29 Seconds

by TM Logan

  ‘What secret? What are you talking about? It sounds to me like we should call the police.’

  She put a hand on his arm.

  ‘No, Dad! No. Not the police.’

  ‘So tell me.’

  She looked at him, at her lovely dad, the concern on his face. The love in his eyes. And she felt the tears come again, pricking her eyes before she surrendered to them, until she was sobbing, chest heaving, weeks and months of emotion pouring out of her.

  ‘I’ve made a mess of everything, Dad,’ she said between sobs. ‘It’s all gone wrong, and it’s all my fault.’

  Her dad hugged her tightly.

  ‘What’s gone wrong, Sarah?’

  ‘Everything.’

  He waited a beat, then said quietly: ‘All I know is that you can’t carry on how you’ve been for the last few weeks. And this,’ he gestured at the weapons again, ‘is no way to live your life. So why don’t you tell me, Sarah?’

  ‘You have to promise not to tell anyone else. Ever. Not Helen or Lucy, not my friends, no one at work – and definitely not the police.’

  ‘I promise.’

  ‘Swear. On your grandchildren’s lives.’

  He considered this for a long moment. Nodded, finally.

  ‘I swear not to tell.’

  She leaned her head on his shoulder.

  ‘I did a bad thing, Dad. A very bad thing. And now everything is unravelling. It’s all getting more and more messed up, and I don’t know how to stop it.’

  They sat down at the kitchen table and she told him the whole story: Lovelock’s behaviour over the past two years, the Rules and how impossible it had become to work with him. She told him about his refusal to promote her and his plans to restructure her out of the department, about Volkov and his offer and what had transpired since the phone call two weeks previously.

  He didn’t interrupt her, he just let her talk. Finally, when she had finished, she saw that there were tears in his eyes, too. In more than three decades, she had hardly ever seen him really angry – she could remember perhaps two or three times in all those years. He was the practical one, the level-headed one, the insurance broker who had a logical response to everything.

  But he was angry now. It was coming off him in waves.

  ‘Jesus Christ alive, Sarah. I feel like I want to go and kill the bastard myself.’

  He hardly ever swore, either.

  Sarah handed him a tissue and took another for herself.

  ‘I don’t know what to do, Dad. I can’t make it right and I can’t make it go away. It just keeps getting worse and worse.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me any of this sooner? I could have helped.’

  ‘You’d have worried, and I didn’t want that. I wanted you to be proud of me, of what I’d achieved.’

  ‘I am proud of you. More proud than you’ll ever know.’

  ‘I just want to fix things. I want to know how to put things right.’

  Roger was quiet for a moment, his hand resting on Sarah’s in the middle of the table. Then he stood up and made them both another cup of tea.

  ‘We’ll work something out,’ he said finally. He came around the table and gave her another hug. ‘But first of all we have to establish what your options are. Give me a few hours to think about it.’

  61

  Sarah followed DI Rayner through a maze of corridors at Wood Green Police Station until they arrived at a single unmarked door, blank apart from an electronic keypad. The detective hit a series of numbers and the lock clicked. She turned the handle and pushed the door open. Sarah followed her in.

  DI Rayner had called to ask if she would come into the station on her way into work. Just for twenty minutes or so, she said, without telling Sarah why she needed to be there. They sat facing each other now across a grey metal table in a sparsely furnished white room.

  ‘Thanks for coming in at short notice,’ the detective said. ‘Hopefully you know by now that your colleague has been found safe and well.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve heard,’ Sarah said, making herself smile. ‘Great news.’

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

  ‘Of course. Just relieved. We all thought that Alan was . . . well, we thought something might have happened to him.’

  ‘Like what?’

  Sarah was surprised by her question.

  ‘I don’t know . . . I suppose, when no one had heard from him, we assumed the worst.’

  ‘Any particular reason for that?’

  ‘No, not really. But it was unlike him to be out of contact.’

  The detective studied her for a second before continuing.

  ‘As I said, this is confidential so I would appreciate your discretion. But we have some information that suggests Professor Lovelock may have been targeted by a Russian crime syndicate. For reasons unknown – at the moment.’

  ‘I see,’ Sarah said, a chill creeping over her skin. ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘Let me show you.’ DI Rayner led her over to the long window on the far wall, and Sarah saw now that it was a viewing panel into an adjoining room. ‘Have you ever seen this man before?’

  The scarred man sat on the other side of the glass.

  Sarah stared at him. He looked calm. He had no jacket and his sleeves were rolled up, revealing an uneven pattern of heavily inked tattoos up both forearms, a combination of religious symbols and other things that Sarah didn’t recognise.

