by T. M. Logan
‘What if HR was useless? And he was untouchable?’
‘The “bulletproof prof” thing?’
‘Yeah.’
Laura shrugged.
‘I suppose . . . I suppose I’d gather evidence myself, catch him in the act. I don’t know, record him saying stuff. Find other women who have had the same issues. Make a case that they couldn’t ignore.’
‘And what if all of that had been tried before, and none of it worked? In fact, not only did it not work, but the victims ended up being “managed out” of the university.’
‘Dunno. Then I might ask Chris to go to his house and have a chat with him.’ She paused to refill her glass with red wine again. ‘Failing that, Chris could kick the living shit out of him, see if that got the message across.’
Sarah smiled. Laura’s husband, Chris, had been a promising rugby player in his youth and still played for his local side. At six feet four and sixteen stone, he cut an imposing figure. He towered over Nick. Chris was thoroughly lovely, funny and dedicated to his family, but he had a certain physical presence when he walked into a room.
‘Seriously?’
‘Yes. Actually, no.’
‘You wouldn’t have Chris sort him out?’
‘Oh yeah, I would – but not at his house. In some dark alley somewhere.’
‘So . . . what? Violence is the answer?’
‘Anyone who says violence never solved anything has forgotten about slavery, Hitler and World War Two.’
‘That’s a bit deep for ten o’clock on a Wednesday night.’
‘You know, Hillary Clinton used to say something about all the attacks she had to put up with while she was running for president. She said: “When they go low, you go high”.’
‘And look what happened to her.’
‘Exactly. Holding the high ground is no guarantee you’re going to win in the end. If your opponent’s already in the gutter, sometimes you’ve got to get down there with him to land a knockout blow. Does Nick know how many times Professor Sex Offender has tried it on with you?’
‘He knows most of it. Not the grimmer details, but most of it.’
‘And he’s never got angry? Never wanted to confront Lovelock or pay him an anonymous visit?’
Sarah shrugged.
‘You know Nick. He’s a lover, not a fighter – a pacifist. The world’s youngest hippy, born into the wrong decade. And anyway, I’ve always told him to keep his distance in case he messed up my chance of a permanent contract. I always thought the problem would go away when I got some security in my job and I could finally tell Lovelock where to go. And Nick’s gone now. I’m not sure he’s coming back this time. I’m not sure I’d let him.’
‘Listen, how about I talk to Chris? He could pay professor perv a visit, put the wind up him.’
Sarah shook her head.
‘That’s very kind of you, Loz, but I wouldn’t want Chris to get in any bother.’
‘It would be the last trouble you’d have from the old bulletproof prof. Chris would do it, you know. He wouldn’t mind.’
‘I know. He’s a sweetheart.’
‘I just hate seeing you like this, Sarah, it makes me feel so helpless.’
The two of them lapsed into silence for a moment. Sarah drained the last of her wine and put her glass on the floor. It was her third of the evening and the soft buzz of alcohol was warming, reassuring, despite all her troubles.
‘What if there was another way?’ she said, staring into the fire’s flickering flames. ‘A way where no one got in trouble? Where you didn’t have to get involved, and neither did Chris or anyone else you know.’
‘Like a magic spell or something?’
In Russia they called me volshebnik. The magician. Because I made things disappear.
‘Kind of like that. But no one would ever know it was you.’
‘So there’d be no way it would be traced back to me? No comebacks?’
‘No comebacks.’
‘So there’s absolutely no way I could be connected to it, ever?’
‘That’s right. Perfect alibi, you would be nowhere near it when it happened, no connection to you at all.’
‘Hmm. OK.’ She nodded, slowly. ‘I like the sound of this.’
‘So, would you do it?’
Laura thought for another moment before answering.
‘A once in a lifetime chance to do something with no consequences?’ She finished the last of her wine. ‘You know what? Fuck it. I think I would.’
31
Sarah lay in Laura’s spare bed, exhausted and fuzzy-headed from red wine, but unable to sleep. Staring at the glowing red numbers of the clock radio on the bedside table as they clicked onwards, minute by minute.
3.09.
It still felt like a dream. All of it. The little girl, Aleksandra, the scarred man, Volkov and his unbelievable offer. It all seemed to belong to another life, a different person. Not her life. She wanted it to be a choice that someone else had to make, someone else’s problem to solve. She floated in that for a minute, halfway between sleep and wakefulness, hoping that it was all just a product of her imagination.
You give me one name. One person. And I will make them disappear.
But it wasn’t a dream. It was real. It was her life.
Her choice.
A choice between reason and passion. Between logic and emotion. And when had that ever been a fair fight?
She had not asked for more details, and she realised now that this had been a mistake. What did disappear even mean? It could mean all kinds of things. Was it that they were sent away, far away, and never came back? That they were threatened, to make them flee the life they knew, or face the consequences? That they were paid off and set up in a new life somewhere far away?
None of these options seemed very likely. Not as likely as the most obvious answer. The obvious answer being that they vanished . . . permanently.
