29 Seconds Page 5

  ‘That’s not fair! I want this more than anything and I deserve it, you know I do.’

  ‘Let’s not be bitter about this, Sarah. You’re better than that.’

  She felt tears threaten and bit her tongue, the sharp pain distracting her. Don’t cry. Don’t you dare. Not in front of him. Don’t let him see that.

  ‘This is not fair,’ she repeated, her voice rising.

  ‘I’ll tolerate all kinds of behaviour in my office,’ he smiled again. ‘But I won’t tolerate hormonal junior members of staff shouting at me. So why don’t you come back a bit later when you’ve calmed down and you’re a bit less . . . hysterical, and we can discuss this like adults?’

  I should have recorded this on my phone, she thought. Could I get it out now and set the recording app going? No chance. Not without him noticing. Shit.

  With a huge effort, she managed to get her voice back under control.

  ‘Who have you put forward for a permanent post? Who have you picked?’

  ‘You know very well that I can’t tell you that, it’s confidential. In any case, I have to wait until my recommendation goes to the dean, and then it has to be ratified in the usual way.’

  ‘Just tell me.’

  ‘I can’t. It’s confidential.’

  ‘You’ve picked Webber-Smythe, haven’t you? Picked him over me for promotion, even though he’s five years younger than me and I’ve been bloody mentoring him for the last year. I have been mentoring him.’

  Lovelock gave her a small smile.

  ‘You’ve done a very good job with him. You’re a good mentor.’

  ‘So it is him?’

  ‘You know I can’t comment.’

  ‘This is bullshit,’ Sarah said, her voice choked. ‘And you know it.’

  ‘I’d be the first to admit that it’s a cruel process. We just can’t please everybody, every year, I’m afraid. That’s not the way the world works.’

  ‘What’s my right of appeal?’

  He smiled.

  ‘Appeal? It’s not a court case, Sarah.’

  ‘I’ll speak to the dean, then.’

  ‘By all means, take it up with Jonathan.’ He stood, his angular frame unfolding from the leather swivel chair. He came around the desk. ‘But he doesn’t tend to make policy on the basis of hysterical girls stamping their little feet until they get what they want.’

  ‘This is wrong. It’s not the way it’s supposed to work.’

  She stood up and turned to leave, wanting to get out of his office before she said something even worse than she had already. But he was blocking her way, leaning back against the door with his arms crossed. At six feet four he was almost a foot taller than her.

  ‘Let me out.’

  ‘It doesn’t have to be this way, Sarah. You can still make the promotions list. You just have to show me your commitment to this department.’

  ‘I am committed.’

  ‘So show me.’ His eyes flickered. ‘Show me how committed you are.’

  12

  ‘No,’ Sarah said quietly.

  He moved towards her, dropping his hands to his sides.

  ‘Show me.’

  She took her phone out of her bag, not taking her eyes off him the whole time.

  ‘I’m calling security, and then I’m going to scream until you let me out.’

  She found the number for Campus Security stored in her favourites, dialled and put the phone to her ear. It started to ring.

  Lovelock smiled and moved away from the door. He spread his hands.

  ‘When you change your mind, I’ll be here.’

  Sarah ended the call and tore open the door. Lovelock’s secretary, Jocelyn, was standing right outside, a shocked look on her face. Sarah had never seen her frosty demeanour disturbed for anything before – and it threw her for a moment. Jocelyn seemed to be about to speak, but with one look at Sarah’s thunderous expression she backed away to her desk instead.

  Sarah hurried back to her own office, praying she didn’t see anyone on the way. But the corridors were empty this late in the day. Once inside she slammed the door behind her and began ramming folders of papers and her laptop into her bag. She hated him. She hated everything about him. And she hated herself for believing – against all the evidence – that when it finally came down to it he would do the right thing.

  Her phone beeped. A text from Marie. No words, just a single emoji of a champagne bottle, cork popping, and three question marks.

