hand. She was in her late thirties, athletic and tall – close to six feet, Sarah guessed – with shoulder-length blond hair.
‘I’m Detective Inspector Rayner.’ She indicated her colleague, a slim black man at least ten years her junior with short-cropped hair and a neat beard. ‘And this is Detective Sergeant Neal.’
Sarah shook both their hands in turn.
‘Nice to meet you.’
‘Have a seat. Thanks for coming in on your day off. Would you mind shutting the door behind you?’
Sarah did as she was told.
‘It was no problem to come in, really.’
‘Are those your kids next door?’
‘Yes,’ Sarah smiled. ‘Grace is eight and Harry’s five.’
DI Rayner smiled back.
‘I bet they keep you on your toes.’
‘You can say that again. I just wish I had half their energy.’
The detective leaned forward slightly in her chair.
‘So: we’re investigating the whereabouts of one of your colleagues, Alan Lovelock. You’re probably aware that he’s missing.’
‘Yes, I’ve heard. Terrible.’
‘We’re talking to a number of members of staff here to find out if anyone has been in contact with him. The inquiry is still at an early stage, but our understanding is that for Professor Lovelock to be out of contact for this long is extremely uncharacteristic behaviour.’
‘Yes. Yes it is.’
‘Let me run you through a few of the details.’ DI Rayner flipped back a few pages in her notebook. ‘He hasn’t been seen since leaving the house at about 7.45 on Tuesday morning. His wife was understandably concerned and called us that night, after not hearing from him all day. His car was found by the King George’s Reservoir near Enfield Lock on Wednesday evening. I’ve been looking at this since about Thursday lunchtime, and, so far, I’ve found no activity on his phone, his bank account, his email, his social media accounts. Nothing at all, in fact, since Tuesday morning, which means he’s now been missing more than seventy-two hours.’
Sarah shivered. She felt cold and hot at the same time.
‘Yes. We’re all very worried. His poor wife must be in a terrible state.’ As she spoke Sarah could feel her face flushing.
Stop talking. Just stop.
DI Rayner’s eyes narrowed slightly.
‘Are you feeling all right?’ the detective asked.
‘Yes. Fine.’
‘You’re sweating.’
‘Just had a bit of a rush-around morning with the kids – it’s an Inset day at their schools – then coming in here, you know.’ She crossed her arms. ‘It’s been a bit of a mad day.’
‘I see. I’d like you to think carefully about the last three days – have you had any contact, anything at all, with Professor Lovelock in a professional capacity?’
‘No. Nothing.’
DS Neal scribbled something in his notebook.
‘And how about,’ DI Rayner added, ‘in a personal capacity?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Outside of work. Personal.’
‘Why would I have –’
‘Yes or no?’
Sarah felt the sweat on her palms and laced her fingers together.
‘No. Of course not.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes. Positive.’
DI Rayner leaned forward, fixing Sarah with unblinking blue eyes.
‘So it’s not the case that you were involved with Professor Lovelock outside of work?’
46
‘What?’ Sarah said, not sure she’d heard correctly.
‘I asked if you were personally involved with Alan Lovelock.’
‘No!’ Sarah answered rather more forcefully than she had intended. ‘Absolutely not.’
DI Rayner exchanged a glance with her partner.
‘So,’ DS Neal said, picking up the questioning, ‘how would you describe your relationship with him?’
‘Relationship?’
‘Your working relationship.’
Sarah hesitated, searching for the right words. She turned the wedding ring on her finger.
‘Normal, I suppose.’
‘Define normal.’
‘He’s my line manager.’
‘Do you know each other socially, as well?’
‘No, not really.’
DS Neal flipped back a page in his notebook.
‘But you went to a party at his house a few weeks ago.’
‘He invited me. He invites lots of colleagues from the department.’
‘Have you ever been romantically involved with him?’
Sarah felt the colour rising to her cheeks again.
‘Romantically? No. Never!’ She knew as soon as she’d said it that the words had come out too fast. ‘I already told you that.’
‘Has he ever propositioned you?’
Sarah paused for a second. The questions were heading in a direction she hadn’t anticipated. But she had to play it safe, make sure they had no inkling of motive. The lie made her palms itch, but it was just easier to li
e. Smarter.
‘No.’
