29 Seconds

by T. M. Logan

  70

  She carried the little flip phone with her everywhere, praying it would ring. It was another fairly unremarkable Alcatel handset, small and cheap-looking, not much bigger than a packet of paracetamol. She flipped it open for the tenth time. Still no calls, no messages, no texts. She had left work, pleading illness again, and sat in her silent kitchen, in the semi-dark, holding the little mobile and willing it to come to life. The Russian had said he would call by six if he decided to help her, and there were only a few hours left.

  Please. I can do this but I need your help.

  She jumped as the landline rang on the kitchen counter. A withheld number. Possibly someone from work? Best not to answer. She waited for the caller to ring off.

  It rang again. She ignored it a second time.

  A minute later, there was a knocking at the front door. Four loud, confident raps on the wood, then a pause, then four more.

  She waited for the visitor to get bored and go away.

  The knocking came again.

  She crept up the stairs, across the landing and into the front bedroom, peering out from the side of the curtain and down to her little driveway.

  There was no one at the door.

  Her own mobile phone buzzed where it sat charging on her bedside table. A text message.

  Open the door, Sarah. Kate R.

  Sarah went downstairs, feeling foolish for being caught out, and opened the front door. It was DI Rayner.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ Sarah said, reddening. ‘Thought you were a Jehovah’s Witness.’

  ‘I went to your office, but they said you were off sick. Can I come in?’

  ‘I was sort of in the middle of something.’

  ‘It’ll only be ten minutes.’

  Sarah unhooked the door chain and let the police officer inside. DI Rayner waved away the offer of a cup of coffee and the two of them sat in the closed-curtain gloom of the lounge, facing each other on the two little sofas.

  DI Rayner took a notebook and pen out of her bag.

  ‘Are you all right? You look exhausted.’

  ‘I’ve not really been sleeping very much. I’ve had pills but they seem to get less effective the longer it goes on.’

  She caught herself, realising she’d already said too much.

  ‘The longer what goes on, Sarah?’

  ‘Everything. Life.’ She reached for a convincing lie. ‘My husband and I, we’ve been having some . . . problems. He’s not here at the moment.’

  ‘Yes, I remember you saying. And your boss?’

  Sarah looked up.

  ‘What about him?’

  DI Rayner laced her fingers together and regarded Sarah with a look of professional sympathy.

  ‘I know about it, Sarah. I know about it all.’

  Sarah felt her stomach drop.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘What he’s like. What he’s really like. Not the TV persona. Not the brilliant academic. Not the tireless charity fundraiser. The real man behind all that, the one that most people have never seen. We’ve seen it with Jimmy Savile and all those others.’ She leaned forward. ‘You’ve seen the real Alan Lovelock, haven’t you?’

  Sarah nodded, but said nothing.

  ‘I know it’s not been easy for you,’ Rayner continued. ‘There are plenty of arseholes like him in the police force, believe me. Men who talk down to you, belittle you, just because you’re a woman. Men who make assumptions about you they’d never make with a male colleague.’ She paused, holding Sarah’s gaze. ‘Men you want to make sure you’re never alone with.’

  Sarah looked away.

  ‘I know what it’s like to have to deal with men like that, day in, day out. So why don’t you tell me what happened between you and him?’

  ‘Nothing happened,’ she said in a monotone.

  ‘It’s time for you to come clean, Sarah.’

  ‘Come clean?’

  A phone began to ring. A mobile. The muffled ringtone sounded like a cheap, tinny imitation of the standard iPhone Marimba tune, but it was not one that Sarah had ever used. She assumed it was Rayner’s phone, but the detective made no move to answer it. With a jolt, Sarah realised where the sound was coming from: the little flip phone Volkov had given her the day before. It was just a few feet from where they sat, on a side table next to the sofa.

  She felt the blood drain from her face, willing the caller to hang up and leave a message instead.

  The two women looked at each other, the conversation paused while the ringtone cycled round and around.