  This time Sarah couldn’t stop the tears. She stood with both hands on the back of her chair, head down, shaking with emotion as great racking sobs tore through her. This wasn’t happening. But crying was a luxury she couldn’t afford: she didn’t have the time. She found a tissue and wrenched her office door open, stumbling down the stairs, wiping at her eyes as she went. She ignored the concerned looks of two students in the front lobby, pushed through the double doors into the car park and almost bowled over Marie coming the other way.

  ‘Sarah,’ Marie said, taking a step back. ‘You OK? What happened?’

  Sarah shook her head but kept on walking.

  ‘Fine. I have to go.’

  ‘You don’t look fine.’

  ‘I have to get the kids.’

  ‘What did he say? Are you OK? I texted you.’

  Sarah stopped and turned, still shaking with anger.

  ‘I think I’ve finally had enough. God, I hate him.’

  Marie handed her a tissue.

  ‘You didn’t get the contract?’

  ‘No, I didn’t bloody get it!’ Her voice cracked as she tried to get the words out.

  ‘I’m sorry, Sarah.’

  ‘Sorry.’ She swiped angrily at fresh tears. ‘I’m not having a go at you.’

  Marie placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.

  ‘I know. I can’t believe it, though. What are you going to do?’

  ‘No idea. I have literally no idea.’

  ‘D’you think he gave the contract to Webber-Smythe?’

  ‘I don’t know. I think so. Look, I have to pick up the kids from school.’

  ‘I’ll text you.’

  Sarah nodded and turned away. She got straight into the driver’s seat of the car, shoved the phone into its cradle on the dashboard, and turned the key in the ignition. She reversed out and gunned the engine, weaving through groups of students as she headed down the hill.

  There was a painful tightness in her throat and a pounding in her head, and she knew she should slow down, pull over and take a minute just to calm herself, get her emotions in check. She should do what she’d always done – stop, count to ten, take deep breaths and wait until it passed. Sarah was an expert at that. She’d been doing it for years. It was her coping mechanism, her safety valve when life was getting on top of her.

  Not today.

  Today she carried on driving, revving the engine, flashing past the security booth on the edge of campus, across the junction as amber turned to red and out towards the main road. She slammed the car into fourth gear and stepped down hard on the accelerator.

  Then she turned the car stereo up as loud as it would go, gripped the wheel tightly, and screamed. She screamed with frustration and humiliation. She screamed at the injustice of it all. She screamed with bitterness, with helplessness, and with anger.

  But it was more than mere anger. Much more.

  It was rage.

  13

  A few minutes of speeding south on the A10 came to a halt as the dual carriageway slowed to a crawl. Traffic was solid: too many cars and not enough road, as usual.

  ‘Come on!’ Sarah shouted, slamming her palms on the steering wheel.

  She sat for a few minutes, her anger simmering, before gunning the engine once more and forcing her way through a gap between two cars, pulling off down a slip road in search of another route. She was trying to concentrate on the road and the traffic but it was difficult with all the thoughts whirling around in her head. Should I report him for wh
at just happened? Why did he invite me to his party? Why go to the trouble if he was just going to slap me down again when it came to promotion?

  But deep down she knew the answer: power. It was part of his power trip. And another way to humiliate her. Another chance to get her alone. For him to show who was in control.

  Her phone beeped with a text. It was from Marie.

  Are you OK? I want to help. Call me xxx

  She came off the slip road, through a junction, and found herself on an industrial estate, parallel to the ring road, taking a left and another right before she saw the signs up ahead. It was a no through road. A dead end.

  It’s not the only thing that’s at a dead end, she thought bitterly.

  She did a hasty U-turn, retraced her route and found herself back at the junction, ready to rejoin the mass of crawling traffic. The light was red.

