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

by TM Logan

  Sarah nodded and stood up, hoping her unsteady legs wouldn’t betray her on the way out.

  63

  After the seminar Sarah retreated to her office, sitting still and quiet with the door closed and locked and the lights off, so no one would come knocking on the door trying to bother her. Her lunch – a cheese sandwich – sat untouched on the desk beside her. She had no appetite anyway. She just wanted to be alone, to have some time to think about her situation. About what to do next. All she could think of was the conversation with her father the night before, his calm, methodical, rational dissection of her options. It had been a relief to share the burden with him, to share her secret, but now she knew she had to choose which way to –

  There was a light knocking on her office door, followed by a woman’s muffled voice.

  ‘Sarah?’

  She froze, hoping the person would give up and go away.

  ‘Are you in there? It’s Marie.’

  Sarah sat perfectly still.

  The knocking came again, louder this time, followed by the voice.

  ‘I know you’re in there.’

  Sarah sighed, got up and unlocked the door.

  Marie stood in the corridor, a Tupperware box in one hand and her mobile in the other.

  ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Lunch?’

  ‘Just going to have it at my desk, I think.’

  ‘Mind if I join you?’

  ‘Why not?’ Sarah opened the door wider and Marie took a seat on a folding chair wedged into the corner, between two stacks of books. Sarah shut the door behind her and went back to her desk.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Marie said. ‘You look a bit zoned out. Dark in here. Is your bulb gone?’

  ‘Just a headache. Didn’t get much sleep last night, that’s all.’

  ‘Is Harry having that nightmare again?’

  ‘Nightmare?’

  ‘The one about the giant hamster?’

  It took a moment for Sarah to remember what her colleague was talking about: a week-long period over the summer when Harry had woken at least three times a night, every night, insisting there was a giant hamster under his bed.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she lied. ‘That one.’

  Marie took the lid off her Tupperware box.

  ‘So, what do you make of it all?’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Alan.’

  Sarah shifted uncomfortably in her seat. What did Marie know? What did she suspect?

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’

  Sarah tried to force a smile, but it wouldn’t come.

  ‘How long have you got?’

  Marie snorted, spearing a forkful of vegan pasta.

  ‘I know, right? But I mean since he came back from . . . that thing that happened to him.’

  ‘The kidnapping.’

  ‘He’s different somehow. The same, but different.’

  ‘You mean worse than he was before?’

  Marie nodded.

  ‘It’s like he’s . . . cracked a bit, gone over the edge. If you ask me, he’s come back to work too soon.’

  ‘He’s been cracked for a long time, Marie. It’s just that most people never saw it.’

  ‘I know, but he seems more mad than before. Wired, as if it’s turned all of his worst characteristics up to eleven and he can’t work out how to dial them back down again.’

  Sarah picked up her sandwich, considered it for a moment. Put it back down again.

  ‘It’s bound to affect you, I suppose, if some random Russian abducts you and throws you in the boot of his car.’

  Marie frowned.

  ‘He was Russian, was he?’

  Sarah felt a jolt of alarm. Be careful, very careful.

  ‘That’s what the police said.’

  ‘Not to me, they didn’t.’ She pointed her fork at Sarah. ‘How come you always have the best gossip, Dr Haywood?’

  ‘Can’t remember where I heard it from, actually.’

  ‘Wherever the bad guy was from, I think the experience has tipped Alan over the edge.’ She chewed thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps it’s post-traumatic stress disorder?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘It would be great if he got signed off for a month or two, wouldn’t it?’

  Sarah gave a wry smile.

  ‘Probably doesn’t help that he’s drinking even earlier in the day now.’ Marie spoke through a mouthful of pasta. ‘What else did the police say when they talked to you?’

  Sarah felt her stomach clench with fear. Be careful.

  ‘Same as they said to everyone else, I suppose.’

  ‘Have you heard the latest? Alan’s been saying the police are close to arresting someone else in connection with the kidnapping. An accomplice.’

  Sarah swallowed hard and turned away, pretending to check her phone.

  ‘Really?’ she managed.

  ‘Apparently, it’s just a matter of time – so he says, anyway. You know what I think?’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I don’t think they’ll have to look far for an accomplice.’

  ‘What?’ Sarah felt the heat starting to rise to her face. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Not random, is it?’

  ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘His wife. Caroline. She’s got fed up with him trying to screw everything that moved, and decided to teach him a lesson. It’s always the husband – or the wife, in this case.’

  ‘Could be,’ Sarah said quietly.

  ‘Or maybe Gillian Arnold – she has plenty of motive.’

  ‘That’s true enough.’

  Marie put the last piece of penne pasta into her mouth and held her fork up like a conductor.

  ‘You know, I was rather hoping that the whole experience would have given him enough of a shock to bring him down a peg or two. I don’t know, encourage him to take a step back, make him into a better person, somehow. But it hasn’t, has it?’

  ‘No, it’s made him worse. Much worse.’ She paused, just for a second. ‘It must make you wonder, Marie.’

  Marie looked up, confused.