‘And what about the other way around?’
‘I’m sorry, what?’
‘Have you ever propositioned him?’
‘Absolutely not!’ she said.
‘Have you ever had sex with him?’
‘No! Who said that?’
DS Neal shrugged.
‘Just one of those questions we have to ask, I’m afraid.’
‘I’m married,’ Sarah said.
DI Rayner leaned forward in her chair.
‘Some of our enquiries suggest that Professor Lovelock may have been having a relationship, or relationships, outside his marriage,’ she said carefully. ‘One of our lines of enquiry is to work out whether he may have fallen foul of an angry spouse. Someone who caught him messing around with their wife, got angry, decided to take revenge.’
‘Do you really think that could be a possibility?’
‘What about your husband, Sarah? Has he met Professor Lovelock?’
‘He’s . . . they might have met once or twice, briefly. Not really properly.’
‘Is he the jealous type?’
She shook her head, frowning at the question.
‘No. And anyway he’s – he’s not around at the moment.’
‘You’re separated?’
‘We’re just having . . . a little time apart.’
‘What’s prompted that, if you don’t mind me asking?’
‘I do mind. And it’s not relevant to this at all.’
‘But it could be relevant if your husband perceived that there was a relationship going on behind his back, and that he perceived your boss –’
‘There wasn’t.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘There wasn’t a relationship. Whoever told you that is mistaken.’
Jocelyn Steer, she thought.
‘Past tense?’ the detective said.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘You said there wasn’t a relationship. Past tense.’
‘I just meant it wasn’t – isn’t – something that’s ever happened.’
‘Did Professor Lovelock want it to happen?’
Again, she hesitated.
‘No.’
‘Are you sure about that?’
‘Yes.’
‘Still, we may want to talk to your husband at some point.’ The detective turned over the page of her notebook. ‘One last thing, and then we’ll let you get on with your day: can you think of any reason that Professor Lovelock might have had to harm himself?’
Sarah made an act of thinking for a moment, then shook her head.
‘Not that I can think of, no.’
‘Did he seem down or depressed in any way, the last few times you saw him?’
‘No. But he probably wouldn’t have confided in me anyway.’
‘OK.’ The DI made another note. ‘Thanks, Sarah. Those are all the questions we have for now. If anything occurs to you that you think might help, please get in touch, OK?’ She handed Sarah her card.
Sarah took it and saw herself out, waiting until she was safely in the corridor and the door was shut behind her to allow herself a small sigh of relief.
They don’t seem to know anything, not really. They don’t know about Volkov. They don’t know about his offer. They don’t know about any of it.
They don’t know what’s happened to Alan.
Unless –
Unless they know more than they’re letting on.
47
Sarah opened the door to her office and was confronted with clouds of white dust hanging in the air. There was a fine layer of white on every surface and the blackboard was completely covered with chalk drawings of stick men, aeroplanes, tanks and houses and smears of white from one side to the other. Harry and Grace turned to look at her, grinning guiltily. Both had a blackboard rubber in each hand and were covered from head to foot in white chalk dust. Harry began enthusiastically banging the board rubbers together and more plumes of dust billowed around them.
‘Look, Mummy!’ Harry said, beaming. ‘We made smoke!’
Grace waited a beat, watching to see if her mum got angry and shouted at her brother. When Sarah did neither of those things, she banged her own rubbers together to create more clouds of the white powder.
‘Smoke!’ Grace repeated.
‘This is fun!’ Harry said, beaming, his hair, skin and eyebrows coated in a fine layer of chalk dust. As was his sister, the desk, her chair, the filing cabinet, piles of books on the floor and most of the other surfaces in the office.
‘That’s enough now,’ she said distractedly. ‘Stop playing, we have to go.’
She began to brush him down, creating more clouds of chalk dust which settled in ever thicker layers on every exposed surface, and her own clothes. She quickly realised that she was simply transferring the white powder from one place to another.
‘Bloody brilliant,’ she said under her breath. ‘This is all I need.’
‘Bloody brilliant!’ Harry repeated, grinning.
‘Come on, you two. We’re going.’
She gathered up all the colouring books, pens, Star Wars toys, pencils and cereal bars she had brought with her, plus the children’s coats and jumpers and shoved them all into her backpack, ushering her children out of her office, downstairs and outside to the main car park at the front of the building.