  The dashboard clock said it was 17.16. Only fourteen minutes before she got another twenty-five pound fine from the after-school club. Shit. She reached towards her phone in the dashboard cradle, to ring Nick’s number, but her hand stopped halfway as she remembered he was not around to help out anymore. She thought about calling her dad.

  No. He had done enough these last few weeks.

  She called up Google Maps on her phone and typed in the school’s Wood Green postcode. It gave her three routes, two of which would take her further into the traffic and the third which went around the houses but gave her at least an outside chance of reaching the school by five thirty. It was longer in distance, but should be quicker overall if it meant avoiding the logjam of rush-hour traffic.

  She turned left as soon as the light turned green, pure frustration making her push down hard on the accelerator. Merging with another main road, she took another left and then a right as the satnav directed her diagonally away from the ring road. She drove faster, through amber lights and narrow gaps, following the blue line of the Google route. Turning the wheel as she thought again of her ill-fated meeting.

  What do I do now? Who do I tell?

  She scanned the street as she drove. She didn’t know this part of Muswell Hill. Wide, tree-lined streets, handsome three-storey properties, at least a million pounds more than she could ever afford. So far out of her reach, she thought, they might as well be on the moon.

  Is that it for another year? Or should I make a complaint?

  A car pulled out sharply in front of her. A big black Mercedes saloon, wide and long with windows tinted dark. She braked hard and slammed the horn with the heel of her hand, twice, shouting her frustration at the driver. The Mercedes showed no sign of having heard her – neither did it speed up as it finished its turn in front of her. Sarah changed down into third gear, then into second. Still the Mercedes didn’t speed up, crawling along in front of her at barely twenty miles per hour.

  ‘Come on!’ Sarah shouted. ‘Let’s go!’

  She thought perhaps the Mercedes was picking someone up, looking for a place to pull over. Her eye was caught by two people on the pavement, a man and a girl, both with their backs to her. These two?

  The girl was young, primary school age, with a blue blazer, dark pigtails, a pink backpack with little fairy wings on each side. Grace had the same backpack for school. The man was in a dark suit and walked alongside her, on the street side like every responsible adult would do. Not holding her hand, though, Sarah thought. That was a bit odd.

  For a moment, she caught herself thinking that this was Nick; he had come back to them and finally he was going to face up to his responsibilities. He would come home, and ask for forgiveness, and they would go back to how they’d been before. But it wasn’t her daughter. And it wasn’t her husband, either. Wrong girl, wrong man, wrong place, wrong time. Wrong bloody everything, today. This man was taller than her husband, broader, more powerfully built. He was walking slowly, keeping pace with the child, arms by his sides.

  Not Nick. Not Grace.

  Two things happened in the next few seconds. First, the little girl on the pavement turned her head to the right and Sarah knew for sure that it was not her daughter. Then the black Mercedes jerked forward, mounted the pavement, and ran down the man in the dark suit.

  14

  The man went down hard as the big black saloon car mounted the kerb and knocked him to the ground. His foot seemed to get caught and he fell beneath the wheels, the Mercedes bumping on its suspension as it drove over him. The little girl jumped back in alarm, her scream of fear drowned beneath the revving of the engine.

  Sarah cried out too, an involuntary shout of alarm at the collision of flesh and metal.

  ‘Oh God!’

  Everything snapped into vivid, slow-motion detail: a little girl who’d escaped injury by a matter of inches, her mouth open in a scream; the man flat on the pavement, moving slowly; the Mercedes reversing back over him, bumping viciously on its suspension again as it drew back onto the road; a smear of dark blood on the grey pavement. The passenger side door of the Mercedes swinging open, a bald man in a black leather jacket jumping out and moving quickly towards the girl. The little girl shaking her head quickly, her back to the high iron railings at the side of the pavement. Tears starting from her eyes, the tips of the pink fairy wings from her backpack visible over her shoulders.

  Sarah gripped the steering wheel, helplessness rising up as she watched the scene unfold. Questions colliding in her head. Does he know her? Is he her father? Who is the man in the dark suit? Is he OK? Should she call an ambulance?