  ‘Make me wonder what?’

  ‘Whether he’s still going to honour his side of the deal.’

  64

  Marie crossed her arms over her chest.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The deal you made with Lovelock. When exactly did you decide you were going to stitch me up?’

  ‘I don’t – I’m not sure what you mean, Sarah.’

  ‘You know, something you said that day I went to report Lovelock to HR has been bugging me for a while, but I couldn’t work out why. You said if I rocked the boat, we’d all end up losing.’

  Marie shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

  ‘I don’t remember saying that.’

  ‘Oh, you did. I was too wrapped up in my own anger at the time to think it was anything other than sisterly solidarity. But then I started thinking about it in bed one night, and I couldn’t work out what you meant. Why would we all end up losing?’

  ‘Sarah –’

  ‘And then I realised it wasn’t about solidarity at all, was it? It was pure self-interest. You thought you’d be tarred with the same brush as me: guilt by association. And it might have jeopardised the deal you’d made with him.’

  ‘Honestly, Sarah, I don’t know what you’re talking about. We’re friends, aren’t we?’

  Sarah held a hand up.

  ‘Hang on a minute, I’m not finished. Lovelock knew that me and you were friends. He said we were “thick as thieves” that night in Edinburgh. He’d probably assume that if I made a formal complaint, you’d encouraged me, and that would scupper your chances of getting the promotion he’d promised you. Better if we all just sat back quietly, nice and compliant, and let him put through the paperwork without anyone raising a formal complaint and the whole process grinding to a halt.’

  Even in the gloom of her unlit office, Sarah could see the flu
sh creeping into Marie’s cheeks. She pressed on, a calm fury in her voice.

  ‘I couldn’t work out where he was getting his information from. I complained to Clifton about Alan stealing my idea on that new funding in Boston, and the next day Alan knew about it.’

  ‘Clifton probably told him,’ Marie said in a small voice. ‘They’re old friends.’

  ‘No, I don’t think it would even have occurred to him to pass that on. Departmental spats like that are much too small fry for him. But you were there, right after I spoke to Clifton. You appeared out of nowhere. You were eavesdropping on our conversation, weren’t you?’

  Marie shook her head, but said nothing.

  ‘I’d told you I was going to go to HR,’ Sarah continued. ‘But Lovelock got in there before me, to lay the groundwork for presenting me as a problem. He was literally in with Webster when I arrived to go into my meeting with him. Presumably telling him I was mad, unstable, prone to all of the crap that he threw at Gillian Arnold. When Alan called me in later that afternoon, he was a step ahead of me again – he knew I would try to record the meeting. Something I told you I was planning to do. Did you tell the police I was in a relationship with Alan, too?’

  Marie didn’t reply.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ Sarah said. ‘I can’t believe you’ve turned me over like this. What about the Rules? We bloody came up with them together.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So what made you do it?’

  Marie paused, her shoulders slumped. She spoke without looking up from the floor.

  ‘He told me there was a restructure coming, that my job was at risk because I was on a temporary contract. That I’d be one of the first in the firing line. This was a few weeks ago, around the time he had his party.’

  ‘He told me that too.’

  ‘He said I could put myself in a good position if I helped him, if I gave him certain information. Kept an eye on a few people.’

  ‘Including me.’

  Marie looked up and nodded.

  ‘He had you down as a troublemaker.’

  ‘Because I wouldn’t sleep with him?’

  ‘He had you pegged as someone to put in their place, one way or another.’

  ‘So you made a deal with him.’

  ‘I didn’t want to. But it’s my career.’

  ‘It’s my bloody career too!’

  Marie flinched at Sarah’s anger.

  ‘But you’ve got your kids and your nice house, and all of that. I haven’t. I’ve just got this – my career. I’ve given everything to it, and he said he was going to take it away, that I had to make a choice. And when we saw Gillian Arnold at his party I knew that I didn’t want to end up like her. Anything but that.’

  ‘Gillian didn’t do anything wrong.’

  ‘Yes, she did – she tried to take him on. Seeing her taught me there was no way to go up against him and win. I tried to tell you that, tried to keep you from starting a fight you couldn’t win. But you wouldn’t listen.’

  There was silence between them for a moment as Marie stood, gathering up her bag and coat and moving to the door.

  Sarah shook her head. After her flash of anger, she was suddenly bone-tired. Tired of deceit and betrayal, tired of trying to keep track of who could be trusted. More than anything else, she was sad for her friend. Sad that she had been pushed into this position. Sad that they were lost to each other now.

  There was only one more question to ask.

  ‘Marie,’ Sarah said wearily. ‘Did you have sex with him as well?’

  ‘It wasn’t –’

  ‘You know what?’ Sarah interrupted, holding up a hand. ‘Don’t answer that, I don’t want to know. Just go.’

  Marie went out into the corridor and pulled the door quietly shut behind her.

  65

  Roger clasped his hands together on the old oak kitchen table and leaned towards his youngest daughter. Sarah had come home mid-afternoon, Grace and Harry were at after-school club and the house had been restored to a semblance of order after the mess Sarah had made of it.