  ‘Do you want to get that?’ DI Rayner said.

  ‘No, it’s fine.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘They’ll leave a message if it’s important.’

  Finally, the phone stopped ringing.

  ‘Do you want to check it?’

  ‘I’ll do it later. You were saying?’

  ‘I was saying that it’s time to get things off your chest.’

  Sarah’s heart was still fluttering from the missed call. She waited a moment to get her breathing back under control.

  ‘You make it sound easy.’

  ‘It can be easy: tell me what’s really been going on between you and Alan Lovelock. Get it out in the open.’ She put a hand on Sarah’s arm. ‘I promise you, I absolutely guarantee you, that it will feel better once you’ve done it. You will feel better.’

  ‘What did my husband tell you, when you talked to him on the phone?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’d just like to know.’

  ‘He said Lovelock made your life very difficult at work. Did you ever ask Nick to confront him about it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘My husband’s not that sort of man.’

  ‘So you found someone else to do it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Someone who would teach Lovelock a lesson?’

  ‘No!’

  The detective took Sarah’s hand. She had large, kind eyes, her brow furrowed with concern. And suddenly the urge to tell her was overwhelming. The problem was, she was right – and Sarah knew it. She knew she would feel better if she set down this secret, this heavy load that she had been carrying, and let someone else pick it up.

  ‘I’m on your side, Sarah. I want to help you.’

  The urge to confess was almost a physical force pushing against her chest.

  Forget what you were going to do. Just tell her. Tell her.

  Sarah dropped her eyes to the floor so she wouldn’t have to meet the detective’s gaze any longer. The room suddenly seemed oppressive, too small for the two of them. There was an honourable way out of this: confess everything, get it all out there in the open. Rayner clearly understood what it was like, she knew what men like Lovelock were like – and she wasn’t going to get a fairer hearing from anyone else. Sarah felt like a tightrope walker heading into the void. Suddenly she felt like telling it all. Spilling everything. Every last detail.

  Then she looked up and saw the detective’s look of compassion replaced by the focused intensity of a hunter waiting for her quarry to move into the crosshairs. The anticipation of a lion about to make its kill. Just a tiny flicker, but it was enough. The mask had slipped, if only for a moment.

  By the time it was back in place, Sarah had seen what she needed to see. She shrank back into the chair, arms crossed tightly across her chest.

  Don’t trust her. Don’t trust any of them. She is not your friend.

  ‘There’s nothing to say. Nothing between me and Alan. He had a certain reputation but I didn’t suffer worse than anyone else.’

  ‘I know there’s more to it than that. I think I have a pretty good idea of what he’s like.’

  Sarah shook her head.

  ‘Trust me, you have no idea.’

  71

  Sarah showed the detective out, locked the door behind her, and watched out of the window as she got in her car and drove away. Only then did she fetch the phone Volkov had giv
en her and flip it open. One missed call showed on the display. The caller had not left a voicemail and his or her number was withheld – but there was a text message. No words, just a mobile phone number. Sarah dialled the number and put the phone to her ear.

  ‘Speak.’ A male voice at the other end of the line.

  ‘You called me, just now.’

  ‘What is your daughter’s date and time of birth?’ Accented Russian, a voice she had heard before. A young man.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Date and time. Your daughter. No hesitation please.’

  Sarah pulled the memory into focus.

  ‘She was born on 17th of December, 2009 at 11.35 a.m.’

  ‘Weight?’

  Her confusion cleared. He’s testing me. Checking my identity.

  ‘Uh, six pounds ten ounces.’

  A pause, then: ‘Good.’

  ‘How do you know that’s right?’

  ‘Hospital database,’ he said, a shrug in his voice. ‘Now listen: same car park as before. Same floor, same place. One hour.’

  ‘Does this mean –’

  But it was already too late. He had hung up.