A police patrol car was parked in the turning circle next to the statue of Neptune there, with a dozen students nearby taking pictures of it, posing for selfies and talking in excited tones. No doubt posting on Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter and everywhere else, Sarah thought. She wondered how long it would be before the secret got out about the university’s prized professor. Not long, judging by the amount of interest being generated by the police car. Since vanishing on Tuesday he had missed five lectures, and she knew student speculation on social media was already spreading like a virus. And, like a virus, it would soon be out there in the wider population – if it wasn’t already.
She headed for her car – parked illegally in a disabled spot – holding each child by the hand so they couldn’t run off. Grace moved to get in.
‘Wait a minute,’ Sarah said.
‘What?’ her daughter replied, pre-teenage outrage in her voice.
‘We need to get some of that chalk off you first.’
‘What chalk?’ Grace said through white-filmed lips.
‘Just wait a minute.’
She went to put her bags in the car and when she turned back – barely a few seconds later – Harry was crying and Grace was looking away from him, arms crossed, a look of studied disinterest on her face.
‘What’s going on?’ Sarah said.
Harry lunged for his sister. She sidestepped him and his momentum sent him sprawling to the pavement.
He jumped up and came at her again. As Sarah reached out to hold him back, she dropped her handbag, the contents spilling across the asphalt.
‘What’s going on? Why are you fighting again?’
‘He put chalk on me,’ Grace said.
‘You’re already covered in chalk.’
Harry sniffed and stuck out his bottom lip. A tear made a clean line down his chalk-covered face.
‘She pinched me, Mummy.’
‘That’s enough, both of you. I’ve enough to deal with, never mind you two behaving like a couple of bloody toddlers.’
‘You swore, Mummy,’ Grace said accusingly.
She knelt next to them, gathering up the spilled contents of her handbag while brushing more of the white dust from her children and trying to make sure they didn’t come to blows again.
‘Do you want a hand?’ A friendly voice beside her.
She looked up and saw a tall, dark-haired man with a backpack over one shoulder. Not young enough to be an undergraduate, Sarah thought, but he didn’t look quite old enough to be a member of staff either. He had the look of a rugby player, broad and wide-shouldered, and was dressed more smartly than
the average student.
He handed her a couple of lipsticks that had fallen from her handbag.
Sarah took them from him, grateful for the help.
‘Thanks, I appreciate it.’
‘No problem.’
He lingered a moment longer, as if plucking up the courage to say something further.
‘You work with Prof Lovelock, don’t you?’
Sarah felt an immediate stab of concern at the mention of his name.
‘We’re in the same department, yes.’
‘Thought so.’ The man smiled broadly. ‘My girlfriend has him on Wednesdays: says it’s the best lecture she’s ever had. But he didn’t turn up this week and the word is, he’s missed everything else as well.’
‘The word from who?’
‘It’s all over Twitter. Is he ill, or something?’
‘No, don’t think so.’
The man raised an eyebrow.
‘Woah. So the rumours are true, then?’
48
Sarah put the last few things back into her handbag before zipping it up.
‘What rumours?’
‘People are saying on Twitter that he’s been suspended. Criminal misconduct.’
If only, Sarah thought.
‘Don’t think it’s that, either.’
The man looked down at her with dark, confident eyes.
‘Really? So, he’s not ill and not suspended. Done a runner then, has he?’
A slim, dark-haired woman appeared at the man’s side. Sarah knew her from somewhere but she couldn’t quite place her. She had an iPhone in her hand and was wearing an exquisitely cut black trouser suit over a crisp white blouse. Sarah read the name on the university ID card hanging around her neck on a lanyard. Lisa Gallagher, Press Office.
‘Hi,’ she said briskly to the tall man. ‘Are you a student?’
‘Yeah. Postgraduate. Politics.’
‘Long way from your faculty, aren’t you?’
‘I was just on my way back to my hall of residence.’
‘Really? Which hall?’
‘Sorry, I’ve got to be off now.’
‘I know you, don’t I?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘Yes, I do. You’re Ollie Bailey. Daily Mail, isn’t it? Or is it the Evening Standard?’
The man looked at her, seeming to contemplate his options. After a moment he smiled and held up a hand in mock surrender.