She picked up her phone to check her emails, as a distraction. There he was again: three emails from Lovelock, two of which were red-flagged as urgent. She went to put the phone back in her bag. Getting a Midnight Mail from him was guaranteed to keep her awake for another few hours.
Her hand brushed against the other phone in her handbag, the little Alcatel flip phone Volkov had given her. Did it even have any charge? She should turn it on and check, just in case. Bad idea. Because turning it on would mean she was another step closer to looking at the single number stored in its memory. And then she’d just have to dial the number and say two words:
Alan Lovelock.
And her problems would vanish – if the offer was to be believed.
Laura had nearly persuaded her, almost convinced her, that she should take Volkov’s offer – without even realising what she was saying. Almost, but not quite.
Sarah pushed the duvet off and turned on the bedside light, reached down to her handbag again, burrowed inside it until her hand closed around the smooth plastic shape of the mobile she’d been given. What had he called it? A throwaway phone. She withdrew it and held it in her palm, the case cool to the touch. It was the only thing she had, the only evidence, that she had not imagined the whole encounter with Volkov and his entourage – this little rectangle of black plastic was proof that it was real, that he was real, that his offer was real. She turned it over in her hand, feeling the weight of it. Just a few ounces. Nothing more.
She ran her thumb over the smooth casing of the phone and flipped it open. It looked like the most basic model you could get – tiny screen, old-style keypad, power button, nothing extra, nothing fancy. It reminded her of one of the first phones she had ever owned back in the late 1990s, a no-frills hand-me-down from her sister Helen.
Just switch it on. It probably hasn’t got any charge left anyway.
Just switch it on to check. Where’s the harm in that?
Her thumb hovered over the power button.
No. It was better not to go there, better to leave the phone in
the bottom of her handbag, switched off. Dialling that number would mean crossing a line from which there would be no going back. Because what did the word ‘disappear’ really, honestly mean? It meant setting herself apart from normal society, and the law, and her family, and everything she held dear. She couldn’t do that. Instead, she would do what she had always done: grin and bear it and wait for things to get better. Because they always did, in her experience. Almost always. If you stuck it out long enough. It was just a case of perseverance. That was it. Sheer bloody-minded perseverance.
She closed the phone and put it back in her handbag, switching the bedside light off again and telling herself that perseverance would be enough. She would get rid of the throwaway phone. Put it in the dustbin. Bury it in the garden. Drop it into the river. Put all of this behind her, write it off as a strange episode in her life to be locked away somewhere and never spoken of again.
First thing in the morning, she would get rid of it. And once she had done that, she would do what she should have done a long time ago – she would go to Human Resources to make a formal complaint using the proper channels and the proper process. The fact that she was even considering Volkov’s offer had convinced her that her issues with Lovelock had to be sorted out. Enough was enough.
32
Sarah sat in the reception area of the Human Resources department, fingers laced tightly together in her lap. She was going over in her head what she was going to say to Robert Webster, the deputy director of HR who oversaw disciplinary issues, complaints and alleged staff misconduct. Webster’s glass-panelled office was at the far corner of the large open-plan space, beyond rows of desks that had emptied for lunchtime. His door was shut.
She checked her watch. Five minutes until her appointment.
Still time to back out. You could walk away, make an excuse. Easy as that.
Her phone buzzed in her handbag. A text from Marie.
You free to meet for lunch? Think we should talk again.
Sarah typed a quick reply.
Can’t, sorry. Managed to get an appointment at HR today, back at 2.
She’d confided in her friend that morning that she’d had enough, that she was going to go to HR, though she hadn’t expected to get a meeting so fast.
Marie had stared at her.
‘What exactly are you going to do?’
‘Tell them. Tell them everything.’
‘About Alan?’
‘Yes. I’m going to record the meeting on my phone – and any meeting I have in future with Alan.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I can’t do it anymore, Marie. I can’t carry on like this, I’m at the end of my tether. I’ve been putting it off, and putting it off again, for so long now that I’ve started to forget who I am and where I started from. I’m not this person that just sits and takes endless amounts of shit week after week, month after month, just to get where I want to go. That’s not who I used to be, but it’s who I’m turning into. I don’t want to do it anymore.’
‘I totally agree, you know I do. We’ve both had to put up with behaviour that he should have been fired for long ago. We know what it’s like to work with it day in, day out, keeping a lid on it all. But if you do this, are you ready for what’s going to come after?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore, only that something has to be done about him.’
‘But are you ready to go to war with him? Because that’s what he’ll make it, as soon as he finds out.’
Sarah had felt her throat tightening, the weight of tears behind her eyes. It was always hard to argue with her quietly spoken, studious, hyper-intellectual friend. She had a frustrating habit of seeing everything in a totally logical, practical way.
‘I just want to do my job,’ Sarah said. ‘I don’t want a war with anyone.’
‘If you do this you’re going to get one whether you like it or not. Remember what happened to Gillian Arnold, what he did to her? If you go to war with him, only one of you will be left standing at the end of it. If you rock the boat, we’ll all end up losing.’