  Dark Suit pushed himself up into a sitting position, his face a mask of blood, and tried to stand up. The bald man shifted his attention away from the girl and grabbed the lapel of the other man’s suit, raining punches on his unprotected face. Sarah looked around frantically for a policeman, hoping there would be a patrol car coming down the road that she could flag down. Police. Of course. She grabbed her mobile from its cradle on the dashboard, her shaking fingers bringing the screen to life and stabbing in 999. It rang three times as she checked both ways up and down the street, desperately craning her neck to look for someone, anyone, in uniform to step in and put this right. The call connected and she asked for police and ambulance to attend a traffic accident immediately, scanning for the nearest street sign to give to the operator. Wellington Avenue.

  There. A man was coming towards them, walking towards the little scene playing out on the pavement. A younger man in a tracksuit, mid-twenties, looking like he was fresh from the gym. Tall and fit-looking. Hair still wet from the shower, rucksack over one shoulder, earphones in.

  Thank you, God, Sarah thought silently. Thank you. Now help them. Intervene.

  The young man seemed to register what was happening in front of him for the first time. He slowed his pace slightly as he took in the bald man standing over his bloodstained victim.

  Help him, Sarah thought again.

  Then the young man was checking over his shoulder and crossing the busy street away from them, keeping his eyes fixed on the pavement. Studiously ignoring the fight, the injured man being beaten to a pulp.

  ‘Hey!’ Sarah shouted to him through the closed window of her car. He made no indication that he’d heard her.

  ‘Hey! You!’ she shouted again, her voice higher and louder, slapping her palm so hard on the car window that the sting of it travelled up her arm.

  The young man kept on walking, not looking back, increasing the distance between him and the girl.

  Sarah slapped the window again, in mute desperation. Coward. Bloody coward. She turned her attention back to the two men, one on his feet and one on his back. As she watched, the bald man let his bloodied opponent flop to the pavement. Satisfied that he was no longer a threat, he turned his attention back to the little girl.

  She was trying to hide, crouching down between two parked cars a few yards away, a look of such pure terror on her face that Sarah felt something stir deep within her.

  Come here, she thought, come to me. I will protect you.

  The bald ma
n moved towards her but the little girl darted away from him at the last moment – Sarah’s heart in her mouth as she thought for a second she was going to run straight out into the traffic. Instead the girl turned, coming up alongside the big Mercedes, then turned again and ran in front of Sarah’s car, pigtails flying behind her, backpack bouncing up and down as she ran. She stopped when she reached the pavement, holding her hands up as if that might keep him at bay. Her face was streaked with tears.

  The bald man continued stalking her. In a couple of seconds he would be through the gap between the two cars and then he would take her. An innocent child at the mercy of a man of violence. At the mercy of a man who believed he had the right to impose his strength on those weaker than himself. He was going to take her, do God knows what to her, for the same reason that men like him had always done such things: because there was no one who could stop them. No one who could stand up to them.

  He was about to come through the gap between the front of her car and the back of the Mercedes.

  Time seemed to stall.

  And suddenly all the emotion of the last week, all the anger and frustration and helplessness, was bubbling up inside her.

  All the rage surging from her brain down into her hands and feet.

  Fuck that.

  There was no real thought, no decision. Just emotion.

  She took her foot off the brake and stamped on the accelerator pedal.

  Her Fiesta jerked forward and caught him sideways on, smashing his knees into the back of the Mercedes. There was a sickening crunch of metal colliding with bone and flesh and cartilage and the bald man was hurled backwards, his legs crushed between the two cars. The impact flung Sarah forward against her seat belt. She watched in horror as the bald man crumpled to the ground, his face twisted in pain, hands grasping his shattered knees. She was momentarily stunned by what she had done, a flash of guilty horror at the damage she had inflicted on this stranger.