  A scramble of questions sent her pulse racing.

  What do they know? What might he have already told them?

  Above them all, Lovelock’s taunt from the day before: The police are this close to arresting you, Sarah.

  The detective shifted beside her.

  ‘Dr Haywood?’

  As Sarah watched, the scarred man turned slowly in his chair and seemed to stare directly at her. Sarah looked quickly away.

  ‘Can he see us?’

  ‘No. Mirrored glass. Soundproofing too. We’re talking to various people in your department to see if anyone saw this individual on campus in the last few weeks.’

  Sarah took a breath, working hard to keep her voice level. Think.

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘At the moment we don’t know. He wasn’t carrying any ID when he was arrested – just a bundle of cash – and we’ve got absolutely no hits in the database against his fingerprints and DNA. However, we have some intelligence that suggests he may be involved in Russian organised crime. The tattoos would also indicate that. It’s possible this person was following Professor Lovelock’s movements in the days leading up to his abduction. So it seems likely there’s a link, either something or someone, that connects the professor with the suspect here. We just don’t know what or who that is yet. Do you recognise him?’

  She made a conscious effort to look back at the scarred man, as if today was the first time she’d set eyes on him. He was staring at the opposite wall again now, face expressionless.

  Just because you saw him proves nothing.

  ‘Yes, I think so. He’s the man I saw a few weeks ago. I made a report at the time.’

  DI Rayner flicked through a file in her hand.

  ‘You were concerned about him being a stalker.’

  ‘Yes.’

  The detective gestured to the man on the other side of the one-way mirror.

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘I think so. What’s he done?’

  ‘Well, it may be that the man you saw wasn’t actually stalking you, but Professor Lovelock.’

  ‘So he’s involved with what happened to Alan?’

  ‘Yes. Confidentially, of course.’

  ‘Of course.’ Sarah put a palm under her chin. ‘Wow. How did you catch him?’

  ‘It was just a fluke, really. He was stopped by a traffic officer for using a mobile phone at the wheel of his car. So this PC pulls him over, and while he’s giving him a talking to, he hears noises coming from the rear of the vehicle. Opens up the boot and
finds your colleague lying there, tied up, blindfolded and gagged. This was five days after he’d gone missing, and we’re not really sure yet why he was being held captive. It’s possible there was going to be a ransom demand at some point – we don’t know at this stage.’

  ‘How awful,’ Sarah said, trying to sound shocked. ‘And what has he said about it?’

  ‘The suspect? Nothing, so far, he just sits there like a stone. But he will, eventually.’ She flipped to a new page in her notebook. ‘So, would you say Professor Lovelock had any enemies?’

  ‘Enemies?’ Sarah repeated.

  ‘People who would wish him harm.’

  ‘He’ll have rivals in an academic sense, I suppose – people who he might compete with for research grants and so on. And there are a few people within the academic community who might not have nice things to say about him. But not really enemies.’

  ‘Do you think any of those academic rivals might wish he was no longer around?’

  Sarah pretended to think for a moment, before shaking her head.

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought so. Is there any evidence of that?’

  ‘We’re looking into it. Also at some other potential lines of enquiry, including kidnap for ransom, bearing in mind the professor’s significant personal and family wealth. But it seems there’s no one with a bad word to say about him.’

  Perhaps you should talk to Gillian Arnold.

  ‘I’m sure that’s true.’

  Sarah felt the detective’s eyes on her.

  ‘Now, I also understand that you had a public falling out with Professor Lovelock recently. Some potential new research funding in the US?’

  ‘It wasn’t a falling out. Just a little bit of a disagreement.’

  ‘But you were very unhappy with the way he handled it?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that. I –’

  ‘You accused him of being a cheat and a liar. Made a complaint to his line manager.’

  ‘I never said that!’

  ‘Words to that effect? That’s what I’ve been told.’

  ‘It’s not true.’

  ‘You’re quite sure about that?’

  Sarah took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. In the back of her mind, something clicked into place – two, three, four pieces of information coming together and slotting into each other like jigsaw pieces. Now she could see the whole, she was amazed she’d never spotted it before.

  My God. Oh. My. God. How did it take me so long to figure this out?

  DI Rayner leaned forward.

  ‘Dr Haywood?’ she prompted. ‘You’re quite sure?’

  ‘Sorry – yes, I was a bit disappointed. I hoped he would let me take it forward on my own, but in the end, he picked it up.’

  ‘You must have been angry, though.’