Sarah had remembered the gaunt face of her predecessor, the angry confrontation in Lovelock’s garden at the party. She had tried to take him on – and seen her career crash in flames. But I have to try, Sarah told herself. Perhaps I will be the tipping point, the one that makes the university finally sit up and take notice.
‘Whose side are you on?’ she found herself saying.
‘Yours, of course,’ Marie said. ‘I’m just not sure this is the way to go about it.’
‘There is no other way.’
‘There must be, Sarah.’
‘No,’ she’d said, immovable. ‘There isn’t.’
Now she checked her watch. It was almost time for her appointment.
Her mouth was dry. She stood up and went to get some water from the cooler across the open-plan office, filling one of the plastic cups and taking a long drink. From here, she could look into a corner of Webster’s office through the floor-to-ceiling glass wall because the blinds were only partially closed and she could see him lounging behind his desk, smiling and laughing, fingers laced behind his head.
She refilled her cup from the water cooler, still watching. She’d only met Webster once before, at an induction event when she first joined the university, and remembered him as a rather dour and humourless bureaucrat, a tall, cadaverous man in grey suit and grey tie. But perhaps she’d misjudged him – because now he had his head thrown back, his bark of laughter audible across the open-plan space. He had his jacket off, sleeves rolled up.
Sarah returned to the waiting area and sat down. Checked her watch again. Her meeting was due. Last chance to back out.
She unlocked her mobile and selected the Voice Recorder app, switching it on for a few seconds and then listening back to make sure it was working. She was thinking again about what she would say, where she should start, when Webster’s door opened abruptly and voices spilled out into the wider office. The deputy director of HR stepped out of his office, still smiling. It looked unnatural on him. He stuck out a hand to his visitor, who did likewise, and they shook vigorously. There was another exchange of words and Webster laughed again. His visitor emerged fully from the office and clapped him on the shoulder.
Sarah felt a cold rush of fear.
It was Lovelock.
33
Sarah watched, frozen to the spot, as her head of department crossed the office towards her. His face showed no surprise at all that she was here.
‘Afternoon, Dr Haywood,’ he said. His tone was light but his eyes bored into hers. ‘Everything all right, I hope?’
‘Yes. Fine.’
‘I wouldn’t have expected to see you here.’
‘I have a one o’clock meeting.’
‘Really?’ A dark smile played across his lips. ‘I was just having my regular catch-up with Bob. I always tell him we should do it in between sets at the tennis club but he’s much too competitive for that.’
‘You play tennis together?’
‘Every week.’ He took a half-step nearer to her, his voice still booming. ‘I’m the captain of the first team, for my sins, and he’s my vice-captain.’
‘Do you have a lot to talk about?’
He smiled.
‘Oh, we talk about all kinds of things. Staffing issues, tricky colleagues, things that need to be nipped in the bud before they can affect the university’s reputation.’ He leaned closer. ‘Bob calls them three-P conversations.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Potential problem people. Three Ps, you see?’
His unblinking eyes held hers. Sarah said nothing, feeling the blood drain from her face.
Coming here had been a bad idea.
‘People are endlessly fascinating, aren’t they?’ Lovelock added.
‘I suppose so.’
‘As your head of department, is there anything I should know about your one o’clock meeting?’
‘T
here’s nothing to know, really.’ She reached for a convincing lie. ‘In fact, I’ve got to return someone’s call now, so I don’t know whether I’ll be able to make it.’
‘If you’re going to stand him up, I’ll walk you out, shall I?’
He took her by the elbow as if to guide her towards the door. She shook his hand off, taking a step back.
‘Don’t touch me.’
He leaned closer, towering over her, speaking softly so that only she would hear.
‘Think very carefully about what you do next, Sarah. Very carefully.’ He looped his scarf around his neck and was about to turn away when he caught himself, and turned back to face her. ‘By the way, did Jocelyn email you about the meeting?’
‘What meeting?’
‘This afternoon at 4.30.’
‘I’ve got a catch-up with one of my PhD students.’
‘Cancel it or move it.’
‘What’s the meeting about?’
‘It’s important. Very important.’
‘OK but –’
‘I’ll see you at 4.30. My office.’
With that, he turned and walked out towards the stairs.
Sarah stared after him, his words still echoing inside her head.
Think very carefully about what you do next, Sarah.
She looked the other way, towards Webster’s office, where the door was still half open, the deputy director of HR awaiting her arrival. But could he be trusted? Could she gamble on getting a fair hearing? Or was she following the same path to ruin that others had trodden before her?
Marie’s words echoed in her head. If you go to war with him, only one of you will be left standing at the end of it.
She hesitated a moment longer, torn between the two options.
Jump, or step back.
Pull the trigger, or walk away.
She picked up her bag and headed out to the stairs.
34
The meeting invitation email was waiting for her when she got back to her desk. There was no agenda attached. Maybe he’s going to tell me he’s changed his mind. Then he’ll explain that it has all been a mistake. That he is going to give me that long-promised permanent contract after all.