  *

  She entered the Brent Cross multi-storey fifty-five minutes later, found a spot near to where she had been penned in by the big 4 x 4 the day before, and parked. She got out of her car and walked up and down the row of parked vehicles, looking to see if any of them were occupied.

  An unremarkable white van pulled up next to her Fiesta. The driver was the man with the sunglasses she had seen here before. Sarah leaned forward to peer past him but he seemed to be alone in the front cab. The van’s sliding side door opened next to her, revealing a small table in the back. Sitting at the table was the young man with the ponytail, a laptop and an array of other items in front of him. He beckoned to her. Come on. Get in.

  Sarah got out of her car and climbed into the van, sitting opposite the young Russian.

  He slammed the sliding door behind her.

  72

  As soon as she was back at the house, Sarah got to work. She still had a couple of hours before the kids would need to be picked up from after-school club.

  First, she made four phone calls, noting down times, places and various other details. She arranged two meetings for the following day, and an appointment. Booted up her laptop, logged onto her online banking and made a transfer to another account, typing in the numbers carefully from a piece of paper she had jotted them on. Then she went into her wardrobe and selected three outfits, laying them out side by side on the bed. One for a smart evening out – a black jacket and skirt long enough that her mother would have approved – and a work-casual outfit that she might wear to the office. Alongside the latter, she picked out sunglasses and a knitted hat with a brim that she had started to wear again now winter had arrived. The third outfit was Nick’s old boiler suit, which he used to wear for occasional DIY around the house and jobs in the garden.

  Next, she dug in her bedside drawer for her old mobile phone, a Sony Xperia. She found the charging cable and plugged it in, then sat on her bed with sheets of A4 paper, writing lists and planning what she still needed to do. Timelines for what she had in mind.

  She slept intermittently.

  The next day – Friday – she had a lecture and two seminars in the morning, but as soon as the last of them was done she sneaked out of the department and drove to the train station at Enfield Chase. She bought a one-day travelcard with cash and got the next train to Finsbury Park, where she switched to the Tube and took the Piccadilly line to Holborn. She had a number of items on her shopping list. There were shops nearer to the campus, and nearer to her house too, but the risk of bumping into someone she knew would be higher, and she didn’t want to be seen anywhere close to where she lived or worked. It was better to be somewhere where there were lots of people, where she could get lost in the crowd.

  She found a small independent phone shop and – copying what she had learned from Volkov – paid cash for the three cheapest pay-as-you-go phones she could find, and a new pay-as-you-go SIM card to go into her old handset.

  She was fifteen minutes early for her first meeting, so she made her way to the back of the little café just off Russell Square. It was tucked away down a side street, off the main tourist track, and fairly quiet with the mid-afternoon lull in between lunch and knocking-off time.

  She used to meet Nick here, in their first year after university. When he was taking his first steps into professional acting and she was embarking on her doctorate at UCL. It was a friendly little Italian place with low beams, cosy booths and the best coffee Sarah had ever tasted. She ordered a cappuccino and settled down in a back booth to wait.

  While she waited, she got the new SIM card and the old Sony Xperia out of her bag, took the back off the phone, slotted the card into place and reassembled the handset. The screen came to life and the phone started its setup with a new – and more importantly, anonymous – electronic identity.

  The fragments of her plan were starting to come together. A plan that – even when her conscious mind had not been aware of it – had been quietly coalescing in the back of her mind from the very moment she realised Lovelock was still alive. A plan that she knew would be her last roll of the dice.

  Her first visitor arrived right on time. Sarah smiled and gestured at the empty seat across the booth.

  ‘Hello again. Thanks so much for meeting me at short notice. Let me get you a drink.’

  Exactly an hour and a half later, her second visitor arrived. A different conversation, same goal.

  She had called in a debt. She had asked for help. All that remained now was to offer the chance of redemption – or maybe revenge.

  73

  ‘Well?’ Laura said, uncorking a chilled bottle of Pinot later that day.

  ‘I’ve had enough.’

  ‘Finally!’