  ‘Right,’ Roger said. ‘I’ve been doing some thinking, since we spoke about your situation.’

  ‘OK,’ she said slowly.

  ‘It seems to me there is only one question that matters now, Sarah.’

  ‘Just the one? I have about a million questions, but no answers.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Only one question that’s important.’

  Sarah sighed and closed her eyes.

  ‘Am I going to like the question?’

  ‘Irrelevant whether you like it or not. The only thing that’s relevant is this: you’re in a bad situation and it’s probably going to get worse.’

  ‘Great. You’re making me feel better already.’

  ‘You can’t go backwards, Sarah. You can’t go back to a time before this happened, before you made a deal with the Russian. That door is closed now – you have to go forwards, deal with the world as it is. And so here’s the one question: what are you going to do about it?’

  Sarah knew he was right. She had known for days, weeks. Since the phone call that had sent her through the looking glass into another life.

  ‘Do?’ she repeated. ‘What can I do about it?’

  ‘Well, you have a choice to make. Just like when you were sixteen and you had to decide what path to take. You’re at another crossroads now and it seems to me you have three choices.’

  Sarah took a sip of her tea, feeling the burn as it went down. Her calm, methodical dad had always been the same. The man who’d spent his career analysing risks, always good at breaking a situation down and looking at it from every angle. Always good at stripping away everything that was irrelevant and pinpointing the facts.

  ‘Life’s not as simple as that,’ she said.

  ‘Life can be complicated if we choose. But it doesn’t have to be.’

  ‘So what are they, these three options?’

  ‘Are you sure you want to hear them?’

  ‘No,’ she sighed. ‘Yes. Go on, then.’

  ‘Without stating the obvious, I’ve assumed that doing nothing is a non-starter.’

  ‘Correct. Doesn’t bear thinking about.’

  ‘So, the first option is the obvious one: you can cut your losses and run, admit that the system sometimes fails, that bad things happen to good people, that the odds against you in your current situation are simply too great. Admit that sometimes there simply isn’t an effective and fair solution – accept that’s just how life is. Make a fresh start somewhere else, in a different field, a different city. I can help you to do that.’

  ‘Everything I’ve worked towards here will be lost.’

  ‘Yes. You’ll have to start again.’

  Sarah slumped back against her chair with a sigh.

  ‘Believe it or not, Dad, that’s not wildly attractive as an option.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘There comes a point when you start feeling too old to start again. What’s option two?’

  ‘Put your faith in the powers that be. Make a full formal complaint to the university and go public if you have to. Find a good solicitor – and get ready to have Lovelock come at you with this accusation about the Russian. Deny ever meeting him, stand firm and try to hold your nerve longer than they can. Hope that there’s no evidence out there of you and Volkov having a conversation.’

  ‘Trust a broken process while I lie through my teeth? I might as well surrender right now.’

  ‘I wouldn’t put it like that.’ He cocked his head to the side. ‘But surrender is not always the worst option, you know. It can save a lot of pain and grief, a lot of unnecessary trauma.’

  She looked up at her father through bloodshot eyes.

  ‘But you would never surrender, would you?’

  ‘I did when it came to Lee Goodyer. Sometimes, it’s the right thing, that’s all I’m saying.’

  Sarah closed her eyes, relishing the momentary blackness.


  ‘What’s the third option?’ she said.

  ‘The third one is the hardest, Sarah.’

  ‘Harder than running away or lying for the rest of my life?’

  ‘Well,’ he said. ‘That rather depends on your point of view.’

  66

  Sarah loaded the shopping bags into the boot of her car, working quickly and keeping an eye on her surroundings. The multi-storey car park at Brent Cross shopping centre was almost full and she didn’t want to bump into anyone she knew, anyone from work who might ask awkward questions, however unlikely that was at seven o’clock on a Wednesday evening. The shopping centre at Wood Green was nearer to home but she was desperate to get away from her own neighbourhood, to be anonymous, doing something that might take her mind off her problems if only for an hour. She had left the children at home with her father and gone shopping.

  She didn’t want to talk to anyone. What she really wanted to do was curl up in a corner and hide.

  She slammed the boot and took the trolley to the collection point, walking quickly back to her car, keen to be out of this claustrophobic place. The cars were packed in so tight here that someone could creep up and you wouldn’t see them until they were right on top of you. Her nerves were stretched taut as it was, and every extra second she had to stay in the multi-storey was a second too long. She had come to hate places with only one exit. Two was better, three preferable. The more the better if she had to get away from somewhere – or someone – in a hurry. But this car park only had one exit, the concrete ramp down to the ground floor. The sooner she was out of here, the better.

  She saw him everywhere. Lovelock. Glimpsed him moving in crowds, at the end of a supermarket aisle, on her street, watching her from behind windows. The back of his head, or his distinctive walk, his booming voice; and every time there was a little stab of fear twisting in her stomach. She knew it wasn’t him, not really, just her imagination. Just her exhausted mind projecting him onto every tall man she saw.