  ‘Initially. But it wasn’t a big deal. The whole department will benefit if he can bring in that grant, it will be good for all of us, for the whole university.’ A thought occurred to her with sudden urgency. ‘Should I have a solicitor with me for this?’

  ‘Entirely up to you,’ DI Rayner said, taking a sip of her tea. ‘None of your colleagues have felt it necessary up to this point, but you can if you wish. This is not formal questioning, we’re just trying to find out where the link is between this gentleman with the scar, and your university. Actually, while we’re on that subject, there’s something else.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘A phone call.’

  62

  Sarah felt a pressure in her chest.

  ‘When they stopped the suspect,’ DI Rayner continued, ‘they took the car back to our pound for a full search and forensic sweep. The boot where your colleague was found was completely lined in disposable plastic – presumably to limit deposition of the victim’s DNA – but they didn’t find anything else useful in the car itself. However, we did manage to locate useful evidence based on the arresting officer’s report.’

  ‘Evidence of what?’

  ‘The arresting officer reported that the suspect was chewing vigorously when he was first approached. Both mobiles in his possession were subsequently found to be minus their SIM cards.’

  ‘He’d eaten them?’

  ‘Chewed them up and swallowed them. But we were able to recover the pieces – you don’t want to know how. Latest generation SIM cards are much more resilient than you might think. Our lab guys have been able to extract some of the data from one of the SIM cards, and we’ve done some analysis on the calls and texts, where calls came from, the number of the caller, and so on.’

  Sarah shivered involuntarily. Was the police officer just playing with her now?

  They know it’s you. They know it’s you!

  ‘This number only received one call,’ DI Rayner continued. ‘Just one. A twenty-nine second call routed via a mobile phone mast on the east side of your university campus. Five days before Professor Lovelock was abducted.’

  She told herself to be calm.

  ‘Oh. From whom?’

  ‘Another pay-as-you-go phone. We’ve not found it yet, but we’re tracking the number now and we’ll be straight onto it as soon as it’s used again.’

  Sarah had a flash of memory, the mobile wrapped in a plastic bag and weighted down with stones, sinking beneath the surface of the pond on Hampstead Heath while her children fed the ducks.

  Keeping her voice level, she said: ‘Can’t you track down the owner through the mobile phone company, or something?’

  ‘It’s not quite as easy as that with a pay-as-you-go. But it means we have a direct link between the suspect’s phone and your university campus.’

  Sarah felt her stomach churning. Her mouth was dry. She licked her lips.

  ‘That’s good, isn’t it? That there’s progress, I mean.’

  ‘It could be the link that we’re looking for: it seems highly unusual that the suspect would have contact with someone at the university for any other reason. Hence my question about whether Prof Lovelock had any enemies.’

  ‘We do have thousands of students and staff on campus during term time, though.’

  ‘Whereabouts is your building on the campus?’

  ‘My office?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The arts faculty. North side of the campus.’

  ‘But you sometimes park on the east side?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘You sometimes park on the east side of the campus. By the engineering building.’

  Sarah took a breath.

  ‘Sometimes. Often there’s no space left near my office by the time I get in. Engineering has the biggest car park.’

  ‘That’s where this mobile call was made from. At 5.27 p.m. – end of the working day. Perhaps by someone going to their car on the way home.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘We’re reviewing CCTV footage from three cameras on that side of the campus. See what that might tell us.’

  ‘How big an area would that mobile phone mast cover?’

  The detective shrugged.

  ‘A decent radius, maybe half the campus and the houses across the ring road on the other side, too.’

  ‘So lots of people.’

  ‘All the same, it’s one line of our enquiry. Does the following phone number sound familiar to you?’

  She read off an eleven-digit number, twice, looking up in between to check her reaction.

  Sarah shook her head, trying to do so in an unhurried, genuine way.

  ‘I don’t know many people’s numbers off by heart, but that one doesn’t sound familiar.’

  With a sickening lurch of adrenaline she remembered that she had written Volkov’s number down on a Post-it note before she dumped the mobile phone in the river. That Post-it was still in an inside pocket of her purse, stuck to a book of second-class stamps. And her purse was in her handbag, which was now on the edge of the table, about a foot from the detective’s left hand.

  Sarah made a show of looking at her watch.

  ‘I’m so
rry, I’ve really got to go, I have to give a seminar at ten. Is that all right?’

  ‘Of course,’ DI Rayner said, holding her gaze. ‘Thanks for coming in at short notice. If you remember anything at all, something you think might be relevant, give me a call. Anything you think we should know.’

  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.