  ‘And I’ve got a plan. But I’m going to need your help. And Dad’s.’

  ‘Count me in,’ Laura said. She pulled the cork out with a pop and filled Sarah’s glass.

  ‘Don’t you want to hear what the plan is, before you decide?’

  ‘Whatever it is, I’m up for it.’ She filled her own glass. ‘So, what is the plan?’

  ‘I’m going to do what you’ve been saying all along, what you’ve been telling me to do for a year. It’s all about evidence, isn’t it? I’m going to give the university something they can’t ignore.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I’m going to get Lovelock on audio, telling me that I have to sleep with him to keep my job.’

  ‘Okaaay,’ Laura said. ‘And if the uni tries to sweep it under the carpet, like they have before?’

  ‘Then I’ll go to the media. The Guardian will have a field day with something like that.’

  Laura put her glass down.

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Dead serious.’

  ‘Fuck. You are, aren’t you? What’s made you change your mind?’

  ‘Things have just got worse,’ Sarah said, picking up her glass. ‘A lot worse. He’s gone off the deep end, big time.’

  ‘Since the kidnapping thing?’

  Sarah nodded.

  ‘Yeah. That.’

  ‘So have you got a mate at MI5 who can bug his office?’

  ‘Not quite. I’m going to record him.’

  ‘At your next meeting?’

  Sarah shook her head.

  ‘He won’t talk about it at work, not now – but he might if he’s at home and he lets his guard down. If he’s pissed. If it’s just the two of us and he thinks I’m going to play ball.’

  ‘Woah!’ Laura said, holding a hand up. ‘Back up a minute. What did you just say?’

  ‘At his house.’

  ‘You’ve got to be fucking kidding me! That means deliberately breaking every single one of the Rules.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Her dad walked in, putting a finger to his lips.

  ‘The childr
en are asleep.’

  ‘Thanks, Dad.’

  Laura gave him a thumbs up and turned back to her friend, her voice quieter.

  ‘And how exactly are you going to make him think you’ll play ball?’

  Sarah shrugged.

  ‘Act the right way. Say the right things. Pick the right dress.’

  ‘Holy Christ!’ Laura said, loudly again. She threw her hands up. ‘Sorry. But have you been smoking crack?’

  ‘I know it sounds mad, but bear with me – it makes sense. Let’s break it down for a minute: first of all what do we know about him? What is the fundamental essence of Professor Alan Lovelock?’

  ‘He’s a massive twat?’ Laura said.

  ‘Yes, but that wasn’t quite what I was driving at.’

  There was silence for a moment while they pondered Sarah’s question.

  ‘Ego,’ Roger said. ‘He has an ego the size of Big Ben.’

  Sarah pointed at her father, smiling.

  ‘Absolutely. And that means what?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘Colossal, unshakeable self-belief.’

  ‘Right. Keep going.’

  ‘So even despite all your knock-backs, he still believes that deep down you’re attracted to him. Because, of course, you are, right? You’re a woman, what woman wouldn’t be?’

  ‘Bingo,’ Sarah said. ‘He thinks he’s irresistible. That’s his weakness.’

  ‘And he’s a massive twat,’ Laura added.

  ‘It gives me a way in, a way to exploit his weakness. But I’ll have to go about it in a convincing way.’

  Laura crossed her arms tightly over her chest.

  ‘And how are you going to do that?’

  ‘I’m going to play a role. Just like Nick played a role with me the last few years.’

  ‘Acting?’

  ‘Yes. I’m going to give the performance of a lifetime.’

  ‘You’re talking about entrapment.’

  ‘I’m talking about proof. Saving my job – and my sanity.’

  Laura spoke more calmly now, her voice softened with concern.

  ‘You know, at work we have to categorise potential reputation issues for the company in terms of them being low, medium, high or critical risk. From what you’ve told me so far, this plan of yours would be ranked somewhere north of critical, probably in the category of “totally shitting bonkers”. Do you follow me?’